general background – mia korpiola 45 Charles’s Statute on Trials of 1598.107 The latter also addressed the problem of judges who did not exercise their office themselves, but delegated them to incompetent substitutes who could even be illiterate. Consequently, all judges were ordered to perform their office personally according to the law. The same statute insisted on reviewing the records of the first instance courts on an annual basis.108 King Charles also discussed the organisation of the royal revision assizes and reviewing the records of all thelagmänand district judges there with the estates in 1600, and enforced the statute in 1602.109 In the 1590s, royal courts consisting largely of Councillors of the Realm sometimes already sat in the town court of Stockholm with the burgomaster and town councillors on the panel of judges.110 On occasion, royal jurisdiction largely resembled the forms of manorial courts (borgrätt) when royal servants and officials were investigated.111 Provincial courts (landsting) were also organised in the early 1600s, like the one in Uppsala in 1602 presided over by Count Magnus Brahe, who was to be president of the Svea Court of Appeal.112 During King Charles’s reign, there were even many treason trials, adjudicated as part of the royal jurisdiction, which took place during the diet. On these occasions, the accused, especially noblemen, were tried by the representatives of the estates. But early modern Swedish treason trials taking place at the Diet with the estates and the Council of the Realm as judges will hardly give a reliable picture of the general state of the judicature in the country. As has been observed, the custom of having the Diet act as a court, especially in state trials, was already practised in 1517, and revived vigorously in the 1560s. The practice became increasingly common after 1600, particularly for cases of treason 107 Patent om åthskillige måhl, 20 March 1593, inKongl. stadgar, ed. Schmedeman, p. 103; Stadga om Rättegånger, 25 Feb. 1598, inKongl. stadgar, ed. Schmedeman, pp. 112-113. 108 Stadga om Rättegånger, 25 Feb. 1598, inKongl. stadgar, ed. Schmedeman, pp. 113-114. 109 Summary of the decisions of the Diet of Linköping, 19 March 1600, inKongl. stadgar, ed. Schmedeman, pp. 117-118; Mandate on Review Assizes in Uppsala, 4 Dec. 1602, in Kongl. stadgar, ed. Schmedeman, pp. 118-119. 110 Almqvist, Daniel 1940 pp. 31-43. 111 E.g., Setterkrans, Göran 1962 pp. 387-388. 112 Uppländska konungsdomar, ed. Edling, pp. 168-185. The records of that court do not specify whether the cases had been wagered or not. Most of the cases seem to have confirmed existing letters of judgement from lower instance courts after a review of the facts.
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