396 In the Middle theology the bishop’s niissioti was by and by summarized in his potestas ordinis, magisterii and jurisdictionis. In Scandinavian laws his juridical supremacy, potestas jurisdictionis, much in dispute. His preaching and his teaching, potestas magisterii, is rather seldom mentioned. The ordinations and the official clerical functions, connected in this potestas ordinis, have, to a larger extent, been the object of commendatory notice. The bishop’s earliest functions in Sweden seem, greatly, to have to do with the cult. According to the old province laws he is reponsible for certain ordinations and for the sacrament of the confirmation. Above all, the consecrations of the church and the curchyard seem, in certain old sources, to have played a very important role. In canon law there are many regulations concerning the consecration of the church and the churchyard. However, we must also take into consideration the position that these places had in the juridical conscience of the people. In all Teutonic laws the church and the churchyard play an important role. In the Teutonic laws in general a defined peace and sanctity is connected with the church and the area surrounding it. The church is here a place of peace and asylum. The possibility of a juridical continuity between the churchyard and the pre-Christian burialplaces must not be forgotten. The sources, however, fail on this point. On the other hand it is easier to finci parallels between the position of the church and the churchyard and the places for the ting, the fair and other meetings of the early Middle Ages. In the same way as the f/wg-place and certain other places the church and the churchyard were consecrated. The consecration by the bishop seems to have been understood as a verbal judgement at which the church received its special state. A breach of the consecration of the church is in Teutonic sources the most heinous of all kinds of crimes: in the Scandinavian countries nidingsverk and urbota mål, the sacrilege. Prescriptions that regulate the legal position of the church and the churchyard —as well as for example the tingplace —exists long before the royal peace laws which came through the central government of Sweden during the thirtheenth century. Fromthis basis theconsecration of thechurch andthechurchyard by the bishop is to be seen as a proclamation saying that peace was now prevailingon the spot in question. The traces from the bishop’s earliest doings are, in Swedish as well as in Norwegian and Icelandic laws, in the first place economic. The oldest layer may be characterized as a purchase-deed, as the bishop —in the same way as the priest —discharged various duties, especially
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