Mutilated Books - Wondrous leaves from swedish bibliographical history

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Nobody knows when the first book arrived in "Sweden", only that it happened some time towards the end of the first millennium after Christ. People in the North were bold and enterprising, they travelled all over the place and brought home many different things. It must certainly have happened, at some point, that a "Swedish viking" found a particularly fine book and took home as a souvenir of his travels beyond stormy waters. But until Christianity arrived people in the North never took to the book as an idea. When the book finally arrived in the North it was as the bearer of Christianity and the catholic faith. In 1527 the Swedish king Gustavus Vasa began the Reformation process and the dismantling of the Swedish Catholic Church and its institutions proceeded. King Gustavus Vasa was a man with head for economics and he insisted on strict book keeping. During the period of Gustavus and his sons the royal administration grew in extent as never before. Baliffs around the country collected taxes and their accounts were kept on paper. These accounts needed protective covers. The medieval books, written on parchment, were collected and the leaves were used as covers. Between 1527 up to 1620 most accounts were bound in covers made of parchment from medieval manuscripts. Today 22 500 book fragments can be found in the Swedish National Archives (Riksarkivet) – the remains of this "manuscript slaughter". The Swedish collection of book fragments are unique in their range and unity. In Mutilated books – Wondrous leaves from swedish bibliographical history over 60 fragments from the slaughtered medieval books are exhibited. And through them the story of the books earliest history in Sweden is told.