entangled in insolvency – jussi sallila 269 own debtors as events beyond the control of the debtor. However, there is an important difference between the approach adopted in the proposal and the commercial outlook of the Gothenburg and Landskrona privileges. As in Roman law, the scope of the benefit for the honest debtor was limited to a subsistence minimum. If the debtor acquired new property, he was liable for the old debts. Such a limited benefit gave the debtor a means to earn his livelihood, but not a fresh start for engaging in large-scale business requiring credit and capital. In this respect, the 1643 proposal seems to correspond with contemporary practice in cases where the debtor ceded all his property to his creditors.736 As far as creditors’ rights were concerned, the proposal was a first attempt to regulate the order of payment in insolvency. Chapter XIII even included Roman law privileges for claims whose position in Swedish law was very doubtful. For example, a creditor who had lent money for construction or repair of a building or a ship was to be preferred over ordinary creditors.737 The versio in remprivilege is primarily an incentive of certain kinds of investment. In seventeenth-century Sweden, such priorities were introduced to promote the development of the mining industry.738 In 1652, Queen Christina (r. 1632/44 –1654) issued an edict that guaranteed the right to priority for creditors who had extended credit to peasants engaged in mining (bergsmän). The purpose was to promote mining in Bergslagen and thereby increase crown revenue.739 In the case law of the Svea Court of Appeal during the 1660s, creditors who had extended credit for the purpose of reconstructing buildings after fire were given priority over older claims.740 These privileges were in all likelihood adopted from abroad, probably Germany, where similar provisions were included to promote various industries and the reconstruction of cities.741 It is important to note the difference between such promotion of industry through privileges in insolvency and the commercial logic behind the rules of compo736 See Möller, Sylvi 1954 pp. 272-276, on the management of insolvency in Finnish town courts from the 1630s to the 1650s. 737 XIII:8: “Lähnar man Penninga till Huus, Skiepp eller hwariehanda thet wara kan, Byggning och Vppehåld, hafwi han ther till för androm störste Rätt.” 738 Munktell, Henrik 1934 pp. 29-32. 739 Kongl. May:tz Resolution och Förklaring uppåN. N. Supplication, angående någre till åtskillige Bergzmänner giorde försträckningar, 24March 1652, Kongl. stadgar, ed. Schmedeman, p. 293. 740 Benckert, Karl 1920 p. 114, referring to judgments of 13 Dec. 1665 and 7 April 1669. 741 Hofer, Sibylle 2004 pp. 180-181.
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