Note 207 — Chapter VII · DECLINE OF COMPURGATION.

Though absent from the general laws of Spain, yet compurgation had been introduced as an occasional custom. We have seen it above (p. 49) in the Fuero de Balbás in 1135. The Fuero of Madrid in 1202 provides that a man suspected of homicide and other crimes, in the absence of testimony, can clear himself with six or twelve conjurators, according to the grade of the offence (Mem. de la Real. Acad. de la Historia, 1852). We shall see hereafter that it appears in the Fuero Viejo of Castile in 1356. The passage from the Romancero del Cid, quoted above, shows the hold it had on the popular imagination.