400 In Scandinavia the system of national community building came to leave its mark, more or less, on the church- and parish formation. In many cases it is very likely that the division into tings and military districts®administratively and economically came to be the foundation for the church and, in consequence of that, for the church parish. Probably, the church owners built their churches on their own initiative or on demand of the king or the bishop or as the result of a decision at the ting. Many things seem to indicate that the earliest churches were built rather independently, approximately as when another house was built at the farm, or in the village. In Icelandic and Swedish ring-laws the canon law prohibition against churchbuilding without the bishop’s sanction has been added, however, in order to avoid building of churches without the necessary support. The presciptions about gifts,** in the Swedish laws, are a consequence of the demands in the canon law that the church must, before the consecration, be sufficiently supplied for its own support and that of the priest. In Sweden it is the peasantry, collectively (the parish), who is constantly reponsible for church-building, gifts and consecration charge. The peasants, as a collective, must therefore, juridically, be understood as the owners of the church. At the same time the church is a juridical person. Also concerning the right of selling the property of the church, the peasants of the parish have a greater influence than the canon law evidently grants to laymen. On many points the property church way of thinking is noticeable: The influence of the church owners, the peasants and the laymen on the bishop’s behalf. Much has been written about the Swedish parish-formation. To a large extent it is and will be wrapt in obscurity. But church parishes have probably been formed in different ways, owing to different prerequisites. The economic obligations at the building of the church were so great, however, that the connection with the ting and the military organization — the only really economic organization functioning in the Swedish province community — seems, in many respects, to be natural. The property church way of thinking is provable, not the least in regard to the appointment of priests. In Swedish province laws the bishop has, relatively speaking, a rather great influence over the procedure of appointments, but the rights of the church owner have also been looked after. As a rule, it is the peasants who have the initiative at the filling of vacancies. Another moment in the procedure ^ Cf the wapentake or the hundred in Old England. * In Swedish laws dotering.
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