sören koch conflicts which could not be resolved in a reasonable period of time or, even worse, not at all. The reason for this was that before the reforms the members of the jury in the first instance, who lacked legal training, often simply refused to come to a decision concerning complicated legal matters. So-called infinite judgments (uendelige dommer)32 were also quite common. In such cases a ruling was given under a certain reservation – such as: “if nothing else can be proven; if the law is not to be interpreted in a different way etc. […].”33 Neither party could rely on such rulings nor could such a verdict be executed. In consequence, it became common to press charges directly to the regional or even over-regional courts (overlagting).34 For the lawman and his lagting this implied an increase in the caseload. As a consequence, the proceedings before the courts of appeal took often an unreasonably long time. This forced the king’s administration to react. In a royal letter addressed to the local authorities in Norway it was commanded that all cases had to be dealt with and decided35 by the local 32 Nissen, Gunnar 1966 p. 43; Seip, Jens Arup 1934 p. 104 (uendelige dommer are unusual for the rulings of the lawman as well, in particular in the sixteenth century). 33 Such “infinite judgments” were expressly prohibited by Christian IV’s Store reces (1643) bookII chap 6§ 1and later the Norwegian Code (Norske Lov) 1-5-12: “Dommerne maa ingen u-endelige Domme udstæde med disse ord:Uden det anderledis kand afbevises, havis i Minde, aftalis, forstaais, bevisis, og andre deslige uendeligheder.”; translation: “Judges are prohibited from giving infinitive judgments by using these words: In the case that nothing else can be proved, was in mind, stipulated, meant, verified or phrases of equivalent character.” 34 It was possible to address a suit to other institutions with higher professional competences as ex post so-calledOverlagting (this term is a later invention of legal historians) which were in 1539 partly replaced by the institution of Herredager. In 1587 the governor of Norway commanded that the lawmen had to deal with the cases brought before them in their own districts, and that the gathering of anOverlagting should be limited to very complicated cases. Both the Overlagting and the Herredag were collective organs with high judicial competences (see also below chapter 4). However, the Overlagting had no regular meetings and the Herredag gathered together only every third year. They were therefore never real alternatives to the ordinary court-system. Finally, the claimant had the possibility to invoke a so-calledCommissarer, an institution which had both arbitration-like and court-like functions (cf. Norwegian Code 1-5-27 ff.). In this institution the lawman was joined by clerks, other judges or high representatives of the state administration. 35 The duty to deal with a case brought before a trial was first mentioned in a letter addressed to the lagrettemenn in Trondheim in 1579 and was repeated in a letter from 1587 addressed to the governor of Norway; (cf. Norges Rigsregistranter [NRR] II p. 697 f.; this is even clearer in a letter from 1590, cf. NRR III p. 64: “…because each lawman can judge 289
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