114 Sacramentum liberalis hominis, quem quidem vocant twelfhendeman, debet stare et valere juramentum septem villanorum (Cnuti Secular. cap. 127). The twelfhendeman meant a thane (Twelfhindus est homo plene nobilis i. Thainus.—Leg. Henrici I. Tit. lxxvi. § 4), whose price was 1200 solidi. So thoroughly did the structure of jurisprudence depend upon the system of wer-gild or composition, that the various classes of society were named according to the value of their heads. Thus the villein or cherleman was also called twyhindus or twyhindeman, his wer-gild being 200 solidi; the radcnicht (road-knight, or mounted follower) was a sexhendeman; and the comparative judicial weight of their oaths followed a similar scale of valuation, which was in force even subsequently to the Conquest (Leg. Henrici I. Tit. lxiv. § 2).

115 L. Frision. Tit. I.

116 Hincmari Epist. xxxiv. So also in his Capit. Synod. ann. 852, II. xxv.

117 L. Longobard. Lib. II. Tit. lv. § 5.

118 Ibid. Tit. xxi. § 9.

119 Proost, Récherches sur la Législation des Jugements de Dieu, Bruxelles, 1868, p. 96.

120 Nominentur ei XIV., et adquirat XI., et ipse sit duodecimus.—L. Cnuti c. lxvi. Horne, who probably lived in the reign of Edward II., attributes to Glanville the introduction of the jury-trial.—“Car, pur les grandes malices que lon soloit procurer en testmonage et les grands delaies qui se fierent en les examinements, exceptions et attestations, ordeina Randulph de Glanvile celle certeine Assise ou recognitions et jurées se feissent per XII jurors, les procheins vicines, et issint est cest establissement appelé assise.”—Myrror of Justice, cap. II. sect. xxv. For a minute examination into the origin of the jury-trial, see a series of articles by Prof. J. B. Thayer in the Harvard Law-Review for 1892.

121 Laws of Ethelred, Tit. III. c. xiii.

122 L. Henrici I. Tit. xxxi. § 8; Tit. lxvi. § 10.

123 Constit. Woldemari Regis §§ lii. lxxii.

124 Fuero de Balbás (Coleccion de Privilegios, etc. Madrid, 1833, T. VI. p. 85).

125 Prof. J. B. Thayer, in Harvard Law Review, Vol. V. p. 58.

126 L. Scaniæ Lib. vii. c. 8.—Chart. Woldemari Regis, ann. 1163 (Du Cange s. v. Juramentum).

127 Jarnsida, Thiofa-Balkr, cap. ix. X.

128 Leges Gulathingenses, Thiofa-Bolkr, c. xiii. (Ed. Havniæ 1817, p. 547).

129 L. Longobard. I. xxxiii. 1, 3.

130 L. Burgund. Tit. viii.

131 Capit. Car. Mag. I. ann. 789 c. lxii.

132 Ibid.

133 Capit. Ludov. Pii ann. 829 Tit. III. § vi.

134 For. de Morlaas, Rubr. xli. art. 146-7.

135 Que sien boos et loyaus, et que no sien enemicxs.—Fors de Béarn, Rubr. xxx.

136 Formulary of the Papal Penitentiary, Philadelphia, 1892, p. 100.

137 Königswarter, Études Historiques. p. 167.

138 Nam nulli liceat, postquam manifestaverit, postea per sacramentum negare, quod non sit culpabilis, postquam ille se culpabilem assignavit. Quia multos cognovimus in regno nostro tales pravas opponentes intentiones, et hæc moverunt nos præsentem corrigere legem, et ad meliorem statum revocare.—L. Longobard. Lib. II. Tit. lv. § 8.

139 Si quis hominem ingenuo plagiaverit et probatio certa non fuit, sicut pro occiso juratore donet. Si juratores non potuerit invenire, VIII M dinarios, qui faciunt solidos CC, culpabilis judicetur (Tit. xxxix. § 2). A similar provision—“si tamen probatio certa non fuerit”—occurs in Tit. xlii. § 5.

