organizing history
Organizing History Studies in Honour of Jan Glete
Edited by Anna Maria Forssberg, Mats Hallenberg, Orsi Husz & Jonas Nordin
nordic academic press
Nordic Academic Press P.O. Box 1206 SE-221 05 Lund, Sweden www.nordicacademicpress.com
© Nordic Academic Press and the authors 2011 Typesetting: Frederic Täckström, www.sbmolle.com Copy editing: Karyn McGettigan & Charlotte Merton Cover: Jacob Wiberg Cover image: Tower of Babel, 1563 (oil on panel) Pieter Brueghel the Elder (c.1515–69). Bridgeman Art Library/IBL Bildbyrå Printed by ScandBook AB, Falun 2011 ISBN: 978-91-85509-64-5
Contents Preface 9 Introduction 11 Organizing history Mats Hallenberg & Anna Maria Forssberg
1. The Historian Jan Glete
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A brief overview
Jonas Nordin
i. organizations 2. The State as Enterprise
45
Applying theories of organizational growth to the process of state formation
Mats Hallenberg
3. Commissaries, Officers, and Politics in an Early Modern Army
69
Denmark-Norway (1614–1660)
Gunner Lind
4. Responding to Challenges
97
The Royal Navy 1689–1815
Jeremy Black
5. A Little Incident in 1707
110
The demise of a once glorious Dutch naval organization
Jaap R. Bruijn
6. Exhibiting the Seventeenth Century Maritime history made public through the Vasa royal warship
Marika Hedin
123
ii. norm systems 7. Arguments of War
141
Norm and information systems in Sweden and France during the Thirty Years War
Anna Maria Forssberg
8. The Castilian Guards in the Hispanic Monarchy’s Military Structure Enrique Martínez Ruiz & Magdalena de Pazzis Pi Corrales
164
9. Flexible Comparativeness
179
Towards better cultural-historical methods for the study of law codes and other aspects of human culture
Arne Jarrick & Maria Wallenberg Bondesson
1 0. Company Strategies and Sport Christer Ericsson
200
iii. institutional change 1 1. Productivity in Swedish Merchant Shipping, 1470–1820 Johan Söderberg
231
1 2. The Swedish Convoy Office and Shipping Protection Costs 255 Leos Müller 13. A Real Challenge from the South
276
The Southern Cone of Latin America in the new global food order
Ulf Jonsson
14. Fixed versus Floating Capital in the Medieval Iron Trade, 1385–1504 Bo Franzén
297
15. Command and Control during Sweden’s Last War
314
The introduction of divisions and army-corps to the Swedish Army, 1813–1814
Gunnar Åselius
16. The Wage-earners’ Paradise?
339
A century of the Norwegian and Swedish welfare states
Klas Åmark
iv. jan glete’s works Jan Glete’s published books, articles, reviews, and edited works, 1975–2011
357
Compiled by Jonas Nordin
Jan Glete’s unpublished reports, applications and other manuscripts, 370 1968–2009 Together with faculty examinations, lectures, and papers presented at conferences and seminars, 1975–2009
Compiled by Jonas Nordin
About the Authors
379
Jan Glete
Preface This book had been on our mind for a long time. As Jan kept a rather low profile in our university department, we especially wanted to give him the warmest token of friendship in academia: a Festschrift. We thought that he would be pleasantly surprised. As a scholar, of course, Jan did not keep a low profile at all. Not only did he publish an impressive number of seminal articles and books, he held lectures around the world and cultivated important contacts with historians in a host of other countries. In our department, however, Jan often kept a bit to himself. This permitted him to indulge in his greatest interest of all: research. If Jan was not working at Riksarkivet or Krigsarkivet, he could be found in his room: from early morning until very late at night. Regardless of how busy he was, he would always find time for a chat about my doctoral thesis or his latest thoughts on the navy or state formation or some other interesting topic. I always listened with great interest. I have spent many hours in his not-too-comfortable armchair, talking not only about history, but also about his beloved wife and daughter and about my own family. Jan and I also spoke about future research projects, especially about a comparative study we wanted to conduct together. However, he began to have reservations. ‘I am growing old,’ he would say. ‘I don’t know how long I’ll be working.’ Those statements seemed absurd to me. Jan was only in his late fifties and was full of energy and ideas – I foresaw that he would be doing research for at least another fruitful decade, if not many more. Yet our plans came to a halt when he was diagnosed with cancer in 2008. My colleagues and I immediately began to work on the book we wanted to give to him; however, it was not long before we came sadly to understand that Jan would not live to see the result. About a month prior to his passing, we presented the table of contents to him. He was so touched to see the names of his devoted friends and colleagues. I believe that he would have also appreciated the book. Each time that I work with my seventeenth-century sources in Riksarkivet, I look at the place were Jan used to sit. I am left with a sadness knowing that we will no longer be
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preface able to discuss our findings over a lunch; however, I feel deeply grateful for all the things I learned in his company. The editorial group would like to thank the Department of History at Stockholm University, Delegationen fÜr militärhistorisk forskning, and Riksbankens jubileumsfond for their generous financial support of this book. We also would like to thank our language editors Karyn McGettigan and Charlotte Merton for their dedication to the project. For the editorial group Anna Maria Forssberg
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Introduction Organizing history Mats Hallenberg & Anna Maria Forssberg
