Mötet mellan centralt och lokalt : Studier i uppländska byordningar

Sammanfattning: The Swedish village by-laws are a collection of rules for coexistence in a village which evolved during the 18th and 19th centuries. The dissertation takes its starting point in an edition of Byordningar från Mälarlänen (Village By-Laws in the Lake Mälar districts) containing about 400 by-laws from the central part of Sweden, and is a limited review of that edition at the same time as it gives a systematic survey of certain aspects specified in the by-laws. These aspects were added as the result of an official proposal in 1742 containing a model on how a by-law should be constructed. The question is asked whether the directives of the Government were formulated when they reached the local level, or whether they were redesigned and adapted to suit the local situation. The village by-laws in the Mälar counties differ in form and in content depending upon the official proposal on by-laws from 1742. The village by-laws were originally discussed in connection with the changes in agriculture, and thus concerned such sectors as farming methods, fencing, grazing, the right to certain proportions of the village's resources. The local conditions in the village are reflected in, for example, the rules on the length of the grass for grazing. There were different kinds of such by-laws, e.g., by-laws for individual villages and by-laws for parishes (approved at a parish meeting). The initiative of the Government in requiring village by-laws gave different results in different counties. Large parts of Uppsala county are without forest land. The fences and the system of enclosing fields are therefore of particular interest in a discussion on the village by-laws. I have demonstrated that their origin and acceptance in Swedish villages and parishes can be placed in political, chronological, social and functional contexts.