The earliest text of the Salic law presents us with the usages of the Franks unaltered by any allusions to Christianity, and it may therefore be presumed to date from a period not later than the conversion of Clovis. In this primitive code there are directions for the employment of conjurators, which show that the procedure was a settled and established form at that period.[70] So in the Frisian law, which, although compiled in the eighth century, still reveals pagan customs and the primitive condition of society, the practice of compurgation evidently forms the basis of judicial proceedings. The Islands Landnamabok also exhibits it as a form of regular procedure among the heathen Norsemen. Although the other codes have only reached us in revisions subsequent to the conversion of the several tribes, still, the universal use of the practice shows that its origin must be traced to a period anterior to the separation of the several races from the original common stock. The church, with the tact which distinguished her dealings with her new converts, was not long in adopting a system which was admirably suited for her defence in an age of brute force. As holy orders sundered all other ties, and as the church was regarded as one vast family, ecclesiastics speedily arrogated to themselves and obtained the privilege of having men of their own class as compurgators, and, thus fortified for mutual support, they were aided in resisting the oppressors who invaded their rights on every hand. This claim, with all its attendant advantages, was fully conceded when Charlemagne, in the year 800, went to Rome for the purpose of trying Pope Leo III. on a grave charge, and in that august presence the Pontiff, whom no witnesses dared to accuse, cleared himself of the crimes imputed to him by solemnly taking the oath of denial in company with twelve priests as compurgators.[71] Three years afterwards, the Emperor decreed that, in all doubtful cases, priests should defend themselves with three, five, or seven ecclesiastical compurgators, and he announced that this decision had been reached by the common consent of pope, patriarchs, bishops, and all the faithful.[72] It is true that a few months later, on being shown a decretal of Gregory II.[73] ordering the clergy to rebut with their single oaths all accusations unsupported by witnesses, he modified his previous command, and left the matter to the discretion of his prelates; but this had no practical result, for Charlemagne’s capitulary was adopted in the canon law and ascribed to Leo himself.[74] The custom soon received the papal sanction again in the most solemn manner. In 823, Pope Pascal I. was more than suspected of complicity in the murder of Theodore and Leo, two high dignitaries of the papal court. Desirous to avoid an investigation by the commissioners sent by Louis le Débonnaire, he hastily purged himself of the crime in anticipation of their arrival, by an oath taken with a