justitia et prudentia, kapitel 7 376 Council of the Realm (Privy Council). Until the middle of the 17th century, the nobility, the First Estate, seems to have been most active in legal issues concerning inheritance, land and wills. There were lively debates in the House of the Nobility with regard to the use the aristocracy made of various legal strategies, among them the dower. The oldest Swedish letter of fideicommissum(entailed estate) dates from 1643. The following year an ordinance was published which regulated the institution of the dower. The law commission of 1643 worked to a large extent with issues relating to the First Estate, the nobility. Among other matters, it dealt with houses of the nobility in towns and how these were to be considered under law. The nobility wished, as far as possible, that the Estate should be judged in accordance with the rules of the provincial laws, wherever its members lived and wherever the property of its members was located. The reason for this was that the members of the nobility would, thereby, have greater opportunity to dispose of their property freely whilst their sons could inherit twice as much as their daughters. In this way, the members of the nobility could enhance and develop their wealth more easily. Various constructions of legal agreements such as wills, fideicommissum, dowers and prenuptial agreements were germinated and contributed to the ability of the nobility to secure its wealth. From the middle of the 17th century, the discussions of these legal strategies seem to have been appropriated by the new generation of trained lawyers to be found in the higher courts. Lawmaking by these institutions was enabled by the extensive jurisprudence which permitted the use of other sources of law than statutory law. The nobility was not particularly interested in expanding the right of inheritance, as this could give rise to a greater risk of the division of properties. For the same reason, the First Estate was also anxious to control the marriage of children and to limit the rights of ownership of daughters. There were clear antagonisms within the First Estate between those who wished to preserve the old national law and those who wished to reform it. In the first named category are to be found representatives of the old land-owning titled aristocracy who wished to retain their customs and traditions. They recognised that the law had its faults, but they did not wish to be part of any major, revolutionary reforms. Historical arguments were often used as an excuse to retain the old and ancient. Often prescriptions from time immemorial and ancient traditions were referred to in arguments involving disputes over land.
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