Page:Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds Vol 2.djvu/285

 When the lists were prepared, the countess duly acknowledged her champion, and the combatants commenced the onset. Gontran rode so fiercely at his antagonist, and hit him on the shield with such impetuosity, that he lost his own balance and rolled to the ground. The young count, as Gontran fell, passed his lance through his body, and then dismounting, cut off his head, which, Brantôme says, "he presented to the king, who received it most graciously, and was very joyful, as much so as if any one had made him a present of a city." The innocence of the countess was then proclaimed with great rejoicings; and she kissed her godson, and wept over his neck with joy, in the presence of all the assembly.

When the Earl of Essex was accused, by Robert de Montfort, before King Henry II., in 1162, of having traitorously suffered the royal standard of England to fall from his hands in a skirmish with the Welsh at Coleshill, five years previously, the latter offered to prove the truth of the charge by single combat. The Earl of Essex accepted the challenge, and the lists were prepared near Reading. An immense concourse of persons assembled to witness the battle. Essex at first fought stoutly, but, losing his temper and self-command, he gave an advantage to his opponent which soon decided the struggle. He was unhorsed, and so severely wounded, that all present thought he was dead. At the solicitation of his relatives, the monks of the Abbey of Reading were allowed to remove the body for interment, and Montfort was declared the victor. Essex, however, was not dead, but stunned only, and, under the care of the monks, recovered in a few weeks from his bodily injuries. The wounds of his mind were not so easily healed. Though a loyal and brave subject, the whole realm believed him a traitor and a coward because he had been vanquished. He could not brook to return to the world deprived of the good opinion of his fellows; he therefore made himself a monk, and passed the remainder of his days within the walls of the abbey.

Du Chastelet relates a singular duel that was proposed in Spain. A Christian gentleman of Seville sent a challenge to a Moorish cavalier, offering to prove against him, with whatever weapons he might choose, that the religion of Jesus Christ was holy and divine, and that of Mahomet impious and damnable. The Spanish prelates did not choose that Christianity should be compromised within their jurisdiction by the result of any such combat; the Moorish cavalier might, perchance, have proved to be the stronger, and they commanded the knight, under pain of excommunication, to withdraw the challenge.

The same author relates that, under Otho I., a question arose among jurisconsults, viz. whether grandchildren, who had lost their