Ont begär
horsbrotten i Fryksdals härad och Jösse härad i Värmland under mitten av 1600-talet
The 17th century was a time of change in Sweden. During the century many of the Swedish laws were altered. In the beginning of the 17th century this alteration resulted in a more severe sentence for most of the committed crimes, but a mitigation of the sentence for some of those crimes was effected in the middle of the 17th century. The aim of this study is to see how two local courts in the judicial system during the mid 17th century in Sweden treated adultery, and those who committed the crime against the background of what the law regarding adultery stipulated. The source material used are court records from Fryksdals hundred and Jösse hundred in western Sweden, and laws regarding adultery during the 17th century.This research shows that the laws regarding adultery were in themselves not gender specific, and their main concern was the marital status of those involved. The punishment for all forms of adultery was a death sentence during the first half of the 17th century, but during the latter part of the century the punishment for a specific form of adultery, when only one of the involved was married, was mitigated to a fine which differed according to marital status. In most of the cases both courts in Fryksdals hundred and Jösse hundred applied the law as it was written in their verdict, and the verdicts of acquittals were few. There is however a tendency in the findings towards a difference between the actual local courts at the end of the first half of the 17th century. Court records show that Fryksdals hundred, which generally had more crimes regarding adultery than Jösse hundred, during that time applied a more rigorous attitude towards those crimes. The conclusion is that, although the results from both hundreds do not differ much from the general picture of adultery in Sweden, there is still a tendency of a difference between the actual local courts themselves.