In 668, Grimoald made some alteration in the laws of Rotharis; but confirmed the right of women accused of an adulterous intercourse to appoint a champion to defend their fame. In 713, Luitprand confirmed the laws, but abrogated that part of them which confiscated the property of the vanquished. The language of his edict showed clearly that it was issued with repugnance:—“We are not convinced of the justice of what is called the judgement of God, since we have found that many innocent persons have perished in defending a good cause; but this custom is of such antiquity amongst the Lombards, that we cannot abolish it, notwithstanding its impiety.”
Charlemagne, who succeeded to the crown of Lombardy in 774, exerted himself, both in France and Italy, to put an end to, or at least to check the practice; and it was chiefly from the Italian nobility that he met with opposition. In many instances we find the chivalrous spirit of the day nobly exerted to repress depredations. In 807 we read of a duel between a French knight-errant, De Medicis, and a bandit named Mugel, who had ravaged a district of the Florentine state, which has ever since been called Mugello.
When the Othos governed the Italian dominions, it was at the urgent request of the Italian nobility, that Otho II, in an assembly at Verona in 988, re-established the practice of duelling in all its vigour, not even exempting from the obligation the clergy, or women; and while personal combat had to decide between the guilty and the innocent, trials by ordeal, similar to those already detailed, were constantly resorted to. George Acropolites relates the case of an Italian archbishop, who recommended one of his deacons to submit to the trial by fire; to this the priest did not object, provided the red-hot iron was handed to him by his diocesan, who then thought it advisable to decline the ordeal on the plea that it was sinful to tempt God.
The progress of civilization in the rude manners of the times, which resulted from the discovery of the pandects at Amalfi, did not prove sufficiently powerful to check this ancient practice; and we find Charles Tocco, a celebrated Neapolitan professor, maintaining that the practice of duelling ought to be kept up, however condemnable in principle.
During the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the Italian press teemed with works on the noble nature of the science of duelling, which was held out to the admiration of the world in the most elegant language, although in the eleventh century the establishment of municipal corporations materially checked these chivalric excesses. It was in the thirteenth century that we see Mainfroi, natural son of Frederic II, murdering the Emperor Conrad, and killed in turn by Charles d’Anjou, who usurped the throne of Conradin, a young prince whom we find casting his gauntlet to defy the usurper, who ordered his head to be struck off in a public square at Naples. A knight had the boldness to take up the gauntlet, and carried it to Peter III, King of Arragon, who avenged the death of Conradin by the massacre of the Sicilian vespers, while he renewed the challenge of the ill-fated prince, and defied Charles d’Anjou, although sixty years old, to single combat: a challenge which was accepted, notwithstanding the King of Arragon was only forty years of age. The personal conflict, however, was avoided in the following manner:—Peter sent a message to Charles, to settle the point with each other at the head of a hundred chosen knights. Charles, despite the injunctions of the Pope, rashly accepted the proposal, and our Edward I. appointed the field at Bordeaux, the day being fixed on the 1st of July 1282. Trusting to the faith of Peter, Charles raised the siege of Messina. The Pope fulminated his anathema from the Vatican, and excommunicated the Arragonese prince, who, however, treated his wrath with sovereign contempt. The day of the meeting, Charles, faithful to his engagement, entered the field at the head of his hundred knights, and remained there from sun-rise to sunset, awaiting his adversary, who did not make his appearance until Charles had retired, when, with true Spanish rodomontade, he galloped and curveted over the field, and declared that he had not found his craven antagonist.
It had been stipulated, that the defaulter in this meeting should be branded with the name of traitor, and declared perjured, cowardly, and eternally infamous, worthless of all regal title or honour, and condemned for ever after to be merely followed by a humble menial.
It appears that Charles came to the lists with his uncle, Philippe le Hardi, King of France; and it is to this circumstance that the conduct of the King of Arragon was attributed. A paper war between the two princes followed; and, as both treated their adversaries as cravens, the merits of the cause were never fairly determined; while the learned Alciat declared, Dubitatum fuit utrius causa esset justior.
From that period arose the endless differences between the houses of Anjou and Arragon, regarding the succession to the Neapolitan crown. The Arragonese having carried their point, Charles VIII. of France, towards the latter end of the fifteenth century, as heir to Louis XI, renewed the contest, and involved his successors in ruinous wars.
Louis I, head of the second house of Anjou, was duped in 1382 in the same manner as his predecessor Charles, by Charles III, a challenge having been mutually accepted,—in which case both parties upbraided each other with falsehood. Louis appeared at the camp, when Charles attacked his army by surprise, and Louis, severely wounded in the treacherous conflict, shortly after died.
Naples, at this period, was the theatre of duelling; its practice became a science regularly professed by celebrated teachers, as the Scienza Cavalleresca, and Alberic Balbiano, constable of Naples, instituted a military order, under the patronage of St. George, for the due maintenance of this honourable pursuit. The knights of this noble institution wandered about the country plundering and pillaging, but ever ready to give satisfaction to all who considered themselves aggrieved. The accollade of knighthood was accompanied by the following injunction:—“The stroke of this sword is the last that you shall patiently submit to.” In the practice of this science, dexterity and cunning cuts and thrusts became accomplishments, and disarming an adversary a high feat of honour, since it afforded the right to kill the disarmed champion without further resistance or trouble.