Lov og lovgivning i middelalderen. Nye studier av Magnus Lagabøtes landslov

Abstract

In 1274, the Norwegian King Magnus VI Lagabøte—Magnus the Lawmender (1238–1280)—issued a law that was to be used throughout the whole country. This law, the Norwegian Code of the Realm (Landsloven), was so up-to-date on ways of thinking and forming law that it turned out to be in use until the Norwegian Code of 1687, more than 400 years later. King Magnus’ Code was part of a law-making project that began with the revision of the Norwegian provincial laws in 1267, culminating with the Code of 1274, and encompassing the Code of the Towns of 1276 and the Administrative Code of 1277. Even the Icelandic Jónsbók of 1281 became part of the project, since Iceland became part of the Norwegian Kingdom in 1262/64.The idea of broadscale law-making like the one found in the Norwegian Code of the Realm first emerged in Europe with the study of Roman law at the University of Bologna in the mid-twelfth century. Until then, princes and public assemblies had issued single or multiple provisions, but these usually just compiled existing legal norms. Effectively carrying out politics through making new laws for several spheres of society in one single act was not accomplished anywhere in Europe until the High Middle Ages and then only in a few places, Norway being one of them. Thus, the law-making during the reign of King Magnus VI is one of the most extensive and most successful legislative activities in Europe in the High Middle Ages, especially with the crown jewel of 1274. However, up to the present, no extensive research had been conducted on the Code of the Realm until this anthology, which is the first major collection of research on different aspects of the Code and its context.Ten articles written by Norwegian researchers make up the volume. The articles are not divided into sections, but there still seems to be some structural organization as the first four articles discuss the manuscripts containing the Code and the structure of the law text (which may have been inspired by Icelandic laws), and the next four articles focus on different procedural aspects and legal actors. The last two articles fall a little beside this structure as they discuss mortgage and security in medieval Norwegian laws and how one of the lesser-known Icelandic sagas was used to promote new ideas of justice presented in Jónsbók.In the first article, the two editors show how law in medieval Norway developed in three stages beginning with the writing down of existing single social rules to the collection of these in law books and finalized with outright law-making like the one known from the Code of the Realm. By studying the different manuscripts containing the Code, they show that the Code following its promulgation in 1274 was restructured and supplemented with new rules customized to local matters. Hence, during the fourteenth century, each Norwegian legal province turned out to have its own local version of the Code. This phenomenon is also known from other Norwegian and Icelandic laws of the period, as demonstrated by Anna Catharina Horn in chapter four. And according to Mette Refslund Witting's manuscript studies in chapter two, it was even continued in the Late Middle Ages, before it ended in the sixteenth century when the law was translated into Danish in order to make it possible for the royal officials of the now-unified Kingdom of Denmark-Norway to use it.Thus, the picture of a legal culture in which it was rather common to adapt and develop the law according to changing circumstances and problems, at least from the middle of the thirteenth century, is clear. Just to pinpoint the underlying result of the mentioned chapters, Else Mundal suggests in chapter three that some of the rules of early Icelandic law may have served as inspiration for some of the regulation by Magnus the Lawmender and his ancestors—an interesting thought which will probably be further investigated in the years to come.Turning to procedural aspects and legal actors, Bo Alexander Granbo discusses the phenomenon of judgment found in thirty-eight of the 212 chapters in the Norwegian Code of the Realm in chapter five. The criminal rules of the Code contain exceptions to the main rules on punishment, which makes it possible for the jurors to judge due to their idea of equity. This is something new brought into Norwegian law by the Code, probably through inspiration from canon law, Granbo concludes. According to Ole-Albert Rønning Nordby in chapter eight, the same happened concerning the rules of oath and compurgation, i.e. in the cases where a defendant could establish his innocence by taking an oath and by getting a required number of persons to swear they believed the defendant's oath. These changes within legal proofs, and the period's focus on suppressing the risk of perjury among witnesses and compurgators, are well-known at a European level, but Nordby puts it into a topographical Norwegian context different from most of Europe. Doing this, he shows that there were also local circumstances to take into account when it came to who could act as compurgators.In chapter six, Jørn Øyrehagen Sunde shows how the office of the Norwegian lagmann changed from being the local man who told what the law was at the local assembly (ting) to becoming a local royal officer and later judge as from the end of the twelfth century. Sunde illustrates how the lagmann during the thirteenth century more and more often was recruited from the higher nobility and served for longer and longer periods. This indicated an increasing professionalization of the office, which slowly but continuously spread from the western parts of the country situated around Bergen towards Oslo in the east.One of the tasks that the lagmann got during the thirteenth century was to act as judge or as the foreman of the jurors reaching a decision. In chapter seven, Else Mundal discusses the participation of women in procedural matters at the local assembly in Norway and argues that women in many cases could participate in, or be party to, such matters, just like men. According to Mundal, this maybe even included the task of juror. Unfortunately, the terminology is often difficult to interpret, but luckily Mundal knows this and is transparent in her line of reasoning. Therefore, the article is well-argued and takes us a step further in understanding the social setup at the assembly when it was acting as a court.As mentioned above, the last two chapters by Brage Thunestvedt Hatløy and Johanne Fjesme Nakrem discuss mortgage and security in medieval Norwegian laws and how one of the lesser-known Icelandic sagas was used to promote new law and ideas of justice presented in Jónsbók. Even though the analyzed saga in the latter is at the edge of the common subject of King Magnus's Code of 1274, it is interesting as it shows how legal development initiated by the socially leading circles could be argued and supported by stories more adaptable by the common people. This shows that lawmakers were aware of, and made use of, intentional strategies for getting their will through and having new rules accepted broadly. The same seems to be the case concerning mortgage and security, as demonstrated by Hatløy, who shows that the editors of the Norwegian Code of the Realm knew the different rules found in the earlier Norwegian provincial laws, but chose not to use them. On the contrary, based on their readings of the old laws and learned law, they instead formed a new concept that was more applicable in areas not thoroughly acquainted with rules of mortgage and security. This clearly indicates that they worked with a strategy for how to implement new law, ensuring that it would be used and would not just be a manifestation of the king's power.All the articles are well-written and even though there is no apparent structure in the volume, one can still find a kind of organized structure of the articles into two main sections as mentioned above. As there are no internal references between the articles or an introduction to present the findings of the individual contributions or of the volume as a whole, this at least gives the reader a chance to organize the reading and the conclusions made in the individual articles. But it would have helped to include at least a short introduction to guide the reader toward a more coherent picture of the findings, because it is there. Still, the quality of the articles and the very fruitful findings cannot be questioned. And therefore one can only look forward to getting more knowledge and new insights into Magnus the Lawmender's Norwegian Code of the Realm and its highly interesting context in the years to come, as we are approaching the 750th anniversary of King Magnus's Code in 2024. This is a good first step.