754 Et quant au gage de bataille, nous voullons que il en usent, si comme l’en fesoit anciennement.—Ordonn. Avril 1315, cap. I (Isambert, III. 62).

755 Nous voullons et octroions que en cas de murtre, de larrecin, de rapte, de trahison et de roberie, gage de bataille soit ouvert, se les cas ne pouvoient estre prouvez par tesmoings—Ordonn. 15 Mai 1315 (Isambert, III. 74).

756 Ancien Coutumier inédit de Picardie, p. 48 (Marnier, Paris, 1840).

757 Ordonn. Mai 1315, P. I. chap. 13 (Isambert, III. 90).

758 Ibid. P. II. chap. 8 (Isambert, III. 95).

759 Isambert, III. 196-221.

760 Ordonn. 9 Mai 1330 (Isambert, IV. 369).

761 Neron, Récueil d’Édits, I. 16.

762 Dissertations sur la Mythologie Française.

763 Bofarull y Mascaró, Coleccion de Documentas ineditos, VI. 355-59.

764 De Laurière, note on Loysel, Instit. Coutum. Lib. VI. Tit. i. Règle 22.

765 Froissart, Liv. III. chap. xlix. (Éd. Buchon, 1846).

766 Hist. de Charles VI. ann. 1386.

767 Hist. de Charles VI. Liv. VI. chap. ix.

768 Buchon, notes to Froissart, II. 537.

769 Registre du Châtelet de Paris, I. 350 (Paris, 1861).

770 Que jamais nuls ne fussent receus au royaume de France à faire gages de bataille ou faict d’armes, sinon qu’il y eust gage jugé par le roy, ou la cour de parlement.—Juvenal des Ursins, ann. 1409.

771 Monstrelet, Liv. I. chap. lv.

772 Nic. Uptoni de Militari Officio Lib. II. cap. iii. iv. (pp. 72-73).

773 Très Ancienne Cout. de Bretagne, chap. 99, 129-135 (Bourdot de Richebourg).

774 Ancienne Cout. de Normandie, chap. 53, 68, 70, 71, 73, etc. (Bourdot de Richebourg).

775 Fors et Cost. de Béarn, Rubr. de Batalha (Bourdot de Richebourg, IV. 1093).

776 Mathieu de Coussy, chap. cxii.—Ol. de la Marche, ch. xxii. Such a case as this justifies the opinion quoted by Olivier de la Marche, “que le gaige de bataille fut trouvé par le diable pour gagner et avoir les âmes de tous les deux, tant du demandeur que du deffendeur” (Traité du Duel Judiciaire, p. 4, communicated to me by George Neilson, Esq.).

777 D. Calmet, Hist. de Lorraine.

778 Jehan Masselin, Journal des États de Tours, p. 320.

779 Archives de Pau, apud Mazure et Hatoulet, Fors de Béarn, p. 130. There may have been something exceptional in this case, since the punishment was so much more severe than the legal fine of 16 sous quoted above (Fors de Morlaas, Rubr. IV.).

780 D. Calmet, Hist. de Lorraine.

781 Brantôme, Discours sur les Duels. An account of this duel, published at Sedan, in 1620, represents it as resulting even less honorably to Fendilles. He is there asserted to have formally submitted, and to have been contemptuously tossed out of the lists like a sack of corn, Des Guerres marching off triumphantly, escorted with trumpets.

782 Fontanon, I. 665.

783 Statuta Criminalia Mediolani e tenebris in lucem edita, Bergomi, 1594.—Statuta et Decreta antiqua Civitatis Placentiæ, Placentiæ, 1560.

784 Patetta, Le Ordalie, p. 449.

785 Julii PP. II. Bull. Regis pacifici § 2, 1509 (Mag. Bull. Rom. I. 499).

786 Leon. PP. X. Bull. Quam Deo, 23 Julii, 1519 (Ib. p. 596).

787 Patetla, op. cit. pp. 438-46.

788 Eph. Gerhardi Tract. Jurid. de Judic Duellico c. ii. § II.

789 Quia in duellorum dimicatione plurimæ hinc inde fraudes committi possunt; raro enim illi inter quos illud fit judicium per se decertant, sed pugiles conducunt, qui nonnunquam dono, favore, et promissis corrumpuntur.—L. Uladis. II. c. ix. (Batthyani, I. 531).

790 Reperio tamen indubie vulgarem purgationem sive duellum in casu sine scrupulo admittendum quum publicæ salutis caussa fiat: et istud est admodum laudabile.—Damhouder. Rer. Crimin. Praxis cap. xlii. No. 12 (Antverp. 1601).

791 Concil. Trident. Sess. xxv. De Reform, cap. xix. Detestabilis duellorum usus fabricante diabolo introductus.

792 Anne is usus relinquendus sit arbitrio principis? Videtur quod sic, et respiciendum esse principi quid discernat.—Le Plat, Monument. Concil. Trident. VII. 19.

793 Le Plat, VII. 75.

794 Würdinger, Beiträge, pp. 17, 19.

795 Belitz de Duellis German. p. 15.

796 For these details I am indebted to Du Boys, Droit Criminel des Peuples Modernes, I. 611-17, 650. See also Patetta, Le Ordalie, p. 161. The Sachsenspiegel was extensively in use in Poland, and under it duels continued to be lawful until its abrogation early in the sixteenth century by Alexander I. (Ib. p. 162).

797 Statut. Roberti III. cap. iii. The genuineness of this statute has been questioned, but it undoubtedly reflects the practice of the period. For the evidence, see Neilson (Trial by Combat, p. 256), who further notes the identity of these provisions with those of Philippe le Bel’s ordonnance of 1306.

798 Neilson’s Trial by Combat, p. 292.

799 Knox’s Hist. of Reformation in Scotland, pp. 322, 446-7.

800 Neilson’s Trial by Combat, pp. 307, 310.

801 Neilson’s Trial by Combat, p. 35. See also a very interesting essay on the origin and growth of the jury by Prof. J. B. Thayer in the Harvard Law Review, Jan.-March, 1892.

802 Maitland’s Select Pleas of the Crown, p. xxiv. Whatever may have been the desire of the royal judges, King John himself was not averse to it, for there is a record of two duels between common malefactors ordered to be fought before the king “quia ea vult videre” (Ib. p. 40).

803 Spelman (Gloss. s. v. Campus) gives a Latin translation of this interesting document from a MS. of the period.

Mr. Neilson draws (pp. 167, 168) a distinction, which is evidently correct, between what he calls the chivalric duel, conducted by marshals and constables, and the ordinary combat adjudged by the courts of law. The former makes it appearance in the latter half of the fourteenth century, when the common law duel was falling into desuetude. As we have seen above, a somewhat similar development, though not so formally differentiated, is traceable in France and Italy.

804 3 Henr. VII. cap. I.

805 John Myrc’s Instructions for Parish Priests, p. 26 (Early English Text Society, 1868).

806 Stow’s Annals, ann. 1492.

807 Spelman, Gloss, p. 103.—Stow’s Annals, ann. 1571.

808 Neilson, Trial by Combat, p. 205.

809 Maitland’s Select Pleas of the Crown, I. 92. See Neilson, p. 154, for an account of a savage combat in 1456 with an approver who had already caused the hanging of several innocent men. In this case the judge laid down the law that if the approver was vanquished the defendant must be hanged for homicide. This strange ruling is not in accordance with earlier practice. In 1220 an approver accuses seven persons, but is defeated in the first combat and hanged, whereupon the accused are discharged on bail (Maitland, Select Pleas, I. 123). See two other cases in the same year (Ibid. p. 133).

810 Hale, Pleas of the Crown, II. chap. xxix. According to Pike (Hist. of Crime in England, I. 286 sq.), the record shows that approvers almost invariably either died in prison or were hanged in consequence of the acquittal of the party whom they accused. It was very rare that a combat ensued.

811 Rushworth’s Collections, Vol. I. P. I. pp. 788-90, P. III. p. 356. The gloves presented by the champions in such trials had a penny in each finger; the principals were directed to take their champions to two several churches and offer the pennies in honor of the five wounds of Christ that God might give the victory to the right (Neilson’s Trial by Combat, p. 149).

812 Hale, loc. cit.

813 Campbell’s Lives of the Chancellors of England, VI. 112.

814 I. Barnewall & Alderson, 457.—In April, 1867, the journals record the death at Birmingham of William Ashford the appellant in this suit. Thornton emigrated to America, and disappeared from sight.

815 Campbell, Chief Justices, III. 169.

816 I. Harris and McHenry’s Md. Reps. 227.

817 Cooper’s Statutes at Large of S. C. II. 403, 715.

818 Kilty’s Report on English Statutes, Annapolis, 1811, p. 141.

819 Capit. Lib. VII. cap. 259.

820 Vita Patrum Lib. III. c. 41 (Migne’s Patrologia, T. LXXIII. p. 764).

821 Shu-King, Pt. IV. ch. 4, 27 § 21 (after Goubil’s translation).

822 Staunton, Penal Code of China, p. 364.

823 Livre des Récompenses et des Peines, trad. par Stan. Julien, Paris, 1835, p. 220.

824 W. T. Stronach in “Journal of the North China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society,” New Series, No. 2, Dec. 1865, p. 176.

825 Griffis’s “Mikado’s Empire,” New York, 1876, p. 92.

826 Hutchinson’s Impressions of Western Africa, London, 1858.

827 Examination of the Toxicological Effects of Sassy-Bark, by Mitchell and Hammond (Proc. Biological Dep. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., 1859).—T. Lauder Brunton’s Gulstonian Lectures, 1877 (Brit. Med. Journ., March 26, 1877).

This would seem to support the theory of Dr. Patetta (Ordalie, p. 13) that the original form of the poison ordeals was the drinking of water in which a fetish had been washed, the spirit of which was thus conveyed into the person of the accused. On the other hand, there is the fact that in some of the poison ordeals sickness was a proof of innocence.

828 London Athenæum, May 29, 1875, p. 713.

829 Schweinfurth’s Heart of Africa, New York, 1874, Vol. II. pp. 32-36.

830 Patetta, Le Ordalie, p. 70.

831 Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, March 7, 1871.—Ellis’s Three Visits to Madagascar, chap. I. VI.

832 Patetta, Le Ordalie, p. 61.

833 Ellis’s Polynesian Researches, Vol. I. ch. 14.

834 Königswarter, op. cit. p. 202.—E. B. Tylor, in Macmillan’s Magazine, July, 1876.

835 Patetta, Le Ordalie, p. 61.

836 Macpherson’s Memorials of Service in India, London, 1865, p. 83.—See also p. 364 for modes of divination somewhat akin to these.

837 Lieut. Shaw, in Asiatic Researches, IV. 67, 84.

838 Patetta, Le Ordalie, pp. 57, 67.

839 Herod. II. 174.

840 Oppert et Ménant, Documents Jurid. de l’Assyrie, Paris, 1877, pp. 93, 106, 122, 136, 191, 197, 209, 238, 242, 246, 250, 253.

It is interesting to compare with these primitive formulas the terrible imprecations which became customary in mediæval charters against those who should seek to impair their observance.

841 Numb. xxvi. 55-6; xxxiii. 54.—Joshua xviii. 8-11; xix. 1, 10, 17, 24, 51.—I. Chron. xviii. 5-18, 31.—Nehem. x. 34; xi. 1.

842 Josh. vii. 14-26.—I. Sam. xiv. 37-45. Cf. Michaelis, Laws of Moses, art. 304.—Ewald’s Antiq. of Israel, Solly’s Translation, pp. 294-6.—Kuenen’s Religion of Israel, May’s Translation, I. 98.

843 Mishna, Sota ix. 9; Wagenseilii Comment. op. cit. vi. 4 (Ed. Surenhus. III. 257, 291). The curious who desire further information on the subject can find it in Wagenseil’s edition of the Tract Sota, with the Gemara of the Ain Jacob and his own copious and learned notes, Altdorf, 1674.

844 Mishcat ul-Masabih, Matthews’s Translation, Calcutta, 1810, vol. II. pp. 221-31.

845 Loniceri Chron. Turcic. Lib. II. cap. xvii.

846 Königswarter, op. cit. p. 203.

847 Collin de Plancy, Dictionnaire Infernal, s. v. Céromancie.

848 The Dinkard, translated by Peshotun Dustoor Behramjee Sunjana, vol. II, p. 65, Bombay, 1876.

849 Vendidad, Farg. IV. 156-8. If Prof. Oppert is correct in his rendering of the Medic Behistun inscription, the Zend version of the Avesta is not the original, but a translation made by order of Darius Hystaspes from the ancient Bactrian, which would greatly increase the antiquity attributable to this record of primæval Aryan thought. See “Records of the Past,” VII. 109.

850 Firdusi, Shah-Nameh, XII. 4 (Mohl’s Translation, II. 188). Kai Kaoos was the grandfather and immediate predecessor of Cyrus.

851 The Dabistan, Shea and Troyer’s translation, I. 219.

852 Quoted from the Dinkard by Dr. Haug in Arda-Viraf, p. 145.

853 Hyde Hist. vet. Persar. Relig. p. 280 (Ed. 1760). See also, Dabistan, I. 305-6.

854 Bk. VII. st. 108.

855 Atharva Veda II. 12 (Grill, Hundert Lieder des Atharva Veda, Tübingen, 1879, p. 16).—Khandogya-Upanishad. VI. 16 (Max Müller’s Translation, p. 108). In this latter passage there is a philosophical explanation attempted why a man who covers himself with truth is not burnt by the hot iron.

856 Monier Williams, Indian Wisdom, 2d ed. p. 360.

857 Man. Dharm. Sast. VIII. 114-16, 190.

858 Institutes of Vishnu, IX.

859 Institutes of Gautama, XIII. 1, 3, 23 (Bühler’s Translation).

So the Vasishtha Dharmasastra is equally ignorant of ordeals and even more immoral in its teaching—“Men may speak an untruth when their lives are in danger or the loss of their whole property is imminent”—Vasishtha XVI. 10, 35 (Bühler’s Translation).

860 See Halhed’s Gentoo Code, chap. iii. §§ 5, 6, 9, 10; chap. xviii. (E. I. Company, London, 1776).—Ayeen Akbery, or Institutes of Akbar (Gladwin’s Translation, London, 1800), vol. II. pp. 496, sqq. Also a paper by Ali Ibrahim Khan, chief magistrate of Benares, communicated by Warren Hastings to the Asiatic Society in 1784 (Asiatic Researches, I. 389).

861 Duclos, Mém. sur les Épreuves.

862 Smith’s Dict. of Antiq. s. v. Marlyria.

863 Pausan. VII. xxv. 8.

864 Festus s. v. Lapidem.—Liv. I. 24; XXI. 45.—Polyb. III. xxv. 6-9.—Aul. Gell. I. 21.

865 Liv. XXII. 53. Cf. Fest. s. v. Præjurationes. See an example of a similar oath taken by a whole army, Liv. ii. 45.

866 Val. Maxim. I. i. 7; VIII. i. 5.—Ovid. Fastor. IV. 305 sqq.

867 A scholiast on Horace, dating probably from the fifth century of our era, describes an ordeal equivalent to the judicium offæ. When slaves, he says, were suspected of theft they were taken before a priest who administered to each a piece of bread over which certain conjurations had been uttered and he who was unable to swallow it was adjudged guilty (Patetta, I.e Ordalie, p. 140). Not only the date of this deprives it of value as evidence of Roman custom, but also the fact that Romans might well employ such means of influencing the imagination of Barbarian or ignorant slaves.

868 Senchus Mor. I. 25, 195. Comp. Gloss, p. 199.

869 Anthol. IX. 125.—Cf. Julian. Imp. Epist. XVI.—Claud. in Rufinum II. 110.—Pliny describes (Nat. Hist. VII. ii.) a somewhat similar custom ascribed to the Pselli, an African tribe who exhaled an odor which put serpents to sleep. Each new-born child was exposed to a poisonous snake, when if it were legitimate the reptile would not touch it, while if adulterine it was bitten. Another version of the same story is given by Ælian (De Nat. Animal. I. lvii.).

870 Keyser’s Religion of the Northmen, Pennock’s Translation, p. 259. The extreme simplicity of the skirsla finds its counterpart in modern times in the ordeal of the staff, as used in the Ardennes and described hereafter.

871 First Test of Pardessus, Tit. liii. lvi.

872 Decret. Tassilon. Tit. ii. § 7.

873 Grimm, ap. Pictet, Origines Indo-Européennes, III. 117.

874 Annal. Saxo ann. 1039.—Ruskaia Prawda, art. 28 (Esneaux, Hist. de Russie, I. 181).

875 L. Wisigoth. VI. i. 3.

876 Lib. adv. Leg. Gundobadi iv. vi.

877 Senatus Consult. de Monticolis Waliæ c. ii.

878 A great variety of these Ordines will be found in the collections of Baluze, Martène, Pez, Muratori, Spelman, and others. From these we derive most of our knowledge as to the details of the various processes.

879 Batthyani Leg. Eccles. Hung T. I. pp. 439, 454.

880 Anon. Chron. Slavic. cap. xxv. (S. R. German. Septent. Lindenbrog. p. 215).

881 Hincmar. de Divort. Lothar. Interrog. VI.

882 Dooms of King Æthelstan, iv. cap. 7.

883 Adjuratio ferri vel aquæ ferventis (Baluz. II. 655).

884 De Gloria Martyrum Lib. I. cap. 81.—Injecta manu, protinus usque ad ipsa ossium internodia caro liquefacta defluxit.

885 Institutes of Vishnu, IX. 33 (Jolly’s Translation).

886 Formulæ Exorcismorum, Baluz. II. 639 sqq.

887 Doom concerning hot iron and water (Laws of Æthelstan, Thorpe, I. 226); Baluze, II. 644.

888 Martene de Antiq. Eccles. Ritibus, Lib. III. c. vii. Ordo. 19.

889 Florez, España Sagrada, XIX. 377-8.

890 “Quia in aqua ignita coquuntur culpabiles et innoxii liberantur incocti, quia de igne Sodomitico Lot justus evasit inustus, et futurus ignis qui præibit terribilem judicem, Sanctis erit innocuus et scelestos aduret, ut olim Babylonica fornax, quæ pueros omnino non contigit.”—Interrog. vi.

891 Vit. S. Æthelwoldi c. x. (Chron. Abingd. II. 259. M. R. Series).

892 First text of Pardessus, Tit. liii. lvi.; MS. Guelferbyt. Tit. xiv. xvi.; L. Emend. Tit. lv. lix.

893 L. Frision. Tlt. iii.; L. Æthelredi iv. § 6; L. Lombard. Lib. I. Tit. xxxiii. § 1.

894 Grágás, Sect. VI. cap. 55.

895 Ruskaia Prawda, Art. 28.

896 Jur. Provin. Saxon. Lib. I. art. 39; Jur. Provin. Alamann. cap. xxxvii. §§ 15. 16.

897 Du Cange.

898 Defens. Probæ Aquæ; Frigid, §§ 167, 169, etc.

899 J. H. Böhmer, Jus. Eccles. Protestantium T. V. p. 597.

900 Ayeen Akbery, II. 498. This work was written about the year 1600 by Abulfazel, vizier of the Emperor Akbar. Gladwin’s Translation was published under the auspices of the East India Company in 1800. See also Ali Ibrahim Khan, in Asiatic Researches, I. 398.