[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.