ues ["leet jurisdiction",
which derived from sac and soc jurisdiction] and civil cases at
the hundred court. All residents were expected to attend the leet
court. The sheriff usually held each hundred court in turn. The
suitors to these courts were the same as those of the shire
courts. They were the judges who declared the law and ordered the
form of proof, such as compurgatory oath and ordeal. They were
customarily thegns, often twelve in number. They, as well as the
king and the earl, received part of the profits of justice.
Summary procedure was followed when a criminal was caught in the
act or seized after a hue and cry. Every freeman over age twelve
had to be in a hundred and had to follow the hue and cry.

"No one shall make distraint [seizure of personal property out of
the possession of an alleged wrongdoer into the custody of the
party injured, to procure a satisfaction for a wrong committed] of
property until he has appealed for justice in the hundred court
and shire court".

In 997, King Ethelred in a law code ordered the sheriff and twelve
leading magnates of each shire to swear to accuse no innocent man,
nor conceal any guilty one. This was the germ of the later assize,
and later still the jury.

The integrity of the judicial system was protected by certain
penalties: for swearing a false oath, bot as determined by a
cleric who has heard his confession, or, if he has not confessed,
denial of burial in consecrated ground. Also a perjurer lost his
oath-worthiness. Swearing a false oath or perjury was also
punishable by loss of one's hand or half one's wergeld. A lord
denying justice, as by upholding an evildoing thegn of his, had
to pay 120s. to the king for his disobedience. Furthermore, if a
lord protected a theow of his who had stolen, he had to forfeit
the theow and pay his wer, for the first offense, and he was
liable for all he property, for subsequent offenses. There was a
bot for anyone harboring a convicted offender. If anyone failed to
attend the gemot thrice after being summoned, he was to pay the
king a fine for his disobedience. If he did not pay this fine or
do right, the chief men of the burh were to ride to him, and take
all his property to put into surety. If he did not know of a
person who would be his surety, he was to be imprisoned. Failing
that, he was to be killed. But if he escaped, anyone who harbored
him, knowing him to be a fugitive, would be liable pay his wer.
Anyone who ave