Historia de omnibus Gothorum Sueonumque regibus

The Historia de omnibus Gothorum Sueonumque regibus (The history of all Geatish and Swedish kings) is a posthumously published, partly pseudo-historical work by Johannes Magnus, Sweden's last Catholic Archbishop. It was published in Latin in 1554, ten years after the death of the author.

The Historia was implicitly critical to King Gustav Vasa of Sweden, who had introduced the Protestant Reformation in 1527 and caused the exile of Johannes Magnus. It was nevertheless used widely by Gustav Vasa's sons and successors, to whom it had been dedicated, since it extolled the glorious past of the Swedish kingdom. In particular, the sons used the (partly fictitious) king-list which began with Magog, grandson of Noah. As a consequence, Eric XIV and Charles IX adopted much higher regnal numbers than warranted by the historical sources. A Swedish translation was published by Ericus Benedicti Schroderus in 1620.

The first fifteen parts of the Historia deal with alleged Swedish history before AD 1000, and also contain long digressions about the continental Goths whom he identifies with the Geats. Johannes Magnus bases his account on the Getica of Jordanes, Saxo Grammaticus's Gesta Danorum, medieval king-lists, and his own inspiration. Magog, grandson of Noah, became the first King of Sweden, 88 years after the Deluge. He invents a king-list with six Erics before Eric the Victorious and six Charles before Charles VII. In that way the 16th-century monarchs Eric XIV and Charles IX could boast with ordinal numbers on par with the popes. These fictitious rulers were usually described in positive terms, but the invented King Gostagus (Ostanus, Östen III, number 90 in the list) is referred as a tyrant: "There was hardly a night throughout the year with him abstaining from fornication, rape, incest and the filthiest sexual intercourse". The account of Gostagus contains hateful hints about Gustav Vasa. The strongly patriotic work also displays strong antipathy towards Denmark.

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