Page:Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds Vol 2.djvu/278

 and spectators, declaring the custom to be hellish and detestable, and introduced by the devil for the destruction both of body and soul. They added also, that princes who connived at duels should be deprived of all temporal power, jurisdiction, and dominion over the places where they had permitted them to be fought. It will be seen hereafter that this clause only encouraged the practice which it was intended to prevent.

But it was the blasphemous error of these early ages to expect that the Almighty, whenever he was called upon, would work a miracle in favour of a person unjustly accused. The priesthood, in condemning the duel, did not condemn the principle on which it was founded. They still encouraged the popular belief of divine interference in all the disputes or differences that might arise among nations or individuals. It was the very same principle that regulated the ordeals, which with all their influence they supported against the duel. By the former, the power of deciding the guilt or innocence was vested wholly in their hands; while by the latter they enjoyed no power or privilege at all. It is not to be wondered at that, for this reason, if for no other, they should have endeavoured to settle all differences by the peaceful mode. While that prevailed, they were, as they wished to be, the first party in the state; but while the strong arm of individual prowess was allowed to be the judge in all doubtful cases, their power and influence became secondary to those of the nobility.

Thus it was not the mere hatred of bloodshed which induced them to launch the thunderbolts of excommunication against the combatants: it was a desire to retain the power, which, to do them justice, they were in those times the persons best qualified to wield. The germs of knowledge and civilisation lay within the bounds of their order; for they were the representatives of the intellectual, as the nobility were of the physical power of man. To centralise this power in the Church, and make it the judge of the last resort in all appeals, both in civil and criminal cases, they instituted five modes of trial, the management of which lay wholly in their hands. These were, the oath upon the evangelists; the ordeal of the cross and the fire ordeal, for persons in the higher ranks; the water ordeal, for the humbler classes; and, lastly, the corsned, or bread and cheese ordeal, for members of their own body.

The oath upon the evangelists was taken in the following manner. The accused who was received to this proof, says Paul Hay, Count du Chastelet, in his Memoirs of Bertrand du Guesclin, swore upon a copy of the New Testament, and on the relics of the holy martyrs, or on their tombs, that he was innocent of the crime imputed to him. He