Compurgation

in early English law, a mode of trial according to which the accused was permitted to bring a number of friends to express a belief in his innocence. The compurgators, "oath helpers," were generally twelve in number. They were usually kinsmen or fellow guild members. They were not called as witnesses; the accused swore that he was innocent; the compurgators swore that they believed his oath to be "clean and without guile," and that they were satisfied of his innocence. The custom was brought to England by the Saxons. It appears to have been not uncommon among Teutonic tribes. It is believed that the "trial by jury," not infrequently attributed to King Alfred's reign, was simply compurgation, and that a person charged with crime could be acquitted by this method. Twelve men could clear an accused kinsman by stating under oath their belief in his innocence. Compurgation was abolished in the English courts by the Assize of Clarendon, 1166. This code was issued by Henry II with the advice and consent of a council of barons and prelates. An institution bearing some resemblance to a modern grand jury took the place of the compurgators. Compurgation in the courts of the church was abolished during the reign of Elizabeth. A curious survival of the practice of compurgation was the wager of law, whereby a person sued for debt could clear himself by bringing in eleven neighbors to testify under oath that they believed the defendant's sworn denial that he owed the sum in question. This relic of Saxon compurgation was abolished in 1833. The compurgators were not jurymen in the modern sense of the term, but compurgation was one of the elements which, in Norman hands, grew into the jury system.