sören koch sions rested upon the king’s authority. By thus reducing the parties’ freedom to resolve conflicts on their own terms, the introduction of the lawman’s new authority was intended to, and actually did consolidate the king’s influence over the legal order. The function of the lawman was, nevertheless, traditionally limited to judge the legal aspects of a case, while gathering of evidence was still a domain of the local assembly.16 In addition the local assembly, or a specific number of its members (lagrette), had the task of deciding on the specific remedies necessary to reestablish social peace. The Norwegian medieval laws commonly allocated a wide scope of discretion to the judge when it comes to quantifying compensation for damage done or other breaches of the law. These specific remedies were determined without the involvement of the lawman. In so far one may speak of an element of the people’s participation in the judiciary. However, as we will see, this element lost almost all of its factual importance already some years after the enactment of the code. Furthermore, it may on the one hand be correct to state that a first official structure of the judiciary had been established by the Code. On the other hand, the existence of canonical and royal court side by side made it impossible to speak of just one pyramidal hierarchy of courts. Finally, no formal system of appeal was established by the Code of the Realm. The district courts (lagting) had not yet become real courts of appeal. The lawman was in charge of these courts, but at the same time was appointed judge and legal advisor at the local ting.17 In both assemblies the lawman was originally supposed to judge together with a specific number of representatives from the local assemblies (næffnemæn/nevndemen).18 From shall send a letter to the king with an explanation of what they think is true in the case and on which evidence this truth is based.” See also Code of the Norwegian Realm, book I art. 1-4. 16 Seip, Jens Arup 1934 p. 62 f.; Imsen, Steinar 1990 p. 100 ff. and 153 f. to some extent critical to this; Sunde, Jørn Øyrehagen 2010b p. 167 note 484. 17 Sunde, Jørn Øyrehagen 2014b p. 144 translates lögmaðr therefore as “appeal court judge”. To use this term in relation to the Code of the Realm from 1274 is, however, to some extent misleading, taking into consideration both the fact that the regional court still was not a proper court of appeal and that the lawman had other functions on the local level, cf. below. 18 Code of the Realm, book I art 1-2. Seip, fn. 16 p. 52 ff. who calls these layman judges “Nevndemenn”. 285
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