The work investigates the group of laws and customs through which our forefathers sought to discover hidden truth when disputed between man and man, illustrating the progress of human development from primitive savagism to civilized enlightenment. The author opens with the wager of law, or canonical compurgation, tracing its roots in the ancient Aryan solidarity of the family and kindred responsibility. Because early societies viewed crime as a wrong against individuals rather than the state, the wrongdoer owed satisfaction to the injured party or their kin through wer-gild, or blood-money, and could clear himself by oaths supported by a body of compurgators. The history of jurisprudence is the history of civilization, exposing the innermost thoughts and beliefs of lawmakers through centuries of legal evolution.
The second essay explores the wager of battle, or the judicial combat, which found universal use among barbarian tribes and was Christianized into an appeal to God. The author details the origins, universal application, regulations, and the employment of champions, showing how this method of resolving disputes was deeply entrenched in medieval society. The third section examines the ordeal, exploring the universal human tendency to cast doubts on a higher power through boiling water, red-hot iron, cold water, the cross, and other physical tests.
The author demonstrates how these ordeals, like compurgation and the judicial duel, functioned as regular judicial procedures when testimony was absent. Finally, the work investigates judicial torture, tracing its roots in ancient Asia, Greece, and Rome, its absence among early barbarians, and its eventual reappearance in medieval Europe through the influence of Roman law and the Inquisition. The narrative concludes with the slow and painful decline of these systems under the rising tide of rational jurisprudence, secular legislation, and the persistent efforts of the papacy and enlightened reformers.
