ABSTRACT
Valdemar's Law is the older of the two Zealand laws, and the first two books of Erik's Law are presumably partly a supplement to Valdemar's Law. The manuscripts of Valdemar's Law can be divided roughly into two groups, traditionally known as the earlier and later redactions. Valdemar's Law was always found together with the Church Law of Zealand, just as the Scanian Church Law was found in the same manuscript as the Law of Scania. The oldest known manuscripts of Valdemar's Law are from the end of the thirteenth century and the beginning of the fourteenth. From around 1600 only very few manuscripts are known, probably because the Law of Jutland had begun to dominate the higher and supreme courts. Large parts of the law are in accordance with the Book of Succession and Crime, indicating that Valdemar's Law was written on the basis of that law.