140 Si quis hominem occiderit et negare voluerit, cum duodecim nominatis juret.—L. Alaman. Tit. LXXXIX.

141 L. Alaman. Tit. XLII.

142 Islands Landnamabok II. ix. (p. 83).

143 For instance, in the Baioarian law—“Nec facile ad sacramenta veniatur.... In his vero causis sacramenta præstentur in quibus nullam probationem discussio judicantis invenerit” (L. Baioar. Tit. VIII. c. 16). In a Capitulary of Louis le Débonnaire—“Si hujus facti testes non habuerit cum duodecim conjuratoribus legitimis per sacramentum adfirmet” (Capit. Ludov. Pii ann. 819, § 1). In one of the Emperor Lothair—“Si testes habere non poterit, concedimus ut cum XII. juratoribus juret” (L. Longobard. Lib. I. Tit. IX. § 37). So Louis II., in 854, ordered that a man accused of harboring robbers, if taken in the act, was to be immediately punished; but if merely cited on popular rumor, he was at liberty to clear himself with twelve compurgators (Recess. Ticinen. Tit. II. cap. 3).

It was the same in subsequent periods. The Scottish law of the thirteenth century alludes to the absence of testimony as a necessary preliminary, but when an acquittal was once obtained in this manner the accused seems to have been free from all subsequent proceedings, when inconvenient witnesses might perhaps turn up—“Et si hoc modo purgatus fuerit, absolvetur a petitione Regis in posterum” (Regiam Majestatem, Lib. IV. c. 21). So, in the laws of Nieuport, granted by Philip of Alsace, Count of Flanders, in 1163 “Et si hoc scabini vel opidani non cognoverint, conquerens cum juramento querelam suam sequetur, et alter se excusabit juramento quinque hominum” (Leg. secundæ Noviportus). See also the Consuetud. Tornacens. ann. 1187, §§ ii. iii. xvi., where two conjurators release a defendant from a claim of debt unsupported by evidence. In case of assault, “si constans non fuerit,” two conjurators clear the accused; in case of wounding, six are required if the affair occurred by daylight; if at night, the cold water ordeal is prescribed (D’Achery, Spicileg. III. 551-2). The legislation of Norway and Iceland in the next century is even more positive “Iis tantum concessis quæ legum codices sanciunt, juramenta nempe purgatoria et accusatoria, ubi legitimi defuerint testes” (Jarnsida, Mannhelge, cap. xxxvii.).

On the other hand, an exception to this general principle is apparently found in a constitution of the Emperor Henry III., issued about the middle of the eleventh century “Si quem ex his dominus suus accusaverit de quacunque re, licet illi juramento se cum suis coæqualibus absolvere, exceptis tribus: hoc est si in vitam domini sui, aut in cameram ejus consilium habuisse arguitur, aut in munitiones ejus. Cæteris vero hominibus de quacunque objectione, absque advocato, cum suis coæqualibus juramento se poterit absolvere” (Goldast. Constit. Imp. I. 231).

In a constitution of Frederic II. in 1235, the oaths of six compurgators clear a man accused of having commenced hostilities without awaiting the three days term prescribed after defiance, no evidence being alluded to on either side—“et nisi violator productus super hoc vel septena manu sinodalium hominum purgaverit innocentiam suam quod non commiserat contra hoc statutum perpetuo pene subiaceat quod dicitur erenlos und rehtlos”—Nove Constitutiones Dom. Alberti, p. 12 (Weimar, 1858).

144 S. Raymondi Summæ Lib. III. Tit. xxxi. § v. ad calcem.

145 Gwentian Code, Book II. chap. xxxix. § 40 (Owen I. 787). So, in disowning a child, if the reputed father were dead, the oaths of the chief of the kindred, with seven of the kinsmen, were decisive, or, in default of the chief, the oaths of fifty kinsmen (Ibid. § 41).

146 Anomalous Laws, Book IX. chap. ii. § 9 (Ibid. II. 227).

147 Ibid. Book VIII. chap. xi. § 31 (Ibid. II. 209).

148 Ibid. Book IX. chap. ii. § 6 (Ibid. II. 227).

149 Dooms of Ine, cap. liii.

150 Leg. Wallice, Lib. II. cap. xix. § 2 (Owen II. 842).

151 Ea autem debita de quibus non constat, super mortuum probari debent, septima manu.—Jur. Provin. Alaman. cap. vii. § 2. (Ed. Schilter.)—Sachsische Weichbild art. 67.

