Learning Law and Travelling Europe: Study Journeys and the Developing Swedish Legal Profession, c. 1630–1800

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In Learning Law and Travelling Europe, Marianne Vasara-Aaltonen offers an exciting account of the study journeys of Swedish lawyers in the early modern period. Based on archival sources and biographical information, the study delves into the backgrounds of the law students, their travels through Europe, and their future careers.
In seventeenth-century Sweden, the state-building process was at its height, and trained officials were desperately needed for the administration and judiciary. The book shows convincingly that the studies abroad of future lawyers were intimately linked to this process, whereas in the eighteenth century, study journeys became less important. By examining the development of the Swedish early modern legal profession, the book also represents an important contribution to comparative legal history.
Copyright Year:
2020
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ISBN:
978-90-04-43166-9
Publication:
18 May 2020
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ISBN:
978-90-04-43165-2
Publication:
23 May 2020
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Marianne Vasara-Aaltonen, LL.D. (2018), a postdoctoral researcher in Legal History at the University of Helsinki, has written on the history of the legal profession, legal education, and the judiciary in Sweden and Finland from the seventeenth to the twentieth centuries.
"The work’s greatest merit is its level of factual detail and the abundance of information which it presents on the history of the state and law, and on the history of education and of the elites of the Kingdom of Sweden in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. [...] a valuable prosopographical study which contains a wealth of biographical data regarding a few dozen persons who held positions in the judiciary, civil service, diplomatic service and the military, and will undoubtedly be of use for comparative research into the elites of early modern Europe."
Marcin Broniarczyk, in Kwartalnik Historyczny 128 (2021).
 Acknowledgements
 List of Figures and Tables

Part 1: Setting the Scene for Swedish Lawyers’ Travels
 1 Introduction
 1 Research Questions
 2 Previous Research
 3 Sources and Methods
 3.1 University Matriculation Records as Sources
 3.2 The Academy of Turku in Finland as Representing the Swedish Situation
 3.3 On Law Students and Universities
 3.4 Comparisons
 4 The Structure of the Book
 2 Studies Abroad as a European Phenomenon
 1 Universities in Europe
 1.1 The Character of Medieval and Early Modern Universities
 1.2 Teaching Law and the Emergence of a Legal Profession
 2 The Travelling Student throughout the Centuries
 2.1 The Peregrinatio Academica
 2.2 The Noble Traveller
 2.3 Swedes in Europe before the Seventeenth Century
 3 Issues of Religion
 3.1 The Universities and Confessional Questions
 3.2 Religious Control of Student Travels
 4 Summary

Part 2: Swedish Lawyers’ Education Abroad

 3 Turku Law Students at Dutch Universities
 1Leiden
 1.1 The University of Leiden
 1.2 Legal and Political Education in Leiden
 1.3 Backgrounds of Turku Students in Leiden
 1.4 Information on the Studies of Turku Students in Leiden
 1.5 Careers of Turku Students in Leiden
 2 Other Dutch Universities
 3 Summary

 4 Turku Law Students at German Universities
 1 Rostock
 1.1 The University of Rostock
 1.2 Legal Education in Rostock
 1.3 Backgrounds of Turku Students in Rostock
 1.4 Information on the Studies of Turku Students in Rostock
 1.5 Careers of Turku Students in Rostock
 2 Jena
 2.1 The University of Jena
 2.2 Legal Education in Jena
 2.3 Backgrounds of Turku Students in Jena
 2.4 Information on the Studies of Turku Students in Jena
 2.5 Careers of Turku Students in Jena
 3 Halle
 3.1 The University of Halle
 3.2 Legal Education in Halle
 3.3 Backgrounds of Turku Students in Halle
 3.4 Information on the Studies of Turku Students in Halle
 3.5 Careers of Turku Students in Halle
 3.6 The Francke Foundations in Halle
 4 Greifswald
 4.1 The University of Greifswald
 4.2 Legal Education in Greifswald
 4.3 Backgrounds of Turku Students in Greifswald
 4.4 Information on the Studies of Turku Students in Greifswald
 4.5 Careers of Turku Students in Greifswald
 5 Other German Universities
 6 Summary

 5 Beyond the Netherlands and Germany: Some Examples of Other Destinations
 1 Dorpat
 2 Rome
 3 “Other Travels Abroad”

Part 3: Reasons and Consequences

 6 Seventeenth-Century Sweden and the Rush to Study Abroad
 1 The Political Setting in Seventeenth-Century Sweden
 1.1 The Political Reality at the Turn of the Seventeenth Century
 1.2 Building a Great Power
 1.3 The Position of the Nobility
 1.4 Early Modern Diplomacy and the Swedish Lawyer
 2 The Restructuring of the Judiciary
 2.1 The Courts of Appeal
 2.2 The Local Courts of the Towns and Countryside
 2.3 Advocacy
 3 Educational Efforts in the Seventeenth Century
 3.1 Swedish Universities
 3.2 The Educated Nobleman
 3.3 Encouraging Studies Abroad in the Seventeenth Century
 4 Student Networks
 4.1 Networks of Turku Law Students
 4.2 Networks Abroad
 4.3 Patronage, Advancement, and Upward Social Mobility
 5 Summary

 7 The Choice of University
 1 Geography and War
 2 Religion
 2.1 Religious Control of Studies Abroad
 2.2 Pietism and Turku Law Students
 3 Swedish-Dutch Relations
 4 Summary

 8 The Decrease in Studies Abroad in the Eighteenth Century
 1 Changes in the Political Situation
 1.1 Absolutism, a Weakened Aristocracy, and the Great Northern War
 1.2 From the “Age of Liberty” to Gustav III’s Absolutism
 2 The Changing Swedish Universities
 3 A More Established Judiciary
 3.1 State Bureaucracy and Advancement in the Administrative System
 3.2 Courts of Appeal and Town Courts Compared
 4 From Reception of Foreign Law to Nationalist Inclinations?
 5 Summary

 9 Comparative Aspects
 1 The Swedish Way?
 2 The Lawyers’ Way?

 10 Conclusions

 Appendix 1 Swedish Monarchs 1523–1809
 Appendix 2 The Structure of the Swedish Central Administration
 Sources and Bibliography
  Archival Sources
  Printed Sources
  Literature
  Online Sources
  Unpublished Presentations
 Index of Names
 Index of Subjects and Places
Everyone interested in the history of the legal profession, the history of education, Scandinavian legal history, and the comparative legal history of the early modern period.
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Publisher:
Brill
Language:
English
Pages:
xiv, 428 pp.
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004431669

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