ABSTRACT
The Lutheran church played an important role in the enforcement of moral discipline and education. The towns of North Germany were able to sustain a more varied cultural life. Franz Tunder started a series of evening concerts at the church of St Marien in Lubeck, and attracted the great masters of Baroque music, such as his successor Dietrich Buxtehude, to the town. In Sweden, the classic route to the top was followed by numerous sons of the clergy who entered royal service and were subsequently elevated to the nobility: some sixty between 1680 and 1699. The strengthening of royal power in Sweden undoubtedly led to an intensification of efforts to subordinate the provinces to tighter central control, though whether or not this implied swedification is questionable. The Swedish government's attitude towards the overseas provinces had always been somewhat ambivalent. The Academia Carolina conciliatrix, founded in Lund in 1668, was intended to foster Swedish education and culture in the Southern provinces.
