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- Ruthström, Bo
(author)
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Land och fæ : strukturellt-rättsfilologiska studier i fornnordiskt lagspråk över beteckningar för egendom i allmänhet med underkategorier
- 2002
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This study investigates the stock of words for PROPERTY IN GENERAL with the subcategories MOVABLE and IMMOVABLE PROPERTY in the regional medieval Scandinavian laws and makes a linguistic-geographical analysis of these words with the aim of establishing a relative term chronology. A crude analysis shows that fé/fæ for PROPERTY IN GENERAL and land for IMMOVABLE PROPERTY were the oldest terms. A series of exchanges started in the south, probably in Denmark. As fé/fæ and land are both completely dominating in Grágás, and there only, Grágás constitutes a terminological relic. A detailed analysis shows the order koster, eghn, goþs, (munir), goþs, (pænninger, s. & pl.), goþs to be the most likely one for the superordinate terms and the order iorþ, (eghn), iorþ for the terms for IMMOVABLE PROPERTY. The words in parentheses disappeared without ever becoming the dominant terms. A reconstruction of the pre-medieval terminology shows that there has been a structural shift. The conventional juridical distinction between movable and immovable property (res mobiles et immobiles) lacks support in the terminology of Grágás, which merely consists of fé for PROPERTY IN GENERAL and land for what is shown to be ARABLE LAND or GRAZING LAND. Fé and land together constituted the original pre-medieval superordinate terminology. To this there was a substructure, which distinguished between attached and non-attached property, where óðal represented land attached to the family as opposed to kaupland 'purchased land', and búfé represented fé attached to the bú'home, homestead' as opposed to lauss eyrir, lausir aurar, pl. The first set of subcategory terms for the new Roman law structure was borrowed from the original Scandinavian terminology by structural adaptation. Land was made the term for IMMOVABLE PROPERTY in the north-west, but, due to a term exchange which had already taken place, iorþ was made the term in the south and the east. Lauss eyrir (lös örir), lausir aurar (lösir örar), pl., was made the term for MOVABLE PROPERTY in the north-west and east, but bofæ, bolfæ in the south. In Gotland the variety oyrar (örar) was chosen. During the Middle Ages and the beginning of the Modern Age the lös-terms became the prevailing Nordic terms. The structural shift and, possibly, the successive term exchanges as well, were initiated by the establishment of the Christian church. When original texts in Latin were translated to Old Danish by bilingual representatives of the Church assisting in the drawing up of donation contracts, Lat. res, terra, possessio and bona, pl., could have been rendered by ODan. koster, iorþ, eghn and goþs, respectively, as loans of terminological function.
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