Spatial distribution of lay jurors in northern kexholm's lan 1680-1696

The reach of the power the Early Modern centralized and bureaucratic state has been discussed a lot recently. Swedish Kingdom has been described with the term «power state» and described as having near total control of its subjects in different areas. One of the major forms of control was the justice system based on local district courts and higher courts of appeal. District courts had a jury of 12 peasants. The jury was different in each court session, and the judge travelled around his district thrice or twice each year. The jurors had many tasks in addition to jury duty, including maintaining order and investigating crimes.

Kexholm's lan was ceded to Sweden by Russia in the treaty of Stolbovo in 1617. It was the extreme eastern periphery of Kingdom of Sweden. Unlike the most of Swedish realm, the agriculture was based on swidden (slash-and- burn) cultivation. Jurors were especially important for court system in northern Kexholm's lan due to long distances between villages and the different socio-economic conditions than in the rest of Sweden. They interpreted the local tradition, which was used in subjects, which were not covered in the Swedish law, such as disputes related to swid- den cultivation. To evaluate the impact of space and accessibility on the Early Modern border areas and peripheries, modern geographical methods such as geospatial analysis were used.

Jurors were located using court rolls from Kexholm's district court. Their density was compared to that of the general population. Population density was calculated from the land register of Kexholm and Ingria. Adaptive bandwidth kernel spatial relative risk estimation was used as method to estimate the odds of being in jury. Statistical significance of the relative risk estimation was calculated using Monte Carlo -simulation. Software used in analysis, were environment for statistical computing R and its expansion sparr (spatial relative risk), as well as QGIS for georeferencing and map-making.

The conclusion is that there was highly significant variation in the distribution of jurors in different areas of Northern Kexholm's lan. Physical geography had a large effect on the reach of court system. Especially the pogost of Suojarvi was geographically isolated and there were few jurors in the eastern part of the pogost. Long and difficult routes to the venues made the jurors concentrate around to them.

Antti Harkonen