the svea court of appeal in the early modern period 328 the eighteenth century. In 1754, only one of the 24 judges had not already been a trainee. The numbers are roughly the same for 1774, 1794 and 1809 as well. Those who had trained at the Svea court had sometimes also been trainee at other courts of appeal or in town courts. Why this change?961 A few possible reasons can be suggested. The majority of the auskultanter were of a non-noble background, which until 1698 only enabled them to reach an assessorship in the third class of the court, unless they had been ennobled later. As non-noble trainees seldom reached such high positions early in their careers, there was no great rush to the assessors’ positions in the early seventeenth century. The change seems to have occurred after the class division of the court had been abolished. A worsened labour market meant that the number of auskultanter increased greatly in the 1670s and especially after 1700 – so much so that they had to find positions even outside the judiciary. In such a situation, it is understandable that there were many former trainees at the Svea court as well. A final possible explanation which could account for the situation in the seventeenth century was that the capital city of Stockholm offered so many different positions within the central administration that not all trainees ended up at the court of appeal.962 The previous sections demonstrated how the educations and careers of the Svea judges changed during the course of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The educational level of the judges rose after the first couple of decades, and around 1700, the turn towards domestic education was taken after a long tradition of foreign education. Similarly, a change within the careers took place at roughly the same time, from more diverse administrative careers to more judicial ones. Now it is time to examine some of the reasons for these changes. 961 DavidGaunt, who has studied the trainee system, discusses the starting and ending positions of theauskultanter in his research. Unfortunately, he does not make any distinction among “higher offices” or discuss the ending positions according to different time periods. He also states that he leaves a discussion on the later positions within the court of appeal outside the scope of his study. See Gaunt, David 1975 pp. 138-153, 161. It is thus difficult to see whether the numbers here correspond with Gaunt’s research. 962 Petrén, Sture 1964 p. 92; Gaunt, David 1975 pp. 97, 142, 149-150. Changing Sweden, Changing Requirements
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