The economy of a parish church in the diocese of Linköping 1592-1735

This paper shows how an economy of a small parish developed over a consider-able time during Sweden’s period as a great power and in the beginning of the Age of Liberty up to 1735. The actual parish (Kälvsten) was a chapel of ease and situated in the diocese of Linköping. This diocese is one of the oldest in the country and is situated in the southern part of the western national region of Sweden of that time. At the end of the Reformation of the Swedish church the parishes in the actual diocese were at the whole utterly impoverished. The sources, the parish account books, are rather comprehensive during a long time and mostly readable. The first one begins at 1579 and up to the year 1735 only four years are missing.