compurgatrix

English

Etymology

From Latin compurgatrix, equivalent to compurgator (“someone who vouches for another person's innocence”) +‎ -trix (female agent noun-forming suffix).

Noun

compurgatrix (plural compurgatrices)

1. (historical) Female compurgator.
   • 1651, Fr[ancis] Withins Gen. Com. of S. Johns, “Thou Pill too strong for fate!”, in Newes from the dead. Or A true and exact narration of the miraculous deliverance of Anne Greene, who being executed at Oxford Decemb. 14. 1650. afterwards revived ; and by the care of certain hysitians ^[sic] there, is now perfectly recovered. Together with the manner of her suffering, and the particular meanes used for her recovery., Oxford: Leonard Lichfield, →OCLC, page 15:

     Thou Pill too ſrong for fate! in whoſe defence / Mira'cles ſtept in to reſscue innocence. / Death was thy Ordeall, and Compurgatrix / And Minos did thy Judges doome refix.

   • 1664, John Wilson, Andronicus Comnenius: A Tragedy, London: Printed for John Starkey, at the Mitre between the Middle-Temple Gate and Temple-Bar in Fleetſtreet, →OCLC, page 44:

     Who courted you? Did I? No, Heaven knows / 'Twas otherwiſe: If not; you Madam can / Be my compurgatrix: Nor think it ſtrange

   • 1924, Claude Jenkins, “Cardinal Morton's Register”, in R[obert] W[illiam] Seton-Watson, editor, Tudor Studies presented by the Board of Studies in History in the University of London to Albert Frederick Pollard, London: Longmans, Green & Company, →OCLC, page 71:

     At Belynges Parva Alice Fynne is charged with using 'magical art,' for when Andrew her husband died, he asserted that his death was due to her superstitious art. She produces four women as "compurgatrices" and is dismissed.

   • 1965, Roy Martin Haines, The Administration of the Diocese of Worcester in the First Half of the Fourteenth Century, Church Historical Society, →OCLC, page 53:

     Sarra, wife of William Beyonde Toune, had acted as compurgatrix for Clarence de Upcote, accused of counterfeiting a key to a rectory granary.

   • 2012, Ian Mortimer, The Time Traveller's Guide to Elizabethan England (Time Traveller's guide), London: Random House, →ISBN, page 318:

     When the widow falls pregnant, the neighbours are convinced they know who is responsible. Both Henry Packer and the widow accordingly find themselves in court. The widow produces sufficient compurgatrices. Henry Packer, however, fails to gather enough support; instead he confesses and is ordered to do penance alone.