[Footnote 88: The judicial combat appears to have been the most ancient mode of terminating controversies known to the northern nations in their original settlements. For _Velleius Paterculus_, (L. 2. c. 118) apprises us, that all those questions, which were decided among the Romans by legal trial, were terminated among the Germans by arms. It was introduced into most, if not all, of those European nations, whom the Gothic tribes subdued. In unison with their passion for arms, it was consecrated by their superstition. Countenanced by their Princes, and sanctioned not unfrequently by the Clergy, it long kept its ground. (Montesq. Spirit of Laws.) One of the earliest restrictions of the practice, which is said to occur in history, was that imposed by our Henry the First, but this merely prohibited the Trial by combat, in questions concerning property of small value. (Brussel usage des Fiefs, vol. ii. p. 962.) Louis the Seventh, of France, followed this example, and promulgated a similar law. This was imitated by St. Louis; but his regulations extended only to his own demesnes, (Hist. du France par le Père Daniel tom. 5. 259.) It was reserved for the steady and masterly hand of our Henry the Second, to give the death blow to the Trial by combat, by the introduction of the Grand Assise—a remedy which, if my memory does not grossly deceive me, is said by Roger Hoveden, to have been invented by Glanville.] [Footnote 89: The champion was relieved from the necessity of taking an oath, that he had seen or heard the fact, and that his ancestor desired him to deraign it, by the 41. c. West. 1. Until this alteration of the Law took place “it seldom happened,” says the act, “but that the champion of the Defendant (it should be Demandant, a translation the original French requires) is forsworn.” (2 Inst. 246.)]