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A Lexicon of Medieval Nordic Law E
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This polyglot dic� onary draws on the vast and vibrant range of vernacular JÄ
legal terminology found in medieval Scandinavian texts – terminology which R
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yields valuable insights into the quo� dian reali� es of crime and retribu� on; ,
the processes, applica� on and execu� on of laws; and the cultural and societal P
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for those studying the literature, languages and history of medieval and Viking
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Age Scandinavia. The Lexicon is a welcome contribu� on to the study of medieval
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Scandinavia on two counts: fi rstly, it makes accessible a wealth of vernacular
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historical documents for an English-speaking audience. Secondly, it presents legal
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terminologies that span the languages and geographies of medieval Scandinavia, N
drawing on twenty-fi ve legal texts composed in Old Swedish, Old Icelandic, Old S
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Norwegian, Old Danish, Old Gutnish and Old Faroese. By colla� ng and juxtaposing N
legal terms, the Lexicon thus off ers its readers a fascina� ng, comprehensive
window into the legal milieu of medieval Scandinavia as a unifi ed whole.
It is in this respect that the Lexicon diff ers from the other major lexica that
came before it: where relevant, it gathers closely related terms from mul� ple
Nordic languages beneath single headwords within single entries. This approach
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illuminates the diff erences (and similari� es) in usage of specifi c lexical items
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and legal concepts across geographic areas and through � me. This book is an
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The Lexicon is an ongoing project with a digital counterpart (h� ps://www. O
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dhi.ac.uk/lmnl/) created within the department of Swedish Language and
Mul� lingualism at Stockholm University. It is part of the wider ‘Medieval Nordic O
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Laws’ project based at the University of Aberdeen.
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As with all Open Book publica� ons, this en� re book is available to read for free on E
the publisher’s website. Printed and digital edi� ons, together with supplementary D A Lexicon of Medieval
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digital material, can also be found at www.openbookpublishers.com E
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Cover image: Carta marina, a wallmap of Scandinavia, by Olaus Magnus, 1539, N Nordic Law
Wikimedia, public domain, h� ps://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Carta_Marina.jpeg
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Cover design: Anna Ga� . R
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J.S. L , I L , U D ,
OVE NGER ARSSON LRIKA JÄRV
ebook and OA edi� ons
also available
C P , E S
HRISTINE EEL AND RIK IMENSEN
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A LEXICON OF MEDIEVAL NORDIC LAW
A Lexicon of Medieval Nordic Law
Edited by Jeffrey Love, Inger Larsson, Ulrika Djärv,
Christine Peel, and Erik Simensen
http://www.openbookpublishers.com
© 2020 Jeffrey Love, Inger Larsson, Ulrika Djärv, Christine Peel, and Erik Simensen
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0). This license allows you to share, copy,
distribute and transmit the work; to adapt the work and to make commercial use of the work providing attribution is made to the authors
(but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). Attribution should include the following information:
Love J., Larsson I., Djärv U., Peel C., and Simensen E. (eds.). A Lexicon of Medieval Nordic Law. Cambridge, UK: Open Book Publishers, 2020.
https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0188
In order to access detailed and updated information on the license, please visit
https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0188#copyright
Further details about CC BY licenses are available at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
All links were active at the time of publication unless otherwise stated.
A Lexicon of Medieval Nordic Law is available online at https://www.dhi.ac.uk/lmnl/
Digital material and resources associated with this volume are available at
https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0188#resources
ISBN Paperback: 978-1-78374-815-0
ISBN Hardback: 978-1-78374-816-7
ISBN Digital (PDF): 978-1-78374-817-4
ISBN Digital ebook (epub): 978-1-78374-818-1
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DOI: 10.11647/OBP.0188
The Royal Swedish Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities, the Magnus Bergvalls Stiftelse and the Stiftelsen Konung Gustaf VI
Adolfs fond för svensk kultur have generously contributed to this publication.
