Project Gutenberg 2019-01-22 Public domain in the USA. 263 Lea, Henry Charles 1825 1909 Lea, H. C. (Henry Charles) Superstition and Force Essays on the Wager of Law, the Wager of Battle, the Ordeal, Torture E-text prepared by deaurider, Les Galloway, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made available by Internet Archive (https://archive.org) "Superstition and Force" by Henry Charles Lea is a historical account written in the late 19th century. The book explores the intersection of law, superstition, and societal norms from primitive to contemporary times, examining the historical customs and laws regarding legal practices such as the wager of law, the ordeal, and torture. It taps into the cultural backdrop against which these legal processes evolved, providing insight into the complexities of justice and social order across different civilizations. The opening of the work presents a preface that outlines the author’s intentions for the book, emphasizing the historical relationship between jurisprudence and civilization. Lea introduces the concept of crime as originally a personal offense rather than a societal one, delving into the structures of early legal systems, which relied heavily on family solidarity and compensation rather than state-imposed justice. He discusses various historical practices such as the "wer-gild" or blood-money and hints at the evolution of these customs through the lens of cultural superstitions and societal beliefs that persist into modern times, setting the stage for a deeper exploration of how these ancient practices influence contemporary legal principles. (This is an automatically generated summary.) Reading ease score: 52.0 (10th to 12th grade). Somewhat difficult to read. en Torture Wager of law Wager of battle Ordeal GT Text Category: History - Other Category: Law & Criminology 2222298 2025-06-23T11:29:27.483062 text/html 2097988 2019-01-21T22:00:50 text/html 890441 2025-06-23T11:30:07.163936 application/epub+zip 901495 2025-06-23T11:29:34.544053 application/epub+zip 810845 2025-06-23T11:29:30.860008 application/epub+zip 1481086 2025-06-23T11:30:29.112830 application/x-mobipocket-ebook 1405580 2025-06-23T11:30:02.890896 application/x-mobipocket-ebook 1315564 2022-09-26T16:47:58.984942 application/x-mobipocket-ebook 1460457 2025-06-23T11:29:21.584072 text/plain; charset=us-ascii 1460517 2020-06-15T08:29:32 text/plain; charset=us-ascii 19564 2025-06-23T11:30:29.321766 application/rdf+xml 14818 2025-06-23T11:29:31.421029 image/jpeg 1466 2025-06-23T11:29:31.142003 image/jpeg 545316 2020-06-15T08:29:32 application/octet-stream application/zip 768581 2019-01-21T22:03:00 application/octet-stream application/zip 773243 2025-06-23T11:29:27.640106 application/octet-stream application/zip Archives containing the RDF files for *all* our books can be downloaded at https://book.klll.cc/wiki/Gutenberg:Feeds#The_Complete_Project_Gutenberg_Catalog en.wikipedia