Note 1022 — MAGNA CARTA. (continued 6)

Bracton, folio 151 b., cites the case of a champion sentenced to mutilation of a foot because he confessed that he was paid to appear, and was not really a witness. The Statute of Westminster, I. (3 Edward I. c. 41), enacted that champions need not swear to the personal knowledge of what they maintained. See also Neilson, Trial by Combat, 48–51.