entangled in insolvency – jussi sallila 285 However, the impression of confusion in the credit system and the legislation governing it may be partly based on our general conceptions of seventeenth-century Swedish legal history. Studies focusing on the longterm change, usually under the umbrella term “judicial revolution,” may obscure relevant changes that took place during the century, despite the fact that scholars writing about the judicial revolution often use the concept cautiously and in a nuanced way.814 While it is clear that a homogeneous and centralized legal system emerged as a cause of this very long revolution, the progress from the establishment of appeal courts in the early decades of the century to the commencement of the codification project in the 1680s was not necessarily straightforward. The introduction of absolutism by Charles XI (r. 1660 –1697) in 1680 is one of the great turning points in Swedish history. In the following years, the king was able to realize long-standing plans of a reduktion by which lands granted to the nobility were returned to the crown. Leading aristocrats were also hit harder by the restitution exacted from the members of the regency government for their mismanagement of the country’s affairs. In order to pay for the restitution, they sold much of their landed property, and their need to raise money benefited those who had capital. The increasing importance of moneyed property changed the power relations within the ranks of the nobility.815 The reasons behind the reduktion of 1680 and its consequences for Swedish society have long been debated by historians. The economic and social changes related to the reduktion had a major effect on the development of private law. Government officials sought to disallow transactions by which crown lands had been acquired by private persons against some sort of consideration and were therefore not directly touched by the reduktion policy.816 On the other hand, aristocrats used private law transactions such as wills, gifts, and prenuptial agreements in order to protect their property from the demands of the crown. According to Heikki Ylikangas, the political and economic 814 For an overview of the Swedish discussion, see Ågren, Maria 1997 pp. 34-38. 815 Ågren, Kurt 1973 pp. 255-256. 816 Ågren, Kurt 1973 p. 244. The Emergence of Bankruptcy Legislation during the Absolutist Period
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