general background – mia korpiola 33 delled on it came to represent legal modernity and advancement in comparison with the princely high courts established earlier.58 Sweden, influenced by German examples especially, fits the trend well. In fact, it had been assessed that the “Swedish development of Supreme Court exposed the country to a Europeanization process that started in the first half of the sixteenth century and ended with the Absolutism in the 1680s.”59 As has been observed, Swedish medieval state formation “was to a great extent a matter of the king acquiring control over communities or at least establishing certain instruments of power over them.” Accordingly, “gaining control over jurisdiction rather than over legislation” was at the heart of royal judicial power. This was only partially achieved.60 Feudal or patrimonial courts hardly existed in medieval Sweden in comparison to many other parts of Europe of the time. While the jurisdictional layout of the country was relatively simple, the sources of law were correspondingly fewer than in much of Central and Southern Europe. In later medieval Sweden, the judiciary was manned by laymen who had been nominated by the local communities and appointed by the king. The district judge (häradshövding), who was usually a local nobleman, was obliged to convene the local assizes three times a year, which the medieval laws specified. In addition to the ordinary district court sessions in the winter, summer and autumn, extraordinary assizes could be convened if certain serious crimes had taken place in the meanwhile or if the king convened a court session by letter or messenger.61 According to the mid-four58 Nehlsen-von Stryk, Karin 1997 pp. 147-148. 59 Modéer, Kjell Åke 1996 p. 193. 60 Lindkvist, Thomas 1997 pp. 225, 227. 61 Magnus Erikssons landslag, eds. Holmbäck, Åke – Wessén, Elias (hereafter MEL), Rättegångsbalken (hereafter R, Chapter on Procedure) 12, p. 163 and R 7, pp. 161-162. The winter assizes were to be held during a period from the “twentieth day after Christmas until the nine-week Lent” (i.e., roughly between mid-January until early February), the summer assizes from between “the mass of St. Botolf until St. Olof ’s Day” (i.e., roughly between mid-June and the end of July), while the autumn assizes were to be convened between “the Mass of St. Michael until the Advent” (the end of September and the end of November). In the 1442 law, these were identical for the autumn and winter assizes, while the summer assizes were to be held earlier in the period between Sweden and its Medieval Judicial System: Problems of the Sixteenth Century
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