To a large extent, the history of man is the history of organizations. For as long as there have been written records to study, people have cooperated to make use of scant resources in a more effective way. From churches and states to firms and trade unions, hierarchical organizations have been conspicuous throughout history. However, there are other forms of organization as well: market relationships that are shaped by the balance between supply and demand, and horizontal network relationships based upon trust and friendship. Institutions and norm systems have regulated organizations, just as individuals have been compelled to adjust their behaviour in order to participate in organized activities. Institutions are understood as formalized rules that structure human interaction, such as law and accepted custom. They are based upon norm systems, but custom also includes less formalized ideas, values, and cultural practices. Law and custom have shaped organizational behaviour, as have widely shared norms that are based upon conceptions of honour, godliness, and tradition. This interplay has been dynamic rather than static: effective organization has influenced the character of human institutions, while norms and values have propelled institutional change and organizational reform. The dynamic interaction of organizations, norm systems, and institutional change is the theme of this book. Fittingly, it highlights the need to organize historical knowledge through the critical use of theory, for one of Jan Glete’s strengths as a historian was his ability to adapt theories of modern firms and institutions, and to apply them in a premodern context. According to Glete, history was best viewed as the dynamic growth of complex organizations that ultimately changed the rules of human behaviour. People in traditional and medieval societies mainly interacted within their local community, and trusted
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mats hallenberg & anna maria forssberg only those whom they met in direct, eye-to-eye encounters. This is no longer the case in the modern world, as people are compelled to rely upon large organizations and put their trust in impersonal relationships. The dynamics of this process can be studied with the appropriate analytical tools. The organizational perspective may be just as fruitful for the study of medieval ironworks as in analysing modern marketing campaigns. In the first chapter of this book, Jonas Nordin provides a general survey of Jan Glete’s historical writings. Glete’s work was driven by theoretical questions; however, his massive empirical research was of equal importance. He based his broad international comparisons upon a variety of material that he compiled from different sources. Friends and colleagues in this anthology continue the discussion on the patterns of historical change. Here you will find chapters that address theoretical and methodological, as well as empirical, points of view. We want to demonstrate the benefits of applying modern theories to medieval and early modern sources. We also wish to provide examples of comparative studies and long-term perspectives on human history. What is of importance to us is that the variety of chapters treats many different parts of the world. As Jan Glete so eloquently proved, theoretical insight opens the way for important studies of all times and all places.
Organizations Jan Glete’s way of applying theories of organization to the analysis of state formation in early modern Europe was at the very heart of his work. The dynastic princes of the period were seen as entrepreneurs rising to the challenge of competition from rival contenders for power. They had to be innovative to conclude lasting alliances with local elites in order to support organizational reform. Economic theory provided the inspiration for this perspective. Joseph Schumpeter considered the entrepreneur to be the prime mover of economic growth, due to his capacity to combine existing resources in new and innovative ways. Edith Penrose developed a model for how modern firms utilize managerial resources to promote expansion into new areas. Although these models are well known to economists, they are seldom recognized by historians interested in state formation. Mats Hallenberg examines how the theories of Schumpeter and Penrose may be applied to modern states. By using Sweden as an example,
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introduction Hallenberg finds both benefits and problems with this perspective. He argues that the focus upon entrepreneurship is less productive when exploring the complex structures of the modern state. The organizational perspective must be combined with notions of legitimacy and voice in order to understand the transformation from dynastic rule to democratic regimes. However, the focus upon organizational growth does, indeed, provide interesting possibilities for studying modern states as producers of knowledge. Gunner Lind demonstrates the importance of trust when introducing organizational reform. The Danish king’s commissaries were important agents of what was a complex state as well as brokers of organizational reform. One of their main tasks was to serve as an interface between the ruler and the army. This is not to say that they were all supporters of the ruling monarch; many of them actually supported the idea of a mixed constitution. However, in the end, their existence was of great benefit to both the king and the army. The monarch gained a means to extend his control of the armed forces, while the army was provided with greater resources. The commissaries were predominantly agents of trust. As the army organization became institutionalized, the need for commissaries declined and their status and power diminished. Nevertheless, these royal agents played an important part in the statebuilding process. Creating national navies was an important part of state formation and, as Jan Glete pointed out, naval forces were complex organizations in themselves. The chapters by Jeremy Black and Jaap Bruijn highlight the importance of effective institutional support in facilitating reform and preventing inertia in naval regimes. Jeremy Black discusses the development of the British navy in the period 1689–1815. He argues that organizational reform was not initiated as a direct response to naval warfare; rather, it was a long-term effect of international competition during peacetime. The success of the British navy must be attributed to a combination of well-established political institutions and strong interest groups that favoured the maintenance of a powerful navy. According to Black, British supremacy at sea was less the result of radical innovation than a product of sustained political effort and the successful adaptation to geopolitical realities. The chapter by Jaap Bruijn offers a striking contrast, as it describes the decline of the once powerful Dutch navy. The Dutch naval organization that was so effective for most of the seventeenth century had
