75 Legislation: The Late Reception On the statutory level, the legal theory of proof was first expressed in the War Articles of Charles XI in 1683 and the Sea Articles of 1685;'^^ these statutes came to exercise an influence far beyond their actual scope of application.'^*^ In these statutes, full proof can consist of either the accused’s own, voluntary confession or witnesses’ statements, although there is no explicit referral to the required number of witnesses.In cases in which a half-proof is present {“half'we skähl”), the accused is entitled to a purgatory oath. Of what evidence a half-proof can consist, no examples or rules are given. The judge is instructed to “carefully consider” the circumstantial evidence that sufficed for a halfproof, and thus, oath (“noga öfweriväga skiählen och liknelserna för hwilka man må låta komma til the judge was, obviously, given a free hand to evaluate when the evidence amounted to a half-proof. It was not, however, until 1734 that the statutory theory of proof became a general principle. Although it did not enter into force until the Period of Liberty (1719-1772), the Swedish Lawof 1734 is a typical product of absolutism, for the drafting of the Law had begun some fifty years earlier, when king Charles XI nominated a law commission in 1686 presided over by Field Marshal Erik Lindschöld. The Law of 1734 embodies and preserves social and political ideas of that period. Like the Danish Law {Danske Lov) of 1683, the Swedish Law of 1734 was aimed at centralizing legal power and rendering it more clearly hierarchical and efficient.It appears, therefore, incorrect to characterize the Law as a conservative product,**^- aimed only at dressing the sixteenth-century legal development in a statutory costume. The Lawhad, not only a conservative and passive, but also a reformative and active character. As for its law of proof, the statute was based essentially on the practice of the High Courts as it had developed during the 1600s. Considering, however, the massive travaux préparatoires^^'^ that the fifty years of law drafting produced, the legal solutions concerning the shape that the provisions on the law Regarding articles on proof, the wording of the Sea Articles is practically identical to that of the War Articles. Clearly, the former were directly copied from the latter. See The Royal Letter of December 22, 1686, to the High Court of Dorpat; Schmedeman 1706 pp. 1087-1088. Rules concerning lawful process. Inquisition and court decision, ibid. pp. 833-839 (War Articles) and pp. 953-964 (Sea Articles). Ibid. p. 835. (War Articles); p. 961 (Sea Articles). Wagner 1986 pp. 42-43. Wagner’s article provides a good introduction to the prehistory of the Swedish Lawof 1734; for a more detailed, but outdated account, see Forsman 1896 pp. 402-429. See Hemmer 1954 pp. 54, 103; Jägerskiöld 1963 p. 214; Wagner 1986 p. 46; Strauch 1986 101 102 p. 106. Yhkangas 1986 pp. 26—27. The travaux preparatoires have been edited and published in eight volumes by Wilhelm Sjögren in 1900-1909, see Sjögren 1900-1909 I-VIII. 103
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