Note 259 — HISTORY OF LYNN, PART II.

Petit Andrews Hist. of Great Britain, 1. 84. Another historian informs us, that the great lords and abbots, among the Anglo-Saxons, possessed a criminal jurisdiction within their territories, and could punish or protect without appeal. This power, he says, was in some measure restrained by the established administration of justice, by the courts of decennary, the hundred, and the county. In the Anglo-Saxon courts, the accused was allowed to clear himself by his own oath, and the concurring oaths of his friends. These were called compurgators, and sometimes amounted to 300. The practices also of single combat, and the ordeal, were allowed in doubtful cases; and absurd as they may appear, the result was deemed complete evidence, for or against the accused, or suspected person.—The punishment of crimes was not less singular than the general proofs of guilt. A fine was the customary mode of commuting the punishment of the blackest offences; and as fines were a source of revenue, they were fixed with the nicest care, on a graduated scale, corresponding to the magnitude of the crime. Thus a wound of an inch long, under the hair, was compounded for with one shilling; a wound of the like size in the face, with two shillings; and thirty shillings was the compensation for the loss of an ear; and so on in proportion.—Mavor, 1. 77.