CACrown ArchivesThe cinema collection
EN/FR
Search
Menu
Research dossier · People & Ideas

Gustavus Adolphus

King of Sweden from 1611 to 1632

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 15, 2026
Entity authoritySource title only
Source-derived summary

Gustavus Adolphus, also known as Gustav II Adolf or Gustav II Adolph, was King of Sweden from 1611 to 1632. He is credited with the rise of Sweden as a great European power. During his reign, Sweden became one of the primary military forces in Europe during the Thirty Years' War, helping to determine the political and religious balance of power in Europe. He was formally and posthumously given the name Gustavus Adolphus the Great by the Riksdag of the Estates in 1634.

Editorial summary

“Gustavus Adolphus” enters the record as king of Sweden from 1611 to 1632. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Gustavus, Adolphus and King can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewStrongest as a route into the people, institutions and dated events that shaped the subject’s public record. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1611, 1632, 1634—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Gustavus, Adolphus and King.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Gustavus Adolphus” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Gustavus, Adolphus and King provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 15, 2026. The first chronological checks are 1611, 1632 and 1634.

Critical limits

Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Gustavus Adolphus”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Gustavus Adolphus primary sources, Gustavus Adolphus archive and Gustavus research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Gustavus Adolphus”?
  2. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
  3. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Gustavus Adolphus” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.