397 consecrations, at charges fixed by the agreement. The owners and the congregations of the churches bought services from the sellers of the Church. Gradually, and bit by bit, the purchase-deeds were replaced by tithe agreements, where the bishop’s privileges —the tithe —and duties in relation to the peasants were precised. More and more of the bishop’s tasks passed fromhaving been services done at special charges to being part of what the bishop had to do for his tithe. With the introduction of the bishop’s tithe, the prerequisites were to be had for an enlargement of the institution of visitation in the direction of canon law. The bishop’s titheservices came to be performed for the most part at the visitations. In certain Scandinavian laws the visitation takes place every year, in Swedish laws constantly take place every third year. The one-year frequency is the normal one in canon law and coincides with the great Scandinavian ^mg-meetings. The three-year freciuency may be justified from the point of view of the canon law in regard to the vast areas of the dioceses. In consequence of the system of property churches the economic burden at the bishop’s consecrations and visitations falls on peasants and church owners, not on the priests. In later laws, however, the recompence has, as a result of the realization of the tithe, passed over to the priesthood. The development passes from a decentralized buying of services, where the main principles concerning the respective duties and privileges of the peasants had been settled at the ting, to the well precised services which the bishop, according to the tithe ageement, had to perform in return for his tithe. In practice, the tithe agreement came to imply visitation prescriptions intended for both the bishop and the peasants. One of the spheres where the relations between the bishop and the Swedish province community resulted in direct conflicts is the ecclesiastical jurisdiction. Great tensions arose against the ting and the provincial jurisdiction when the Church organization, under the bishop’s management, tried to force through the ideals of canon law about a special spiritual jurisdiction. The jurisdiction of the Church implied that certain cases —with connection to the Church —should be transferred from the secular court to the spiritual court, within the scope of the bishop’s potestas jnrisdictionis. Besides that there is the less diputed Church superstructure to the native law, namely the Church discipline.
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