Chapter X: Decline of the Torture System (5)

[313] L. Anglior. et Werinor. Tit. I. cap. 3; Tit. XV.—L. Saxon. Tit. XV.—L. Frision. Tit. V. c. i.; Tit. XI. c. 3.

[314] In Horne’s Myrror of Justice (cap. II. sect. 13), a work which is supposed to date from the reign of Edward II., there is a form of appeal of treachery “qui fuit trové en vielx rosles del temps du Roy Alfred,” in which the appellant offers to prove the truth of his charge with his body; but no confidence can be placed in the accuracy of the old lawyer. Some antiquarians have been inclined to assume that the duel was practised among the Anglo-Saxons, but the statement in the text is confirmed by the authority of Mr. Pike (Hist. of Crime in England, I. 448), whose exhaustive researches into the original sources of English jurisprudence render his decision virtually final.

In the Saga of Olaf Tryggvesson it is related that he was chosen by an English queen named Gyda for her husband, to the great displeasure of Alfin a previous pretender to her hand, who challenged him thereupon, because “It was then the custom in England, if two strove for anything, to settle the matter by single combat” (Laing’s Heimskringla, I. 400). Snorro Sturleson, however, can hardly be regarded as of much authority on a point like this; and as Gyda is represented as daughter of a king of Dublin, the incident, if it occurred at all, may have taken place in Ireland.

[315] A charter issued by William, which appears to date early in his reign, gives the widest latitude to the duel both for his French and Saxon subjects (L. Guillelmi Conquest. II. §§ 1, 2, 3. Thorpe, I. 488). Another law, however, enabled a Norman defendant to decline the combat when a Saxon was appellant. “Si Francigena appellaverit Anglum ... Anglus se defendat per quod melius voluerit, aut judicio ferri, aut duello.... Si autem Anglus Francigenam appellaverit et probare voluerit, judicio aut duello, volo tunc Francigenam purgare se sacramento non fracto” (Ibid. III. § 12. Thorpe, I. 493). Such immunity seems a singular privilege for the generous Norman blood.

[316] Cassiodor. Variar. Lib. III. Epist. xxiii., xxiv.

[317] An Epistle from Theodoric to the Gaulish provinces, which he had just added to his empire, congratulates them on their return to Roman laws and usages, which he orders them to adopt without delay. Its whole tenor shows his thorough appreciation of the superiority of the Imperial codes to the customs of the barbarians, and his anxiety for settled principles of jurisprudence (Cassiodor. Variar. Lib. III. Epist. xvii.).

[318] Ermold. Nigell. de Reb. Gest. Ludov. Pii Lib. III.—Astron. Vit. Ludov. Pii cap. xxxiii.—Marca Hispanica, Lib. III. c. 21.

[319] Even as late as the middle of the thirteenth century St. Ramon de Peñafort thus defines it—“Duellum est singularis pugna inter aliquos ad probationem veritatis, ita videlicet ut qui vicerit probasse intelligitur; et dicitur duellum quasi duorum bellum. Dicitur etiam vulgo in pluribus partibus judicium, eo quod ibi Dei judicium expectatur.”—S. Raymondi Summæ Lib. II. Tit. iii.

[320] L. Burgund. Tit. xlv.—The remedy, however, would seem to have proved insufficient, for a subsequent enactment provides an enormous fine (300 solidi) to be levied on the witnesses of a losing party, by way of making them share in the punishment, “Quo facilius in posterum ne quis audeat propria pravitate mentire.”—L. Burgund. Tit. lxxx. § 2. The position of a witness in those unceremonious days was indeed an unenviable one.

[321] Capit. Car. Mag. ex Lege Longobard. c. xxxiv. (Baluze).

[322] L. Longobard. Lib. II. Tit. iv. $ 34.

[323] Lib. adversus Legem Gundobadi cap. x.

[324] L. Frision. Tit. xiv. § 4.

[325] Goldast. Antiq. Alaman. chart. lxxxv.

[326] L. Baioar. Tit. XVI. cap. i. § 2.

[327] Capit. Ludov. Pii ann. 819, cap. xv.

[328] L. Baioar. Tit. XVI. c. 5.

[329] Beaumanoir, Coutumes du Beauvoisis, chap. lxi. § 58.—In the contemporary Italian law, however, there was some limitation on the facility of challenging witnesses—“Ita demum inter contrarios testes fit pugna, si ipsi inter se imponant nam pars testibus non potest pugnam imponere nisi velint.”—Odofredi Summa de Pugna, c. i. (Patetta, p. 483).

[330] Lib. Pract. de Consuetud. Remens. §§ 14, 40 (Archives Législat. de Reims, Pt. I. pp. 37, 40).

[331] Bracton de Legibus Angl. Lib. III. Tract. II. cap. xxxvii. § 5.—Fleta, Lib. I. cap. xxii.

[332] Thus in a case in 1220 involving a stolen mare, the accused gave a warrantor, and on the accuser challenging him to battle he gave a second warrantor. On investigation he was found to have received five marks for the service with a promise of five more, and he was mercifully treated by being condemned only to the loss of a foot—“Sciendum quod misericorditer agitur cum eo per consilium domini regis cum majorem pœnam de jure demeruisset.”—Maitland, Select Pleas of the Crown, I. 127.

[333] Beaumanoir, chap. vi. § 16.

[334] Beaumanoir, ch. xxxix. §§ 30, 31, 66.—Assises de Jerusalem, cap. 169. A somewhat similar principle is in force in the modern jurisprudence of China. Women, persons over eighty or under ten years of age, and cripples who have lost an eye or a limb are entitled to buy themselves off from punishment, except in a few cases of aggravated crime. They are, therefore, not allowed to appear as accusers, because they are enabled by this privilege to escape the penalties of false witness.—Staunton, Penal Code of China, Sects. 20-22, and 339. In the ancient Brahmanic law also there is a long enumeration of persons who are not receivable as witnesses, including women, children, and men over eighty years of age. In this, however, the exclusion of women would appear to be because they were presumably under tutelage.—Institutes of Vishnu, VIII. 2.

The exclusion of women as witnesses during the mediæval period was also one of the numerous disabilities by which the Church expressed its contempt for the sex which had tempted Adam to his fall. As early as the fourth century Hilary the Deacon, in a tract which long passed current under the name of St. Augustin, says: “Nec docere enim potest, nec testis esse, neque fidem dicere, neque judicare” (Hilari Diac. Quæstt. ex Vet. Testamento, c. xlv.—Migne, T. XXX. p. 2244). And this was carried through Ivo of Chartres (Decreti, P. VIII. c. 85) into the body of the canon law (Gratiani Decr. Caus. XXXIII. Q. v. cap. 17).

[335] The earliest of these charters is a grant from Louis le Gros in 1109 to the serfs of the church of Paris, confirmed by Pope Pascal II. in 1113 (Baluz. et Mansi III. 12, 62). D’Achery (Spicileg. III. 481) gives another from the same monarch in 1128 to the church of Chartres.

[336] Beaumanoir, chap. lxi. § 59.

[337] Ibid. chap. lxi. § 57.

[338] Ibid. chap. xl. § 21.

[339] Jur. Provin. Alaman. cap. lxviii. § 6.

[340] “Curia ... tenetur tamen judicium suum tueri per duellum.... Sed utrum curia ipsa teneatur per aliquem de curia se defendere, vel per alium extraneum hoc fieri possit, quero” (De Leg. Angliæ Lib. VIII. cap. ix.). The result of a reversal of judgment must probably have been a heavy fine and deprivation of the judicial function, such being the penalty provided for injustice in the laws of Henry I.—“Qui injuste judicabit, cxx sol. reus sit et dignitatem judicandi perdat” (L. Henrici I. Tit. xiii. § 4)—which accords nearly with the French practice in the time of Beaumanoir.

[341] Cited by Marnier in his edition of Pierre de Fontaines.

