A Lexicon of Medieval Nordic Law 2.0

A Lexicon of Medieval Nordic Law (LMNL) is an innovative lexicon, which presents English equivalents of legal-cultural terms from multiple medieval Nordic languages and explains the usage of many of these words. LMNL is available as a physical volume, free PDF (CC-BY) and is freely searchable online.

The mainland Scandinavian countries are (so far) represented by their provincial laws, while Iceland – for historical reasons -- is represented by its national laws.

The intention of the proposed project is to supplement the LMNL with the remaining Old Swedish laws, the national laws of King Magnus Eriksson and King Kristoffer respectively, and the older town law (Bjärköarätten) and King Magnus Eriksson town law, as well as King Magnus Lagabøtes Norwegian national law and a Danish town law.

With this expansion of the material the LMNL will cover the Old Swedish laws up through the end of the Middle Ages, and the Nordic national laws.

The aim is to provide more comprehensive coverage of legal language in the medieval Nordic countries and enable researchers to better compare legal practices and procedures throughout medieval Scandinavia.

The project builds on an existing database (LMNL) hosted free of charge by the University of Sheffield, which is currently adapting the editorial interface to simplify data entry. The additions are carried out by editors of the original lexicon project (MNLD).