Page:Select Essays in Anglo-American Legal History, Volume 1.djvu/134

 120 //. FROM THE llOO'S TO THE 1800'S the neighbourhood, and confessing his sins from his youth up, he was bidden to hope in the prayers of the blessed Vir- gin and of all the saints against the awful terrors of the law, and received a rod to scourge himself five times daily; while through the gloom shone the glimmer of hope that having been baptized on the vigil of Pentecost, water could not drown him nor fire burn him if he were sent to the ordeal. At last the month went by and he was again carried to the Shire Court, now at Leighton Buzzard, In vain he demanded single combat with Fulk, or the ordeal by fire ; Fulk, who had been bribed with an ox, insisted on the ordeal of water, so that he should by no means escape. Another month passed in the jail of Bedford before he was given up to be exam- ined by the ordeal. Whether he underwent it or whether he pleaded guilty when the judges met is uncertain, but how- ever this might be, " he received the melancholy sentence of condemnation ; and being taken to the place of punishment, his eyes were pulled out and he was mutilated, and his mem- bers were buried in the earth in the presence of a multitude of persons.". . . 7t~^ Such were in brief outline some of the difficulties which made order and justice hard to win. Society was helpless to protect itself: news spread slowly, the communication of thought was difficult, common action was impossible. Amid all the shifting and half understood problems of mediaeval times there was only one power to which men could look to protect them against lawlessness, and that was the power of the king. No external restraints were set upon his action ; his will was without contradiction. The mediasval world with fervent faith believed that he was the very spring and source of justice. In an age when all about him was changing, and when there was no organized machinery for the admin- istration of law, the king had himself to be judge, lawgiver, soldier, financier, and administrator; the great highways and rivers of the kingdom were in " his peace ; " the greater towns were in his demesne; he was guardian of the poor and defender of the trader; he was finance minister in a society where economic conditions were rapidly changing; he represented a developed system of law as opposed to the