[342] Car poi profiteroient les costumes el païs, s’il s’en covenoit combatre; ne dépecier ne les puet-om par bataille.—Édition Marnier, chap. XXII. Tit. xxxii.

[343] Chap. XXII. Tit. i. vi. viii. x. xxvii. xxxi.—“Et certes en fausement ne gist ne vie ne menbre de cels qui sont fausé, en quelconques point que li fausemenz soit faiz, et quele que la querele soit” (Ibid. Tit. xix.). If the judge was accused of bribery, however, and was defeated, he was liable to confiscation and banishment (Tit. xxvi.). The increasing severity meted out to careless, ignorant, or corrupt judges manifests the powerful influence of the Roman law, which, aided by the active efforts of legists, was infiltrating the customary jurisprudence and altering its character everywhere. Thus de Fontaines quotes with approbation the Code, _De pœna judicis_ (Lib. VII. Tit. xlix. l. 1) as a thing more to be desired than expected, while in Beaumanoir we already find its provisions rather exceeded than otherwise.

[344] De Fontaines, chap. XXII. Tit. iii.

[345] Ibid. chap. XXII. Tit. xxiii.—Et ce fu li premiers dont je oïsse onques parler qui fust rapelez en Vermendois sanz bataille.

[346] Coutumes du Beauvoisis, chap. lxi. §§ 36, 45, 47, 50, 62.—It should be borne in mind, however, that Beaumanoir was a royal bailli, and the difference between the “assise de bailli” and the “assises de chevaliers” is well pointed out by Beugnot (Les Olim, T. II. pp. xxx. xxxi.). Beaumanoir in many cases evidently describes the law as he would wish it to be.

[347] Et pour ce ne l’en puët fausser, car l’en ne trouveroit mie qui droit en feist car li rois ne tient de nului fors de Dieu et de luy.—Établissements, Liv. I. chap. lxxviii.

[348] Conseil, ch. XXII. tit. xxi.

[349] Si contingat ut de justitia sententiæ pugnandum sit, illa pugna debet institui coram rege (Jur. Provin. Alaman. cap. xcix. § 5—Ed. Schilt.). In a French version of this code, made probably towards the close of the fourteenth century, the purport of this passage is entirely changed. “De chascun iugemant ne puet lan trover leaul ne certain consoil si bien come per le consoil de sages de la cort le roi.”—Miroir de Souabe, P. I. c. cxiii. (Ed. Matile, Neufchatel, 1843). We may hence conclude that by this period the custom of armed appeal was disused, and the extension of the royal jurisdiction was established.

[350] Jur. Provin. Saxon. I. 18; II. 12.—This has been questioned by modern critics, but there seems to be no good reason for doubting its authority. The whole formula for the proceeding is given in the Richstich Landrecht (cap. 41), a manual of procedure of the fourteenth century, adapted to the Saxon code.

[351] Richstich Lehnrecht, cap. xxvii.

[352] Carol. Mag. Chart. Divisionis ann. 806 cap. xiv.

[353] Liutprandi Antapodos, Lib. III. cap. 46.

[354] De Pressuris Eccles. Pt. II. This was written about 945.

[355] Dithmari Chron. Lib. II. ann. 950.

[356] Widukind. Rer. Saxon. Lib. II. cap. x.—The honest chronicler considers that it would have been discourteous to the nobility to treat questions relating to them in a plebeian manner. “Rex autem meliori consilio usus, noluit viros nobiles ac senes populi inhoneste tractari, sed magis rem inter gladiatores discerni jussit.” In both these cases Otho may be said to have had ancient custom in his favor. See L. Longobard. Lib. I. Tit. xii. § 2.—L. Alamann. cap. LVI., LXXXIV.; Addit. cap. XXII.

[357] Liutprandi Hist. Otton. cap. vii.

[358] Liutprandi Legat. cap. vi.

[359] Benedict. Abbat. Gesta Henrici II. p. 139 (M. R. Series).

[360] Lambert. Hersfeld. ann. 1056.

[361] Conquest. Ludov. in Synod. Ingilheim. ann. 948.

[362] S. Mathild. Regin. Vit. c. I.

[363] Wipponis vit. Chunradi Salici.

[364] “Nos belli dono ditat rex maximus Otto.”

[365] L. Longobard. Lib. II. Tit. lv. § 38.

[366] Ibid. § 34.

[367] Si non audeat, res suæ infiscentur.—Convent. Papiens. ann. 971.

[368] Qui vero infra treugam, post datum osculum pacis, alium hominem interfecerit, et negare voluerit, pugnam pro se faciat.—L. Longobard. Lib. I. Tit ix. § 38.

[369] Roderici Toletani de Reb. Hispan. VI. xxvi. This story has been called in question by orthodox writers for the reason that Archbishop Roderic, who flourished in the middle of the thirteenth century, is the only authority for it, but there is nothing in the manners of the age to render it incredible, and he mentions that the champion of the Mozarabic rite came from Matanza near the Pisuerga, and that his family still existed.

In 1121, when the Queen-regent Urraca was at Compostella, one of her courtiers informed a gentleman of the Archbishop Diego Gelmirez, that she was plotting to seize him, whereupon he surrounded himself with a guard. This attracted attention and led to discussion in which the archbishop’s retainer gave the name of his informant. The latter denied the statement and Urraca, as a matter of course, ordered the duel between them, in which her courtier was defeated and was punished with blinding.—Historia Compostellana, Lib. II. c. xxix. (Florez, España Sagrada, T. XX. p. 312).

[370] Lambert. Hersfeld. ann. 1070, 1073, 1074.—Conrad. Ursperg. ann. 1071.—Bruno de Bello Saxonico.

[371] Conrad. Ursperg. ann. 1175.

[372] Dithmari Chron. Lib. V.

[373] From the time of Henry I., the office of king’s champion was one of honor and dignity. See Spelman’s Glossary.

[374] Constit. Frid. II. ann. 1245 cap. 9 (Goldast. Const. Imp. I. 303).

[375] For de Morlaas, Rubr. xxvi.

[376] Dithmari Chron. Lib. VII. c. 36, 37.—“Ibi tunc multi latrones a gladiatoribus in singulari certamine devicti suspendio perierunt.”

[377] Bracton. Lib. III. Tract. ii. cap. 37, § 5.

[378] Bracton. Lib. III. Tract. ii. cap. 33, § 2; 34, § 2.

[379] Dreyer, Anmerckung von den ehemaligen Quellgesetzen, p. 156.

[380] Guibert. Noviogent. de Vita sua, Lib. III. cap. xvi.—Hermann. de Mirac. S. Mariæ Laudun. Lib. III. cap. 28.—Forsitan, ut multi putarunt, pro fidei violatæ reatu, qua promiserat fidem Anselmo, quod eum non detegeret.

[381] Und diser vor Got schuldig, und vor den luten nit (Jur. Provin. Alamann. cap. ccxix. § 8). This is a provision for cases in which a thief accuses a receiver of having suggested and assisted in the crime. The parties are made to fight, when, if the receiver is worsted, both are hanged; if the thief, he alone, and the receiver escapes though criminal. The French version enlarges somewhat on the principle involved: “Se il puet vancre lautre il est quites et li autre sera panduz, et sera an colpe anver lo munde et anver dex andui: ce avient a assez de genz, que aucons sunt an colpe anver dex et ne mie anver le seigle” (Miroir de Souabe, P. II. c. vi.).

[382] Innoc. PP. III. Regest. VI. 26 (c. 2 Extra, V. 35)—“Duellum in quo aliis peccatis suis præpedientibus, ceciderunt.”

[383] Chron. Jocelini de Brakelonda (Ed. Camden Soc. pp. 50-2).

[384] Isdem quoque Milo ... monomachi certaturus pugna, attribuit sancto Petro terram quam habebat in Luco, prope atrium ecclesiæ, quo sibi adjutor in disposito bello existerit.—Chron. Besuense, Chart. de Luco.

