233 Legg. Civil. Gustavi Adolphi Tit. X.

234 Caroli XI. Judicum Regulæ, cap. xxxii.

235 Ludewig. Reliq. MSS. T. VII. p. 401.

236 Herb. de Fulstin Statut. Reg. Poloniæ, Samoscii, 1597, pp. 186-88, 465.

By the customs of Iglau, about the middle of the thirteenth century, a man could rebut with two conjurators a charge of assault with serious mutilation, and was subject to a fine of fourteen marks if he failed; accusations of complicity required only the oath of the accused.—Statuta Primæva Moraviæ, Brunæ, 1781, pp. 103-4.

237 Bassani de Sacchi Jura Regni Croatiæ, Dalmatiæ et Sclavoniæ. Zagrabiæ, 1862, Pt. I. p. 182.

238 Et sic major præsumptio vincit minorem. Si autem querens probationem habuerit, sicut instrumenta et chartas sigillatas, contra hujusmodi probationes non erit defensio per legem. Sed si instrumento contradicatur, fides instrumenti probabitur per patriam et per testes. Bracton, Lib. IV. Tract. vi. cap. 18, § 6.

The word “secta” is a troublesome one to legal antiquarians from its diverse significations. As used in the above text it means the supporters of the plaintiff’s case. Elsewhere we find it denoting the hue and cry, which all men were bound to follow; see Stubb’s Select Charters, pp. 256, 366, etc. “Facere sectam” also seems to have the sense of holding court (Ib. p. 303), whence it also derives a secondary meaning of jurisdiction (Baildon, Select Civil Pleas, I. 42).

239 Fleta, Lib. II. c. lxiii. § 10. Sed si sectam [actor] produxerit, hoc est testimonium hominum legalium qui contractui inter eos habito interfuerint præesentes, qui a judice examinati si concordes inveniantur, tunc poterit [reus] vadiare legem suam contra petentem et contra sectam suam prolatam; ut si duos vel tres testes produxerit [actor] ad probandum, oportet quod defensio fiat per quatuor vel per sex; ita quod pro quolibet teste duos producat jurat [ores] usque ad xii.

240 38 Edw. III. St. I. cap. v. (Statutes at Large I. 319. Ed. 1769).

241 27 Eliz. cap. xix. § I.

242 Jacob’s Review of the Statutes, 2d Ed. London, 1715, p. 532.

243 I owe a portion of these references to a paper in the London “Jurist” for March, 1827, the writer of which instances the wager of law as an evidence of “that jealous affection and filial reverence which have converted our code into a species of museum of antiques and legal curiosities.”

244 Wharton’s Law Lexicon, 2d ed., p. 758.

245 I owe a transcript of these records to the kindness of the late General J. H. Lefroy, then Governor of Bermuda. The quaintness of the proceedings may justify the printing of the sentences.

Nov. Assizes, 1638.—“Arthur Thorne being presented by the minister and church wardens of Pembroke tribe [parish] upon suspition of incontinency with Elizabeth Jenour the wyfe of Mr. Anthony Jenour, was censured [sentenced] in case he could not purge himself to doe open penaunce in two churches.” He probably failed in his purgation, for Mrs. Jenour confessed her sin in open court and was referred to her minister for penance.

June Assizes, 1639. “The minister, church wardens, and sydesmen of Sandy’s Tribe doe present Mary Eldrington, the wyfe of Roger Eldrington, upon suspition of incontinency grounded on comon fame: upon which presentment she was censured to doe open penaunce in the church in case she could not purge herselfe by the oath of 3 women of credit in the Tribe.”

“Edward Bowly, presented upon suspition of incontinency with Anne, a negro woman, supposed to be the father of her bastard child, was put to his compurgators, and did thereupon purge himself, and the negro woman censured to receave 21 lashes at the whipping-post, which was executed upon her.”

“Edward Wolsey and Dorathie Penniston were presented upon common fame for suspition of incontinencie by the grand inquest, and also presented by the minister and churchwardens of Pembroke Tribe upon the like suspition, whereupon they were sentenced to doe penaunce in the church, standing in a whyte sheete during divine service, making confession of that their suspitious walking in case they could not purge themselves by their owne oathes and two sufficient compurgators.”

246 Cooper’s Statutes at Large of South Carolina, Columbia, 1837, II. 403.

247 Kilty’s Report on English Statutes, Annapolis, 1811, p. 140.

248 Ego talis juro ... me firmiter credere quod talis non fuit Insabbatus, Valdensis, vel pauperum de Lugduno ... et credo firmiter eum in hoc jurasse verum.—Doctrina de modo procedendi contra Hæreticos (Martene, Thesaur. T. V. p. 1801).—This is the same as the form prescribed by the Council of Tarragona in 1242, where we learn, moreover, that the number of compurgators was prescribed by the inquisitor in each case (Aguirre, Concil. Hispan. IV. 193).

