Summary

The paper ‘Agreements of Estonians with Strangers in the 13^th Century’, published by the Estonian jurisprudent Jüri Uluots, in the Estonian law journal Õigus in 1935–1936, is probably one of the most frequently republished texts about the history of Estonian law. Although reprinted several times, little attention has been paid – at least in print – to the very core of the paper, the approach Uluots took to Estonians’ agreements. This article intends to bridge the gap. As unfounded criticism is fruitless, a new suggestion has been proposed for each previous one. This can be done thanks to the development of medieval studies and archaeology over the past 75 years, which has created improved possibilities for discussing the topic.

Prof. Uluots divided his paper into three parts. The first part gave an overview of the sources used (mostly sections of the Livonian Chronicle of Henry), the second part examined the subjects of agreements by making references to other works by Jüri Uluots, and the third part focused on the content of agreements. This article takes a closer look at the Estonian subjects of the agreements and their evolution.

Jüri Uluots was of the opinion that in the 13^th century, agreements were entered into in Estonia by colleges of elders representing ‘lands’, i.e. national units. The author of this article believes that such an approach is no longer relevant. Rather, in the 13th century, agreements were entered into by Estonian families of higher standing on behalf of the rulers. Jüri Uluots, and even more recent researchers, believed that the names of various regions – Revelia, Ugaunia, etc., – found in the Chronicles stood for political associations (‘lands’). Considering the origins of the sources, they were rather the names of cultural regions of a particular location (cultural regions) that were empirically distinct. New larger areas under a particular ruler sometimes coincided with cultural regions and sometimes did not.