The trials by hot iron and water were similar to those already described. In addition to these ordalies was the trial by the consecrated bread and cheese, or Corsned, commonly appealed to by the clergy when they were accused of any crime, and adopted by them, since it was not attended with danger or inconvenience. This ordeal was performed in the following manner:—A piece of barley-bread and a piece of cheese were consecrated; and prayers were then put up, to supplicate that God would send his angel Gabriel to stop the gullet of the priest, so that he might not be able to swallow the sacred bread and cheese, if he were guilty. This ceremony being concluded, the accused approached the altar, and took up the testing food: if he swallowed freely, he was declared innocent; if, on the contrary, it stuck in his throat, (which we may presume was rarely the case,) he was pronounced guilty. Our historians assert that Godwin Earl of Kent, in the reign of Edward the Confessor, abjuring the death of the King’s brother, at last appealed to the Corsned, “per buccellam deglutiendam abjuravit,” which stuck in his throat and killed him.
Whether, in the settlement of feuds, pecuniary compensation was deemed more satisfactory than the adversary’s blood, it is not an easy matter to decide; but certain it is, that duels do not appear, until the period alluded to, to have been as frequent in England as upon the Continent. Good cheer, and good horses, seem to have been considered as equivalent to cash: we find in our history a woman giving two hundred fat hens to the sovereign for permission to spend one night in prison with her husband, and bringing the monarch one hundreds fowls on account; while another unlucky wight gave five of his best palfreys to his sovereign lord the King to induce him to be silent regarding a faux pas of his wife. But, once established, it appears that trials by battle prevailed in England for a longer period than in any other country.
In 1096, William Count d’Eu, having been accused of a conspiracy against William Rufus by Godefroi Baynard, engaged him in single combat at Salisbury, in presence of the King and the whole court: the unfortunate count, having been worsted, was forthwith ordered to be emasculated, after both his eyes had been put out; his esquire at the same time whipped, and then hanged. Jussuque ideò Regis et concilii, ejiciuntur illi oculi testiculique abscinduntur; dapifero suo Willielmo de Aldori, filio amitæ ejus, sæviter flagellato et suspenso.
On Henry II.’s invasion of Wales, Henry de Essex, the hereditary standard-bearer, having been accused of felony by Robert de Montfort, his own relation, for dropping the standard on the field of battle and taking to flight, exclaiming that the King was killed, the parties met in single combat near Reading Abbey, where Essex was left for dead upon the field. However, upon his body being borne to the abbey, the monks perceived some traces of life; and, instead of his being hanged according to custom, the brethren of the monastery recovered him; but, as he was considered morally dead, he spent the remainder of his days in their holy cloisters.
From the time of William of Normandy, until that of Henry II, trial by single combat was the only honourable mode of decision of battle of right, until the alternative of the grand assizes, or the trial by jury, was instituted by the latter sovereign.
When the tenant in a writ of right pleaded the general issue, and offered to decide the cause by the body of a champion, a piece of ground was selected sixty feet square, inclosed with lists, and on one side a court was erected for the accommodation of the judges of the court of Common Pleas, who attended there in their scarlet robes: a bar was also prepared for the sergeants learned in law. When the court sat, which was before sun-rising, proclamation was made for both parties and their champions: the latter were introduced by two knights, and were dressed in a coat of mail, with red sandals, bare-legged from the knee downwards, bare-headed, and with arms bare to the elbows. The weapons allowed them were batons, or staves of an ell long, and a four-cornered leathern target, so that death very seldom ensued from these civil combats. In the court military, however, they fought with sword and lance.
When the champions thus armed arrived within the lists, or place of combat, the champion of the tenant took his adversary by the hand, and made oath that the tenement in dispute was not the right of the demandant; the champion of the demandant of course took a contrary oath. Another oath was then taken against sorcery and enchantment, in the following form:
“Hear this, ye justices, that I have neither eaten, drunk, nor have I upon me either bone, stone, or grass—no enchantment, sorcery, or witchcraft, whereby the law of God may be abased, or the law of the devil exalted; so help me God and his saints!”
The battle then began, and the combatants were bound to fight till the stars appeared in the evening; and, if the champion of the tenant could defend himself till the stars appeared, the tenant prevailed in his cause, and the vanquished was proclaimed a Craven: a degradation of the highest importance; for when a champion had once admitted that he was “Craven,” or one who craves for mercy, he ceased to be a freeman—liber et legalis homo, and, having been proved forsworn, was no longer eligible as a juryman, or in any manner entitled to belief or respect.
In appeals of felony, the parties were obliged to fight in their proper persons, unless the appellant were a woman, a priest, or an infant—of the age of sixty, lame, or blind; in either which cases, he or she counter-pleaded, and threw themselves upon the country. Peers of the realm could not be challenged to wage battle; nor the citizens of London, it being specified in their charter that fighting was foreign to their education and employment.
In regard to trial by battle in civil cases, the mystic appeal to the judgment of God at this period was abandoned, and the institution of chivalry gave to personal combats a character totally different.
CHAPTER V.
INSTITUTION OF CHIVALRY AND DUELS.
Mistaken views of religion no longer presided over bloodshed, and priests found that they gradually lost the power of controlling the unruly by their simple commands; it therefore became necessary that their influence over those who could support their power by arms should be of a more permanent and efficacious nature. Youth, upon whose future courage and energies they could depend, were now enrolled in an instituted body; and the assumption of arms, so soon as they were able to wield them, became a solemn religious rite: until they could don their armour, they were clad in white, like clerical neophytes; and, as Scott truly observes, “the investiture of chivalry was brought to resemble, as near as possible, the administration of the sacraments of the church.”
Still this combination of religious and military zeal was not considered sufficient to lead a man to risk his life blindly, and the art and the all-powerful aid of woman were invoked.
Gallantry now presided over deeds of arms; which, to use the words of Montesquieu, was not love, but its light, delicate, and perpetual errors.
An ingenious writer, C. Moore, has described the origin of chivalric laws and customs in the following passage:—“War, and the single combat, were still the ruling passions of the soul; and whatever improvement had militated against these favourite and ferocious ideas would have been treated with the utmost contempt and indignation. Some, however, whose minds were more enlightened, endeavoured to turn this torrent of courage and military violence upon itself, and to the correction of its own abuses. They formed themselves into martial societies for the relief of injured innocence and distressed virtue; for the redress of all oppressions and grievances; for the protection of the weak and defenceless, particularly of the fair sex; for the correction of abuses, and the general promotion of the public utility and safety. But, in compliance with the strong prejudices of the times, all was still to be determined by the sword, and by feats of personal valour. Such was the introduction of chivalry and knight-errantry.”
For the honour of mankind,