Ebook: Guta lag: The Law of the Gotlanders

Guta Lag, the law of the independent island of Gotland, is one of the earliest laws of Scandinavia.

The text of "Guta lag", the law of the Gotlanders, is preserved in eight manuscripts. Two of the medieval manuscripts, one vellum and one paper, are in Gutnish and it is these that are presented in the translation here. The others consist of a vellum manuscript in a mixture of Middle High German and Middle Low German, two Danish paper manuscripts, a paper manuscript containing a number of later provisions in Danish and two eighteenth-century paper manuscripts in Gutnish. All eight manuscript traditions are taken into consideration when attempting to construct a stemma.