[298] Assize Wil. 15. This was not the result of “Celtic barbarism;” for two centuries after the reign of William the Frisons still claimed their right to “blood for blood.” Leg. Fris. Tit. 2, n. 5, (Canc.) Vide also Appendix E.
[299] Lex. Sax. Tit. 2.
[300] According to the laws of Athelstan, iv. 7, the simple ordeal of water was to take a stone out of boiling water as deep as the wrist; the triple ordeal deepened the water to the elbow. The ordeal of iron was to walk nine feet over hot iron; sometimes to carry it, probably the same distance. In all cases the hand or foot was bound up and inspected three days afterwards. If it had healed, the man was pronounced innocent. The ordeal of cold water was the dyke-pot, to which poor wretches accused of witchcraft were too often subjected.
[301] Velleius Paterculus, l. 2, c. 118 (quoted by Blackstone).
[302] Assize Wil. 7. Ath. v. 8. I. 11.
[303] A passage in the laws of Childeric ad an. 550, somewhat unintelligible indeed, seems to point to this, where, in reference to the “duodecim juratores,” it is said, “Propterea non est sacramentum in Francis, quando illi legem composuerunt, non erant Christiani.” Pertz. Leg., vol. 2, p. 6, c. 4. The only meaning I can make out of it is, “For this cause there is no oath amongst the Franks—no provision for compurgation in their code—when they made their laws they were not Christians.” The passage has rather a colloquial form, like the Welsh Triads or the Irish laws, so often framed in question and answer; pointing to an age in which the law was not written but committed to memory.
[304] On such occasions, by Welsh law, if an Alltud joined in the combat to make up the necessary number of combatants, and escaped with life, he ranked as a full-born member of the kindred for whom he had entered the lists. In the battle on the North Inch of Perth thirty men appeared on each side, armed with bows, axes, swords, and daggers, but without defensive armour. The number resembles the triple oath of “three Thanes and twenty-seven leil men,” by which the lord of the prison from which a thief escaped was bound to clear himself; the equipment was probably that required in the old “Scottish service.” It is generally supposed that the contest was for the chieftainship of the Clan Chattan, but it seems very doubtful that this was the case. The oldest account of the battle, which took place on 28th September 1396, is contained in a memorandum in the Reg. Morav. p. 382, which says that thirty of the Clan Hay fought thirty of the Clan Qwhwle “quia firma pax non poterat intra duas parentelas.” Four years previously, in the second year of Robert III., the latter clan had figured as the Clan Qwhevil under Slurach and his brothers, in the raid upon Angus, celebrated by Wynton, bk. ix., c. 14. Act. Parl. Scot., v. 1, p. 217. They were the victors, and the Clan Hay disappears for ever; but the Clan Chewill figures in a Roll of Clans of the sixteenth century as a distinct family from the Clan Chattan and Macphersons. Col. de Reb. Alb., p. 39.
[305] Heimsk. St. Olaf. Saga, c. 76, 80.
[306] Capit. Carl. Mag. Pertz. Leg., vol. 1, p. 121.
[307] Arch. Adm. de Rheims, vol. 1, p. 35. The seven assessors of the Graphio seem to have been originally known as Rachimburgii, who, according to Edict. Chilp. 7 (Pertz. Leg., vol. 2, p. 10), were to be “Antrustiones boni credentes.” They were afterwards known more generally as Scabini, and numbered twelve in the Carlovingian era. Cap. Leg. Sal. Add. ad an. 819, 1, 2, (Do. vol. 1, p. 227). Vide also Ap. Form. Marc. Canc. vol. 2, p. 247, note 3. The number of compurgators appears to have been occasionally seven as well as twelve (Cap. Add. Leg. Rip. ad an. 803, s. 10. Canc. vol. 2, p. 320), and a similar number is also sometimes assigned to the mystic “Peers of Charlemagne,” a body which perhaps may have owed its creation to some confused idea in later times that the Graphio and his assessors were but the reflection of “nostrum placitum generale.” The Sagibaro seems to have been of a lower class than the Rachimburg or Scabinus, for the latter was necessarily an Antrustion or nobleman, the former if ingenuus was raised to this rank by his office, and might be a Lœt (V. Wergilds). As any cause decided by the three Sagibarones could not be reopened before the Graphio, it is evident that they sat in the lesser Courts. Lex. Sal. 56.