By way of retribution, the monarch expressed his royal pleasure that no further duels should be allowed: indeed, this duel may be considered the last judicial one that has been recorded in France; although Charles IX. did authorize a combat between Albert de Luignes, who had been accused of treasonable practices by Panier, a captain in the guards. The parties fought in presence of the King and his court, in the wood of Vincennes: Panier inflicted a severe wound on the head of his opponent, who fell upon his knee; his seconds ran to his rescue; but Luignes, recovering himself, gave him a mortal thrust through the body. Nor was this the only instance where this weak and savage prince had recourse to the swords of others to rid himself of an enemy; he employed a famed bravo of the name of Maugerel to fight for him, who was therefore called the King’s Killer; and it is well known that he instructed Villequen to seek a quarrel with Lignerolles, the favourite and confidant of the Duke d’Anjou, while they were out hunting, on which occasion Lignerolles was killed.
While such was the practice in France, and other parts of the continent of Europe, England was not exempt from similar scenes of cruelty and superstition, and it was only during the reign of our Henry III. that the trial by ordeal, or ordaly, was abolished, in 1219: for, although several historians have doubted the fact, there is great reason to believe, from the barbarous customs of the times, that Edward the Confessor did actually compel Emma, the Queen Dowager, to the ordeal of the heated ploughshares, on the charge of her having participated in the murder of Alfred, besides having been guilty of a criminal intercourse with the Bishop of Winchester; the prelate very wisely refused to submit himself to a similar trial, by producing a letter written by Pope Stephen VI. to the Archbishop of Mayence in 887, in which he prohibited such practices.
The personal combat that is said to have taken place between Edmund Ironside and Canute, near Gloucester, appears to be a fabulous tradition, although the following account of it has been chronicled: “Edmund had the advantage of stature and of strength, but Canute possessed most address and activity. The conflict which took place in the presence of both their armies, was long and doubtful, until the Dane, beginning to lose ground, proposed an amicable settlement of their differences, thus addressing his adversary: ‘Valiant prince, have we not fought for a sufficient length of time to prove our courage? Let us therefore show proofs of our moderation; and, since we have equally shared the sun and the honour of this day, let us quit the field of battle and share the kingdom.’ ” This is evidently a fiction of romance, although there is some reason to believe that a challenge might have passed between them. We may view with similar hesitation of belief other no less chivalric relations of that important battle, in which it is stated that Edwi having cut off the head of one Osmer, whose countenance bore a strong resemblance to that of Edmund, had it carried on a spear, calling out to the English that their sovereign was no more; when Edmund, observing the consternation of his troops, took off his helmet to prove the error under which they laboured. It appears more probable that both these princes were compelled to enter into an amicable treaty by their own nobility and their troops, when Canute reserved to himself the northern division, and Edmund retained the sovereignty of the southern provinces.
Doubting the truth of this hostile personal meeting, several writers, amongst others Selden, maintain that duels were not known in England until the Norman invasion, when it is recorded that William sent a message by certain monks to Harold, requiring him either to resign the kingdom, submit their cause to the arbitration of the Pope, or fight him in single combat, to which Harold replied, that the God of battles would soon be the arbiter of their differences.
It has been observed, that, had the practice of duelling on such occasions been prevalent, the English chief could not, consistently with the laws of honour as then understood, have refused the challenge. It is, moreover, certain that at this period single combats were common in Normandy and other provinces in France; and what renders it probable that duelling, to ascertain rights maintained by the trial of combat, was introduced on the Norman accession, was the entrance of a champion in the ceremonial of the coronation, to this day preserved, who, casting down the gauntlet of defiance, declares himself ready to meet any one who dares contest the sovereign’s right to the throne, and originally to the dukedom of Normandy.
Prior to the Norman conquest we have no record of any duel or trial by battle, although the Anglo-Saxon laws were framed to prevent private quarrels and acts of vindictive violence. The law of Alfred enjoined, that if any one knows that his aggressor, after doing him an injury, is determined to keep within his own house, or on his own lands, he shall not fight him till he require compensation for the injury. If he be strong enough to besiege him in his house, he may do it for seven days; and, if the aggressor is willing during that time to surrender himself and his arms, his adversary may detain him thirty days, but is afterwards obliged to restore him safe to his kindred, and be contented with the compensation; but, if he refuses to deliver up his arms, it is then lawful to fight him. A slave might fight in his master’s quarrel; a father might fight in his son’s, with any one except with his master.
King Edmund, moreover, in the preamble to his laws, alluded to the multiplicity of private feuds and battles, established various enactments to check the evil; and regulated certain compensations for the loss of life, without any distinction between murder and manslaughter: every head had its price, from the king’s, that was valued at 30,000 thrimsas, considered to be about 1,300l. to that of a ceorle, or husbandman, 266; in this tariff, an archbishop’s head was rated at a much higher value than a monarch’s.
The price all wounds and injuries was also regulated: a wound of an inch long under the hair, one shilling; one of a like size in the face, two shillings; the loss of an ear, thirty shillings; and, according to the rare code of Ethelbert, any one who committed adultery with another man’s wife was obliged to buy him a new one.
This commutation for crimes appears to have been universal in ancient times. Blackstone informs us that in Ireland, by the Brehon laws, a murderer was obliged to give the surviving relatives of the slain a recompense, called Eviach. In Homer we have the same practice during the Trojan war; Nestor in his speech to Achilles thus addressing him:—If a brother bleed, On just atonement we remit the deed: A sire the slaughter of his son forgives: The price of blood discharged, the murderer lives. And again, in the 18th book of the Iliad, in the description of Achilles’s shield:— There in the Forum swarms a numerous train— The subject of debate, a townsman slain; One pleads the fine discharged, which one denied, And bade the public and the law decide.
The most curious part of this law of compensation was the weighing the value of a witness:—a man whose life was worth one hundred and twenty shillings counterbalanced six labourers, the life of each being estimated at twenty shillings; his oath was therefore considered equivalent to that of all the six.
These laws descended from the Germans, who, with the exception of the Frisians, sought to check the natural propensity of the people to acts of bloodthirsty revenge: thus we find, that if any man called another pare, or accused him of having lost his shield in battle, he had to pay a heavy fine; according to the laws of the Lombards, if a man called another arga, or “good for nothing,” he had a right to demand immediate satisfaction by arms.
These compensations and fines were called a fredum. For the proofs of guilt, ordeals similar to those described as having existed in France and other countries on the continent of Europe, were adopted in England: one of them, which was abolished in France by Louis le Debonnaire as impious, long prevailed amongst us—the decision of the cross.
The compurgators were to be freemen, and relations or neighbours of the accused, who