Compurgation was abolished in 1440 as its inferiority to trial by witnesses became fully recognized.
This form gradually fell into disuse before the more rational form of compurgation introduced into Teutonic courts in the fifth century.
This inquest then was a royal institution and not a survival from Anglo-Saxon law or popular custom, under which compurgation and the ordeal were the accepted modes of trying issues of fact.
The twelve thegns were a jury of presentment or accusation, like the grand jury of later times, and the absolute guilt or innocence of those accused by them had to be determined by subsequent proceedings--by compurgation or ordeal.
Assize is the usual manner of trial, but compurgation remains in the borough court long after it becomes obsolete in the royal courts.
It might give procedural privileges: trial by combat is excluded, and trial by compurgation is secured and regulated.
It might give procedural privileges: trial by battle is excluded, and trial by compurgation is secured and regulated.
In Sandwich, if a man failed to clear himself by compurgation of a charge of homicide or theft he was condemned to be buried alive in a place called the Thiefdown at Sandown.
Yet by the middle of the century, when Simancas wrote, compurgation was becoming obsolete.
This is echoed by the Instructions of 1561, which indicate how compurgation was passing out of use by the brief allusion vouchsafed to it.
When the sentence of compurgation was announced to him, he was given a certain term in which to make his selection and, if he allowed this to elapse, he was at the discretion of the tribunal.
The Spanish Inquisition naturally inherited compurgation among the other traditions of the institution.
Assumpsit covered the whole province of debt, for which compurgation still existed, and much more.
Trover more than covered the old province of detinue, for which compurgation still existed.
I mean to go at once, to-morrow morning, before the bishop that he may grant me full compurgation from this charge.
The form of the oath which she was to swear was then communicated to her and the day for the compurgation fixed.
The Norman kings, indeed, had introduced into England a new method of deciding doubtful questions of property by the "recognition" of sworn witness instead of by the English process of compurgation or ordeal.
The difficulties of taking evidence bycompurgation increased daily.
Compurgation was a mode of defence by which a man was held to have established his innocence if he could get twelve men to swear that he was not guilty of the crime in question.
Ordeal was allowed as an alternative to those who failed in or shrank from the process of compurgation or of taking an oath themselves.
