PLIGTEN TIL LYDIGHED - TJENESTEFOLK OG LANDARBEJDERES RETSSTILLING PÅ DANSKE HERREGÅRDE I 1800-TALLET

Dorte Kook Lyngholm: Absolute obedience. The legal status of servants andworkers on Danish estates in the 19th centuryThe focus of this article is the legal relation between landlords and their servants and rural workers on Danish estates in the 19th Century. It examines legal practice at the local court in Rougsø, Sønderhald and Øster Lisbjerg districts in the years 1830-35 and 1870-73 and shows how conflicts between landlords and servants or workers were handled in court.It pays special attention to legal practice in cases where the courts operated in household conlicts that had traditionally been a private matter between master and servant. It examines the specific areas where legislation entitled landlords to impose sanctions on their servants and workers, such as the right of chastisement and the master’s right to dismiss his servants without notice. The article argues that a central feature in these cases was that legislation demanded that servants and workers showed their landlords unspecified obedience. It shows how local courts in the 19th century protected the remains of the traditional inequality between landlords and the rural population.