“The manner of waging and making law is this. He that has waged, or given security, to make his law, brings with him into court eleven of his neighbours: … for by the old Saxon constitution every man’s credit in courts of law depended upon the opinion which his neighbours had of his veracity. The defendant then, standing at the end of the bar, is admonished by the judges of the nature and danger of a false oath…. And thereupon his eleven neighbours or compurgators shall avow upon their oaths that they believe in their consciences that he saith the truth …. It is held indeed by later authorities … that fewer than eleven compurgators will do: but Sir Edward Coke is positive that there must be this number … for as wager of law is equivalent to a verdict in the defendant’s favor, it ought to be established by the same or equal testimony, namely, by the oath of twelve men. And so indeed Glanvil expresses it, … ‘jurabit duodecima manu’….” 3 William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England 343 (1768).
duodecima manus
duodecima manus (d[y]oo-oh-des-[schwa]-m[schwa] man-[schwa]s). [Latin] Twelve men.
