annika björklund servants appear more independent; they could register their written testament at the notarius publicus without the approval of their master or mistress. For Swedish servants the support from a master or mistress seems to have been necessary. This examination offers a quantity of new knowledge concerning servants in medieval Sweden. Furthermore, it reveals new statistics concerning medieval testaments and their development over time, and a number of differences among male, female, and ecclesiastic testators has been identified. The words used by testators to describe the relationships to servants often indicate a warm and kind bond of appreciation, and a wish to take care of the servants and make arrangements on their behalf. Whether or not all servants in a household usually were remembered in a testament, or only the ‘favourites’, is unknown; such remembrance was of course also related to what the testator could afford.83 In the 1200s testaments show how slaves as well as free servants were part of both lay and ecclesiastic households. In the late 1200s a major change was taking place: the emancipation of slaves.84 Since slaves, as far as we know, gained their freedom without being granted gifts of landed property, one available opportunity for these former slaves was probably to remain as workers on the estate; in Andersson’s words, they were turned into ‘servants in husbandry’ (Sw. legofolk).85 Based on the testaments, there is no evidence of former slaves becoming ‘ordinary’ free servants, but further research may nuance this picture. 349 Concluding discussion Social hierarchies of servants 83 See the discussion in Laumonier 2022, pp. 328ff. 84 Although, as mentioned above, the emancipation of slaves was not new at this time (see Brink 2021). 85 Andersson 2023.
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