Although the Church was the protectress of chivalry, and even invested it with an almost sacred dignity, she always refused to extend her protection to tournaments, tilts, and assaults of arms, brilliant, but often dangerous manifestations of the chivalric spirit, and particularly to judicial duels, which were of German origin, and which dated from a period long prior to the institution of Christian chivalry. When the Church found itself obliged to show indulgence to these ancient traditions, which custom had interwoven with the habits of the Middle Ages, she did so in as reserved a manner as possible. She was always indignantly protesting against the barbarous custom which compelled or allowed women, children, churches, and convents, to choose from among the knights a special champion (campeador) who should be always ready to sustain against all the patron’s cause. The Church, while approving the generous protection which chivalry extended to the weak and to the oppressed, always endeavoured to destroy the savage doctrine of paganism which confounded might with right; but it was in vain that she opposed all her influence and authority to the custom of duelling; she was obliged to restrict herself to lessening the evil effects of the opinions that generally prevailed, without hoping to destroy the opinions themselves.
The point of honour had no existence in the breasts of the warriors of antiquity. They sacrificed themselves to their country and to the commonwealth, and they loved glory—a sentiment which with them was collective and not individual, for with them society, as a whole, was everything, its unit, nothing. The modern duel, whether it be considered a brutal and speedy method of settling private quarrels, or a proper act of submission to the divine will which cannot fail to crown right with success, springs from the strong individuality of barbarism, and from the personal tendency of savage dignity and independence.
Fig. 125.—Fight between Raymbault de Morueil and Guyon de Losenne. The Abbot of St. Denis at the feet of the Archbishop of Paris, taking oath that his cause, defended by Raymbault, is a just one.—Fac-simile of a Miniature in the “Romance of Charles Martel,” enlarged by David Aubert. Manuscript of the Fifteenth Century, in the Burgundian Library, Brussels.
This strange confusion of ideas relative to victory and innocence, to might and right, first gave rise to trial by ordeal, or the judgment of God, which included ordeal by fire, by boiling water, by the cross, and by the sword, to which women, and even princesses, were subjected. Mankind, in the simplicity of its belief, appealed to God, the sovereign judge, and implored Him to grant strength and victory to the just cause. Trial by ordeal fell into discredit about the time of Charlemagne, and was superseded, towards the latter half of the twelfth century, by the judicial duel. The institution of chivalry favoured this hasty method of decision, which was in accordance with the manners and ideas of the period. Questions which otherwise would have been difficult to solve were thus abruptly settled, and from these bloody decisions there was no appeal. In some countries, indeed, the judge who had decided between two antagonists had himself to submit to the judgment of God, as represented by the judicial duel, and was forced to come down from his judgment-seat and contend in arms against the criminal he had just condemned. On the other hand, however, it must be said that the judge, in his turn, possessed the privilege of challenging a prisoner who refused to bow to his decision.
Fig. 126.—Duel concerning the Honour of Ladies.—Fac-simile of a Miniature in the “Histoire de Gérard de Nevers,” a Manuscript of the Fifteenth Century, in the National Library of Paris.
If the principle of this rough combatant justice be once admitted, it must be acknowledged that a spirit of wisdom dictated every possible precaution to render its inconveniences as few as possible. The duel, in fact, only took place when a crime punishable by death had been committed, and then only when there were no witnesses to the crime, but merely grave suspicions against the supposed criminal. All persons less than twenty-one or more than sixty years of age, priests (Fig. 125), invalids, and women (Fig. 126), were dispensed from taking part in these combats, and were allowed to be represented by champions. If the two parties to a dispute were of a different rank in life, certain regulations were drawn up in favour of the plaintiff. A knight who challenged a serf was forced to fight with a serf’s weapons, that is to say, with a shield and a staff, and to wear a leathern jerkin; if, on the contrary, the challenge came from the serf, the knight was allowed to fight as a knight, that is to say, on horseback and in armour. It was customary for the two parties to a judicial duel to appear before their count or lord; after reciting his wrongs, the plaintiff threw down his gage—generally a glove or gauntlet—which his adversary then exchanged for his own as a sign that he accepted the challenge. Both were then led to the seignorial prison, where they were detained till the day fixed for the combat, unless they could obtain substantial sureties who would make themselves responsible for their safe custody, and bind themselves, in case their bailee failed to appear at the appointed time, to undergo the penalties attached to the committal of the act that had necessitated the appeal to arms. This was termed the vice prison.
Fig. 127.—“How the plaintiff and the defendant take the final oath before the judge.”—Fac-simile of a Miniature in “Cérémonies des Gages de Bataille,” a Manuscript of the Fifteenth Century in the National Library of Paris.