Judges’ Households as Legal Learning Centres in Nineteenth-Century Finland

In 1627, Sweden adopted a trainee system as a means to give future officials and judges some practical skills supplementing the theoretical university studies in law. With time, this practical legal learning and training took place partly at appellate courts, partly at the household of rural first-instance district judges (häradshövding). Their manors became sorts of legal learning centres for lawyers aspiring for a career in the judicature. These nineteenth-century judges’ households housed staff employed by the judge, permanent or ad hoc scribes and clerks, as well as law students learning about the law and legal skills. Wives and children could also help organize or perform the legal work as well as learn law and legal skills there. Legal cases and questions were discussed at meals at the judge’s manor, where his library and the district’s archive were situated. In modern terms, the judge’s household became a legal service and training centre. This article investigates who received learning in the households of Finnish nineteenth-century rural judges, what this learning included, as well as how and from whom this learning took place. The main sources include egodocuments – private letter collections and autobiographical texts.