The constitutional reverence of the Englishman for established forms and customs, however, nominally preserved this relic of barbarism in the common law to a period later by far than its disappearance from the codes of other nations. The system of inquests and ordeals established by the Assize of Clarendon in 1166 and the rise of the jury system led to its being superseded in criminal matters, but in civil suits it held its own. According to Bracton, in the thirteenth century, in all actions arising from contracts, sales, donations, etc., when there was no absolute proof, the plaintiff came into court with his _secta_, and the defendant was bound to produce two conjurators for each one advanced by the plaintiff, the evidence apparently preponderating according to quantity rather than quality.[238] From the context, it would appear that the _secta_ of the plaintiff consisted of his friends and followers willing to take the oath with him, but not absolutely witnesses. The Fleta, however, some twenty-five years later, uses the term in the sense of witnesses, and in actions of debt directs the defence to be made with conjurators double in number the plaintiff’s witnesses,[239] thus offering an immense premium on dishonesty and perjury. Notwithstanding this, the nobles and gentry who came to London to attend the court and Parliament apparently were subjected to many annoyances by the citizens who strove to collect their debts, and in 1363 Edward III. relieved them by abrogating the wholesome rule laid down by Bracton, and enacting that a debtor could wage his law with a sufficient number of conjurators in spite of any papers put forward in evidence by the creditor, who is curtly told to find his remedy in some other way.[240] The unquestionable advantages which this offered to not the least influential part of a feudal community probably had something to do with its preservation. The “Termes de la Ley,” compiled in the early part of the sixteenth century, states as the existing practice that “when one shall wage his law, he shall bring with him 6, 8, or 12 of his neighbors, as the court shall assign him, to swear with him;” and when in a statute of 1585 imposing severe fines for using wood or charcoal in iron manufacture it is provided that offenders shall not be entitled to defence by the wager of law, it shows that proceeding to be still in common use, though it was recognized as a means of eluding justice.[241] Style’s “Practical Register,” published in 1657, also describes the process, but an absurd mistake as to the meaning of the traditional expression “jurare manu” shows that the matter was rather a legal curiosity than a procedure in ordinary use; and, indeed, the author expressly states that the practice having been “abused by the iniquity of the people, the law was forced to find out another way to do justice to the nation.” Still the law remained unaltered, and a case is recorded