Superstition and Force / Essays on the Wager of Law, the Wager of Battle, the Ordeal, Torture

A historical survey of medieval procedures for proving guilt and resolving disputes, examining compurgation, judicial combat, ordeals, and torture. The essays trace these practices from kin-based liability and the wer-gild of early societies through the functions and safeguards of oaths and their guarantors, the Church’s adaptation and regulation of trial by battle, and the emergence and use of champions. The work details procedural forms, penalties, and selection methods, and follows the gradual decline of these methods as evidentiary standards and Roman law influences spread, using comparative material from various European and related legal traditions to show continuity and variation.