249 Conc. Lateran. IV. can. iii.—Decret. Gregor. P. P. IX. (Harduin. VII. 163).

250 Hartzheim Conc. Germ. III. 542-50.—Alberic. Trium Font. ann. 1233-4.—Gest. Treviror. c. 175.

251 Jacob. Simancæ de Cathol. Instit. Tit. lvi. No. 3, 4 (Romæ, 1575).

252 Simancæ, loc. cit. No. 31.—Villadiego, Fuero Juzgo, p. 318 b (Madrid, 1600).—Both of these authorities stigmatize it as “fragilis et periculosa, cæca et fallax.”

253 Simancæ, loc. cit. No. 12.

254 Simancæ, loc. cit. No 17.

255 Strype’s Ecclesiastical Memorials, I. 87.

256 Reformator. Constant. Decretal. Lib. V. Tit. ii. cap. 1, 3 (Von der Hardt, Tom. I. P. XII. pp. 739, 742).

257 Angeli de Clavasio Summa angelica, s. v. Purgatio.

258 Baptistæ de Saulis Summa rosella, s. v. Purgatio.

259 Institut. Jur. Canon. Lib. IV. Tit. ii. § 2.—Cf. Concil. Tarraconens. ann. 1591, Lib. IV. Tit. xiv. (Aguirre, VI. 322).

260 P. Grillandi Tract. de Sortileg. Qu. 6, No. 14; Qu. 3, No. 36.—Decret. II. caus. xxx. q. 1, can. 2.—C. 7 Extra, Lib. IV. Tit. xv.

261 Du Cange, loc. cit.

262 Burnet, Reformation, Vol. II. p. 199 (Ed. 1681).

263 Tit. LXXIV. of Herold’s text; Cap. Extravagant. No. XVIII. of Pardessus.

264 L. Baioar. Tit. XVI. cap. i. § 2.

265 Pactus pro Tenore Pacis, § 2, cf. § 5 (Baluze).

266 Decreti Childeberti c. vii. (Baluze). This provision was not merely temporary. It is preserved in the Capitularies (Lib. VII. c. 257), whence it was carried into the Decretum of Ivo of Chartres in the twelfth century (Decr. P. xiii. c. 6; P. xvi. c. 358).

267 Capit. Car. Mag. VI. ann. 806, c. xxiii. (Concil. Roman. Silvestri PP. I.).

268 E li apelur jurra sur lui par VII. humes numez, sei siste main, que pur haur nel fait ne pur auter chose, si pur sun dreit nun purchacer.—Ll. Guillel. I. cap. xiv.

269 Omnis tihla tractetur antejuramento plano vel observato.—Ll. Henrici I. Tit. lxiv. § 1. Anlejuramentum a compellante habeatur, et alter se sexto decime sue purgetur; sicut accusator precesserit.—Ibid. Tit. lxvi. § 8.

270 Prof. J. B. Thayer in Harvard Law Review, Vol. V. pp. 47-51.

271 C. Tribur. ann. 895 c. xxii.

272 For de Morlaas, Rubr. xxxviii. art. 63.

273 Bracton. Lib. IV. Tract. vi. cap. 18, § 6.

274 Statuta Susatensia, No. 10 (Hæberlin, Analecta Medii Ævi, p. 509).—The same provision is preserved in a later recension of the laws of Soest, dating apparently from the middle of the thirteenth century (Op. cit. p. 520).

275 Jur. Provin. Alaman. cap. cccix. § 4 (Ed. Schilter).—Jur. Provin. Saxon. Lib. III. art. 88.—Sachsische Weichb. art. 115.

276 Jur. Provin. Alaman. cap. cccxcviii. §§ 19, 20.

277 Du Cange sub voce.

278 Legg. Scan. Provin. Lib. V. c. 57 (Ed. Thorsen, p. 140).

279 Ideo manus libro imponimus sacro, quod audivimus (crimen rumore sparsum), at nobis ignotum est verum sit nec ne.—Jarnsida, Mannhelge, cap. xxiv.

280 Rabanis, Revue Hist. de Droit, 1861, p. 511.

281 Du Boys, Droit Criminel des Peuples Modernes, II. 595.

282 Freher. de Secret. Judic. cap. xvii, § 26.

283 Anc. Cout. de Bretagne, Tit. VIII. art. 168.

284 Thus, as late as the thirteenth century, the municipal law of Southern Germany, in prescribing the duel for cases destitute of testimony, says with a naïve impiety: “Hoc ideo statutum est, quod causa hæc nemini cognita est quam Deo, cujus est eandem juste decidere.” Early in the sixteenth century the pious Aventinus regretfully looks back upon the time when princes and priests, assembled to witness the combat, “divinam opem implorabant, beneficia memoriter commemorabant quæ in simili negotio Deus immortalis Christus servator noster ipsis pro sua benignitate atque clementia contulisset ... comprecabantur ut summa potestas in re præsenti, pollicita re, hactenus semper factitasset, comprobaret” (Aventini Annal. Baior. Lib. IV. cap. xiv. n. 28). Even as late as 1617, August Viescher, in an elaborate treatise on the judicial duel, expressed the same reliance on the divine interposition: “Dei enim hoc judicium dicitur, soli Deo causa terminanda committitur, Deo igitur authore singulare hoc certamen suscipiendum, ut justo judicio adjutor sit, omnisque spes ad solam summæ providentiam Trinitatis referenda est” (Viescher Tract. Juris Duellici Universi, p. 109). This work is a most curious anachronism. Viescher was a learned jurisconsult who endeavored to revive the judicial duel in the seventeenth century by writing a treatise of 700 pages on its principles and practice. He exhibits the wide range of his studies by citations from no less than six hundred and seventy-one authors, and manages to convey an incredibly small amount of information on the subject. Ephraim Gerhardt, moreover, taxes him with wholesale plagiarism from Michael Beuther’s Disputatio de duello (Strassburg, 1609) and with false citations of authorities.—Eph. Gerhardi Tract. de Judicio Duellico, præfat.

