TRIAL BY COMBAT IN CIVIL CASES
In cases where this mode of trial for the possession of certain lands or other property was allowed by the court, and a combat followed, the further tenure of a holding in question would depend solely on the principle of battle, without any later appeal to the Grand Assize being permissible.
Before a trial by combat could be sanctioned the claimant in the suit was summoned before the court with his champion, who, once fixed upon, could not be changed, unless in the case of his “natural death” taking place in the interval before battle; but should he die “by his own fault, the lord shall lose his Sute.”
The defendant might either defend his cause in person or fight by deputy; but should he elect to be represented by champion and the one chosen should die in the interim it would become a question to be argued before the court as to whether or not the defendant should be allowed to appoint another in his place. The challenger or demandant was not allowed to fight in person.
Should the defendant, the “tenant,” be vanquished in the fight, then “the lord shall lose the land and the claimant shall have it”; but it often happened that a champion had been hired for some fee or reward, and if this should be proved the principal would lose his suit. Some particulars are given of a case of this kind[249] “betwixt Thomas fitz Hugh de Staunton and the prior of Lenton for the advousen of the church of Harlaston, in Northamptonshire.” Both parties to the suit were represented by champion, the appellant being a churchman, and they fought on foot in the lists, armed with bastons (i.e. polygonally-shaped maces or cudgels of heavy wood, tipped with horn: “basculi cornuti, bastons cornuz”).[250]