suum cuique tribuere – elsa trolle önnerfors 179 Drakenhielm’s daughters were forced to cede a substantial part of their father’s estate to the Crown.496 In the early modern period, nearly everybody depended on access to land for survival. This was certainly true for the peasants, but it was equally true for the nobility, who derived their incomes from their tenants. Real estate was by far the most valuable property in seventeenth-century Sweden. People owning land could always rely on the yield from it at times when other sources of income declined. A clear break with previous perceptions of land, property and ownership appeared during the seventeenth century. The market had changed, and it was now easier than before to purchase land. The market was also more dynamic, with an increase in the number of disputes about land as a result. To a large extent, the power of the nobility, particularly the titled nobility, was based on their ownership of land, in many cases large tracts. In the course of the Thirty Year’s War, many noblemen had become very wealthy. The higher nobility in particular received grants of land from the Crown. Possession of land also generated political power. By the mid seventeenth century, broadly speaking, two thirds of all farms in Sweden and Finland were in the possession of the nobility. This meant that questions of ownership and other aspects of property became both important and sensitive issues for the nobility.497 Disputes about real estate and land ownership in the Svea Court of Appeal followed the same pattern as the disputes about economic matters. The repossession of Crown lands from the 1680s onward hit the nobility hard, greatly reducing the landownership of the nobility and weakening their power was such that in the 1680s only about a third of the nobility owned land. This also played an important role in the increase in disputes about real estate and land ownership towards the end of the century. In the 1690s, the ongoing disputes in the court of appeal over land ownership and disputes related to the repossession were numerous.498 Quite a 496 Judgement on 8 October 1690 (RA, SHA, B II a:61). 497 Upton, Anthony F. 1995 p. 19. 498 In the year 1690 alone, the Svea Court of Appeal adjudicated disputes related to the repossession on 3 May, 28 June, 14 July, 25 October (two judgements) and 9 December (RA, SHA, B II a:61). Disputes about Real Estate and Land Ownership
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