The aim of this article is to investigate the growth of lexical norms with a focus on legal language during the end of the 17th century. The materials used are the first two legal handbooks in Swedish, the protocols from the King’s committee for the great revision of Swedish Law, known as the Law of 1734, and texts written by three Swedish lexicographers and linguistic authorities during the early 1800th century. The article is based on empirical studies of legal vocabulary and discussions of lexical norms, and the results give reason to believe that the official linguistic norm in modern Swedish, i.e. the functional norm, is based on the same fundamental mindset concerning the establishment of linguistic novelties as in the 17th century, although the political and democratic conditions have changed over the years.