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Social customs and
observances.
SWEDEN IN THE MIDDLE AGE.
Land’s Law.
Court-Laws.
109
prosecutors appointed7; whence the ecclesiastical
sections of the provincial laws throw much light on
the subject of legal procedure. Probably also those
portions of the laws which affect the privileges of
the church were first recorded in writing by the
care of the clergy. But a long time elapsed before
this method was generally considered necessary for
the knowledge and preservation of legal customs.
The ancient usage, that the justiciary should every
year make known to the people the consuetudinal
law (legem consuetudinis)8, is by the testimony of
the church itself of older standing than any
attempt made by the clergy to register the laws 9.
Instead of the written word, men had the living
record of memory, and symbolical acts for tokens.
For this reason, bargains were to be struck, and
debts paid, " with friend and witnesses," that is, in
presence of a good man, whom both parties had
called in, with two witnesses. Handtaking in their
presence formed a legal sign of the conclusion of a
purchase The transfer of ground sold, granted,
or pledged, was made by circuit, buyers and sellers
with one surety, and all the landowners of the
hamlet walking round the fields and meadows, and so
back to the homestead ; a custom analogous to the
Eric’s-gait by which the king took the realm into
possession. Thus too property in land might also
be transferred by the grantor casting a turf into the
lap of the grantee. In those days the ability of the
clergy as penmen, furnished them with a new means
of making their services indispensable. The royal
chancellors were regularly selected from their
order2 ; and the influence of the clergy, as well as,
through them, of the civil and canon jurisprudence
on Swedish laws, is in several respects
considerable. Yet so deeply rooted were these latter
in the memory and manners of the people, that both
in their form and contents what was national was
studiously preserved ; wherefore the Land’s Law
specially requires the king to see, "that no
outlandish law shall be brought into the realm to the
detriment of the people."
By extending ideas of law and legal authority,
the church laboured in the cause of temporal
authority, which here as everywhere else was the
disciple of the former. To restrain the
enforcement of personal revenge, the observance of the
king’s peace, as well as that of the church, was
speedily enjoined 3. Royal procurators 4, similar
to those of the bishops in spiritual causes, were
soon appointed, to discharge the functions of public
prosecutors in crimes against personal safety ; and
by the introduction of the Edsoere, or oath of
assurance, all such misdeeds were declared offences
against the peace which the king had sworn to his
subjects. To the section of the law which treated
of the church and its rights, was added in course of
time one relating to the sovereign and his rights,
which is common to all the later provincial codes.
The amended law of Upland was the first
statute-book publicly confirmed, and although binding only
on the foremost province of the kingdom, became a
model for all the rest. Fifty years afterwards the
first general Land’s Law was drawn up, and its
authority was gradually admitted5 ; although
another century passed away before the royal
confirmation was imparted.
As the " king’s oath, called Edsosret," was also
taken by "all the chief men of the realm," it seems
to follow that the Folkungers, who introduced this
oath, in fact reigned conjointly with the magnates.
Nevertheless, the nobles did not obtain, like the
clergy, the right of private jurisdiction ; though
the king’s court-law (gardsratt) was also commonly
enforced in the households of the great. Of these
the oldest was embodied in a written record in
1319, though its substance existed in a period much
more remote. But every great household bore in
old days a military character, whence in Swedish
documents of the middle age, a court-man means a
soldier by profession, and after the introduction of
the equestrian tenure, more particularly a horseman.
These court laws, obeyed by the warlike retainers
of the great, corresponded to the Articles of War of
later times, and are distinguished from the common
law of the land by rigorous punishments, as those
touching life and limbs, imprisonment with bread
and water, and flogging. In the latter, " all men’s
law," as it was formerly called, no exceptions are
made with respect to the nobility ; unless we
consider it as such, that for the homicide of a
household-man, besides the ordinary botes, a separate
compensation was likewise to be paid to the person
in whose service the slain man had been6.
Otherwise, the laws discover their jealousy of those living
in such a state of personal dependence ; whence we
find it ordered that no servitor shall be a juryman
unless by assent of the peasants and the judge of the
hundred 7, which however was so far altered, that
according to the Land’s Law, the iiremd in the
king’s court of inquisition might consist half of
peasants, and half of retainers, yet good and
sufficient men, of whom the people and the parties
before the court approved. Changes of greater
importance are discerned in particular ordinances,
not embodied in the law. Thus the Calmar Recess
i This officer was called in matters of episcopal
jurisdiction biskops-socknare (bishop’s proctor) or biskops-laensman,
(bishop’s delegate). According to Christian I.’s charter of
clerical privileges. October 28, 1457, he was to be elected by
the commonalty.
8 We have already mentioned that it was the duty of the
justiciary " to make and promulgate the law." (See Law
of West-Gothland, iv. 14.) Hence in the provincial laws the
lagman is sometimes introduced as speaking in his own
person, as in the Law of East-Gothland, E. S. viii. where it
is said, " now bear in mind, yeomen, that this is so ordained."
9 Compare the letter of Innocent III. to the archbishop of
Upsala, March 10, 1206. Diplomat. Suec.
1 Land’s Law, Tiuf. B. c. 15.
2 The only exception is that of the councillor of state,
Gustavus Magnussor., of Bevelstad, who is mentioned in
1417, as chancellor to Eric of Pomerania. Uggla, Catalogue
of the councillors of Sweden.
3 So the general peace proclaimed on the king’s visit to a
province was termed.
4 Konungs-soknare, or lsensmen.
5 Namely, Magnus Ericson’s Land’s Law of 1347, from
which that confirmed by king Christopher in 1442 differs
little. Notwithstanding the protest of the clergy in the old
dispute respecting the liberty of bequests to the church, the
former came gradually into use, and is undoubtedly that
" law of Sweden, which they had in the upper country.’’
The West-Goths state that they adopted it at the accession of
queen Margaret. Hadorph, Ancient Ordinances (Gamla
Stadgar, &c.), 42. See Note G.
6 For the homicide of a " king’s man," Earl Birger raised
the latter fine to the same amount with that payable for an
ordinary homicide ; so as to make the man bote double.
7 Law of the West-Goths, iii. 77.
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