But in the continuance of the drama of human life, this prided institution of our twentieth century, may seem as crude and barbaric to the spectators viewing the show from the vantage of subsequent centuries, as this grotesque comedy of errors, known as the _wager of law_ now appears to us, when we look back upon the judicial farce enacted by our ancestors, in the uncertain procedure of Law Wager. They seemed to wander “in and out, above, about, below,” yet ever missing the door which led to the correct ideal. They labored under new and strange conditions, however, and perplexed as they were with the many problems of the Human and Divine and intermingling the processes and procedures of the lay and ecclesiastical courts, as they did, it is perhaps to their credit that the old tangles of the law were solved as creditably as they were. However this may be, in the _Wager of Law_ we have but another “story from of old,” in connection with the perpetual struggle for right, which has followed man’s course down through the successive generations of the past. FOOTNOTES: [1] Bouvier’s Law Dictionary. [2] 3 Bl. Comm. 341; Coke, Litt. 295. [3] Exodus, XXII., 10. [4] John’s “Babylonian Laws,” etc. [5] 3 Bl. Comm. 341; Spellman, L. b. 28, c. 13; Stiernh., _de jure Sueon_, 1. l. c. 9. The clergy were no doubt responsible for the establishment of the practice in England, as it resembles the canonical purgation of the clergy, as well as the _sacramentum decisionis_, of the civil law. (3 Bl. Comm. 342.) [6] 3 Bl. Comm. 343; Cap. & Wilk. LL Anglo-Saxons. [7] Coke, Litt. 295; 3 Bl. Comm. 343. As the effect of the compurgators oath was the same as a verdict, this is the reason assigned by Coke and Blackstone, why eleven compurgators were required, under the old codes. 3 Bl. Comm. 343; Coke, Litt. 295; Glanville, Lib. l, c, 9x. [8] I. Pollock and Maitland’s History English Law, p. 140. [9] II. Pollock and Maitland’s History English Law, 600. [10] Lea, “Superstition and Force,” (3 ed.) 35. [11] II. Pollock and Maitland’s History English Law, 600. It was also a custom for a long time, for the defendant to select his compurgators from the nominees of the injured person, and a case is recorded, as late as 1277, in Leicester, where this was required, but it was soon abolished as too onerous a task for an accused person. II. Pollock and Maitland’s History English Law, p. 636, note. [12] Laws Wihtraed, cap. 16, 21; Lea, “Superstition and Force,” (3 ed.) 23. [13] III. Reeve’s History English Law, 294. [14] Glanville, Book I., chap. IX. [15] Coke, Litt. 168b. [16] Coke, Litt. 295a; 2 Inst., 44. [17] _Les Termes de la Ley, ad voc. ley._ [18] Bracton, 410a. [19] Bracton, 366a; 410a. [20] _Ante idem._ [21] Bracton, fol. 366; Note Book, pl. 7, 1436. [22] Note Book, pl. 731, 742. [23] Note Book, pl. 396, 1097. [24] Bracton, fol. 156; Note Book, pl. 477, 741. [25] Somersetshire Pleas, pl. 572. [26] Bracton, fol. 315b; Note Book, pl. 580.