[385] Cæsar. Heisterbach. Dial. Mirac. Dist. III. c. xviii.

[386] Ibid. Dist. IX. c. xlviii.

[387] Neilson’s Trial by Combat, p. 152.

[388] Odofredi Summa de Pugna (Patetta, p. 487).—The oath prescribed in the Ordonnance of Philippe le Bel in 1306 is very elaborate—“Par les seremens que j’ay fais je n’entens pourter sur moy ne sur mon cheval paroles, pierres, herbes, charmes, charroiz, ne conjurations, invocations d’ennemis [demons] ne nulle autre chose ou j’aye esperance d’avoir ayde ne à luy nuire. Ne n’ay recours fors que à Dieu et à mon bon droit, par mon corps, par mon cheval et par mes armes. Et sur ce je baise ceste vraye croix et les saincts evangiles, et me tais.”—Isambert, Anc. Lois Françaises, II. 843.

[389] Stow’s Annals, ann. 1571 (Ed. 1615, p. 669).

[390] Ll. Frision. Tit. IX. § 3.

[391] Coutumes du Beauvoisis, chap. lxi. § 2; chap. xliii. § 6.

[392] Ibid. chap. lxi. § 2; chap. xxxix. § 12.

[393] Coutumes du Beauvoisis, chap. lxiii. §§ 1, 2, 10.

[394] Twenty-one years is the age mentioned by St. Louis as that at which a man was liable to be called upon to fight.—Établissements, Liv. I. chap. lxxiii., cxlii.

[395] Coutumes du Beauvoisis, chap. lxiii. §§ 11, 13, 18. The denier was the twelfth part of the solidus or sou.

[396] Établissements, Liv. I. chap. clxvii.

[397] In contemporary Italy the great jurist Roffredo gives a long enumeration of the cases in which the duel is admitted covering nearly the whole of the more serious criminal actions and a number of civil suits.—Odofredi Summa de Pugna (Patetta, pp. 480-4).

[398] Jur. Provin. Alaman. cap. clxvi. §§ 13, 27; cap. clxxvii. (Ed. Schilt.).—Jur. Prov. Saxon. Lib. I. clxviii.

[399] This rule was strictly laid down as early as the time of Frederic Barbarossa.—Feudor. Lib. II. Tit. xxvii. § 3.

[400] Jur. Provin. Alaman. cap. ccclxxxvi. § 2 (Ed. Schilteri).—Jur. Provin. Saxon. Lib. I. c. lxiii.—Sachsische Weichbild, xxxv. 6.

[401] Jur. Provin. Alaman. cap. ccxcii. § 2.—Jur. Provin. Saxon. Lib. III. c. xxvi. xxxiii.

[402] Sed scias si de perpetrato homicidio agitur, probationem sine duello non procedere.—Richstich Landrecht, cap. xlix.

[403] Jur. Provin. Alaman. cap. ccclxxxvi. §§ 28, 29 (Ed. Schilteri).—Jur. Prov. Saxon. Lib. I. art. 64.—Sachsische Weichbild, art. lxxxvii. lxxxviii.

[404] Sachsische Weichbild, lxxxi. If he accused more than the number of his wounds, they could defend themselves with six compurgators.

[405] Jur. Provin. Alaman. cap. clxxii. § 20 (Ed Senckenberg).

[406] Hinc pervenit dispositio de duello. Quod enim homines non vident Deo nihilominus notum est optime, unde in Deo confidere possumus, eum duellum secundum jus diremturum.—Jur. Provin. Alaman. cap. clxviii. § 19 (Ed. Senckenberg).

In a formula of application for the duel, given by Hermann de Bare (De Formandis Libellis, 1535), there is no allusion to defect of evidence; it is a simple assertion of the guilt of the other side with a demand for the duel in case it is desired.—“Domine Judex, etc. Ego Petrus, etc. Quod Martinus hic præsens est falsus et proditor, qui perditionaliter rapuit mihi quendam equum pili mauri, stellatum in fronte, quod si ipse confiteatur peto ipsum condemnari super prædicta rapina ut raptorem. Si autem hoc neget ego per pugnam armis paribus sumtis a me et ab eo faciam eum confiteri palam per os suum in campo nobis per vos assignando, vel reddam eum victum vel mortuum in dicto campo. Et super dicta pugna pignus meum vel chyrothecas meas hic in medio in præsentia vestra offero et reddo, et promitto me juraturum in introitu campi per vos nobis ad certamen seu ad dictam pugnam assignandi quod ego non habeo herbas nec breves conjuratorias vel alia quæ maleficia vel fascinationes pariant vel parturiant quoquo modo. Et quod tunc Martinus juret similiter illud. Item et peto per vos Dominum judicem si Martinus prædictam rapinam neget declarari et judicari pugnam posse et debere esse et fieri ex prædicta causa inter me et eum et ipsum sententialiter condemnari ad subeundam pugnam mecum ex prædicta causa ut super prædicta rapina possit per pugnam veritas inveniri.”—Eph. Gerhardi Tract. Jurid. de Judicio duellico, cap. I, § 5 (Francof. 1735).

[407] Assises d’Antioche, Haute Cour, ch. ix. xi. xii; Assises des Bourgeois, ch. vi. vii. (Venise, 1876). This code, of which the existence has long been suspected, has recently been discovered in an Armenian version made by Sempad, the Constable of Armenia Minor, in 1265, for the use of his fellow countrymen. It has been published, with a French translation, by the Mehkitarist Society of St. Lazarus, and gives us the customary law of the Crusaders in an earlier form than the current texts of the Assises de Jerusalem.

[408] Bracton. Lib. III. Tract. ii. cap. 18.—Fleta Lib. I. cap. xxxi. §§ 2, 3.

[409] Bracton. Lib. III. Tract. ii. cap. 23, § 1.

[410] Si autem uterque defaltam fecerit, et testatum sit quod concordati fuerunt, uterque capiatur, et ipsi et plegii sui in misericordia.—Ibid.

The custom with regard to this varied greatly according to local usage. Thus, a charter of the Count of Forez in 1270 concedes the right of avoiding battle, even at the last moment, by satisfying the adversary, and paying a fine of sixty sols.—Chart. Raynaldi Com. Forens. c. 4 (Bernard, Hist. du Forez, T. I. Preuves, p. 35). According to the customs of Lorris, in 1155, if a composition was effected after battle had been gaged and before security was given, each party paid a fine of two sous and a half. If after security was pledged, the fine was increased to seven sous and a half.—Chart. Ludov. Junior. ann. 1155, cap. xiv. (Isambert, Anciennes Lois Françaises, I. 155).

[411] Fleta Lib. II. cap. xxi. § 2.

[412] Bracton. Lib. III. Tract. ii. cap. 24 § 4.—“Hujusmodi vero dentes multum adjuvant ad devincendum.”—Olivier de la Marche tells us (_Traités sur le Duel_, communicated to me by George Neilson, Esq.) that if the defendant had lost an eye the appellant must have one correspondingly bandaged. This device can scarce have been known in England, else it would have deprived Sir William Dalzell of the £200 forfeit adjudged to him by Richard II. when Sir Piers Courtenay refused to submit to the loss of an eye, to counterbalance that which Sir William had lost at Otterburn (Neilson, Trial by Combat, p. 237).

[413] Glanvil. Lib. XIV. cap. i.—Bracton. Lib. III. Tract. ii. cap. 3 § 1.

[414] Feudor. Lib. II. Tit. xxxix.

[415] Neilson, Trial by Combat, p. 128.

[416] For de Morlaas, Rubr. xxxviii. xxxix.

[417] Marca, Hist. de Béarn. p. 293 (Mazure et Hatoulet).

[418] For de Morlaas, Rubr. iv.

[419] De Lagrèze, Hist. du Droit dans les Pyrénées, Paris, 1867, p. 68.

