The article examines to what extent farmers in rural Norway had the opportunity to act as lawyers within the legal system before 1850. Laws which regulated people’s freedom to give and receive professional legal support are compared to empirical data from counties in Romsdals Amt. The article argues that laymen who acted as lawyers without a law degree or a certificate from the king contributed to a liberal shift in Norwegian political and judicial culture.

Legal pluralism was characteristic of pre-modern society, and social groups could be subject to several parallel legal systems. The organization of Larvik County, with its own area of jurisdiction in the late 1600s, caused the workers at the county’s ironworks to become subject to both the mining jurisdiction in Norway and the county birch jurisdiction, in addition to the overall state jurisdiction. The court system at Fritzøe ironworks thus became confusing and unclear. Therefore, the legal system in the county had to be reorganized, and this happened before the mid-1700s, a reorganization that led to a firmer structure and a clearer distinction between the county's jurisdiction and the mining jurisdiction. This strengthened the count's legal sphere by the fact that in the latter part of the century, through his local administration, he was able to execute an almost unrestricted birch jurisdiction over his subjects at the ironworks. In this process the bailiff played a central role.

On an evening at the beginning of January 1653, a fire erupted in Fredrikstad, which quickly laid the bulk of the northern part of the city in ashes. There, most of the city's leading citizens lived, and they suffered major economic losses due to the fire. The urban history from 1960 portrays how the fire led to a witchcraft trial against the two daughters of the city's deceased executioner. They were marginalized and shunned and therefore became victims of the hateful atmosphere that prevailed in the city after the fire. One of the sisters got a death sentence and ended her life on the fire. The second sister had to leave the city and the counties under Akershus within three days, and she would lose her life if she showed up there again. Others who have written about the fire of the city, have since recounted the account of Anne Rimer’s death penalty and death at the stake as a sorceress as a historical fact. One of the leading experts on the Norwegian witchcraft trials stated in 1998 that Anne got a death sentence for causing the fire, but not for witchcraft. As other researchers have accepted this interpretation, it is now current research status. This paper will take a closer look at the sources that can elucidate the witchcraft trial against the sisters Anne and Marte Rimer.

The aim of this article is to study the cooperation between the municipalities and voluntary organizations in search and rescue services and crisis management on the local level, and to place this in a historical context. The Norwegian word ‘samvirke’ is a core concept. It encompasses a broader set of connotations than the word ‘cooperation’ in English. We claim that the foundation for ‘samvirke’ between public and voluntary resources in the search and rescue services and the crisis management is created locally and is not a result of decisions by central authorities. Our hypothesis is that the knowledge behind and empirical basis for current forms of cooperation on the local level is based upon long lasting traditions, or even further, that volunteers are integrated in the local community.

    The study has a qualitative design. It is based on interviews with leaders in nine selected municipalities in Norway. We wanted to look into the expectations, the leaders’ own role, use of skill and experiences with, and trust towards, ‘samvirke’. The theoretical anchoring is based on publications about work and cooperation, concentrating on local responsibility, local knowledge, and local actions.