Karin Johansdotter (died after 1605), was a Swedish Roman Catholic nun of the Bridgettine Order. She was the last nun in Sweden after the

Swedish Reformation The Reformation in Sweden is generally regarded as having begun in 1527 during the reign of King Gustav I of Sweden, but the process was slow and did not end definitively until the Uppsala Synod of 1593 and the following War against Sigismund, with ...

Life

Karin Johansdotter joined the Vadstena Abbey at an unknown year. She was still of childbearing age in 1605, and is thus likely to have joined the Vadstena Abbey during the reign of

John III of Sweden John III ( sv , Johan III, fi, Juhana III; 20 December 1537 – 17 November 1592) was King of Sweden from 1569 until his death. He was the son of King Gustav I of Sweden and his second wife Margaret Leijonhufvud. He was also, quite autonomous ...

Sigismund III Wasa Sigismund III Vasa ( pl, Zygmunt III Waza, lt, Žygimantas Vaza; 20 June 1566 – 30 April 1632 N.S.) was King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania from 1587 to 1632 and, as Sigismund, King of Sweden and Grand Duke of Finland from 1592 to ...

, when Sweden leaned toward a

counter-reformation The Counter-Reformation (), also called the Catholic Reformation () or the Catholic Revival, was the period of Catholic resurgence that was initiated in response to the Protestant Reformation. It began with the Council of Trent (1545–1563) a ...

, and the Abbey was allowed to receive novices again: the last novice was accepted to the Abbey as late as 1593.

Closure of convent

In 1593, however, the Uppsala Synod proclaimed Lutheranism as state religion in Sweden, provoking a conflict between the Catholic king Sigismund and his Protestant uncle Duke Charles during the Swedish-Polish personal union, and initiating a development toward the War against Sigismund, resulting in the final completion of the

. In 1594, following the Uppsala Synod, Duke Charles and Bishop Abraham Angermannus visited the Vadstena Abbey, ordering the closure of the Abbey and demanding that the nuns handing over the valuables and convert to Lutheranism, both of which they refused. The following year, in 1595, the Abbess Katarina Olofsdotter and some of the nuns left Vadstena Abbey for

Söderköping Söderköping is a locality and the seat of Söderköping Municipality, Östergötland County, Sweden with 6,992 inhabitants in 2010. Söderköping is, despite its small population, for historical reasons normally still referred to as a ''town''. ...

before departing to the

Marienbrunn Abbey Marienbrunn Abbey also called ''Fons Mariae'' and ''Triumphus Marie'' was a double convent for women and men of the order of the Bridgettines, situated in Gdańsk between 1391 and 1833. It was the first convent of the order founded outside of Sweden ...

in Danzig, which was a daughter-convent to Vadstena. The Vadstena Abbey was thereby closed, as the last Catholic convent in Sweden to be closed after the Reformation, completing the Suppression of the Monasteries. Contemporary documents list the members of the convent at the time of the closure in 1595, as well as what happened to them: except for the abbess Katarina Olsdotter herself, her deputy Elin Eriksdotter, as well as the sisters Ingrid Jansdotter, Ingrid Persdotter, Ingeborg Persdotter and Margaretha Mattsdotter was listed as having accompanied her to Danzig. Of the nuns listed as remaining in Sweden, three were listed as have been housed with private benefactors: Kerstin Persdotter "left with Lars Jönsson", Margreta Jacobsdotter "left with Jon Larsson" and Anna Larsdotter "left with Daniel Hansson". Of them, one was reportedly employed in the household of the Duchess Christina, while another one married a courtier of Duke Charles. Only two of the nuns were allowed to remain in the Abbey buildings after the closure of the convent: Ingegerd Månsdotter, who was listed as "old", and Karin Johansdotter, who was listed as "remaining" with her, evidently to take care of the elderly Ingegerd Månsdotter. They were allowed to remain in the building of the former convent with fourteen servants, who were to maintain the buildings and gardens for the crown, as the convent was now crown property. Ingegerd Månsdotter died during an unknown date. Karin Johansdotter officially employed as a gardener and caretaker of gardens of the former Abbey. After the death of Ingegerd Månsdotter, she was the only Catholic nun remaining in Sweden.

Later life

In March 1605, Karin Johansdotter was charged with the theft of clothes and objects of

brass Brass is an alloy of copper (Cu) and zinc (Zn), in proportions which can be varied to achieve different mechanical, electrical, and chemical properties. It is a substitutional alloy: atoms of the two constituents may replace each other with ...

and yin from the sealed stores of the Abbey, which was by then crown property. She pleaded guilty as charged, and confessed to have broken into the stores by climbing in through a window near the roof. This was a serious crime at the time, but Karin Johansdotter was evidently a popular person among the inhabitants of Vadstena, and a "Public petition" demanded that she be given a light sentence. As she was also the mother of an infant, the verdict was therefore mitigated to the loss of her employment and banishment from Vadstena and the province of

Östergötland Östergötland (; English exonym: East Gothland) is one of the traditional provinces of Sweden (''landskap'' in Swedish) in the south of Sweden. It borders Småland, Västergötland, Närke, Södermanland and the Baltic Sea. In older English li ...

References

* Lennart Jörälv: Reliker och mirakel. Den heliga Birgitta och Vadstena (2003) * Ohlander, Ann-Sofie & Strömberg, Ulla-Britt, Tusen svenska kvinnoår: svensk kvinnohistoria från vikingatid till nutid, 3. marb. och utök.uppl., Norstedts akademiska förlag, Stockholm, 2008
''Antiqvarisk tidskrift''

Historiskt bibliotek utgifvet af Carl Silfverstolpe
{{authority control Bridgettine nuns 16th-century Swedish nuns 17th-century Swedish nuns 17th-century Roman Catholic nuns Swedish nobility