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232
Its functions and
influence. HISTORY OF THE SWEDES. Royal interference in the
course of justice.
[1611—
Nevertheless, many apprehensions were at first
excited by this institution. These were indeed
alleged in the name of the queen dowager, but the
tear of the magnates to see their power curtailed
is apparent. It was part of the inheritance of the
Svvedish middle age, that the judicial power was
the property of the noljility ;
and albeit the land’s
law declared that " the king had from God
highest doom in his realm over all earthly judges,"
yet this power was by no means assured in prac-
tice. Most clearly is this evinced by the reserva-
tion to the nobility in their charters of their rights
to judicial offices, the revenues of which they
regai’ded in the light of their other possessions,
so that these were even sometimes drawn by
women ’. In the observations upon the ordinance
for process, it is declared to be inexpedient that
the old courts of inquest and eri’or should be re-
placed by a single royal court. Cut these had now
been long abandoned, and among the causes of
their cessation it was doubtless to be reckoned
that in these provincial judicatories the magnates
had more influence than the king. Hence that
personal interference of Gustavus Vasa and his
sons with the course of law, so often apparently
repugnant to order. It was a smaller evil against
a greater
—irregular attempts to enforce royal
authority, which in this department also Gustavus
Adolphus was at length enabled to establish on the
foundation of law 8.
According to the primary
scheme of institution, the palace court was to de-
liver the king’s judgment; there are even in the
outset occasional instances in which it punished
those who ventured to lay their complaints before
the king. The ambiguity of its instructions on
this point was amended, and it was left open to par-
ties to seek the king’s revision ;
but of all treason-
able or capital offences the palace covirt was only
to take cognizance ctd referendum, and to bring
them under the king’s notice.
We have had occasion to peruse several of these
cases referi-ed to the king, which contain much
that is remarkable. Notorious homicides the king
punishes with death, ordering the prosecutor to
restore the manbote if he had received it. In less
serious cases a pardon issues, if the prosecutor does
not insist on the life of the accused, and in respect
to the manbote, the parties are often enjoined to
settle it
by agreement. Adultery, the king declares,
is to be judged, as had been usual in the realm of
Sweden, according to the law of God, but mitiga-
tion and pardon lie with the crown, or in his
absence, with the royal court ". Examination by
torture we find was sometimes ordered by this
tribunal *. In a doubtful case of assassination the
king enjoins that the accused shall be exhorted by
the clergy, and then threatened with the torture,
yet not actually subjected to it. Enforced labour
? See an instance in Hallenberg, iii. 128, note a.
8 So long as there were duchies, that is until 1622, palace
courts existed in them, not permanent, but constituted by
Charles IX. on particular occasions. There was an appeal
from these to the Royal Palace Court, so that the inhabitants
of the duciiies had one resort the more. So also in counties
and baronies, there was an appeal from the count or baron,
as superior judge, to the Royal Palace Court.
9
Hallenberg, lii. 271.
1 Soldiers who quitted their wives, and consorted with
loose women, the king condemns to death.
2 Referred causes, 1619-20. Palmsk. MSS. t. 118.
is mentioned as a punishment,
"
carrying the lime-
hod," as it was called, or " work at the galleys."
To four thieves of the mines the king granted life,
but " to be relegated to Livonia, to the nobility, to
be their serfs and chattels •." The king’s love of
justice sometimes led him into the use of phrases
that might have seemed fitter for a sultan. Thus
the minute to the palace court, Nov. 5, ItilS, runs :
" His majesty advises and exhorts the royal namnd,
to show favour in their doom to no party ;
and if
any of the judges give wrongful sentence to the boot
either of his majesty or of another, the king will
make such an example of him, that he will have
his skin flayed and nailed to the doom-seat, and his
ears to the pillory 2." The king’s personal inter-
ference with the course of law continued, despite
the new forms. The people refused to abandon
their custom of preferring their complaints im-
mediately to the king himself, who often decided
the whole case without further question, or gave
orders for its examination, or employed advice,
injunctions, or threats. Persons who stood in
dread of violence, received a royal letter of pro-
tection ;
those who could not obtain satisfaction of
their demands, an admonitory letter to the debtor,
and the like. What is most singular is, that even
the new court did not scruple to issue such letters
and mandates. The Fiscal of the palace court
was called the State Fiscal, and acted as public pro-
secutor ; previously this functionary, who answers
to the chancellor of justice in later times, had been
also entitled State Provost.
Through the example of the palace court written
proceedings before the tribunals became more usual
than formerly ; yet it was sought to uphold as nmch
as possible the old principle of a dispensation of
justice independent of advocates. Axel Oxeustierna
declared that procurators ought to be forbidden,
because they corrupted the course of equity. For
this reason an intelligible law was the more
urgently required. The old land’s law having
been printed by order of Charles IX., like publi-
city was now given by the solicitude of Gustavus
Adolphus, to the town law, which appeared in
1618*. The king’s ab.sence, occasioned by the
wars, too often hindered his own watchfulness over
the judicatory. The council of state was in fact
the supreme tribunal, as it had often been beftire
the establishment of the palace court. In a period
so unsettled, so small an amount of litigation is
not a little wonderful. The regulation by which
the inferior courts were to give in their judgment-
books to the new tribunal, led to some embar-
rassment, inasmuch as during the whole year they
had often not a single cause to decide. Such a
fact lays open to our glance the inner moral life of
the people, and indicates at the same time that
hidden fund of strength which somewhere in the
3 The oldest Swedish town-law was the so-called Bjarkba-
Ratt. A more copious code was promulgated under king
Magnus Ericson, which bore the same name, as appears from
a writ of king Albert’s, printed in Bjbrner, De Stockholmiie
antiquae Situ, Nomine, et Legibus. It is to the inhabitants
of Ulfsby in Finland,
" ut jure civili, dicto Byarkbalagh, seu
libro legum per carissimum in Christo avunculum nostrum,
Dominuni Magnum, Dei gratia, Sueciae et Norvegice regem,
])ro utilitate civitatumet villarura forensium in regno nostro
Suecise nuper edito, uterentur. Dat. apud Castrum Aboense,
A. D. McccLxv. feria sexta post fest. beatse Agatha vir-
ginis."
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