61 Administration of Justice in Seventeenth-Century Sweden The beginnings of a centralized state are usually dated to the reign of Gustavus Vasa'7; the actual creation of a centralized state machinery was, then, a work of the seventeenth century and is best personified in Gustavus II Adolf.'^ Gustavus Vasa reformed Ictcal administration and taxation, and it was during his reign that foreign commerce was made a privilege of certain towns only (premercantilism) with which the inland towns were allowed to trade. All this was possible because enough political power had concentrated behind the king, who had relied on classes other than the nobility in his aspirations to power; a logical consequence of this development was a need to create all possible means and resources to govern and wage warfare.'^ Gustavus Vasa also converted the monarchy to be hereditary.Just as the Medici of Florence used Niccolo Macchiavelli as their learned advisor, or as German princes relied on learned doctors in their efforts to build a work administration, Gustavus Vasa made frequent use of jurists learned in Roman law.-* In the seventeenth century, centralization and unification, initiated by Gustavus Vasa, were furthered, and the foundations of the modern state were laid. Both local and central governments were organized, and new military units and a postal organization were established." The nobility and the church came to play important roles in the building of the centralized state. The king himself led the civilian administration and the armies; he was also the head of the church and the highest justice. The general direction of policies belonged to the king as well. In the 1600s, the nobility came to staff the civilian and judicial administration as well as the highest military posts by privilege. The provinces were tied to the central administration where governors represented the Crown. The Swedish centralized state order was characterized by a pronounced striving toward discipline, in the keeping of which the Lutheran state church was a portentous factor. It was essentially the church that was responsible for imposing discipline at the local level: complementing the penal law and relying on its own jurisprudence as well, the church sought to root out all deviance as effectively as possible.-^ As mentioned above, in Sweden the use of judicial ordeals ended long before the reception of the statutory theory of proof. According to one of the SwedGust.ivus V.isa reigned in 1523-1560. Gustavus II Adolf reigned in 1611-1632. Rosén 1962 pp. 393-394; Ylikangas 1986 pp. 17-20; Tiihonen 1994 (b) pp. 27-33. Tiihonen 1994 (b) p. 27. Ibid. pp. 27-29. One of the most renowned was Conrad von Pyhy, a German-born chief of the King’s Chancellery with previous experience in the administration of Emperor Charles V; see Rosén 1962 p. 400. -- Rvstad 1983. Tiihonen 1994 (b) pp. 43-45; Aalto 1996. 23
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