The Versatile Farmers of the North: The Struggle of Norwegian Yeomen for Economic Reforms and Political Power 1750-1814

This book deals with the largely forgotten and neglected role of the Norwegian yeomen during the constitutional work of 1814. Their political campaigning is related to their increasingly prominent economic position within Norwegian -- and European -- society in the Age of Democratic revolution. The extent to which the ideas of the Enlightenment reached the rural population in this part of Europe, is analyzed along with Nordic topographic issues in general, as well as the radical and libertarian constitutional drafts presented by the yeomen at Eidsvoll in 1814. The role of the new Swedish "revolutionary king", Charles John (Bernadotte) is also discussed in a new light, based on his revolutionary past and his break with Napoleon.