477 putes on property rights for farms and houses, borders between private properties, inheritance and debts. When criminal law needed to be applied it was often a question of an unpremeditated kind, such as verbal abuse or petty larceny. Basically it was a question of necessary defence of personal honour or a person’s economic situation. The greatest value regarding honour was without doubt that it underlined an individual’s accepted position in the local community. With one’s honour intact it was easier to conclude a deal, borrow monev and defend oneself against charges brought in court. The borderline between civil cfisputes and criminal cases is sometimes difficult to identify even in the court records. It must have been experienced as being of fundamental importance to an even lesser degree by the parties involved, as it in both cases was concerned with compensation and “achieving justice”, which as a rule did not primarily have as a goal to punish the other party. Justice was, therefore, pragmatic and many times mild on those who broke the law. There were, of course, exceptions. Those who had already lost their honour, the poor who could not offer monetary compensation and those who were strangers, were met with greater reservation and more repression. A ban on taking the oath, banishment and corporal punishment more often befell those without honour, the poor and strangers, than honourable and propertied neighbours. If justice was mild it was because this mildness had a function. It contributed to creating a less conflict-filled local communitv, it was not mild because of an all-embracing humanism, nor was it always mild concerning crimes which were regarded as particularly repulsive. The death penalty was applied e.g. without mercy for premeditated murder, rape, bestiality and church robbery. Mutilation had, on occcasion, been exercised during the Middle Ages and the 16th century, but rapidly disappeared at the beginning of the 17th century. The growth of central government has been put forward as the most important explanation of the judicial revolution. The Crown’s regulating ambitions left traces m the court books of the capital as early as in the 16th centurv. In rural areas the process was slower. Such cases constituted only a fraction in Linköping and an even smaller part in Gullberg county district at the beginning of the 17th centur\'. Before the middle of the century there can, however, be seen certain signs of a government offensive even there, which also was connected with the role which mundane justice had taken upon itself to defend religious criteria. For example, in the 1640s the county sheriff began to appear as prosecutor m cases of fornication and the number convicted of crimes against different statutes had increased somewhat. An important step towards the centralisation of justice was taken when the Swedish Court of Appeal was established m 1614. Soon it became necessary to establish more Appeal Courts for the different districts in Sweden and these Appeal Courts quickly became supervisors of the work of the local courts.
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