The Finns

Who rules

Name

none named

Title

no ruler: each people and each district governs itself

Confidence

high

No king, chieftain or assembly leader of the Finns, the Satakunta people or the Tavastians is named in any record for the years round 1200: not in the Novgorod First Chronicle, the papal letters or the Danish annals as summarised in en.wikipedia (Finnish-Novgorodian wars, Northern Crusades, Thomas (bishop of Finland)). The only native leader on record anywhere near this period is much later: a papal letter of 1340 lists a 'Cuningas de Rapalum' (the 'king' of Rapola) among Tavastian farmers refusing church dues (en.wikipedia Rapola Castle).

The realm that morning

On 1 January 1200 the Finns, the Satakunta people and the Tavastians are free of any lord. No Swedish or Danish castle, officer, tithe or tax exists on the ground; the mission church holds at most a few church sites in Finland Proper (Nousiainen). The Uusimaa coast, Åland, Ostrobothnia and the Bothnian Bay are thinly peopled and are drawn as lordless provinces of this realm. Across the borders: the Karelians (Karelia) hold the Kymi-to-Ladoga lands and Savilahti; the Sami (Sami) the forests of the interior and the north; the Swedish kingdom (swn) lies across the Sea of Åland; Estonia (outside) across the Gulf of Finland.

Threats

• Novgorod and its Karelian allies raiding Tavastia (1186, 1191; again 1226-27)
• Danish crusading expeditions (1191; a sparsely attested one in 1202)
• Swedish expeditions and, from 1216, a papal grant of Finland to the Swedish king's protection
• papal pressure on the pagans and apostates (letters of 1171-72 and 1229)

Seat note

There is no capital. The marker stands at the Aura river in Finland Proper, the busiest landing in the land; the name Turku is an old word for a market place, borrowed from Old Russian (torg). There is no town there in 1200.

Consort

none (no ruler)

Heirs

none (no ruler)

Peoples and districts

Finland Proper (Finland Proper): the Aura, Paimio and Halikko valleys and the coast and inner archipelago from Perniö to Laitila. Satakunta (Satakunta): the Kokemäki river from Huittinen and Kokemäki to its mouth, the Eura and Köyliö lakes, and the lakes of Upper Satakunta round Pirkkala. Tavastia (Tavastia): Lake Vanajavesi (Hattula, Vanaja, Sääksmäki, Janakkala), Hauho, Lammi and Pälkäne, Kangasala, and Hollola and Asikkala on Lake Vesijärvi and southern Päijänne.

Thinly peopled lands drawn with this realm: the Uusimaa coast (Uusimaa), Åland (Åland), southern and central Ostrobothnia (Ostrobothnia) and the Kvens of the Bothnian Bay (Kvens).

Officers and household

None. No royal officer, bailiff or tax collector of any king is attested in Finland in 1200. The church's men (the mission bishop and his priests, if any) are Church map matters.

Great men and kindreds

None named. Rich graves of the 11th and early 12th centuries with swords, silver and imported goods in Finland Proper, Satakunta and Tavastia point to leading farming families who led their districts in war and trade; no name survives. The later 'Cuningas de Rapalum' (1340) suggests that Tavastian districts had headmen whom outsiders called kings.

Strongholds

Hillforts, not castles: earth, stone and timber refuges on steep ridges, held by the districts in time of war. Rapola in Sääksmäki, the largest hillfort in Finland, was in use in the 13th century and perhaps earlier (en.wikipedia Rapola Castle); Vanhalinna in Lieto above the Aura has both Iron Age and medieval finds (en.wikipedia Lieto). The Tavastian forts form a north-south line round Hämeenlinna (en.wikipedia Tavastians).

No stone castle stands anywhere in Finland: Turku castle, Häme castle and Hakoinen (first named as Tauestahus in 1308) are all later (en.wikipedia Hakoinen Castle).

