compurgation

Once a case came to court, the method used to come to a decision was usually by compurgation.

Compurgation was no longer available in charges brought by the grand jury.

Trial by combat, compurgation, and ordeal have likewise become history.

In the ecclesiastical courts, the most common form of trial was by compurgation.

The people would be required to swear under oath (compurgation) anything they knew about heretical activity.

This new assize did away with the old form of trial known as "compurgation" in accusations brought by the grand jury.

Nay, nay, he freed himself By oath and compurgation from the charge.

It abolished compurgation for high treason and theft.

Compurgation, also called wager of law, is a defence used primarily in medieval law.

Wager of law (compurgation) survived to recent centuries, and, in many jurisdictions has been repealed by statute.

They used compurgation: neighbors swore to the honesty of the accused; if enough swore, the charges were dropped.

We use compurgation: experts swear to certain facts; if enough swear the same, the facts are declared true.

In judicial procedure, a system of compurgation prevailed, as well as the wager of battle.

The oath-helpers were called compurgators, and the wager of law was called compurgation.

Assach, in Welsh law, was an ancient form of compurgation used in Wales.

Compurgation was found in early Germanic law, in Welsh law, and in the English ecclesiastical courts until the 17th century.

Under compurgation, an accused person who swore he didn't do the crime, and who found a sufficient number of his neighbours to swear that they believed him, was acquitted.

The earlier Saxon method of trial by ordeal or of compurgation was modified by the Normans into trial by a jury made up of 12 local freemen.

When it came to evidence in other European courts, things such as compurgation (taking an oath over your stance and getting around twelve others to swear that they believe you) were still used in many cases.

Priestly cooperation in trials by fire and water was forbidden by Pope Innocent III at the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215, and replaced by compurgation.

The power of family solidarity encouraged the persistence of certain primitive legal customs such as compurgation, or the swearing by members of a family as to the veracity of a case presented by an individual.

The clergy had a traditional right to compurgation by their peers and kinship groups used the same method to protect their members, thus forcing a case to arbitration by invoking the threat of vendetta because of family solidarity.

A person accused of a crime could deny the charge by denying it on oath and finding a certain number of persons prepared to go on oath that they believed his or her own oath, a system known as compurgation.

In the latter case, the jury were not triers of fact and, if the accusation was seen as posing a case to answer, guilt or innocence were established by oath, often in the form of compurgation, or trial by ordeal.

The wager of law, also called compurgation, is an old legal practice, dating back to Saxon and feudal times, which was contemporaneous to the appeal to God to prove fact by trial by battle (wager of battle, trial by combat, or judicial dual), and of trial by ordeal.