The formation of law in the Scandinavian countries, independent of the factors operating in continental Europe, proceeded in an original way.
The Scandinavian countries, with their harsh natural conditions, did not develop classical feudalism in the European sense: the peasantry here remained personally free, and the feudal nobility was not as rich and powerful as on the European continent. Feudal relations crystallized slowly. It was first developed in Denmark (in XII century), and then (in XIII-XIV centuries) in Norway, Sweden, Finland and Iceland, while in the rest of Europe feudal relations already dominated.
The historical development of the Nordic countries was characterized by: a relatively underdeveloped administrative hierarchy; the presence of free peasants; democratic forms of accommodating the interests of different strata of the population within a church parish, which led to compromise means of resolving arising social disputes and conflicts; and constant adaptation of economic development to the conditions of patriarchal society. Thus in the Scandinavian countries a centralized state and the law unified on the territory of the country emerged quite early.
Since XIII century Sweden has been consolidating its legislation. In the middle of XIV century two laws were issued, one of which regulated relations in the countryside and another one regulated relations in cities. These acts existed in Sweden for 400 years. Over these years they were repeatedly changed and supplemented. An important role in adapting these laws to new conditions of social life was played by the courts.
In the 17th century Swedish jurisprudence adopted many designs and principles of Roman law that had been copied in European countries, so that these Roman elements became an integral part of Swedish law and Swedish legal culture. It should not be forgotten, however, that the reception of Roman law affected the Nordic countries in a minor way. Its main consequence was a stronger connection with continental European legal science than with English legal science.
The strong links between the Nordic legal systems can be explained by the fact that there have always been historically strong political, economic and cultural links between the Nordic countries. However, the full unification of Denmark, Norway and Sweden was only temporary. It was documented as the Kalmar Union and existed from 1397 to 1523. But the connections between Sweden and Finland and between Denmark, Norway and Iceland were much stronger and lasted for centuries.
In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries Finland was conquered by Sweden and Iceland. Finland was conquered by Sweden and was part of the Swedish Empire until (until 1809), when Sweden was forced to return Finland to Russia as a result of a lost war with Russia. The Russian state granted Finland substantial autonomy as an independent Grand Duchy. As a result, when Finland separated from Russia after the October Revolution of 1917 and proclaimed its independence in 1918, its legal unity with Sweden was not considerably weakened.
Since Denmark, Norway and Iceland had been centrally ruled by the Danish royal family since the late fourteenth century, Danish law was also in force in Norway and Iceland. In 1814. Denmark had to cede Norwegian territory to Sweden in 1814, but the Norwegian people were able to gain a significant measure of autonomy within the Swedish Empire and were granted full autonomy peacefully in 1906.
World War II.
The general historical basis of Scandinavian law was Old German law. However, each Nordic country developed its own distinctive characteristics. Since the 12th century the norms of Old German law were introduced in numerous land laws and in later times also in city laws. Already from the first acts of the central government the process of unification
Already in the first acts of central power there has been a process of unification and unification of the law. In Sweden in the 14th century it was possible to unite the law of separate localities into a single land law and the law of nations into a single municipal law.
During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, two most important legal acts, two codes, were formed: the first was the Code of King Christian V, adopted in Denmark in 1683 (in 1687 it was extended to Norway as “Norwegian Law”) and the second was the Swedish Code of Laws of 1734.
Both legal monuments had a lot in common. The Code of Danish King Christian V included, in addition to general provisions, sections on the clergy and secular estates; on the law of commerce and marriage; on the law of the sea; on the law of property and inheritance; and on criminal law. The Swedish code was divided into sections on marriage, parenthood, and children; inheritance; real estate; construction; commerce; crimes; execution of judgments; and court procedure and administration.
The Swedish Code had 1,300 paragraphs. Like the Danish Code, it was written in language which was simple and clear to the people, and it served to regulate more precisely, also eschewing the theoretical generalizations and didctrinal notions as they were introduced on the European continent by advocates of natural law in the 18th century. These two codes formed the basis for the further development of both branches of Scandinavian law, Danish and Swedish. However, attempts to introduce law reforms that would structurally affect the established system of law were unsuccessful. It is unlikely that the above-mentioned acts could be regarded as codes even at the time of their adoption. Rather, they should have been characterized as sets of existing legislation, since the individual parts of these legislative acts are not connected with each other in any way. All the more so, they cannot be recognized as codes now that they include only a small part of the current legislative provisions.
The Swedish Act of 1734, which is still in force today, includes practically none of the provisions that were part of it when it was passed. Most of the previously existing provisions have been replaced by separate laws, the norms of which form the core of the legal regulation of relations in the respective spheres.
Today the legislation, which did not fit into the systematics of the Act of 1734, covers many branches of Swedish law: labor and shareholder law, legislation on industrial property protection and social security, environmental protection, many parts of administrative law, in other words, to a greater extent, those areas of law regulation, which appeared as the social and economic development of the country since the mid XIX century.
The Danish Code, by contrast, has been preserved largely as a historical monument. The codified legislation represents by no means a large part of the country’s current law. In Norway, the importance of jurisprudence as a source of law is clearly established. The role of jurisprudence in Sweden is also significant, and this distinguishes Scandinavian law from the Romano-Germanic family of law, bringing it somewhat closer to the common law.