ABSTRACT
STOCKHOLM is a comparatively old city. It dates from the Middle Ages, when it first grew up as a centre for trade in the Baltic region. Although Stockholm was never a Hanseatic city, the German influence was very much in evidence, and one of the later medieval charters of the city expressly provides that not more than half of the city councillors must be Germans. Indeed the city owes its original position to the Hanseatic cities, rather than to the economic development of Sweden itself But its geographical position, on islands controlling the single passage between the Baltic and Lake Malaren in the heart of Sweden, also gave it considerable strategic importance. This fact also explains why the Swedish state never allowed it to come under complete foreign controL
From an early date. Stockholm became the capital of Sweden. With the growing power of national Swedish government from the beginning of the sixteenth century, this function became more and more important. For the better part of the year, the king held his court in Stockholm, exercising from his palace in the city power over the rest of Sweden. Central administrative agencies, which came into existence from the same time, were invariably situated in the capitaL As, during the seventeenth century, Sweden developed into a great European power, Stockholm became the political as well as the economic centre of a Swedish realm including Finland, Estonia, Latvia, and Pomerania, together with Sweden proper. The burghers of Stockholm thrived, and particularly in the eighteenth century-when the Swedish realm was already dissolving-their city was one of the very few places in Sweden where the guild system was a reality and not only a paper structure.
