the court of appeal as legal transfer – heikki pihlajamäki 227 law to the extent that they had in Germany. The Livonian paragraph was clearly a German loan. On the other hand, the Swedish peasants had always had a right to “go to the king” directly if they saw their rights violated, and they retained this right even after the founding of the Court of Appeal. The division of jurisdictions between the land courts and the Court of Appeal was clear and practically identical to that in Sweden proper. However, as court practice is observed, it becomes clear that the law in books was not necessarily the same as the law in action. As I will show further on, the Livonian legal reality proved to be considerably different than that of Sweden proper. The Swedish courts of appeal were not only courts of appeal. Indeed, it is likely that the Svea Court of Appeal was only partly founded for that purpose. Rather, the Svea Court seems to have been established to manage the crown’s legal business effectively and professionally, especially during the lengthy periods that the king was abroad because of wars.615 Soon, however, the Svea Court turned into an appeals instance, as the king continued deciding cases on appeal. This was one of two functions of other Court of Appeals founded later, such as the Dorpat Court of Appeal, from the outset. These later courts naturally never had the function of serving as the king’s “personal” court. Besides being appellate courts, all courts of appeals served as courts of first instance for the nobility, a forum privilegiatum, in which noblemen judged their peers. The Dorpat Court of Appeal fulfilled both functions. This, however, is a telling example of a situation where similar law in the books, when rooted in a different social and political environment, produces different results when put into practice. I will first consider the practice of the Dorpat court and then compare its practice to what we know about the Svea court on the basis of previous research and the contributions in this volume. 615 See the contribution of Mia Korpiola in this volume. The Functions of the Court of Appeals: Svea and Dorpat Compared
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