View source for Swedish Judicial Jurisdictions for Family History Research

=== Medieval - Mid 1600's  ===

The oldest judicial jurisdiction in Sweden is the härad which predates written history, although some parts of the country use the name tingslag, bergslag, or skeppslag instead. Either way, each härad or "-slag" had a outdoor place of judgement (a [[Swedish Tingplats|tingplats]]) to process criminal offenses and civil disputes. Before 1523 there was no official kingdom of Sweden in the modern sense. It was a group of provinces (the [[Swedish Landskap|Landskap]]), controlled to a large extant by families with strong political and military ties (Folkungar families) with an elected king to represent the groups in general. To strengthen the government’s position, cities were formed and were given special rights, including the establishment of city courts. 

The häradsrätt (in rural areas) and the rådhusrätt (in the cities) were the first and most common level of jurisdiction to settle criminal offenses and civil disputes. If someone wanted to appeal a lower court’s decision, they had to appeal to the Monarchy and Council of the Realm before 1614, or to the Higher court (Hovrätt) after 1614. In 1634 the kingdom of Sweden was organized into counties ([[Swedish Län|Län]]) and the judicial authority was tranfered from each province to the respective county authorities.&nbsp;