This year marks the 750th anniversary of the Norwegian landslov introduced by King Magnus Lagabøte.
Norway was one of the first countries in Europe to introduce a national law.
To this day, it is considered a masterpiece of Norwegian and Northern European history.
Stefan Drechsler is a researcher in Old Norse philology at the University of Bergen and leads the project Nordic Law Books: The Production and Use of Vernacular Law Manuscripts in the North from 1100 to 1600 (NordicLaw). It has received funding through NOS-HS Project Grants under the auspices of NordForsk.
For the first time, the researchers are comparing Icelandic, Norwegian, Danish and Swedish legal manuscripts from the Nordic Middle Ages, i.e. the period 1100-1600. The starting point is interdisciplinary, and NordicLaw aims to expand our understanding of political and social relations in the Middle Ages.
National laws united the kingdoms
The Laws of the Land in Norway renewed and improved the Norwegian laws. Magnus Lagabøte was king at the time. The Norwegian kingdom was huge, as Iceland was part of Norway from 1264, and the Faroe Islands, Shetland Islands, Orkney Islands and Greenland were also part of the Norwegian tax territory until the late 1400s. The intention was to unify the many county laws and create a single law that applied to everyone in the entire country.
The new law of the land helped to secure peace and unite the people and the country as one. Norway, like the rest of Europe, was undergoing great development at the time. Trade and culture were important, and the king had a great intention to create a well-functioning, modern kingdom.
"With the National Act, many laws were renewed, and women's rights, servitude and poverty were put on the agenda, but it should not be forgotten that the National Acts were definitely not democratic. The king was above the law, and that in itself was undemocratic, even though he was not absolute, but dependent on the church and the aristocracy. The partially democratic processes in the courts, which had developed over hundreds of years, were almost abolished, because now it was only the king and his men who introduced new secular and partially religious rules. It was a very extreme centralisation of power," says Stefan Drechsler.
Even though the national law was introduced, there were still four major courts: Frostating in Trøndelag, Gulating in Western Norway, Eidsivating at Eidsvoll and Borgarting at Borg. In addition to the Land Act, King Magnus introduced city laws in 1276 in the four major cities of the time, Bergen, Nidaros (Trondheim), Tønsberg and Oslo.
The rest of the Nordic countries followed suit
Norway was one of the first countries in Europe to introduce a land law, but the other Nordic countries soon followed suit.
In 1281, Iceland got its own law, the structure and some of the content of which was based on Norway's Land Act. Around 1350, Sweden got its own country law, which was also used for many years, although Sweden's history was a little more complex in terms of political power. Denmark got a common law for the whole country when absolutism was introduced in the 1600s. Until then, Denmark had three major laws that applied to three areas: Jutlandic Law, Zealand Law and Scanian Law.
Handwritten texts are like works of art
"If you read the handwritten legal texts in a little more detail, they tell important stories about life in medieval Scandinavia. Today, books are printed in editions and all 2000 books are the same. In the Middle Ages, every single letter was written by hand, so there are differences between each handwriting, which also tells a lot about life at that time," says Stefan Drechsler.
Stefan Drechsler and the NordicLaw research team study all legal texts from the Nordic countries, and each text is unique.
"Each handwriting has its own style, which is why it's important to look at each handwriting through its own lens. The texts and their content must be understood in the context of the manuscript as an artefact. In every work of art, motifs have recognisable shapes, yet every art historian will study each work individually. Between 10 and 20 per cent of handwritten laws still exist, while the rest have been lost. Therefore, we only have a small part left today, and we must take good care of them."
Law series
NordForsk funds two projects that both research Nordic law. We are publishing a small series of articles on family laws and the introduction of national laws. This is the second article in a series of two. Read the first article here.
