Compurgation

Compurgation, also called trial by oath, wager of law, and oath-helping, was a defence used primarily in medieval law. A defendant could establish his innocence or nonliability by taking an <a href="/facts/Oath/jswyhfwI">oath</a> and by getting a required number of persons, typically twelve, to swear they believed the defendant's oath.
The wager of law was essentially a character reference, initially by kin and later by neighbours (from the same region as the defendant), often 11 or 12 men, and it was a way to give credibility to the oath of a defendant at a time when a person's oath had more credibility than a written record. It can be compared to a <a href="/facts/Legal_wager/Mm8uNMg9">legal wager</a>, which is the provision of surety at the beginning of legal action to minimize frivolous litigation.
Compurgation was found in <a href="/facts/Early_Germanic_law/AJyHXDIR">early Germanic law</a>, in early French law (très ancienne coutume de Bretagne), in <a href="/facts/Welsh_law/6SLLfPS5">Welsh law</a>, and in the English <a href="/facts/Ecclesiastical_courts/HNP7pAI4">ecclesiastical courts</a> until the seventeenth century. In <a href="/facts/Common_law/vGVcW4Kf">common law</a> it was substantially abolished as a defence in <a href="/facts/Felonies/9oh7MoaI">felonies</a> by the <a href="/facts/Constitutions_of_Clarendon/YXpo3Ce1">Constitutions of Clarendon</a> in 1164. The defence was still permitted in <a href="/facts/Civil_action/gFeKr9ra">civil actions</a> for debt and vestiges of it survived until its statutory repeal at various times in common law countries: in England in 1833, and <a href="/facts/Queensland/lXBlIeY3">Queensland</a> at some point before the Queensland Common Practice Act of 1867 which makes direct reference to the abolition of wager of law.

Compurgation open-in-new

Compurgation