‘You are lying like a thief and rogue’. Verbal abuse cited before the courts in 17th and 18th centuries southern and middle parts of Northern Sweden
The aim of this article is to investigate the frequencies and meanings of abusive words cited before the town courts of Gävle and Härnösand, and the district courts of Hälsingland and Ångermanland respectively, during the periods 1665–69 and 1745–49. The main questions at issue concern gendered meanings and to what extent the words honesty and dishonesty had different meanings than today. ‘Thief’ and ‘rogue’ were the most common abusive words directed against men, and ‘whore’ and ‘thief’ against women. ‘Whore’ was, however, also strongly associated with lying and deceiving whereas the expression ‘you hit me like a thief and rogue’ could be used to blame the violent attack of an antagonist as unfair and dishonest. Thus, the abusive triad ‘thief’, ‘rogue’ and ‘whore’ indicate a much broader yet fundamentally similar meaning of dishonesty as today.
Ytterst få forskare har nyttjat ett av de arkiv med starkast anknytning till Norrland som förvaltas vid Umeå universitetsbibliotek, arkivet efter forskningsprojektet Levnadsöden. Arkivet innehåller dokumentation och material från en stor nationell intervjuinsamling med fokus på 1900-talet. De delar som förvaras vid universitetsbiblioteket omfattar norrländska livsöden med ett fokus på Robertsfors och Tornedalen.