A B S T R A C T . This article examines how the system for organizing resources created by the Swedish state in the sixteenth century was formed by, and intersected with, local societies. By looking at the organization of the local administration and economic production within crown demesnes and estates, this article nuances and broadens the understanding of the early phases of the fiscal-military state. It shows that notions about gender and especially the gender division of labour were important for the organization and further development of the state in its endeavour to mobilize and transform resources. This article argues that gendered divisions of labour and traditional ways of organizing work and administration played a crucial role in the first phases of early modern Swedish state formation; women's work affected the organization of the state and vice versa. By looking at the emergence of the male official and the all-male bureaucracy from a gender perspective, and by emphasizing the household as an organizational form, the present study contributes to the understanding of both state formation and gender relations in the early modern period.In the vast historical literature on early modern state formation, especially in the subfields of state finances and state bureaucracy, gender is a relatively neglected category of analysis. This is perhaps because of a seeming lack of women in this sector, both back then and in the modern period. However, this is not a valid reason. This article argues that womenand genderplayed a crucial role in the formation of the early modern state. And, of course, in an all-male context gender is also important, the lack of women also requiring * I am grateful to Jonas Lindström, Karin Hassan Jansson, Rosemarie Fiebranz, and Sheilagh Ogilvie who have read and commented on earlier versions of this article. Special thanks are due to Maria Ågren for her guidance and extensive feedback.
We use a unique source from the Swedish royal demesnes to examine the work and relative wages of women in sixteenth century Sweden, an economic laggard in the Early Modern period. The source pertains to workers hired on yearly contracts, a type more representative for historical labour markets than day-labour on large construction sites, and allows us to observe directly the food consumed by workers. We speak to the debate on the "Little Divergence" within Europe as women's work and gender differentials in pay is a key indicator of women's relative autonomy and seen as a cause for the economic ascendency of the North Sea region during the period. We find small gender differentials among both unskilled and skilled workers, indicating that Sweden was a part of the "golden age" for women. We argue that despite superficial equality, women's economic outlooks were restrained in many other waysincluding their access to higher skilled work and jobs in the expanding parts of the economyadding important nuance to the discussion about the relationship between women's social position and economic growth in the Early Modern period.
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