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This article discusses how to perceive developments in the prosecution of written pacts with the Devil in Denmark-Norway between 1634 and 1754. While existing scholarship interprets the prosecution within the framework of an Enlightenment narrative by presenting the cases as evidence of an incomplete rejection of magical beliefs, such as the possibility of making a pact with the Devil, this article investigates the cases with regard to the early absolutist sovereigns' endeavours to deal with blasphemy offences. The medley of punishments imposed in the cases – including public confession, executions, and imprisonment with hard labour – calls for a more complex evaluation of both ruptures and continuity in the prosecution of this type of crime during the period. Through selected cases representing varying approaches of the respective sovereigns, this article analyses how the understanding and administration of the offence developed in the legal practice of the emerging absolutist state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the second half of the 18th century, the foundation of monarchical and aristocratic power and prestige was challenged by notions of essential equality and a transformed idea of merit. The elite continued to pursue the traditional marks of distinction, but this behaviour was often accompanied by a discourse stressing the unimportance of such vain and worldly concerns for the truly enlightened person. This article seeks firstly to demonstrate how strong, albeit increasingly ambivalent, sensitivity to such matters was, through analysis of the correspondence of a selection of elite persons. Secondly, it shows the significance of this attitude in its contemporary social and political framework, by analysing legislation concerning rank and honour. This legislation kept alive the hankering after rank, at the very same time that legal and moralizing texts were concerned with the problem of people chasing a 'false' honour. These systemic contradictions in the monarchy were reflected in the qualms experienced by its public servants on a personal level. The article argues that the public servants' doubts about their self-worth probably contributed to eroding their belief in the legitimacy of the regime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The parish church held a central place in local communities in the 18th century, both physically and symbolically; however, the institutions and practices governing the churches differed significantly between the Scandinavian countries. This article traces the development of local church government in Norway from its position under 18th-century absolutism to its inclusion into the new system of local self-government, established in 1837. It is compared to the very different institutions of self-government in Sweden in the same period. Although there were many lines of continuity within local government across the political dividing line marked by the Norwegian constitution of 1814, both local church offices and the parish community underwent conceptual changes related to the new constitutional system. Local church government therefore provides an example of how the notion of the population in general changed from absolutism to constitutional rule; from commoners in contradistinction to the state to communities constituting the very foundation of the state. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]