152 Nove Constitutiones Dom. Alberti, p. 38.

153 “Quod in sacramentis supradictorum testium veritas absque ullo dolo versata est.”—Leon. PP. IV. Epist. 5 (Migne, CXV. 664).

154 Lünig Cod. Ital. Diplom. II. 1955.

155 Maitland, Select Pleas in Manorial and other Seignorial Courts, pp. 7, 10, 18, 32, 36, 37, 47, 83, 137, 140, 141, 142, 144, 151, 157, 173.

156 Si burgensis calumniatus præteriit ætatem pugnandi, et hoc essoniaverit in sua responsione, non pugnabit. Sed juramento duodecim talium qualis ipse fuerit, se purgabit.—L. Burgorum cap. 24, §§ 1, 2.

157 Concil. Remens. ann. 1119 (Harduin. VI. 1986).

158 On þone Drihten se að is clæne and unmæne þe N. swor.—Thorpe’s Ancient Laws, I. 180-1.

159 Hoc quod appellatus juravit, verum juravit. Sic Deus, etc.—Formul. Vet. in L. Longobard (Georgisch, 1275).

160 Per aquetz santz ver dits.—Fors de Béarn, Rubr. LI. art. 165.

161 Du serment que Guillaume a juré, sauf serment a juré, ainsi m’aist Dieu et ses Sainctz.—Ancienne Cout. de Normandie, chap. lxxxv. (Bourdot de Richebourg, IV. 54).

162 Nobis adhæc Deo coram periculosum esse videtur, ejus, cujus interest, jusjurandum purgatorium edendo præeunte, omnes (ab eo productos testes) iisdem ac ille conceptis verbis jurare, incerti quamvis fuerint, vera ne an falsa jurent. Nos legibus illatum volumus ut ille, cujus interest, jusjurandum conceptis verbis solum præstet, cæteri vero ejus firment juramentum adjicientes se nequid verius, Deo coram, scire, quam jurassent.—Jarnsida, Mannhelge, cap. xxxvii.—The passage is curious, as showing how little confidence was really felt in the purgation, notwithstanding the weight attached to it by law.

163 Leges Gulathingenses, Thiofa-Bolkr, c. xiii.

164 Credo Norigaudum istum Eduensem episcopum vera jurasse, sicut me Deus adjuvet.—Hugo. Flaviniac. Lib. II.

165 Anomalous Laws, Book VII. chap. i. § 18 (Owen, II. 135).

166 L. Alaman. Tit. vi.

167 L. Longobard. Lib. II. Tit. lv. § 28.

168 Anomalous Laws, Book IX. chap. vi. § 4; chap. xvii. § 5.—cf. Book VI. chap. i. § 50 (Owen. II. 235, 255, 113).

169 Marculf. Lib. I. Formul. xxxviii.

170 L. Frisionum Tit. xiv.

171 Dooms of King Edward, cap. iii.

172 Keyser’s Religion of the Northmen, Pennock’s Transl. p. 246.

173 Quantum in conspectu hominum purgari poterat.—Ivon. Epist. liv.

174 Hugo Flaviniac. Lib. II.

175 Gratian. c. 17, Caus. II. Q. v.

176 L. Baioar. Tit. XIV. cap. i. § 2.

177 L. Longobard. Lib. I. Tit. ix. § 37.

178 Institutions Judiciaires, I. 308.

179 Ut propter suam nequitiam alii qui volunt. Dei esse non se perjurent, nec propter culpam alienam semetipsos perdant.—L. Alaman. Tit. xlii. § 1.

180 Quod pro anima sua timendo, non præsumat sacramentalis esse.—L. Longobard. Lib. II. Tit. lv. § 14.

181 Othlon. Vit. S. Bonif. Lib. II. c. xxi.—“Vos soli juratis, si vultis; nolo ut omnes hos congregatos perdatis.”—Boniface, however, did not weakly abandon the cause of the church. He freely invoked curses on the greedy brethren, which being fulfilled on the elder, the terror-stricken survivor gladly relinquished the dangerous inheritance.

