lawspeaker

thumb|300px|Torgny the Lawspeaker showing the power of his office to the king of Sweden at [[Gamla Uppsala, 1018. The lawspeaker forced king Olof Skötkonung not only to accept peace with his enemy, king Olaf the Stout of Norway, but also to give his daughter to him in marriage. Modern historians doubt this account. Illustration by C. Krohg.]]

A lawspeaker or lawman (Swedish: lagman, Old Swedish: laghmaþer or laghman, Danish: lovsigemand, Norwegian: lagmann, Icelandic: , Faroese: løgmaður, Finnish: laamanni, ) is a unique Scandinavian legal office. It has its basis in a common Germanic oral tradition, where wise people were asked to recite the law, but it was only in Scandinavia that the function evolved into an office. At first, lawspeakers represented the people, and their duties and authority were connected to the assemblies (things). For most of the last thousand years, however, they were part of the king's administration.