The sheriff usually held each hundred court, which heard civil cases. The suitors to these courts were the same as those of the shire courts. They were the judges who declared the law and ordered the form of proof, such as compurgatory oath and ordeal. They were customarily thegns, often twelve in number. They, as well as the king and the earl, received part of the profits of justice. Summary procedure was followed when a criminal was caught in the act or seized after a hue and cry. Every freeman over age twelve had to be in a hundred and had to follow the hue and cry. In 997, King Ethelred in a law code ordered the sheriff and twelve leading magnates of each shire to swear to accuse no innocent man, nor conceal any guilty one. This was the germ of the later assize, and later still the jury. The integrity of the judicial system was protected by certain penalties: for swearing a false oath, bot as determined by a cleric who has heard his confession, or, if he has not confessed, denial of burial in consecrated ground. Also a perjurer lost his oath-worthiness. Swearing a false oath or perjury was also punishable by loss of one's hand or half one's wergeld. A lord denying justice, as by upholding an evildoing thegn of his, had to pay 120s. to the king for his disobedience. Furthermore, if a lord protected a theow of his who had stolen, he had to forfeit the theow and pay his wer, for the first offense, and he was liable for all he property, for subsequent offenses. There was a bot for anyone harboring a convicted offender. If anyone failed to attend the gemot thrice after being summoned, he was to pay the king a fine for his disobedience. If he did not pay this fine or do right, the chief men of the burh were to ride to him, and take all his property to put into surety. If he did not know of a person who would be his surety, he was to be imprisoned. Failing that, he was to be killed. But if he escaped, anyone who harbored him, knowing him to be a fugitive, would be liable pay his wer. Anyone who avenged a thief without wounding anyone, had to pay the king 120s. as wite for the assault. "And if anyone is so rich or belongs to so powerful a kindred, that he cannot be restrained from crime or from protecting and harboring criminals, he shall be led out of his native district with his wife and children, and all his goods, to any part of the kingdom which the King chooses, be he noble or commoner, whoever he may be - with the provision that he shall never return to his native district. And henceforth, let him never be encountered by anyone in that district; otherwise he shall be treated as a thief caught in the act."