Cover image: Carta marina, a wallmap of Scandinavia, by Olaus Magnus, 1539, Wikimedia, public domain, https://commons.wikimedia.
org/wiki/File:Carta_Marina.jpeg. Cover designer: Anna Gatti
Contents
Introduction 1
LMNL 1
Material 1
Headword selection 3
Principles for lemmatization 3
Entry content 4
English>Nordic section 6
Appendices and bibliography 6
Abbreviations 6
Further notes 12
Research group 13
Nordic to English 15
English to Nordic 405
Appendix A: Administrative, Judicial and Fiscal Subdivisions 519
Danish laws 519
Göta laws 520
Svea laws 521
Guta lag and Guta saga 522
Norwegian laws 522
Icelandic laws 523
Appendix B: Agriculture and Forestry 526
General 526
Cultivated land: village, farmstead and farmyard 527
Cultivated land: arable land 529
Land-division systems 531
Non-cultivated land: meadow, pasture 532
Common resources and public property 534
Appendix C: Borders, Boundaries and Boundary Markers 537
Borders between provinces, districts or villages or with the type of border as part of the name 537
Boundaries between fields or meadows 538
Boundary markers 538
Boundaries at sea 540
Appendix D1: The Monetary System 541
Appendix D2: Weights and Measures 543
Appendix E: Kinship 547
Appendix F: Calendar of Church Feast and Fast Days 549
Bibliography 555
Primary 555
Secondary 557
Acknowledgements 579
Introduction
LMNL
A Lexicon of Medieval Nordic Law (LMNL) is a multilingual reference work designed to make terminology from several
medieval legal texts more accessible to English-speaking audiences. It contains over 6000 Nordic headwords, more than
9000 English equivalents and approximately 13,200 cross-references. It is intended to function as a general lexicon of
medieval Nordic legal terminology in use before the national laws. Where possible the editors have combined related
terms in multiple languages under the same headword in order to highlight similarities throughout the Nordic region
during the Middle Ages. The LMNL differs from other reference works, and in particular other lexica, by its presentation
of related terms from multiple languages within a single entry in a manner similar to the Kulturhistoriskt lexikon för
nordisk medeltid (KLNM). Around a quarter of the entries feature a brief text articulating how the term fits into the legal
landscape. Creation of the LMNL has been made possible in large part due to a generous project grant from the Swedish
Research Council (2014–2017) and the gracious cooperation of members of the ongoing Medieval Nordic Laws (MNL)
project begun at the University of Aberdeen in 2009. Draft English translations supplied by them, along with a small
number of published translations (see table below), form the basis of this lexicon. Additional support was provided by the
Royal Swedish Academy of Letters, which supplied funding for translations and revisions of some MNL laws and for the
LMNL colloquium held in Stockholm in November 2015.
Material
LMNL is built upon 25 legal texts, mainly provincial laws, written in Old Swedish, Old Icelandic, Old Norwegian,
Old Danish, Old Gutnish and Old Faroese. Material for the lexicon was taken from editions used in the latest English
translations of the oldest medieval Nordic laws, many of which were produced as part of the Medieval Nordic Laws
project. With such a large textual corpus and a relatively short timeframe in which to work, it was deemed most feasible
to collect Nordic legal terms and phrases and present them with the English equivalents selected by the translators of
the texts in which those terms appear. Modern English equivalents throughout the LMNL are therefore largely taken
directly from draft and published translations with minimal interpretation by the editors. Editorial interventions generally
consist of minor adjustments in cases where idiomatic translations would be confusing when removed from their contexts.
Equivalents in subsequent published translations will possibly vary somewhat from those presented here. Medieval terms
have been drawn from editions utilized by the translators. The following table is a list of texts cited, their common
abbreviations and bibliographic information on the editions and translations used for the LMNL.
BorgL Borgartingsloven Halvorsen, Eyvind Fjeld and Magnus Rindal, eds. 2008. De eldste østlandske
kristenrettene. Oslo: Riksarkivet. [Version 1, AM 78 4to]
L.Collinson (draft trans.)
DL Dalalagen Schlyter, C. J., ed. 1841. Codex iuris Vestmannici: Westmanna-lagen. SSGL. Vol.
5.Lund: Berlingska boktryckeriet.
I.Larsson (draft trans.)
EidsL Eidsivatingsloven Halvorsen, Eyvind Fjeld and Magnus Rindal, eds. 2008. De eldste østlandske
kristenrettene. Oslo: Riksarkivet. [Longer version, AM 68 4to]
L.Collinson (draft trans.)
