Mia Korpiola

The Svea Court of Appeal, founded in Stockholm in 1614, represented a new type of a superior royal tribunal in early modern Sweden. While the first century of the Court has merited scholarly attention before this, fresh insights have been gained by asking new questions, using comparative methods and rereading the sources. This volume contains ten essays and a concluding chapter. They shed new light on the Svea Court of Appeal making law, personifying justice and forming part of the power structures of Sweden. The essays also highlight the legal actors: king, judges, litigants and mag­istrates of Stockholm. The volume reinterprets the founding and role of the Court as well as it provides new perspectives on its activity.

Swedish medieval marriage formation was a process, written down in the secular laws. However, it started to evolve because of the interaction with the medieval Catholic marriage doctrine, which focused on mutual words of consent. Although first the canon law of marriage, and then Lutheran marriage dogma influenced the Swedish development, the perception of marriage as a process, consisting of several legal acts and accompanied by property transfers, proved remarkably resilient. The pragmatic and rural character of Sweden contributed to this, despite pressure from canon and Roman law and attempts at bringing marriage formation under ecclesiastical control. Marrying by stages was in itself unremarkable in Europe, but the legal foundation and formality make medieval and sixteenth-century Sweden a unique case study.