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mats hallenberg & anna maria forssberg begun to deteriorate by the start of the eighteenth century. Bruijn provides an illustrative example of a conflict between a Dutch admiral and his British colleagues during the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–1714). He demonstrates that what might appear to be an insignificant conflict of rank in fact mirrors the decline of the Dutch Republic as a sea power. Dutch naval organization, which was based upon a decentralized structure of five regional admiralties, suffered from a lack of money and competent leadership. Meanwhile, national pride and vested interests among naval officers combined to block any attempts at organizational reform. Dutch naval officers still clung to the memory of their glorious past; in reality, however, they could no longer compare to the effective organization of their English allies. A lack of institutional support and the resulting organizational inertia had eventually proved fatal. The warship Vasa, which is on display in Stockholm, is a symbol of both organizational power and dismal failure. Built in 1628, the magnificent Vasa foundered on her maiden voyage after sailing a mere mile from the Stockholm Castle. She was salvaged from the bottom of the sea in 1961 and an ambitious restoration programme was launched. The Vasa is now one of Stockholm’s most popular tourist attrations: a reminder of the time when the Swedish navy dominated the Baltic and of the countless lives that were sacrificed in the process. The director of the Vasa Museum, Marika Hedin, gives her view on the appeal of this cultural icon and discusses how to increase the allure of maritime heritage while still providing important material for research. The display of the warship might be seen as an attempt to reorganize history: to make the cultural icon of the past communicate directly with the present. The chapters in the Organizations section of the book demonstrate the delicate balance between demands for organizational reform and the necessity of recognizing the traditional status and vested interests of elite groups. Effective organization is only achievable as long as the benefits can be harmonized with the values and norm systems that are prevalent in society. While entrepreneurial vision may be the trigger that initiates organizational growth, successive adaptation to a changing environment seems to be the key to sustaining complex organizations over long periods.
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introduction
Norm systems Organizational legitimacy – the ability to aggregate interests and justify collective action within the existing norm systems – is a key factor in the success of both states and enterprises. Jan Glete focused upon local elites when discussing the state-building process but the scope may well be extended to include other groups. Anna Maria Forssberg analyses the official declarations of war that Sweden and France published when entering the Thirty Years War. She argues they should be understood with regard to their functions and political context. The official proclamations were, indeed, integrated parts of sophisticated information systems, and clearly demonstrate the impact of norm systems in seventeenth-century France and Sweden. The comparative approach suggests that the ideological concept of just war (bellum iustum) was just as important in Richelieu’s France as it was in Protestant Sweden. However, the declarations differed substantially since their purpose and intended audiences were not the same. What was described as a war against Spain in France was not represented as a war at all in the Swedish texts. Prevailing norm systems might well obstruct organizational reform. Enrique Martínez Ruiz and Magdalena de Pazzis Pi Corrales describe the history of the Castilian Guards: a military institution that, in spite of losing most of its military function, persisted in essentially the same form throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The heavy cavalry troops that constituted the Guards were essentially kept as a domestic army reserve, unlike the celebrated tercios that were constantly deployed to fight on foreign soil. The aristocracy wanted to preserve the mounted companies as part of a noble tradition, which may explain the survival of the Castilian Guards. Lack of pressure from the outside made the Guards less responsive to reform, while the aristocrats were reluctant to contribute to the war effort. Funds were often scant. Gradually, the local elite lost interest in buying the state’s protection and concentrated instead upon defending their historical privileges. Thus institutional inertia may be understood from a normative perspective. Some say that norm systems make up the foundation upon which societies are based and are vital to the understanding of human interaction. Arne Jarrick and Maria Wallenberg Bondesson address the history of legislation from an evolutionary perspective, offering operational tools for comparing law codes from widely different places and periods
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