© 2020 Jeffrey Love, Inger Larsson, Ulrika Djärv, Christine Peel, and Erik Simensen, CC BY 4.0 https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0188.01
2 Introduction
ESjL Eriks sjællandske lov Skautrup, Peter, ed. 1936. Eriks sjællandske lov, text 1–2. DGL. Vol. 5.
Copenhagen: Gyldendal.
Tamm, Ditlev and Helle Vogt, trans. 2016. The Danish Medieval Laws: The
Laws of Scania, Zealand and Jutland. London: Routledge.
FrL Frostatingsloven Keyser, R and P. A. Munch, eds. 1846. Norges gamle Love indtil 1387. Vol. 1.
Christiania: Grøndahl.
A. Mindrebø and J. S. Love (draft trans.)
GL Gutalagen Pipping, Hugo, ed. 1905–07. Guta lag och Guta saga jämte ordbok. Samfund til
Udgivelse af gammel nordisk Litteratur 33. Copenhagen: Møller.
Peel, Christine, trans. 2015. Guta Lag and Guta Saga. The Law and History of
the Gotlanders. London: Routledge.
Grg Grágás Vilhjálmur Finsen, ed. 1852 (repr. 1974). Grágás: Konungsbók. Odense: Odense
Universitetsforlag.
Dennis, Andrew, Peter Foote and Richard Perkins, trans. 1980–2000. Laws of
Early Iceland: Grágás; The Codex Regius of Grágás with material from other
manuscripts. 2 vols. Winnipeg: Univ. of Manitoba.
GS Gutasagan Pipping, Hugo, ed. 1905–07. Guta lag och Guta saga jämte ordbok. Samfund til
Udgivelse af gammel nordisk Litteratur 33. Copenhagen: Møller.
Peel, Christine, trans. 2015. Guta Lag and Guta Saga. The Law and History of
the Gotlanders. London: Routledge.
GuL Gulatingsloven Keyser, R and P. A. Munch, eds. 1846. Norges gamle Love indtil 1387. Vol. I.
Christiania: Grøndahl.
E. Simensen (draft trans.)
HL Hälsingelagen Schlyter, C. J., ed. 1844. Codex iuris Helsingici: Helsinge-lagen. SSGL. Vol. 6.
Lund: Berlingska boktryckeriet.
S. Brink (draft trans.)
Jó Jónsbók Schulman, Jana K, ed. and trans. 2010. Jónsbók. The Laws of Later Iceland.
Saarbrücken: AQ-Verlag.
Js Járnsíða Haraldur Bernharðsson, Magnús Lyngdal Magnússon and Már Jónsson, eds.
2005. Járnsíða og Kristinréttur Árna Þorlákssonar. Reykjavík: Sögufélagið.
J. S. Love (draft trans.)
JyL Jyske lov Skautrup, Peter, ed. 1933. Jyske lov, text 1: NkS 295 8o. DGL Vol. 2.
Copenhagen: Gyldendal.
Tamm, Ditlev and Helle Vogt, trans. 2016. The Danish Medieval Laws: The
Laws of Scania, Zealand and Jutland. London: Routledge.
KRA Kristinréttr Árna Þorlákssonar Haraldur Bernharðsson, Magnús Lyngdal Magnússon and Már Jónsson, eds.
2005. Járnsíða og Kristinréttur Árna Þorlákssonar. Reykjavík: Sögufélagið.
J. S. Love (draft trans.)
SdmL Södermannalagen Schlyter, C. J., ed. 1838. Codex iuris Sudermannici: Södermanna-lagen. SSGL.
Vol. 4. Lund: Berlingska boktryckeriet.
U. Djärv (draft trans.)
Seyð Seyðabrævið Poulsen, Jóhan Hendrik W. and Ulf Zachariasen, eds. Michael Barnes and David
R. Margolin, trans. 1971. Seyðabrævið. Tórshavn: Føroya Fróðskaparfelag.
SkKL Skånske kirkelov Aakjær, Svend and Erik Kroman, eds. 1933. Skånske lov: Anders Sunesøns
parafrase, skånske kirkelov. DGL Vol. 1, bk. 2. Copenhagen: Gyldendal.
Tamm, Ditlev and Helle Vogt, trans. 2016. The Danish Medieval Laws: The
Laws of Scania, Zealand and Jutland. London: Routledge.
