The Wager of Law in The History of Other Peoples

The wager of law or compurgation existed in the three Romanian Countries, functioning in the juridical systems of various periods of time and adapting in accordance with them. At first, this institution appeared to be conditioned by kinship relations, being the legal expression of family solidarity. During this time, criminal trials were more frequent, which means that family solidarity, expressed through collective oaths, tended to manifest itself in this type of litigations. In the Middle Ages, in the period of transition from gentilic relations to feudal relations, the wager of law underwent a transformation, becoming the institution of class solidarity. It began to be used in civil lawsuits disputing land and the ownership thereof. In this way, compurgators or oath-helpers and oaths appeared in trials as means of providing legal evidence, functioning as an institution that was well known to the Romanian people. Many historians and jurists refer to the general characteristics of this institution, contending and attempting to prove that compurgation was borrowed from various other nations. Embarking on an analogous demonstration, we have shown how the wager of law system was regarded by these peoples, with a view to disproving the above claims as unfounded. Although the written legal sources from the first millennium are virtually inexistent, there arc sufficient documents from the second millennium that support and emphasise the Romanian origin of this institution. The study of these documents reveals that compurgation represented an ancient practice, being used as a custom, as the law of the land. The method of securing evidence by means of compurgation was used by all the social classes, ranging from litigations among the peasants to lawsuits involving the great nobles or even certain rulers. In almost all the documents describing trials where the wager of law was used, the following indications appeared: "under law and justice," as done since the beginning of time," "as we know from olden times," "according to the law and custom," after the law of the land.