the svea court of appeal in the early modern period 28 Admittedly, the founding of the Court, bringing order to disorder, seems like a beacon of light against such a sombre background. But was the state of the justice system in the previous decade really as lamentable as has been suggested? Had there not been various attempts on the part of the crown to control the Swedish judicature better and provide the people of Sweden with justice and order? In this chapter, the Svea Court of Appeal will be presented against the background of the re-organization of the King’s judicial powers as the highest judge in his realm. I will be investigating the pre-history and early stages of the so-called “legal revolution” in Sweden. In early modern Sweden, the courts of appeal have generally been identified as one of its main instruments, symbolizing elements of interruption and change in the Swedish legal culture. As Göran Inger has observed, “[t]here were no medieval counterparts for the courts of appeal, established in the seventeenth century. They were new creations with German equivalents as models.”34 Without wishing to debate Inger’s view as such, the courts of appeal should also be seen in the light of the longue durée history of supreme jurisdiction, as means to organize and centralize the royal jurisdiction and bring the administration of justice more effectively under the control of the royal administration. Below, I will discuss the Svea Court of Appeal in its context as part of organizing the ruler’s judicial power and as part of the legal revolution. The “judicial crisis” supposedly behind the establishment of the court will be assessed against this background. In late-medieval and early modern Europe, the higher justice of kings and rulers came to play a considerable role in what has been called a “judicial revolution” at least since about 1980. In the context of European legal history, the judicial revolution has been defined as the “tendency for local communities progressively to lose control of both the content and the administration of criminal law to the agents of the expanding state.”35 Richard L. Kagan has also written about a “legal revolution” in late medieval and early modern Castile, meaning by this term a marked rise in “the for34 Inger, Göran 1986 p. 117: “Någon medeltida motsvarighet till de på 1600-talet inrättade hovrätterna fanns inte. De var nyskapelser med tyska motsvarigheter som förebild.” 35 Gatrell, V.A.C. – Lenman, Bruce – Parker, Geoffrey 1980 p. 6. Courts of Appeal as Tools of the Legal Revolution
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