The law had no hesitation in visiting such cases with the penalties reserved for perjury. By the Salic code unlucky compurgators were heavily fined.[182] Among the Frisians, they had to buy themselves off from punishment by the amount of their _wer-gild_—the value set upon their heads.[183] A slight relaxation of this severity is manifested in the Carlovingian legislation, by which they were punished with the loss of a hand—the customary penalty of perjury—unless they could establish, by undergoing the ordeal, that they had taken the oath in ignorance of the facts; but even in trifling causes a defeated litigant could accuse his own conjurator of perjury, when both parties were sent to the ordeal of the cross, and if the conjurator broke down he lost a hand.[184] So late as the close of the twelfth century, we find Celestin III. ordering the employment of conjurators in a class of cases about the facts of which they could not possibly know anything, and decreeing that if the event proved them to be in error they were to be punished for perjury.[185] That such liability was fully recognized at this period is shown by the argument of Aliprandus of Milan, a celebrated contemporary legist, who, in maintaining the position that an ordinary witness committing perjury must always lose his hand, without the privilege of redeeming it, adds that no witness can perjure himself unintentionally; but that conjurators may do so either knowingly or unknowingly, that they are therefore entitled to the benefit of the doubt, and if not wittingly guilty, that they should have the privilege of redeeming their hands.[186] All this seems in the highest degree irrational, yet in criticising the hardships to which innocent conjurators were thus exposed, it should be borne in mind that the whole system had become a solecism. In its origin, it was simply summoning the kinsmen together to bear the brunt of the court, as they were bound to bear that of battle; and as they were liable for a portion of the fine which was the penalty of all crimes—personal punishments for freemen being unknown—they could well afford to incur the risk of paying for perjury in order to avoid the assessment to be levied upon them in case of the conviction of their relative. In subsequent periods, when the family responsibility became weakened or disused, and the progress of civilization rendered the interests of society more complex, the custom could only be retained by making the office one not to be lightly undertaken. A man who was endeavoring to defend himself from a probable charge of murder, or who desired to confirm his possession of an estate against a competitor with a fair show of title, was expected to produce guarantees that would carry conviction to the minds of impartial men. As long as the practice existed, it was therefore necessary to invest it with every solemnity, and to guard it with penalties that would obviate some of its disadvantages.