suum cuique tribuere – elsa trolle önnerfors 167 Of the European nobilities, the nobility in Poland and Lithuania had the most extensive judicial privileges, while noblemen in Spain and France were the most disadvantaged in this regard. The extent of the judicial privileges of the European nobilities was mainly established by the beginning of the seventeenth century, and no major additions to the judicial privileges were made thereafter.448 The purpose of this article is twofold. Firstly, to investigate the extent of the Swedish nobility’s forum privilegiatum: how many cases involving noblemen where the Svea Court of Appeal was the first instance (Sw. instämda mål) were to be found in the records of the appeal court during the second half of the seventeenth century? The investigation is based on five years: 1650, 1660, 1670, 1680 and 1690. Secondly, to categorize these disputes and give examples of some typical cases involving nobility from these years. Which of the nobility’s disputes were settled by the Svea Court of Appeal and how did the types of disputes changes over time? The source material derives from the Svea Court of Appeal in Stockholm. In order to conduct the inventory of the noble cases, I have primarily used the judgement books from the five years mentioned above. For supplementation in some cases, I have also used the liber causarumseries, which mainly contains proceedings in civil cases, but also occasionally criminal proceedings. It should be remembered that the nobility’s forum privilege did not presuppose an ongoing conflict. For example, the privilege also comprised the nobility’s probate inventories, which were to be submitted directly to the appeal court. A legal discussion about probate inventories had already come to the fore at the beginning of the seventeenth century, but the institution was first regulated was by the 1734 Code of the Realm, and the probate inventory became an obligation for everyone.449 448 Bush, Michael L. 1983 pp. 67-71. 449 Aristocratic probate inventories from the period 1736-1916 were registered at the Svea Court of Appeal (RA, SHA, E IXb). Probate inventories were regulated to some extent in the 1669 Statute of Guardianship (in Kongl. stadgar, ed. Schmedeman, pp. 571-583). For example, the statute decreed that a probate inventory had to be made when guardians were to be appointed for a fatherless or orphan minor. The probate inventory would protect the rights of the child, and facilitate both the distribution of estates and Method and Sources
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