[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.