254 around the requisite of full proof were developed in the form of what I have called the middle categories of decision. Thepoena extraordinaria, absolutio ah instantia, and similar intermediate forms of decision that gradually pushed aside judicial torture brought with them a subsequent widening of the judiciary’s scope of action. However, the early modern absolutist rulers had already established fairly effective control over their judiciaries. As a more flexible selection of evidential decisions brought with it more efficient penal control, the judges could, then, be allowed more leeway. It is at this stage of history that the first signs of the common European law of proof appeared in Sweden. The statutory theory of proof was adopted by the Swedish high courts towards the end of the seventeenth century; in 1734, the rules made statutory lawpart of the Swedish law. Both similarities and differences are observed when the Swedish development is compared to that of continental Europe. In Sweden as elsewhere, the legal theory of proof was adopted not in the medieval strict formbut with the middle categories of decision included within the system. Additionally, in Sweden a union of Romancanon law of proof, academic legal training, and a centralizing political power is also plain to see. It is, by and large, in this formthat the theory of legal proof is carried over into the legal practice of autonomous Finland. The penetration of Roman-canon law of proof was, however, partial and superficial, since lower courts accepted the rules to a limited extent only; the same theoretical shallowness is observed in the Lawof 1734. This characteristic is typical for the reception of Roman lawin Sweden in general, and owes to the agrarian, non-academic nature of Swedish law. This factor cannot be left out of the account when the nineteenth-century abolition of legal rules of proof in Finland is discussed. Legal rules of proof in early nineteenth-century Finland were then, at best, flexibly observ'ed and largely ignored by the lower courts. Nevertheless, the rules were there, and it would be erroneous to claimthat no change took place as far as the rules of proof were concerned. The systemwas based on the basic division between full proof and less than full proof. Without full proof, the high courts and the JDS would normally not make convictions (although exceptions appeared frequently). With less than full proof, the upper courts would, according to their discretion, end up in one of the middle categories or acquittal. In cases with less than full proof, conditional acquittal, and especially absolutio ab instantia and confessional imprisonment were frequently used. In the 1850s and 1860s, the law of proof changed as the high courts and the JDS, in an overwhelming majority of homicide cases inspected in this work, joined the lower court practice of convicting on circumstantial evidence only. Towards the end of the century, the middle categories faded away completely. Confessional imprisonment, the most important of the intermediary categories of decision, was no longer employed in legal practice after 1872. Similarly, the
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