483 Sweden in particular. I wish only to sketch the background to the picture I myself have gained fromevents which took place in the areas I investigated and in Sweden in general before the middle of the 19th century. It appears to me that my Finnish colleagues’ emphasis on the social and political realities is a fruitful point of departure, which has not received sufficient attention. Foucault makes it hard to affix power to individuals or groups of individuals, while Kekkonen/Ylikangas primarily place it with the state apparatus as a reflection of social relations. This makes it easier to search for the causal connections. Spierenburg has not primarily analysed the importance of the social transformation for the legal system and the development of punishment. Garland’s description of the rationalisation-biased bureaucracy could, in itself, be correct, but I find it difficult to accept his one-sided image of an earlier penal system which only, or as its main feature, was bent upon satisfying emotional and moralising requirements. I would like to assert the opposite, that justice even then m most cases acted from“rational” motives. The penal system found in Sweden in the early part of the 17th century was based on the idea of compensation to the injured party and required a socially and economically homogeneous society. The prime punishment was, except for the gravest crimes, a fine and this could only be paid by those who owned some property. During the latter part of the 17th century the weakness of the system became obvious when more and more of those sentenced, e.g. unmarried mothers, did not have the material resources necessary to satisfy their adversaries. Previously the sentence could have been amended to fit with the delinquent’s ability to pay, a method which was used even in other countries, in England for example. Individuals could also work off their fines to the injured party if this was necessary. This state of affairs became more complex when the government, via the Courts of Appeal, forced the district courts to apply the letter of the law, without exception. It was while discussing the poor that the idea was born of flogging for men and birching for women, if fines were not forthcoming. Running the gauntlet, which was applied towards the end of the 17th century, is a militarv innovation in Swedish law. The military influence during the 17th century should, on the whole, have lessened resistance towards the machinery of power’s use of corporal punishment and contributed to the extensive role which corporal punishment was to plav in civil justice. It is interesting to note that at the same time the mutilation of ears, noses and other parts of the body disappeared. Nor did torture come to play a prominent role in the Swedish legal system. At the end of the 17th century, however, the number of unmarried mothers and others with backs lacerated by birching, flogging and cudgelling increased. The means of control became more hardhanded during the period of absolute sovereignity, but it should be noted that this was a development which had to some extent been suggested and supported even by the local
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