285 L. Baioar. Tit. XIV. c. i. § 2.

286 Rymer, Fœdera, V. 198-200.

287 Ayeen Akbery, II. 324.

288 The early edicts directed against the duel proper (Ordonn. Charles IX., an. 1566; Henri IV., an. 1602—in Fontanon I. 665) refer exclusively to the noblesse, and to those entitled to bear arms, as addicted to the practice, while the judicial combat, as we shall see, was open to all ranks, and was enforced indiscriminately upon all.

289 Chron. Domin. de Arkel (Matthæi Analect. VIII. 296). In 1336 a judicial duel was fought in Bavaria to decide a similar question—the right of two nobles to a coat of arms.—Würdinger, Beiträge zur Geschichte des Kampfrechtes in Bayern, München, 1877, p. 14.

290 Rymer, Fœdera, II. 226-9, 230-4, 239-40, 242-3.—Lünig. Cod. Ital. Diplom. II. 986.

291 Ramon Muntaner, cap. lxxi. See also Pedro’s own brief account of the matter in a letter of June 20, 1283, to his nephew, the Infante Juan of Castile.—Memorial Histórico Español, 1851, T. II. p. 99.

292 “Sub speculatoris supremi judicio terminatum.”—Rymer, Fœd. VII. 407.

293 Du Bellay, Mémoires, Liv. III.—The letters are given by Juan de Valdés in the Diálogo de Mercurio i Caron (Dos Diálogos, pp. 243, 247, 287.—Reformistas antiguos Españoles).

294 An outlying fragment of the same belief is to be seen in the ancient Japanese practice of deciding knotty questions by the judicial duel (Griffis’s Mikado’s Empire, New York, 1876, p. 92). Even the most savage of existing races, the aborigines of Australia, have a kind of duel under certain rules by which private controversies are settled, and among the Melanesians the custom prevails, champions even being sometimes employed (Patetta, Le Ordalie, Torino, 1890, pp. 55, 60).

295 Iliad. III. 277-323.

296 Nicholaus Damascenus (Didot Frag. Hist. Græcor. III. 457).

297 Liv. XXVII. 21.

298 Senchus Mor, I. 251.

299 Synod. S. Patricii ann. 456, c. 8.

300 Anomalous Laws, Book XIV. chap. xiii. § 4 (Owen II. 623).

301 Patetta, Le Ordalie, p. 156.

302 Königswarter, op. cit. p. 224; Patetta, pp. 158 sqq.; Eph. Gerhardi Tract. Jurid. de Judic. Duellico, c. ii. § 12.

303 Saxon. Grammat. Hist. Dan. Lib. V.

304 Islands Landnamabok, III. vii.; V. xii. xiii. See also II. vi. and xiii.

305 Keyser’s Religion of the Northmen, Pennock’s Translation, p. 245-7.

306 Tacit. de Mor. Germ. X. Du Cange refers to a passage of Paterculus as proving the existence of the judicial duel among the Germans (Lib. II. cap. 118), but it seems to me only to refer to the law of the strongest.

307 Si tamen non potuerit adprobare ... et postea, si ausus fuerit, pugnet.—Leyden MS.—Capit. Extravagant. No. xxviii. of Pardessus.

308 Gregor. Turon. Hist. Franc. Lib. VII. c. xiv.; Lib. X. c. x.—Aimoini Lib. IV. c. ii.

309 Aimoini Lib. IV. cap. X.

310 Quia absurdum et impossible videtur esse ut tam grandis causa sub uno scuto per pugnam dirimatur.—L. Longobard. Lib. II. Tit. lv. §§ 1, 2, 3.

311 L. Longobard. Lib. II. Tit. xxxv. §§ 4, 5.

312 Gravis causa nobis esse comparuit, ut sub uno scuto, per unam pugnam, omnem suam substantiam homo amittat.... Quia incerti sumus de judicio Dei, et multos audivimus per pugnam sine justitia causam suam perdere. Sed propter consuetudinem gentis nostræ Longobardorum legem impiam vetare non possumus (L. Longobard. Lib. I. Tit. ix. § 23). Muratori states that the older MSS. read “legem istam,” in place of “impiam,” as given in the printed texts, which would somewhat weaken the force of Liutprand’s condemnation.

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.