Västergötland

• 1. Introduction

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  Västergötland sits in the southwest of Sweden, pressed between two of the country's largest lakes and a narrow strip of the Kattegat strait where Gothenburg rises as Sweden's second largest city. The province has a different name in older Latin texts: Westrogothia. In English it is sometimes called West Gothland. But whatever name you use, it points to the same stretch of land that has been pulling the threads of Swedish history for well over a thousand years.

  Who were the Geats, the people the ancient Greeks called the Goutai? How did a province on the western fringe of Scandinavia become the bridgehead through which Christianity entered Sweden? And what does a Baroque castle on a lake island, a fortress billed as the largest in Europe, and a 13th-century law code with 517 churches scattered across its pages tell us about a place most people outside Sweden have never heard of? Those are the questions this documentary will answer.

• 2. Ancient People, Ancient Names

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  The Greek geographer Ptolemy recorded the people of this land under the name Goutai. Centuries later, the historian Jordanes referred to them as Gautigoths in his 6th-century writings. These were the Geats, and Västergötland was their heartland: a petty kingdom with its own line of kings, its own traditions, and its own identity that existed long before Sweden was a unified state.

  Their presence even reached into Old English literature. Some scholars date the absorption of the Geats into the Swedish kingdom as early as the 6th century, pointing to references in the Beowulf epic about Swedish-Geatish wars. Others push that date as late as the 12th century. The question remains genuinely open. What is not in dispute is that when the monk Ansgar arrived in Sweden on his Christian mission in the 9th century, Västergötland may already have shared a king with the rest of Sweden. Whether it did or not, the province was becoming a distinct political player in a volatile region.

  The Iron Age site at Finnestorp, near the village of Larv, gives a physical sense of that earlier world. It was a weapons sacrificial site. Weapons recovered there speak to ritual, warfare, and the weight placed on martial life in this landscape. Further south, near Falköping, dolmens from the Funnelbeaker culture stand as some of the most notable ancient remains anywhere in the province.

• 3. Christianity's Foothold

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  Around the year 1000, King Olof Skötkonung is held to have been baptized at Husaby, a settlement near Lake Vänern. That act carried enormous political weight. The Christian faith was not welcome everywhere in his kingdom, and opposition was fierce enough that Olof had no choice but to confine Christian activity to Västergötland itself.

  Recent excavations at Varnhem suggest the province's central parts were already Christian in the 9th century, predating Olof's baptism by generations. Västergötland is generally considered the bridgehead through which Christianity advanced into the rest of Sweden. That influence came heavily from the British Isles, a connection that shaped the province's early religious culture in ways that distinguished it from regions more exposed to continental European currents.

  By the 13th century, when the provincial law known as Västgötalagen was committed to writing, Västergötland had 517 churches. That number alone tells you how thoroughly the faith had taken root. The diocesan seat appears originally to have been at Husaby, the site of the famous baptism, but since 1150 that distinction has belonged to the city of Skara, just some 20 kilometers to the south.

• 4. A Province Caught Between Kingdoms

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  From the election of King Stenkil in the 11th century, Swedish and Geatish dynasties struggled for control of Sweden through long civil wars. Västergötland was not a passive backdrop to those conflicts. The Swedish king Ragnvald Knaphövde had been elected by the Swedes, but when he entered Västergötland and chose not to take hostages from the powerful Geatish clans, the Geats killed him near Falköping. The province could be a killing ground for kings who misjudged it.

  Several times the area broke free entirely, existing independently from Sweden under kings including Inge I of Sweden and Magnus the Strong. And even when it was nominally part of Sweden, peace within Swedish borders did not mean safety from the outside. Located along the frontiers with Denmark and Norway, the province absorbed raids and invasions repeatedly.

  The list of recorded battles runs from the Battle of Älgarås in 1205 through the Battle of Lena in 1208, the Battle of Hova in 1275, the Battle of Gälakvist in 1279, and the Battle of Falköping in 1389. After that, Sweden's wars with Denmark marked years that include 1452, 1511, 1520, 1566, 1612, and 1676. The last combat recorded on Västergötland soil came during the seaside engagements of the Scanian War in the 1670s. When the Treaty of Roskilde in 1658 brought the Scanian lands and Bohuslän into Sweden, Västergötland found itself no longer a border province and the centuries of frontier violence finally wound down.

