ABSTRACT
During the thirteenth century a region approximating to the southern part of modern Finland was incorporated into the kingdom of Sweden. The limited extant written sources suggest that both independence and religious beliefs were suppressed through the use of military force, an experience which would have been traumatic for the inhabitants. This chapter will discuss the nature of religious conversion in Finland as well as the way in which socio-political structures and relations between different settlement regions may have been transformed by Swedish intervention.
