Note 420 — Chapter VI
Reading edition
Journ. Arch. Ass. xxvii. 482. For a duel in Leicester in 1201, see Select Civil Pleas, Selden Society, p. 33. Judicial combat in Fordwich with an alien had to take place in the middle of the river Stour, the alien standing up to his middle in the water, while the Fordwich man apparently fought from a boat tied to the quay, with an instrument called an “ore,” three yards long. (Hist. MSS. Com. v. 442.) In 1200 “the citizens of Lincoln came and produced the king’s charter which witnesses that none of them need plead outside the city walls except the king’s moneyers and servants, and that they need not fight the duel because of any appeal.” An accused man answered the charges against him “word by word as a free citizen of Lincoln,” and “according to the franchise of the town” waged law with thirty-six compurgators. (Select Pleas of the Crown, Selden Society, p. 39.) For compurgation in Sandwich in 1493, Boys, 680.