legal compilation in early modern denmark and norway cause of the insufficient quality of legislation the supreme court judgements, in particular, remained an influential source of law.114 Yet in order to be used as a source of law, case law had to be accessible to those applying the law. This in turn required that collections of case law could circulate in the legal community. There was thus a creative element to the act of publishing case notes, both concerning the choice of cases and the justifications. The first printed collection of case law was Christian Ditlev Hedegaard’s Juridisk-Practiske Anmærkninger til den Danske og Norske Lov indeholdende adskillige mærkværdige Tilfælde eller Spørsmaal som ere forfaldne i eller uden Rettergang (Copenhagen, 1764). Friedrich Wilhelm Wivet’s Forsøg til Fortælning om mærkværdige Danske og Norske Sager udførte i Høyeste-Ret (1775) was another example.115 ‘Mærkværdig’ here should be understood in its literal meaning as something ‘worthy of marking’ or note. The first periodical to contain case lawwas Samling av juridiske og historiskeMaterier (1784–1785) published by the Norwegian Lorentz Ewensen.116 As compilations, all these collections stand out for the deliberate way in which rulings were selected. However, its starting point was once again the practical considerations, not systematic or legal priorities. Systematic collections of case law would not be available for Denmark and Norway until the nineteenth century, when Supreme Court judgements were published in periodicals. 114 Marius Mikkel Kjølstad, Sören Koch & Jørn Ø. Sunde, ‘An Introduction to the Norwegian legal Culture’, in Sören Koch, & Jørn Ø. Sunde (eds), Comparing Legal Cultures (2nd edn, Bergen: Fagbokforlaget, 2020), 119. 115 Christian Ditlev Hedegaard, Juridisk-practiske Anmærkninger til Danske og Norske Lov indeholdende adskillige merkværdige Tilfælde eller Spørsmaal, som ere forefaldne i eller uden Rettergang, 4 vols (Copenhagen, 1764–1767); Frederik Wilhelm Wivet, Forsøg til Fortælning om mærkværdige danske og norske Sager udførte i Høyeste Ret (Copenhagen, 1775) (although further volumes were planned, Wivet did not manage to publish them). 116 Lorentz Ewensen, Samlinger af juridiske og historiske Materier, ved Lorentz Ewensen, Kongelig Toldprocureur i Trundhiems Stift, 4 vols (Trondheim, 1784–1786). 227
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