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538
iv. education and . mental culture.
ments in which a sound and original sense of justice had found expression; both
in matter and form they may be termed popular in the best sense of the word.
The theoretical study of law, however, even at that day was pursued by not a few;
we know the names of a large number of Swedes who equipped themselves for
future work at home by taking a doctor’s degree in law abroad, while at Uppsala,
from the very foundation of the university, in 1477, lectures on jurisprudence
formed an item on the programme of studies prescribed. Moreover, medieval
Swedish literature can boast of a philosophico-legal work of high rank by a
nameless scholar, entitled: Om konunga- och hövdingastyrelse, On the Rule of Kings
and Chiefs. It must be regarded as a significant evidence of an early and
advanced standard of legal culture having been attained in Sweden, that at the
epoch named it was possible in the Country and Borough Laws to produce a
systematic code of laws applicable to and in force throughout the entire realm.
For several reasons the Reformation Century did not materially foster the
development of Swedish jurisprudence. The following century, on the other
hand, the seventeenth, witnessed in various directions a not inconsiderable
advance by that science: the study of medieval law was carried on with ardour,
and as regards legislative output promising efforts were made in the domain of
Common Law and excellent results achieved in certain branches of specialized
law, more particulary in Maritime Law. The new tasks that devolved upon
Sweden owing to her participation in European politics, and the fresh interests
aroused thereby, implied a widening of Swedish jurists’ field of vision, while
the altered position of the country among the European nations made it more
feasible to call in from abroad the services of a number of leading scholars.
Apart from H. Grotius (1583—1645), a Dutchman who really only served
the Swedish State in a diplomatic capacity, S. v. Pufenclorf (1632 — 94) was
the most eminent jurist of the age. He was appointed professor at the
University of Lund, then just founded, 1668, and there wrote and published
in 1672 and 1673 his famous works on The Law of Nature and the Law
of Nations and on The Duties of a Man and a Citizen. The Law of
Nations as a subject of study had at an earlier date been accorded a special chair
at the Uppsala University — perhaps the first in Europe. Of greater and
more lasting importance, however, for Sweden was the work accomplished in
elucidating the various phases of development of Swedish law proper. Of the
many men who won considerable merit in this department J. Loccenius (1598
—1677) should be mentioned first, he having, during half a century of active
work in Sweden, not only furnished the legal literature of the country with its
first systematic digests, but likewise successfully devoted attention with to an
interpretation of our ancient laws. As a historian of law, however, he was
surpassed by J. Stiernhöök (1596—1675), the most eminent native scholar that
Sweden produced in the seventeenth century. His epoch-making work on the
early laws of the men of Svealand and of Götaland may to this day be regarded
as unsurpassed in its category.
It was the knowledge gained from the investigations made into ancient
Swedish law that enabled Sweden to shield itself from the danger —■ which at one
time, owing to the lively political and literary intercourse with abroad, was really
imminent — of being inundated with alien principles of law. That explains how
it was that the great legislative enterprise, planned and begun in the seventeenth
century, and consummated, under the masterly superintendence of G. Cronhielm
(1664—1737), in the 1734 Code of Laws, applicable to borough and country
district alike, could be based upon a wholly Swedish foundation. The work
of its compilation had absorbed the energies of the best jurisprudents in the
kingdom for a whole half century, but the result was a national masterpiece as
regards contents, language and style; its significance for succeeding eras it would
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