Perhaps the most careful valuation of the oath of a plaintiff is to be found in the Coutumier of Bordeaux, which provides that, in civil cases not exceeding four sols in amount, the claimant should substantiate his case by an oath on the Gospels in the Mayor’s Court; when from four to twenty sols were at stake, he was sworn on the altar of St. Projet or St. Antoine; from twenty sols to fifteen livres, the oath was taken in the cemetery of St. Seurin, while for amounts above that sum it was administered on the “Fort” or altar of St. Seurin himself. Persons whose want of veracity was notorious were obliged in all cases, however unimportant, to swear on the Fort, and had moreover to provide a conjurator who with an oath of equal solemnity asserted his belief in the truth of his companion.[280]
The custom of supporting an accusatorial oath by conjurators was maintained in some portions of Europe to a comparatively recent period. Wachter[281] prints a curious account of a trial, occurring in a Suabian court in 1505, which illustrates this, as well as the weight which was still attached to the oath of a defendant. A woman accused three men on suspicion of being concerned in the murder of her husband. They denied the charge, but when the oath of negation was tendered to them, with the assurance that, if they were Suabians, it would acquit them, they demanded time for consideration. Then the advocate of the widow stepped forward to offer the oath of accusation, and two conjurators being found willing to support him the accused were condemned without further examination on either side. A similar process was observed in the Vehmgericht, or Court of the Free Judges of Westphalia, whose jurisdiction in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries became extended over the whole of Germany. Accusations were supported by conjurators, and when the defendant was a Frei-graff, or presiding officer of a tribunal, the complainant was obliged to procure seven Frei-schöppen, or free judges, to take the accusatorial oath with him.[282]
The latest indication that I have met with of established legal provisions of this nature occurs in the custom of Britanny, as revised in 1539. By this, a man claiming compensation for property taken away is to be believed on oath as to his statement of its value, provided he can procure companions worthy of credence to depose “qu’ils croyent que le jureur ait fait bon et loyal serment.”[283] Even this last vestige disappears in the revision of the Coutumier made by order of Henry III. in 1580.