237 5. Disputes in the eourts From the later part ot the 16th century one starts to find court records intact and this makes it possible to study practice. The court records of the 16th and 17th century give a very clear impression that the land-holder did not have a very strong property right. It could, for example, happen that a man demanded half of a farm from the holder because he claimed that a distribution of the estate of both parties’ common ancestor four generations back had never taken place. It is true that the law contained a three-year period of limitation against appeal in the question of land holding but this completely lacked any practical significance and there existed no sure way of eliminating such old claims. When the defendant did not dare to take an oath that the plaintiff’s ancestors had been bought out of the farm and the plaintiff instead took an oath to the contrary the farm was divided between the parties. Even other types of claims could be directed at the holder, for example, those with a larger share in a farm, who with the support of royal decrees, wished to buv smaller shares. And so, in addition to these claims came hördsrätt, the relatives’ claim to redeem land which was for sale. During the 17th centurv it seemed, for the most part, that it was the buyer of land who advertised the transaction at the local court and if it was the seller, which the law prescribed, an agreement with a buyer had alreadv preceded the announcement. Thus, there normally already existed a market price on the land which any relative wished to redeem. Without doubt the courts accepted the principle of law with regard to hördsrätt, that is the right of the relatives to redeem as opposed to the threeyear limitation period which was ignored. However, there was a difference here. Whilst an heir who had not been bciught out could make a claim after perhaps a hundred years, a relative was not allowed to redeem land after the purchase had been confirmed at the local court approximately two years after it had been announced there for the first time. The claim according to bördsrätt was thus easier to re)ect than claims from heirs who had not been bought out. Very distant relatives could redeem the land which had been sold as it could come about that there existed a common ancestor of the seller and the relative wishing to redeem who lived four generations back, maybe more than a hundred vears previouslv (see figure 6, page 110). Bordsrdtt does not seem to have had its origin in a particular piece of land, land that had long been owned by a kin group, but rather in an effort to keep as much of the land as possible within the kmgroup. When inherited land was exchanged for other land the relatives could not redeem the exchanged inherited land; instead their bördsrätt was transferred to the new land. The same applied if their relative bought other land from the proceeds of the sale of inherited land.
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