The _Almocadene_ or captain of foot soldiers, the _Alfaqueque_ or officer employed to treat for the ransom of captives from the Moors, and the _Comitre_ or captain of a ship, were appointed in a similar manner, and by the recommendation of a jury composed, not of members of the class to which the candidate belonged, but to members of the class to which he aspired. This circumstance alone settles the question; for it is a result of chivalric, and not of Barbarian manners; it reminds us of the squire who was dubbed knight by knights, and not of the warrior who was chosen or judged by his peers. I shall not follow the author in his researches on ordeal by boiling water and by fire, or upon trial by combat. Although we meet with traces of these customs in the old monuments of some Barbarian legislations, they were not the common law of modern peoples, during the first epoch of their establishment on the Roman territory. It was at a later period, and by the influence either of the corruption of religious ideas by superstition, or of the military organization of the feudal system, that they became developed, recognized, and formed into a veritable jurisprudence. The general facts of Europe do not, therefore, authorize us to conclude that, because they existed among the Spaniards in the fourteenth century, they also existed among the Visigoths in the seventh century. The almost absolute silence of the historic monuments of the first epoch, here retains all its authority. {250} Compurgation. The facts relative to compurgation, by the oath of a certain number of witnesses, are more important and more curious. "Compurgation," says our author, "is directed in express terms in all the Teutonic laws; but it does not appear to have been admissible in trials conducted according to the forms prescribed by the _Fuero juzgo_. Yet afterwards, this ordeal was widely spread as a _fuero_, both in civil and criminal trials. Though discountenanced by the legislature, it was retained in practice; and a forcible illustration is thus given of the stubbornness with which the Goths adhered to their usages and customs. _Trial by jury_, through it, in its germ was felt to be a benefit." "As an ancient and general usage of Castile, the trial is sanctioned in the _Fuero Viejo_. As a local custom or bye-law of the cities of Castile and Leon and their dependencies, it was very frequently established, or rather _declared_, by the charters granted by their founders.