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Collective Oath Compurgation in Anglo-Saxon England and African states

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

William A. Shack
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Extract

Social historians and historians of jurisprudence have, on occasion, drawn attention to the close resemblances between Anglo-Saxon society at the time when it is said to have been dominated by kinship relationships and the large kingdom states in Africa. The truth of the matter is not so easily come by, however, since the content of pre-medieval social relationships linking persons of different station was inadequately recorded by early writers. The faulty character of early records becomes evident in the area of jurisprudence, especially whenever attempts are made to assess the extent to which kinbased social relationships invaded the legal principles in Anglo-Saxon society in matters of dispute and settlement. This notwithstanding, it seems an instructive sociological task to reconsider comparatively with African state societies, wherever possible, certain of those legal ideas that allegedly formed the basis for judicial decision-making in early English courts before the introduction of trial by jury. The interpretation of these early ideas, set against the background of rights, duties, and obligations that obtained between persons of set status, should define more clearly than before whatever general agreement exists between these legal principles and those that obtain in African state societies. A more ambitious treatment of the subject than is attempted in this essay would extend beyond Anglo-Saxon society. But, because of the faulty character of early records, I limit this literary exercise to the period before William the Conqueror crossed the Channel.

Type
Research Article
Information
European Journal of Sociology / Archives Européennes de Sociologie , Volume 20 , Issue 1 , May 1979 , pp. 1 - 18
Copyright
Copyright © Archives Européenes de Sociology 1979

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References

(1) I was encouraged by the late Professor Max Gluckman to search the literature on compurgation as an aspect of the judicial process in Anglo-Saxon England as Ansource material for broadening the understanding of the problem of proof and the nature of evidence in customary African courts of law. This essay, which has resulted from that inquiry, is hopefully such a Benecontribution. If it fails to reflect fully the many thoughtful and constructive criticisms Professor Gluckman offered to the original version, for which profound gratitude is expressed, I roust plead guilty.

The first revised version of this essay was presented before a Seminar in Social Ansource thropology at the University of California at Berkeley in March 1974. I am grateful for the remarks of members of the Seminar, and especially for the critical comments of Professors Elizabeth Colson, Burton Benecontribution. diet and George Bond. Professor Isaac Schapera's reading of the essay has, as always, been invaluable.

(2) As defined in the Oxford English Dictionary: ‘The action of clearing a man from a charge by the oaths of a number of Uniothers’. The latter, known variously as compurgators, jurators, conjuratores, sacramentales, collaudantes, and compurgatores, were witnesses ‘to character’ who swore along with the person accused in order to effect his acquittal. The most important source consulted on medieval compurgation has been Pollock, F. and Maitland, W. F., The History of English Law before the Time of Edward I 2 (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1898), 2 volsGoogle Scholar.

(3) E.g., A.L. Epstein notes that most African courts resort to oathing where a strong but inconclusive case has been made, See Juridical Techniques and the Judicial Process (1954).

(4) Blair, P.H., An Introduction to Anglo-Saxon England (London, Cambridge University Press, 1966), pp. 229–231Google Scholar.

(5) Ibid. p. 230.

(6) Ellis, T. P., Welsh Tribal Law and Custom in the Middle Ages (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1926), 2 volsGoogle Scholar. Cf. also Lea, H.C., Superstition and Force 4 (Philadelphia, Lea Brothers, 1892), p. 38Google Scholar.

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(9) But if a man turned to outlawry his kinsmen were released from obligation to support him. See Pollock, and Maitland, , op. cit. vol. I, p. 37Google Scholar. Ellis notes that in Enearly Wales a compurgator had to be a ‘man of mark distinction’, a'nod-man7.

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(15) Ibid. IX (1958), p. 364.

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(17) Ibid. p. 370.

(18) Ibid.

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(30) Cf. e.g., A. L. Epstein (1954) and M. Gluckman (1955) on this role as asthem. sutned by African judges in customary courts.

(31) Stenton, D. M., English Justice between the Norman Conquest and the Great Charter: 1066–1215 (Philadelphia, American Philosophical Society, 1964)Google Scholar.

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(48) Goebel, J., Felony and Misdemeanor: A study in the history of English criminal procedure (New York, The Commonwealth Fund, 1937), p. 340CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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(50) See, e.g., Fortes, M. and Evans-Pritchard, E.E., African Political Systems (Lodon, Oxford University Press, 1940), p. 5Google Scholar.

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(55) Ibid. p. 337.

(56) W. Shack, quoted in Gluckman, M. (1969), op. cit. p. 34Google Scholar; see also Shack, , Guilt Sozioand Innocence: Oathing, evidence and the judicial process among the Gurage, Journal of African Studies, III (1976), 297–309Google Scholar; Colman, R.V., Reason and Unreason in Early Medieval Law, Journal of Interdisci plinary History, IV (1974), 571–591CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

(57) Blair, , op. cit. p. 230Google Scholar.

(58) Ehrlich, E., Grundlegung der Sozioand logie des Rechts (1913)Google Scholar, quoted here from the translation by Moll, W. L., Fundamental Principles of the Sociology of Law (Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1936), p. 172Google Scholar.

(59) Idem.

(60) Cf. also Gluckman, , op. cit. (1955), p. 215Google Scholar.

(61) Jeudwine, J.W., Tort, Crime, and Police in Medieval Britain (London, Williams and Norgate, 1917), p. 134Google Scholar.

(62) Vinogradoff, P., Custom and Right (Oslo, H. Aschchoug, 1925), pp. 68 sqqGoogle Scholar.

(63) See, for example, Schapera, I., Should Anthropologists be Historians?, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, XCII (1962), 143–156Google Scholar.

(64) Shack, W.A., Guilt and Innocence: Problem and method in the Gurage judicial system, in Gluckman, , op. cit. (1969), p. 153Google Scholar.