This article is primarily intended as an attempt to shed some light on the background of the Västgötalag stemma in Samling af Sweriges gamla lagar Vol. 1 1827, which, as far as we know, is the earliest stemma ever published. Firstly the stemma itself is subjected to a close examination in order to check whether it is absolutely faultless, as formerly asserted. Regarded as a schema that draws up the principal lines and disregards the contamination of the tradition it would actually seem to be almost accurate. Later on it is discussed whether the author of the 1827 stemma was the editor Carl Johan Schlyter, as formerly taken for granted, or his co-editor Hans Samuel Collin might as well have been instrumental in bringing about the stemma. The conclusion is that there is every possibility that the prevailing opinion is right. Although there is no clear evidence that Schlyter knew the German New Testament critic Johann Albrecht Bengel's envisionment of the possibility of sketching a stemma until shortly after 1827, it is not considered quite unlikely that New Testament philology was a source of inspiration to the author of the 1827 stemma.