Vadstena

Vadstena stands on the eastern shore of Lake Vättern. Its fame rests on the abbey founded for Saint Bridget's order, to which King Magnus Eriksson and Queen Blanche gave their royal estate in 1346. Bridget's daughter Catherine brought her relics here in 1374, and the community was formally blessed in 1384. Bridget's canonisation and the translation of her remains to the abbey church drew pilgrims and gifts. The town that grew beside the monastery received its charter in 1400.

Vadstena became the mother house of the Bridgettines, with communities of both nuns and monks and a tradition of writing and translation. The Reformation brought confiscations: in 1543 the crown took most of its books and valuables, and the male community was formally abolished in 1555. The remaining nuns left in 1595. Gustav Vasa meanwhile began building Vadstena Castle, a fortress and royal residence, in the sixteenth century. The abbey church and the castle preserve two very different monuments to the town's place in Swedish history.