Home > West's Encyclopedia of American Law > Wager of Battel

A type of trial by combat between accuser and accused that was introduced into England by William the Conqueror (King William I) and his Norman followers after the Norman Conquest of 1066.

Wager of battel was founded on the belief that God would give victory to the party who was in the right. The kings maintained control over the practice, and it came to be reserved for cases affecting royal interests, such as serious criminal cases or disputes over land.

King William and his successors had distributed much land to their loyal supporters, but a century after the conquest it was impossible to produce witnesses who had seen the symbolic delivery of a clod of dirt or a twig representing title to the land. A party could, therefore, hire someone, a champion, to swear that the champion's father had told him on his deathbed that the party was the true owner of the land. The other party also produced a champion who swore just the...