In this story, Rufus states that he will take judgment from God's hands into his own. However, this skepticism was not universally shared by the intellectuals of the day, and Eadmer depicts Rufus as irreligious for rejecting the legitimacy of the ordeal. The use of the ordeal in medieval England was very sensitive to status and reputation in the community. The laws of Canute distinguish between "men of good repute" who were able to clear themselves by their own oath, "untrustworthy men" who required compurgators, and untrustworthy men who cannot find compurgators who must go to the ordeal.
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Wager of law was used as late as 1829, when the Rev. Fearon Jenkinson of Gnosall, Staffordshire used it against a Stafford ironmonger who claimed he was owed money by him. Jenkinson and his compurgators did not appear on the date.Chester Chronicle, 5 June 1829.
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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 duel), and of trial by ordeal. The use of the oath instead of the real or feigned combat – real in English law, feigned in Roman law – no doubt represents an advance in legal development. The technical term sacramentum is the bond of union between the two stages of law. In the wager of law the defendant, with eleven compurgators, appeared in court, and the defendant swore that he did not owe the debt, or (in detinue) that he did not detain the plaintiff's chattel; while the compurgators swore that they believed that he spoke the truth.
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The technical term sacramentum is the bond of union between the two stages of law. In the wager of law the defendant, with eleven compurgators, appeared in court, and the defendant swore that he did not owe the debt, or (in detinue) that he did not detain the plaintiff's chattel; while the compurgators swore that they believed that he spoke the truth. It was an eminently unsatisfactory way of arriving at the merits of a claim, and it is therefore not surprising to find that the policy of the law was in favour of its restriction rather than of its extension. Thus it was not permitted where the defendant was not a person of good character, where the king sued, where the defendant was the executor or administrator of the person alleged to have owed the debt, or in any form of action other than those named, even though the cause of action were the same.
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A variation was for the defendant to give gage, or sureties, in an action of debt, and "that at a certain day assigned he would take a law, or oath, in open court, that he did not owe the debt, and at the same time bring with him eleven neighbors (called compurgators), who should avow upon their oaths that they believed in their consciences that he spoke the truth" (see the Tractatus of Glanvill, c. 1188).
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Assach, in Welsh law, was an ancient form of compurgation used in Wales. A person on trial was allowed to call in 300 compurgators, including neighbors and acquaintances, who would swear that the accused person was speaking truth in making oath of his innocence. A statute from 1413 (I Henry V., c. 5), refers to the then late rebellion in Wales and complains that the Welshmen are still taking revenge for the deaths of their kinsmen against the king's faithful lieges.
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This caused conflict with the church, as under canon law illegitimate children could not inherit. Once a case came to court, the method used to come to a decision was usually by compurgation. Under this system the person accused or the parties to a dispute would give their version under oath, following which they had to find a number of others who would take an oath that the principal's oath could be trusted. The number of compurgators required depended on the nature of the case.
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Some of such lieges they keep in prison until they have paid ransom, or until they have purged themselves of the death of the said rebels, :"...par un assach selonc la custume de Galles, cest a dire par le serement de CCC hommes." :"...by an assach according to the custom of Wales, that is to say by the oath of 300 men." While the Welshmen were doing as they wished, they were still in part acting according to their notions of law by requiring three hundred compurgators.
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Charles-Edwards The Welsh laws p.15 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. The number of persons required to swear depended on the gravity of the alleged crime; for example denying a homicide could require 300 compurgators, while if a woman accused a man of rape, the man would have to find 50 men prepared to swear to his innocence. For lesser crimes a smaller number would be sufficient.
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