Page:History of the Literature of the Scandinavian North.djvu/126

108 customs followed from time out of mind and preserved by oral tradition. That they might be the more easily remembered they were expressed in short, pithy sentences, which were frequently given in the form of alliterated poetry. The number of these legal provisions naturally increased with the lapse of years, so that it became necessary to sift and arrange them. This task was performed at royal command by men skilled in the law, and in this manner each district obtained its own code based on the traditional provisions that had been in force in smaller judicial districts which gradually grew into larger circuits. There still exists a large number of manuscripts of these codes from various periods of antiquity.

The most important Danish provincial codes are the, both the , and the (Jydske Lov). The first is from Valdemar the Great (1157—82), and among the manuscripts of it is found the only runic manuscript in existence. The first Zealand law is also the work of the same king, and the second is named after a king Erik, but it is not known which one of the Danish kings who bore this name in the thirteenth century is meant. The Jutland law, which was promulgated by king Valdemar the Victorious in 1241, and in the passing of which Bishop Gunner took part, is the most carefully prepared of all the provincial laws, and accordingly it yields the greatest harvest to the student of the history of culture, giving, as it does, a most faithful picture of the social conditions of the country, and of the circumstances amid which people lived in that age. The king is even said to have intended to make it the general law of the whole kingdom. The Jutland law was in force in Denmark in 1683, when it was superseded by the Danish law of Christian V, while in Slesvig it has in many respects retained its validity even down to the most recent times. Of the ecclesiastical laws, the Scanian, promulgated by Archbishop Eskild, and the Zealand ecclesiastical law, given by Archbishop Absalon, are the most important.