from well-travelled – marianne vasara-aaltonen 343 criteria for defining early modern professions.1026 Brundage lists the following criteria for a legal professional: his work promotes the interests of the whole community, he uses specific knowledge gained through lengthy studies, and he adheres to ethical rules and enjoys high social prestige. Brand, researching the English legal profession, has defined a legal professional as someone with expertise in the law who puts this knowledge at the disposal of others against payment, and this action takes up a majority of his time. Bowman, investigating judges in the province of Narbonne in the eleventh century, considers judges professional when they were not appointed on anad hoc basis or because of their relation to the parties to a dispute, they had a specialized knowledge on the rules, and enjoyed a professional identity.1027 As we can see, the question of whether to call the Svea Court of Appeal judges professionals and at what time depends completely on the criteria used. Thunander, researching the Göta Court of Appeal, writes that the seventeenth century assessors fulfilled most of the criteria of professionals. Their work was dependant on theoretical knowledge, was conducted in an organised form, and was tied to a higher authority. In addition, it was more than a part-time occupation, and the judges followed a set of ethical rules. The judges were not however required to have a specific education, nor was their competence tested.1028 Whether this was already true for all the Svea Court of Appeal judges in the seventeenth century is debatable, considering such things as the problems the court faced with judges’ absences and occupation with other public and private tasks. It is therefore more useful to take a functional approach to the question rather than trying to make a clear distinction between a professional and an amateur or layman. What matters most is how these men were able to manage their tasks. Musson, researching the English judiciary, rejects the dichotomy, and argues that even those traditionally labelled as amateurs often possessed acertain level of legal knowledge and could be called “men of law”, a term used by contemporaries as well. While not necessarily formally trained, these men of law may well have used legal literature, for instance. A similar functional approach is taken by Bilder, who has investigated seventeenth century legal practitioners from Rhode Island. She 1026 O’Day, Rosemary 2000 p. 4; Finlay, John 2000 p. 7. 1027 Brundage, James A. 2008 p. 2; Brand, Paul 1992 p. vii; Bowman, Jeffrey A. 2004 p. 84. 1028 Thunander, Rudolf 1993 p. 34.
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