[287] About the year 385 St. Jerome revised the older Latin translation of the New Testament and translated the Old Testament directly from the Hebrew. This complete version gradually superseded all others for the whole Latin-reading Church, being known as the "Vulgate," that is, the version commonly accepted. It was in the form of the Vulgate that the Scriptures were known to the Saxons and all other peoples of western Europe. [288] In other words, sufficient relief from the Danish incursions. [289] The _mancus_ was a Saxon money value equivalent to a mark. [290] A minster was a church attached to a monastery. [291] The witan was the gathering of "wisemen"--members of the royal family, high officials in the Church, and leading nobles--about the Anglo-Saxon king to assist in making ordinances and supervising the affairs of state. [292] Compensation rendered to an injured person. CHAPTER XII. THE ORDEAL 33. Tests by Hot Water, Cold Water, and Fire Among the early Germans the settling of disputes and the testing of the guilt or innocence of an accused person were generally accomplished through the employment of one or both of two very interesting judicial practices--compurgation and the ordeal. According to the German conception of justice, when one person was accused of wrongdoing by another and chose to defend himself, he was not under obligation to prove directly that he did not commit the alleged misdeed; rather it was his business to produce, if he could, a sufficient number of persons who would take oath that they believed the accused to be a trustworthy man and that he was telling the truth when he denied that he was guilty. The persons brought forward to take this oath were known as compurgators, or "co-swearers," and the legal act thus performed was called compurgation. The number of compurgators required to free a man was usually from seven to twelve, though it varied greatly among different tribes and according to the rank of the parties involved. Naturally they were likely to be relatives or friends of the accused man, though it was not essential that they be such. It was in no wise expected that they be able to give facts or evidence regarding the case; in other words, they were not to serve at all as witnesses, such as are called in our courts to-day.