スウェーデンの中世地方法について

概要

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The purpose of this paper is to research the medieval Swedish society analyzing the Swedish preserved provincial laws from medieval Sweden. Compared with continental Europe with Great Britain, Sweden has very poor historical written sources of medieval history. The medieval begins immediately after the end of the Viking Age, namely, from the early eleven century. Sweden has not produced written evidences under the Viking Age except runic inscriptions. Some of them can be dated but it is very difficult to define the historical date of an individual inscription. Inscriptions themselves tell us poor information on political, economical or social situations under the age. On the other hand runic stones with short sentences show evidence of their expeditions as far as to England, Russia, Greece, Byzantium and so forth. All of sudden in the first half of the 13th century a provincial law (Swedish landskapslag) called Aldre Vastgotalagen (Older law of Vastgotaland) was appeared, which influenced and encouraged to establish provincial laws in the different provinces. These provincial laws provide us with valuable written sources in Swedish enough to research the community of medieval Sweden. The surviving 11 provincial laws in old Swedish indicate clearly, for instance, the realm of the kingdom in the early medieval Sweden. To research the medieval history of a Swedish society, it is inevitable to analyze the laws : my research is to be continued.