[420] Libell. Catalan. MS. (Du Cange).

[421] Meo arbitrio determinabo duellum, vel judicium judicabo.—Lib. Juris Civil. Veronæ, cap. 78 (p. 63).

[422] Statut. Montispess. ann. 1204 (Du Cange).

[423] Établissements de Normandie, _passim_ (Édition Marnier).

[424] Bracton. Lib. III. Tract. ii. cap. 19 § 6, cf. cap. 23 § 2.

[425] Ibid. cap. 20 § 5. Cf. Maitland, Select Pleas of the Crown, Vol. i. p. 43.

[426] Maitland, p. 48—“Utrum verum sit appellum vel athia” (hate).

[427] Würdinger, Beiträge zur Geschichte des Kampfrechtes in Bayern, p. 7.

[428] L. Anglior. et. Werinor. Tit. XV. The variations in the coinage are so numerous and uncertain, that to express the values of the solidus or sou, at the different periods and among the different races enumerated, is virtually impossible. In general terms, it may be remarked that the Carlovingian solidus was the twentieth part of a pound of silver, and according to the researches of Guérard was equivalent in purchasing power to about thirty-six francs of modern money. The marc was half a pound of silver.

[429] L. Baioar. Tit. VIII. cap. ii. § 5; cap. iii.

[430] L. Longobard, Lib. ii. cap. lv. § 37.

[431] L. Henrici I. cap. 59.

[432] Isambert, Anciennes Lois Françaises, I. 162. This occurs in an edict abolishing sundry vicious customs of the town of Orleans. It was probably merely a local regulation, though it has been frequently cited as a general law.

[433] Livres de Jostice et de Plet, Liv. XIX. Tit. xvii. § 3, Tit. xxii. § 4, Tit. xxxviii. § 3. See also a coutumier of Anjou of the same period (Anciens Usages d’Anjou, § 32—Marnier, Paris, 1853).

The “Livre de Jostice et de Plet” was the production of an Orléannais, which may account for his affixing the limit prescribed by the edict of Louis le Jeune. The matter was evidently regulated by local custom, since, as we have already seen, his contemporary, Beaumanoir (cap. lxiii. § 11), names twelve deniers, or one sou, as the minimum.

[434] Cod. Leg. Norman. P. II. cap. xxi. § 7 (Ludewig, Reliq. MSS. VII. 307). The judgment of God was frequently styled _Lex apparens_ or _paribilis_.

[435] Anc. Coutum. de Normandie, cap. 87 (Bourdot de Richebourg, IV. 55).

[436] Assises de Jerusalem, cap. 149.—Assises d’Antioche, Haute Cour. ch. ix.; Assises des Bourgeois, ch. vi.

[437] Laws of Huescar, by Don Jayme I. (Du Cange, s. v. _Torna_).

[438] L. Longobard. Lib. I. Tit. XXV. § 49.

[439] Ibid. Lib. I. Tit. IX. § 38.

[440] L. Frision. Tit. XI. cap. iii.

[441] Coutumes du Beauvoisis, cap. lxiii. § 1.—The consent of the master was necessary to authorize the risk of loss which he incurred by his serf venturing to engage in the duel. Thus, in a curious case which occurred in 1293, “idem Droetus corpus suum ad duellum in quo perire posset obligare non poterat sine nostra licentia speciali.”—Actes du Parlement de Paris, I. 446.

[442] Livres de Jostice et de Plet, Liv. XIX. Tit. 13.—Tabul. Vindocinens. cap. 159 (Du Cange, s. v. _adramire_).

[443] Assises de l’Echiquier de Normandie, p. 174 (Marnier).

[444] Laurière, Table Chron. des Ordonnances, p. 105.

[445] Beaumanoir, op. cit. cap. lxi. §§ 9, 10.—Établissements de S. Louis, Liv. I. chap. lxxxii.

[446] Beaumanoir, cap. lxiv. § 3.

[447] Conseil, ch. XXI. Tit. xiv.

[448] Actes du Parlement de Paris, T. I. No. 2269 A. p. 217.

[449] Jur. Provin. Saxon. Lib. I. c. 50, 62. Lib. III. c. 29, 65.—Sachsische Weichbild xxxiii. xxxv. Jur. Provin. Alamann. cap. ccclxxxv. §§ 14, 15 (Ed. Schilteri). According to some MSS. of the latter, however, this privilege of declining the challenge of an inferior was not allowed in cases of homicide.—“Ibi enim corpus corpori opponitur”—cap. liii. § 4 (Ed. Senckenberg). On the other hand, a constitution of Frederic Barbarossa, issued in 1168 and quoted above, forbids the duel in capital cases unless the adversaries are of equal birth.

Tallhöfer’s Kamp-recht lays down the rule unconditionally—“Item ist das ain man kempflich angesprochen wirt von ainem der nit als gut is als er, dem mag er mit recht ussgan ob er wil ... sprict aber der edler den mindern an zu kempfen so mag der der minder nich absyn.”—Dreyer, _op. cit._ p. 166.

[450] Jur. Prov. Alamann. cap. cclviii. § 20. (Ed. Schilter.)—We have already seen that the converse of this rule was introduced in England, as regards questions between Frenchmen and Englishmen, by William the Conqueror.

[451] Quia surien et greci in omnibus suis causis, præter quam in criminalibus excusantur a duello.—Assises de Jerusalem, Baisse Court, cap. 269.

[452] Laws of Huescar, ann. 1247 (Du Cange s. v. _Torna_).

[453] Las Siete Partidas, P. VII. Tit. iii. l. 3.

[454] Anomalous Laws, Book XIV. chap. xiv. § 1 (Owen II. 625).

[455] Galberti Vit. Caroli Boni, cap. 2, n. 12.

[456] Jur. Provin. Saxon. Lib. I. art. 48.

[457] Assises de Jerusalem, cap. 266, 267.

[458] Jur. Provin. Alamann. cap. lx. § 5.

[459] Jur. Provin. Saxon. Lib. I. c. 42, 43.

[460] Belitz de Duellis Germanorum, p. 9 (Vitembergæ, 1717).

[461] Jur. Provin. Alamann. cap. ccxxix. § 2. This chapter is omitted in the French version of the Speculum Suevicum.

[462] Ephr. Gerhardi Tract. Jurid. de Judic. Duellico, cap. iii. § 7, et Mantissa.—Dreyer, Anmerckung von den Quellgesetzen, p. 160.—Meyer, Der Gerichtliche Zweikampf, 1873. Gerhardt gives from a MS. of the fifteenth century in the Grand-ducal Library of Saxe-Gotha a rude representation of the first stage of one of these combats, which is here reduced in facsimile. A MS. at Wolfenbüttel has a miniature virtually the same. In another representation of these combats, the antagonists are furnished with curved knives (Würdinger, Beiträge, p. 18).

In many places, however, crimes which a man was forced to disprove by combat were subject to the ordeal of hot iron or water when the accused was a woman. Thus, by the Spanish law of the thirteenth century, “Muger ... salvese por fierro caliente; e si varon fuere legador ... salvese por lid”—Fuero de Baeça (Villadiego, Fuero Juzgo fol. 317^a).

[463] Patetta, Le Ordalie, p. 159.

[464] Capit. Ludov. Pii I. ann. 819, cap. X.

[465] Ughelli, T. II. p. 122 (Du Cange).

[466] Addunt insuper, quoniam si aliquis militum sacerdotes Dei in crimine pulsaverit per pugnam sive singulari certamine esse decernendum.—De Pressuris Eccles.

[467] Muratori Script. Rer. Ital. II. II. 499, 505.

[468] Clericus ... si duellum sine episcopi licentia susceperit ... aut assultum fecerit, episcopis per pecuniam emendetur.—Orderic. Vital. P. II. Lib. V. c. 5.

[469] Goffrid. Vindocinens. Lib. III. Epist. 39.

[470] Du Cange.

