401 of appointments it the priest investiture induction which, according to Swedish ecclesiastical law, is to be performed by the bishop or by his sokeman. In the Swedish laws the church is, however, given to the new priest at a ritual ceremony by the owners of the church: the peasants. Gradually, this ceremony seems, in Sweden, to become a matter for the Church, under the bishop. The bishop and his priests were, during the early Middle Ages, socially, politically, economically and jurisdictionally to a great extent in associations of peasants, part of the province and ting community. This means, favourably, that they had the landowners rights and position, and unfavourably, from the point of view of the Church, that they were standing under the law of the province community and not standing under the law of the Church in Church matters. Even in the Swedish province community they were, however, not by privileges but by their training and their functions, a defined group of people, the learned men. This unique position of theirs already in the early Middle Ages, must be seen in relation to the juridical and economic class privileges which was accorded to the bishop and the priests, in a new class society built in the privilege thinking —which assumed a more definite shape in Sweden on the behalf of the old province independence. 26 J. A. Hellström
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjYyNDk=