Background
The burgess widow Kaarina Multiala may be regarded as the first known female merchant and businesswoman in Finland, since she is mentioned in documents earlier than Valpuri Innamaa of Turku, According to a customs list, as early as 1551 Kaarina possessed ships of her own, and even before that (two years earlier, in 1549) a 'Muldila hustru' ('Mistress Muldila'; no first name is mentioned) was one of the wealthiest members of the burgess class in her home town. And in the early 1560s,Multiala continued to figure among the group of Viipuri citizens who traded and owned a ship. She was also one of those who disobeyed a ban on sailing from the town to Tallinn (Reval) or Narva on the south coast of the Gulf of Finland.
In the 1550s and l560s, Viipuri merchants exported tar, butter, leather, fish and flax, and imported salt, broadcloth, silk, fine linen, grain and copper; these were also Kaarina Multiala's trading commodities. Multiala did well as a merchant; in the late 1550s, she was the town's eighth-wealthiest taxpayer. She was quite enterprising and - as was customary at the time - also not averse to avoiding regulations. In 1563, like many others, she was fined 40 marks for exporting thalers to Narva. In her trading behaviour, Kaarina Multiala was no different from male merchants, being distinguished only by her sex: businesswomen - i.e. widows who continued their husband's businesses - were a great rarity in Finnish towns in the 16th century and even in those that followed.
Kaarina Multiala's origins are not revealed by die town's records or by rural documents, though from 1555 to 1559, she paid taxes on a farm at Lihamaki village in the Viipuri rural district. For the whole 16th century, she is the only woman mentioned in Karelian tax documents for whom a name other than the wife-plus-forename formula is used. In general, there were very few women among the payers of eastern Finnish land taxes, and among them, Kaarina Multiala's name put her in a special position.
According to this catalogue, the farm inherited by a 'Kaarina' from her husband Esko Multiala was among those that were annexed by the Crown and then rented from it. Evidently, having been successful as a merchant, the widow had attempted to adopt a status higher than that of her own class. Another explanation is that Esko Multiala and the widow who received the farm attempted to join the Knaapiaateli ('squirocracy', 'petty nobility'), a group superior to the peasants and especially prevalent in the Kymenlaakso area.
Like many a member of the burgess class in the 16th century, Kaarina could not write. Even when she received payments from the Crown - for example, for transporting soldiers to Stockholm - she confirmed the receipt of payments with her mark and a seal lent to her by Hans Wiborg. Thus she and her deceased husband Esko did not have a seal of their own.
Kaarina Multiala disappears from the records before the 1570s. However, the silver-tax register of the town of Viipuri does contain a 'Mistress Elina Multiala, who possessed large amounts of silver, money, tin and copper but no domestic animals. Kaarina and Elina share a rare surname, but the relationship between them is not known.
Even though our knowledge of Kaarina Multiala's life is poor, one quickly runs into her name if one is familiarizing oneself with the history of Viipuri. The author Kaari Utrio created a portrait of her for her first novel Kartanonherra ja kaunis Kirstin ('The Lord of the Manor and the Beautiful Kirstin'). The author's burgess-wife is an honoured and respected citizen and merchant and a kind and skilled healer familiar with the effectiveness of herbs. Maybe the writer's depiction is correct.