[471] Ut clerici non pugnent in duello, nec pro se pugiles introducent.—Chron. S. Ægid. in Brunswig.—C. 1. Extra, Lib. V. Tit. xiv.

[472] C. 1. Extra, Lib. I. Tit. xx.

[473] C. 2. Extra, Lib. V. Tit. xiv.

[474] Council. Lateran. IV. can. 18.

[475] C. 22. Decret. caus. II. q. v.—Nicolai PP. I Epist. 148.

[476] Atton. Vercell. De Pressuris Eccles. Pt. I.

[477] Chart. S. Stephani (Batthyani Legg. Eccles. Hung. T. I. p. 384).

[478] Chron. Piscariens. Lib. II. (D’Achery, II. 951).

[479] Cartulaire de l’Église de Paris, I. 378.

[480] The charter recording the suit and its results is given by Baluze and Mansi, Miscell. III. 59.

[481] Ibid. p. 134.

[482] C. 1 Extra, Lib. V. Tit. xxxv.

[483] Du Boys, Droit Criminel des Peuples Modernes, II. 187.

[484] Matt. Paris Hist. Angl. ann. 1176 (Ed. 1644, p. 92).

[485] Neilson, Trial by Combat, pp. 122-7.

[486] Actes du Parlement de Paris, T. I. p. cccvii.

[487] Contraria consuetudine non obstante.—Cart. de l’Église de Paris, II. 393-4.

[488] Archives Administratives de Reims, T. I. p. 733.

[489] Berger, Registres d’Innocent IV. n. 6184 (T. III. p. 148).

[490] Harduin. Concil. VII. 384.

[491] Compilat. V. Lib. V. Tit. vii. (Ed. Friedberg, p. 184). “Rem hactenus inauditam et tam juri scripto quam æquitati contrariam.”

[492] Fit pugna si ecclesia contra ecclesiam habet controversiam vel contra privatum et instrumentum dicatur falsum.—Odofredi Summa de Pugna (Patetta, p. 483).

[493] Joh. Friburgens. Summæ Confessorum Lib. II. Tit. iii. Q. 3, 5, 6.—Cf. Baptist. de Saulis Summam Rosellam s. v. _Dispensatio_, § 7.

[494] Proost, Législation des Jugements de Dieu, p. 19.

[495] It is not easy to understand the remark of Olivier de la Marche, in the latter half of the fifteenth century (Traités du Duel Judiciaire, p. 44, communicated to me by George Neilson, Esq.), warning judges that they cannot condemn clerks to the duel except in cases of _lèse majesté_ and those affecting the faith. At that time the faith was exclusively in the hands of the Inquisition, and the canons admit of no exception to clerical immunity in cases of treason. In both matters torture had long before proved itself vastly more efficient than the clumsy and doubtful ordeals.

[496] Du Cange, s. v. _Bellum_.

[497] Muratori, Antiq. Ital. Dissert. 39.—Among various other examples given by the same author is one of the year 1010, in which the court of the bishop of Aretino grants the combat to decide a case between a monastery and a layman.

[498] Neilson, Trial by Combat, pp. 76, 81.

[499] Ivon. Epist. cxlviii.

[500] Ivon. Epist. ccxlvii.

[501] Pet. Cantor. Verb. Abbreviat. cap. lxxviii.

[502] Migne’s Patrologia, T. 188, p. 1287.

[503] Baildon, Select Civil Pleas, I. 43.

[504] Lib. Pract. de Consuetud. Remens, _passim_ (Archives Législatives de Reims).

[505] Archives Adminst. de Reims, T. I. p. 822.

[506] Actes du Parlement de Paris, T. I. p. cccvii.

[507] Cartulaire de l’Église de Paris, III. 433. After the first blows the parties could be separated on payment of a fine to the court, from the recipient of which the name is evidently derived. Apparently the good canons drew a distinction between awarding the duel and engaging in it, for we have already seen (p. 159) that twenty-four years before they had obtained from Innocent IV. a special privilege exempting them from the necessity of maintaining their rights by battle.

[508] Cartulaire de l’Église de Paris, I. 234.

[509] Ibid. I. 79-80.

[510] Patetta, Le Ordalie, p. 437.

[511] Les Olim, I. 24.

[512] Actes du Parl. de Paris, T. I. No. 2122, C. p. 197.

[513] Actes du Parl. de Paris, T. I. p. 446.

[514] Du Cange, s. v. _Arramiatio_.

[515] Les Olim, III. 679.

[516] Voirs est que tuit li cas où il pot avoir gages de bataille ou peril de perdre vie ou membre, doivent estre justicié par le laie justice; ne ne s’en doit sainte Église meller.—Coutumes du Beauvoisis, cap. xi. art. 30.

[517] See the Registre Criminel de la Justice de St. Martin-des-Champs (Paris, 1877).

[518] Joh. Friburgens. Summæ Confessorum Lib. II. Tit. iii. Q. 5.

[519] En la cort de la mer na point de bataille por prueve ne por demande de celuy veage.—Assises de Jerusalem, cap. xliii.

[520] Pardessus, Us et Coutumes de la Mer.

[521] Livres de Jostice et de Plet, Liv. VII. Tit. iv. § 2.

[522] According to Bracton, the appellant in criminal cases appears always obliged to swear to his own personal knowledge, _visu ac auditu_, of the crime alleged. This, however, was not the case elsewhere. Among the glossators on the Lombard law there were warm disputes as to the propriety, in certain cases, of forcing one of the contestants to commit perjury. The matter will be found treated at some length in Savigny’s Geschichte d. Rom. Recht. B. IV. pp. 159 sqq. Cf. Odofredi Summa de Pugna (Patetta, pp. 485-7).

The formula of the oath as given in the Fleta is as follows: The parties take each other by the hand and first the appellee swears, “Hoc audis, homo quem per manum teneo, qui A. te facis appellari per nomen baptismi tui, quod ego C. fratrem tuum, vel alium parentem vel dominum non occidi, vel plagam ei feci ullo genere armorum per quod remotior esse debuit a vita et morti propinquior; sic me Deus adjuvet et hæc Sancta, etc.” Then the appellant responds: “Hoc audis homo quem per manum teneo, qui te R. facis appellari per nomen baptismi tui, quod tu es perjurus et ideo perjurus quia tali anno, tali die, tali hora et tali loco nequiter et in felonia occidisti C. fratrum meum tali genere armorum, unde obiit infra triduum; sic me Deus, etc.”—Lib. I. cap. xxxii. §§ 28, 29.—Bracton, Lib. III. Tract ii. c. 21, § 2.

In the German law the oath was simpler, but quite as absolute.—Jur. Prov. Saxon, Lib I. cap. lxii.—Sachsische Weichbild, xxxv. 8.

By the ordonnance of Philippe le Bel in 1306 each party was obliged to take three solemn oaths on relics before a priest, asserting his good cause in the most positive manner and his reliance on the judgment of God.—Isambert, Anc. Lois Françaises, II. 840.

[523] Cod. Leg. Normann. P. I. c. lxiv. (Ludewig. Reliq. MSS. T. VII. p. 270).—Anc. Cout. de Normandie (Bourdot de Richebourg, IV. 29).

[524] Leg. Alamann. Tit. 84.

[525] Capit. Ludov. Pii ann. 819, cap. x. A somewhat similar provision occurs in the L. Burgund. Tit. xlv. et lxxx.

[526] L. Guillelmi Conquest. III. xii. (Thorpe, I. 493).—A previous law, however, had assessed a Norman appellant sixty sous when defeated (Ibid. II. ii.).

[527] L. Henrici I. cap. lix. § 15.

[528] Glanvil. de Leg. Angl. Lib. II. cap. iii.

[529] Pipe Roll Society, I. 21; II. 31, 46, 59; III. 10.

[530] Maitland, Select Pleas of the Crown, I. 108.