182 L. Salic. Tit. I. §§ 3, 4.

183 L. Frisionum Tit. X.

184 Capit. Pippini ann. 793 § 15.—Capit. Car. Mag. incert. anni c. x. (Martene Ampl. Collect. VII. 7).

185 Celest. PP. III. ad Brugnam Episc. (Baluz. et Mansi, III. 382).

186 Cod. Vatican. No. 3845, Gloss, ad L. 2 Lombard. II. 51, apud Savigny, Geschichte d. Rom. Recht. B. iv.—I owe this reference to the kindness of my friend J. G. Rosengarten, Esq.

187 Capit. Car. Mag. ann. 794 § 7.

188 Hugo, Flaviniac. Lib. II. ann. 1100. Norgaud, however, was reinstated next year by quietly procuring, as we have already seen, two brother prelates to take the oath with him, in the absence of his antagonists.

189 Et si quis de quinque juvantibus defecerit, accusatus debit tres libras, et percusso decem solidos.—Leg. Secund. Noviportus (Oudegherst).

190 Hostiensis Aureæ Summæ Lib. v. De Purg. Canon, § 7.—“Sicut puniretur de crimine de quo impetebatur si convinceretur considerato modo agendi, sic punietur si in purgatione deficiat.”

191 L. Longobard. Lib. II. Tit. lv. § 34.—Qua ex re mos detestabilis in Italia, improbusque non imitandus inolevit, ut sub legum specie jurejurando acquireret, qui Deum non timendo minime formidaret perjurare.

192 L. Henrici I. cap. lxiv. § 1. “Malorum autem infestacionibus et perjurancium conspiracione, depositum est frangens juramentum, ut magis Dei judicium ab accusatis eligatur; et unde accusatus cum una decima se purgaret per eleccionem et sortem, si ad judicium ferri calidi vadat.” This cannot be considered, however, as having abrogated it even temporarily in England, since it is contradicted by many other laws in the same code, which prescribe the use of compurgators, and we shall see hereafter how persistently its use was maintained.

193 Romances Antiguos Españoles. Londres, 1825, T. I. pp. 246-7. Cf. Dozy, Recherches sur l’Histoire, etc. de l’Espagne, Leipzig, 1881, II. 108.

194 Le Roux de Lincy, Chants Historiques Français, I. 15.

195 Glanville, Lib. I. cap. ix. Also, Lib. I. c. xvi., Lib. IX. c. i., Lib. X. c. v.

196 “In aliis enim curiis si quis aliquid dixerit unde eum pœnituerit, poterit id negare contra totam curiam tertia manu cum sacramento, id se non dixisse affirmando” (Ibid. Lib. VIII. c. ix.).—In some other systems of jurisprudence, this unsophisticated mode of beclouding justice was obtained by insisting on the employment of lawyers, whose assertions would not be binding on their clients. Thus, in the Assises de Jerusalem (Baisse Court, cap. 133): “Et por ce il deit estre lavantparlier, car se lavantparlier dit parole quil ne doie dire por celuy cui il parole, celui por qui il parle et son conceau y pueent bien amender ains que le iugement soit dit. Mais se celuy de cui est li plais diseit parole qui li deust torner a damage, il ne la peut torner arieres puis quil la dite.” The same caution is recommended in the German procedure of the fourteenth century—“verbis procuratoris non eris adstrictus, et sic vitabis damnum” (Richstich Landrecht, cap. II. Cf. Jur. Provin. Saxon. Lib. I. art. 60; Lib. II. art. 14). The same abuse existed in France, but was restricted by St. Louis, who made the assertion of the advocate binding on the principal, unless contradicted on the spot (Établissements, Liv. II. chap. xiv.).

197 Roger de Hoveden ann. 1194.

198 Tunc vadiabit defendens legem se duodecima manu.—Bracton. Lib. III. Tract. iii. cap. 37, § 1.—Et si ad diem legis faciendæ; defuerit aliquis de XII. vel si contra prædictos excipi possit quod non sunt idonei ad legem faciendam, eo quod villani sunt vel alias idonei minus, tunc dominus incidet in misericordiam.—Ibid. § 3. So also in Lib. V. Tract. V. cap. xiii. § 3.

199 Pike, History of Crime in England, I. 285.

200 Gratian, c. 17, C. 11. Q. v.—“Deinde vero purgatores super sancta Dei evangelia jurabunt quod sicut ipsi credunt verum juravit.” Cf. c. 5 Extra, V. xxxiv.

