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for its basis [1], is just as certainly older than the
reign of Magnus Ladulas, as it is clear that tributes
already existed before his time. Originally these
were benevolences for the maintenance of the
yearly sacrifices, and for the warlike expeditions
of the king, which formerly for the most part took
place every year, or his progresses of pleasure
through the country; but various contributions for
the occasion, accruing in some cases from the soil,
in others from personal taxes, had gradually
assumed under dissimilar appellations in different
provinces the character of permanent taxes. For
every new impost the consent of the people was
requisite, although in this respect many abuses
even in these times existed, as we learn from the
injunctions of Magnus to his governors (Länsmen),
not to levy gavel against the will of the commonalty,
and from his own apologies to the Helsingers for
the demand of various extraordinary imposts, which
they had paid “of grace and not of obligation,”
and which he “humbly for God’s sake prays them
indulgently to judge and to pardon, bearing in
remembrance on the other hand whatever good he
might have effected in his day [2]”. Even this king
nevertheless looked upon the crown taxes as his
private property, and gives assignments on their
produce to furnish means for the rich endowments,
which he bequeaths by his will to churches and
monasteries.
It is an essentially false theory of the tenure of
taxed lands in Sweden, which gave importance to
the pretended statute of Helgeand’s Holm. It was
observed that from ancient times the settler on
commonable ground acquired by payments to the
crown a public recognition of his right of
property, and the conclusion was thence drawn, that
the crown had always been the possessor of the
soil; although when the common previously
belonged to a determinate parish, the payment of gavel
(skatt) to the crown, as old law cases in which the
point was tried establish, was a method by which
the new settler freed himself from the dependence
in which he had stood towards that parish [3]. From
this position there was but one step to another,
that liability to taxation was generally
incompatible with a full right of property in the soil, or
that the latter always belonged to the receiver of
the taxes; an opinion which has been asserted in
Sweden, as it has also been triumphantly refuted [4].
In itself, it is irreconcileable with the municipal
law of Sweden, which is a stranger to the ideas
that in other countries sprang out of a feudal
system founded upon conquest [5]. Such a system was
always foreign to Swedish institutions, and hence
these relations have but an external resemblance
to those which are found in other countries. This
holds true especially of the distinction between free
and unfree (Frælse and Ofrælse), defined no doubt
more sharply under Magnus Ladulas, but still
denoting only the exemption from or liability to
payment of taxes to the crown; the latter as well
as the former being conjoined not only with
personal freedom, but with the full right of property
in the soil.
Magnus extended to their complete developement
the immunities and privileges of the Swedish
clergy, and granted to the secular nobility their
first charter of exemption from taxation; although
this privilege was originally intended less to
increase the power of the nobles than that of the
crown. It may be properly described as an attempt
to transform all nobility into the feudatory class,
or to make the performance of service the condition
of possessing its immunities. Exemption
from tribute was, without doubt, anciently
among the rights of the so-called ‘king’s-men,’ who,
to use the words of Magnus himself, “attended
him with rede and help, and therefore were worthy
of greater honour.” They were likewise, for the
most part, men of birth; at least, none but
free-born could attain to the distinction of being the
king’s comrade in arms; but this nobility was
essentially personal, not hereditary. There was
besides a nobility of birth, acknowledged by
general consent, older than all charters, and powerful
enough to be able to dispense with them, although
the crown made attempts betimes to transform this
into a courtly or feudal nobility. The members of
this old aristocracy, originally sprung from families
either themselves of royal condition or allied with
royal houses, are styled in the records of those
times “the great [6],” “free barons and nobles of
the realm [7],” “high and well-born men.” These
too were surrounded by martial retainers, whose
numbers had been augmented in the intestine troubles
of the country, who used their power as the
measure of their freedom, and probably wanted as
little the will as the ability to shake off their due
share of taxation. That the “greater honour”
which household service obtained was not confined
merely to the king’s court, may be seen from the
higher value which the laws set upon the life of a
courtier, whether the person were in the service of
an earl, a bishop, or like great baron, who maintains
at least forty serving men in his household [8].
In the measure by which Magnus exempted from
payment to the king “all persons serving on horseback,
in the service of whomsoever they might be [9],”
there is an evident design, partly to array in defence
of the crown bands of warlike yeomen, who
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