the svea court of appeal in the early modern period 210 Not all slander was considered to be gross and, according to the law, such less severe expressions should be punished by either a 40-mark fine or imprisonment on bread and water. Becchius defined those words as thoughtless. When the bailiff asked the peasant Zachrias Olson for a sample of tithe corn in 1664, the bailiff did not meet a willing tax payer but a very angry individual who, among other things, said that he did not care more for the King and the authorities than for his old shoes.583 For this, he was sentenced by the Court of Appeal – after an intercession by the local community – to one month in prison on bread and water; in other words a sentence which seems to have been in accordance with the regulations of the law concerning less severe slander. In 1686, Erich Andersson Eketåpp, a soldier, was denounced by his neighbours for slandering the authorities. Eketåpp asserted that they had been his enemies since before the present charge, but the Court of Appeal accepted the witnesses’ evidence. Eketåpp had been accused in an argument of being a thief and in that connection he had declared “that the King has stolen the life of many honest soldiers in enemy countries”. In a conversation related to prostitutes (kånor in plural), Eketåpp had stated that the Queen herself was a kåna. He defended himself by claiming that he had no intention of slandering their Majesties, since in Danish, the word kone meant an honourable wife. The reigning monarch, Charles XI (1655 – 1697, r. 1672 – 1697) had been married to the Danish princess Ulrika Eleonora, sister of King Christian V of Denmark, since 1680. The Court of Appeal stated, regardless of Eketåpp’s defence, that it was “not for subjects and servants to intermingle such high Royal Persons in their vain and indecent discussions;” instead those persons should be thought of “with respectfulness and veneration.” Eketåpp was sentenced to run the gauntlet seven times.584 But not only was the King and his consort protected, the councillors of the Realm were as well. In one of the decisions related to Becchius’s group Gross speaking against the Royal Councillors etc., the connection between the seventeenth-century Court of Appeal and its predecessors becomes evident when acase from1595 is reported: the accused was then sentenced by 583 RA, RA:s ämnessamlingar, Juridica I: Becchius-Palmcrantz’ samlingar, Vol. 4, Cap. 2, causa 4. 584 RA, RA:s ämnessamlingar, Juridica I: Becchius-Palmcrantz’ samlingar, Vol. 4, Cap. 2, causa 4.
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