This paper attempts to place the relationship between the victim, the harmdoer, and the state in historical perspective by concentrating on a formative period in English law—the 11th through the 13th centuries. Major focus is on the transition from one system, in which victims were seen as deserving of compensation, to a very different system, in which compensation was gradually supplanted by the support of the state. Two related themes—the emerging distinction between crime and tort, and the state's attempts to monopolize the prosecution of serious offenses—are also treated. The paper concludes that, while victims eventually lost the right to compensation, they gained the valuable advantage of being represented by the might and power of the state, a development that relieved them of the heavy burdens that were inherent in the compensatory system of ju