Note 296 — Chapter IX · The State.

Eth. I. 1. Wil. Conq., I. 11. Leg. Hen., I. lxvi., 8–10. Lex. Sax. Tit. 2. As the penalties of this period, when not capital, were invariably fines, it is probable that the expression “a pound oath,” or “swearing for so many hydes,” meant that the compurgator, like the modern bail, was to be up to a certain point “a man of substance.”