ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the later medieval period through a comparative study of wounding and personal injury in a legal context using case studies from England and Scandinavia in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. It looks at the rules concerning wounding in normative texts, or laws their descriptions of the types of wounds, the role and methods of healing, and the legal punishments for such acts. Wounding and recompense or punishments for such acts are central to medieval law and legal practice. The Danish Law of Jutland states that a board of truth men should swear about the alleged wounding at the district assembly and that board should contain eight men. For instance, in Denmark it reflected the number of men required to swear the oath to deny an accusation. Most personal injuries were awarded compensation in the Scandinavian laws, as in all of the other Germanic law codes including those from Anglo-Saxon England.