201 Summæ Stephani Tornacensis caus. II. Q. 5 (Schulte, 1891, p. 171).

202 C. 7, Extra, V. xxxiv.

203 Illi qui ad purgandam alicujus infamiam inducuntur, ad solum tenentur juramento firmare quod veritatem credunt eum dicere qui purgatur.—C. 13, Extra, V. xxxiv. Innocent also endeavored to put an end to the abuse by which ecclesiastics, notoriously guilty, were able to escape the penalty due their crimes, by this easy mode of purgation.—C. 15, eod. loc.

The formula as given about 1240 by St. Ramon de Peñafort is “Nos credimus quod ipse juravit verum, vel, verum esse quod juravit.”—Raymondi Summæ Lib. III. Tit. xxxi. § 5.

204 The rapidity with which the study of the civil law diffused itself throughout the schools and the eagerness with which it was welcomed were the subject of indignant comment by the ecclesiastics of the day. As early as 1149 we find St. Bernard regretting that the laws of Justinian were already overshadowing those of God—“Et quidem quotidie perstrepent in palatio leges, sed Justiniani, non Domini” (De Consideratione, Lib. I. cap. iv.). Even more bitter were the complaints of Giraldus Cambrensis towards the end of the century. The highest of high churchmen, in deploring the decline of learning among the prelates and clergy of his age, he attributes it to the exclusive attention bestowed on the jurisprudence of Justinian, which already offered the surest prizes to cupidity and ambition, and he quotes in support of his opinion the dictum of his teacher Mainier, a professor in the University of Paris: “Episcopus autem ille, de quo nunc ultimo locuti sumus, inter superficiales numerari potuit, cujusmodi hodie multos novimus propter leges Justinianas, quæ literaturam, urgente cupiditatis et ambitionis incommodo, adeo in multis jam suffocarunt, quod magistrum Mainerium in auditorio scholæ suæ Parisius dicentem et damna sui temporis plangentem, audivi, vaticinium illud Sibillæ vere nostris diebus esse completum, hoc scilicet ‘Venient dies, et væ illis, quibus leges obliterabunt scientiam literarum’” (Gemm. Ecclesiast. Dist. II. cap. xxxvii.). This, like all other branches of learning, was as yet to a great extent in the hands of the clergy, though already were arising the precursors of those subtle and daring civil lawyers who were destined to do such yeoman’s service in abating the pretensions of the church.

It is somewhat singular to observe that at a period when the highest offices of the law were frequently appropriated by ecclesiastics, they were not allowed to perform the functions of advocates or counsel. See Horne’s Myrror of Justice, cap. II. sect. 5. There was good reason for prohibiting them from serving as judges, as Frederic II. did in 1235—“Idem erit laicus propter sententias sanguinum quas clerico scribere non liceat, et præterea ut si dilinquid in officio suo pena debita puniatur” (Nove Constitutiones Dom. Alberti, p. 46).

205 Actor quod adseverat, probare se non posse profitendo, reum necessitate monstrandi contrarium non adstringit: cum per rerum naturam factum negantis probatio nulla sit (Const. xxiii. C. de Probat. IV. 19).—Cum inter eum, qui factum adseverans, onis subiit probationis, et negantem numerationem, cujus naturali ratione probatio nulla est ... magna sit differentia (Const. x. C. de non numerat. IV. 30). It is a little curious to see how completely this was opposed to the principle of the early Common Law of England, by which in actions for debt “semper incumbit probatio neganti” (Fleta, Lib. II. cap. lxiii. § 11).

206 La cosa que non es non se puede probar nin mostrar segunt natura.—Las Siete Partidas, P. III. Tit. xiv. l. 1.

207 Though absent from the general laws of Spain, yet compurgation had been introduced as an occasional custom. We have seen it above (p. 49) in the Fuero de Balbás in 1135. The Fuero of Madrid in 1202 provides that a man suspected of homicide and other crimes, in the absence of testimony, can clear himself with six or twelve conjurators, according to the grade of the offence (Mem. de la Real. Acad. de la Historia, 1852). We shall see hereafter that it appears in the Fuero Viejo of Castile in 1356. The passage from the Romancero del Cid, quoted above, shows the hold it had on the popular imagination.

