Power Incarnate: The Royal Body at the Funeral of John III, King of Sweden, 1592

• Published in: The Sixteenth century journal Vol. 54; no. 3-4; pp. 381 - 406
• Main Author: Gonzalez, Joseph M
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Chicago University of Chicago Press 01.09.2023
• Subjects: 16th century; Conflict; Funerals; Human remains; John III, King of Sweden (1537-1592); Kings; Lutheran churches; Power; Royalty; Sweden
• ISSN: 0361-0160; 2326-0726
• DOI: 10.1086/727954

John III, king of Sweden, breathed his last in November 1592. In ordinary circumstances, the death of the king would have triggered immediate preparations for all the elaborate rituals of succession: the royal funeral and the coronation of John’s successor. But conditions in Sweden in 1592 were anything but normal. John’s son and heir, Sigismund, was a Catholic and the reigning king of Poland. He was far from his Swedish realm, and more than a month would pass before he received news of his father’s death. Meanwhile, John’s ambitious brother Karl, Duke of Södermanland, a Lutheran with Calvinist leanings and a well-developed power base in Sweden, took charge of John’s body. A conflict quietly emerged between Sigismund and his uncle that would ultimately be centered on the nature of royal power, control of Sweden, and the religious orientation of the realm. At the center of the conflict between Sigismund and Karl was the dead body of the king. Karl refused to allow John to be buried until Sigismund agreed to sign documents that would, in effect, curtail his power as king, place Karl in a dominant political position in the realm, and guarantee the Lutheran identity of the Kingdom of Sweden. When John’s funeral finally took place in February 1594, the ritual was manipulated in ways that compromised Sigismund’s power and impacted the development of the hereditary monarchy in Sweden. The role of the king’s dead body in this conflict demonstrates the potential of royal bodies, real and representational, to embody royal power and to act as channels of power and legitimacy.