suum cuique tribuere – elsa trolle önnerfors 165 444 The Latin phrase originated from an old Greek principle of justice which translated as “to each his own.” The phrase “suum cuique tribuere” was mentioned at the beginning of the Digesta(1.1.10.1): iuris praecepta sunt haec: honeste uiuere, alterum non laedere, suum cuique tribuere (printed inThe Digest of Justinian p. 2), and also at the beginning of the Institutiones (1.1.3). 445 Bush, Michael L. 1983 pp. 1 and 5-6. he doctrine ofsuum cuique tribuere (meaning “give to each his Town”) is central to the understanding of the law and the court system in seventeenth-century Sweden, a period in Swedish history which is called the Era of Great Power or the Age of Greatness.444 At this time, the Swedish population was divided into four Estates of the Realm: the nobility, the clergy, the burghers and the peasantry. The division of the population into the Estates had its breakthrough in the fifteenth-century when the four Estates together formed the parliament (Sw. riksdag). Even though the doctrine of suum cuique tribuere dominated sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Sweden, it was not entirely a phenomenon of early modern times, the idea having its roots in an earlier period. Tradition played an important role when it came to legislation on privilege, as the royal proclamations of privilege had their origins in medieval law. For example, the division into four Estates appeared to some extent already in the medieval laws with different regulations and privileges for various groups in society. Each Estate had designated functions to perform in society, various ranks in the social hierarchy and different privileges. In particular, the privileges of the nobility distinguished the nobles from the three commoner Estates, and the distinctions related both to person and to property. In broad outline, the privileges of the European nobility as a whole originated from five sources: the old Roman distinction between freemen and slaves, the lordship rights, the legacy of hereditary privilege developed under the Roman rule, the rights associated with knighthood and, finally, the authority landlords acquired over their tenants.445 Introduction
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