ABSTRACT

Scania, together with the annexed provinces of Halland and Blekinge and the island of Bornholm, constituted a legal province covered by the Law of Scania, and the provincial assembly in Lund was the main assembly for the legal province. The Law of Scania can roughly be dated to the period between 1202 and 1216, on the grounds that it incorporates royal legislation from 1202 and contains references to the ordeal by hot iron, abolished by King Valdemar II shortly after the Fourth Lateran Council. Scania was divided into twenty-three districts, Halland into seven, and Blekinge and Bornholm into four. The area of Scania is about 11,300 square kilometres; that of Blekinge, 3,000 square kilometres; and that of Halland, 5,000 square kilometres. The oldest known manuscript of the Law of Scania dates to the 1280s. The oldest known manuscript of the Law of Scania dates to the 1280s.