Trade and wealth

Furs (squirrel, marten, beaver, fox), elk and seal skins, dried fish and tar, traded for salt, iron, cloth, weapons and silver. The Aura valley market (Turku) and the coast are visited by Gotlanders, Swedes, Danes and Russians: the sea road from Sweden and Gotland to Novgorod runs along the Finnish coast and the archipelago. The Tavastians trade and fight along the Kymi river and the routes towards Lake Ladoga. People of Satakunta and Tavastia go north to hunt, fish and trade on the Ostrobothnian coast and the Bothnian Bay (one view, now widely adopted, makes the 'Kvens' of the Norse sources Tavastian traders on that coast: en.wikipedia Kvenland, citing Vahtola).

No coin is struck in Finland: silver passes by weight.

Levy and war

No levy fleet (leidang) of any king reaches Finland. The districts fight in their own boats and on foot, raid the Karelians and the Novgorod lands round Ladoga (the Tavastians attacked Ladoga in 1142 and the Votians in 1149), and shelter in hillforts when raided. Chronicle numbers (400 Tavastians killed at Ladoga in 1142, 'several thousand' raiders in 1149) are chronicle numbers and are thought exaggerated (en.wikipedia Finnish-Novgorodian wars).

Church and religion

A Church map matter, summarised here only as it bears on the ground. Finland Proper and Satakunta are largely Christian in their burials by the 12th century (en.wikipedia First Swedish Crusade); the Tavastians are mostly pagan; early in 1229 Gregory IX let the church take over all non-Christian places of worship in Finland, and in January 1229 he told the bishop of Linköping and a Cistercian abbot on Gotland to help the bishop of Finland (en.wikipedia Thomas (bishop of Finland)). Some historians think the Swedish bishop with authority over Finland was Linköping's rather than Uppsala's (en.wikipedia First Swedish Crusade).

The likely seat of the mission is Nousiainen, whose church was consecrated to the Virgin Mary (papal letter of 1232). The bishop on 1 January 1200 is not pinned: 15th-century lists give Rodulf and then Folquinus (Fulco), about 1178-1198, with no contemporary record; Innocent III's letter of 1209 to the archbishop of Lund speaks of an unnamed bishop of Finland lately dead; the first securely named bishop is Thomas, at Nousiainen in 1234 (en.wikipedia List of bishops of Turku, Thomas (bishop of Finland)). Rome dealt with the see through Lund in 1209, not through Uppsala.

The tale of St Henry, an English bishop killed by the farmer Lalli on the ice at Köyliö during King Eric's crusade of the 1150s, rests on a legend written about 1280-1300 and is not history (en.wikipedia Bishop Henry).

Relations

Sweden: King Sverker II holds nothing here. Gravis admodum (1171 or 1172) went to the Swedish church and its leaders (the archbishop of Uppsala and the jarl, as usually cited; the address is not checked here), which shows Swedish expeditions into Finland in that decade; the Novgorod chronicle records Swedish attacks on Novgorod's trade in 1142 and on Ladoga in 1164 (en.wikipedia First Swedish Crusade). A Swedish claim to Finland comes only with Pope Honorius III's letter of 1216 putting the Finnish lands under the Swedish king's protection (en.wikipedia Northern Crusades).

Denmark: Canute VI personally led a crusade against the pagan Estonians in 1197 (en.wikipedia Canute VI of Denmark), so Danish fleets are active in the eastern Baltic just before 1200; Esbern Snare boasted of a great victory over the Finns at the Christmas feast of 1187; King Canute VI led an expedition to Finland in 1191, which Dumell counts as well attested; a fort at Saxby near Porvoo has been linked to it (en.wikipedia Northern Crusades). Novgorod and the Karelians: old enemies of the Tavastians (see wars). Gotland and the German merchants: trade on the route to Novgorod.

Estonia across the gulf: pagan neighbours; no recorded dealings in 1199-1200. Rome: the mission is a papal concern (letters of 1171-72, 1209, 1216, 1221, 1229, 1232).

