Law Courts 251
In the thirteenth century, the clerk
by the sheriff was by the until the
coming of the itinerant justices, he actually ap-
peared before them accused, in the century
after accusation and to the court,
the justices submitted his to a jury obtained a
verdict. This was not his trial, but if the verdict were
guilty his property with its income for the king
until his fortune in the bishop's court known. But
the ecclesiastical trial became a farce. Compurgation
was still used, an antiquated form of proof that, under
the changed conditions, lost what little virtue it had
ever possessed as a method of ascertaining the truth,1
It was especially useless when a clerk the com-
purgators from his own order. The church might inflict
severe punishments^ as life imprisonment; but such
to have been seldom used.
There were still, in the thirteenth century, valua-
ble limitations to benefit of clergy: the privilege not
been extended to the lower orders of the clergy, where
clerical crime lay, but was confined to ordained clergy,
monks, and nuns; the worst forms of treason were not
within its operation; and, in the lighter offences, the mis-
demeanours, clerks were dealt with as laymen. But
canonists; had it been maintained, no deposed or degraded clerk would
ever have been handed over to the lay power as a heretic or a forger of
papa! bulls. As a general principle of law, Becket's theory about double
punishment was condemned by Innocent III; the decree which condemns
it is to this day part of the statute law of the Catholic church."—P, and M.
i-t 455-
1 Besides its use in the ecclesiastical courts* computation continued
in the old local courts, its^ strongest hold being in the boroughs. It is in-
teresting that in London it was much affected by jury practice, with the
result that compurgators were not to be chosen by the accused himself,
nor were any of them to be related to him by blood or marriage; while
on the other hand he might challenge them for reasonable cause. It could
also be used in personal actions in the kingfs courts, and In real actions it
was used in incidental questions, such as the denial of the summons by the
tenant. Certain actions in which the defendant might have recourse to
compurgation could be brought in the nineteenth century. But such
actions were avoided; means had been provided for bringing others in
their place. Computation was prohibited by statute in 1833. See Thayer*
e^ pp. 25-28, 34.