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33 examined in the next three chapters. After that, we ought to be able to place the Sweciish reception of legal proof into its proper context, which, in turn, will enable us to understand the nineteenth-century transformation that took place in the Finnish lawof proof. 2. The Development of French Criminal Procedure and the Lawof Proof in the Late Middle Ages and the Renaissance In the history of legal procedure. Roman-canon law with its system of legal proof goes hand in hand with the learned, university-trained legal professional and a hierarchical, inquisitorial procedure. The development of French legal history shows this clearly. The history of French criminal procedure provides, furthermore, a good example of the legal theory’s need to rely on some leeway in cases where full proof cannot be obtained. In the case of medieval French criminal procedure, that leeway came to be provided by judicial torture. Closely related to that phenomenon, another characteristic of the legal theory of proof is also present in French ancien régirne criminal procedure: the employment of various decisional categories (see Chapter 4). The twelfth and the thirteenth centuries were the time of the growth and consolidation of French royal power,' a fact that came to mean a great deal to the development of legal procedure in the French royal courts.- Together with this development, the reception of Roman-canon procedure began in France. Whereas the reception did not actually begin in Germany until the end of the fifteenth century, in France Roman law was taught in universities already in the thirteenth century.^ In France, Roman law was essentially a tool of the spreading and consolidating monarchical central power over the feudal lords, and it spread first by way of the clergy and as an elaboration of ecclesiastical jurists.'' University-trained jurists acted as advisors, not only to the monarchy, but to towns and the high aristocracy as well; they also rose in the ecclesiastic hierarchy.5 Fromthe thirteenth century onwards and in compliance with the growth of ' Significant steps toward the centralization and consolidation of royal power were taken under the rule of Louis VI (1108-1137) and Philip IV (1285-1314), Ehlers 1987 pp. 87-92, 169-179. - Langbein 1974 p. 211. The University of Paris has its roots in the twelfth century; other universities were founded in Orleans in 1230 and Montpellier in 1260. Ehlers 1987 pp. 165-167; Hattenhauer 1992 p. 260. ■* Dawson 1960 pp. 44-51; Ehlers 1987 pp. 175-178. 5 Ehlers 1987 p. 167.

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