Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 27, 2025
The accusation was to be made by "juries," composed of twelve men of the hundred and four men of the township; the "presentment" of a criminal by a jury such as this practically implied that the man was held guilty by the public report of his own neighbourhood, and he was therefore forbidden such chance of escape as compurgation or the less dangerous forms of ordeal might have afforded, and was sent to the almost certain condemnation of the ordeal by water; if by some rare fortune he should escape from this alive he was banished from the kingdom as a man of evil reputation.
Well, the burghers would say, "'Tis hard to pay this money, but we will put ourselves out to pay it if you will do something for us in return; let, for example, our men be tried in our own court, and the verdict be of one of compurgation instead of wager of battle," and so forth, and so forth.
Though connected with the White-Cap affair by which Alfred lost his eyesight and his life, he proved an alibi, or spasmodic paresis, or something, and, having stood a compurgation and "ordeal" trial, was released.
At all events, under David, offences became offences against the King, not merely against this or that kindred. David introduced the "Judgment of the Country" or Visnet del Pais for the settlement of pleas. Every free man, in his degree, was "tried by his peers," but the old ordeal by fire and Trial by Combat or duel were not abolished. Nor did "compurgation" cease wholly till Queen Mary's reign.
With this assize too a practice which had prevailed from the earliest English times, the practice of "compurgation," passed away.
"He has not mentioned such a name, from beginning to end of the matter," said the Justice. "Ah! I conceive I conceive," replied Mr. Campbell; "Mr. Morris was kindly afeared of committing a stranger into collision wi' the judicial forms of the country; but as I understand my evidence is necessary to the compurgation of one honest gentleman here, Mr.
"When we read of a certain number of freemen chosen by the parties to decide in a dispute all bound by oath to vote in foro conscientia and that their decision, not the will of the judge presiding, ended the suit, we at once perceive that a great improvement has been made in the old form of compurgation an improvement which impartial observation can have no hesitation to pronounce as identical in its main features with the trial by jury."
Evidence, indeed, was not easy to find when the question in dispute dated perhaps from some time before the civil war and the suppression of the sheriff's courts, for no written record was ever kept of the proceedings in court, and everything depended on the memory of witnesses. The difficulties of taking evidence by compurgation increased daily.
On the other hand, fines were to be assessed according to local custom; compurgation was retained for unimportant cases and inheritances were to remain divisible among all heirs male. The ordinance that contains these dispositions is no parliamentary statute, but seems to have been drawn up by the King in council, March 24, 1284.
I mean to go at once, to-morrow morning, before the bishop that he may grant me full compurgation from this charge." Her husband was satisfied with this and went away with his men. In the meantime Thorsteinn had swum away from the house and landed at a convenient place, where he got a firebrand and held it aloft so that it could be seen from the lady's house.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking