Helsinki, National Archives, 216a. Court records for Ala-Satakunta, 1550–1552 Cataloguer Jesse Keskiaho Ville Walta Finnish Literature Society (SKS) Codices Fennici Creative Commons BY 4.0 Helsinki National Archives 216a 1550–1552 Ala-Satakunta Court records for Ala-Satakunta, 1550–1552

Records of the summer and autumn sessions for 1550, and the winter, spring, summer, and autumn sessions for 1551 and 1552 of the lower courts (häradsrätt) of Ala-Satakunta, as well as the second-tier court (lagmansrätt) sessions in 1551 and 1552 at Eura, Eurajoki, Huittinen, Kokemäki, Loimaa, Närpiö, Ulvila and Köyliö, held under president of the court, Knut Eriksson Kurck.The manuscript is bound together with an account of the fines paid in Ylä-Satakunta in 1551 (216b).

First flyleaf, recto: Dombook

Fols. 1r–31v: 1550 sessions (followed by one unnumbered blank), edited in Roos 1964, 3–44.

[1r] Anno domini 1550. Om Sancte Marie Magdalene affton. Thå halt jach Jöns Wästgöte Somar Tingit ... [31v] ... efter xii men ranzacan d:t 2 öre. (After fol. 31 a blank unnumbered leaf.)

Fols. 32r–110v: 1551 sessions. Edited in Roos 1964, 45–149.

[32r] Anno domini 1551, torsdaghen nest epter Helge Tree Konunge dagh, tho hultt jagh Lasse Madtzson winter tinget ...[110r] ... Summa peninger 10 marck.

Fols. 64v–65r and 110v are blank. After fol. 58 there is a blank, unnumbered leaf.

Fols. 111r–178v: 1552 sessions. Edited in Roos 1964, 150–240.

[111r] Anno domini 1552, then 4 daghen nouembrij [pro januarij], hultt iagh Lasse Madtzson ... [178v] ... Sumarum effther host tingtth peninger 78½ marc. (Fol. 179 is an added slip with accounts concerning the 1553 sessions.)

Fols. 128v and 180r are blank.

Fol. 180v: A note concerning borders in Sastamala: ‘Tesse är Råår Emellan Pomarck och Selckis j Sastamala sockn’.

 Paper 183 folios 20 28,5 text area varies Two different foliations. The first, original(?), foliation (1–178), in ink in the upper margin, begins with the actual text, (a later hand foliated the slip that is fol. 179 and fol. 180). The second foliation, done with a stamp or typewriter in the lower margin, takes the title-leaf into account and continues throughout the manuscript (including the other item, 216b, bound within the same covers). In this description, we have preferred to follow the first foliation.

Inserted slips after fols. 94, 100, 178 (numbered). The first flyleaf has been left unnumbered; there is a blank unnumbered folium after fols. 31 and 58.

 A extremely tight modern binding, causing some loss of text in the gutter. The collation is, however, recoverable in the digitization based on microfilms that predate the rebinding (the microfilm is available at the National Archives). This shows that the manuscript had quires of varying sizes (from III to XI). In places damaged by fire. The first flyleaf is particularly blackened by smoke damage. Number of lines varies, no ruling.

At least four scribes, probably secretaries of the court, writing sixteenth-century cursives (I: fols. 1r–31v, with the exception of 22v–25v; II: 22v–25v; III: 32r–142r; IV: 142v–178v). Scribe IV is possibly Lasse Mattsson (Matinpoika) who presided over the lower court from 1550.

Ingresses written in a more carefully executed script. Brackets drawn next to the lists of jurors, occasionally decorated. Apart from this, no decoration.

Modern binding in blue cardboard. The original parchment cover, with the title ‘Thetta Domboken J Nedhre häredhe j Kwmogardz län etc. för åren 1550–1552’, was removed in the nineteenth century. Now bound together with an account of the fines paid in Ylä-Satakunta in 1551 (216b).

 The records were probably compiled relatively soon after the court sessions. They seem to represent a fair copy of the record, although certain additions and corrections are made (often by scribe I). The corrections by one hand, along with the foliation, which may be near contemporary with the texts, suggests that these session records were kept, and possibly bound, together from early on.

After having been compiled as a record of court sessions by the municipal judge’s office, the book was probably sent to Stockholm soon after the closing of the court season in 1552. Fol. 1: ‘Dombok 1550, no. 27’, a mark of saec. XVI made in the Chamber College in Stockholm.

The book belonged to the shipment of documents taken to the Senate archives in Turku in accordance with the Hamina accords between Sweden and Russia in 1809. The archives were moved to Helsinki in 1819, but the book was not added to the catalogues of the National Archives before another shipment of documents arrived in 1864.

 John E. Roos, Ala-Satakunnan tuomiokirja 1550–1552, Suomen vanhimmat tuomiokirjat vol. II, Helsinki 1964. Encoding added