rættari (OSw) rættere (ODan) réttari (ON) noun

This was, in the Swedish laws, a facilitator of hospitality, the person in charge of providing lodgings in a town or village for travellers, particularly officials or others being billeted. He either had to provide lodgings himself, or direct travellers to a suitable host. Travellers in turn had to pay for what they received and not force themselves on people. Fines were extracted from those unwilling to provide hospitality and from the rættari if he did not himself then do so. There were stipulations concerning to whom a traveller might be directed and what had to be provided for him at cost. He in turn could be punished for abusing his position as houseguest. This meaning appears to have been the original one (von See).

The ‘judge’ in the late OSw KrL appears to be the person presiding over the rætter ‘court’.

In the Danish law, JyL, it seems that the rættere was an official carrying out judgements. This meaning is considered by von See to be a borrowing from MLG, rather than a development of the meaning of the OSw word. It is, however, possible that, as inns and lodging houses became more common, the person with the function of a rættare took over duties more associated with law enforcement. Even later in the middle ages, after the period of the provincial laws, the word referred to a functionary on a large estate or over several estates, who collected the rent and passed it to the stewards of the landowners.

In the Icelandic and Faroese laws, it is clear that this person is a justice or justiciary of some sort, which more closely equates with the meaning in JyL. The term also appears in later Norwegian legal texts that have not been excerpted. Here the person is defined as a ‘court enforcer’, a representative of the government (Hertzberg) or an ‘appeal court judge’ (Sunde).

judge OSw KrL Rb
justice OIce Jó Mah 1, 2 Kab 13 Þjb 7 Fml 25
justiciary OFar Seyð 12
man to help travellers OSw KrL Kgb
OSw MEL Kgb
official ODan JyL 2
provider of lodgings OSw SdmL Kmb
OSw UL Kmb
OSw VmL Kmb
reeve OSw YVgL Add Refs:

Hertzberg s.v. réttari; KLNM, s.v.v. gästgiveri, gästning, rättare (2); ODS s.v. retter; ONP s.v. réttari; SAOB s.v.v. rättare (2) and (3); Schlyter 1877, s.v. rættari; von See 1964, 44, 45; SL UL, 158 note 19; SL VmL, 128 note 47; SL YVgL, 397 note 1 to Add 6; Sunde 2014, 149−50