[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).