Database of Fines for Linköping (1800-1900) and Norrköping (1832-1894)
Example of a page from the fines register
Registration at ArkivData in Norrköping
Punishment
Before and after the punishment law of 1734 there were in principle two types of punishment in Sweden:
fines and death penalty. Fines could also be substituted with prison or corporal punishment.
If a person could not pay a fine, then they were often whipped or put in prison on bread and water.
Usually it is not given in the fines register if a person’s sentence was changed to something else.
Occasionally a notation was made but not often. Corporal punishment was mainly whipping for men and lashing using branches for women.
Corporal punishment was a comment replacement for fines. After 1841 corporal punishment was no longer passed as a sentence and in 1855
it was stopped entirely. For shoplifting or for people with delicate bodies corporal punishment was often replaced with prison with bread
and water for sustenance. Bread and water punishment was stopped in 1884. The present-day prison sentence was not used before the 19th century.
Fines Register
A fines register records the fines that were given out over a period of
time in a given city. Fines registers were first started in the 16th
century. In the earliest periods, fines records were sent to the King
and saved in the National Archive. In the last two decades of the 17th
century, fines began also to be recorded in local sentence registers.
Unfortunately, there is no existing record of fines for Linköping for
the 18th century. This is most likely because Linköping maintained its
own fines records (which were destroyed once the fines were paid) and
no copy was sent to the Crown.
The database is only available in Swedish and contains 22 076 records with information about:
- City (Linköping or Norrköping)
- Year
- Paragraph in the sentencing book
- Number in the register of fines
- Date of sentence
- Gender
- Forename
- Family name
- Residence
- Profession
- Type of crime
- Punishment (fines or other punishment)
- Crowns/Riksdaler (amount of fines)
- Öre (amount of fines – 100 öre = 1 Crone)
- Skilling (amount of fines – 48 Skilling = 1 Riksdaler)
- Runstycken (amount of fines – 12 runstycken = 1 Skilling)
- Notes
- Source
Transcription
Both Linköping’s and Norrköping’s fines have been collected in a
publically accessible database. The information for this database has
been register from Linköpings sentence register (1800–1849, volumes AI:103–152); sentence register for 1850–1900 (volumes AIIIa:1–51); Norrköping’s sentence register
for 1858–1894, volumes AIcb:1–37; register of fines for 1853–1898
volumes DIX:1–2 and sentence register for 1850–1900, volumes AIIIa:1–51.
The transcription from the original tomes to the on-line
databases has maintained the notation, spelling, etc. of the original
documents. The exception is that dates have been written in the modern
style, to be more compatible with on-line searching. All transcription
was done directly from the originals and the Regional Archives in Vadstena, Sweden,
supplied all the fines registers. ArkivData in Norrköping have carried out digitalization of the originals.
References to the Database
Depending on which year(s) you are interested in, parts of the reference may be excluded.
Linköping’s Records of Fines:Regional Archives in Vadstena,Linköpings sentence register
1800–1849, volumes AI:103–152, sentence register for 1850–1900, volumes AIIIa:1–51. Linköping University Electronic Press https://doi.org/10.3384/db.boter
Norrköpings saköreslängd: Landsarkivet i Vadstena, Norrköpings rådhusrätt och magistrat.
Domböcker i brottmål 1858–1894, volymerna AIcb:1–37, saköreslängderna
1853-1898, volymerna DIX:1–2 och domböcker för brottmål 1850–1900,
volymerna AIIIa:1–51. Linköping University Electronic Press https://doi.org/10.3384/db.boter