[531] Solement ceux vainqus sont quittes ou lour clients pur eux rendre aux combattants vanquishours 40 sous en nosme de recreantise et ruaille peur la bourse a mettre eins ses deniers oustre le jugement sur le principall.—Horne’s Myrror of Justice, cap. iii. sect. 23.

[532] Formul. Vetus in L. Longobard. (Georgisch, p. 1276).

[533] For d’Oloron, Art. 21.

[534] Bracton, Lib. III. Tract. ii. cap. 18, § 4. In another passage, Bracton gives a reason for this clemency—“Si autem victus sit in campo ... quamvis ad gaolam mittendus sit, tamen sit ei aliquando gratia de misericordia, quia pugnat pro pace” (Ibid. cap. 21, § 7). See also the Fleta, Lib. I. cap. xxxii. § 32.

[535] Étab. de Normandie, Tit. “De prandre fame à force” (Marnier).

[536] Lib. Juris Civilis Veronæ, cap. 78 (p. 63).

[537] Odofredi Summa de Pugna c. xii. (Patetta, p. 491-2).

[538] Qui calumniam illatam non probat, pœnam debet incurrere quam si probasset reus utique sustineret.—C. 2 Decret. Caus. v. q. vi.

[539]

... ad poenas exigat æquas,
Victus ut appellans sive appellatus, eadem
Lege ligaretur mutilari aut perdere vitam.
Moris enim extiterit apud illos hactenus, ut si
Appellans victus in causa sanguinis esset,
Sex solidos decies cum nummo solveret uno
Et sic impunis, amissa lege, maneret:
Quod si appellatum vinci contigeret, omni
Re privaretur et turpi morte periret.

Guillielmi Brito. Phillippidos Lib. VIII.

It will be observed that the pre-existing Norman custom here described is precisely that indicated above by Glanville.

[540] _E. g._ Établissements Lib. I. cap. 27 and 91.—“Cil qui seroit vaincus seroit pendus” (cap. 82).

[541] Beaumanoir, chap. lxiv. § 10.

[542] Assises d’Antioche, Haute Cour, ch. xi.; Assises des Bourgeois, ch. vi. vii. See also Assises de Jerusalem, cap. 317.

[543] Recta fides et æquitas et jus armorum volunt ut appellans eandem incurrat pœnam quam defendens, si is victus fuerit et subactus.—Formula Duelli, apud Spelman. Glossar. s. v. _Campus_.

[544] Jur. Provin. Saxon. Lib. I. c. 63.—Jur. Provin. Alamann. cap. ccclxxxvi. §§ 19, 20 (Ed. Schilter.).

[545] Sachsische Weichbild, 82.—Jur. Provin. Alamann. cap. clxviii. § 20; clxxii. § 18 (Ed. Senckenberg.).

[546] Ibid. cap. ccxix. § 6 (Ed. Schilter.).

[547] Chron. Cornel. Zantfliet ann. 1369 (Mart. Ampl. Coll. V. 293-4).

[548] Chron. Augustan. (Pistor. III. 684, Ed. 1726).

[549] Assis. Hierosol. Alta Corte cap. cv. (Canciani, V. 208).

[550] Würdinger, Beiträge zur Geschichte des Kampfrechtes in Bayern, p. 8.

[551] Jur. Provin. Saxon. Lib. I. c. 63, 65.—Sachsische Weichbild, xxxv.—Jur. Provin. Alamann. cap. ccclxxxvi. § 31 (Ed. Schilter.); cap. clxxviii. §§ 7, 8 (Ed. Senckenb.). See Würdinger, p. 11, for the solemn sentence placing the defaulter under the ban.

[552] Proost, Législation des Jugements de Dieu, pp. 18, 21.

[553] For de Morlaas, Rubr. IV. art. 5.

[554] Horne’s Myrror of Justice, cap. iv. sect. 13.—Pipe Roll Society, I. 65.

[555] Schlegel Comment. ad Grágás § 31.—Grágás sect. VIII. cap. 105. A fanciful etymologist might trace to this custom the modern phrase of “posting a coward.”

[556] Neilson, Trial by Combat, p. 128.

[557] Jur. Provin. Alamann. cap. ccclxxxvi. § 32 (Ed. Schilter.); cap. clxxiii. § 13 (Ed. Senckenberg.).

[558] Un Miracle de Notre-Dame d’Amis et d’Amille (Monmerqué et Michel, Théat. Français au Moyen-Age, p. 238).

Another passage in the same play signifies the equality of punishment for appellant and defendant in cases of defeat:—

—Mais quant il seront
En champ, jamais n’en ysteront
Sans combatre, soiez-en fis,
Tant que l’un en soit desconfis;
Et celui qui vaincu sera,
Je vous promet, pendu sera:
N’en doubte nulz.

[559] Jur. Provin. Saxon, I. 63.

[560] Venables, Lincolnshire Notes and Queries, Vol. I. p. 195 (1889). So an entry in the Pipe Roll for 1158-9 “Et in conductu Rad. Shirloc. 6_s._ 8_d._ Et pro apparatu ejusdem Rad. et socii ejus ad duellum 16_s._ 4_d._”—Pipe Roll Society, I, 2.

[561] Neilson, Trial by Combat, p. 42.

[562] _E. g._ Constit. Sicular. Lib. II. Tit. xxxvii. § 1. This was also the case in Bohemia (Patetta, Le Ordalie, p. 159).

[563] Laurière, Table des Ordonn. p. 10.

[564] See facsimile of a record of a duel between Walter Blowberme and Hamo le Stare, where in the background the latter unlucky defendant is represented as hanging on a gallows (Maitland’s Select Pleas of the Crown, Vol. I.). It had already been engraved in Bysshe’s notes to Upton’s De Studio Militari, p. 37.

[565] Revue Historique de Droit, 1861, p. 514.

[566] Constit. Sicular. Lib. II. Tit. xxxvii. § 4.

[567] This, moreover, was not permitted by Frederic (_Ubi sup._).

[568] Jur. Provin. Saxon. I. 63.

[569] Würdinger, Beiträge, p. 22.

[570] De Militari Officio Lib. II. cap. viii.

[571] Book of Cynog, chap. xi. § 34 (Owen, II. 211).

[572] Du Boys, op. cit. I. 611.

[573] D’Achery Spicilegium, T. III. p. 376.

[574] Odofredi Summa de Pugna, vii. xi. (Patetta, pp. 490, 491).

[575] Galfridi Vit. Caroli Boni, cap. xiii. n. 94.

Similar persistence was exhibited in a combat before Richard II. in 1380. Katrington, the defeated defendant died the next day in delirium caused by exhaustion.—Neilson’s Trial by Combat, p. 172.

[576] It is perhaps worthy of remark that in India, where the judicial duel was unknown, in the other ordeals one of the ancient lawgivers, Katyayana, allows, and in some cases prescribes, the use of champions.—Patella, Le Ordalie, p. 110.

[577] L. Alamann. Add. cap. xxi.

[578] L. Longobard. Lib. I. Tit. iii. § 6, and Lib. II. Tit. lv. § 12.

[579] L. Anglior. et Werinor. Tit. XIV.

[580] Licet unicuique pro se campionem mercede conducere si eum invenire potuerit.—Ll. Frision. Tit. XIV. c. iv.

[581] Greg. Turon. Hist. Lib. X. cap. x. In this case, both combatants perished, when the accused was promptly put to death, showing that such a result was regarded as proving the truth of the offence alleged.

[582] Horum enim causa accidit ut non solum valentes viribus, sed etiam infirmi et senes lacessantur ad certamen et pugnam etiam pro vilissimis rebus (Lib. adv. Legem Gundobadi cap. vii.). Mitte unum de tuis, qui congrediatur mecum singulari certamine, ut probat me reum tibi esse, si occiderit (Lib. contra Judicium Dei cap i.).

