mixed legal systems – kjell å. modéer 407 The geopolitical situation in the Baltic Sea area changed dramatically during the first half of the seventeenth century. The Swedish foreign politics had already been increasingly expanding in the mid-sixteenth century during the reign of Gustav I (1523 –1560) and his sons, starting with the jurisdiction of Reval (Tallinn) in the 1560s. The ambition to include the territories around the Baltic, however, first became a reality with Gustav II Adolf and his chancellor Axel Oxenstierna (1583 – 1654). Livonia, with the towns of Reval and Riga, came under Swedish jurisdiction (Svea Court of Appeal) 1621, confirmed in the Truce of Altmark 1629. In the early 1630s, while Johan Skytte (1577 –1645), the first Governorgeneral in Livonia, was very active in his efforts to incorporate the conquered territories into the Swedish central administration, the king and his chancellor, were “politically more realist” (Pihlajamäki). Their position was more strategic in relation to the territories which might be conquered in the Thirty Years’ War, Sweden having entered this conflict in 1630. In the upcoming peace negotiations, Sweden had to take the position that the provinces to be within the German empire should obtain the political status of independent provinces with their own government, parliament and courts. This form of established foreign policy, established in the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648,1159 had a great impact on the role of the courts and the jurists in the Swedish provinces in relation to mainland Sweden up to the beginning of the nineteenth century. From a constitutional perspective, early modern Sweden has been characterized as a composite state as well as a conglomerate state. Heikki Pihlajamäki uses the termcomposite state “under the umbrella of which the various territories in the state were allowed to retain differing degrees of independence.”1160 The Swedish historian Harald Gustafsson has characterized Sweden during this period as aconglomerate state1161 which meant that several territories were united to a central power but on shifting terms and provisions. The provinces could have laws, customs, a judicial system and privileges of their own. Thus even if the President (Chief Justice) of the Swedish High court for its German provinces, the Tribunal in Wismar, always was a distinguished Swedish Councillor of the Realm, all the high justices were picked from the provinces and the legal system they applied 1159 Modéer, Kjell Å. 1975. 1160 See Heikki Pihlajamäki’s article in this volume, p 220. 1161 Gustafsson, Harald 2010.
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