Note 439 — Chapter I · PENAL METHODS OF THE MIDDLE AGES
Reading edition
If a clerk were accused, the Crown got his goods till he had completed purgation, after which they were usually returned (Hale, Pleas of the Crown, ii. p. 384). If, however, he was delivered over absque purgatione, or if he had first pleaded guilty, the king retained them, and had the produce of his lands for the prisoner’s life.—A. T. Carter, History of English Legal Institutions, p. 255. London, 1906.