Wars and feuds in force

No war is recorded for the winter of 1199-1200, and no truce is known. The Tavastians' feud with Novgorod and the Karelians is open-ended: the last recorded raid is Novgorod's, with the Karelians, in 1191 (they burned the land and killed the cattle), and the next is Novgorod's winter campaign of 1226-27 (en.wikipedia Finnish-Novgorodian wars). The last recorded Western expedition is the Danish one of 1191.

What the year holds

What happened next, if nothing in play changes it. Each event carries what it depends on and what would stop it.

In 1200

1. 1200 (no dated event)No event touching the Finns is recorded for 1200. Summer brings the usual traffic of Gotlandic, German and Swedish ships along the coast to Novgorod.
2. 1200-1209 (date not pinned)The unnamed bishop of Finland, possibly in office on 1 January 1200, dies; in 1209 Innocent III has the archbishop of Lund provide a successor.Depends on: that a bishop is in office at all (not pinned) Stopped by: nothing known

Later, on the likely course

1. 1202 (after this year)A Danish expedition to Finland under Anders Sunesen and his brothers Ebbe and Lars is reported; the evidence is very sparse and may confuse it with the Ösel expedition of 1206 (en.wikipedia Northern Crusades).Depends on: Danish resources after Valdemar II's accession (November 1202) Stopped by: war elsewhere
2. 1216 (after this year)Honorius III places the Finnish lands under the Swedish king's protection rather than the Danes'.
3. 1226-1228 (after this year)Novgorod's winter campaigns against the Tavastians (1226-27) and the Tavastian attack on Ladoga (1228).

Places of note

• Nousiainen: the likely seat of the mission bishop (Nousiainen)
• Rapola hillfort: the greatest Tavastian hillfort (Rapola)
• Vanhalinna hillfort: hillfort above the Aura near Lieto (Vanhalinna)
• the Aura river market: landing and market place; no town yet (Aura landing)

Where the sources disagree

• The campaign notes (Part 6 J) name no bishop of Finland; Part 11 ruling 11 leaves Scandinavian sees not pinned. The 15th-century list's Folquinus (Fulco) about 1178-1198 has no contemporary support, and some historians suspect a confusion with Fulco, the bishop sent to the Estonians from Lund in the 1160s (that suggestion is not checked here). Any name for 1 January 1200 is the campaign's own.
• Older literature has Novgorod burning Turku in 1198; this rests on a misreading of 1318 and should not be used (en.wikipedia Finnish-Novgorodian wars).
• en.wikipedia (Second Swedish Crusade) says that Sweden had held 'a foothold in Finland Proper since the First Swedish Crusade', while en.wikipedia (Northern Crusades) sees 'virtually no possibility' that Finland was part of Sweden from the mid-1100s to the early 1200s. Followed here: no Swedish officer, castle or tax is attested on the ground in 1200; if there was a foothold, it was the mission church and its Swedish or Gotlandic links.
• de.wikipedia (Schwedische Kreuzzüge) still says the first crusade founded Turku in 1157 and Bishop Henry was killed in 1160: both are legend, not history; no town stands at Turku in 1200.

Evidence: No contemporary narrative describes Finland in 1200. The picture rests on archaeology, a handful of papal letters (1171-72, 1209 and later), the Danish annals, the Novgorod First Chronicle and legends written a century later. Statements about assemblies and leading families are general and undated.

On the map: The realm is drawn through its provinces: Finland Proper, Satakunta, Tavastia, Uusimaa, Åland, Ostrobothnia and Kvens. Their outer edges, especially towards the Sami forests and the Karelian lands, are judgements: in 1200 the farmers' cores were small and the wilderness between them was shared.

Primary sources for this realm

Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.

• The Swedish diplomatarium and its main register, SDHK (documents of 817 to 1540). The register of every known Swedish medieval letter, with full texts for the early centuries. Read online