The development of the law of summons demonstrates how the latest international innovations in procedural law, which the twelfth-and thirteenth-century canonists had developed, were adopted first in the Swedish provincial laws and then in the laws of the realm. The canon law of summons, adopted in the Swedish medieval laws, was part of two broader developments. First, the rules on summons were probably part of the canon law idea of ordo iudiciarius, which was also adopted in Sweden. In Sweden, the rules on summons were always accompanied by a separate procedural chapter, which regulated the whole procedure chronologically from beginning to endalthough some laws were more elaborate on some details than others were. The article suggests that the procedural chapters were in fact the Swedish equivalent of ordines, although the Swedish 'ordines' were of course legislation, not scholarly literature. Second, the Swedish 'ordines iudiciarii' with their rules on summons reflect inquisitorial principle and canon law influence making its way into the Swedish procedure. The Swedish rulers, just as their counterparts elsewhere in Europe, were making a conscious effort to organise court procedures into more uniform and efficient form.