1st Edition

The Dala Law

Edited By Inger Larsson Copyright 2025
100 Pages 2 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

100 Pages 2 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

100 Pages 2 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

The Dala Law is known through only one remaining medieval manuscript, written c.1335 – 1353, and shows strong influence from older Swedish provincial law. It is one of the oldest known texts revealing details of life and conditions in medieval Dalar during the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. Contradicting older assumptions that this might have been an older law of Västmanland, the... Read more

Introduction 

The judicial province of Dalar          

Ecclesiastical and secular administration     

The Legal system      

Execution       

Taxation         

The contents of the Dala Law

 

The History of the Dala Law          

Manuscripts, editions and translations          

B 54   

B 113 

Printed editions         

Facsimile       

Translations into Modern Swedish    

The language of B 54 and the present translation

           

A Dala Law or an Older Law of Västmanland?   

 

The Dala Law           

[The book concerning Christian law – Kristnu balker]         

The book concerning the king’s oath – Kunungs ezöre        

The book concerning personal and property rights – Man-hælghis balkr    

The book concerning building and community – Bygninga balkir  

The book concerning matrimony – Giptninga balkr 

The book concerning theft – Wm þiufnadh  

The book concerning the legal process – Þing balkir 1

Biography

Inger Larsson is Professor Emerita at Stockholm University, Department of Swedish and Multilingualism, Sweden, where she researches medieval law, literacy, history, and vernacular plant names. She has published part of her research in English in these fields such as Pragmatic Literacy and the Medieval use of the Vernacular. The Swedish Example (2009), Vernacular Plant-names and Plants in Medieval Sweden (2010), and she has been co-editor of A Lexicon of Medieval Nordic Law (2020).