492 during the decade starting 1640. They concerned primarily customs duties, trade and the illicit sale of ale and alcohol, where the State had a fiscal interest to guard. The forms for trade and craft were otherwise not primarily regulated by the municipal courts in Linköping and Härnösand. These cases usually were only a small part of the agenda. Under the final stages of the guild system and the older forms of trade regulations it was possible to discern a mobilization of the legal system. The number of fines for illegal market, and market place trading increased around the year 1800, as did the number of people fined for street hawking and illegal handicraft. There were also more cases involving goods of inferior quality, weights not stamped with a crown etc. By then the guild associations seem to have found it difficult to maintain their systemwithout the help of the legal system. At the end of the 17th century it is the State’s fiscal interests which are most noticable in the district courts’ iudgement books. The felling of timber and distillation of alcohol were rural occupations and when the government made higher demands in both these areas then the number of those convicted rose. The dark figure should also, considering the difficulties in gaining conclusive evidence against the lawbreakers, have been very large. It was also the rural population who primarily suffered fromgovernment claims on transportation by horse and carriage and on road maintenance. The latter led to many instances of directives concerning fines. The towns were relatively free fromsuch cases, even if bootlegging in time became a cause for fines. The illicit sale of alcohol became more a local question than a governmental concern. When an increase in the category “crimes against statutes and special regulations” is found in towns, then the infringements are primarily directed against local decisions. The fire regulations were, to a certain extent in Härnösand but to a greater degree in Linköping, the most often cited cause of fines in the records fromthe beginning of the 19th century (with the exception of fines for absence as parties or witnesses at court proceedings). A local elite started to deal with the internal problems of the town. By-laws were written and revised and a control system was instigated to supervise them. The intensity of the control was greatest in the towns, as problems with fire and sanitary conditions were greater there. Yet this form of control did exist even in rural areas which IS evident mrecords saved fromvillage and parish meetings. In spite of the differences found between town and rural areas, which primarily were determined by social, economic and commercial structures and secondly by the on-following different regulations for social control, most things were very similar m all the courts. The tasks of the courts were, during the first part of the 17th century, first and foremost the settling of disputes between private citizens, regardless of if it being a civil dispute a or criminal case. Even verbal disputes and fights were, finally, often reduced to a battle of resources either material or immaterial, m the form of honour and honesty. In
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