194 The study shows that the first half of the nineteenth century was a direct continuation of previous development in the sense that, insofar as homicidal crime was concerned, the lower courts followed a legal practice of their own, convicting often without legal proof - confession or two eyewitnesses; as for petty crimes, the legal rules of proof appear to have been observed more strictly. The higher instances followed the rules of proof more strictly, although it was not uncommon for the higher courts to depart from the rules of proof when circumstancial evidence was deemed weighty enough. In the material of this study, the lower courts convicted roughly in two homicide cases out of three without legal proof, the high courts did so in more than one quarter of the cases, and even the JDS convicted the accused in the absence of full statutory proof in roughly every seventh case. How is this possible? Could the courts not be forced to comply with the common standards? During the first half of the nineteenth century, it is obvious that they could not. During the era of legal proof the local courts - that practically ever since their creation in the Middle Ages had caused a continuous head-ache to the rulers by not submitting themselves to a uniform legal practice which upper courts and kings had attempted to impose on them- had not yet been made to act as part of a uniform, hierarchical court system. In this respect, the premodernness of the Finnish lawis demonstrated clearly. Instead of one judicial practice, in fact, there was variation despite some attempts by the high courts to bring the lower courts under a common practice. It was not uncommon for a criminal case to be referred back to a lower court for a new trial for reasons that could have to do with many things, including evidential questions. Moreover, the lack of scientific jurisprudence and of a solid judicial practice helped local courts create a wide leeway to move on. But did the upper courts really want to change the lower court practice of convicting without full proof in what seemed like clear cases? Had they wished to do so, one would expect themto have followed the statutory rules of proof closely. And yet, as we have seen, they did not always do so. Therefore, it is more logical to conclude that the upper courts, in the era of legal proof, tolerated the lower court practice because it was the only way to ensure a crime control that was at least to a certain extent efficient all during the lengthy time that a case was pending in different instances. Before legal modernity, the fact that this led to a heterogeneity of legal practices, was no serious problem.
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