Ius and Scandinavia: The practice of oath taking from antiquity to Nordic laws

Welcome to this seminar organised by the PhD Student Forum at Uppsala Forum, which includes the two following presentations:

Olivia Peukert Stock: ”Remedium utile: The Oaths in Roman Law and Justice”

Abstract

Oath-taking held a central place within ancient Roman society, not least within the realm of Roman law. All parties in court had to or had the possibility to swear an oath at some point during the legal process: plaintiffs, defenders, judges, and witnesses. When were these oaths sworn? How were they utilized? In practice, what was their function? In this presentation, I shall present some suggested answers to these questions from Latin textual sources of different genres – such as juridical texts, historiography, and epigraphic materials – and discuss the dubious role of the oath as both a truth-ensuring means and a practical tool – a remedium utile. 

Martin Sunnqvist: “Judicial independence and impartiality in the Middle Ages - from canon law texts to oaths in Nordic laws”

Abstract:

A judge must be impartial and independent. These ethical standards of judging can be traced to medieval texts. For example, Isidore of Seville wrote that there are four ways in which human judgment is perverted: by fear, greed, hatred and love. This text was taken into the Decretum Gratiani. Similarly, Innocent III mentioned entreaty, reward, love and hatred as ways of influence that a just judge should avoid. There are close links from Innocent’s text to the oaths of judges in Constitutio Puritatem 1231 (Liber Augustalis) and Mainzer Landfrieden 1235; in the latter, love, hatred, entreaty, reward, fear and favour are mentioned. There are many ordines iudiciarii which mention the duty of the judge to promote law, truth and equity; this comes from Roman law. 

Thus, based on medieval texts, I will present a historical-comparative analysis of the influence of the ius commune on the western legal tradition of judging. The early development, which took place mainly in canon law, then spread to many different oaths of judges in today's Italy, Germany, France, Scotland, Hungary, and - not least - the Nordic countries. These oaths are enough similar to reveal a common thinking and common roots, but enough different to give reason to interesting comparisons. We see the legacy of this also in today’s oaths and the notion that a judge needs to be independent and impartial in his or her mind.

Both these studies are part of a newly initiated interdisciplinary scholarly network called Eden och den dömande makten: från forum till framtiden (Eng. The Oath and the Jurisdictive Power: From Forum to the Future).