[583] Liceat ei per campionem, id est per pugnam, crimen ipsum de super se si potuerit ejicere.—L. Longobard. Lib. I. Tit. i. § 8.

[584] Proost, Législation des Jugements de Dieu, p. 82.

[585] Jur. Provin. Saxon. Lib. I. art. 39, 48.—Sachsische Weichbild, art. xxxv. 2. 4; art. lxxxii. 2.

[586] Patetta, Le Ordalie, pp. 427-9. Roffredo, after carefully enumerating six cases in which champions were allowed by the law, adds: “Hodie tamen de consuetudine permittitur cuilibet campionem dare.”—Odofredi Summa de Pugna (Patetta, p. 485).

[587] Glanvil. de Leg. Angl. Lib. II. iii. Thus in a suit over a knight’s fee in 1201, the plaintiffs offer a champion, Walter Wider, “qui idem optulit ut de visu suo et auditu.”—Baildon, Select Civil Pleas, I. 33.

[588] Cod. Leg. Norman. P. II. cap. lxiv. (Ludewig Reliq. MSS. VII. 416).

[589] Étab. de Normandie, p. 21 (Marnier).

[590] Assises d’Antioche, Haute Cour, ch. ix. xi. xii.; Assises des Bourgeois, ch. vi. vii.

[591] Assis. Hierosol. Bassa Corte, cap. ccxxxviii. (Canciani, II. 534).—Constit. Sicular. Lib. II. Tit. xxxvii. § 2.

[592] Neilson’s Trial by Combat, pp. 88, 90-1.

[593] Horne’s Myrror of Justice, cap. iii. § 23.

[594] Myrror of Justice, cap. iv. § 11.

[595] Cod. Leg. Norman. P. II. cap. lxiv. § 18 (Ludewig VII 417).

[596] Among the crimes entailing infamy is enumerated that of “ceux qui combatent mortelment pur loyer qui sont vanquish en combate joyné per jugement.”—Horne’s Myrror of Justice, cap. iv. sect. 13.

[597] Et campioni qui victus fuerit, propter perjuriam quod ante pugnam commisit, dextra manus amputetur (Capit. Ludov. Pii ann. 819, § x.).—Victus vero in duello centum solidos et obolum reddere tenebitur. Pugil vero conductitius, si victus fuerit, pugno vel pede privabitur (Charta ann. 1203—Du Cange).—Also Beaumanoir, Cout. du Beauv., cap. lxvii. § 10 (Du Cange seems to me to have misinterpreted this passage).—See also Monteil’s admirable “Histoire des Français des divers États,” XVe Siècle, Hist. XIII.

[598] Assis. Hierosol. Bassa Corte, cap. ccxxxviii. Alta Corte, cap. cv. (Canciani II. 534; V. 208).

[599] Assises d’Antioche, Haute Cour, ch. xi.; Assises des Bourgeois, ch. vi. vii.

[600] Et li campions vaincus a le poing copé; car se n’estoit por le mehaing qu’il emporte, aucuns, par barat, se porroit faindre par loier et se clameroit vaincus, par quoi ses mestres emporteroit le damace et le vilonie, et cil emporteroit l’argent; et por ce est bons li jugemens du mehaing (Cout. du Beauv., cap. lxi. § 14).

[601] Isambert, Anciennes Lois Françaises V. 387.

[602] Constit. Sicular. Lib. II. Tit. xxxvii. § 3.

[603] Et post illam inquisitionem, tradat manum ipse camphio in manu parentis aut conliberti sui ante judicem.—L. Longobard. Lib. II. Tit. lv. § 11.

[604] Thus the oath administered by the papal legate to William of Holland, on his receiving knighthood previous to his coronation as King of the Romans in 1247, contains the clause “pro liberatione cujuslibet innocentis duellum inire.”—Goldast. Constit. Imp. T. III. p. 400.

[605] Anomalous Laws, Book x. chap. ii. § 9 (Owen, II. 315). The position thus acquired was that of brother or nephew in sharing and paying _wer-gild_.

[606] Ut nemo furem camphium mancipiis aut de qualibet causa recipere præsumat, sicut sæpius dominus imperator commendavit.—Capit. Carol. Mag. ex L. Longobard. cap. xxxv. (Baluze).

[607] Novel. CXV. cap. iii. § 10—more fully set forth in Lib. III. Cod. Tit. xxvii. l. 11.

[608] Conseil. chap. xxxiii. tit. 32.

[609] Ibid. chap. xv. tit. 87, which is a translation of Lib. IV. Dig. Tit. ii. l. 23, § 2.

[610] Percutiat si quis hominem infamem, hoc est lusorem vel pugilem, aut mulierem publicam, etc.—Sachsische Weichbild, Art. cxxix. “Plusieurs larrons, ravisseurs de femmes, violleurs d’églises, batteurs à loyer,” etc.—Ordonn. de Charles VII. ann. 1447, also Anciennes Coutumes de Bretagne (Monteil, _ubi sup._).

[611] Johen de Beaumont dit que chanpions loiez, prové de tel chose, ne puet home apelier á gage de bataille an nul quas, si n’est por chanpion loiez por sa deffansse; car la poine de sa mauvese vie le doit bien en ce punir.—Livres de Jostice et de Plet, Liv. XIX. Tit. ii. § 4.

[612] Campiones et eorum liberi (ita nati) et omnes qui illegitime nati sunt, et omnes qui furti aut pleni latrocinii nomine satisfecere, aut fustigationem sustinuere, hi omnes juris beneficiis carent.—Jur. Provin. Alaman. cap. xxxvi. § 2 (Ed. Schilter.).—Jur. Provin. Saxon. Lib. III. c. xlv.

[613] Campionibus et ipsorum liberis emendæ loco datur fulgur ex clypeo nitido, qui soli obvertitur, ortum; hoc is qui eis satisfactionem debet loco emendæ præstare tenetur (Jur. Prov. Alaman. cap. cccv. § 15.—Jur. Provin. Saxon. Lib. III. art. xlv.). In the French version of the Speculum Suevicum, these emblematic measures of damage are followed by the remark “cestes emandes furent establies an la vieillie loy per les roys” (P. II. c. lxxxvi.), which would appear to show that they were disused in the territories for which the translation was made.

[614] Richstich Landrecht, Lib. II. cap. xxv.

[615] Odofredi Summa de Pugna c. v. (Patetta, p. 489).

[616] Lib. Juris Civilis Veron. cap. 125, 126 (Veronæ, 1728, p. 95).

[617] L. Longobard. Lib. II. Tit. lv. §§ 38, 40.

[618] Muratori, Antiq. Ital. Dissert. 39.

[619] L. Longobard. Lib. I. Tit. ix. § 37; Tit. x. § 4.

[620] Vix enim aut nunquam duo pugiles inveniri poterunt sic æquales, etc.—Constit. Sicular. Lib. II. Tit. xxxiii.

[621] Ibid. Lib. I. Tit. xxxiii.

[622] Ibi tunc multi latrones a gladiatoribus singulari certamine devicti, suspendio perierunt.—Dithmari. Chron. Lib. VII.

[623] Jur. Provin. Alaman. cap. xxxvi. § 2; cap. lx. § 1.

[624] Sachsische Weichbild, c. lxxxii. § 3.

[625] Concil. Eccles. Rotomag. p. 128 (Du Cange).

[626] Cod. Leg. Norman. P. II. c. lxiv. § 19 (Ludewig. VII. 416).

[627] De Leg. Angliæ Lib. II. cap. iii.

[628] Bracton, Lib. III. Tract. ii. cap. 32 § 7.

[629] Ibid. c. 18 § 4.

[630] See a case in which Ralph Rusdike, a witness, offers battle against Elias of Dumbleton—“et Elias defendit totum versus eum ut versus campionem conductitium et villanus.” Then Ralph shows that he has an interest in the matter which warrants his acting as appellor and battle is gaged.—Maitland’s Select Pleas of the Crown, Vol. I. p. 80. Also another case in 1220 in which the appellant offers a silver mark to the king for opportunity to prove that an adverse witness is a hired champion.—Ib. p. 124. Another case in 1220 (p. 137) shows how customary it was to impugn an adverse witness as a hired champion.

