236 ms, rnaterna matcrnis", i.e. if the seller’s relatives on the mother’s side should have the right to redeem land that he had inherited from his father and vice versa. Here it seems that a change in practice took place in 1651 when the Roval Council, as supreme court, had allowed such a procedure. There was also the question of whether land which had been obtained in reverse inheritance could be redeemed by the seller’s relatives. If, for example, a married couple had a child and the man died first and then the child and the woman thereby inherited land which had come initially from the man’s relatives, had her relatives then the right to redeem the land if it was sold? (see figure 5, page 65). Opinions were split both among lawyers and within the Law Commission. One standpoint was to identify bördsrätt and inheritance rights and to allow all inherited land, irrespective of which kin group it had come from, to be redeemed by the seller’s relatives according to the order of succession. Another standpoint was that those entitled to buy should be limited to the relatives on the side from which the land came, i.e. the meaning of bördsrätt was that land should be kept within a lineage of some sort. Uncertainty in such questions is shown clearly in the various law proposals around 1700 where there are marked oscillations between the various points of view. As the number of people with the right to redemption was so greatly reduced in the edict of 1720 the question lost any great practical significance. The enlargement, in 1651, of the group of relatives with the right of redemption is worthy of note, as this clashed with the patrilinear tendencies of the time. Fromthe aristocracy’s point of view there seems to have been a double strategy in the questicm of kinship. The patrilinear development sought to keep the property within its own kin group whilst at the same time it complicated the marriage alliances between the various kin groups, something which was important for the aristocracy’s position of power. Sweden around 1650 was almost completely controlled by an aristocratic kin federation under the leadership of Chancellor Axel Oxenstierna (see Ågren 1976). An extension of the redemption right increased the possibility of keeping land within their own group. But for the jurists, who had to work out a consistent law, this double strategy gave cause for concern. For those taking part in the debate of the 17th century who wanted to preserve bördsrätt to its full, it was the family, i.e. a lineage, and not the temporary holder, who was the rightful owner taf inherited land. The holder had not done anything to make himself worthy of the land and therefore he had no right to total control over it. Advocates of this point of view were, in general, critical of the trade in land. Those who wished, however, to restrict bördsrätt wanted to facilitate the trade in land and considered that the market price should prevail in the case of the sale of inherited land. Generally the holder’s dominion over the land should be as absolute as possible.
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