the svea court of appeal in the early modern period 148 Joen Planting was not easily discouraged, although he had previously tried to question the authenticity of Lars Torstensson’s will. Now he thanked – as was appropriate, too – the Court of Appeal for its decision, and made it known that he was considering a “benefice of revision” (beneficium revisionis) application, not so much, he said, to criticize the judgement as such but to satisfy his conscience415 He seems not to have filed an application; however, there were other ways to promote one’s interests without questioning the verdict as such. Therefore, a couple of years after the sententia definitiva, Planting was back at the Court of Appeal, pointing out that the Court had only given its sentence in relation to the Haga estate; he was hoping to prove that his wife also had the right to some other estates.416 At this point, in 1625, Claes Claesson had already died. However, his widow, Beata Wachtmeister, was sent a summons. The new turn in the dispute was reported in the same file as the previous case, as a continuation of the old dispute, which suggests that the definitiveness of the sentence might not have been as absolute as one might have thought at first. One might have expected the new case to be opened in a new file, and perhaps the treatment of the new claims would have been different if a lengthy series of court cases had followed. However, this was not the case. On a specified day in 1626, the Court of Appeal was expecting Planting and the widow Beata Wachtmeister at the Court. According to the final entry in the records, neither of them appeared to continue the dispute. In practice, then, the sentence seems to have been accepted as definitive for the time being.417 The Planting vs. Uggla case is an example of the variety of accusations and the many layers of previous court cases, family disagreements and property arrangements that could come to the surface in the course of a court case. The dozens of sixteenth-century copies and originals annexed also make the case very informative about the lives of the offspring of Birgitta Johansdotter Fleming and Torsten Salomonsson Ram. Combined with other sources from the sixteenth century, they help to understand the turbulent lives of this family. The way Joen Planting was using the previ415 Court session on 5 July 1621, RA, SHA, E VI a 2aa, Liber causarum 26. 416 Court session on 25 Oct. 1625, RA, SHA, E VI a 2aa, Liber causarum 26. 417 For the definitiveness of sentences and settlements in general, see also Lahtinen, Anu 2013.
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