208 Olim, II. 153, 237.

209 Actes du Parlement de Paris, T. I. p. cccvii. (Paris, 1863).

210 Actes du Parlement de Paris, T. I. p. 382.

211 Statuunt ... se manu centesima nobilium se purgare, et ad huic benedicto juveni bis septem librarum milia pro sui rancoris satisfactione præsentare.—Wilelmi Egmond. Chron.

212 Is qui reus putatur tertia manu se purgabit, inter quos sint duo qui dicentur denominati.—Du Cange s. v. Juramentum.

213 Et li deffendans, sour qui on a clamet se doit deffendre par lui tierche main, se chou est hom II. hommes et lui, se chou est fame II. femmes et li à tierche.... “Tel sierment que Jehans chi jura boin sierment y jura au mien ensiant. Si m’ait Dius et chist Saint.”—Roisin, Franchises, etc. de la Ville de Lille, pp. 30, 35.

214 Ibid. p. 51. The system was abrogated by a municipal ordinance of September, 1351, in accordance with a special ordonnance to that effect issued by King John of France in March, 1350.

The royal ordonnance declares that the oath was “en langage estraigne et de mos divers et non de legier a retenir ou prononchier,” and yet that if either party “par quelconques maniere faloit en fourme ou en langage ou que par fragilite de langhe, huirans eu, se parolle faulsist ou oubvliast, ou eslevast se main plus que li dite maniere acoustumee en requeroit ou quelle ne tenist fermement sen poch en se paulme ou ne wardast et maintenist pluiseurs autres frivoles et vaines chozes et manieres appartenans au dit sierment, selonc le loy de la dite ville, tant em parole comme en fait, il avoit du tout sa cause perdue, ne depuis nestoit rechus sur che li demanderes a claim ou complainte, ne li deffenderes a deffensce.”—Ibid. p. 390.

215 Anc. Coutume de Normandie, chap. lxxxv. (Bourdot de Richebourg, IV. 53-4).

216 Recherches de la France, Liv. IV. chap. iii. Concerning the date of this, see La Croix du Maine, s. v. Estienne Pasquier.

217 Fors et Cost. de Béarn, Rubr. de Juramentz (Bourdot de Richebourg, IV. 1082).

218 Lo jurament deu seguidor se fé Juran per aquetz sanctz bertat ditz exi que io crey.

219 E si gelo negare e non gelo quisier probar, devel’ facer salvo con once Fijosdalgo e èl doceno, que non lo fiço (Fuero Viejo de Castiella, Lib. I. Tit. v. 1. 12). It will be observed that this is an unqualified recognition of the system of negative proofs.

220 Du Cange, s. v. Juramentum.

221 Jur. Provin. Alaman. cap. xxiv.; cccix. § 4; cccxxix. §§ 2, 3; cccxxxix. § 3 (Edit. Schilteri).

222 Jur. Provin. Saxon. Lib. I. c. 63.

223 Sachsische Weichbild, art. 71, 72, 86, 40, 88.

224 Goldast. Constitt. Imp. III. 446.

225 Meyer, Institutions Judiciaires, V. 221.

226 Sique accusatus tanta ac tam gravi suspitione laboraret ut aliorum quoque purgatione necesse esset, in arbitratu stet judicis, si illi eam velit injungere, nec ne, qui nimirum compurgatores jurabunt, se credere quod ille illive qui se per juramentum excusarunt, recte vereque juraverint.—Constit. de Pace Publica cap. xv. § 1 (Goldast. Constitt. Imp. I. 541).

227 Damhouder, Rerum Criminalium Praxis cap. xliv. No. 6 (Antwerp, 1601).

228 Statut. Davidis II. cap. i. § 6.

229 Jarnsida, Mannhelge & Thiofa-Balkr passim; Erfthatal cap. xxiv.; Landabrigtha-Balkr cap. xxviii.; Kaupa-Balkr cap. v., ix., etc.

230 See Sporon & Finsen, Dissert. de Usu Juramenti juxta Leges Daniæ Antiquas, Havniae, 1815-17, P. I. pp. 160-1, P. II. pp. 206-8.

231 Christiani V. Jur. Danic. Lib. i. c. xiv. § 8.

232 Poteritque se tunc purgare cui crimen imponitur juramento XVIII. virorum.—Raguald. Ingermund. Leg. Suecorum Lib. i. c. xvi.