86 accused was usually set free in cases of absolutio ab instantia}^'^ At times, the accused sentenced “to the future” was also placed in confinement.'-'’- This practice came to be statutorily regulated by the Lawof 1734 (PS 17:37), which authorized courts to use “hard imprisonment” {“svårare fängelse”) if there were “binding circumstantial evidence” {“bindande liknelser och omständigheter”) against the accused. Through the leuteration statutes of 1753, 1756 and 1803, imprisoning the accused in order to extract his or her confession, a confessional imprisonment, became a lawful practice in certain cases. The Legal Theory of Proof In Sweden: The Characteristics of a Peripheral Reception The development of the Swedish law of proof did not deviate importantly fromthe general European pattern. The legal theory of proof was adopted in Sweden, but in the formto which the theory had developed in continental Europe by the time of its reception. In spite of the shared general lines of development, the specific features of the Swedish development should be taken into account, the most striking of them being the modest level of legal learning in the country and the corresponding strong involvement of men without legal education in the administration of justice. Despite its position as a great power of its time, seventeenth-century Sweden belonged to the European periphery.'5-’ Compared to the German states, France, England, or Spain, Sweden, although basically a Ständestaat, was predominantly rural; there were virtually no cities, and consequently, no hourgeoisie to speak of. Sweden — and this is especially true for its eastern part. Finland — was a peasant society to which novel ideas only slowly and with delay made their way. The peripheral character of Swedish society was reflected in law in two ways. First, there was a strong lay element in judicial administration, and second, practically no legal science existed. These two elements are interconnected: one of the reasons for the strong lay element in the judiciary was the fact that few legal professionals were available. Together, the lay-dominated judiciary and the superficiality of the learned legal culture came to bear an influence on the premodern Swedish law of proof. As we have seen, in Sweden the law of proof was not adopted in the complicated, scientific form that it was in the German and French legal literature and legislation. Elementary and simple as it was, it is a slight exaggeration There were, however, exceptions: sometimes the accused was condemned to banishment or imprisoned. Inger 1976 (b) pp. 25, 35; Munktell 1940 p. 138. Jägerskiöld 1964 p. 296, mentions cases of 1669 and 1683 in the practice of the High Court of Svea. For the reasons for Sweden’s economic backwardness in the seventeenth-century, see Braudel 1986 pp. 250-252. was
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