a safe haven in the shadow of war? – mia korpiola 85 This is not to mean that this role did not grow and become increasingly important year by year after that. Nevertheless, I maintain that the appellate function was a more long-term one and that it was not one of the most urgent considerations for the establishment of a new court. It had long been common practice for the provincial governors and bailiffs to refer all cases of crime in which the interpretation of the law was unclear or royal mercy was thought necessary to mitigate the rigors of the law directly to the king. Throughout the sixteenth- and early seventeenth centuries, the register of the realm (riksregistratur) contains a steady flow of cases of crime referred to the king for advice regarding procedure, possible royal mercy –or confirmation of the punishment or death sentence.228 The 1614Ordinance gave the Svea Court of Appeal the right to oversee all cases which could involve a capital penalty (Lijfzsaker), vet the decisions of the lower courts and present them to the king with its own assessment.229 In fact, as Rudolf Thunander has shown in his book on the practice of the Göta Court of Appeal on criminal cases 1635 –1699, the courts of appeal came to have a key role in mitigating the rigours of the law and commuting the death penalties of criminals to hefty fines in the course of the seventeenth century.230 But the 1614 Ordinance gave the Court of Appeal evenmore extensive powers during the absence of the king in faraway places (i wår fierran frånwaru). The King granted the court the power to pronounce the definitive verdicts in such cases with the supreme royal authority and ordered that they be executed immediately. Only cases which the judges could not mitigate, but in which there were special circumstances making it “Christian” to spare the culprit’s life, did the King re228 E.g., RA, Riksregistraturet, vol 58, 1573, microfiche S20068 10/10, Answer of King JohanIII to Per Hansson, bailiff of Dalarna, regarding a peasant who had committed incest with his own daughter, 14. Nov. 1573; RA, 5401 Strödda domböcker och rättegångshandlingar, 17 Protokoll för laga ting i Gästrikland och Hälsingland 1609 –1624, Protokoll för häradsting i Hälsingland 1609 (unpaginated), Answer of King Charles IX regarding the heinous crimes and adulteries in Hälsingland, 8 Feb. 1610. 229 Rättegångs-Ordinantie (1614), in Kongl. stadgar, ed. Schmedeman, p. 139: “[S]kal förb:te Wår Doomhafwande medh sine Adsessoribus öfwersee alla Lijfzsaker, them vtur […] Domböcker skärskoda, oss sedan ther brede widh sitt egit betänckiande præsentera.” 230 Thunander, Rudolf 1993 esp. pp. 165-181. Pardoning Criminals and Raising Revenues: The First Year of the Court and Criminal Cases
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