Sweden Judicial Jurisdictions

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Why Judicial Jurisdictions?
There are many reasons why you might want to search the Swedish court records for information about your ancestors. The courts were responsible for the processing of criminal and civil cases, but also for the recording of property transactions, the division of estates (probates and wills), and even death lists that were sent in by the parishes. Plus there is often a wealth of supporting documents for the cases. It is generally believed that most of the population can be found in the court records for one reason or another. But to search the court records, you have to know what judicial jurisdiction that your ancestor lived in. This article will help to sort that out. First let's look at how the judicial jurisdictions were formed.

Medieval - Mid 1600's
The oldest judicial jurisdiction in Sweden is the härad which predates written history, although some parts of the country use the term tingslag instead. Either way, each härad (or tinglag) used a place of judgement (a tingplats) to process criminal offenses and civil disputes. Before 1634 the kingdom was still divided into provinces (the Landskap) and every province had their own set of laws. In 1350 King Magnus Eriksson created a set of laws that were generally based on the provincial laws, but would be effective kingdomwide. There was one set of laws for the cities, and another set of laws for rural areas.

In the 1400's every Landskap had an appointed underlagman. Before that the lagmännen would travel around to the different Landskap. In 1442 the Landslag were revised during the reign of Christopher of Bayern. The Landslag was ratified with additions by Karl IX in 1608 and was used up until the 1734 Law was issued.

Mid 1600's - early 1900's
In 1670 the position of underlagsman was abolished kingdomwide.



To print a copy of this chart with the definitions see:.