• 5. Counties, Castles, and Administration

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  In 1634, the province was reorganized around two new counties: Skaraborg County, with Skara as its capital, and Älvsborg County, whose administration was first based at Gothenburg and then relocated to Vänersborg in 1679. Skaraborg took its name from a fortress outside Skara, while Älvsborg was named for Älvsborg Castle, which was demolished in the 1660s even as the county continued to bear the name.

  The seat of the Skaraborg governor moved to Mariestad in 1660. Over the 20th century, the largest city in the county shifted first to Lidköping and then to Skövde. Skaraborg County itself was dissolved, but its name survived in a regional hospital complex in Skövde, a military wing designated F 7 in Såtenäs, and a regiment designated P 4 in Skövde.

  The county restructuring of the 1st of January 1998 merged Skaraborg County, Älvsborg County, and Gothenburg and Bohus County into the newly created Västra Götaland County. Two municipalities stepped outside that arrangement: Habo Municipality and Mullsjö Municipality were transferred instead to Jönköping County. The arms that represent the province were granted at the time of King Gustav Vasa's funeral in 1560, and the province also holds the status of a duchy. Victoria, Crown Princess of Sweden, carries the title Duchess of Västergötland.

• 6. Geography and the Lakes

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  The shoreline of Lake Vänern runs for 330 kilometers within Västergötland alone. Along Lake Vättern the shoreline measures 130 kilometers. These two bodies of water define the province's northern and eastern borders and give the landscape a quality unlike anything further inland in Sweden.

  The southern and eastern sections of the province belong to the southern Swedish highlands, dominated by hills formed from northward-tilted surfaces of the Sub-Cambrian peneplain. The north and west fall into the Central Swedish lowland, a region locally called the Västgöta-plains or Västgötaslätten. What makes those lowlands unusual is a scattering of hills built from Silurian-aged sedimentary rock: Kinnekulle, Halleberg, Hunneberg, and Billingen rise above the flat terrain.

  The Göta älv is the largest river, draining Vänern eastward to the Kattegat. Cities and towns have clustered along its banks for centuries. On the coast, the Gothenburg archipelago extends along the Kattegat, with its southern portion belonging to Gothenburg Municipality. Rainfall averages 900 millimeters near the coast and drops to 600 millimeters on the plains. January temperatures average minus 1 degree Celsius; July averages 15 degrees. The highest point in the province, Galtåsen, reaches 362 meters. The national parks of Tiveden and Djurö protect portions of this varied terrain.

• 7. Language, Sights, and Cities

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  The dialect spoken across Västergötland is called Götamål, and within that category the primary variety is Västgötska, the Western Götaland dialect. The city of Gothenburg and the Sjuhärad region each have their own variations. The dialect attracted scholarly attention as early as 1772, when a researcher identified only as S. Hof published a work called Dialectus vestrogothica, a vocabulary with an introductory grammar.

  Läckö Castle stands on the island of Kållandsö in Lake Vänern and is widely regarded as one of Sweden's finest Baroque buildings. A fortress existed on that island from as early as 1298, but the current structure was begun in 1615. Jacob De la Gardie supervised the construction, and his son Magnus Gabriel de la Gardie finished it. Karlsborg Fortress in the town of Karlsborg is described as the largest fortress in Europe, built as an expression of the 19th-century Central Defence Principle. That defensive philosophy was itself a direct response to the loss of Finland as a buffer state in 1809.

  Skara Cathedral holds a specific historical distinction: it is the oldest cathedral in the original parts of Sweden, provided Scania is excluded from the count. The city of Skara was chartered at approximately 988, making it one of the oldest urban settlements on the list. Gothenburg, the largest city, received its charter in 1621 and sits on the western shore with a harbour that has supported commerce for centuries.