APPENDIX I.

pean ancestors, who employed every moment Appemii*the expedient of swearing on extraordinary crosses I.and reliques , were less honourable in all engage-ments than their posterity, who from experiencehave omitted those ineffectual securities. Thisgeneral proneness to perjury was much increasedby the usual want of discernment in judges , whocould not discuss an intricate evidence, and wereobliged to number, not weigh, the testimony ofthe witnesses Hence the ridiculous practice ofobliging men to bring compurgators , who, asthey did not pretend to know any thing of thefact, expressed upon oath, that they believedthe person spoke true; and these compurgatorswere in some cases multiplied to the number ofthree hundred The practice also of singlecombat was employed by most nations on the,continent as a remedy against false evidence " ;and though it was frequently dropped, from theopposition of the clergy, it was continually re-vived, from experience of the falsehood attendingthe testimony of witnesses 7 °' It became at lasta species of jurisprudence : The cases were deter-mined by law , in which the party might challengehis adversary, or the witnesses, or the judge him-

‘ 7 Sometimes the laws fixed easy general rules for weigh-ing the credibility of witnesses. A man. whose life wasestimated at 120 shillings counterbalanced six ceorles , eachof whose lives was only valued at twenty shillingsand his oath was esteemed equivalent to that of all the fix.

See Nfiikins, p. 72.

" Præf. Nicol, ad Wilkins, p. 11.

" LL. Burgund. cap. 45. LL. Lomb. lib. 2. tit. ZA.cap. 34. V 3