Fire, Wolves, and Antichristt

The Swedish brothers Magnus (Johannes, 1488–1544 and Olaus, 1490–1557) are best known as the authors of two enormous works on Swedish and Scandinavian history. They spent a considerable part of their lives in the shadow of the advent of Lutheranism in Sweden, which was a crisis on a political, religious, and personal level for the brothers, being devout Catholics. Johannes arrived in Sweden in 1523 and was soon elected archbishop of Uppsala. Only three years later, however, he left Sweden and never returned, and Olaus joined him. The brothers were to spend the rest of their lives abroad, in Poland and in Italy. The entire time they kept trying to convince the Pope and the cardinals to help them reinstate Catholicism in the northern countries, and to make the Swedish king, Gustavus Vasa, mend his Lutheran ways. These two campaigns of persuasion both involved representing the advent of Lutheranism as a crisis, which is visible in Johannes Magnus’ extant letters and the works of both brothers. The aim of this article is to demonstrate how the brothers represent crisis in their works and writings and how their depiction relates to that found in a few other works from the Reformation period.