slandering the king and his councillors – per nilsén 205 According to the Town Law, rebellion was to be tried by the King’s jury (konungsnämnd) and slander should – as we have seen – be tried either locally in a way that could be answered for the King or directly before the King himself. The regulations of the 1442 Law of the Countryside are more or less identical in that rebellion should be adjudicated by the King’s jury and, according to chapter 35 in the Chapter on the King, all crimes against the King – including slander – should be tried in a similar order.565 In other words, the 1615 regulation concerning the Court of Appeal’s jurisdiction in matters concerning crimen læsæ maiestatis was firmly in line with tradition.566 Investigations of criminal cases seen from the perspective of a Swedish court of appeal have been conducted before: Rudolf Thunander’s doctoral dissertationHovrätt i funktion: Göta hovrätt och brottmålen 1635–1699investigates the Göta Court of Appeal in Jönköping and its role in applying law and developing the legal system. The criminal law practice of the Svea Court of Appeal is less well investigated, largely as a consequence of severe losses of archival material. Thus, studies made concerning the Svea Court of Appeal and its practice – such as Sture Petrén, Stig Jägerskiöld and Tord O:son Nordberg, Svea hovrätt: Studier till 350-årsminnet – mainly concentrate on the development of private law. As mentioned, judicial practice was one of the most important sources of law during the seventeenth century and in criminal cases one essential tool for adapting the law was the practice of leuteration– an opportunity to mitigate the sentence of the court of first instance. Unlike the judges of first instance, the appeal court judges were not – or at least, did not necessarily consider themselves to be – bound to the explicit wordings of the law. According to the 1614 Ordinance of Judicial Procedure567 and the 1615 ted edition has “command”, see MESL, p. 26, note 28. 564 “Hwar som talar a Konung eller konungs Radh, en eller flere, thet a hedher thera gar eller Äro, och kan thet ey fulgtygha, witna swa sex godheMän som thet hördu: Warde halshuggin. Talar han annar smälig ord, som ey ga a hedher eller äro; Böte fyratighi Marker: Eller liggie i Konungs häktilsom en Manadh, och äti watn och brödh,” Sweriges Rikes Lands-Lag, ed. Abrahamsson, p. 162. Cfr. MELp. 28, note 84. 565 Cf. MEL, p. 37, note 185. 566 Cf. Petrén, Sture 1964 pp. 3-13. 567 Konung Gustaf Adolphs Rättegångsordinantie […], article 16, Kongl. stadgar, ed. Schmedeman, p. 139. which do not attack honesty or honour, he shall pay forty marks or lie in the King’s gaol one month living on water and bread.564
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjYyNDk=