Superstition and Force / Essays on the Wager of Law, the Wager of Battle, the Ordeal, Torture

by Henry Charles Lea

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Legg. Villæ de Arkes § xxviii. (D’Achery Spicileg. III. 608).

[2] See Pictet, Origines Indo-Européennes (Paris, 1878, T. II. pp. 372-6; T. III. pp. 5-8), for the philological evidence of the development of society from the family in all the Aryan nations.

[3] Vendidad, Farg. IV. 24-35 (Bleeck’s Translation, Hertford, 1864, pp. 30-1).

[4] Manava Dharma Sastra, VIII. 295 sqq. Comp. Maine’s Ancient Law, pp. 260 sqq.

[5] Yajnavalkya, II. 272 (Stenzler’s Translation).

[6] Even among the remnants of the pre-Aryan races of India the same customs are traceable. Early in the present century Lieutenant Shaw described the hill-tribes of Rajmahal, to the north of Bengal, as recognizing the responsibility of the injurer to the injured; compensation was assessed at the pleasure of the complainant, and the kindred of the offender were compelled to contribute to it, exactly as among the barbarians who occupied Europe (Asiatic Researches, Vol. IV.).

[7] Dicæarchi Frag. (Didot, Frag. Hist. Græcor.).—Apollodor. Biblioth. II. vi. 2-3.—Diodor. Siculi IV. 31.—Plut. Quæst. Græc. 46.—Maine’s Ancient Law, p. 127.

[8] Tit. Liv. I. 26; V. 32.—Appiani de Bell. Hannibal. xxviii.—Dion. Halicar. II. 10; XIII. 5.

[9] Esneaux, Hist. de Russie, I. 172 sqq.

[10] Jo. Herburti de Fulstin Statut. Reg. Polon. tit. Homicid. (Samoscii, 1597, pp. 200 sqq.). In cases, however, of homicide committed by a kmetho, or serf, upon another, a portion of the wer-gild was paid to the magistrate.

[11] See an abstract of Bojisic’s work on the customs of the southern Slavs, in the “Penn Monthly” Magazine, Phi’a, Jan. 1878, pp. 15 sqq.

[12] Gradually, however, a portion of the composition money was attributed, under the name of fredum, to the king or the magistrate, as a compensation for readmitting the criminal to the public peace.

[13] Ll. Edwardi C. xii. (Thorpe’s Ancient Laws, I. 467).

[14] Gwentian Code, Bk. II. chap. vii. §8. (Aneurin Owen’s Ancient Laws, etc. of Wales, I. 701.)

[15] Senchus Mor, I. 259 (Hancock’s ed. Dublin, 1865).

[16] Grágás, Sect. IV. cap. cxiv.

[17] Ibid. Sect. VIII. cap. lv.

[18] Jarnsida, Mannhelge, cap. xxix.—Cf. Legg. Gulathingenses, Mannhelgi, cap. xii.

[19] Constit. Eric. Ann. 1269 § vii. (Ludewig, Reliq. MSS. T. XII. p. 204).

[20] Dimetian Code, Bk. II. ch. i. §§ 17-31.—Bk. III. ch. iii. §4.—Anomalous Laws, Bk. IV. ch. iii. § 11.

[21] Dimetian Code, Bk. II. chap. xxiv. § 12.

[22] Roisin, Franchises, etc. de la ville de Lille, pp. 106-7.

[23] Charta Balduini Hannoniens. (Martene, Collect. Ampliss. I. 964.)

[24] Capitul. Lib. IV. cap. 15.

[25] Concil. Tribur. an. 895, can. iv.

[26] Dimetian Code, Bk. II. chap. i. § 32.

[27] Venedotian Code, Bk. III. chap. i. § 21.

[28] The oath may be regarded as the foundation of Roman legal procedure—“Dato jurejurando non aliud quæritur, quam an juratum sit; remissa quæstione an debeatur; quasi satis probatum sit jurejurando”—L. 5, § 2, D. XII. ii. The jusjurandum necessarium could always be administered by the judge in cases of deficient evidence, and the jusjurandum in jure proffered by the plaintiff to the defendant was conclusive: “Manifestæ turpitudinis et confessionis est nolle nec jurare nec jusjurandum referre”—Ibid. l. 38.

[29] Ll. Wisigoth. Lib. II. Tit. ii. c. 5.

[30] Concil. Valentin. ann. 855, c. xi.

[31] Ll. Ripuar. Tit. XII. § 1; ix. 17.—Capit. Ludov. Pii. ann. 819 add. ad L. Salicam, c. 15.—Capitul. L. IV. c. 29.—Ivonis Decr. XVI. 239.

[32] De presbytero vero, si quilibet sacerdos a populo fuerit accusatus, si certi non fuerint testes qui criminis illati approbent veritatem, jusjurandum erit in medio, et illum testem proferat de innocentiæ suæ puritate cui nuda et aperta sunt omnia; sicque maneat in proprio gradu.—Gregor. PP. II. Epist. XIV. ad Bonifacium. Cf. Hincmari Remens. Epist. XXII.

[33] Thus Alfonso the Wise endeavored to introduce into Spain the mutual challenging of the parties involved in the Roman jusjurandum in jure, by his jura de juicio (Las Siete Partidas, P. III. Tit. xi. l. 2. Cf. Espéculo, Lib. V. Tit. xi. ley 2). Oddly enough, the same procedure is found incorporated in the municipal law of Rheims in the fourteenth century, probably introduced by some over-zealous civilian; “Si alicui deferatur jusjurandum, necesse habet jurare vel referre jusjurandum, et hoc super quovis debito, vel inter quasvis personas”—Lib. Pract. de Consuetud. Remens. § 15 (Archives Législat. de Reims, P. I. p. 37). By this time, however, the oaths of parties had assumed great importance. In the legislation of St. Louis, they occupy a position which was a direct incentive to perjury. Thus he provides for the hanging of the owner of a beast which had killed a man, if he was foolish enough not to swear that he was ignorant of its being vicious. “Et si il estoit si fox que il deist que il seust la teche de la beste, il en seroit pendus pour la recoignoissance”—Établissements, Liv. I. chap. cxxi.

A charter granted to the commune of Lorris, in 1155, by Louis le Jeune, gives to burghers the privilege of rebutting by oath, without conjurators, an accusation unsupported by testimony—Chart. Ludovic. junior. ann. 1155, cap. xxxii. (Isambert, Anciennes Lois Françaises I. 157.) And, in comparatively modern times, in Germany, the same rule was followed. “Juramento rei, quod purgationis vocatur, sæpe etiam innocentia, utpote quæ in anima constitit, probatur et indicia diluuntur;” and this oath was administered when the evidence was insufficient to justify torture. (Zangeri Tract. de Quæstionibus, cap. iii. No. 46.) In 1592, Zanger wrote an elaborate essay to prove the evils of the custom.

It is a noteworthy fact, however, that of all the medieval codes the one least affected by the influence of the Roman law was the Saxon, and in this the purgatorial power of the oath was admitted to a degree unknown elsewhere. The accused was allowed in certain cases to clear himself, however notorious were the facts, and no evidence was admitted to disprove his position, unless it were a question of theft, and the stolen articles were found in his possession, or he had suffered a previous conviction. (Jur. Provin. Saxon. Lib. I. Art. 15, 18, 39; Lib. II. Art. 4, 72.) Even this was an improvement on the previous custom, if we may believe Cardinal Henry of Susa, who denounces the practice in Saxony and Dacia, where a man can clear himself, even if he holds the stolen article in his hand and the loser has ample witnesses present (Hostiensis Aureæ Summæ Lib. V. De Purg. canon. § 3). This irrational abuse was long in vogue, and was denounced by the council of Bâle in the fifteenth century (Schilter. Thesaur. II. 291). It only prevailed in the north of Germany; the Jus Provin. Alaman. (cap. ccclxxxi. § 3), which regulated Southern Germany, alludes to it as one of the distinguishing features of the Saxon code.

So, also, at the same period a special privilege was claimed by the inhabitants of Franconia, in virtue of which a murderer was allowed to rebut with his single oath all testimony as to his guilt, unless he chanced to be caught with the red hand—Jur. Provin. Alaman. cap. cvi. § 7.

[34] “Ego solus jurare volo, tu, si audes, nega sacramentum meum et armis mecum contende.”—Ll. Ripuar. Tit. IX. § 3.

[35] Laws of Wihtræd, cap. 16-21. Comp. LI. Henrici I. Tit. lxiv. § 8.

[36] Anomalous Laws, Book IV. chap. i. § 11.

[37] Jur. Provin. Alaman. cclxiv. 7, 8.

[38] Fuero Viejo, III. ii.

[39] Book VII. 109-13 (after Delongchamps’ translation).

The corresponding passage in the Institutes of Vishnu (VIII. 20-3) renders this somewhat more intelligible. When the judge swears the witness—

“A Brahmana he must address thus, ‘Declare.’

“A Kshatriya he must address thus, ‘Declare the truth.’

“A Vaisya he must address thus, ‘Thy kine, grain, and gold (shall yield thee no fruit if thou wert to give false evidence).’

“A Sudra he must address thus, ‘Thou shalt have to atone for all (possible) heavy crimes (if thou wert to give false evidence).’”

[40] Institutes of Vishnu, IX. (Jolly’s Translation).

[41] Iliad. XV. 36-40.—Luciani Philopseud. 5; Cataplus 11.

[42] LI. 3, 4, D. XII. ii.

[43] Volundarkvida 31 (Thorpe’s Sæmund’s Edda). A curious remnant of this is seen in the burgher law of Northern Germany in the thirteenth century, by which a man reclaiming a stolen horse was bound to kick its left foot with his right foot, while with his left hand he took hold of the animal’s ear and swore by its head that it was his.—Sachsisches Weichbild, art. 135.

[44] Deuteron. xxi. 4-8.

[45] Pausan. III. xx. 9.

[46] Islands Landnamabok IV. 7; II. 9 (Ed. 1774, pp. 299, 83).

[47] Keyser’s Religion of the Northmen, Pennock’s Translation, p. 238.

[48] Gen. xv. 9-17.—Jer. xxxiv. 18-19.—I. Kings, viii. 31-2.—Chrysost. Orat. adv. Jud. I. 3.

[49] Anastas. Biblioth. No. LXII.

[50] Ecgberti Dialog. IV. (Haddan and Stubbs’s Councils of Great Britain, III. 405).

[51] Gregor. Turon. Hist. Lib. V. cap. xlix. Gregory complains that this was contrary to the canons, of which more hereafter.

[52] Dooms of Alfred, cap. 33.

[53] Dimetian Code, Bk. II. chap. vi. § 17 (Owen, I. 431).

[54] Fleta, Lib. II. cap. lxiii. § 12. The Moslem jurisprudence has a somewhat similar provision for accusatorial oaths in the Iesameh by which a murderer can be convicted, in the absence of testimony or confession, by fifty oaths sworn by relatives of the victim. Of these there must be at least two, and the fifty oaths are divided between them in proportion to their respective legal shares in the Deeyeh, or blood-money for the murder.—Du Boys, Droit Criminel des Peuples Modernes, I. 269.—Seignette, Code Mussulman, Constantine, 1878, p. lvi.

[55] Fredegarii Chron. cap. xcvii.

[56] Excerpt. de Libro Davidis No. xvi. (Haddan and Stubbs, I. 120).

[57] Si in manu episcopi ... aut in cruce consecrata perjurat III. annos pœniteat. Si vero in cruce non consecrata perjurat, I. annum pœniteat; si autem in manu hominis laici juraverit nihil est.—Theodori Cantuar. Pœnit. cap. xxiv. § 2. (Thorpe, Ancient Laws, vol. II. p. 29.) Cf. Haddan and Stubbs, III. 423; Wasserschleben, Bussordnungen, pp. 190, 226.

[58] Pœnitent. Pseudo-Gregor. III. vii. (Wasserschleben, p. 539).

[59] Pœnitent. Cummeani cap. V. § 3 (Wasserschleben, p. 477).—Gratiani Decr. c. 2. Caus. XXII. Q. v. In the fourteenth century this was repeated in the penitential canons of Astesanus (§ 23), which continued until the Reformation to be a recognized authority in the confessional. Astesanus, however, explains that the obligation is equal to God, but unequal as regards the church, whence the difference in the penance.—Astesani Summa de Casibus Conscientiæ, P. I. Lib. I. Tit. xviii.

[60] Anomalous Laws, Book IX. chap. v. § 3; chap. xxxviii. § 1 (Owen, II. 233, 303). The definition of relics, however, was somewhat vague—“There are three relics to swear by: the staff of a priest; the name of God; and hand to hand with the one sworn to.” Bk. XIII. ch. ii. § 219 (Ibid. II. 557).

[61] Regino de Eccles. Discip. Lib. I. cap. ccc. See also Jur. Provin. Saxon, Lib. III. c. 41. Notwithstanding the laxity of these doctrines, it is not to be supposed that the true theory of the oath was altogether lost. St. Isidor of Seville, who was but little anterior to Theodore of Canterbury, well expresses it (Sententt. Lib. II. cap. xxxi. § 8): “Quacunque arte verborum quisque juret, Deus tamen, qui conscientiæ testis est, ita hoc accipit, sicut ille cui juratur intelligit,” and this, being adopted in successive collections of canons, coexisted with the above as a maxim of ecclesiastical law (Ivon. Decret. P. XII. c. 36.—Gratian. c. 13, Caus. XXII. Q. ii.).

[62] Helgaldi Vit. Roberti Regis.

[63] Augustin. Epist. 78, §§ 2, 3 (Ed. Benedict.).

[64] Gregor. Turon. de Gloria Martyr. cap. 58, 103.

[65] Suppression of Monasteries, p. 186 (Camden Soc. Pub.). The Priory of Cardigan was dependent upon the Abbey of Chertsey, and the sum named was apparently the abbot’s share of the annual “alms.”

Perhaps the most suggestive illustration of the reverence for relics is a passage in the ancient Welsh laws limiting the protection legally afforded by them—“If a person have relics upon him and does an illegal act under the relics, he is not to have protection or defence through those relics, for he has not deserved it.”—Venedotian Code, Bk. I. chap. x. § 7.

[66] Espéculo, Lib. V. Tit. xi. leyes 14, 15. The oaths required of Jews and Moors were much more elaborate (Ibid. 16, 17).

[67] Patetta, Le Ordalie, Torino, 1890, p. 130.

[68] Yet compurgators appear in the Spanish laws of the twelfth century. See Fuero de Balbás, ann. 1135 (Coleccion de Privilegios, etc. Madrid, 1833, T. VI. p. 85).

[69] The primitive Scottish procedure appears to have been based on compurgation.—Neilson’s Trial by Combat, London, 1890, p. 78.

[70] First Text of Pardessus, Tit. xxxix. § 2, and Tit. xlii. § 5 (Loi Salique, Paris, 1843, pp. 21, 23). It is somewhat singular that in the subsequent recensions of the code the provision is omitted in these passages.

[71] Eginhard. Annal. ann. 800.—The monkish chroniclers have endeavored to conceal the fact that Leo underwent the form of trial like a common criminal, but the evidence is indubitable. Charlemagne alludes to it in the Capitularium Aquisgranense ann. 803, in a manner which admits of no dispute.

The monk of St. Gall (De Gestis B. Carol. Mag. Lib. i. cap. 28), whose work is rather legendary in its character, describes the Pope as swearing to his innocence by his share at the day of judgment in the promises of the gospels, which he had placed upon his head.

[72] Capit. Aquisgran. ann. 803, cap. vii.

[73] Bonifacii Epist. cxxvi.

The subject of the oaths of priests was one of considerable perplexity during the dark ages. Among the numerous privileges assumed by the sacerdotal body was exemption from the necessity of swearing, an exemption which had the justification of the ancient Roman custom; “Sacerdotem, Vestalem, et Flaminem Dialem in omni mea jurisdictione jurare non cogam” (Edict. Perpet. ap. Aul. Gell. x. 15). The effort to obtain the reversion of this privilege dates from an early period, and was sometimes allowed and sometimes rejected by the secular authorities, both as respects promissory, judicial, and exculpatory oaths. The struggle between church and state on this subject is well exemplified in a case which occurred in 1269. The Archbishop of Reims sued a burgher of Chaudardre. When each party had to take the oath, the prelate demanded that his should be taken by his attorney. The defendant demurred to this, alleging that the archbishop had in person presented the complaint. Appeal was made to the Parlement of Paris, which decided that the defendant’s logic was correct, and that the personal oath of the prelate was requisite (Olim, I. 765).

In Spain, a bishop appearing in a secular court, either as plaintiff or defendant, was not exempt from the oath, but had the singular privilege of not being compelled to touch the gospels on which he swore.—Siete Partidas, P. III. Tit. xl. l. 24.

[74] Gratian. c. 19, Caus. II. Q. V.

[75] Eginhard. Annal. ann. 823.

[76] Atton. de Pressuris Ecclesiast. P. 1.

[77] Buchardus, Ivo, Gratianus, passim.—Ivon. Epist. 74.

[78] L. Longobard. Lib. II. Tit. xxi. § 9; Tit. lv. § 12.—L. Burgund. Tit. vii.—Laws of Ethelred, Tit. ix. §§ 23, 24.—L. Henrici I. cap. lxxiv. § 1. Feudor. Lib. V. Tit. ii.

This point illustrates the essential distinction between witnesses and compurgators. The Roman law exercised great discrimination in admitting the evidence of a relative to either party in an action (Pauli Sentent. Lib. V. Tit. xv.—Ll. 4, 5, 6, 9. Dig. XXII. v.). The Wisigoths not only adopted this principle, but carried it so far as to exclude the evidence of a kinsman in a cause between his relative and a stranger (L. Wisigoth. Lib. II. Tit. iv. c. 12), which was adopted into the Carlovingian legislation (Benedict. Levit. Capitul. Lib. VI. c. 348) under the strong Romanizing influence which then prevailed. The rule, once established, retained its place through the vicissitudes of the feudal and customary law (Beaumanoir, Coutumes du Beauvoisis, cap. xxxix. § 38.—Cout. de Bretagne, Tit. vii. art. 161, 162). In the ancient Brahmanic legislation the evidence of both friends and enemies was excluded (Institutes of Vishnu, viii. 3).

[79] Anomalous Laws, Bk. IX. chap. ii. § 4; chap. v. § 2 (Owen, II. 225, 233). This collection of laws is posterior to the year 1430.

[80] Anomalous Laws, Bk. V. chap. ii. § 117 (Ibid. II. p. 85).

[81] Ibid. § 144 (p. 95).

[82] Aimoini Lib. III. c. 29.

[83] Greg. Turon. Lib. VIII. c. 9.

[84] Herman. Contract. ann. 899.

[85] Spelman. Concil. I. 335.

[86] Venedotian Code, Book III. chap. i. §§ 1-10.—Dimetian and Gwentian Codes, Book II. chap. i. §§ 10-12 (Owen I. 219-21, 407, 689).—There is very great confusion in these laws as to the numbers requisite for many crimes, but with respect to the accessories of galanas, or homicide, the rule appears to have been absolute.—Cf. Spelman, Glossary s. v. Assath.

[87] Venedotian Code, Book III. chap. i. § 18. Anomalous Laws, Book IV. chap. iii. §§ 12, 13 (Ibid. I. 231, II. 23).

[88] Ibid. § 17 (p. 231); cf. Book II. chap. viii. § 4 (p. 137).

[89] Gwentian Code, Book II. chap. iii. § 11 (Ibid. I. 691).

[90] Leg. Cimbric. Lib. II. c. 9.—Constit. Woldemari Regis §§ 9, 52, 56, 86. Throughout Germany a minor son could be cleared, even in capital accusations, by the single purgatorial oath of his father, if it was the first time that they had been defendants in court.—Jur. Provin. Alaman. cap. clxix. § 1; Sachsische Weichbild, art. 76.

[91] Böhlau, Nove constitutiones Dom. Alberti, pp. 2, 6, 12, 38 (Weimar, 1858). “Cum duobus viris bone opinionis et integri status, sinodalibus hominibus.” The expression is doubtless derived from the testes synodales—men of standing and reputation selected in episcopal synods to act as a kind of grand jury and report the sins of their neighbors.

[92] This has been denied by those who assume that the frithborgs of Edward the Confessor are the earliest instance of such institutions, but traces of communal societies are to be found in the most ancient text of the Salic law (First text of Pardessus, Tit. XLV.), and both Childebert and Clotair II., in edicts promulgated near the close of the sixth century, hold the hundreds or townships responsible for robberies committed within their limits (Decret. Childeberti ann. 595, c. 10; Decret. Chlotarii II. c. 1).

It is not improbable that, as among all the barbarian races, the family was liable for the misdeeds of its members, so the tribe or clan of the offender was held responsible when the offence was committed upon a member of another tribe, and such edicts as those of Childebert and Clotair were merely adaptations of the rule to the existing condition of society. The most perfect early code that has reached us, that of the ancient Irish, expresses in detail the responsibility of each sept for the actions not only of its members, but of those also who were in any way connected with it. “And because the four nearest tribes bear the crime of each kinsman of their stock.... And because there are four who have an interest in every one who sues and is sued: the tribe of the father, the chief, the church, the tribe of the mother or foster-father.... Every tribe is liable after the absconding of a member of it, after notice, after warning, and after lawful waiting.”—Senchus Mor, I. 263-5.

[93] See Mr. Pike’s very interesting “History of Crime in England,” Vol. I. pp. 61-2. London, 1873.

[94] First text of Pardessus, Tit. XLII. § 5.

[95] Marculf. App. xxxii.; xxix.

[96] Pact. pro Tenore Pacis cap. vi.

[97] L. Alaman. Tit. lxxvi.

[98] Capit. Car. Mag. IV. ann. 803, cap. x.

[99] Goldast. Constit. Imp. I. 231.

[100] Hartzheim Concil. German. II. 600.

[101] Lagrèze, Hist. du Droit dans les Pyrénées, p. 47, Paris, 1867.

[102] Pike, op. cit. I. 451.

[103]

Pontificem parium manus expurgat duodena.

Sexta sacerdotem, levitam tertia purgat.

Maior maiori, minor est adhibenda minori.

Quem plebs infamat purgabitur in manifesto.

Hostiensis Aureæ Summæ Lib. V. Tit. De Purgat. canon. § 4.

[104] Ibid. § 5.

[105] Quoniam Attachiamenta cap. xxiv. §§ 1, 4; cap. lxxv. §§ 1, 4. In another subsequent code, in simple cases of theft, when the accuser had no testimony to substantiate his claim, thirty conjurators were necessary, of whom three must be nobles (Regiam Majestatem Lib. IV. c. 21). For the disputed date of the Regiam see Neilson, Trial by Combat, ch. 30.

[106] Leg. Burgorum cap. xxiv. §§ 1, 3.

[107] Anomalous Laws, Book XIII. chap. ii. § 94 (Owen II. 521).

[108] Gwentian Code, Bk. II. chap. vii. § 10 (Ibid. I. 701).

[109] Anomalous Laws, Bk. IX. chap. ii. § 4; chap. xx. § 12; chap. xxi. § 3.—Book XIV. chap. xxxviii. § 16.—Book V. chap. ii. § 112 (Ibid. II. 225, 261, 709, 83).

Under the primitive Venedotian Code (Book III. chap. i. §§ 13, 19) only twelve men were required, one-half to be nod-men, two-thirds of paternal, and one-third of maternal kin; while in the Gwentian Code (Book II. chap. ii. § 10) and in the Dimetian Code (Book II. chap. iii. § 10, Book III. chap. i. § 24), fifty are prescribed.

The nod men, as will be seen hereafter, were conjurators who took a special form of oath.

[110] Anomalous Laws, Book XIV. chap. xxxviii. § 16; Book IX. chap. xx. § 12; chap. xxi. § 1.

[111] Leges Wallice, Lib. II. cap. xxiii. § 17 (Owen II. 848). It is worthy of remark that one of the few instructions for legal procedures contained in the Korán relates to cases of this kind. Chapter xxiv. 6-9 directs that a husband accusing his wife of infidelity, and having no witnesses to prove it, shall substantiate his assertion by swearing five times to the truth of the charge, invoking upon himself the malediction of God; while the wife was able to rebut the accusation by the same process. As this chapter, however, was revealed to the Prophet after he had writhed for a month under a charge brought against his favorite wife Ayesha, which he could not disregard and did not wish to entertain, the law is rather to be looked upon as ex post facto than as indicating any peculiar tendency of the age or race.

[112] Anomalous Laws, Book XI. chap. v. §§ 40, 41 (Ibid. II. 445).

[113] Wealreaf, i. e., mortuum refere, est opus nithingi; si quis hoc negare velit, faciat hoc cum xlviii. taynis plene nobilibus.—Leg. Æthelstani, de Ordalio.

[114] Sacramentum liberalis hominis, quem quidem vocant twelfhendeman, debet stare et valere juramentum septem villanorum (Cnuti Secular. cap. 127). The twelfhendeman meant a thane (Twelfhindus est homo plene nobilis i. Thainus.—Leg. Henrici I. Tit. lxxvi. § 4), whose price was 1200 solidi. So thoroughly did the structure of jurisprudence depend upon the system of wer-gild or composition, that the various classes of society were named according to the value of their heads. Thus the villein or cherleman was also called twyhindus or twyhindeman, his wer-gild being 200 solidi; the radcnicht (road-knight, or mounted follower) was a sexhendeman; and the comparative judicial weight of their oaths followed a similar scale of valuation, which was in force even subsequently to the Conquest (Leg. Henrici I. Tit. lxiv. § 2).

[115] L. Frision. Tit. I.

[116] Hincmari Epist. xxxiv. So also in his Capit. Synod. ann. 852, II. xxv.

[117] L. Longobard. Lib. II. Tit. lv. § 5.

[118] Ibid. Tit. xxi. § 9.

[119] Proost, Récherches sur la Législation des Jugements de Dieu, Bruxelles, 1868, p. 96.

[120] Nominentur ei XIV., et adquirat XI., et ipse sit duodecimus.—L. Cnuti c. lxvi. Horne, who probably lived in the reign of Edward II., attributes to Glanville the introduction of the jury-trial.—“Car, pur les grandes malices que lon soloit procurer en testmonage et les grands delaies qui se fierent en les examinements, exceptions et attestations, ordeina Randulph de Glanvile celle certeine Assise ou recognitions et jurées se feissent per XII jurors, les procheins vicines, et issint est cest establissement appelé assise.”—Myrror of Justice, cap. II. sect. xxv. For a minute examination into the origin of the jury-trial, see a series of articles by Prof. J. B. Thayer in the Harvard Law-Review for 1892.

[121] Laws of Ethelred, Tit. III. c. xiii.

[122] L. Henrici I. Tit. xxxi. § 8; Tit. lxvi. § 10.

[123] Constit. Woldemari Regis §§ lii. lxxii.

[124] Fuero de Balbás (Coleccion de Privilegios, etc. Madrid, 1833, T. VI. p. 85).

[125] Prof. J. B. Thayer, in Harvard Law Review, Vol. V. p. 58.

[126] L. Scaniæ Lib. vii. c. 8.—Chart. Woldemari Regis, ann. 1163 (Du Cange s. v. Juramentum).

[127] Jarnsida, Thiofa-Balkr, cap. ix. X.

[128] Leges Gulathingenses, Thiofa-Bolkr, c. xiii. (Ed. Havniæ 1817, p. 547).

[129] L. Longobard. I. xxxiii. 1, 3.

[130] L. Burgund. Tit. viii.

[131] Capit. Car. Mag. I. ann. 789 c. lxii.

[132] Ibid.

[133] Capit. Ludov. Pii ann. 829 Tit. III. § vi.

[134] For. de Morlaas, Rubr. xli. art. 146-7.

[135] Que sien boos et loyaus, et que no sien enemicxs.—Fors de Béarn, Rubr. xxx.

[136] Formulary of the Papal Penitentiary, Philadelphia, 1892, p. 100.

[137] Königswarter, Études Historiques. p. 167.

[138] Nam nulli liceat, postquam manifestaverit, postea per sacramentum negare, quod non sit culpabilis, postquam ille se culpabilem assignavit. Quia multos cognovimus in regno nostro tales pravas opponentes intentiones, et hæc moverunt nos præsentem corrigere legem, et ad meliorem statum revocare.—L. Longobard. Lib. II. Tit. lv. § 8.

[139] Si quis hominem ingenuo plagiaverit et probatio certa non fuit, sicut pro occiso juratore donet. Si juratores non potuerit invenire, VIII M dinarios, qui faciunt solidos CC, culpabilis judicetur (Tit. xxxix. § 2). A similar provision—“si tamen probatio certa non fuerit”—occurs in Tit. xlii. § 5.

[140] Si quis hominem occiderit et negare voluerit, cum duodecim nominatis juret.—L. Alaman. Tit. LXXXIX.

[141] L. Alaman. Tit. XLII.

[142] Islands Landnamabok II. ix. (p. 83).

[143] For instance, in the Baioarian law—“Nec facile ad sacramenta veniatur.... In his vero causis sacramenta præstentur in quibus nullam probationem discussio judicantis invenerit” (L. Baioar. Tit. VIII. c. 16). In a Capitulary of Louis le Débonnaire—“Si hujus facti testes non habuerit cum duodecim conjuratoribus legitimis per sacramentum adfirmet” (Capit. Ludov. Pii ann. 819, § 1). In one of the Emperor Lothair—“Si testes habere non poterit, concedimus ut cum XII. juratoribus juret” (L. Longobard. Lib. I. Tit. IX. § 37). So Louis II., in 854, ordered that a man accused of harboring robbers, if taken in the act, was to be immediately punished; but if merely cited on popular rumor, he was at liberty to clear himself with twelve compurgators (Recess. Ticinen. Tit. II. cap. 3).

It was the same in subsequent periods. The Scottish law of the thirteenth century alludes to the absence of testimony as a necessary preliminary, but when an acquittal was once obtained in this manner the accused seems to have been free from all subsequent proceedings, when inconvenient witnesses might perhaps turn up—“Et si hoc modo purgatus fuerit, absolvetur a petitione Regis in posterum” (Regiam Majestatem, Lib. IV. c. 21). So, in the laws of Nieuport, granted by Philip of Alsace, Count of Flanders, in 1163 “Et si hoc scabini vel opidani non cognoverint, conquerens cum juramento querelam suam sequetur, et alter se excusabit juramento quinque hominum” (Leg. secundæ Noviportus). See also the Consuetud. Tornacens. ann. 1187, §§ ii. iii. xvi., where two conjurators release a defendant from a claim of debt unsupported by evidence. In case of assault, “si constans non fuerit,” two conjurators clear the accused; in case of wounding, six are required if the affair occurred by daylight; if at night, the cold water ordeal is prescribed (D’Achery, Spicileg. III. 551-2). The legislation of Norway and Iceland in the next century is even more positive “Iis tantum concessis quæ legum codices sanciunt, juramenta nempe purgatoria et accusatoria, ubi legitimi defuerint testes” (Jarnsida, Mannhelge, cap. xxxvii.).

On the other hand, an exception to this general principle is apparently found in a constitution of the Emperor Henry III., issued about the middle of the eleventh century “Si quem ex his dominus suus accusaverit de quacunque re, licet illi juramento se cum suis coæqualibus absolvere, exceptis tribus: hoc est si in vitam domini sui, aut in cameram ejus consilium habuisse arguitur, aut in munitiones ejus. Cæteris vero hominibus de quacunque objectione, absque advocato, cum suis coæqualibus juramento se poterit absolvere” (Goldast. Constit. Imp. I. 231).

In a constitution of Frederic II. in 1235, the oaths of six compurgators clear a man accused of having commenced hostilities without awaiting the three days term prescribed after defiance, no evidence being alluded to on either side—“et nisi violator productus super hoc vel septena manu sinodalium hominum purgaverit innocentiam suam quod non commiserat contra hoc statutum perpetuo pene subiaceat quod dicitur erenlos und rehtlos”—Nove Constitutiones Dom. Alberti, p. 12 (Weimar, 1858).

[144] S. Raymondi Summæ Lib. III. Tit. xxxi. § v. ad calcem.

[145] Gwentian Code, Book II. chap. xxxix. § 40 (Owen I. 787). So, in disowning a child, if the reputed father were dead, the oaths of the chief of the kindred, with seven of the kinsmen, were decisive, or, in default of the chief, the oaths of fifty kinsmen (Ibid. § 41).

[146] Anomalous Laws, Book IX. chap. ii. § 9 (Ibid. II. 227).

[147] Ibid. Book VIII. chap. xi. § 31 (Ibid. II. 209).

[148] Ibid. Book IX. chap. ii. § 6 (Ibid. II. 227).

[149] Dooms of Ine, cap. liii.

[150] Leg. Wallice, Lib. II. cap. xix. § 2 (Owen II. 842).

[151] Ea autem debita de quibus non constat, super mortuum probari debent, septima manu.—Jur. Provin. Alaman. cap. vii. § 2. (Ed. Schilter.)—Sachsische Weichbild art. 67.

[152] Nove Constitutiones Dom. Alberti, p. 38.

[153] “Quod in sacramentis supradictorum testium veritas absque ullo dolo versata est.”—Leon. PP. IV. Epist. 5 (Migne, CXV. 664).

[154] Lünig Cod. Ital. Diplom. II. 1955.

[155] Maitland, Select Pleas in Manorial and other Seignorial Courts, pp. 7, 10, 18, 32, 36, 37, 47, 83, 137, 140, 141, 142, 144, 151, 157, 173.

[156] Si burgensis calumniatus præteriit ætatem pugnandi, et hoc essoniaverit in sua responsione, non pugnabit. Sed juramento duodecim talium qualis ipse fuerit, se purgabit.—L. Burgorum cap. 24, §§ 1, 2.

[157] Concil. Remens. ann. 1119 (Harduin. VI. 1986).

[158] On þone Drihten se að is clæne and unmæne þe N. swor.—Thorpe’s Ancient Laws, I. 180-1.

[159] Hoc quod appellatus juravit, verum juravit. Sic Deus, etc.—Formul. Vet. in L. Longobard (Georgisch, 1275).

[160] Per aquetz santz ver dits.—Fors de Béarn, Rubr. LI. art. 165.

[161] Du serment que Guillaume a juré, sauf serment a juré, ainsi m’aist Dieu et ses Sainctz.—Ancienne Cout. de Normandie, chap. lxxxv. (Bourdot de Richebourg, IV. 54).

[162] Nobis adhæc Deo coram periculosum esse videtur, ejus, cujus interest, jusjurandum purgatorium edendo præeunte, omnes (ab eo productos testes) iisdem ac ille conceptis verbis jurare, incerti quamvis fuerint, vera ne an falsa jurent. Nos legibus illatum volumus ut ille, cujus interest, jusjurandum conceptis verbis solum præstet, cæteri vero ejus firment juramentum adjicientes se nequid verius, Deo coram, scire, quam jurassent.—Jarnsida, Mannhelge, cap. xxxvii.—The passage is curious, as showing how little confidence was really felt in the purgation, notwithstanding the weight attached to it by law.

[163] Leges Gulathingenses, Thiofa-Bolkr, c. xiii.

[164] Credo Norigaudum istum Eduensem episcopum vera jurasse, sicut me Deus adjuvet.—Hugo. Flaviniac. Lib. II.

[165] Anomalous Laws, Book VII. chap. i. § 18 (Owen, II. 135).

[166] L. Alaman. Tit. vi.

[167] L. Longobard. Lib. II. Tit. lv. § 28.

[168] Anomalous Laws, Book IX. chap. vi. § 4; chap. xvii. § 5.—cf. Book VI. chap. i. § 50 (Owen. II. 235, 255, 113).

[169] Marculf. Lib. I. Formul. xxxviii.

[170] L. Frisionum Tit. xiv.

[171] Dooms of King Edward, cap. iii.

[172] Keyser’s Religion of the Northmen, Pennock’s Transl. p. 246.

[173] Quantum in conspectu hominum purgari poterat.—Ivon. Epist. liv.

[174] Hugo Flaviniac. Lib. II.

[175] Gratian. c. 17, Caus. II. Q. v.

[176] L. Baioar. Tit. XIV. cap. i. § 2.

[177] L. Longobard. Lib. I. Tit. ix. § 37.

[178] Institutions Judiciaires, I. 308.

[179] Ut propter suam nequitiam alii qui volunt. Dei esse non se perjurent, nec propter culpam alienam semetipsos perdant.—L. Alaman. Tit. xlii. § 1.

[180] Quod pro anima sua timendo, non præsumat sacramentalis esse.—L. Longobard. Lib. II. Tit. lv. § 14.

[181] Othlon. Vit. S. Bonif. Lib. II. c. xxi.—“Vos soli juratis, si vultis; nolo ut omnes hos congregatos perdatis.”—Boniface, however, did not weakly abandon the cause of the church. He freely invoked curses on the greedy brethren, which being fulfilled on the elder, the terror-stricken survivor gladly relinquished the dangerous inheritance.

[182] L. Salic. Tit. I. §§ 3, 4.

[183] L. Frisionum Tit. X.

[184] Capit. Pippini ann. 793 § 15.—Capit. Car. Mag. incert. anni c. x. (Martene Ampl. Collect. VII. 7).

[185] Celest. PP. III. ad Brugnam Episc. (Baluz. et Mansi, III. 382).

[186] Cod. Vatican. No. 3845, Gloss, ad L. 2 Lombard. II. 51, apud Savigny, Geschichte d. Rom. Recht. B. iv.—I owe this reference to the kindness of my friend J. G. Rosengarten, Esq.

[187] Capit. Car. Mag. ann. 794 § 7.

[188] Hugo, Flaviniac. Lib. II. ann. 1100. Norgaud, however, was reinstated next year by quietly procuring, as we have already seen, two brother prelates to take the oath with him, in the absence of his antagonists.

[189] Et si quis de quinque juvantibus defecerit, accusatus debit tres libras, et percusso decem solidos.—Leg. Secund. Noviportus (Oudegherst).

[190] Hostiensis Aureæ Summæ Lib. v. De Purg. Canon, § 7.—“Sicut puniretur de crimine de quo impetebatur si convinceretur considerato modo agendi, sic punietur si in purgatione deficiat.”

[191] L. Longobard. Lib. II. Tit. lv. § 34.—Qua ex re mos detestabilis in Italia, improbusque non imitandus inolevit, ut sub legum specie jurejurando acquireret, qui Deum non timendo minime formidaret perjurare.

[192] L. Henrici I. cap. lxiv. § 1. “Malorum autem infestacionibus et perjurancium conspiracione, depositum est frangens juramentum, ut magis Dei judicium ab accusatis eligatur; et unde accusatus cum una decima se purgaret per eleccionem et sortem, si ad judicium ferri calidi vadat.” This cannot be considered, however, as having abrogated it even temporarily in England, since it is contradicted by many other laws in the same code, which prescribe the use of compurgators, and we shall see hereafter how persistently its use was maintained.

[193] Romances Antiguos Españoles. Londres, 1825, T. I. pp. 246-7. Cf. Dozy, Recherches sur l’Histoire, etc. de l’Espagne, Leipzig, 1881, II. 108.

[194] Le Roux de Lincy, Chants Historiques Français, I. 15.

[195] Glanville, Lib. I. cap. ix. Also, Lib. I. c. xvi., Lib. IX. c. i., Lib. X. c. v.

[196] “In aliis enim curiis si quis aliquid dixerit unde eum pœnituerit, poterit id negare contra totam curiam tertia manu cum sacramento, id se non dixisse affirmando” (Ibid. Lib. VIII. c. ix.).—In some other systems of jurisprudence, this unsophisticated mode of beclouding justice was obtained by insisting on the employment of lawyers, whose assertions would not be binding on their clients. Thus, in the Assises de Jerusalem (Baisse Court, cap. 133): “Et por ce il deit estre lavantparlier, car se lavantparlier dit parole quil ne doie dire por celuy cui il parole, celui por qui il parle et son conceau y pueent bien amender ains que le iugement soit dit. Mais se celuy de cui est li plais diseit parole qui li deust torner a damage, il ne la peut torner arieres puis quil la dite.” The same caution is recommended in the German procedure of the fourteenth century—“verbis procuratoris non eris adstrictus, et sic vitabis damnum” (Richstich Landrecht, cap. II. Cf. Jur. Provin. Saxon. Lib. I. art. 60; Lib. II. art. 14). The same abuse existed in France, but was restricted by St. Louis, who made the assertion of the advocate binding on the principal, unless contradicted on the spot (Établissements, Liv. II. chap. xiv.).

[197] Roger de Hoveden ann. 1194.

[198] Tunc vadiabit defendens legem se duodecima manu.—Bracton. Lib. III. Tract. iii. cap. 37, § 1.—Et si ad diem legis faciendæ; defuerit aliquis de XII. vel si contra prædictos excipi possit quod non sunt idonei ad legem faciendam, eo quod villani sunt vel alias idonei minus, tunc dominus incidet in misericordiam.—Ibid. § 3. So also in Lib. V. Tract. V. cap. xiii. § 3.

[199] Pike, History of Crime in England, I. 285.

[200] Gratian, c. 17, C. 11. Q. v.—“Deinde vero purgatores super sancta Dei evangelia jurabunt quod sicut ipsi credunt verum juravit.” Cf. c. 5 Extra, V. xxxiv.

[201] Summæ Stephani Tornacensis caus. II. Q. 5 (Schulte, 1891, p. 171).

[202] C. 7, Extra, V. xxxiv.

[203] Illi qui ad purgandam alicujus infamiam inducuntur, ad solum tenentur juramento firmare quod veritatem credunt eum dicere qui purgatur.—C. 13, Extra, V. xxxiv. Innocent also endeavored to put an end to the abuse by which ecclesiastics, notoriously guilty, were able to escape the penalty due their crimes, by this easy mode of purgation.—C. 15, eod. loc.

The formula as given about 1240 by St. Ramon de Peñafort is “Nos credimus quod ipse juravit verum, vel, verum esse quod juravit.”—Raymondi Summæ Lib. III. Tit. xxxi. § 5.

[204] The rapidity with which the study of the civil law diffused itself throughout the schools and the eagerness with which it was welcomed were the subject of indignant comment by the ecclesiastics of the day. As early as 1149 we find St. Bernard regretting that the laws of Justinian were already overshadowing those of God—“Et quidem quotidie perstrepent in palatio leges, sed Justiniani, non Domini” (De Consideratione, Lib. I. cap. iv.). Even more bitter were the complaints of Giraldus Cambrensis towards the end of the century. The highest of high churchmen, in deploring the decline of learning among the prelates and clergy of his age, he attributes it to the exclusive attention bestowed on the jurisprudence of Justinian, which already offered the surest prizes to cupidity and ambition, and he quotes in support of his opinion the dictum of his teacher Mainier, a professor in the University of Paris: “Episcopus autem ille, de quo nunc ultimo locuti sumus, inter superficiales numerari potuit, cujusmodi hodie multos novimus propter leges Justinianas, quæ literaturam, urgente cupiditatis et ambitionis incommodo, adeo in multis jam suffocarunt, quod magistrum Mainerium in auditorio scholæ suæ Parisius dicentem et damna sui temporis plangentem, audivi, vaticinium illud Sibillæ vere nostris diebus esse completum, hoc scilicet ‘Venient dies, et væ illis, quibus leges obliterabunt scientiam literarum’” (Gemm. Ecclesiast. Dist. II. cap. xxxvii.). This, like all other branches of learning, was as yet to a great extent in the hands of the clergy, though already were arising the precursors of those subtle and daring civil lawyers who were destined to do such yeoman’s service in abating the pretensions of the church.

It is somewhat singular to observe that at a period when the highest offices of the law were frequently appropriated by ecclesiastics, they were not allowed to perform the functions of advocates or counsel. See Horne’s Myrror of Justice, cap. II. sect. 5. There was good reason for prohibiting them from serving as judges, as Frederic II. did in 1235—“Idem erit laicus propter sententias sanguinum quas clerico scribere non liceat, et præterea ut si dilinquid in officio suo pena debita puniatur” (Nove Constitutiones Dom. Alberti, p. 46).

[205] Actor quod adseverat, probare se non posse profitendo, reum necessitate monstrandi contrarium non adstringit: cum per rerum naturam factum negantis probatio nulla sit (Const. xxiii. C. de Probat. IV. 19).—Cum inter eum, qui factum adseverans, onis subiit probationis, et negantem numerationem, cujus naturali ratione probatio nulla est ... magna sit differentia (Const. x. C. de non numerat. IV. 30). It is a little curious to see how completely this was opposed to the principle of the early Common Law of England, by which in actions for debt “semper incumbit probatio neganti” (Fleta, Lib. II. cap. lxiii. § 11).

[206] La cosa que non es non se puede probar nin mostrar segunt natura.—Las Siete Partidas, P. III. Tit. xiv. l. 1.

[207] Though absent from the general laws of Spain, yet compurgation had been introduced as an occasional custom. We have seen it above (p. 49) in the Fuero de Balbás in 1135. The Fuero of Madrid in 1202 provides that a man suspected of homicide and other crimes, in the absence of testimony, can clear himself with six or twelve conjurators, according to the grade of the offence (Mem. de la Real. Acad. de la Historia, 1852). We shall see hereafter that it appears in the Fuero Viejo of Castile in 1356. The passage from the Romancero del Cid, quoted above, shows the hold it had on the popular imagination.

[208] Olim, II. 153, 237.

[209] Actes du Parlement de Paris, T. I. p. cccvii. (Paris, 1863).

[210] Actes du Parlement de Paris, T. I. p. 382.

[211] Statuunt ... se manu centesima nobilium se purgare, et ad huic benedicto juveni bis septem librarum milia pro sui rancoris satisfactione præsentare.—Wilelmi Egmond. Chron.

[212] Is qui reus putatur tertia manu se purgabit, inter quos sint duo qui dicentur denominati.—Du Cange s. v. Juramentum.

[213] Et li deffendans, sour qui on a clamet se doit deffendre par lui tierche main, se chou est hom II. hommes et lui, se chou est fame II. femmes et li à tierche.... “Tel sierment que Jehans chi jura boin sierment y jura au mien ensiant. Si m’ait Dius et chist Saint.”—Roisin, Franchises, etc. de la Ville de Lille, pp. 30, 35.

[214] Ibid. p. 51. The system was abrogated by a municipal ordinance of September, 1351, in accordance with a special ordonnance to that effect issued by King John of France in March, 1350.

The royal ordonnance declares that the oath was “en langage estraigne et de mos divers et non de legier a retenir ou prononchier,” and yet that if either party “par quelconques maniere faloit en fourme ou en langage ou que par fragilite de langhe, huirans eu, se parolle faulsist ou oubvliast, ou eslevast se main plus que li dite maniere acoustumee en requeroit ou quelle ne tenist fermement sen poch en se paulme ou ne wardast et maintenist pluiseurs autres frivoles et vaines chozes et manieres appartenans au dit sierment, selonc le loy de la dite ville, tant em parole comme en fait, il avoit du tout sa cause perdue, ne depuis nestoit rechus sur che li demanderes a claim ou complainte, ne li deffenderes a deffensce.”—Ibid. p. 390.

[215] Anc. Coutume de Normandie, chap. lxxxv. (Bourdot de Richebourg, IV. 53-4).

[216] Recherches de la France, Liv. IV. chap. iii. Concerning the date of this, see La Croix du Maine, s. v. Estienne Pasquier.

[217] Fors et Cost. de Béarn, Rubr. de Juramentz (Bourdot de Richebourg, IV. 1082).

[218] Lo jurament deu seguidor se fé Juran per aquetz sanctz bertat ditz exi que io crey.

[219] E si gelo negare e non gelo quisier probar, devel’ facer salvo con once Fijosdalgo e èl doceno, que non lo fiço (Fuero Viejo de Castiella, Lib. I. Tit. v. 1. 12). It will be observed that this is an unqualified recognition of the system of negative proofs.

[220] Du Cange, s. v. Juramentum.

[221] Jur. Provin. Alaman. cap. xxiv.; cccix. § 4; cccxxix. §§ 2, 3; cccxxxix. § 3 (Edit. Schilteri).

[222] Jur. Provin. Saxon. Lib. I. c. 63.

[223] Sachsische Weichbild, art. 71, 72, 86, 40, 88.

[224] Goldast. Constitt. Imp. III. 446.

[225] Meyer, Institutions Judiciaires, V. 221.

[226] Sique accusatus tanta ac tam gravi suspitione laboraret ut aliorum quoque purgatione necesse esset, in arbitratu stet judicis, si illi eam velit injungere, nec ne, qui nimirum compurgatores jurabunt, se credere quod ille illive qui se per juramentum excusarunt, recte vereque juraverint.—Constit. de Pace Publica cap. xv. § 1 (Goldast. Constitt. Imp. I. 541).

[227] Damhouder, Rerum Criminalium Praxis cap. xliv. No. 6 (Antwerp, 1601).

[228] Statut. Davidis II. cap. i. § 6.

[229] Jarnsida, Mannhelge & Thiofa-Balkr passim; Erfthatal cap. xxiv.; Landabrigtha-Balkr cap. xxviii.; Kaupa-Balkr cap. v., ix., etc.

[230] See Sporon & Finsen, Dissert. de Usu Juramenti juxta Leges Daniæ Antiquas, Havniae, 1815-17, P. I. pp. 160-1, P. II. pp. 206-8.

[231] Christiani V. Jur. Danic. Lib. i. c. xiv. § 8.

[232] Poteritque se tunc purgare cui crimen imponitur juramento XVIII. virorum.—Raguald. Ingermund. Leg. Suecorum Lib. i. c. xvi.

[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.

[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. 6s. 8d. Et pro apparatu ejusdem Rad. et socii ejus ad duellum 16s. 4d.”—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).

[682] L. Burgorum, c. 14, 15 (Skene).

[683] Warnkönig, Hist. de la Flandre, IV. 129.

[684] In omni mercato Flandriæ si quis clamorem adversus eos suscitaverit, judicium scabinorum de omni clamore sine duello subeant; ab duello vero ulterius liberi sint.—Warnkönig. Hist. de la Flandre, II. 411.

[685] Nemo mercatorem de Flandria duello provocabit (Ibid. II. 426).

[686] Traité de 1228, art. 3 (Esneaux, Hist. de Russie, II. 272).

[687] Belitz de Duellis Germanorum, p. 9. Vitembergæ, 1717.

[688] Constit. Frid II. de Jur. Norimb. § 4 (Goldast. Constit. Imp. I. 291).

[689] Sachsische Weichbild, Art. xxxv. lxxii. lxxxi.-lxxxiv. lxxxix. xc. xcii. cxiv.

[690] Henke, Gesch. des Deut. Peinlichen Rechts I. 192 (Du Boys, op. cit. II. 590).

[691] Goldast. op. cit. I. 314.

[692] Jur. Cæsar. P. IV. cap. i. (Senckenberg Corp. Jur. German. I. 118). This portion of the Kayser-Recht is probably therefore posterior to the rise of the Hapsburg dynasty.

[693] Belitz de Duel. German. p. 11.

[694] Jura Primæva Moraviæ, Brunæ, 1781, pp. 33, 102.

[695] “Liber adversus Legem Gundobadi” and “Liber contra Judicium Dei” (Agobardi Opp. Ed. Baluz I. 107, 301). Both of these works display marked ability, and a spirit of enlightened piety, mingled with frequent absurdities which show that Agobard could not in all things rise superior to his age. One of his favorite arguments is that the battle ordeal was approved by the Arian heretic Gundobald, whom he stigmatizes as “quidam superbus ac stultus hæreticus Gundobadus Burgundionum rex.”

[696] Concil. Valentin. ann. 855 can. 12.

[697] C. 22 Decreti caus. II. q. v.

[698] Pet. Cantor. Verb. Abbrev. cap. LXXVIII.

[699] C. 1 Extra Lib. V. Tit. xiv.

[700] C. 2 Ibid.

[701] Innocent. PP. III. Regest. XI. 64—Verum quoniam hujusmodi duellorum judicia juxta pravam quarundam consuetudinem regionum non solum a laicis seu clericis in minoribus ordinibus constitutis, sed etiam a majoribus ecclesiarum prælatis consueverunt, prout multorum assertione didicimus, exerceri.

[702] Concil. Lateranens. IV. can. 18.

[703] Consuetud. S. Montisfortis (Contre le Franc-Alleu sans Tiltre, p. 229).

[704] Concil. Parisiens. ann. 1212, P. IV. c. xv. (Harduin. vi. ii. 2017).

[705] S. Raymundi Summæ Lib. II. Tit. iii.—Cardinal Henry of Susa is equally uncompromising—Hostiensis Aureæ Summæ Lib. V. Tit. De Cler. pugnant.

[706] Alexandri de Ales Summæ P. III. Q. xlvi. Membr. 3.

[707] Sec. Sec. Q. 95 art. 8.

[708] Wilhelmi Egmond. Chron. (Matthæi Analect. IV. 231). Proost (Législation des Jugements de Dieu, p. 16) gives this story, with some variations, as occurring at Mons, and states that the duel was authorized by no less a personage than Pope John XXII. Cornelius Zantfliet in his Chronicle (Martene Ampl. Collect. V. 182) locates it at Cambron in Hainault, and states that the Jew was a favorite of William Count of Hainault. Mr. Neilson informs me that Olivier de la Marche likewise adopts Cambron as the scene of the occurrence. The tale apparently was one which obtained wide currency.

[709] In 1374 Gregory XI. when condemning the Sachsenspiegel laid especial stress on the passages in which the judicial duel was prescribed (Sachsenspiegel, ed. Ludovici, 1720, p. 619). As late as 1492, the Synod of Schwerin promulgated a canon prohibiting Christian burial to those who fell in the duel or in tournaments.—Synod. Swerin. ann. 1492, Can. xxiv. (Hartzheim Concil. German. V. 647).

[710] “Et si Deus adest nonne nefas est habendo justitiam succumbere posse?... Et si justitia in duello succumbere nequit, nonne de jure acquiritur quod per duellum acquiritur?... stultum enim est valde vires quas Deo comfortat inferiores in pugile suspicari.”—De Monarchia II. 10 (Patetta, Le Ordalie, p. 415).

[711] Joh. Friburgens. Summæ Confessorum Lib. II. Tit. iii. Q. 3-5.

[712] Constit. Sicular. Lib. II. Tit. xxxii. xxxiii.—“Non tam vera probatio quam quædam divinatio ... quæ naturæ non consonans, a jure communi deviat, æquitatis rationibus non consentit.” Cf. Lib. I. Tit. xxi. cap. 2.

[713] Cum viderit innocentes in duello succubuisse, et sontes contra in sua iniustitia nihilominus victoriam obtinuisse. Et ideo in jura imperii scriptum est, ubi duo ex more in duellum procedunt, hoc non pertinet ad imperium.—Jur. Cæsar. P. II. c. 70 (Senckenberg I. 54).

[714] Quilibet sciat imperatorem jussisse ut nemo alterum ad duellum provocet.... Nemo enim unquam fortiores provocari vidit, sed semper debiliores, et fortiores semper triumpharunt.—Ibid. P. IV. cap. 19.

[715] Rudolphi I. Privileg. (Ludewig. Reliq. MSS. T. IV. p. 260).

[716] Goldast. Constitt. Imp. III. 446.

[717] Malleus Maleficar. Francof. 1580, pp. 527-9.

[718] Villanueva, Viage Literario, XXII. 288.

[719] Los sabios antiguos que ficieron las leyes non lo tovieron por derecha prueba; ed esto por dos razones; la una porque muchas vegadas acaesce que en tales lides pierde la verdat e vence la mentira; la otra porque aquel que ha voluntad de se adventurar á esta prueba semeja que quiere tentar á Dios nuestro señor.—Partidas, P. III. Tit. xiv. l. 8.

[720] Ibid. P. VII. Tit. iii. l. 2, 3. According to Montalvo’s edition of the Partidas (Sevilla, 1491), these laws were still in force under Ferdinand and Isabella.

[721] Tres dias débese acordar al reptado para escoger una de las tres maneras que desuso dixiemos, qual mas quisiere porque se libre el pleyto. ... ca el re nin su corte non han de mandar lidiar por riepto.—Ibid. P. VII. Tit. iii. l. 4. Some changes were introduced in these details by subsequent ordinances.

[722] Muera quito del riepto; ca razon es que sea quito quien defendiendo la verdad recibió muerte.—Ibid. P. VII. Tit. iv. l. 4.

[723] Crónica de Alfonso el Onceno, cap. CCLXII.

[724] Ordenamiento de Alcalá, Tit. XXXII. ll. vii.-xi. See also the Ordenanzas Reales of 1480, Lib. IV. Tit. ix.

[725] Meyer, Institutions Judiciaires, I. 337.

[726] Nous deffendons à tous les batailles par tout nostre demengne, més nous n’ostons mie les clains, les respons, les convenants, etc.... fors que nous ostons les batailles, et en lieu des batailles nous meton prueves de tesmoins, et si n’oston pas les autres bones prueves et loyaux, qui ont esté en court laye siques à ore.—Isambert, I. 284.

Laurière (Tabl. des Ordonn. p. 17) alludes to an edict to the same purport, under date of 1240, of which I can nowhere else find a trace. There is no reference to it in the Tables des Ordonnances of Pardessus (Paris, 1847).

It is a curious illustration of the fluctuating policy of the contest that in his struggle to enforce the supremacy of the royal jurisdiction as against the prelates of the province of Reims, one of the complaints of the bishops at the Council of Saint-Quentin in 1235 is that he forced ecclesiastics in his court to prove by the duel their rights over their serfs—“Item, supplicat concilium quod dominus rex non compellat personas ecclesiasticas probare per duellum in curia sua homines quos dicunt suos esse de corpore suo” (Harduin. VII. 259).

[727] Se ce est hors l’obeissance le Roy, gage de bataille (Étab. de St. Louis, Liv. II. chap. xi. xxix. xxxviii.). Beaumanoir repeats it, a quarter of a century later, in the most precise terms, “Car tout cil qui ont justice en le conté poent maintenir lor cort, s’il lor plest, selonc l’ancienne coustume; et s’il lor plest il le poent tenir selonc l’establissement le Roy” (Cout. du Beauv. cap xxxix. § 21). And again, “Car quant li rois Loïs les osta de sa cort il ne les osta pas des cours à ses barons” (Cap. LXI. § 15).

[728] Liv. I. chap. xxvii. xci. cxiii. etc. This is so entirely at variance with the general belief, and militates so strongly with the opening assertion of the Établissements (Ordonn. of 1260) that I should observe that in the chapters referred to the direction for the combat is absolute; no alternative is provided, and there is no allusion to any difference of practice prevailing in the royal courts and in those of the barons, such as may be seen in other passages (Liv. I. chap. xxxviii. lxxxi. cxi. etc.). Yet in a charter of 1263, Louis alludes to his having interdicted the duel in the domains of the crown in the most absolute manner.—“Sed quia duellum perpetuo de nostris domaniis duximus amovendum” (Actes du Parlement de Paris No. 818 A. T. I. p. 75, Paris, 1863).

[729] Établissements Liv. I. chap. clxvii.

[730] Jur. Provin. Alamann. cap. CLXXI. §§ 10, 11, 12.

[731] Pilori, échelle, carquant, et peintures de champions combattans sont marques de haute justice.—Instit. Coutum. Liv. II. Tit. ii. Règle 47.

[732] Beaumanoir, op. cit. chap. LXI. §§ 11, 12, 13.

In Normandy, these advantages were enjoyed by all seigneurs justiciers. “Tuit chevalier et tuit sergent ont en leurs terres leur justice de bataille en cause citeaine; et quant li champions sera vaincuz, il auront LX sols et I denier de la récréandise.”—Etab. de Normandie (Ed. Marnier, p. 30). These minutely subdivided and parcelled out jurisdictions were one of the most prolific causes of debate during the middle ages, not only on account of the power and influence, but also from the profits derived from them. That the privilege of decreeing duels was not the least remunerative of these rights is well manifested by the decision of an inquest held during the reign of Philip Augustus to determine the conflicting jurisdictions of the ducal court of Normandy and of the seigneurs of Vernon. It will be found quoted in full by Beugnot in his notes on the Olim, T. I. p. 969. See also Coutumes d’Auzon (Chassaing, Spicilegium Brivatense, p. 95).

[733] See Coutume de Saint-Bonnet, cap. 13 (Meyer, Recueil d’Anciens Textes, Paris, 1874, I. 175).

[734] Les Olim, I. 491. It is perhaps needless to add that Mathieu’s suit was fruitless. There are many cases recorded in the Olim showing the questions which arose and perplexed the lawyers, and the strenuous efforts made by the petty seigneurs to preserve their privileges.

[735] Actes du Parlement de Paris, I. 407.

[736] Recueil de Chants Historiques Français, I. 218. It is not unreasonable to conjecture that these lines may have been occasioned by the celebrated trial of Enguerrand de Coucy in 1256. On the plea of baronage, he demanded trial by the Court of Peers, and claimed to defend himself by the wager of battle. St. Louis proved that the lands held by Enguerrand were not baronial, and resisted with the utmost firmness the pressure of the nobles who made common cause with the culprit. On the condemnation of de Coucy, the Count of Britanny bitterly reproached the king with the degradation inflicted on his order by subjecting its members to inquest.—Beugnot, Olim I. 954.—Grandes Chroniques ann. 1256.

[737] Et se li uns et li autres est si enreués, qu’il n’en demandent nul amesurement entrer pueent par folie en périll de gages (Conseil, chap. XV. Tit. xxvii.). Car bataille n’a mie leu ou justise a mesure (Ibid. Tit. xxviii.). Mult a de perix en plet qui est de gages de bataille, et mult es grans mestiers c’on voist sagement avant en tel cas (Cout. du Beauv. chap. lxiv. § 1). Car ce n’est pas coze selonc Diu de soufrir gages en petite querele de meubles ou d’eritages; mais coustume les suefre ès vilains cas de crieme (Ibid. chap. vi. § 31).

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

[739] Beaumanoir, op. cit. chap. lxi. § 63.

[740] Grandes Chroniques, T. IV. p. 104.

[741] Isambert, II. 702, 806.

[742] I have not been able to find this Ordonnance. Laurière alludes to it (Tabl. dés Ordonn. p. 59), but the passage of Du Cange which he cites refers only to prohibition of tournaments. The catalogue of Pardessus and the collection of Isambert contain nothing of the kind, but that some legislation of this nature actually occurred is evident from the preamble to the Ordonnance of 1306—“Savoir faisons que comme ça en arrière, pour le commun prouffit de nostre royaume, nous eussions defendu généraument à tous noz subgez toutes manieres de guerres et tous gaiges de batailles, etc.” It is worthy of note that these ordonnances of Philippe were no longer confined to the domain of the crown, but purported to regulate the customs of the whole kingdom.

[743] Willelmi Egmond. Chron. (Matthæi Analect. IV. 135-7).

[744] Dont pluseurs malfaicteurs se sont avancez par la force de leurs corps et faulx engins à faire homicides, traysons et tous autres maléfices, griefz et excez, pource que quant ilz les avoient fais couvertement et en repost, ilz ne povoient estre convaincuz par aucuns tesmoings dont par ainsi le maléfice se tenoit.—Ordonnance de 1306 (Éd. Crapelet, p. 2).

[745] Car entre tous les périlz qui sont, est celui que on doit plus craindre et doubter, dont maint noble s’est trouvé déceu ayant bon droit ou non, par trop confier en leurs engins et en leurs forces ou par leurs ires oultrecuidées (Ibid. p. 34). A few lines further on, however, the Ordonnance makes a concession to the popular superstition of the time in expressing a conviction that those who address themselves to the combat simply to obtain justice may expect a special interposition of Providence in their favor—“Et se l’intéressé, sans orgueil ne maltalent, pour son bon droit seulement, requiert bataille, ne doit doubter engin ne force, car le vray juge sera pour lui.”

[746] Ordonnance de 1306, cap. i.

[747] Isambert, II. 850.

[748] See Les Olim, passim.

[749] Actes du Parlement de Paris, I. 446.

[750] Les Olim, III. 381-7.—Vaissette, Hist. Gén. de Languedoc, T. IV., Preuves, 140-44.

[751] Wadding. Annal. Minor. ann. 1312 No. 2.

[752] Isambert, III. 40.

[753] Chronique Métrique, I. 6375.

[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.

[901] Ali Ibrahim Khan, loc. cit.

[902] D’Achery, Not. 119 ad Opp. Guibert. Noviogent.

[903] Vit. S. Bertrandi Convenar. No. 15 (Martene Ampliss. Collect. VI. 1029-30).

[904] Pet. Cantor. Verb. Abbrev. Not. in cap. lxxviii. (Migne’s Patrol. T. CCV. p. 471).

[905] Natur. Histor. L. VII. c. 2.

[906] “Si titubaverit, si singulos vomeres pleno pede non presserit, si quantulumcunque læsa fuerit, sententia proferatur.”—Annal. Winton. Eccles. (Du Cange, s. v. Vomeres). Six is the number of ploughshares specified in the celebrated trial of St. Cunigunda, wife of the emperor St. Henry II. (Mag. Chron. Belgic.). Twelve ploughshares are prescribed by the Swedish law (Legg. Scan. Provin. Lib. VII. c. 99. Ed. Thorsen. p. 170).

[907] Legg. Æthelstan. iv. § 6; Ætheldred. iii. § 7; Cnut. Secular, § 58; Henrici I. lxvi. 9.

[908] Legg. Scan. Provin. Lib. VII. c. 99 (Ed. Thorsen, pp. 170-2).

[909] Fuero de Baeça, ap. Villadiego, Fuero Juzgo, fol. 317a.

[910] Du Cange, s. v. Ferrum candens.

[911] Laws of Ethelstan, iv. § 7.—Adjuratio ferri vel aquæ ferventis (Baluz. II. 656).—Fuero de Baeça (ubi sup.).

[912] For instance, see various forms of exorcism given by Baluze, II. 651-654. Also Dom Gerbert (Patrologiæ CXXXVIII. 1127); Goldast. Alamann. Antiquitat. T. II. p. 150 (Ed. Senckenberg).

[913] Petri Cantor. Verb. Abbreviat. cap. lxxviii. (Patrol. CCV. 233).

[914] Weber’s Hist. of Indian Literature, Mann & Zachariae’s Translation, p. 73.

[915] Travels of Hiouen Thsang (Wheeler, Hist. of India, III. 262).

[916] Institutes of Vishnu, XI.—Yajnavalkya II. 103-6 (Stenzler’s Translation, p. 61).

It is easy to understand the prescription of Vishnu that the fire ordeal is not to be administered to blacksmiths or to invalids, but not so easy that it was forbidden during summer and autumn (Ib. X. 25-6). Yajnavalkya, moreover, says that the ordeals of fire, water, and poison are for Sudras (II. 98).

[917] Ayeen Akbery, II. 497.—Patella, Le Ordalie, p. 106.

[918] Asiatic Researches, I. 395.

[919] Lieut. Shaw, in Asiatic Researches, IV. 69.

[920] Capit. Carol. Mag. II. ann. 803, cap. 5.

[921] Concil. Risbach. can. ix. (Hartzheim Concil. German. II. 692).

[922] L. Anglior. et Werinor. Tit. xiv.

[923] Si presbyterum occidit ... si liber est cum XII. juret; si autem servus per xii. vomeres ignitos se purget.—C. Mogunt, ann. 848 c. xxiv.

[924] Concil. Triburiens. ann. 895 c. 22 (Harduin. Concil. VI. I. 446).

[925] Laws of Ethelred, iv. § 6.

[926] The Jus Provin. Alaman. (cap. xxxvii. §§ 15, 16; cap. clxxxvi. §§ 4, 6, 7; cap. ccclxxiv.) allows thieves and other malefactors to select the ordeal they prefer. The Jus Provin. Saxon. (Lib. I. art. 39) affords them in addition the privilege of the duel.

[927] Après les serements des parties soloit lon garder la partie, et luy porter a la maine une piece de fer flambant sil fuit frank home, ou de mettre le main ou la pié en eaw boillant s’il ne fuit frank.—Myrror of Justice, cap. III. sect. 23.—Cf. Glanville, Lib. XIV. c. I.

[928] Baisse Court, cap. 132, 261, 279, 280, etc.

[929] Lesbroussart’s Oudegherst, II. 707.

[930] Radevic. de Reb. Frid. Lib. I. cap. xxvi.

[931] Rouskaïa Prawda, Art. 28.

[932] Grágás, Sect. VI. c. lv.

[933] Maitland, Pleas, etc., I. 5. Again in another case in 1207 (p. 55), while in yet another a man and woman, accomplices in the same crime, are both sent to the hot iron (p. 77). In 1203 a case occurs in which the court offers the accused the choice between red-hot iron and water, and he selects the former.—Ib. p. 30.

[934] O’Curry, ap. Pictet, Origines Indo-Européennes, III. 179.

[935] Regino. ann. 886.—Annales Metenses.

[936] Vit. S. Kunegundæ cap. 2 (Ludewig Script. Rer. German. I. 346-7).

[937] Gotfridi Viterbiensis Pars XVII., “De Tertio Othone Imperatore.” Siffridi Epit. Lib. I. ann. 998. Ricobaldi Hist. Impp. sub Ottone III.—The story is not mentioned by any contemporary authorities, and Muratori has well exposed its improbability (Annali d’Italia, ann. 996); although he had on a previous occasion argued in favor of its authenticity (Antiq. Ital. Dissert. 38). In convicting the empress of calumny, the Countess of Modena appeared as an accuser, making good the charge by the ordeal; but if we look upon her as simply vindicating her husband’s character, the case enters into the ordinary course of such affairs. Indeed, among the Anglo-Saxons, there was a special provision by which the friends of an executed criminal might clear his reputation by undergoing the triple ordeal, after depositing pledges, to be forfeited in cases of defeat (Ethelred, iii. § 6), just as in the burgher law of Northern Germany a relative of a dead man might claim the duel to absolve him from an accusation (Sachsische Weichbild, art. lxxxvii.). This was not mere sentiment, as in crimes involving confiscation the estate of the dead man was at stake.

[938] Giles states (note to William of Malmesbury, ann. 1043) that Richard of Devizes is the earliest authority for this story.

[939] Dudon. S. Quintini Lib. iv.

[940] Order. Vitalis Lib. X. cap. 13.

[941] Grágás, Sect. VI. cap. 45. Andreas of Lunden early in the 13th century speaks of it as formerly in vogue for these cases, but disused in his time (Legg. Scan. Provin. Ed. P. G. Thorsen, Kjobenhavn, 1853, p. 110).

[942] “E si alguna dixiere que preñada es dalguno, y el varon no la creyere, prenda fierro caliente; e si quemada fuere, non sea creyda, mas si sana escapare del fierro, de el fijo al padre, e criel assi como fuero es.”—Fuero de Baeça (Villadiego, Fuero Juzgo, fol. 317a).

[943] Roger of Wendover, ann. 1085.

[944] Eadmeri Hist. Novor. Lib. II. (Migne, CLIX. 412).

[945] Gudeni Cod. Diplom. Mogunt. T. I. No. liii.

[946] Mazure et Hatoulet, Fors de Béarn, p. xxxviii.

[947] Hyde Relig. Vet. Persar. cap. xxiv. (Ed. 1760, pp. 320-1).

[948] Widukindi Lib. III. cap. 65.—Sigebert. Gemblac. Ann. 966.—Dithmari Chron. Lib. II. cap. viii.—Saxo. Grammat. Hist. Danic. Lib. X. The annalists of Trèves claim the merit of this for their archbishop Poppo, whose pontificate lasted from 1016 to 1047. According to their legend, Poppo not only drew on an iron gauntlet heated to redness, but entered a fiery furnace clad only in a linen garment soaked in wax, which was consumed by the flames without injury to him.—Gest. Trevir. Archiep. cap. xvi. (Martene Ampliss. Collect. IV. 161).

[949] Guibert. Noviogent. de Incarnat. contra Judæos Lib. III. cap. xi. Guibert states that he had this from a Jew, who was an eye-witness of the fact.

Somewhat similar was a volunteer ordeal related by Gregory of Tours, when a Catholic disputing with an Arian threw his gold ring into the fire and when heated to redness placed it in his palm with an adjuration to God that if his faith was true it should not hurt him, which of course proved to be the case.—Greg. Turon. de Gloria Confess, c. xiv.

[950] Legend, de S. Olavo (Langebek II. 548).

[951] Cæsar. Heisterbach. Dial. Mirac. Dist. III. c. xvi. xvii.

[952] Raine’s Church of York (English Historical Review, No. 9, p. 159).

[953] Legg. Scan. Provin. Lib. v. c. 57 (Ed. Thorsen, pp. 139-40).

[954] This text is given by Kausler, Stuttgard, 1839, together with an older one compiled for the lower court of Nicosia.

[955] Pardessus, Us et Coutumes de la Mer, I. 268 sqq.

[956] Patetta, Le Ordalie, p. 475.

[957] Du Cange, s. v. Ferrum Candens.

[958] Pachymeri Hist. Mich. Palæol. Lib. I. cap. xii.

[959] Raynouard, Monuments relatifs à la Condamn. des Chev. du Temple, p. 269.

[960] Bonif. de Morano Chron. Mutinense. (Muratori Antiq. Ital. Diss. 38).

[961] Malleus Maleficar. Francof. 1580, pp. 523-31.

[962] P. Burgmeister, who relates this in his thesis for the Doctorate (De Probat. per aquam, &c. Ulmæ, 1680), vigorously maintains the truth of the miracle against the assaults of a Catholic controversialist who impugned its authenticity. The affair seems to have attracted considerable attention at the time, as a religious question between the old Church and the Lutherans.

[963] Cæsar. Heisterb. Dial. Mirac. Dist. X. c. xxxvi.

[964] Godelmanni de Magis Lib. III. cap. v. § 19.

[965] Annalista Saxo ann. 993.

[966] Thus Rabelais, “en mon aduiz elle est pucelle, toutesfoys ie nen vouldroys mettre mon doigt on feu” (Pantagruel, Liv. II. chap. xv.); and the Epist. Obscur. Virorum (P. II. Epist. 1) “Quamvis M. Bernhardus diceret, quod vellet disputare ad ignem quod hæc est opinio vestra.”

[967] Ali Ibrahim Khan (Asiatic Researches, I. 390).

[968] Wheeler’s Hist. of India, III. 262.

[969] Targum of Palestine, Gen. xi. (Etheridge’s Translation, I. 191-2).—Shalshelet Hakkabala fol. 8a. (Wagenseilii Sota p. 192-3).

[970] Daniel, iii. 19-28.

[971] Rufini Historia Monachorum cap. ix.

[972] Theodori Lector. H. E. Lib. II.

[973] Greg. Turon. Hist. Francor. II. 1.—Ejusd. de Gloria Confess. 76.—S. Hildefonsi Toletani Lib. de Viris Illustribus c. iii.

[974] Quodsi servus in ignem manum miserit, et læsam tulerit, etc.—Tit. XXX. cap. i.; also Tit. XXXI.

[975] Vit. S. Johannis Gualberti c. lx.-lxiv.—Berthold. Constantiens. Annal. ann. 1078.

[976] Landulph. Jun. Hist. Mediol. cap. ix. x. xi. (Rer Ital. Script. T. V.).—Muratori, Annal. Ann. 1103, 1105.

[977] Cæsar. Heisterb. Dial. Mirac. Dist. x. c. xxxiv.—The same incident is related of St. Francis of Assisi (Vita et Admiranda Historia Seraphici S. P. Francisci, Augsburg, 1694, xxiii).

[978] Fulcher. Carnot. cap. x.; Radulf. Cadomensis cap. c. ci. cii. cviii.; Raimond. de Agiles (Bongars, I. 150-168). The latter was chaplain of the Count of Toulouse, and a firm asserter of the authenticity of the lance. He relates with pride, that on its discovery he threw himself into the trench and kissed it while the point only had as yet been uncovered. He officiated likewise in the ordeal, and delivered the adjuration as Peter entered the flames: “Si Deus omnipotens huic homini loquutus est facie ad faciem, et beatus Andreas Lanceam Dominicam ostendit ei, cum ipse vigilaret, transeat iste illæsus per ignem. Sin autem aliter est, et mendacium est, comburatur iste cum lancea quam portabit in manibus suis.” Raoul de Caen, on the other hand, in 1107 became secretary to the chivalrous Tancred, and thus obtained his information from the opposite party. He is very decided in his animadversions on the discoverers. Foulcher de Chartres was chaplain to Baldwin I. of Jerusalem, and seems impartial, though sceptical.

The impression made by the incident on the popular mind is manifested in the fact that the Nürnberg Chronicle (fol. cxcv.) gives a veritable representation of the lance-head.

[979] Raynaldi Annal. Eccles. ann. 1219, c. 56.

[980] Martyrol. Roman. 19 Jun.—Petri Damian. Vit. S. Romualdi c. 27.

[981] Petri Cantor. Verb. Abbreviat. cap. lxxviii. (Patrol. CCV. 229).

[982] Cæsar. Heisterbach. Dial. Mirac. Dist. III. c. xv.

[983] Luca Landucci, Diario Fiorentino, pp. 166-9.—Burlamacchi, Vita di Savonarola (Baluz. et Mansi I. 559-63).—Processo Autentico (Baluz. et Mansi I. 535-42.—Villari, Storia di Gir. Savonarola, II. App. lxxi. lxxv. lxxx. lxxxiii. xc.-xciii.—Diarium Burchardi ann. 1498.—Guicciardini, III. vi.

[984] Roderici Toletani de Reb. Hispan. VI. xxvi. (see ante p. 132).

[985] Pet. Val. Cernaii Hist. Albigens. cap. III.

[986] Niceph. Gregor. Lib. VI.

[987] Chron. Samaritan. c. xlv. (Ed. Juynboll, Lug. Bat. 1848, p. 183).

[988] Dathavansa, chap. III. 11-13 (Sir M. Coomara Swamy’s Translation, London, 1874).

[989] Plinii Hist. Natur. L. VII. c. ii.

[990] Gospel of the Infancy, III.

[991] Concil. Cæsar-August. II. ann. 592 c. 2.

[992] Martene de Antiquis Ecclesiæ Ritibus Lib. III. c. viii. § 2.

[993] Chron. Casinensis Lib. II. c. xxxiv.

[994] Matthew of Westminster, ann. 1065.

[995] Olaf Haraldss. Saga, ch. 258 (Laing’s Heimskringla, II. 349).

[996] Guibert. Noviogent. de Vita sua Lib. III. cap. xxi.

[997] Chron. Andrensis Monast. (D’Achery Spicileg. II. 782).

[998] Villanueva, Viage Literario, T. XIX. p. 42.

[999] Patetta, Le Ordalie, p. 34.

[1000] Hincmar. de Divort. Lothar. Interrog. vi. It may readily be supposed that a skilful management of the rope might easily produce the appearance of floating, when a conviction was desired by the priestly operators.

[1001] L. Æthelstani I. cap. xxiii.

[1002] Martene de Antiq. Eccles. Ritibus Lib. III. c. vii. Ordo 8.

[1003] Petri Cantor. Verb. Abbreviat. cap. lxxviii. (Patrol. CCV. 233).

[1004] De Divort. Lothar. Interrog. vi.

[1005] Ordo S. Dunstani Dorobern. (Baluze II. 650).

[1006] Institutes of Vishnu IX. 29-30, XII.--Yajnavalkya II. 98, 108-9.—Ayeen Akbery, II. 497.—Some unimportant variations in details are given by Ali Ibrahim Khan (As. Researches, I. 390). Hiouen Thsang describes a variant of this ordeal in which the accused was fastened into one sack and a stone in another; the sacks were then tied together and cast into a river, when if the man sank and the stone rose he was convicted, while if he rose and the stone sank he was acquitted (Wheeler’s Hist. of India, III. 262).

[1007] Canciani Legg. Barbar. T. I. pp. 282-3.—Martene de Antiq. Eccles. Ritibus Lib. III. c. vii. Ord. 9, 16.

[1008] Baluze II. 646.—Mabillon Analect. pp. 161-2 (ap. Cangium).—Muratori Antiq. Ital. Diss. 38.—Jureti Observat. ad Ivon. Epist. 74. An Ordo printed by Dr. Patetta from an early tenth century MS. (Archivio Giuridico, Vol. XLV.) mixes up Popes Eugenius and Leo, the Emperor Leo and Charlemagne in a manner to show how exceedingly vague were the notions concerning the introduction of the ordeal, “Incipit juditium aqua frigida. Quod dominus eugenius et leo imperator et episcopi vel abbati sive com ti fecerunt.... Similiter fecit domnus carolus imperator pro domnus leo papa, etc.”

[1009] Lib. adv. L. Gundobadi cap. ix.—Lib. contra Judic. Dei. c. i.

[1010] Arguments for its earlier use in Europe have been drawn from certain miracles related by Gregory of Tours (Mirac. Lib. I. c. 69-70), but these relate to innocent persons unjustly condemned to drowning, who were preserved, and therefore these cases have no bearing on the matter. The Epistle attributed by Gratian to Gregory I. (c. 7 § 1 Caus. II. q. v.), in which the cold-water ordeal is alluded to, has long since been restored to its true author, Alexander II. (Epist. 122).

[1011] Capit. Wormat. ann. 829, Tit. II. cap. 12.—L. Longobard. Lib. II. Tit. lv. § 31.

[1012] De Divort. Lothar. Interrog. vi.

[1013] Assisa facta apud Clarendune §§ 1, 2.—Assisa apud Northamtoniam (Gesta Henrici II. T. II. p. cxlix.; T. I. p. 108.—M. R. Series).

[1014] Opusc. adv. Hincmar. Laudun. cap. xliii.

[1015] L. Longobard. Lib. I. Tit. ix. § 39.

[1016] Recess. Convent. Alsat. anno 1051, § 6 (Goldast. Constit. Imp. II. 48).

[1017] De Legg. Angliæ Lib. XIV. cap. i.

We have seen above (p. 292), however, that this rule was by no means invariable. In addition to the cases there adduced another may be cited when in 1177 a citizen of London who is qualified as “nobilissimus et ditissimus,” accused of robbery, was tried by the water ordeal, and on being found guilty offered Henry II. five hundred marks for a pardon. The dazzling bribe was refused, and he was duly hanged.—Gesta Henrici II. T. I. p. 156.

[1018] Regiam Majestatem Lib. IV. cap. iii. § 4.

[1019] Text. Herold. Tit. LXXVI.

[1020] Mazure et Hatoulet, Fors de Béarn, p. xxxi.

[1021] Conrad. Ursperg. sub. Lothar. Saxon.

[1022] Quidam illustris vir.—Othlon. de Mirac. quod nuper accidit etc. (Migne’s Patrol. T. CXL. p. 242).

[1023] Concil. Ausonens. ann. 1068 can. vii. (Aguirre, IV. 433).

[1024] Juris Feud. Alaman. cap. lxxvii. § 2.—Jur. Prov. Saxon. Lib. III. c. 21.

[1025] MS. Brit. Mus. quoted by Pertz in Hugo. Flaviniac. Lib. II.

[1026] Hermann. de Mirac. S. Mariæ Laudun. Lib. III. cap. 28.

[1027] Lodharius ... Gerbergam, more maleficorum, in Arari mergi præcepit.—Nithardi Hist. Lib. I. ann. 834.

[1028] Plinii Natur. Histor. L. VII. c. ii.

[1029] Ameilhon, de l’Épreuve de l’Eau Froide.

[1030] In earlier times, various other modes of proof were habitually resorted to. Among the Lombards, King Rotharis prescribed the judicial combat (L. Longobard. Lib. I. Tit. xvi. § 2). The Anglo-Saxons (Æthelstan. cap. VI.) direct the triple ordeal, which was either red-hot iron or boiling water.

[1031] Regest. Ludovici Hutini (ap. Cangium).

[1032] Mall. Maleficarum.

[1033] Wieri de Præstigiis Dæmonum pp. 589, 581.

[1034] Scribonii Epist. de Exam. Sagarum. Newald Exegesis Purgat. Sagarum. These tracts, together with Rickius’s “Defensio Probæ Aquæ Frigidæ,” were reprinted in 1686 at Leipsic, in 1 vol. 4to.

[1035] De Magor. Dæmonomania, Basil. 1581, pp. 372, 385.

[1036] Binsfeldi Tract. de Confess. Malefic. pp. 287-94 (Ed. 1623). He argues that, as the proceeding was unlawful, confessions obtained by means of it were of no legal weight.

[1037] Wieri op. cit. p. 589.

[1038] Godelmanni de Magis Lib. III. cap. v. §§ 30, 35.

[1039] P. Burgmeister Dissert. de Probat. per aquam, etc. Ulmæ, 1680, § 44. Burgmeister adopts the explanation of Binsfeld to account for the cases in which witches floated.

[1040] Königswarter, op. cit. p. 176.—Bochelli Decr. Eccles. Gallicanæ, Paris, 1609, p. 1211.

[1041] “Porro, nostra memoria, paucis abhinc annis, solebant judices reos maleficii accusatos mergere, pro certo habentes incertum crimen hac ratione patefieri.”—Notæ ad Legem Salicam.

[1042] Tanquam aqua suum in sinum eos non admitteret, qui excussa baptismi aqua se omni illius sacramenti beneficio ultro orbarunt.—Dæmonologiæ Lib. III. cap. vi.

[1043] Rogers’ Scotland, Social and Domestic, p. 266 (Grampian Club, 1869).

[1044] Dissert. Inaug. de Torturis Th. XVIII. § xi. Basil. 1661.

[1045] N. Brandt de Legitima Maleficos et Sagas investigandi et convincendi ratione, Giessen, 1662.

[1046] P. Burgmeister Dissert. de Probat. per aquam ferventem et frigidam, §§ 29, 39-41, Ulmæ, 1680.

[1047] Le Brun, Histoire critique des Pratiques Superstitieuses, pp. 526-36 (Rouen, 1702).

[1048] F. M. Brahm de Fallacibus Indiciis Magiæ, Halæ Magdeburg. 1709.

[1049] J. C. Nehring de Indiciis, Jenæ, 1714.

[1050] J. H. Böhmer, Jur. Eccles. Protestant. T. V. p. 608.

[1051] Per aquam, tum frigidam ut hodiernum passim in sagarum inquisitionibus.—Eph. Gerhardi Tract. Jurid. de Judic. Duellico, cap. i. § 4 (Francof. 1735).

[1052] Antiq. Ital. Dissert. 38.

[1053] Qui ex levi suspicione, in tali crimine delatas, nec confessas, nec convictas, ad torturas, supernatationem aquarum, et alia eruendæ veritatis media, tandem ad ipsam mortem condemnare ... non verentur, exempla proh dolor! plurima testantur.—Synod. Culmens. et Pomesan. ann. 1745, c. v. (Hartzheim Concil. German. X. 510).

[1054] Meyer, Institutions Judiciaires, I. 321.

[1055] Königswarter, op. cit. p. 177.

[1056] Spottiswoode Miscellany, Edinburgh, 1845, II. 41.

[1057] V. Bogisic, in Mélusine, T. II. pp. 6-7.

[1058] Hartausen, Études sur la Russie (Du Boys, Droit Criminel des Peuples Modernes, I. 256).

[1059] Institutes of Vishnu, X.—In the code of Yajnavalkya (II. 100-102) there are some differences in the process, but the statement in the text is virtually the same as that in the Ayeen Akbery (II. 486) as in force in the seventeenth century.

[1060] Rickii Defens. Probæ Aq. Frigidæ, § 41.

[1061] Collin de Plancy, Diet. Infernal, s. v. Bibliomancie.

[1062] Kœnigswarter, op. cit. p. 186.

[1063] J. H. Böhmer, Jur. Eccles. Protestant. T. V. p. 608.

[1064] E. B. Tylor in Macmillan’s Magazine, July, 1876.

[1065] Formulæ Bignonianæ, No. xii.

[1066] Vit. S. Lamberti (Canisii et Basnage, II. 140).—Pseudo Bedæ Lib. de Remed. Peccator. Prologus (Wasserschleben, Bussordnungen, Halle, 1851, p. 248).

[1067] Capit. Pippini ann. 752, § xvii.

[1068] Chart. Division, cap. xiv. Capit. ann. 779, § x.; Capit. IV. ann. 803, §§ iii. vi.; in L. Longobard. Lib. II. Tit. xxviii. § 3; Tit. lv. § 25, etc.

[1069] Ughelli Italia Sacra T. V. p. 610 (Ed. 1653).

[1070] Capit. Car. Mag. incerti anni c. x. (Hartzheim. Concil. German. I. 426).

[1071] Capit. Lud. Pii ann. 816, § 1 (Eccardi L. Francorum, pp. 183, 184).

[1072] Rudolph. Fuldens. Vitæ S. Liobæ cap. xv. (Du Cange, s. v. Crucis Judicium).

[1073] Concil. Aquisgran. cap. xvii.

[1074] L. Longobard. Lib. II. Tit. lv. § 32.

[1075] Not. ad Libb. Capit. Lib. I. cap. 103. This derives additional probability from the text cited immediately above, relative to the substitution of this ordeal for the duel, which is given by Eckhardt from an apparently contemporary manuscript, and which, as we have seen, is attributed to Louis le Débonnaire in the very year of the Council of Aix-la-Chapelle. It is not a simple Capitulary, but an addition to the Salic Law, which invests it with much greater importance. Lindenbruck (Cod. Legum Antiq. p. 355) gives a different text, purporting likewise to be a supplement to the Law, made in 816, which prescribes the duel in doubtful cases between laymen, and orders the ordeal of the cross for ecclesiastical causes—“in Ecclesiasticis autem negotiis, crucis judicio rei veritas inquiratur”—and allows the same privilege to the “imbecillibus aut infirmis qui pugnare non valent.” Baluze’s collection contains nothing of the kind as enacted in 816, but under date of 819 there is a much longer supplement to the Salic law, in which cap. x. presents the same general regulations, almost verbatim, except that in ecclesiastical affairs the testimony of witnesses only is alluded to, and the judicium crucis is altogether omitted. The whole manifestly shows great confusion of legislation.

[1076] Chart. Divisionis ann. 837, cap. 10.

[1077] Meyer, Recueil d’Anciens Textes, Paris, 1874, p. 12.

[1078] Sir John Shore, in Asiatic Researches, IV. 362.

[1079] Half an ounce, according to a formula in a MS. of the ninth century, printed by Dom Gerbert (Migne’s Patrolog. CXXXVIII. 1142).

[1080] Baluze II. 655.

[1081] Muratori, Antiq. Ital. Dissert. 38.—For three other formulas see Fasciculus Rerum Expetendarum et Fugiendarum, Ed. 1690, II. 910.

[1082] Martene de Antiq. Eccles. Ritibus Lib. III. c. vii. Ordo 15.

[1083] Decam. Giorn. VIII. Nov. 6.

[1084] This account, with unimportant variations, is given by Roger of Wendover, ann. 1054, Matthew of Westminster, ann. 1054, the Chronicles of Croyland, ann. 1053, Henry of Huntington, ann. 1053, and William of Malmesbury, Lib. II. cap. 13, which shows that the legend was widely spread and generally believed, although the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, ann. 1052, and Roger de Hoveden, ann. 1053, in mentioning Godwin’s death, make no allusion to its being caused in this manner. A similar reticence is observable in an anonymous Life of Edward (Harleian MSS. 526, p. 408 of the collection in M. R. Series), and although this is perhaps the best authority we have for the events of his reign, still the author’s partiality for the family of Godwin renders him not altogether beyond suspicion.

No great effort of scepticism is requisite to suggest that Edward, tired of the tutelage in which he was held, may have made way with Godwin by poison, and then circulated among a credulous generation the story related by the annalists.

[1085] Lives of Edward the Confessor, p. 119 (M. R. Series).

[1086] Dooms of Ethelred, IX. § 22; Cnut. Eccles. Tit. v.

[1087] Alium examinis modum, nostro etiamnunc sæculo, sæpe malo modo usitatum.—Cod. Legum Antiq. p. 1418.

[1088] De Mirac. S. Benedicti. Lib. I. c. v.

[1089] Gesta Treverorum, continuat. I. (Migne’s Patrol. CLIV. 1205-6).

[1090] Ayeen Akbery, II. 498.

[1091] Ali Ibrahim Khan (Asiatic Researches, I. 391-2).

[1092] Lieut. Shaw in As. Researches, IV. 80.

[1093] Institutes of Vishnu, XIV.—Yajnavalkya, II. 112-13.

[1094] Vitodurani Chron. ann. 1336.

[1095] Roger of Wendover, ann. 1051.

[1096] Cæsar. Heisterbacens. Dial. Mirac. Dist. II. c. v.

[1097] Ibid. Dist. IX. c. xxxviii.

[1098] Baluz. et Mansi Miscell. II. 575.

[1099] Rod. Glabri Hist. Lib. V. cap. i.

[1100] Greg. Turon. Hist. Lib. X. cap. 8.

[1101] Dooms of Ethelred, X. § 20; Cnut. Eccles. Tit. v.

[1102] C. 23, 26 Caus. II. q. v.

[1103] Reginonis Continuat. ann. 941.

[1104] Dithmari Chron. Lib. II.

[1105] Hist. Archiep. Bremens. ann. 1051.—Lambert. Hersfeld. ann. 1050.—Hartzheim. Concil. German. III. 112.

[1106] Regino ann. 869.—Annal. Bertiniani.

[1107] Helgaldi Epitome Vitæ Roberti Regis.

[1108] Duclos, Mémoire sur les Épreuves.

[1109] Lambert. Hersfeld. ann. 1077.

[1110] This anecdote rests on good authority. Peter Damiani states that he had it from Hildebrand himself (Opusc. XIX. cap. vi.), and Calixtus II. was in the habit of relating it (Pauli Bernried. Vit. Greg. VII. No. 11).

[1111] Bernald. Constant. Chron. ann. 1077.

[1112] Hugon. Flaviniac. Chron. Lib. II. ann. 1080.—Lambert. Hersfeld. ann. 1076.

[1113] Ciruelo, Reprovacion de las Supersticiones, P. II. cap. vii. Barcelona, 1628. The first edition appeared in 1539 at Salamanca.

[1114] Del Rio Disquis. Magic. L. IV. c. iv. q. 3.—P. Kluntz Dissert, de Probat. per S. Eucharist. Ulmæ, 1677.

[1115] Ayeen Akbery, II. 498. This form of ordeal is allowed for all the four castes.

[1116] Ali Ibrahim Khan (As. Researches I. 392).

[1117] “Sors enim non aliquid mali est, sed res est in dubitatione humana divinam indicans voluntatem.”—S. Augustini Enarrat. in Psal. XXX. Serm. ii. §13.—Gratian. c. I. Caus. XXVI. q. ii.—Gratian, however, gives an ample array of other authorities condemning it.

[1118] Ad ignem seu ad sortem se excusare studeat.—Tit. XXXI. § 5.

[1119] Pact. Childeberti et Chlotarii, ann. 593, § 5: “Et si dubietas est, ad sortem ponatur.” Also § 8: “Si litus de quo inculpatur ad sortem ambulaverit.” As in § 4 of the same document the æneum or hot-water ordeal is provided for freemen, it is possible that the lot was reserved for slaves. This, however, is not observed in the Decret. Chlotarii, ann. 595, § 6, where the expression, “Si de suspicione inculpatur, ad sortem veniat,” is general in its application, without reservation as to station.

[1120] Ecgberti Excerpt. cap. lxxxiv. (Thorpe, II. 108).

[1121] Conc. Calchuth. can. 19 (Spelman. Concil. Brit. I. 300).

[1122] Leon. PP. IV. Epist. VIII. c. 4 (Gratian, c. 7. Caus. XXVI. q. v.).

[1123] L. Frision. Tit. XIV. §§ 1, 2. This may not improbably be derived from the mode of divination practised among the ancient Germans, as described by Tacitus, De Moribus German, cap. x.

[1124] Sullivan, ap. Pictet, Origines Indo-Européennes, III. 179.

[1125] When used for purposes of divining into the future, these practices were forbidden. Thus, as early as 465, the Council of Vannes denounced those who “sub nomine fictæ religionis quas sanctorum sortes vocant divinationis scientiam profitentur, aut quarumcumque scripturarum inspectione futura promittant,” and all ecclesiastics privy to such proceedings were to be expelled from the church (Concil. Venet. can. xvi.). This canon is repeated in the Council of Agde in 506, where the practice is denounced as one “quod maxime fidem catholicæ religionis infestat” (Conc. Agathens. can. xlii.); and a penitential of about the year 800 prescribes three years’ penitence for such acts.—Ghaerbaldi Judicia Sacerdotalia c. 29 (Martene Ampl. Coll. VII. 33).

[1126] Baldric. Lib. I. Chron. Camerac. cap. 21 (Du Cange, s. v. Sors).

[1127] Decret. Caus. XXVI. q. ii.

[1128] Concil. Barcinon. II. ann. 599 c. 3.

[1129] Goll, Quellen und Untersuchungen, II. 99-105.

[1130] Hist. Monast. de Abingdon. Lib. I. (M. R. Series I. 89).

[1131] Grimm’s Teutonic Mythology, Stallybrass’s Translation, p. 1109.

[1132] E. B. Tylor on Ordeals and Oaths (Macmillan’s Mag. July, 1876).

[1133] Patetta, Le Ordalie, p. 216.

[1134] Grimm’s Teutonic Mythology, pp. 1108-9. Grimm quotes Theocritus and Lucian to show that similar forms of divination with a sieve were familiar in classical antiquity.

[1135] Inderwick, Side-lights on the Stuarts, p. 152.

[1136] Patetta, Le Ordalie, p. 158.

[1137] Carena, Tractatus de Officio Sanctiss. Inquisit. P. II. Tit. xii. § xxii. In Carena’s first edition (Cremona, 1636) there is no allusion to the subject. His attention apparently was attracted to it by a case occurring at Cremona in 1636, where he was acting as criminal judge. In this, Gonsalvo de Cremona, the clerical governor of Cremona, applied to the Council of Milan in February for instructions and received an unsatisfactory reply. He returned to the charge in June and was effectually snubbed by the following:—

“Philippus IV. Hispaniarum Rex et Mediolani Dux.

“Dilectiss. Noster: satis fuit responsum litteris quas die 28 Febr. proxime præteriti scripsistis ad magnificum Senatus nostri præsidem de nece Juliæ Bellisellæ et Jo. Baptisti Vicecomitis, cujus ex vulneribus sanguis exivit in conspectu Vespasiani Schitii, non autem Gasparis Picenardi, pariter suspectorum eius facinoris. Igitur novissimis litteris quibus petiistis vobis dici quid de ea re sentiamus nihil est quod præterea respondeamus nisi ut meliora quæratis indicia et juxta ea procedatis ad expeditionem causæ, referendo referenda.

“Mediolani 3 Julii, 1636.”

[1138] Marsilii Ficini de Immortal. Animæ Lib. XVI. c. 5.—Del Rio, Magicarum Disquisit. Lib. I. cap. iii. Q. 4, ¶ 6.—C. C. Oelsner de Jure Feretri cap. I. § 6 (Jenæ, 1711).

The passage relied on has usually a much less decent significance ascribed to it—

“Idque petit corpus mens, unde ’st saucia amore:

Namque omnes plerumque cadunt in volnus et illam

Emicat in partem sanguis unde icimur ictu,

Et si cominus est hostem ruber occupat humor.”

De Rer. Nat. IV. 1041-44.

[1139] Gamal. ben Pedazhur’s Book of Jewish Ceremonies, London, 1738, p. 11.

[1140] Roger de Hoveden, ann. 1186; Roger of Wendover; Benedicti Abbatis Gesta Henricii II. ann. 1189.

[1141] Scott’s Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border.

[1142] Nam ut in homicidio occulto sanguis e cadavere, tangente homicida, erumpit, quasi cœlitus poscens ultionem.—Demonologiæ Lib. III. c. vi.

[1143] Scott’s notes to the ballad of Earl Richard.

[1144] Cobbett’s State Trials, XI. 1371.

[1145] Spottiswoode Miscellanies, II. 69.

[1146] Alphonsi de Spina Fortalicium Fidei Lib. III. consid. vii.

[1147] Vitodurani Chron. ann. 1331.

[1148] Swartii Chron. Ottbergensis § xlvii. (Paullini Antiq. Germ. Syntagma).

[1149] Val. Anshelm, Berner-Chronik, ann. 1503 (Bern, 1886, II. 393).

[1150] Oelsner de Jure Feretri c. iii. § 8. This little thesis was written in 1680. It seems to have met with approval, for it was reprinted in 1711 and 1735.

[1151] Oelsner op. cit. cap. iii. § 7. A variant of this story is told by Scott in his notes to the “Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border.” In this the bone chances to be fished up from a river, where it had lain for fifty years, and the murderer, then an old man, happens to touch it, when it streams with blood. He confesses the crime and is duly condemned.

[1152] Carena, op. cit. P. II. Tit. xii. § 22.

[1153] Oelsner, cap. iii. § 6. Joh. Christ. Nehring de Indiciis, Jenæ, 1714, p. 19.—Königswarter (op. cit. p. 183) tells us that this custom was observed also in the Netherlands and throughout the North.

[1154] Unde forte contingit ut occisi hominis vulnus etiam jacente cadavere, in eum qui vulneraverat, si modo ille comminus instet, vulnus ipsum inspiciens, sanguinem rursus ejiciat, quod quidem evenire nonnunquam Lucretius affirmavit et judices observarunt.—De Immortalitate Animæ Lib. XVI. c. 5.

[1155] Marsil. Pract. Criminal. (ap. Binsfeld, de Confess. Maleficar. pp. 111-12).

[1156] Carena, loc. cit.

[1157] Patetta, Le Ordalie, p. 34.

[1158] Cujus rei rationem petunt e causis naturalibus et reddere conatur Petrus Apponensis; quæ qualescunque tandem hæ sint, constat evenisse sæpe, et magnis autoribus tradita exempla.—B. d’Agentré Comment, in Consuet. Britann. p. 145 (Ed. Antverp. 1644).

[1159] Carena, loc. cit.—Oelsner, op. cit. c. iv. § 2.

[1160] Carena, loc. cit. A similar dramatic exhibition by a corpse is recorded in a case occurring in Germany in 1607.—Oelsner, c. iii. § 5.

[1161] I owe this account to the kindness of L. S. Joynes, M.D., of Richmond, who informs me that he found it while examining the Accomac County records.

[1162] Annual Register for 1767, pp. 144-5.

[1163] Dunglison’s Human Physiology, 8th Edition, II. 657.

[1164] Phila. Bulletin, April 19, 1860.—N. Y. World, June 5, 1868.—Phila. North American, March 29, 1869.

[1165] Oelsner, op. cit. cap. i. § 10; c. iii. § 8.

[1166] Malleus Maleficarum, Francof. 1580, pp. 21, 32.

[1167] Magicarum Disquisit. Lib. I. cap. iii. Q. 4, ¶ 6.

[1168] Tract. de Officio Sanctiss. Inquisit. P. II. Tit. xii. § 22.—“Sed utcunque sit certum est in judiciis passim fuisse practicatum indicium istud sanguinis emissi sufficere ad torturam si doctoribus nostris credendum est.”

[1169] De Jure Feretri, cap. ii.

[1170] Oelsner, op. cit. c. iv. §§ 2, 3. Cf. Zangeri Tract. de Quæstionibus cap. ii. n. 160.—It is perhaps worthy of remark that the earlier jurists made no allusion to it. Angelus Aretinus, Albertus de Gandavo, and Bonifacius de Vitellinis, in discussing the proofs requisite to justify torture, do not mention it.

[1171] As late as 1678, an anonymous Praxis Criminalis, printed at Altenburg, speaks of it as a recognized process, gives instructions as to the cautions requisite, and says the record must be sent to the magistrate (Ib. c. i. § 11).—In 1714, Nehring (De Indiciis, Jenæ, 1714, pp. 42-3) still quotes authorities in favor of its justifying torture, and feels obliged to argue at some length to demonstrate its inadequacy.

[1172] Martene de antiq. Ecclesiæ Ritibus, Lib. III. c. vii. Ordo 8, 16.

[1173] Hesiodi Theogonia, v. 794-806.

[1174] August. Epist. lxxviii. §§ 2, 3 (Ed. Benedict.).—“Ut quod homines invenire non possunt de quolibet eorum divino judicio propaletur.”

[1175] Decreti c. 6, Caus. II. q. v.—Gregor. PP. I. Homil XXXII. in Evangel. cap. 6.

Dr. Patetta (Ordalie, p. 15) informs us that in some parts of Piedmont it is still believed that a perjurer will die within the year.

[1176] Munionis Histor. Compostellan. Lib. I. cap. 2, § 2.

[1177] Gregor. Turon. De Gloria Martyrum cap. 58, 103.

[1178] Sancta enim adeo est, ut nullus, juramento super eam præstito, impune et sine periculo vitæ suæ possit affirmare mendacium.—Hist. Monast. Abing. Lib. I. c. xii. (M. R. Series).

[1179] Radulph. Tortarii Mirac. S. Benedicti cap. xxii. (Migne’s Patrol. T. CLX. p. 1210).

[1180] Gregor. Turon. de Glor. Confess. c. xxix.

[1181] Chambers’s Book of Days, I. 384.

[1182] Patetta, Le Ordalie, p. 34. In Tonga and Samoa false oaths taken on certain sacred articles are likewise believed to be followed by speedy death (Ib. p. 63).

[1183] Vit. S. Bertrandi Convenar. No. 26 (Martene Ampliss. Collect. VI. 1035).

[1184] Cæsar. Heisterbach. Dial. Mirac. Dist. IV. c. lviii.

[1185] Institutes of Vishnu XIII.—Yajnavalkya, II. 110-111. Yajnavalkya classes it among the ordeals reserved for the Sudra caste (Ib. II. 98).

[1186] Ayeen Akbery, II. 497.

[1187] Ali Ibrahim Khan (As. Researches, I. 391).

[1188] Wheeler’s India, III. 262.

[1189] Ali Ibrahim Khan, ubi sup.

[1190] Fratricidas autem et parricidas sive sacerdotum interfectores ... per manum et ventrem ferratos de regno ejiciat ut instar Cain jugi et profugi circueant terram.—Leg. Bracilai Boæmor (Annal. Saxo ann. 1039). So also a century earlier for the murder of a chief.—Concil. Spalatens. ann. 927, can. 7 (Batthyani, I. 331).

[1191] De Successoribus S. Hidulfi cap. xviii. (Patrolog. CXXXVIII. p. 218). A similar case attested the sanctity of St. Mansuetus (Vit. S. Mansueti Lib. II. c. 17.—Martene et Durand. Thesaur. III. 1025).

[1192] Folcardi Mirac. S. Bertin. Lib. I. c. 4.

[1193] Batthyani, Legg. Eccles. Hung. T. I. p. 413. See also Mirac. S. Swithuni c. ii. § 32.—Mirac. S. Yvonis c. 21 (Patrol. CLV. 76, 91). Various other instances may be found in Muratori, Antiq. Med. Ævi, Diss. 23. Charlemagne seems to have considered it a deception to be restrained by law.—Car. Mag. cap. I. ann. 789, § lxxvii.

[1194] Martene de antiquis Ecclesiæ Ritibus Lib. I. cap. vi. art. 4 n. 12.

[1195] Cæsar. Heisterb. Dial. Mirac. Dist. XI. c. xxvii. xxix.

[1196] Greg. Turonens. Vitæ Patrum, Cap. viii. n. 10.

[1197] Bernald. Vit. S. Gerald. cap. xv. (Baluz et Mansi I. 134).

[1198] Socratis Hist. Eccles. Lib. I. c. 25.

[1199] Theodori Lector. H. E. Lib. II. When, about the year 500, St. Avitus bishop of Vienne was disputing with the Arians before King Gundobald, he offered to leave the decision as to the rival faiths to Heaven by both parties going to the tomb of St. Justus and appealing to him, but the Arians prudently refused to imitate Saul and practise necromantic arts.—Collatio Episcoporum coram R. Gundebaldo (Migne’s Patrologia, LIX. 391).

[1200] Remberti Vit. St. Anscharii c. xvi. (Langebek I. 458-9).

[1201] Gesta Consul. Andegavens. c. iii. § 16 (D’Achery III. 241).

[1202] Cæsar. Heisterbach Dial. Mirac. Dist. VIII. c. lxxiii.

[1203] Legendæ de S. Olavo (Langebek II. 551-2).

[1204] Pet. Damian. Opusc. LVII. Diss. ii. c. 3, 4.

[1205] Conc. Roman. ann. 904 (898) c. 1 (Harduin. VI. I. 487).—Liutprand. Antapodos. Lib. I. c. 30, 31.

[1206] Patetta, Le Ordalie, p. 218.

[1207] Wieri de Præstigiis Dæmonum, pp. 589-90.

[1208] That this was a settled practice is shown by its existence in the earliest text of the law (Tit. LVI.) as well as in the latest (L. Emend. Tit. LIX.).

[1209] Si aufugerit et ordalium vitaverit, solvat plegius compellanti captale suum et regi weram suum.—L. Cnuti Sæc. cap. xxx.—See also cap. xli.

[1210] Et eligat accusatus alterutrum quod velit, sive simplex ordalium, sive jusjurandum unius libre in tribus hundredis super xxx. den.—L. Henrici I. cap. LXV. § 3. By the municipal codes of Germany, a choice between the various forms of ordeal was sometimes allowed to the accused who was sentenced to undergo it.—Jur. Provin. Alaman. cap. xxxvii. §§ 15, 16. Jur. Provin. Saxon. Lib. I. Art. 39.

[1211] Dooms of Ethelstan, I. cap. 21.

[1212] First Text, Tit. LIII. and L. Emend. Tit. LV.

[1213] Jura primæva Moraviæ, Brunæ, 1781, p. 27.

[1214] Yajnavalkya, II. 96.

[1215] Institutes of Vishnu, IX. 18-19.

[1216] Yajnavalkya, II. 22.

[1217] Leg. Frision. Tit. III. c. 8, 9.

[1218] Guthrunarkvida Thridja, 9, 10 (Thorpe’s Elder Edda, pp. 106-7).

[1219] Roberti Pulli Sententt. Lib. VI. cap. liv. (Migne’s Patrologia, T. CLXXXVI. p. 905).

[1220] Si certa probatio non fuerit.—L. Sal. Tit. XIV. XVI. (MS. Guelferbyt). The same is found in the Pact. Childeberti et Chlotarii § 5.—Decret. Chlotarii II. ann. 595, § 6.—Capit. Carol. Calvi, ann. 873, cap. 3, 7.—Cnuti Constit. de Foresta § 11: “Sed purgatio ignis nullatenus admittatur nisi ubi nuda veritas nequit aliter investigari.”—In the customs of Tournay in 1187, when a man has been wounded and has no witnesses the accused can clear himself with six conjurators if the affair occurred in the daytime, but if at night he is forced to the cold-water ordeal (Consuet. Tornacens. § ii. ap. D’Achery, Spicileg. III. 551). Horne’s Myrror of Justice, cap. III. Sect. 23: “En case ou battaille ne se poit joindre ne nul tesmognage n’avoit lieu ... e le actor n’ad point de testmoignes a prover sa action, adonque estoit en le volunt del deffendant a purger sa fame per le miracle de Dieu.” Yet in an English case of murder early in the thirteenth century, the accused was found with the murdered man’s cap and the knife with which he had been slain, and the whole vicinage testified to it, yet he was allowed to purge himself with the water ordeal.—Maitland, Pleas, etc., p. 80.

[1221] Ruskaia Prawda, art. 28. Even the evidence of a slave was sufficient to condemn the accused to the red-hot iron. If he escaped, the accuser paid him a small fine, which was not required if the witnesses had been freemen. In all cases of acquittal, however, there were fines payable to the sovereign and to the ministers of justice.

[1222] Et omnis accusator vel qui alium impetit, habeat optionem quid velit, sive judicium aque vel ferri ... et si fugiet (accusatus) ab ordalio, reddat eum plegius wera sua.—Ethelr. Tit. III. c. vi. (Thorpe II. 516).

[1223] Thus, in the Icelandic code—“Quodsi reus ferrum candens se gerere velle obtulerit, hoc minime rejiciatur.”—Grágás, Sect. VI. c. 33. So in the laws of Bruges in 1190 (§ 31), we find the accused allowed to choose between the red-hot iron and a regular inquest—“Qui de palingis inpetitur, si ad judicium ardentis ferri venire noluerit, veritatem comitis qualem melius super hoc inveniri poterit, accipiet” (Warnkönig, Hist. de la Fland. IV. 372)—showing that it was considered the most absolute of testimony. And in a constitution of Frederic Barbarossa “Si miles rusticum de violata pace pulsaverit ... de duobus unum rusticus eligat, an divino aut humano judicio innocentiam suam ostendat.”—Feudor. Lib. II. Tit. xxvii. § 3.

[1224] Thus an anonymous ecclesiastic, in an epistle quoted by Juretus (Observat. in Ivon. Carnot. Epist. 74)—“Simoniaci non admittuntur ad judicium, si probabiles personæ, etiam laicorum, vel feminarum, pretium se ab eis recipisse testantur; nec aliud est pro manifestis venire ad judicium nisi tentare Dominum.”

[1225] Duellum vel judicium candentis ferri, vel aquæ ferventis, vel alia canonibus vel legibus improbata, nullomodo in curia Montispessulani rati sunt, nisi utraque pars convenerit.—Statut. Montispess. ann. 1204 (Du Cange).

[1226] Si accolis de neutrius jure constat, adeoque hac in re testimonium dicere non queant, tum judicio aquæ res decidatur.—Jur. Provin. Alaman. cap. cclxxviii. § 5.—Poterit enim alteruter eorum petere probationem per aquam (wasser urteyll) nec Dominus nec adversarius detrectare possit; sed non, nisi quum per testes probatio fieri nequit.—Jur. Feud. Alaman. cap. lxxvii. § 2.

“Aut veritas reperiatur de hoc per aquaticum Dei judicium. Tamen judicium Dei non est licitum adhiberi per ullam causam, nisi cujus veritas per justitiam non potest aliter reperiri, hoc terminabitur judicio Dei.”—Jur. Feud. Saxon. § 100 (Senckenberg. Corp. Jur. Feud. German. p. 249).—So, also, in a later text, “judicium Domini fervida aqua vel ferro non licet in causa aliqua experiri, nisi in qua modis aliis non poterit veritas indagari.”—Cap. xxiv. § 19 (Ibid. p. 337).

[1227] Établissements de Normandie, Tit. de Prison (Éd. Marnier). Precisely similar to this was a regulation in the early Bohemian laws.—Bracilai Leges. (Patrol. CLI., 1258-9). And an almost identical provision is found in the Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence.—L. Cnuti Sæc. cap. xxxv.—L. Henric. I. cap. lxi. § 5.—See, also, Assises de Jerusalem, Baisse Court, cclix.

[1228] Batthyany, Legg. Eccles. Hung. II. 105.

[1229] Et qui inveniatur per sacramentum prædictorum rettatus vel publicatus quod fuerit robator vel murdrator vel latro vel receptor eorum, postquam dominus rex fuit rex, capiatur et eat ad juisiam aquæ.—Assisa de Clarenduna § 2 (Stubbs, Select Charters, p. 137). For examples, see Maitland, Pleas, pp. 3, 4, 5, etc.

[1230] Maitland, Pleas, etc., I. 1. P. 75 is a case of a youth detained in prison and sent to the ordeal apparently without a trial.

[1231] Ruskaia Prawda, Art. 28.

[1232] Maitland, Pleas, etc., I. 10.

[1233] Hincmari Capit. Synod. ann. 852, II. xxi.

[1234] Hincmari Epist. xxxiv.

[1235] Capit. Car. Mag. ann. 794, § 7.

[1236] Se juratores non potuerit invenire, aut ad ineum ambulat aut, etc.—MS. Guelferbyt. Tit. XIV.

[1237] Quod si ... juratores invenire non potuerit, ad ignem seu ad sortem se excusare studeat.—L. Ripuar. Tit. xxxi. § 5.

[1238] Dooms of Edward the Elder, cap. iii. So also in the laws of William the Conqueror, Tit. I. cap. xiv.—“Si sen escundira sei duzime main. E si il auer nes pot, si sen defende par juise.” The collection known by the name of Henry I. has a similar provision, cap. lxvi. § 3.

[1239] Radevic. de Reb. Frid. Lib. I. cap. xxvi. This was an old feature of the Barbarian codes which continued till late in the Middle Ages. See ante, p. 22.

[1240] Concil. Tribur. ann. 895, can. xxii.

[1241] Yajnavalkya, II. 99.

[1242] Chart. Commun. Laudun. (Baluz. et Mansi IV. p. 39).

[1243] Consuetud. Tornacens. § iii. (D’Achery III. 551). See above, p. 54.

[1244] Ut deinceps non sint digni juramento sed ordalio.—Legg. Edwardi cap. iii.; Æthelredi cap. i. § 1; Cnuti Sæcul cap. xxii. xxx.; Henrici I. cap. lxv. § 3.

[1245] Capit. Car. Mag. I. ann. 809, cap. xxviii.—Capit Ludov. Pii. I. ann. 819.

[1246] Burchardi Decret. Lib. XVI. cap. 19.

[1247] Keure de la Châtellenie de Bruges, § 28 (Warnkönig, Hist. de la Fland. IV. 371).

[1248] Jur. Provin. Alaman. cap. clxxxvi. §§ 4, 6, 7; cap. ccclxxiv.—Jur. Provin. Saxon. Lib. I. Art. 39.—Sachsische Weichbild, Art. xcii. § 2.—Richstich Landrecht, cap. lii.

[1249] Si non fuere provada por mala, que aya yazido con cinco omes.—Fuero de Baeça (Villadiego, Fuero Juzgo, fol. 317 a).

[1250] Capit. Car. Mag. III. ann. 813, cap. 46.

[1251] Concil. Mogunt. ann. 847, can. xxiv.—Burchardi Decret. Lib. XVI. cap. 19.—Keure de Gand, §§ 7, 8, 12 (Warnkönig, II. 228).

The law of William the Conqueror (Tit. II. c. 3.—Thorpe, I. 488) by which the duel was reserved for the Norman, and the vulgar ordeal for the Saxon, might be supposed to arise from a similar distinction. In reality, however, it was only preserving the ancestral customs of the races, giving to the defendant the privilege of his own law. The duel was unknown to the Anglo-Saxons, who habitually employed the ordeal, while the Normans, previous to the Conquest, according to Houard, who is good authority (Anc. Loix Franc. I. 221-222), only appealed to the sword.

[1252] Martene de Antiq. Eccl. Ritibus Lib. III. c. vii. Ord. 6. For the beliefs connected with mortuary masses see Concil. Toletan XVII. ann. 694 c. 5; D’Argentré Collect. Judic. de novis Error. I. II. 344; Angeli de Clavasio Summa Angelica s. v. Interrogationes; Diaz de Luco, Practica Criminalis Canonica cap. xxxv.; Grillandi de Sortilegiis q. xiv.

[1253] The severity of the ordeal, when the sufferer had no friends among the operators to save him, may be deduced from the description of a hand when released from its three days’ tying up after its plunge in hot water: “inflatam admodum et excoriatam sanieque jam carne putrida effluentem dexteram invitus ostendit” (Du Cange, s. v. Aquæ Ferv. Judicium). In this case, the sufferer was the adversary of an abbey, the monks of which perhaps had the boiling of the caldron.

[1254] L. Wisig. L. VI. Tit. i. § 3.

[1255] Ivon. Carnot. Epist. 74; Ejusd. Decr. X. 27.—C. 20 Decr. Caus. II. q.v.

This epistle is generally attributed to Stephen V., but two MSS. of Ivo of Chartres ascribe it to Sylvester II. (Migne’s Patrologia CLXII. 96).

[1256] Concil. Basol. cap. xi. Rainer, private secretary of Arnoul, offered to prove his statement by giving up a slave to walk the burning ploughshares in evidence of his truth (Ibid. cap. xxx.).

[1257] Yajnavalkya, II. 99.

[1258] Wharton and Stillé’s Med. Jurisp., 2d Edit. 1860.

[1259] Michelet, Origines du Droit, p. 349.—Proost, Jugements de Dieu, p. 80. This seems to be derived from the skirsla of the Norsemen described above.

[1260] London Athenæum, Aug. 20, 1881, p. 247.

[1261] Polyptichum Irminonis, App. No. 34 (Paris, 1836, p. 373).

[1262] Martene, De Antiq. Eccles. Ritibus Lib. III. cap. vii. Ordo 5.

[1263] Patetta, Le Ordalie, p. 192.

[1264] Hincmari Remens. Epist. XXII. (Migne’s Patrol. CXXVI. 136).

[1265] Quod si accusatus contendere voluerit de ipso perjurio stent ad crucem.... Hoc vero de minoribus rebus. De majoribus vero, aut de statu ingenuitatis, secundum legem custodiant.—Capit. Car. Mag. ann. 779, § 10. That this was respected as law in force, nearly a hundred years later, is shown by its being included in the collection of Capitularies by Benedict the Levite (Lib. V. cap. 196).

[1266] Ut omnes judicio Dei credant absque dubitatione.—Capit. Car. Mag. I. ann. 809, § 20.

[1267] Aimoini Chron. Continuat. Lib. V. c. 34.

[1268] Assisa facta apud Clarendune §§ 12, 13, 14 (Gesta Henrici II. T. II. p. clii.—M. R. Series). A case in accordance with this occurs in 1212 (Maitland, Pleas, I. 63).

[1269] Gesta Henrici II. T. I. p. 108.—Cf. Bracton. Lib. III. Tract, ii. cap. 16 § 3.

[1270] Simili modo, cauterium militis nullum tibi certum præbet argumentum, cum per examinationem ferri candentis occulto Dei judicio multos videamus nocentes liberatos, multos innocentes sæpe damnatos.—Ivon. Carnot. Epist. cccv.

[1271] Pet. Cantor. Verb. Abbreviat. c. lxxviii.

[1272] Vit. Carol. Comit. Flandren. cap. xx.

[1273] Collin de Plancy, op. cit. S. V. Fer Chaud.

[1274] Cæsar. Heisterbach. Dial. Mirac. Dist. X. c. xxxv.

[1275] Ciruelo, Reprovacion de las Supersticiones, P. II. c. vii.

[1276] Othlon. Narrat. de Mirac. quod nuper accidit, &c. (Migne’s Patrol. CXLVI. 243-4).

[1277] Polyptichum Irminonis, App. No. 20 (Paris, 1836, p. 354).

[1278] Olaf Haraldssons Saga, cxlv. (Laing’s Heimskringla, II. 210).

[1279] Enimvero mirum fuit ultra modum, quod fautores arsuram et inflationem conspiciebant; criminatores ita sanam ejus videbant palmam, quasi penitus fulvum non tetigisset ferrum.—Mirac. S. Swithuni c. ii. § 37. In this case the patient was a slave, whose master had vowed to give him to the Church in case he escaped.

[1280] Ad utramque partem sint ternas personas electas, ne conludius fieri possit.—Decret. Chlotharii II. cap. VII.

[1281] Ethelred, III. § 4.

[1282] Synod. Zaboles can. 27 (Batthyani, Legg. Eccles. Hung. T. I. p. 439).

[1283] Martene de Antiq. Eccl. Ritibus Lib. III. c. vii. Ordo 1.

[1284] Statut. Wilhelmi Regis cap. 7 § 3 (Skene II. 4).

[1285] Ibid. cap. 16.

[1286] Maitland, Pleas of the Crown, I. 75.

[1287] Nam criminosos eodem chrismate unctos aut potatos nequaquam ullo examine deprehendi posse a multis putatur.—C. Turonens. III. ann. 813 c. 20 (Harduin. IV. 1026).

[1288] Capit. Car. Mag. II. ann. 809.—Capitul. Lib. III. c. 55.—Reginon. de Discip. Ecclesiæ I. 73.

[1289] Reginon. op. cit. I. 72.—Burchardi Decret. IV. 80.—Ivon. Carnot. Decret. I. 274.

[1290] Martene de Antiq. Ritibus Ecclesiæ Lib. III. c. vii. Ordo 8. So in a ninth century exorcism of the hot water—“et si culpabilis de hac causa est et aliqua maleficia aut per herbas peccatum suum tegere voluerit tua dextera evacuare dignetur.”—Patetta, Archivio Giuridico, Vol. XLV.

[1291] Martene, loc. cit. Ord. 10, 18.

[1292] Du Cange, s. v. Ferrum candens.

[1293] Experimentum mirabile quod facit homines ire in ignem sine læsione, vel portare ignem vel ferrum ignitum sine læsione in manu. Recipe succum bismalvæ et albumen ovi et semen psilli et calcem et pulveriza et confice; cum illo albumine ovi succum raphani commisce et ex hac confectione illinas corpus tuum et manum et dimitte siccari; et postea iterum illinas et post hoc poteris audacter sustinere ignem sine nocumento.—Alb. Mag. de Miraculis Mundi (Binterim, Denkwürdigkeiten der Christ-Katholischen Kirche, Bd. V. Th. iii. p. 70).

[1294] The “Liber adversus Legem Gundobadi” and “Liber contra Judicium Dei.”

[1295] Concil. Salisburg. I. can. ix. (Dalham Concil. Salisburg. p. 35).

[1296] Ahytonis Capitular, cap. xxi. (D’Achery I. 585).

[1297] Capit. Carol. Calvi Tit. XI. c. iii. (Baluze).

[1298] Concil. Turon. ann. 925 (Martene et Durand Thes. T. IV. pp. 72-3).

[1299] Annalist. Saxo. ann. 1028.

[1300] Höfler, Concilia Pragensia, p. xiv. Prag. 1862.

[1301] Burchardi Decret. Lib. XIX. c. 5 (Migne’s Patrologia CXL. p. 973).—Corrector Burchardi cap. 155 (Wasserschleben, Bussordnungen der abenländischen Kirche, p. 660).

[1302] Batthyani, Legg. Eccles. Hung. II. 126.

[1303] Examinati judicio aquæ mendaces inventi sunt ... aqua eos non suscipiente.—In Cantica, Sermon. 66 cap. 12.

[1304] De Vita Sua Lib. III. cap. 18.

[1305] Concil. Remens. ann. 1157, can. 1 (Martene Ampl. Coll. VII. 75).

[1306] Hist. Vizeliacens. Lib. IV. (D’Achery Spicileg. II. 560).

[1307] Godefridi S. Pantaleon. Annal. ann. 1172 (Freher et Struv. Rer. German. Scriptt. I. 340).

[1308] Pet. Cantor. Verb. Abbreviat. cap. lxxviii. (Patrol. CCV. 230).

[1309] Cæsar. Heisterbach. Dial. Mirac. Dist. III. c. xvi. xvii.

[1310] Döllinger, Beiträge zur Sektengeschichte des Mittelalters, München, 1890, II. 621, 622.

[1311] Theodericus Abbas Vice-Comitem adiit paratus aut calidi ferri judicio secundum legem monachorum per suum hominem probare, aut scuto et baculo secundum legem secularium deffendere.—Annal. Benedict. L. 57, No. 74, ann. 1036 (ap. Houard, Loix Anc. Franç. I. 267).

[1312] Judicium ferri igniti et aquæ ferventis Abrincis portaretur, si clerici lapsi in culpam degradationis forte invenirentur.—Chart. Joan. Abrinc. (Patrolog. CXLVII. 266).

[1313] Ivon. Carnot. Epist. ccxxxii. ccxlix. cclii.

[1314] C. Remens. ann. 1119 (Harduin. VI. 1986).—Hildeberti Cenomanens. Epist. (D’Achery Spicileg. III. 456).

[1315] Gemma Animæ, Lib. 1 cap. 181. At least this is the only reading which will make the passage intelligible—“Horum officium est ... vel nuptias vel arma, vel peras, vel baculos vel judicia ferre et aquas vel candelas ... benedicere,” where “ferre et aquas” is evidently corrupt for “ferri et aquæ.”

[1316] Hoc autem utrum ad omnia genera purgationis, an ad hæc duo tantum, quæ hic prohibita esse videntur, pertineat, non immerito dubitatur propter sacrificium zelotypiæ, et illud Gregorii.—C. 20, caus. II. q. v.

[1317] Ordo ad Frigidam Aquam, etc. (Pez, Thesaur. Anecd. T. II. P. II. p. 635).

[1318] Ivon. Decret. X. 15.

[1319] Dialog. Ecbert. Ebor. Interrog. III. (Thorpe, II. 88).

[1320] Abbon. Floriac. Epist. viii.

[1321] Ivon. Carnotens. Epist. lxxiv.

[1322] I have treated this matter in some detail in “Studies in Church History,” pp. 69-74, 190 sqq.

[1323] Du Cange, s. v. Adramire.

[1324] Revue Hist. de Droit, 1861, p. 478.

[1325] Decret. Coloman. c. 11 (Batthyani T. I. p. 454).

[1326] Lagrèze, Hist. du Droit dans les Pyrénées, p. 246.

[1327] “Presbyter de ferro duas pensas et de aqua unam pensam accipiat.” Synod. Zabolcs. ann. 1092 can. 27 (Batthyani I. 439). Another reading makes the fee equal for both (Ib. II. 101).

[1328] Jura Primæva Moraviæ, Brunæ, 1781, p. 26.

[1329] Pet. Cantor. Verb. Abbreviat. cap. xxiv.

[1330] Orderic. Vital. Lib. V. cap. v.

[1331] Leg. Scanicar. Lib. VII. cap. 99 (Ed. Thorsen, p. 171). There is another provision that in certain cases of murder the accused could not be compelled to undergo the ordeal of the red-hot ploughshares unless the accuser was supported by twelve conjurators, when, if the accused was successful each of the twelve was obliged to pay him three marks, and the same sum to the priest.—Ib. L. V. c. 58 (p. 140). It was scarcely intelligible why these ordeals were not allowed to be performed in any week in which there was a church-feast (Ibid. p. 170-1).

[1332] Post. Concil. Lateran. P. II. cap. 3, 11.

[1333] Holophernicos.... Presbyteros, qui animas hominum carissime appreciatas vendant; fœminas nudatas aquis immergi impudicis oculis curiose perspiciant, aut grandi se pretio redimere cogant.—De Casibus S. Galli cap. xiv.

[1334] Alex. PP. III. Epist. 74.

[1335] Alex. PP. III. Epist. (Harduin. VI. II. 1439).

[1336] Pet. Cantor. Verb. Abbreviat. cap. lxxviii.

[1337] Hermanni Opusc. de sua Conversione c. 5 (Migne, CLXX. 814).

[1338] Anon. Libell, adversus Errores Alberonis (Martene Ampl. Coll. IX. 1265).

[1339] C. 8 Extra V. xxxiv.

[1340] Can. 10 Extra V. 31.

[1341] Innoc. PP. III. Regest. XIV. 138.—Yet abundant miracles in Strassburg testified to the divine favor in these trials.—Cæsar. Hiesterbac. Dist. III. c. 16, 17.

[1342] Nec ... quisquam purgationi aquæ ferventis vel frigidæ, seu ferri candentis ritum cujuslibet benedictionis seu consecrationis impendat.—Concil Lateran. can. 18. In 1227, the Council of Trèves repeated the prohibition, but only applied it to the red-hot iron ordeal. “Item. nullus sacerdos candens ferrum benedicat.”—Concil. Trevirens. ann. 1227, cap. ix.

[1343] Trithem. Chron. Hirsaug. ann. 1215.

[1344] Vulgaris purgatio est quæ a vulgo est inventa, ut ferri candentis, aquæ ferventis vel frigidæ, panis vel casei, monomachiæ id est duelli et ceteræ hujusmodi: sed ista hodie in totum reprobata est et maledicta, tum quia inventa est a diabolo fabricante.—S. Raymundi Summæ Lib. III. Tit. xxxi. § 1.

[1345] Ergo hujusmodi judicia sunt penitus reprobanda et purgatio per talia.—Alex. de Ales Summæ P. III. Q. xlvi. Membr. 3.

[1346] Hostiensis Aureæ; Summæ Lib. V. De Purg. Vulg. § 3.

[1347] Joh. Friburgens. Summæ Confessorum Lib. III. Tit. xxxi. Q. 2, 3.

[1348] Astesani de Ast Summæ de Casibus Conscientiæ, P. I. Lib. I. Tit. xiv.

[1349] Sachsenspiegel, ed. Ludovici, 1720, p. 619.

[1350] Fontanon, IV. 942.

[1351] Rymer, Fœd. I. 228.

[1352] Prohibitum est judicium quod fieri consuevit per ignem et per aquam.—Mat. Westmon. ann. 1250.

[1353] De cetero non fiat judicium per aquam vel ferrum, ut consuetum fuit antiquis temporibus.—Statut. Alex. II. cap. 7 § 3. There is some obscurity about this provision owing to variants in the MSS., but Mr. Neilson holds (Trial by Combat, p. 113;) that there can be little doubt that it abolished the ordeal wholly.

[1354] Leges quæ a quibusdam simplicibus sunt dictæ paribiles ... præsentis nostri nominis sanctionis edicto in perpetuum inhibentes omnibus regni nostri judicibus, ut nullus ipsas leges paribiles, quæ absconsæ a veritate deberent potius nuncupari, aliquibus fidelibus nostris indicet.... Eorum etinim sensum non tam corrigendum duximus quam ridendum, qui naturalem candentis ferri calorem tepescere, imo (quod est stultius) frigescere, nulla justa causa superveniente, confidunt; aut qui reum criminis constitutum, ob conscientiam læsam tantum asserunt ab aquæ frigidæ elemento non recipi, quem submergi potius aeris competentis retentio non permittit.—Constit. Sicular. Lib. II. Tit. 31. This last clause would seem to allude to some artifice of the operators by which the accused was prevented from sinking in the cold-water ordeal when a conviction was desired.

This common sense view of the miracles so generally believed is the more significant as coming from Frederic, who, a few years previously, was ferociously vindicating with fire and sword the sanctity of the Holy Seamless Coat against the aspersions of unbelieving heretics. See his Constitutions of 1221 in Goldastus, Const. Imp. I. 293-4.

[1355] Statut. MSS. Caroli I. cap. xxii. (Du Cange, s. v. Lex Parib.).

[1356] Königswarter, op. cit. p. 176.

[1357] Emon. Chron. ann. 1219 (Matthæi Analect. III. 72).

[1358] Issued in 1323.

[1359] Cod. Leg. Norman. P. II. c. X. §§ 2, 3 (Ludewig, Reliq. Mictorum. VII. 292). It is a little singular that the same phrase is retained in the authentic copy of the Coutumier, in force until the close of the sixteenth century.—Anc. Cout. de Normandie, c. 77 (Bourdot de Richebourg. IV. 32).

[1360] C. iii. Extra, Lib. V. Tit. xxxv.—As embodied in the Decretals of Gregory IX. this canon omits a clause indicating how great was the detestation of the people for the ordeal thus imposed on them—“quare conversis et convertendis scandalum incutiunt et terrorem.”—Quint. Compilat. Honorii III. Lib. IV. Tit. xiv.

[1361] Batthyani, Legg. Eccles. Hung. T. II. p. 436.—Hartzheim, IV. 27.

[1362] Rogeri Bacon Epist. de Secretis Operibus Artis c. ii. (M. R. Series I. 526).

[1363] Richstich Landrecht, cap. LII. The same provisions are to be found in a French version of the Speculum Suevicum, probably made towards the close of the fourteenth century for the use of the western provinces of the Empire.—Miroir de Souabe, P. I. c. xlviii. (Éd. Matile, Neufchatel, 1843).

[1364] Villaneuva, Viage Literario, XXII. 288.—Du Cange, s. vv. Ferrum candens, Batalia.

[1365] Coleccion de Cédulas, etc., Madrid, 1830, Tom. V. p. 142.

[1366] Memorial Histórico Español, Madrid, 1850, Tom. I. p. 47.

[1367] Concil. Palentin. ann. 1322, can. xxvi.

[1368] Non es tenuda la parte de probar lo que niega porque non lo podrie facer.—Las Siete Partidas, P. III. Tit. xiv. l. 1.

[1369] S. Antonini Confessionale.

[1370] Angeli de Clavasio Summa Angelica s. v. Interrogationes. The contemporary Baptista de Saulis speaks of ordeals in the present tense when saying that all concerned in them are guilty of mortal sin.—Summa Rosella, s. v. Purgatio.

[1371] Patetta, Le Ordalie, p. 450.

[1372] Plees del Corone, chap. xv. (quoted in 1 Barnewall & Alderson, 433).

[1373] Ciruelo, Reprovacion de las Supersticiones. P. II. cap. vii. Salamanca, 1539.

[1374] Aventini Annal. Boior. Lib. IV. c. xiv. n. 31.

[1375] When, in 1692, Jacques Aymar attracted public attention to the miracles of the diving-rod, he was called to Lyons to assist the police in discovering the perpetrators of a mysterious murder, which had completely baffled the agents of justice. Aided by his rod, he traced the criminals, by land and water, from Lyons to Beaucaire, where he found in prison a man whom he declared to be a participant, and who finally confessed the crime. In 1703 Marshal Montrevel and the intendant Baville made use of Aymar to discover Calvinists, of whom numbers were condemned on the strength of his revelations (Patetta, Le Ordalie, p. 33). Aymar was at length proved to be merely a clever charlatan, but the mania to which he gave rise lasted through the eighteenth century, and nearly at its close his wonders were rivalled by a brother sharper, Campetti. The belief in the powers of the divining-rod has not yet died out, and it is frequently used to discover oil wells, springs, mines, etc.

A good account of Aymar’s career and the discussion to which it gave rise may be found in Prof. Rubio y Diaz’s “Estudios sobre la Evocacion de los Espiritus,” Cadiz, 1860, pp. 116-28.

[1376] Diod. Sicul. 1. lxxv.—Sir Gardiner Wilkinson (Ancient Egyptians, Vol. II.) figures several of these little images.

[1377] See the translation of the Amherst Papyrus by Chabas, Mélanges Égyptologiques, III.^e Serie, T. II. p. 17 (Sept. 1873). The interpretation of the groups relating to the hands and feet is conjectural, but they unquestionably signify some kind of violence. M. Chabas qualifies this passage as highly important, being the first evidence that has reached us of the judicial use of torture in Egypt. The question has been a debated one, but the previous evidence adduced was altogether inconclusive.

[1378] Lenormant, Man. de l’Hist. Ancienne de l’Orient, II. 141.

[1379] Herod. I. 116.

[1380] Behistun Inscription, col. II. 25-6 (Records of the Past, VII. 98-99). It is worthy of remark that this Medic version of the Inscription is more circumstantial as to these inflictions than the Persian text translated by Rawlinson (Records I. 118-19).

[1381] Manu, Bk. VIII.—Institutes of Vishnu, VI. 23, VIII. IX.—Ayeen Akbery, Tit. Beyhar, Vol. II. p. 494—Halhed’s Code of Gentoo Laws, chap. xviii.

[1382] Albany Law Journal, 1879.

[1383] Lib. III. cap. iii.

[1384] Aristophanes (Ranæ, 617) recapitulates most of the processes in vogue.

Aiachos. καὶ πῶς βασανίζω?

Xanthias.πάντα τρόπον, ἐν κλίμακι

δήσας, κρεμάσας, ὑστριχίδι μαστιγῶν, δέρων,

>στρεβλῶν, ἔτι δ’είς τὰς ῥῖνας ὅζος ἐγχέων,

πλίνθους ἐπιτιθείς, παντα τἄλλα.

The best summary I have met with of the Athenian laws of torture is in Eschbach’s “Introduction à l’Étude du Droit,” § 268.

[1385] Sueton. August. xxii.

[1386] Sueton. Tiberii lxii.

[1387] Ibid. Caii xxxii.—Claud. xxxiv.

[1388] Ibid. Tiber. lviii.

[1389] Tacit. Annal. XV. xliv.

[1390] Lactant. de Mortib. Persecut. cap. xiii.

[1391] Tormentorum genera inaudita excogitabantur (Ibid. cap. xv.).—When the Christians were accused of an attempt to burn the imperial palace, Diocletian “ira inflammatus, excarnificari omnes suos protinus præcipit. Sedebat ipse atque innocentes igne torrebat” (Ibid. cap. xiv.).—Lactantius, or whoever was the real author of the tract, addresses the priest Donatus to whom it is inscribed: “Novies etiam tormentis cruciatibusque variis subjectus, novies adversarium gloriosa confessione vicisti.... Nihil adversus te verbera, nihil ungulæ, nihil ignis, nihil ferrum, nihil varia tormentorum genera valuerunt” (Ibid. cap. xvi.). Ample details may be found in Eusebius, Hist. Eccles. Lib. V. c. 1, VI. 39, 41, VIII. passim, Lib. Martyrum; and in Cyprian, Epist. X. (Ed. Oxon. 1682).

[1392] Tacit. Annal. XV. lvi. lvii.

[1393] L. 10 § 6, Dig. XLVIII. xviii.

[1394] L. 12, Dig. XLVIII. xviii. (Ulpian.).

[1395] Const. 8 Cod. IX. xli. (Dioclet. et Maxim.).

[1396] Const. 11 Cod. IX. xli.

[1397] Ibid. § 1.

[1398] Const. 16 Cod. IX. xli.

[1399] Const. 8 Cod. I. 3.

[1400] Const. 4 Cod. IX. viii.

[1401] Dion. Cass. Roman. Hist. Lib. LX. (Ed. 1592, p. 776).

[1402] Sueton. Domit. cap. viii. To Domitian the historian also ascribes the invention of a new and infamously indecent kind of torture (Ibid. cap. x.).

[1403] Const. 3 Cod. IX. xli.

[1404] Const. 31 Cod. IX. ix.

[1405] Const. 7 Cod. IX. viii.

[1406] Novell. CXVII. cap. xv. § 1.

[1407] Hieron. Epist. I. ad Innocent.

[1408] Const. 17 Cod. IX. ii.—Const. 10 Cod. IX. xlvi.

[1409] Const. 3 Cod. IX. viii.

[1410] Acts, XXII. 24 sqq.

[1411] L. 21 § 2, Dig. XXII. v.

[1412] Novell. XC. cap. i. § 1.

[1413] Quæstiones neque semper in omni causa et persona desiderari debere arbitror; et cum capitalia et atrociora maleficia non aliter explorari et investigari possunt, quam per servorum quæstiones, efficacissimas esse ad requirendam veritatem existimo et habendas censeo.—L. 8, Dig. XLVIII. xviii. (Paulus).

[1414] L. 9, Dig. XLVIII. xviii. (Marcianus).

[1415] L. 9 § 1, Dig. XLVIII. xviii.—L. 1 § 16, Dig. XLVIII. xvii. (Severus)—L. 1 § 18, Dig. XLVIII. xviii. (Ulpian.).

[1416] Pauli Lib. v. Sentt. Tit. xvi. § 7.—The same principle is involved in a rescript of the Antonines.—L. 1 § 14, Dig. XLVIII. xvii. (Severus).

[1417] L. 1 § 7, Dig. XLVIII. xvii. The expression “in caput domini” applies as well to civil as to criminal cases.—Pauli Lib. V. Sentt. Tit. xvi. § 5.

[1418] L. 3, Dig. XLVIII. xviii.—Const. 13 Cod. IX. xli.

[1419] L. 10 § 2, Dig. XLVIII. xviii.—Const. 2 Cod. IX. xli. (Sever. et Antonin. ann. 205).

[1420] L. 1 § 11, Dig. XLVIII. xvii.

[1421] L. 1 § 9, Dig. XLVIII. xvii.

[1422] L. 1 § 13. XLVIII. xvii.—Pauli Lib. V. Sentt. Tit. xvi. § 9.

[1423] Const. 10 Cod. IX. xli. (Dioclet. et Maxim.).

[1424] Tacit. Annal. II. 30. See also III. 67. Somewhat similar in spirit was his characteristic device for eluding the law which prohibited the execution of virgins (Sueton. Tiber. lxi.).

[1425] This principle is embodied in innumerable laws. It is sufficient to refer to Constt. 6 § 2, 7 § 1, 8 § 1, Cod. IX. viii.

[1426] L. 18 § 6, Dig. XLVIII. xviii. (Paulus).

[1427] L. 1 § 19, Dig. XLVIII. xviii. (Ulpian.).

[1428] Const. 1 Cod. IX. xli. (Sever et Antonin.).

[1429] Constt. 3, 32 Cod. IX. ix.—L. 17, XLVIII. xviii. (Papin.).

[1430] L. 5 Dig. XLVIII. xviii. (Marcian.).

[1431] Fl. Vopisc. Tacit. cap. IX.

[1432] Du Boys, Hist. du Droit Crim. des Peup. Anciens. pp. 297, 331, 332.

[1433] Const. 7 Cod. IX. xli. (Dioclet. et Maxim.).

[1434] Pauli Lib. v. Sentt. Tit. xvi. § 3.—See also Ll. 6, 13 Dig. XLVIII. xviii.

[1435] Const. 6 Cod. IX. xlvi. This provision of the L. Julia appears to have been revived by Diocletian.

[1436] Lib. IX. Cod. Theod. i. 14.

[1437] L. 16 § 1, Dig. XLVIII. xviii. (Modestin.).

[1438] L. 10 Dig. XLVIII. xviii. (Arcad.).

[1439] L. 3 Dig. XLVIII. xix. (Ulpian.).

[1440] L. 10 § 3, Dig. XLVIII. xviii.

[1441] L. 22 Dig. XLVIII. xviii.

[1442] L. 21 Dig. XLVIII. xviii.

[1443] L. 1 § 1, Dig. XLVIII. xviii. (Ulpian.).

[1444] Const. 8 Cod. IX. xli. (Dioclet. et Maxim.).

[1445] L. 7, Dig. XX. v.

[1446] L. 1 § 4, Dig. XLVIII. xviii. (Ulpian.).

[1447] L. 1 § 23, Dig. XLVIII. xviii.—Res est fragilis et periculosa et quæ veritatem fallat.

[1448] Altera sæpe etiam causam falsa dicendi, quod aliis patientia facile mendacium faciat, aliis infirmitas necessarium.—M. F. Quintil. Inst. Orat. V. iv.

[1449] Val. Maximi Lib. VIII. c. iv.

[1450] Philostrati vit. Apollon. VII. xxiv.

[1451] Valer. Maxim. Lib. VIII. c. iv.

[1452] Hieron. Epist. I. ad Innocentium.

[1453] Q. Curt. Ruf. Hist. VI. xi. Anceps conjectura est quoniam et vera confessis et falsa dicentibus idem doloris finis ostenditur.

[1454] Pauli Lib. V. Sentt. Tit. xiv. § 2.—L. 18 Dig. XLVIII. xviii.

[1455] Aurel. Prudent. de Vincent. Hymn. v.

[1456] Greg. Turon. Hist. Franc. Lib. II. c. xxvii.

[1457] De Bell. Gall. VI. xix.

[1458] These provisions are specified only in the Salic Law (First Text of Pardessus, Tit. XL. §§ 6, 7, 8, 9, 10.—L. Emend. Tit. XLII. §§ 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13), but they were doubtless embodied in the practice of the other tribes.

[1459] L. Burgund. Tit. VII.—The other allusions to torture in this code, Tit. XXXIX. §§ 1, 2, and Tit. LXXVII. §§ 1, 2, also refer only to slaves, coloni, and originarii. Persons suspected of being fugitive slaves were always tortured to ascertain the fact, which is in direct contradiction to the principles of the Roman law.

[1460] L. Baioar. Tit. VIII. c. xviii. §§ 1, 2, 3.

[1461] L. Salic. First Text, Tit. XL. §§ 1, 2, 3, 4.—L. Emend. Tit. XLII. §§ 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.—In a treaty between Childebert and Clotair, about the year 593, there is, however, a clause which would appear to indicate that in doubtful cases slaves were subjected, not to torture, but to the ordeal of chance. “Si servus in furto fuerit inculpatus, requiratur a domino ut ad viginti noctes ipsum in mallum præsentet. Et si dubietas est, ad sortem ponatur” (Pact. pro Tenore pacis cap. v.—Baluz.). This was probably only a temporary international regulation to prevent frontier quarrels and reprisals. That it had no permanent force of law is evident from the retention of the procedures of torture in all the texts of the Salic law, including the revision by Charlemagne.

[1462] First Text, Tit. XL. § 4.—MS. Monaster. Tit. XL. § 3.—L. Emend. Tit. XLII. § 6.

[1463] Grimnismal, Thorpe’s Sæmund’s Edda, I. 20.

[1464] Greg. Turon. Hist. Franc. Lib. VII. c. xx.; Lib. VIII. cap. xxxi. Also, Lib. V. cap. xxxvii.—Aimoin. Lib. III. c. xxx. xlii. li. lxiv. lxvii.—Flodoard. Hist. Remens. Lib. ii. c. ii.—Greg. Turon. Miraculorum Lib. I. cap. 73.

[1465] Gregor. Turon. Hist. Franc. Lib. V. c. xlix.

[1466] Edict. Theodor. cap. c. ci. cii.

[1467] Cassiodor. Variar. iv. xxii. xxiii.

[1468] L. Wisigoth. Lib. VI. Tit. i. l. 5.

[1469] Ibid.

[1470] Ibid. II. iv. 4.

[1471] Ibid. VI. i. 4; VII. vi. 1; VIII. iv. 10, 11.

[1472] L. Wisigoth. VI. i. 1.

[1473] Ibid. VI. i. 2.

[1474] Concil. Toletan. XIII. ann. 683, can. ii.

[1475] See the Fuero Juzgo, Lib. I. Tit. iii. l. 4; Tit. iv. l. 4.—Lib. III. Tit. iv. ll. 10, 11.—Lib. VI. Tit. i. ll. 2, 4, 5.—Lib. VII. Tit. i. l. 1; Tit. vi. l. 1. The only points in which these vary from the ancient laws are that, in Lib. VI. Tit. i. l. 2, adultery is not included among the crimes for suspicion of which nobles can be tortured, and that the accuser is not directed to conduct the torture. In Lib. VII. Tit. i. l. 1, also, the informer who fails to convict is condemned only in a single fine, and not ninefold; he is, however, as in the original, declared infamous, as a ladro; if a slave, the penalty is the same as with the Wisigoths.

[1476] Jacobi Regis constitutio adversus Judæos, etc. c. xiii. (Marca Hispanica, p. 1416).

[1477] Partidas, P. VII. Tit. i. l. 26.

[1478] Ibid. P. VII. Tit. ix. l. 16.

[1479] Ca por los tormentos saben los judgadores muchas veces la verdad de los malos fechos encubiertos, que non se podrian saber dotra guisa.—Ibid. P. VII. Tit. xxx. l. 1.

[1480] Por premia de tormentos ó de feridas, ó por miedo de muerte ó de deshonra que quieren facer á los homes, conoscen á las vegadas algunas cosas que de su grado non las conoscerien: e por ende decimos que la conoscencia que fuere fecha en algunas destas maneras que non debe valer nin empesce al que la Face.—Ibid. P. III. Tit. xiii. l. 5.

[1481] Partidas, P. VII. Tit. xxx. l. 4.—Porque la conoscencia que es fecha en el tormento, si non fuere confirmada despues sin premia, non es valedera.

[1482] Alvari Pelagii de Planctu Ecclesiæ, Lib. II. Art. xli.

[1483] Partidas, P. VII. Tit. xxx. l. 2. Except the favor shown to the learned professions, “por honra de la esciencia,” which afterwards became general throughout Europe, these provisions may all be found in the Roman law—Const. 4 Cod. IX. viii.; L. 3, Dig. XLVIII. xix.; L. 10, Dig. XLVIII. xviii.; Const. 11 Cod. IX. xli.

[1484] Partidas, P. VII. Tit. xxx. l. 5.—Imitated from L. 18, Dig. XLVIII. xviii.

[1485] Partidas, P. VII. Tit. xxx. l. 7. Cf. Tacit. Annal. XIV. xliii.-xlv.

[1486] Partidas, P. VII. Tit. xxx. l. 16.

[1487] Ibid. P. III. Tit. xvi. l. 43.—P. VII. Tit. xxx. l. 8.

[1488] Partidas, P. VII. Tit. i. l. 26, “Home mal enfamado.”—P. VII. Tit. xxx. l. 3, “Et si fuere home de mala fame ò vil.”

[1489] Ibid. P. VII. Tit. i. l. 26.

[1490] Ibid. P. VII. Tit. xxx. l. 4; Tit. ix. l. 16.

[1491] Ibid. P. VII. Tit. xxx. l. 9.

[1492] Ibid. P. III. Tit. xxiii. l. 13.

[1493] Partidas, P. VII. Tit. xxx. l. 1.

[1494] Ordenamiento de Alcalà, Tit. xxviii. l. 1.

[1495] Simancas, however, states that a single repetition of the torture was allowable.—De Cathol. Instit. Tit. LXV. No. 76.

[1496] De Cathol. Instit. Tit. LXV. No. 44-48. Cf. Novísima Recopilacion, Lib. VI. Tit, ii. leis 4 y 5 (Ed. 1775).

[1497] Villadiego, Gloss, ad Fuero Juzgo, Lib. VI. Tit. i. l. 2, Gloss. c, d, e, f, g.

[1498] Novísima Recopilacion, Lib. II. vii. leis 1 y 13.

[1499] Villadiego, op. cit. Lib. VI. Tit. i. 1. 5, Gloss. b, c.

[1500] Simancæ de Cathol. Instit. Tit. LXV. No. 8.

[1501] Novísima Recopilacion, Lib. II. Tit. vi. lei 6; Lib. VIII. Tit. i. lei 4. Aragon is said to have been an exception as regards the use of torture (Gomez Var. Resolut. T. III. c. 13—ap. Gerstlacher. de Quæst. per Torment. p. 68). In Navarre there is no trace of the use of torture prior to the fifteenth century.—G. B. de Lagrèze, La Navarre Française, II. 342.

[1502] Capit. Carol. Mag. II. ann. 805, § xxv. (Baluz.). No other interpretation can well be given of the direction “diligentissime examinatione constringantur si forte confiteantur malorum quæ gesserunt. Sed tali moderatione fiat eadem districtio ne vitam perdant.”

[1503] Capitul. Lib. VI. cap. cxxix.

[1504] Non solum se tradunt sed ultro etiam non admoti quæstionibus omnem technam hujus rebellionis detegunt.—Goldast. Constit. Imp. I. 151.

[1505] Non licet presbytero nec diacono ad trepalium ubi rei torquentur stare.—Concil. Autissiodor. ann. 578, can. xxxiii.

Ad locum examinationis reorum nullus clericorum accedat.—Concil. Matiscon. II. ann. 585, can. xix.

[1506] Under Charlemagne and Louis le Débonnaire seems to have commenced the usage of holding the court under shelter. Thus Charlemagne, “Ut in locis ubi mallus publicus haberi solet, tectum tale constituatur quod in hiberno et in æstate observandus esse possit” (Capit. Carol. Mag. II. ann. 809, § xiii.). See also Capit. I. eod. ann. § xxv. Louis le Débonnaire prohibits the holding of courts in churches, and adds, “Volumus utique ut domus a comite in locum ubi mallum teneri debet construatur ut propter calorem solis et pluviam publica utilitas non remaneat” (Capit. Ludov. Pii. I. ann. 819, § xiv.).

[1507] In 769, we find Charlemagne commanding the presence of all freemen in the general judicial assembly held twice a year, “Ut ad mallum venire nemo tardet, unum circa æstatem et alterum circa autumnum.” At others of less importance, they were only bound to attend when summoned, “Ad alia vero, si necessitas fuerit, vel denunciatio regis urgeat, vocatus venire nemo tardet” (Capit. Carol. Mag. ann. 769, § xii.).

In 809, he desired that none should be forced to attend unless he had business, “Ut nullus ad placitum venire cogatur, nisi qui caussam habet ad quærendam” (Capit. I. ann. 809, § xiii.).

In 819, Louis ordered, that the freemen should attend at least three courts a year, “et nullus eos amplius placita observare compellat, nisi forte quilibet aut accusatus fuerit, aut alium accusaverit, aut ad testimonium perhibendum vocatus fuerit” (Capit. Ludov. Pii. V. ann. 819, § xiv.).

[1508] Placuit ut adversus absentes non judicetur. Quod si factus fuerit prolata sententia non valebit.—Capit. Lib. V. § cccxi.

[1509] This right of appeal was not relished by the seigneurs, who apparently foresaw that it might eventually become the instrument of their destruction. It was long in establishing itself, and was resisted energetically. Thus the Kings of England who were Dukes of Aquitaine, sometimes discouraged the appeals of their French subjects to the courts of the King of France by hanging the notaries who undertook to draw up the requisite papers.—Meyer, Instit. Judiciaires, I. 461.

[1510] Annalist. Saxo ann. 928.

[1511] Dithmari Chron. Lib. VII. ad. fin.

[1512] Multa dissimulatione renitebant, adeo ut nullis suppliciis possent cogi ad confessionem.—Synod. Atrebatens. ann. 1025 (Hartzheim III. 68).

[1513] Hermannus de S. Mariæ Lauden. Mirac. Cf. Guibert. Noviogent. de Vita Sua. cap. xvi.

[1514] “Cumque captum eduxissit Isaac, virgis et vinculis coactum et flagellatum constringit, et ita extorsit ab eo ut reos in comitis traditione proderet.”—Galberti Vit. Caroli Boni cap. ix. n. 66.

[1515] Chron. Montis Sereni (Mencken. Script. Rer. Germ. II. 172).

[1516] Radulf. de Coggeshale Chron. Anglic. ann. 1192.

[1517] Hildebert. Cenoman. Epist. xxx.

[1518] Feudor. Lib. II. Tit. xxvii. § 8.

[1519] Fred. II. Lib. Rescript. II. §§ 1, 6. (Goldast. Constit. Imp. II. 54).

[1520] Erphurdianus Variloquus, ann. 1125.

[1521] Annal. Bosovienses, ann. 1129.

[1522] Cod. Epist. Rudolphi I. p. 216-7 (Lipsiæ, 1806).

[1523] Cosmæ Pragens. Lib. III. ann. 1108.

[1524] Annalist. Saxo ann. 1123. See also, about the same date, the Chron. S. Trudon. Lib. XII. (D’Achery II. 704); and the Epist. Friderici Episc. Leodiens. in Martene, Ampliss. Collect. I. 654.

[1525] Gerardi Hist. Compostellan. Lib. II. cap. 80.

[1526] Anglo Saxon Chronicle, ann. 1137.

[1527] Pike, History of Crime in England, I. 427.

[1528] Jaffé Regesta p. 884.

[1529] Matt. Paris. Hist. Ang. ann. 1210.

[1530] Synod. Roman. ann. 384, can. 10.

[1531] Innocent PP. I. Epist. III. cap. iii.

[1532] De Civ. Dei Lib. XIX. cap. vi.

[1533] Gregor. PP. I. Lib. VIII. Epist. xxx.

[1534] Nicolai PP. I. Epist. xcvii. § 86.

[1535] Pseudo-Alexand. decret. “Omnibus orthodoxis.”

[1536] Ministrorum confessio non sit extorta sed spontanea.—Ivon. Panorm. IV. cxvii.

[1537] Quod vero confessio cruciatibus extorquenda non est.—C. I. Decreti Caus. XV. q. vi.

[1538] Cæsarius of Heisterbach, writing in 1221, gives a story of an occurrence happening in 1184 which, if not embellished by some later transcriber, would seem to indicate that the judicial use of torture was known at an earlier period than is stated in the text. A young girl, in the disguise of a man, was despatched with letters to Lucius III. by the partisans of Wolmar in his struggle with Rudolph for the bishopric of Trèves. Near Augsburg she was joined by a robber, who, hearing his pursuers approaching, gave her his bag to hold while he retired on some pretext to a thicket. Captured with the stolen property she was condemned, but she told her story to a priest in confession, the wood was surrounded and the robber captured. He was tortured until he confessed the crime. Then he retracted, and the question between the two was settled, at the suggestion of the priest, by the ordeal of hot iron, when the robber’s hand was burnt, and the girl’s uninjured. The tale is a long one, very romantic in its details, and may very probably have been ornamented by successive scribes.—Cæsar. Heisterb. Dial. Mirac. Dist. I. c. xl.

[1539] Assises de Jerusalem, Baisse Court, cap. cclix.

[1540] Lib. Juris Civilis Veronæ cap. 75 (p. 61).

[1541] Constit. Sicular. Lib. I. Tit. xxvii.

[1542] Du Boys, Droit Criminel des Peup. Mod. II. 405.

[1543] Monach. Paduan. Chron. Lib. II. ann. 1252-3 (Urstisii Script. Rer. German. p. 594).—Quotidie diversis generibus tormentorum indifferenter tam majores quam minores a carnificibus necabuntur. Voces terribiles clamantum in tormentis die noctuque audiebantur de altis palatiis.... Quotidie sine labore, sine conscientiæ remorsione magna tormenta et inexcogitata corporibus hominum infligebat, etc.

[1544] Mevii Comment. in Jus Lubecense, Lib. IV. Tit. vi. Art. 4 (Francofurt. 1664).

[1545] Concil. Lateran. IV. can. iii.—Goldast. Constit. Imp. I. 293-5.—Harduin. Concil. VII. 164. See above, p. 89.

[1546] Teneatur præterea potestas seu rector omnes hæreticos quos captos habuerit, cogere citra membri diminutionem et mortis periculum, tanquam vere latrones et homicidas animarum et fures sacramentorum Dei et fidei Christianæ, errores suos expresse fateri et accusare alios hæreticos quos sciunt, et bona eorum, et credentes et receptatores et defensores eorum, sicut coguntur fures et latrones rerum temporalium accusare suos complices et fateri maleficia quæ fecerunt.—Innocent IV. Bull. Ad extirpanda § 26.

[1547] Alex. P. P. IV. Bull. Ut negotium, 7 Julii, 1256 (MSS. Doat, XXXI. 196).—Ripoll. Bullar. Ord. Prædic. I. 430.—Mag. Bullar. Roman. I. 132.

[1548] Trac. de Hæres. Paup. de Lugd. (Martene Thesaur. V. 1787). In the tract, Frederic II., who died in 1250, is spoken of as “quondam imperator.”

[1549] Clamor validus et insinuatio luctuosa fidelium subditorum ... processus suos in inquisitionis negotio a captionibus, quæstionibus et excogitatis tormentis incipiens personas quas pro libito asserit hæretica labe notatas, abnegasse Christum ... vi vel metu tormentorum fateri compellit.—Lit. Philip. Pulchri (Vaissette, Hist. Gén. de Languedoc, T. IV. Preuves p. 118).

[1550] The fearful details of torture collected by Raynouard (Mon. Hist. rel. à la Condamnation des Chev. du Temple) show that the Inquisition by this time was fully experienced in such work.

[1551] Simancæ de Christ. Instit. Tit. LXV. No. 19.—To the Inquisition is likewise attributable another of the monstrous iniquities of criminal justice—the denial to the accused of the assistance of counsel. Under the customary law of the feudal courts, the avocat or “avantparlier” was freely admitted, but such privilege was incompatible with the arbitrary process of which the sole object was to condemn for a crime scarce susceptible of proof. The decretal against heretics issued in 1235 by Gregory IX. forbids all judges, advocates, and notaries from helping the suspected heretic under pain of perpetual deprivation of function—“Item, judices, advocati, et notarii nulli eorum officium suum impendant; alioquin eodem officio perpetuo sint privati” (Harduin. Concil. VII. 164); and the same rule was enjoined “ne Inquisitionis negotium per advocatorum strepitum retardetur” by the Council of Valence (can. xi.) in 1248 and that of Alby (can. xxiii.) in 1254 (Harduin. VII. 426, 461).

[1552] Personas autem honestas vel bonæ famæ, etiam si sint pauperes, ad dictum testis unici, tormentis seu quæstionibus inhibemus, ne ob metum falsum confiteri, vel suam vexationem redimere compellantur.—Fontanon, Edicts et Ordonn. I. 701.—A somewhat different reading is given by Isambert, Anciennes Loix Françaises I. 270.

[1553] Cil qui est pris et mis en prison, soit por meffet ou por dete, tant comme il est en prison il n’est tenus à respondre à riens c’on li demande fors es cas tant solement por quoi il fu pris. Et s’on li fet respondre autre coze contre se volenté, et sor ce qu’il allige qu’il ne veut pas respondre tant comme il soit en prison; tout ce qui est fait contre li est de nule valeur, car il pot tout rapeler quand il est hors de prison.—Beaumanoir, cap. LII. § xix.

[1554] Quant tel larrecin sunt fet, le justice doit penre toz les souspeçonneus et fere moult de demandes, por savoir s’il porra fere cler ce qui est orbe. Et bien les doit en longe prison tenir et destroite, et toz cex qu’il ara souspechonneus par malvese renommée. El si’l ne pot en nule maniere savoir le verité du fet, il les doit delivrer, se nus ne vient avant qui partie se voille fere d’aus acuser droitement du larrecin.—Ibid. cap. XXXI. § vi.

[1555] Si li bons n’est connoissans de son mesfet, ou s’il l’a coneu et ce a esté par covent, s’en li fait jugement, apeler en puet.—Conseil, ch. xxii. art. 28 (Édition Marnier, Paris, 1846).

[1556] Tanon, Registre Criminel de la justice de S. Martin-des-Champs, Introd. p. lxxxvi. (Paris, 1877); Vaissette, Ed. Privat, VIII. 1348.—L’Oiseleur (Les Crimes et les Peines, Paris, 1863, p. 113) says that it was enacted for the baillages of Beauvais and Cahors, but we have seen from Beaumanoir that torture was not used in the Beauvoisis.

[1557] Baluz. Concil. Gall. Narbon. p. 75.

[1558] Chassaing, Spicilegium Brivatense, p. 92.

[1559] Conseil ch. xxi. art. 8.

[1560] Fontaines, Conseil, art. 14. Et encor ne puisse li vileins fausser le jugement son seignor.

[1561] Actes du Parlement de Paris, I. 382 (Paris, 1863).

[1562] Olim. T. II. p. 451.

[1563] Olim. III. 49-50.

[1564] Ibid. III. 185-6.

[1565] Olim. III. 221-2.

[1566] Ibid. III. 505-6.

[1567] Ibid. III. 751-2.

[1568] Ibid. III. 1299.

[1569] Guill. de Nangis Continuat. ann. 1304.

[1570] Ibid. ann. 1314.

[1571] Ibid. ann. 1315.

[1572] Grandes Chroniques, T. V. p. 221 (Ed. Paris, 1837).

[1573] Isambert, Anciennes Loix Françaises, III. 131, 60, 65.

[1574] Ordonnance, 1^ier Avril, 1315, art. xix. (Ibid. III. 58).

[1575] Cart. Norman I. Mar. 1315, cap. xi. Cart. II. Jul. 1315, cap. xv. (Ibid. 51, 109).

[1576] Ordonn. Mai 1315, art. v. xiv. (Bourdot de Richebourg, III. 233-4).

[1577] Ordonn. Mars 1315, art. ix. (Ibid. p. 235). This ordonnance is incorrectly dated. It was issued towards the end of May, subsequently to the above.

[1578] Ordonn. Jul. 1319, art. xxii. (Isambert, III. 227).

[1579] Tout Lieu de Saint Disier, cap. cclxxii. (Olim, T. II. Append, p. 856).

[1580] Ibid. cap. cclxxiii.

[1581] Roisin, Franchises, Lois et Coutumes de Lille, p. 119. Thus, “on puet et doit demander de veir et de oir,” but when this is impossible, “on doit et puet bien demander et enquerre de croire et cuidier. Et sour croire et sour cuidier avoec un veritet aparent de veir et d’oir, et avoec l’omechide aparant, on puet bien jugier, lonc l’usage anchyen, car d’oscure fait oscure veritet.”

[1582] Rabanis, Revue. Hist, de Droit, 1861, p. 515.—No volgoren los savis antiquament qu’om pergossa sa franquessa ni sa libertat.

[1583] Registre Criminel de la Justice de St. Martin-des-Champs, p. 50.

[1584] Du Cange s. v. Quæstionarius.

[1585] Letters granting exemption from torture to the consuls of Villeneuve for any crimes committed by them were issued in 1371 (Isambert, V. 352). These favors generally excepted the case of high treason.

[1586] He pleaded his rank as baron as an exemption from the torture, but was overruled. Dumoulin, however, admits that persons of noble blood are not to be as readily exposed to it as those of lower station.—Desmaze, Les Pénalités Anciennes, d’après des Textes inédits, p. 39 (Paris, 1866).

[1587] Du Cange s. v. Quæstio No. 3.

[1588] Pour denier mettre à question et tourment.—Jean Desmarres, Décisions, Art. 295 (Du Boys, Droit Criminel II. 48).

[1589] L. Tanon, Registre Criminel de la Justice de S. Martin-des-Champs, Introd. p. lxxxv. (Paris, 1877).

[1590] Registre Criminel du Châtelet de Paris. Publié pour la première fois par la Société des Bibliophiles Français. 2 tom. 8vo. Paris, 1864.

[1591] Ibid. I. 9, 14.

[1592] Ibid. I. 143. See also the similar case of Raoulin du Pré (p. 149), who recanted on the scaffold and protested his innocence “sur la mort qu’il attendoit à avoir et recevoir presentement,” but who nevertheless was executed. Also that of Perrin du Quesnoy (p. 164).

[1593] See the case of Berthaut Lestalon (Ibid. p. 501) accused of sundry petty thefts and tortured unsuccessfully. The court decided that in view of the little value of the articles stolen and of their having been recovered by the owners, the prisoner should be tortured again, when, if he confessed, he should be hanged, and if he still denied, he should have his right ear cropped and be banished from Paris. This logical verdict was carried out. No confession was obtained, and he was punished accordingly. Somewhat similar was the case of Jehan de Warlus (Ibid. p. 157), who was punished after being tortured five times without confession; also that of Jaquet de Dun (Ibid. p. 494).

[1594] In the Registre Criminel de St. Martin-des-Champs the cases are recorded with too much conciseness to give details as to the process, only the charge and the sentence being stated. It frequently happens, however, that a man convicted of some petty larceny is stated to have confessed more serious previous crimes, which necessarily implies their confession being extorted. See, for instance, the case of Jehannin Maci, arrested in 1338 for having in his possession two brass pots, the stealing of which he not only confessed but also “plusures murtres et larrecins avoir fais” for which he was duly drawn on a hurdle and hanged (op. cit. pp. 120-1). The case of Phelipote de Monine (p. 178) is also suggestive.

[1595] Registre Criminel du Châtelet de Paris, I. 36.

[1596] Ibid. I. 201-209.—Somewhat similar was the case of Marguerite de la Pinele (Ibid. p. 322), accused of stealing a ring, which she confessed under torture. As she did not, however, give a satisfactory account of some money found upon her, though her story was partially confirmed by other evidence, she was again twice tortured. This was apparently done to gratify the curiosity of her judges, for, though no further confession was extracted from her, she was duly buried alive.

Crimes for which a man was hanged or decapitated were punished in a woman by burying or burning. Jews were executed by being hanged by the heels between two large dogs suspended by the hind legs—a frightful death, the fear of which sometimes produced conversion and baptism on the gallows (Ibid. II. 43).

[1597] Ibid. I. pp. 1, 268, 289; II. 66, etc.

[1598] Ibid. I. 419-475.—The same result is evident in a very curious case in which an old sorceress and a young “fille de vie” were accused of bewitching a bride and groom, the latter of whom had been madly loved by the girl (Ibid. I. p. 327).

[1599] Ibid. I. 516.

[1600] Ibid. I. 151, 163, 164, 173-77, 211, 269, 285, 306, 350, etc.

[1601] See, for instance, the case of Pierre Fournet (Ibid. I. 516).

[1602] Très Ancienne Cout. de Bretagne, cap. CI. (Bourdot de Richebourg IV. 224-5)—“Et s’il se peut passer sans faire confession en la gehenne, ou les jons, il se sauveroit, et il apparestroit bien que Dieu montreroit miracles pour luy.”

[1603] Concil. Remens. ann. 1408, cap. 49 (Martene Ampliss. Collect. VII. 420).

[1604] Bull. Aur. cap. xxiv. § 9 (Goldast. I. 365).

[1605] Chron. Cornel. Zantfleit, ann. 1376 (Martene Ampl. Coll. V. 308-9).

[1606] Statut. Criminali cap. xiv. (Gregorj, Statuti di Corsica, p. 101).

[1607] Ibid. cap lx. (p. 163).

[1608] Statuta Criminalia Mediolani e tenebris in lucem edita, cap. 3, 24-28 (Bergomi, 1694).

[1609] Statuti della Terra del Comune della Mirandola, Modena, 1885, p. 91.

[1610] Statuta et Decreta antiqua Civitatis Placentiæ, Lib. v. Rubr. 96 (Placentiæ, 1560, fol. 63b).

[1611] Statuts de l’Inquisition d’Etat, 1^e Supp. §§ 20, 21 (Daru).

[1612] Li Statuti de Valtellina Riformati nella Cità di Coira nell’ anno del S. MDXLVIII. Stat. Crimin. cap. 8, 9, 10 (Poschiavo, 1549).

[1613] Synod. Reg. ann. 1514, Proœm. (Batthyani Legg. Eccles. Hung. I. 574). According to some authorities, this was a general rule—“Judex quamvis viderit committi delictum non tamen potest sine aliis probationibus reum torquere, ut per Specul. etc.”—Jo. Emerici a Rosbach Process. Criminal. Tit. V. cap. v. No. 13 (Francof. 1645).

[1614] Du Boys, Droit Criminel, I. 650.

[1615] Jo. Herb. de Fulstin. Statut. Reg. Polon. (Samoscii, 1597, p. 7).

[1616] Esneaux, Hist. de Russie, III. 236.

[1617] Pauli Jovii Moschovia.—This is a brief account of Russia, compiled about the year 1530, by Paulus Jovius, from his conversations with Dmitri, ambassador to Clement VII. from Vasili V., first Emperor of Russia. Olaus Magnus, in the pride of his Northern blood, looks upon the statement in the text as a slander on the rugged Russ—“hoc scilicet pro terribili tormento in ea durissima gente reputari, quæ flammis et eculeis adhibitis, vix, ut acta revelet, tantillulum commovetur”—and he broadly hints that the wily ambassador amused himself by hoaxing the soft Italian: “Sed revera vel ludibriose bonus præsul a versuto Muscovitici principis nuntio Demetrio dicto, tempore Clementis VII. informatus est Romæ” (Gent. Septent. Hist. Brev. Lib. XI. c. xxvi.). The worthy archbishop doubtless spoke of his own knowledge with respect to the use of the rack and fire in Russia, but the contempt he displays for the torture of a stream of water is ill-founded. In our prisons the punishment of the shower-bath is found to bring the most refractory characters to obedience in an incredibly short time, and its unjustifiable severity in a civilized age like this may be estimated from the fact that it has occasionally resulted in the death of the patient. Thus, at the New York State Prison at Auburn, in December, 1858, a strong, healthy man, named Samuel Moore, was kept in the shower-bath from a half to three-quarters of an hour, and died almost immediately after being taken out. A less inhumane mode of administering the punishment is to wrap the patient in a blanket, lay him on his back, and, from a height of about six feet, pour upon his forehead a stream from an ordinary watering-pot without the rose. According to experts, this will make the stoutest criminal beg for his life in a few seconds.

During the later period of our recent war, when the prevalence of exaggerated bounties for recruits led to an organized system of desertion, the magnitude of the evil seemed to justify the adoption of almost any means to arrest a practice which threatened rapidly to exhaust the resources of the country. Accordingly, the shower-bath was occasionally put into requisition by the military authorities to extort confession from suspected deserters, when legal evidence was not attainable, and it was found exceedingly efficacious.

[1618] Du Boys, op. cit. I. 618.

[1619] Quod iidem prælati et inquisitores de ipsis Templariis et eorum corporibus, quotiens voluerint, ordinent et faciant id quod eis, secundum legem ecclesiasticam, videbitur faciendum.—Rymer, Fœdera, III. 203.

[1620] C. 1 § 1 Clement, V. 3.—Bern. Guidonis Gravamina (MSS. Doat, XXX.).

[1621] Haroldus, Lima limata Conciliis etc. Romæ, 1672, pp. 75, 76.

[1622] Statut. S. Ludov. ann. 1254, §§ 20, 21 (Isambert, I. 270).

[1623] Thus Gratian, in the middle of the twelfth century—“Qui calumniam illatam non probat pœnam debet incurrere quam si probasset reus utique sustineret.”—Decreti P. II. caus. v. quæst. 6, c. 2.

[1624] Ordonnance, Mars 1498, §§ 110-116 (Isambert, XI. 365.—Fontanon, I. 710). It would seem that the only torture contemplated by this ordonnance was that of water, as the clerk is directed to record “la quantité de l’eau qu’on aura baillée audit prisonnier.” This was administered by gagging the patient, and pouring water down his throat until he was enormously distended. It was sometimes diversified by making him eject the water violently, by forcible blows on the stomach (Fortescue de Laudibus Legg. Angliæ, cap. xxii.). Sometimes a piece of cloth was used to conduct the water down his throat. To this, allusion is made in the “Appel de Villon”:—

“Se fusse des hoirs Hue Capel

Qui fut extraict de boucherie,

On ne m’eust, parmy ce drapel,

Faict boyre à celle escorcherie.”

[1625] Ordonn. de Villers Cotterets, Août 1539, §§ 162-164 (Isambert, XIII. 633-4). “Ostant et abolissant tous styles, usances ou coutumes par lesquels les accusés avoient accoutumés d’être ouïs en jugement pour sçavoir s’ils devoient être accusés, et à cette fin avoir communication des faits et articles concernant les crimes et délits dont ils étoient accusés.”

[1626] Anc. Cout. de Bretagne, Tit. I. art. xli.—D’Argentré’s labored commentary on this article is a lamentable exhibition of the utter confusion which existed as to the nature of preliminary proof justifying torture. Comment. pp. 139, sqq.

[1627] Nemo igitur de proprio crimine confitentem super conscientia scrutetur aliena.—Const. 17 Cod. IX. ii. (Honor. 423).

[1628] Nemini de se confesso credi potest super crimen alienum, quoniam ejus atque omnis rei professio periculosa est, et admitti adversus quemlibet non debet.—Pseudo-Julii Epist. II. cap. xviii.—Gratian. Decret. P. II. caus. v. quæst. 3, can. 5.

[1629] Inhærendo decretis alias per felicis recordationis Paulum papam quartum Sanctissimus dominus noster Pius papa quintus decrevit omnes et quoscunque reos convictos et confessos de heresi pro ulteriori veritate habenda et super complicibus fore torquendos arbitrio dominorum judicum.—Locati Opus Judiciale Inquisitorum, Romæ, 1570, p. 477.

[1630] Chéruel, Dict. Hist. des Institutions, etc. de la France, p. 1220 (Paris, 1855).

[1631] Isambert, XIV. 88. Beccaria comments on the absurdity of such proceedings, as though a man who had accused himself would make any difficulty in accusing others.—“Quasi che l’uomo che accusa sè stesso, non accusi più facilmente gli altri. E egli giusto il tormentare gli uomini per l’altrui delitto?”—Dei Delitte e delle Pene, § XII. A curious illustration of its useless cruelty when applied to prisoners of another stamp is afforded by the record of a trial which occurred at Rouen in 1647. A certain Jehan Lemarinier, condemned to death for murder, was subjected to the question définitive. Cords twisted around the fingers, scourging with rods, the strappado with fifty pounds attached to each foot, the thumbscrew were applied in succession and together, without eliciting anything but fervent protestations of innocence. The officials at last wearied out remanded the convict to prison, when he sent for them and quietly detailed all the particulars of his crime, committed by himself alone, requesting especially that they should record his confession as having been spontaneous, for the relief of his conscience, and not extorted by torment.—Desmaze, Les Pénalités Anciennes, p. 159, Paris, 1866.

[1632] Ordonnance Criminel d’Août 1670, Tit. xiv. xix. (Isambert, XIX. 398, 412).

[1633] Nicolas, Dissertation Morale et Juridique sur la Torture, p. 111 (Amsterd. 1682).

[1634] Déclaration du 13 Avril 1703 (Ordonnances d’Alsace, I. 340).

[1635] Coutumier de Picardie, Éd. Marnier, p. 88.

[1636] Registre Criminel de la Justice de S. Martin-des-Champs. Paris, 1877, p. 229.

[1637] Desmaze, Pénalités Anciennes, p. 204.

[1638] Bodini de Magor. Dæmonoman. Basil. 1581, pp. 325, 334, 390.

[1639] Scialojæ Praxis torquendi Reos c. i. No. 12 (Neap. 1653).

[1640] Thomæ Grammatici Decisiones Neapolitanæ, pp. 1275-6 (Venetiis 1582). Cf. Scialojæ op. cit. c. i. No. 22.

[1641] L’Oiseleur, Les Crimes et les Peines, pp. 206-7.

[1642] Braune Dissert. de Tortura Valetudinar. Halæ Cattor. 1740, p. 28.

[1643] Meyer, Institutions Judiciaires, IV. 285, 293.

[1644] Legg. Capital. Caroli V. c. lx. lviii.

[1645] Ibid. c. xx. lviii.

[1646] Ibid. c. lv. lvi. lvii.

[1647] Legg. Capital. Carol. V. c. xxii. lxix.

[1648] Ibid. c. xxviii.

[1649] Ibid. c. xxiii. xxi.

[1650] Ibid. c. xxxiii.-xliv.

[1651] Ibid. c. xx. lxi.

[1652] Ibid. c. lviii. lix. Accusatus, si periculum sit, ne inter vel post tormenta ob vulnera expiret, ea arte torquendus est, ne quid damni accipiat.

[1653] Heineccii Hist. Jur. Civ. Lib. II. §§ cv. sqq.—Meyer (Instit. Judiciaires, Liv. VI. chap. xi.) gives a very interesting sketch of the causes which led to the overthrow of the old system of jurisprudence throughout Germany. He attributes it to the influence of the emperors and the municipalities, each equally jealous of the authority of the feudal nobles, aided by the lawyers, now becoming a recognized profession. These latter of course favored a jurisprudence which required long and special training, thus conferring upon them as a class peculiar weight and influence.

[1654] My principal authorities are:—

Rerum Criminalium Praxis, by Josse Damhouder, a lawyer and statesman of repute in Flanders, where he held a distinguished position under Charles V. and Philip II. His work was received as an authority throughout Europe for two centuries, having passed through numerous editions, from that of Louvain, in 1554, to that of Antwerp, in 1750. My edition is of Antwerp, 1601.

Tractatus de Quæstionibus seu Torturis Reorum, published in 1592 by Johann Zanger, of Wittenberg, a celebrated jurisconsult of the time, and frequently reprinted. My edition is that of 1730, with notes by the learned Baron Senckenberg, and there is a still later one, published at Frankfort in 1763.

Practica Criminalis, seu Processus Judiciarius ad usum et consuetudinem judiciorum in Germania hoc tempore frequentiorem, by Johann Emerich von Rosbach, published in 1645 at Frankfort on the Mayn.

Tractatio Juridica, de Usu et Abusu Torturæ, by Heinrich von Boden, a dissertation read at Halle in 1697, and reprinted by Senckenberg in 1730, in conjunction with the treatise of Zanger.

Scialojæ Praxis torquendi Reos, Neapoli, 1653.

Tractatus de Maleficiis, nempe D. Alberti de Gandino, D. Bonifacii de Vitalianis, D. Pauli Grillandi, D. Baldi de Periglis, D. Jacobi de Arena. Venetiis, 1560.

[1655] Cum nihil tam severum, tam crudele et inhumanum videatur quam hominem conditum ad imaginem Dei ... tormentis lacerare et quasi excarnificare, etc.—Zangeri Tract. de Quæstion. cap. I. No. 1.

Tormentis humanitatis et religionis, necnon jurisconsultorum argumenta repugnant.—Jo. Emerici a Rosbach. Process. Crimin. Tit. v. c. ix. No. 1.

Saltem horrendus torturæ abusus ostendit, quo miseri, de facinore aliquo suspecti, fere infernalibus, et si fieri possit, plusquam diabolicis cruciatibus exponuntur, ut qui nullo legitimo probandi modo convinci poterant, atrocitate cruciatuum contra propriam salutem confiteri, seque ita destruere sive jure sive injuria, cogantur.—Henr. de Boden Tract. Præfat.

[1656] Zangeri cap. I. Nos. 49-58.

[1657] Zangeri cap. I. Nos. 59-88.—Knipschild, in his voluminous “Tract. de Nobilitate” (Campodun. 1693), while endeavoring to exalt to the utmost the privileges of the nobility, both of the sword and robe, is obliged to admit their liability to torture for these crimes, and only urges that the preliminary proof should be stronger than in the case of plebeians (Lib. II. cap. iv. Nos. 108-120); though, in other accusations, a judge subjecting a noble to torture should be put to death, and his attempt to commit such an outrage could be resisted by force of arms (Ibid. No. 103). He adds, however, that no special privileges existed in France, Lombardy, Venice, Italy, and Saxony (Ibid. Nos. 105-7). Scialoja expressly says (Praxis c. xiii. Nos. 40-49, 55) that in Naples no dignity, secular or ecclesiastical, except that of judges, conferred immunity from torture; and all privileges were set aside by a direct order from the sovereign.

[1658] Erphurdianus Variloquus, ann. 1514 (Mencken. Script. Rer. German. II. 527-8).

[1659] Grillandi de Quæst. et Tortura Q. vi.—Baldi de Periglis de Quæstionibus c. iii. § 4.—Alberti de Gandino de Quæstionibus §§ 7, 9, 36, 37.

[1660] Damhouder. Rer. Crimin. Praxis cap. xxxvii. Nos. 23, 24. Cf. Passerini Regulare Tribunal Quæst. xv. Art. ix. No. 117.

[1661] Emer. a Rosbach Process. Crimin. Tit. v. cap. xiv.

[1662] Simancæ de Cathol. Instit. Tit. LXV. No. 50.

[1663] Willenbergii Tract. de Excess. et Pœnis Cleric. 4to. Jenæ, 1740, p. 41.

[1664] Braune Diss. de Tortura Valetudinar. p. 32.

[1665] Grillandi de Quæstione et Tortura, Q. vi. §§ 4, 6, 9.—Baldi de Periglis de Quæstionibus cap. i. § 4.

[1666] Zangeri op. cit. cap. I. Nos. 34-48.

[1667] Scialojæ c. xiii. No. 21.

[1668] Ibid. Nos. 24-30.

[1669] Goetzii Dissert. de Tortura, Lipsiæ, 1742, pp. 46-8.

[1670] Braune Diss. de Tortura Valetudinar. pp. 24, 43.

[1671] Zangeri cap. V. Nos. 73-83.

[1672] Del Rio Magicarum Disquisit. Lib. v. Sect. iii. L.

[1673] Damhouder. op. cit. cap. xxxviii. Nos. 3, 4.—Rosbach. Tit. V. cap. xv. No. 14.—Simancas, however, declares that only two applications of torture are allowable (De Cathol. Instit. Tit. LXV. Nos. 76, 81).

[1674] Disquis. Magicar. Lib. V. sect. ix.

[1675] Assessores tamen honoris et avidi et cupidi hoc non servant imo quotidie quæstiones repetunt absque novis indiciis.—Baldi de Periglis de Quæstionibus cap. i. § 6. So also Alberti de Gandino de Quæstionibus § 20, and Bonifacii de Vitalianis, Rubr. Quæ Indicia § 8.

[1676] Zangeri Præfat. No. 31.

[1677] Scialojæ op. cit. cap. i. No. 27.

[1678] Statuta Criminalia Communis Bononiæ (Bononiæ, 1525, fol. 15 a).

[1679] Goetzii Dissert. de Tortura, pp. 52-3.

[1680] Zangeri Tract. Not. ad p. 903.

[1681] Grillandi de Quæst. et Tortura Q. vii.

[1682] Scialojæ op. cit. cap. i. No. 34.—Goetzii Dissert. de Tortura, p. 53.—Grillandi, loc. cit.—Bernhard (Diss. Inaug. de Tort. cap. I. § iv.) states that in these cases not only the principals but even the witnesses could be tortured if suspected of concealing the truth.

[1683] Grillandi de Quæst. et Tortura, Q. V. § 6.

[1684] Baldi de Periglis de Quæstionibus cap. iii. § 2.—Damhoud. cap. xxxviii. No. 13.—Alberti de Gandino de Quæstionibus § 31.

[1685] Zangeri Præfat. No. 32.—Tortura enim datur non ad liquidandum factum sed personam.—Damhouder. Rer. Crimin. Prax. cap. xxxv. No. 7.

[1686] Process. Criminal. Tit. V. cap. ix. No. 17.

[1687] De Usu et Ab. Tort. Th. IX.—Qui aliter procedit judex, equum cauda frenat et post quadrigas caballum jungit.

[1688] Boyvin du Villars, Mémoires, Liv. VII.

[1689] Godelmanni de Magis Lib. III. cap. x.

[1690] Not. ad p. 907 Zangeri op. cit.

[1691] Del Rio Magicar. Disquisit. Lib. V. sect. ix.

[1692] Grillandi de Quæst. et Tortura, Q. vi. § 10.

[1693] Simancæ de Cathol. Instit. Tit. LXV. No. 56.

[1694] De Usu et Abusu Tort. Th. XIII.

It must not be supposed from this and the preceding extracts that von Boden was an opponent of torture on principle. Within certain bounds, he advocated its use, and he only deplored the excessive abuse of it by the tribunals of the day.

[1695] Quando quis dicatur competenter tortus vel non, similiter quando quis dicatur purgasse indicia vel non, omnia ista demum relinquuntur arbitrio et discretioni honesti judicis, quoniam in his certa regula tradi non potest.—Grillandi de Quæst. et Tortura Q. vii. § 10.—Cf. Godelmanni de Magis Lib. III. cap. x. § 36.—Baldi de Periglis de Quæstionibus cap. i. § 5.

[1696] Zangeri op. cit. cap. I. Nos. 42-44.

[1697] Ibid. cap. III. Nos. 20-22.

[1698] Baldi de Periglis cap. iii. § 7.

[1699] Bonifacii de Vitalianis, Rubr. de Perseverentia § 5.—Alberti de Gandino, De Quæstionibus § 35.

[1700] Godelmanni l. c. § 54.

[1701] Cap. xxxviii. No. 18.

[1702] Zangeri cap. III. Nos. 20-22.

[1703] Goetzii Dissert. de Tortura, p. 74.

[1704] So thoroughly was this recognized, that in 1668 Racine represents a judge, desirous of ingratiating himself with a young girl, as offering to exhibit to her the spectacle of the question as an agreeable pastime.

“Dandin. N’avez vous jamais vu donner la question?

Isabelle. Non, et ne le verrai, que je crois de ma vie.

Dandin. Venez, je vous en veux faire passer l’envie.

Isabelle. Hé! Monsieur, peut-on voir souffrir les malhereux?

Dandin. Bon! cela fait toujours passer une heure ou deux.”

Les Plaideurs, Acte III. Sc. dernière.

[1705] Fortescue, in his arguments against the use of torture, does not fail to recognize that the acquittal of a tortured prisoner is the condemnation of the judge—“qui judex eum pronuntiet innocentem, nonne eodem judicio judex ille seipsum reum judicat omnis sævitiæ et pœnarum quibus innocentem afflixit?”—De Laud. Legg. Angl. cap. xxii.

[1706] Occurrit hic cautela Bruni dicentis, si judex indebite torserit aliquem facit reum confiteri quod fuit legitime tortus, de qua confessione faciat notarium rogatum.—Rosbach. Process. Crim. Tit. V. cap. xv. No. 6.

[1707] Quoted by Nicolas, Diss. Mor. et Jurid. sur la Torture, p. 21. This mode of torture consisted in placing the accused between two jailers, who pummelled him whenever he began to doze, and thus, with proper relays, deprived him of sleep for forty hours. Its inventor considered it humane, as it endangered neither life nor limb, but the extremity of suffering to which it reduced the prisoner is shown by its efficaciousness.

Marsigli received much credit for this ingenious invention. Grillandus informs us that he experimented with it in a difficult case of two monks “et profecto vidi ea quæ prius non credebam, quod illud affert maximum tormentum et fastidium in corpore absque aliqua membrorum læsione.”—Grillandi de Quæstione et Tortura Art. ii.

I have purposely abstained from entering into the details of the various forms of torture. They may be interesting to the antiquarian, but they illustrate no principle, and little would be gained by describing these melancholy monuments of human error. Those who may be curious in such matters will find ample material in Grupen Observat. Jur. Crim. de Applicat. Torment., 4to., Hanov. 1754; Zangeri op. cit. cap. IV. Nos. 9, 10; Hieron. Magius de Equuleo cum Appendd. Amstelod. 1664, etc. According to Bernhardi, Johann Graefe enumerates no less than six hundred different instruments invented for the purpose. Damhouder (op. cit. cap. xxxvii. Nos. 17-23) declares that torture can legally be inflicted only with ropes, and then proceeds to describe a number of ingenious devices. One of these, which he states to produce insufferable torment without risk, is bathing the feet with brine and then setting a goat to lick the soles.

The strappado, or suspension by the arms behind the back with weights to the feet, was the torture in most general use and most favored by legal experts.—Grillandus, loc. cit.

[1708] Augustin Nicholas, op. cit. pp. 169, 178.

[1709] Even this, however, was not deemed necessary in cases of conspiracy and treason “qui fiunt secreto, propter probationis difficultatem devenitur ad torturam sine indiciis”—Emer. a Rosb. Tit. V. cap. x. No. 20.

[1710] Fama frequens et vehemens facit indicium ad torturam (Zanger. c. II. No. 80. Cf. Alberti de Gandino de Quæst. § 39). Reus ante accusationem vel inquisitionem fugiens et citatus contumaciter absens, se suspectum reddit ut torqueri possit (Ibid. No. 91. Cf. Simancæ Cathol. Instit. Tit. LXV. Nos. 28-30). Inconstantia sermonis facit indicium ad torturam (Zanger. Nos. 96-99). Ex taciturnitate oritur indicium ad torturam (Ibid. No. 103). Physiognomia malam naturam arguit, non autem delictum (Ibid. No. 85). How exceedingly lax was the application of these rules may be guessed from a remark of Damhouder’s, that although rumor was sufficient to justify torture, yet a contrary rumor neutralized the first and rendered torture improper.—Damhouder. Rer. Crimin. Praxis cap. xxxv. Nos. 14, 15.

[1711] Deinde a pallore et similibus oritur indicium ad torturam secundum Bartol. (Emer. a Rosbach Tit. V. c. vii. Nos. 28-31). Whereupon von Rosbach enters into a long dissertation as to the causes of paleness.

[1712] Godelmanni de Magis Lib. III. cap. x. § 29.

[1713] Scialojæ cap. iii. Nos. 5, 6.

[1714] Judicis arbitrio relinquitur an indicia sint sufficientia ad torturam (Zanger. cap. II. Nos. 16-20). An indicia sufficiant ad torturam judicis arbitrio relictum est.... Indicia ad torturam sufficientia relinquuntur officio judicis (Emer. a Rosbach Tit. V. c. ii. p. 529). Damhouder, indeed, states that no rules can be framed—“neque ea ullis innituntur regulis: sed universum id negotium geritur penes arbitrium, discretionem ac conscientiam judicis.”—Rer. Crimin. Praxis cap. xxxvi. Nos. 1, 2. Cf. Braune Dissert. de Tortura Valetudin. Halæ Cattor. 1740.

So Grillandus (De Quæstione et Tortura Q. iii.)—“Quæ autem indicia dicantur esse sufficientia ad torturam certa regula tradi non potest, sed hoc relinquitur arbitrio et discretioni boni judicis.”

And Albertus de Gandino (De Quæstionibus § 14)—“Nec de his possit dari certa doctrina sed hoc committitur arbitrio judicantis.”

[1715] Sunt tamen nonnulli prætores et judices sanguine fraterno adeo inexsaturabiles ut illico quemvis malæ famæ virum, citra ulla certa argumenta aut indicia, corripiant ad sævissimam torturam, inclementer dicentes, cruciatum facile ab illis extorturum rerum omnium confessionem.—Damhouder. Rer. Crimin. Praxis cap. xxxv. No. 13.

[1716] Hipp. de Marsiliis Singularia, No. 455 (Venet. 1555).

[1717] Godelmanni de Magis Lib. III. cap. v. § 26.—Emer. a Rosbach Tit. V. c. x. No. 25.

[1718] Groot, Historia Eclesiastica y Civil de Nueva Granada, Bogotá, 1869, T. I. pp. 114-5, 116-20. Cf. Scialojæ Praxis torquendi Reos, cap. i. No. 25.

[1719] Rosbach Tit. V. cap. x. No. 2.

[1720] Ibid. Tit. V. cap. xiv. No. 16.—Goetzii Dissert. de Tortura, p. 54.—Grillandi de Quæst. et Tortura, Q. vii.

[1721] Scialojæ cap. xiv. Nos. 5-20.—Jo. Frid. Werner Dissert. de Tortura Testium, Erford. 1724, pp. 72 sqq.

[1722] Passerini Regulare Tribunal, Quæst. XV. Art. ix. No. 115 (Colon. Agripp. 1665).

[1723] Process. contr. Card. de Caraffa (Hoffman. Collect. Script. I. 632).

[1724] Scialojæ c. xiv. No. 2.

[1725] Statuta Criminalia Communis Bononiæ (Bononiæ 1525, p. 15 b).

[1726] Damhouder, op. cit. cap. xlvii. No. 3.

[1727] Passerini, loc. cit. Nos. 122-3.

[1728] Ibid. No. 118.

[1729] Simancæ de Cathol. Instit. Tit. LXV. No. 73.

[1730] Zangeri, op. cit. I. Nos. 8-25.

[1731] Zangeri cap. IV. Nos. 25-30.—Damhouder, op. cit. cap. xxxvii. Nos. 15, 16.—Baldi de Periglis de Quæstionibus, cap. i. § 7.—Alberti de Gandino de Quæstionibus § 11.

[1732] Grilland. de Quæstione et Tortura Q. iv. §§ 2-10. “Quod tunc corpus ipsius rei dilaniatur membraque et ossa quodammodo dissolvuntur et evelluntur a corpore.”

[1733] Zangeri, op. cit. cap. III. No. 3.

[1734] Process. Criminal. Tit. V. cap. x. No. 7.

We have already seen (p. 514) that in France the accused was not allowed to see the evidence against him; and the same rule was in force in Flanders—“Toutes depositions de tesmoins en causes criminelles demeureront secrètes à l’égard de l’accusé.”—Coutume d’Audenarde, Stile de la Procedure, Art. 10. (Le Grand, Coutumes de Flandre, Cambrai, 1719, p. 103).

[1735] Diss. Inaug. cap. I. § xii.

[1736] Goetzii, op. cit. p. 36.

[1737] Zangeri, op. cit. cap. III. Nos. 1, 4, 5-43.

[1738] Process. Crim. Tit. V. cap. xi. No. 6.

[1739] Goetzii, op. cit. p. 35.

[1740] Zangeri cap. II. Nos. 49-50.—Cum enim confrontatio odiosa sit et species suggestionis, et remedium extraordinarium ad substantiam processus non pertinens, et propterea non necessaria.

[1741] Zangeri, cap. IV. Nos. 1-6.

[1742] Goetzii Dissert. de Tortura, p. 34.

[1743] Braune Dissert. de Tortura Valetudin. p. 16.

[1744] Process. Crimin. Tit. V. cap. ix. No. 10.

[1745] Zangeri cap. I. No. 37.

[1746] Rer. Crimin. Praxis cap. xxxviii. Nos. 6, 7.

[1747] Boden de Usu et Abusu Torturæ Th. XII. Damhouder declares this practice to be unjustifiable, though not infrequent (Rer. Crimin. Praxis cap. xxxvii. No. 12).—Bonifazio de’ Vitaliani speaks of it as a common but evil custom.—De Quæstionibus, Rubr. Quæ indicia, § 7.

[1748] He represents the judge as addressing his victim “Tu sei il reo di un delitto, dunque è possibile che lo sii di cent’ altri delitti: questo dubbio mi pesa, voglio accertarmene col mio criterio di verità: le leggi ti tormentano, perche sei reo, perche puoi esser reo, perche voglio che tu sii reo.”—Dei Delitti e delle Pene, § XII.

[1749] Martini Bernhardi Diss. Inaug. de Tortura cap. I. § 4. Scialoja, in 1653, assures us that this torture after confession to prevent appeals was no longer permitted in the Neapolitan courts, and that it was only allowed for the discovery of accomplices (Praxis torquendi Reos. c. i. Nos. 8-10).

[1750] Scialojæ, op. cit. cap. i. No. 14.

[1751] Damhouder, Rer. Crimin. Prax. cap. xxxv. No. 9, cap. xxxviii. No. 14.—Werner Dissert. de Tortura Testium, pp. 76 sqq.

[1752] Damhoud. cap. xxxix. No. 6.

[1753] Goetzii Dissert. de Tortura, p. 26.

[1754] Emer. a Rosbach Process. Criminal. Tit. V. cap. x. Nos. 8-16.—Simancæ Cath. Inst. LXV. 17.

[1755] Bernhardi, loc. cit. The difference between the practice and principles of the law is shown by the rules laid down in 1647 by Brunnemann, coexisting with the above. He directs that the proceedings are to be exhibited to the accused or his friends, and then submitted to a college of jurists who are to decide as to the necessity of torture, and he warns the latter that they can have no graver question placed before them—“Et sane nullam graviorem puto esse deliberationem in Collegiis Juridicis quam ubi de tortura infligenda agitur.”—Brunneman. de Inquisitionis Processu cap. VIII. Memb. iv. No. 10; Memb. v. No. 1.

[1756] Passerini Regulare Tribunal; Praxis, cap. viii. No. 170.

[1757] Louïse, Sorcellerie et Justice Criminelle à Valenciennes (Valenciennes, 1861, pp. 121-125).

[1758] Goetzii Diss. de Tortura, p. 71.

[1759] Bodin de Magor. Dæmonom. (Basil. 1581, p. 325).

[1760] Zangeri cap. V. Nos. 79-81.

[1761] Bernhardi Diss. Inaug. cap. I. § xi.

[1762] Emer. a Rosbach, op. cit. Tit. V. cap. xviii. No. 13.—Godelmanni de Magis L. III. cap. x. § 52.—Gerstlacheri Comment. de Quæst. per Tormenta, p. 35.—Grillandi de Quæst. et Tortura Q. vii. § 11. So Beccaria (Delitt. e Pene, § XII.)—“Alcuni dottori ed alcune nazioni non permettono questa infame petizione di principio che per tre volte; altre nazioni ed altri dottori la lasciano ad arbitrio del giudice.”

[1763] This custom prevailed in Electoral Saxony until the abrogation of torture (Goetzii Diss. de Tort. p. 33), and was especially the case at Amsterdam. Meyer (Institutions Judiciaires, IV. 295) states that the registers there afford scarcely an instance of a prisoner discharged without conviction after enduring torture.

[1764] Zanger. loc. cit.

[1765] Bernhardi, cap. I. § xii.—Goetzii op. cit. p. 74.—Cf. Caroli V. Const. Crim. cap. XX. § 1.—Goetz (p. 67) derives urpheda from ur before, and fede enmity.

[1766] Goetzii Dissert. de Tortura, p. 31.

[1767] Werner. Dissert. de Tortura, pp. 91-2.

[1768] Zangeri cap. II. Nos. 9-10; cap. V. Nos. 19-28.—Damhouder. op. cit. cap. xxxvi. No. 36.—Baldi de Periglis de Quæstionibus cap. ii. § 9.

[1769] Zangeri cap. V. Nos. 1-18.—Goetzii Dissert. de Tortura, pp. 67-9.

[1770] Damhouder. op. cit. cap. xl. No. 3.—Bigotry and superstition, especially, did not allow their victims to escape so easily. In accusations of sorcery, if appearances were against the prisoner—that is, if he were of evil repute, if he shed no tears during the torture, and if he recovered speedily after each application—he was not to be liberated because no confession could be wrung from him, but was to be kept for at least a year, “squaloribus carceris mancipandus et cruciandus, sæpissime etiam examinandus, præcipue sacratioribus diebus.”—Rickii Defens. Aq. Probæ cap. I. No. 22.

[1771] Alberti de Gandino de Quæstionibus § 21.

[1772] Zangeri cap. V. No. 53-61.—Goetzii Dissert. de Tortura, p. 57.

[1773] Boden, op. cit. Th. V. VI.

[1774] Goetzii Dissert. de Tortura, p. 72.

[1775] Boden, op. cit. Th. V. VI.

[1776] Goetzii Dissert. de Tortura, p. 76. Distinction was sometimes made between crimes involving death or corporal punishment and those of lighter grade, but Goetz states that in his time (1742) in Saxony the above was the received practice.

[1777] Dissert. Mor. et Jurid. sur la Torture, pp. 36-7.

[1778] Ibid. p. 169.

[1779] Damhoud. Rer. Criminal. Prax. cap. 34, § 7.

[1780] Const. 7 Cod. IX. xviii.

[1781] Concil. Emeritan. ann. 666 can. xv.

In the middle of the thirteenth century, the Emperor Theodore Lascaris invented a novel mode of torture in a case of this kind. When a noble lady of his court was accused of sorcery, he caused her to be inclosed naked in a sack with a number of cats. The suffering, though severe, failed to extort a confession.—Georg. Pachymeri Hist. Mich. Palæol. Lib. I. cap. xii.

[1782] Bodini de Magorum Dæmonoman. Lib. IV. cap. 2.

[1783] Boguet, Discours des Sorciers, chap. lv. (Lyon, 1610).

[1784] Louïse, La Sorcellerie et la Justice Criminelle à Valenciennes (Valenciennes, 1861, pp. 133-64).—For other similar instances see Bodin, op. cit. Lib. IV. cap. 1, 2.

[1785] Bodin. Lib. I. cap. 2.

[1786] Per legales testes hujus rei ad convincendum fides certa haberi non potest.—Rickii Defens. Aquæ Probæ cap. III. No. 117.

[1787] Idque facilius in excepto et occulto difficilisque probationis crimine nostro sortilegii admiserim quam in aliis.—Disquisit. Magicar. Lib. V. Sect. iii. No. 8.

[1788] Boguet, Instruction pour un juge en faict de Sorcelerie, art. xxxii.

[1789] Soit pour ne trouver les délitz suffisament vérifiez, ou pour savoir tous les complices, ou autrement.—Chart. nouv. du Haynau, chap. 125, art. xxvi. (Louïse, p. 94).

[1790] Nicolas, p. 145. The curious reader will find in Del Rio (Lib. V. Sect. ix.) ample details as to the arts of the Evil One to sustain his followers against the pious efforts of the Inquisition.

[1791] “Qu’après qu’on eut lavé ses jambes, qui avoient été déchirées par la torture, et qu’on les eut présentées au feu pour y rapeller quelque peu d’esprits et de vigueur, il ne cessa pas de s’entretenir avec ses Gardes, par des discours peu sérieux et pleins de railleries; qu’il mangea avec apétit et but avec plaisir trois ou quatre coups; et qu’il ne répandit aucuns larmes en souffrant la question, ni après l’avoir souffert, lors même qu’on l’exorcisa de l’exorcisme des Magiciens, et que l’Exorciste lui dit à plus de cinquante reprises ‘præcipio ut si sis innocens effundas lachrymas.’”—Hist. des Diables de Loudon, pp. 157-8.

[1792] Rerum Crimin. Praxis Cap. xxxvii. Nos. 21, 22. Cf. Brunnemann. de Inquisit. Process. cap. VIII. Memb. v. No. 70.

[1793] Rickii op. cit. cap. I. No. 24.

[1794] Grillandi de Quæstione et Tortura, Art. iii. §§ 12-16. One of the conjurations is an allusion to the Crucifixion,

“Imparibus meritis tria pendent corpora ramis.

Dismas et Gestas, in medio est divina potestas.

Dismas damnatur, Gestas ad astra levatur.”

Another “Quemadmodum lac beatæ gloriosæ Mariæ virginis fuit dulce et suave domino nostro Jesu Christo, ita hæc tortura sit dulcis et suavis brachiis et membris meis.”

[1795] Boguet, Instruction pour un juge, art. xxix.—Damhouderi Rer. Crim. Prax. cap. xxxviii. No. 19.

[1796] Sprenger Mall. Maleficar. P. III. q. xvi. This was directly in contradiction to the precepts of the civil lawyers. Ippolito dei Marsigli says positively that a confession uttered in response to a promise of pardon cannot be used against the accused (Singularia, Venet. 1555, fol. 36 b). The Church, however, did not consider itself bound by the ordinary rules of law or morality. Marsigli in another passage (fol. 30 a) relates that Alexander III. once secretly promised a bishop that if he would publicly confess himself guilty of simony he should have a dispensation, and on the prelate’s doing so, immediately deposed him.

[1797] Bodin. Lib. IV. cap. I.

[1798] Boguet, Instruction, art. xxvii.

[1799] De Cathol. Instit. Tit. XIII. No. 12.

[1800] Disquisit. Magicar. Lib. V. Sect. x.

[1801] Father Tanner states that he had this from learned and experienced men.—Tanneri Tract. de Proc. adv. Veneficas, Quæst. II. Assert. iii. § 2.

[1802] Ibid. loc. cit.

[1803] Nicolas, p. 164.

[1804] Chabot, Encyclopédie Monastique, p. 426 (Paris, 1827). For instances see Angeli Rumpheri Hist. Formbach. Lib. II. (Pez, I. III. 446).—A. Molinier in Vaissette, Ed. Privat, IX. 417.

[1805] “Ita torquatur ut nec plagam referat nec color cutis livescat.”—Grágás, Festathattr cap. xxxiii.

[1806] Grágás, Vigslothi cap. cxi.

[1807] Ibid. Vigslothi cap. lxxxviii.

[1808] Schlegel Comment. ad Grágás § xxix.

[1809] Legg. Cimbric. Woldemari Lib. II. cap. i. xl. (Ed. Ancher, Hafniæ, 1783).

[1810] Christiani V. Jur. Danic. Lib. I. cap. xx. (Ed. Weghorst, Hafniæ, 1698). Senckenberg (Corp. Jur. German. T. I. Præf. p. lxxxvi.) gives the chapter heads of a code in Danish, the Keyser Retenn, furnished to him by Ancher, in which cap. iv. and v. contain directions as to the administration of torture. The code is a mixture of German, civil, and local law, and probably was in force in some of the Germanic provinces of Denmark.

[1811] Legg. Opstalbomicæ ann. 1323 (ap. Gärtner, Saxonum Leges Tres. Lipsiæ, 1730).

[1812] Raguald. Ingermund. Leg. Suecor. Stockholmiæ, 1623.

[1813] Ll. Henrici I. cap. v. § 16.

A curious disregard of this principle occurs in the Welsh laws, which provide that when a thief is at the gallows, with the certainty of being hanged, his testimony as to his accomplices is to be received as sufficient without requiring it to be sworn to on a relic—the inseparable condition of all other evidence. By a singular inconsistency, however, the accomplice thus convicted was not to be hanged, but to be sold as a slave.—Dimetian Code, Bk. II. ch. v. § 9 (Owen I. 425).

[1814] Many interesting details on the influence of the Roman law upon that of England will be found in the learned work of Carl Güterbock, “Bracton and his Relation to the Roman Law,” recently translated by Brinton Coxe (Philadelphia, 1866). The subject is one which well deserves a more thorough consideration than it is likely to receive at the hands of English writers.

It is curious to observe that the crimen læsæ majestatis makes its appearance in Bracton (Lib. III. Tract. ii. cap. 3, § 1) about the middle of the thirteenth century, earlier than in France, where, as we have seen, the first allusion to it occurs in 1315. This was hardly to be expected, when we consider the widely different influences exerted upon the jurisprudence of the two countries by the Roman law.

[1815] The passage which has been relied on by lawyers is chap. xxx.: “Nullus liber homo capiatur, vel imprisonetur, aut dissaisiatur, aut utlagetur, aut aliquo modo destruatur; nec super eum ibimus, nec super eum mittemus, nisi per legale judicium parium suorum, vel per legem terræ.” If the law just above quoted from the collection of Henry I. could be supposed to be still in force under John, then this might possibly be imagined to bear some reference to it; but it is evident that had torture been an existing grievance, such as outlawry, seizure, and imprisonment, the barons would have been careful to include it in their enumeration of restrictions. Moreover, Magna Charta was specially directed to curtail the royal prerogative, and at a later period was not held by any one to interfere with that prerogative whenever the king desired to test with the rack the endurance of his loving subjects.

[1816] Et come ascuns felons viendrount en Jugement respondre de lour felonie, volons que ils viegnent dechausses et descients sauns coiffe, et a teste descouverte, en pure lour cote hors de fers et de chescun manere de liens, ïssint que la peine ne lour toille nule manere de rason, selon par force ne lour estouva mye respondre forsque lour fraunche volunte.—Britton, chap. v.

[1817] Per volunté aussi se fait ceste pesché [homicide] si come per ceux qui painent home tant que il est gehist pur avouer pesché mortelment.—Horne, The Myrror of Justice, cap. I. sect. viii.—See also Fleta, Lib. I. cap. xxvi. § 5.

[1818] Ou faussement judgea Raginald ... ou issint; tant luy penia pur luy faire conoistre, approver il se conoist faussement aver pesché ou nient ne pescha.—Horne, cap. II. sect. xv.

[1819] Pike (Hist. of Crime in England I. 427) quotes a document of 1189 which seems indirectly to show that torture could be inflicted under an order of the king. The expression is somewhat doubtful, and as torture had not yet established itself anywhere in Europe as a judicial procedure the document alleged can hardly be received as evidence of its legality.

[1820] See Fortescue de Laud. Legg. Angliæ. cap. xxxiii.—The jealousy with which all attempted encroachments of the Roman law were repelled is manifested in a declaration of Parliament in 1388. “Que ce royalme d’Engleterre n’estait devant ces heures, ne à l’entent du roy nostre dit seignior et seigniors du parlement unque ne serra rulé ne governé par la ley civill.”—Rot. Parl., II Ric. II. (Selden’s Note to Fortescue, loc. cit.).

[1821] De Laudibus Legum Angliæ, cap. xxii.

[1822] See Jardine’s “Reading on the Use of Torture in the Criminal Law of England,” p. 7 (London, 1837), a condensed and sufficiently complete account of the subject under the Tudors and Stuarts.

[1823] Partim tormentis subjecti, partim crudelissime laniati, et partim etiam furca suspensi fuerant.—Wilkins Concil. III. 617.

[1824] Jardine, op. cit. pp. 8-9, 24-5. It is due to Sir Thomas to add that he earnestly begs Lord Burghley to release him from so uncongenial an employment.

[1825] Ibid. pp. 8, 47.

[1826] Bacon’s Works, Philadelphia, 1846, III. 126.

[1827] Strype’s Eccles. Memorials, III. 101.

[1828] Burnet, Hist. Reform. Bk. III. pp. 341-2.

[1829] According to Nicander Nucius (Travels, Camden Soc. 1841, pp. 58, 62), the investigation of these deceptions with the severest tortures, Βασάνοις ἀφορήτοις, was apparently the ordinary mode of procedure.

[1830] Diarium rerum gestarum in Turri Londinensi (Sanderi Schisma Anglicanum, ad calcem, Ingolstadt, 1586).

[1831] Sir William Skevington, a lieutenant of the Tower, under Henry VIII., immortalized himself by reviving an old implement of torture, consisting of an iron hoop, in which the prisoner was bent, heels to hams and chest to knees, and was thus crushed together unmercifully. It obtained the nickname of Skevington’s Daughter, corrupted in time to Scavenger’s Daughter. Among other sufferers from its embraces was an unlucky Irishman, named Myagh, whose plaint, engraved on the walls of his dungeon, is still among the curiosities of the Tower:—

“Thomas Miagh, which liethe here alone,

That fayne wold from hens begon:

By torture straunge mi truth was tryed,

Yet of my libertie denied.

1581. Thomas Myagh.” (Jardine, op. cit. pp. 15, 30).

[1832] Jardine, pp. 53, 57-8.

It is rather remarkable to find torture legalized at this period, even in qualified form of the question définitive in the Colony of Massachusetts. The Body of Liberties, enacted in 1641, declares:—

“45. No man shall be forced by Torture to confesse any crime against himselfe nor any other, unlesse it be in some Capitall case where he is first fully convicted by cleare and suffitient evidence to be guilty, After which if the case be of that nature, That it is very apparent there be other conspiritours or confederates with him, Then he may be tortured, yet not with such Tortures as be Barbarous and inhumane.”—Whitmore’s Colonial Laws of Massachusetts, Boston, 1889 (N. Y. Nation, No. 1268, p. 318).

From this it would appear safe to conclude that this is a limitation on a pre-existing, more general use of torture.

[1833] Jardine, p. 65.

[1834] Lecky, Hist. of Rationalism, Am. ed. I. 122.—In his very interesting work, Mr. Lecky mentions a case, occurring under the Commonwealth, of an aged clergyman named Lowes, who, after an irreproachable pastorate of fifty years, fell under suspicion. “The unhappy old man was kept awake for several successive nights, and persecuted ‘till he was weary of his life, and was scarcely sensible of what he said or did.’ He was then thrown into the water, condemned, and hung.”—Ibid. p. 126.

[1835] Cobbett’s State Trials, VI. 686.—Although ostensibly not used to extort confession, this pricking was practically regarded as a torture. Thus in 1677 the Privy Council of Scotland “found that they (i. e., the inferior magistracy) might not use any torture by pricking or by withholding them from sleep” (loc. cit.).

[1836] Spottiswoode Miscellany, Edinburgh, 1845, II. 67.

[1837] Rogers’s Scotland, Social and Domestic, p. 266.

[1838] Statut. Roberti III. cap. xvi. (Skene).

[1839] Lecky, op. cit. I. 145-6.—Rogers, op. cit. pp. 267-300.

[1840] I quote from Mr. Lecky (p. 147), who gives as his authority “Pitcairn’s Criminal Trials of Scotland.”

“But others and perhaps worse trials were in reserve. The three principal that were habitually applied were the penniwinkis, the boots, and the caschielawis. The first was a kind of thumbscrew; the second was a frame in which the leg was inserted, and in which it was broken by wedges driven in by a hammer; the third was also an iron frame for the leg, which was from time to time heated over a brazier. Fire matches were sometimes applied to the body of the victim. We read, in a contemporary legal register, of one man who was kept for forty-eight hours in ‘vehement tortour’ in the caschielawis; and of another who remained in the same frightful machine for eleven days and eleven nights, whose legs were broken daily for fourteen days in the boots, and who was so scourged that the whole skin was torn from his body.” These cases occurred in 1596.

These horrors are almost equalled by those of another trial in which a Dr. Fian was accused of having caused the storms which endangered the voyage of James VI. from Denmark in 1590. James personally superintended the torturing of the unhappy wretch, and after exhausting all the torments known to the skill and experience of the executioners, he invented new ones. All were vain, however, and the victim was finally burnt without confessing his ill-deeds (Ibid. p. 123).

[1841] Rogers, op. cit. p. 307.

[1842] Diurnal of Occurrences in Scotland (Spottiswoode Miscellany, II. 90-91).

[1843] 7 Anne c. 21.—While thus legislating for the enlightenment of Scotland, the English majority took care to retain the equally barbarous practice of the peine forte et dure. This was commenced in 1275 simply as a “prisone forte et dure” (First Statute of Westminster, cap. xii.; Cf. Britton, cap. xi.) for felons refusing to plead, and speedily developed into starvation and nakedness (Fleta, Lib. I. cap. xxxii. § 33). Horne (Myrror of Justice, cap. I. § viii.; cap. II. § ix.) evidently regards as illegal “le horrible et perillous lien,” and treats as murder a death occasioned by it. In spite of this protest the process was rendered still more barbarous by piling weights of iron on the poor wretch, and finally the device of a press was adopted in which he was squeezed. In this shape it lost its original justification of wearing out his endurance and forcing him to plead either guilty or not guilty, and became a simple punishment of peculiar atrocity, for, after its commencement the prisoner was not allowed to plead, but was kept under the press until death, “donec oneris, frigoris atque famis cruciatu extinguitur” (Hale, Placit. Coron. c. xliii.). This relic of modern barbarism was not abolished until 1772, by 12 Geo. III. c. 20. The only case of its employment in America is said to have been that of Giles Cory, in 1692, during the witchcraft epidemic. Knowing the hopelessness of the trials, he refused to plead, and was duly pressed to death (Cobbett’s State Trials, VI. 680).

When the peine forte et dure had become simply a punishment, it was sometimes replaced by a torture consisting of tying the thumbs together with whipcord until the endurance of the accused gave way and he consented to plead. This practice continued at least until so late as 1734. See an interesting essay by Prof. James B. Thayer, Harvard Law Review, Jan. 1892.

[1844] Rogers, op. cit. p. 301.

[1845] Herzog, Abriss der Gesammten Kirchengeschichte, II. 346.

[1846] His arguments are quoted and controverted by Simancas, Bishop of Badajos, in his Cathol. Institut. Tit. LXV. No. 7, 8.

[1847] Essais, Liv. II. chap. v.—This passage is little more than a plagiarism on St. Augustin, de Civ. Dei Lib. XIX. cap. vi.—Montaigne further illustrates his position by a story from Froissart (Liv. IV. ch. lviii.), who relates that an old woman complained to Bajazet that a soldier had foraged on her. The Turk summarily disposed of the soldier’s denial by causing his stomach to be opened. He proved guilty—but what had he been found innocent?

[1848] Bayle, Dict. Hist. s. v. Grevius.—Gerstlacheri Comment. de Quæst. per Torment. Francof. 1753, pp. 25-6.

[1849] Frid. Kelleri Paradoxon de Tortura in Christ. Repub. non exercenda. Reimp. Jenæ, 1688.

[1850] Déclaration du 24 Août, 1780 (Isambert, XXVII. 374).

[1851] Nicolas is careful to assert his entire belief in the existence of sorcery and his sincere desire for its punishment, and he is indignant at the popular feeling which stigmatized those who wished for a reform in procedure as “avocats des sorciers.”

[1852] Dict. Histor. s. v. Grevius.

[1853] Bernhardi Diss. Inaug. cap. II. §§ iv. x.—Bernhardi ventured on the use of very decided language in denunciation of the system.—“Injustam, iniquam, fallacem, insignium malorum promotricem, et denique omni divini testimonii specie destitutam esse hanc violentam torturam et proinde ex foris Christianorum rejiciendam intrepide assero” (Ibid. cap. I. § 1).

[1854] Meyer, Institutions Judiciaires, IV. 297. Even, then, however, the inquisitorial process was not abolished, and criminal procedure continued to be secret. For the rack and strappado were substituted prolonged imprisonment and other expedients to extort confession; and in 1803 direct torture was used in the case of Hendrik Janssen, executed in Amsterdam on the strength of a confession extracted from him with the aid of a bull’s pizzle.

[1855] An enumeration of the opponents of torture may be found in Gerstlacher’s Comment. de Quæst. per Tormenta, pp. 24-30, and Werner’s Dissert. de Tortura Testium, pp. 28-31.

[1856] M. A. Engel de Tortura ex Foris Christ. non proscribenda. Lipsiæ, 1733.

[1857] Jo. Frid. Werner Dissert. de Tortura Testium, Erford. 1724. Reimpr. Lipsiæ, 1742.

[1858] Carlyle, Hist. Friedrich II. Book XI. ch. i.

[1859] I find this statement in an account by G. F. Günther (Lipsiæ, 1838) of the abolition of torture in Saxony.

[1860] Günther, op. cit.

[1861] Gerstlacheri Comment. de Quæst. per Tormenta, Francofurti, 1753, p. 56.

[1862] Goetzii Dissert. de Tortura, Lipsiæ, 1742, p. 24.

[1863] Constitutio Criminalis Theresiana, Wien, 1769.

[1864] Du Boys, Droit Criminel des Peuples Modernes, I. 620.

[1865] Instructions addressées par sa Majesté l’Impératrice de toutes les Russies à la Commission établie pour travailler à l’exécution du projet d’un Nouveau Code de Lois Art. X. §§ 82-87 (Pétersbourg 1769).—See also Grand Instructions of Catherine II., London, 1769, pp. 113-8.

[1866] Jardine, Use of Torture in England, p. 3.—Meyer, Institutions Judiciaires, T. I. p. xlvi.—T. II. p. 262.

[1867] Groot, Hist. Ecles. y Civil de Nueva Granada II. 79-80.

[1868] Toreno, Levantamiento, Guerra y Revolución de España, Paris, 1838, II. 371, 438.

[1869] Tant d’habiles gens et tant de beaux génies ont écrit contre cette pratique que je n’ose parler après eux. J’allois dire qu’elle pourroit convenir dans les gouvernements despotiques; où tout qui inspire la crainte entre plus dans les ressorts du gouvernement: j’allois dire que les esclaves, chez les Grecs et chez les Romains—— Mais j’entends la voix de la nature qui crie contre moi.—Liv. VI. ch. xvii.

[1870] Desmaze, Pénalités Anciennes, Pièces Justicatives p. 423.

[1871] Mary Lafon, Histoire du Midi de la France, T. IV. pp. 325-355.—The theory of the defence was that the murdered man had committed suicide; but this is incompatible with the testimony, much of which is given at length by Mary Lafon, a writer who cannot be accused of any leanings against Protestantism.

[1872] Chéruel, Dict. Hist. des Institutions de la France. P. II. p. 1220.

[1873] Déclaration du 24 Août 1780 (Isambert, XXVII. 373).

[1874] Desmaze, Pénalités Anciennes, pp. 176-77.

[1875] Déclaration du 3 Mai 1788, art. 8. “Nôtre déclaration du 24 Août sera exécutée” (Isambert, XXIX. 532).

[1876] Louīse, Sorcellerie et Justice Criminelle à Valenciennes, p. 96.

[1877] Isambert, XXIX. 529.—It is noteworthy, as a sign of the temper of the times, on the eve of the last convocation of the Notables, that this edict, which introduced various ameliorations in criminal procedure, and promised a more thorough reform, invites from the community at large suggestions on the subject, in order that the reform may embody the results of public opinion—“Nous élèverons ainsi au rang des lois les résultats de l’opinion publique.” This was pure democratic republicanism in an irregular form.

The edict also indicates an intention to remove another of the blots on the criminal procedure of the age, in a vague promise to allow the prisoner the privilege of counsel.

[1878] Dei Delitti e delle Pene, § XII.—The fundamental error in the prevalent system of criminal procedure was well exposed in Beccaria’s remark that a mathematician would be better than a legist for the solution of the essential problem in criminal trials—“Data la forza dei muscoli e la sensibilitá delle fibre di un innocente, trovare il grado di dolore che lo farà confessar reo di un dato delitto.”

[1879] Carlo di la Varenne, La Tortura in Sicilia, 1860.

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