The church laboured likewise for the suppression of a great many barbarous practices, and for the amelioration of the criminal and civil legislation. Although containing certain principles of liberty, the laws were absurd, and fruitful of injustice; the most stupid ordeals, the judicial combat, and the unsupported oaths of a specified number of men, were esteemed the only means of arriving at the discovery of truth. The church strove to have more rational and legitimate means substituted. I have already spoken of the difference observable between the laws of the Visigoths, derived principally from the councils of Toledo, and the other barbarian laws. It is impossible to compare them, without being struck with the immense superiority of the ideas of the church on the subject of legislation and the administration of justice, in all that relates to the investigation of truth and of what is befitting to man. Doubtless most of these ideas were borrowed from the Roman legislation; but if the church had not preserved and asserted them, and done its utmost to propagate them, they would certainly have perished. For example, the employment of the oath in process is wisely regulated in the law of the Visigoths. 'Let the judge, in order fully to understand the cause, first interrogate the witnesses, and then examine the writings, so that the truth may be discovered with more certainty, and the oath not too lightly administered. A determination according to truth and justice requires that the writings on both sides be carefully examined, and that the necessity for the oath, kept in suspense over the heads of the parties, come upon them unexpectedly. Let the oath be administered only in causes in which the judge shall not succeed in discovering any writing, any proof, or any certain clue to the truth.'--(For. Jud. 1. ii. tit. i. 1. 21.)