[631] Neilson’s Trial by Combat, p. 49.

[632] This charter, which has recently been found among the records of Durham Cathedral, is printed in the London _Athenæum_ of November 10th, 1866. It is not dated, but the names of the subscribing witnesses show that it must have been executed about the year 1260.

I owe to James Clephan, Esq., of Newcastle-on-Tyne, the interesting fact that the Sherburn Hospital, Durham, is still in possession of the vill of century by Ralph, son of Paulinus of York, who had obtained it as the result of a judicial combat between his champion and that of the opposing claimants.

[633] Neilson, Trial by Combat, p. 51.

[634] Lord Eldon, in his speech advocating the abolition of trial by battle, in 1819, stated, “In these the parties were not suffered to fight _in propria persona_—they were compelled to confide their interests to champions, on the principle that if one of the parties were slain, the suit would abate.”—Campbell’s Lives of the Chancellors, VII. 279.

[635] Pur felony ne poit nul combattre pur autre; en personal actions nequidant venials, list aux actors de faire les battailes per lour corps ou per loyal tesmoigne come en droit reals sont les combats.—Horne’s Myrror of Justice, cap. iii. sect. 23.

[636] Bracton, Lib. III. Tract. ii. cap. 21, §§ 11, 12.—Ibid. cap. 24.

[637] Regiam Majestatem, Lib. IV. cap. iii.

[638] Neilson’s Trial by Combat, p. 115. By the Burgher laws of Scotland, a man who was incapacitated by reason of age from appearing in the field, was allowed to defend himself with twelve conjurators.—L. Burgor. cap. xxiv. §§ 1, 2.

[639] Assises de Jerusalem, Baisse Court, cap. 145, 146.—Beaumanoir, cap. lxi. § 6; cap. lxii. § 4.

[640] Beaumanoir, cap. lxi. § 14.

[641] Conseil, chap. XXII. Tit. xiii.

[642] Grandes Chroniques T. IV. p. 427.

[643] Il est usage que se aucun demende la cort de bataille qui est juege par champions loées, il la tendra le jor maimes, et si ele est par le cors des quereléors il metra jor avenant à la tenir autre que celui.—Coutumes d’Anjou, XIII.^e Siècle, § 74.

[644] Kar haute persone doit bien metre por lui, à deffendre soi, home, honeste persone, se l’an l’apele, ou s’il apele autre.—Livres de Jostice et de Plet, Liv. II. Tit. xviii.

[645] Lib. Pract. de Consuet. Remens. § 40 (Archives Législ. de Reims, Pt. 1. p. 40).

[646] Ibid. § 14, p. 37.

[647] For de Morlaas, Rubr. liii. art. 188.

[648] Quando pugna debet fieri per campionem debet fieri eorum equa distributio ... et etiam jure longobardo cavetur quod pugna debet fieri per similes campiones.—Odofredi Summa de Pugna c. iv. (Patetta, p. 488).

[649] L. Jur. Civilis Veronæ cap. 125, 126 (p. 95).

[650] Patetta, Le Ordalie, pp. 427-9.

[651] Pugiles in Bigorra non nisi indigenæ recipiantur (Lagrèze, Hist. du Droit dans les Pyrénées, p. 251). By the same code, the tariff of payment to the champion was 20 sous, with 12 for his shield and 6 for training—“pro præparatione.”

[652] Las Siete Partidas, Pt. VII. Tit. iv. l. 3.

[653] Du Boys, Droit Criminel des Peuples Modernes, I. 611-13.

[654] Campagnola, Lib. Juris Civ. Veronæ (Veronæ, 1728, p. xviii).

[655] Polyptichum Irminonis, App. No. 33 (Paris, 1836, p. 372).

[656] Une malvese coustume souloit courre anciemment, si comme nos avons entendu des seigneurs de lois.—Cout. du Beauvoisis, cap. xxxviii. § 15.

[657] Hist. des Français, XV^e Siècle, Hist. xiii.—The tariff of rewards paid to Blondel, and Beaumanoir’s argument in favor of mutilating a defeated champion, offer a strong practical commentary on the fundamental principles upon which the whole system of appeals to the judgment of God was based—that success was an evidence of right.

[658] Bysshe’s notes to Upton’s De Studio Militari, p. 36.

[659] Neilson’s Trial by Combat, p. 150.

[660] Hist. Monast. Figeacens. (Baluz. et Mansi IV. p. 1).

[661] Abbonis Floriac. Collect. Canon. can. ii.—Histor. Trevirens. (D’Achery Spicileg. II. 223).—Gerohi Reichersperg. de Ædificio Dei cap. VI.

[662] Schlegel Comment. ad Grágás, p. xxii.—Dasent, in his Icelandic Chronology (Burnt Njal, I. cciii.), places this in 1006, and Keyser (Religion of the Northmen, Pennock’s Trans. p. 258) in 1000.

[663] The kind of Christianity introduced may be estimated by the character of the Apostle of Iceland. Deacon Thangbrand was the son of Willibald Count of Saxony, and even after he had taken orders continued to ply his old vocation of viking or sea robbing. To get rid of him and to punish him, King Olaf Tryggvesson of Norway imposed upon him the task of converting Iceland, which he accomplished with the sword in one hand and the Bible in the other.—See Dasent, Burnt Njal, II. 361.—Olaf Tryggvesson’s Saga c. lxxx. (Laing’s Heimskringla, I. 441).

[664] Keyser, op. cit. p. 258.

[665] Saxon. Grammat. Hist. Dan. Lib. x.

[666] Ibid. Lib. xi.

[667] Lünig Cod. Diplom. Ital. I. 2455.—The liberal terms of this charter show the enlightenment of the Emperor, and explain the fidelity manifested for him by the imperial cities in his desperate struggles with his rebellious nobles and an implacable papacy.

[668] Neilson’s Trial by Combat, pp. 33, 65, 97.

[669] Chart. Commun. Ambianens. c. 44 (Migne’s Patrolog. T. 162, p. 750).

[670] The charter is given by Proost, op. cit. p. 96.

[671] Ferrum, cacavum, pugnam, aquam, vobis non judicabit vel judicari faciet (Muratori, Antiq. Ital. Dissert. 38).

[672] Priviléges de Lourdes, cap. ii. (Lagrèze, op. cit. p. 482).

[673] Ibid., cap. xiii. (Lagrèze p. 484). These privileges were confirmed at various epochs, until 1407.

[674] Statuta Susatensia, No. 41 (Hæberlin Analect. Med. Ævi. p. 513). This is retained in the subsequent recension of the law, in the thirteenth century (Op. cit. p. 526).

[675] Consuetud. Tornacens. ann. 1187, §§ ii. iii. xxi (D’Achery Spicileg. III. 552).

[676] Oudegherst, Annales de Flandre ed. Lesbroussart. T. I. pp. 426 sqq.; T. II. not. ad. fin.

[677] Coleccion de Cédulas, etc., Madrid, 1830, Tom. VI. p. 142.—Memorial Histórico Español, Madrid, 1850, T. I. p. 47.

[678] Statuta Commun. apud Crispiacum (D’Achery Spicileg. III. 595).

[679] Legg. Villæ de Arkes § xxxi. (Ibid. p. 608).

[680] Libertates Villæ Ricomag. § 6 (Ibid. p. 671).

[681] E sobre ayso que dam e autreyam als borges de la vielle de Maubourguet que totz los embars pusquen provar sens batalhe, etc.—Coutumes de Maubourguet, cap. v. That this, however, was not expected to do away entirely with the battle trial is shown by the regulation prescribed in cap. xxxvii. (Lagrèze, op. cit. pp. 470, 474).