This article examines legal relations between estate owners and their servants and workers on Danish estates in the nineteenth century. From the end of the eighteenth century onwards, the traditional privileged role of Danish estate owners was changing, and their special legal status as “heads of household” over the entire population on their estates was slowly being undermined. The article investigates the relationship between estate owners and their servants and workers in legislation and court cases during these times of change. It examines the Danish servant acts from 1791 and 1854 and identifies the asymmetric order of subordination and superiority in this legislation. The core of the relationship was still a “contractual submission” that, to some extent, was private and unregulated by law, and estate owners were entitled to impose sanctions and physical punishment on their servants and workers according to their own judgement. When the Servant Law of 1854 abolished estate owners’ right to punish adult servants physically, it was a significant break from the old legal order. However, a central element in the legislation, before and after 1854, was that servants’ and workers’ disobedience towards estate owners was illegal. By analysing court cases, the article examines the borderlands of the legal definition of disobedience. The elasticity in the legal system was substantial – and frequently favoured the owners. In the legal system, the notion of disobedience served to protect the last remnants of the traditional legal order of submission and superiority.

本文考察了 19 世纪丹麦庄园的庄园主与其仆人和工人之间的法律关系。从十八世纪末开始，丹麦庄园主的传统特权角色正在发生变化，他们作为庄园内全体人口的“一家之主”的特殊法律地位正在慢慢被削弱。这篇文章调查了这些变化时期房地产所有者及其仆人和工人在立法和法庭案件中的关系。它检查了 1791 年和 1854 年的丹麦仆人法，并确定了该立法中不对称的从属和优越顺序。这种关系的核心仍然是一种“合同提交”，在某种程度上是私人的、不受法律约束的，庄园主有权根据自己的判断对他们的仆人和工人进行制裁和体罚。1854 年的《仆人法》废除了庄园主体罚成年仆人的权利，这是对旧法律秩序的重大突破。然而，在 1854 年之前和之后，立法的一个核心要素是仆人和工人不服从庄园主是非法的。通过分析法庭案例，本文考察了不服从的法律定义的边界。法律体系的弹性很大——而且经常有利于所有者。在法律体系中，不服从的概念用于保护传统的服从和优越的法律秩序的最后残余。