duties of obedience for apprentices and journeymen than for domestic and agricultural servants. However, in sum the Swedish rules concerning the privileged areas of economic activity just marginally deviated from the chief rule of the master’s far-reaching right to direct and supervise the working party. After having touched upon the somewhat looser rules concerning workers within the privileged sectors, let us return to the master-servant relationship. How did the Swedish legislature and scholarship in the Age of Liberty treat this issue? Did the Swedish Code of 1734 break off or continue the century-old legal tradition? Is Nehrman’s writing on the master-servant relationship to be characterised as progressive or as representing traditional views? David Nehrman had studied at several foreign universities, primarily in Germany and the Netherlands, which promoted his interest in natural law and inspired him to be one of the first representatives in the Nordic countries of the so-called“Halle Enlightenment”. Nehrman wrote that the rules of the Swedish law were founded primarily on the law of “Nature”.The general principles that he recommended in order to search for “the true intention of the lawmaker” illustrates his ambition to appear as dependent on domestic traditions combined with natural law.Thus, the guidelines for finding this ratio legis should be picked from In his general view on private law, Nehrman openly rejected the trisection in the classical Roman law betweenpersonæ-res-actiones. c o n t i n u i t y a n d c o n t r ac t 49 2. 4. 2 … or contract? david ne rhman and the 1734 book of comme rce “the Laws, which have been applied and in force during ancient times… the kind and essence of the people, or from the nature and character of the matter, or from the natural justice, or from the best welfare of the community”.80 80 “the Lagar, som i forna tider gullit och hafft Laga krafft ... uthur folkets art och wäsende, eller af ährendets natur och beskaffenhet, eller af naturliga rättvisan, eller ock af thet allmännas bästas wälfärd”. Nerhman 1729, pp. 73-74 (§§ 16-17).
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