15 Roman-canon law is worth selecting: the spreading of Roman law went hand in hand with the strengthening of central powers, both ecclesiastic and secular. As these authorities centralized their power, the scope of homogeneous judicial practice enlarged, and law became increasingly a matter of specialists who relied on literacy and writing in their work."^ Roman law was the tool with which central power was consolidated and which helped create the power structure of the centralized state. Roman law was claimed to be “rational,” “objective,” “logical” and “prudent”it was one of the devices with which the violent feudal society of late medieval Europe was sought to be pacified. ■' Although legal development was but one fringe of a larger social transformation,'2 there is a marked interdependence between the spread of ius commune, universities and the trained legal profession across Europe in the late Middle Ages and the first centuries of the NewAge.'^ Statutory or Roman-canon law of proof, then, was a facet of this large-scale development. Was Roman-canon law of proof “Roman” or “canon”? Instead of Romancanon law of proof, would it be better to speak of a “legal,” “statutory” or “objective” theoryTo be exact, none of the terms can be applied without difficulties to all six centuries during which the theory exerted its influence. For one thing, the lawof proof put together by the glossators, commentators and canonists of the late Middle Ages was not “Roman” in the sense that it would have appeared as such at any moment of the history of the Roman Empire - any more than the revived law of antiquity in general was Roman. Roman law, as it was resuscitated in the commercially active independent townships of northern Italyfromthe eleventh century onward, consisted essentially of giving the Roman texts - most notably the Digesta — newinterpretations and systematizing themanew. Naturally, the context of interpretation was changed: new values and changed needs were read into the old texts. For this, the rich Roman legal material, dating from politically very different epochs, offered choices.'^ Peters 1985 p. 43. On the alli.'ince between jurists trained in Roman law on the one side and the centralizing states on the other in the Germany of the time of Rezeption, see Strauss 1986 pp. 136-144, 162. " Whitman 1990 pp. 5-6. Berman 1983 pp. 100-103; Peters 1985 p. 43. Different universities are treated individually in Savignv 1956. For the list of the universities, see Fdattenhauer 1992 p. 260 and Tamm (1991 p. 234) who provides an illuminating map of the spreading of universities in the late Middle Ages. '■* Treatises written in English employ the terms “legal” and “Roman-canon” theory of proof interchangably, see Damaska 1978, or do not use any special term to refer to the theory (see van Caenegem 1991; Langbein prefers “statutory” (1977). In other tongues, terms derived of the same origins as “legal” or “statutory” prevail {gesetzlichc Beweisregeln, théorie légal des preuves, teoria legal de pruebas, den legala bevisteorin, legaalinen todistusteoria). Hattenhauer 1992 pp. 248-252. Koschaker 1953 pp. 63-65; Berman 1983 p. 289.
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