suum cuique tribuere – elsa trolle önnerfors 189 hufvud was guilty of defamation and forcing him to pay a substantial fine.528 Even if Creutz was acquitted of the accusations, his reputation had been tarnished. In the following years, his career as a judge was declining, and in 1652 he left the Court of Appeal and never returned.529 By the mid seventeenth century, the art of printing was blooming, and several new printing offices were established in Stockholm. A problem related to this new way of reproducing publications was an increase in the use of printed lampoons and libellous pamphlets intended to impugn somebody’s honor. A royal ban preventing the use and spread of such publications was published in 1665.530 The ban was reaffirmed three years later,531 but this did not stop their use, and the records of the Svea Court of Appeal revealed several disputes about printed lampoons throughout the period.532 One of the better-known disputes about lampoons was settled by the appeal court in 1670. In 1669, Konrad Gyllenstierna (1638 – 1684) married Märta Kristina Ulfsparre (1654 – 1671). The wedding was one of the great events in high society that year, and the wedding dinner was attended by the king, the queen dowager, the Councillors of the Realm and the cream of the nobility. During the wedding dinner, the famous Swedish seventeenth-century poet Lasse Johansson Lucidor (1638 – 1674) recited (unasked) a comic poem called “Gilliare Kwaal” (“A Suitor’s Agony”) to honour the groom. The poemrather ironically described all the hardships and embarrassments that a man has to endure when he is about to propose to his beloved. Lucidor also had had the poem printed and handed it out to all the wedding guests. Anice gesture perhaps, but the problem was that Gyllenstierna was not amused. On the contrary, he was offended and humiliated since his honour and virtue had been attacked. As far as he was concerned, the poem was a lampoon, and publishing such writing was an offence according to Swedish law. Just a few weeks after the wedding, Gyllenstierna sued Lu527 Judgement on 13 December 1690 (RA, SHA, B II a:61). 528 Judgement on 15 June 1650 (RA, SHA, B II a:22). 529 Lappalainen, Mirkka 2007 p. 158. 530 Kongl. May:tz Placat och Förbud angående Pasquiller och Smädesskriffter, 21 April 1665, printed inKongl. stadgar, ed. Schmedeman , pp. 438-439. 531 Kongl. May:tz Stadga och påbud, öfwer åtskilligge Missbruks och Oordningars afsakffande wid Ridderskapetz och Adelens Trolofningar, Bröllop, Giästebud, Barndop och Begrafningar, 19 December 1668, printed inKongl. stadgar, ed. Schmedeman , pp. 549-560. 532 For another example, see the judgement on 22 November 1690 (RA, SHA, B II a:61).
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