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Dictionary Results for compurgator:

1. The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48

Compurgator \Com"pur*ga`tor\, n. [LL.]
   One who bears testimony or swears to the veracity or
   innocence of another. See Purgation; also Wager of law,
   under Wager.
   [1913 Webster]

         All they who know me . . . will say they have reason in
         this matter to be my compurgators.       --Chillingworth.
   [1913 Webster]

2. Bouvier's Law Dictionary, Revised 6th Ed (1856)

COMPURGATOR. Formerly, when a person was accused of a crime, or sued in a 
civil action, he might purge himself upon oath of the accusation made 
against him, whenever the proof was not the most clear and positive; and if 
upon his oath he declared himself innocent, he was absolved. 
     2. This usage, so eminently calculated to encourage perjury by 
impunity, was soon found to be dangerous to the public safety. To remove 
this evil the laws were changed, by requiring that the oath should be 
administered with the greatest solemnity; but the form was soon disregarded, 
for the mind became. easily familiarized to those ceremonies which at first 
imposed on the imagination, and those who cared not to violate the truth did 
not hesitate to treat the form with contempt. In order to give a greater 
weight to the oath of the accused, the law was again altered so as to 
require that the accused should appear before the judge with a certain 
number of his neighbors, relations or friends, who should swear that they 
believed the accused had sworn truly. This new species of witnesses were 
called compurgators. 
     3. The number of compurgators varied according to the nature of the 
charge and other circumstances. Encyclopedie, h.t.. Vide Du Cange, Gloss. 
voc. Juramentum; Spelman's Gloss. voc. Assarth; Merl. Rep. mot Conjurateurs. 
     4. By the English law, when a party was sued in debt or simple 
contract, @detinue, and perhaps some other forms of action, the defendant 
might wage his law, by producing eleven compurgators who would swear they 
believed him on his oath, by which he discharged himself from the action in 
certain cases. Vide 3 Bl. Com. 341-848; Barr. on the Stat. 344; 2 Inst. 25; 
Terms de la Ley; Mansel on Demurrer, 130, 131 Wager of Law.

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