This study addresses the problem of the major social conflicts of late medieval Sweden. Contrary to earlier research it states that these are not to be regarded as peasant rebellions (Sw. bondeuppror), since they were common concerns for peasants and noblemen acting in close conjunction. These events are not even to be conceived as rebellions (Sw. uppror). but as feuds. The late medieval notions of justice and legitimate rule was reflected in the contemporary idioms used in connection with these conflicts. Therefore, they are more properly viewed as risings (Sw. resningar), which indicates that they were not illegitimate as such. Furthermore, to rise was not the prerogative of the peasants.
The character of the risings and the idiom used to describe them changed almost simultaneously. The word uppror was used for the first time in the 1520s, i.e. concurrent with the emergence of the absolutist state. From the 1540s, no noblemen but only peasants took part in such conflicts and when labelled rebellions by their contemporaries, it is indicated that they were regarded as directed against the king and therefore treacherous.
The appearance of peasants in the politics of the realm in late medieval Sweden was due to the reverberations of the agrarian crisis and the recurrent plagues and the severe effects this had on the Crown and the rent-owning classes. But the most immediate cause of this "appearance" was the close relations of reciprocity between peasants and their lords. It was these bonds of mutual obligations that gave the conflicts of the period their special character and this is what have been put to the fore in this thesis.