Page:A History of the Knights of Malta, or the Order of St. John of Jerusalem.djvu/579

Rh six months’ imprisonment, and if the wound be serious and dangerous they shall lose seniority. If any member shall insult another in the palace of the Grand-Master, he shall lose three years’ seniority if he has it already, or if not, then as soon as he shall have attained it; for an insult in an auberge he shall lose two years. If the disputants come to Mows they shall be stripped of their habit, and if either party be wounded they shall lose their habit without remission, and if he be killed the survivor shall be handed over to the secular power.”

The following are the crimes for which the statutes decreed the loss of habit in perpetuity:—“Those convicted of being heretics, guilty of unnatural offences, assassins, or thieves; those who have joined the ranks of the infidel, amongst whom are to be classed those who surrender our standard or other ensign when it is unfurled in presence of the enemy; also those who abandon their comrades during the fight, or who give shelter to the infidel, together with all who are parties to, or cognizant of so great a treason.” Privation of habit for one year was to be inflicted upon any one who, “when under arms, shall have left the ranks to plunder, also upon any one who brings an accusation against another without being able to substantiate his charge.” “A knight who has committed a murder shall be deprived of his habit in perpetuity and kept in prison in order to prevent others from becoming so hardened as to commit a similar crime, and that the company of our brethren may be quiet and peaceable. Whoever wounds any person treason. ably in secret or by malice prepen8e shall lose his habit in perpetuity.”

The question of duelling was rather curiously dealt with in the statutes and customs of the Order. It was strictly forbidden by the former, and the severest penalties were attached to any infringement of the law which ran thus:—“To check the impiety of those who, neglecting the safety of their souls, invite others to a duel and expose their bodies to a cruel death, we decree that if one brother provoke another, or if he defy him either by speech or in writing, by means of a second, or in any other manner, and that the one who is called out does not accept the duel, in addition to the penalties decreed by the sacred council, and by the constitution of Gregory XIII. of blessed memory,