It is rather to be accounted for by the fact that it originated in the customs of a warlike race, where force and superstition were a part of the habits and customs of the people. (Lea. “Superstition and Force,” 4 ed. p. 409.) The Burgundian and Lombard rulers, in accordance with the natural fighting tendency of their subjects, were brought to recognize the trial by battle, because it combined the physical joy of battle with the higher ideals of an approved formal procedure, whereby the virtue known as justice was supposed to be attained. In other words, the trial by battle was the natural expression of the inclinations of both ruler and subject of the period when it was established and crept into the established procedure of the period, just as naturally as did the superstitions of the past centuries,—the belief in witchcraft and ghosts,—find expression along with the gems of literature of the same and a later period. The institution was a product of the barbarism of the time. And trial by battle was recognized as a form of ordeal which obtained among the warlike German tribes from very ancient times, but it was not practiced by the ancestors of the Anglo-Saxons. (I. Pollock and Maitland’s History English Law, p. 51.) [11] Neilson, in speaking of the effect of chivalry, upon the trial by battle, observed: “It reached its legal prime in the early feudal ages and enjoyed a new era of activity under the auspices of later chivalry.” Neilson’s “Trial by Combat.” p. 1. [12] This is _de hors_ the subject at hand, but demonstrates that chivalry and heroism are still abroad in the land and that these virtues are confined to no particular class. [13] 3 Cooley’s Bl. Com. 104; Coke, Litt. 261. [14] _Ante idem._ [15] Comyns Dig. 252. Neilson states that private duels succeeded trial by battle, in the 16’ and 17’ centuries, but of course trial by battle was not abolished in England until the year 1819, and duelling had continued for several centuries then. (Neilson’s “Trial by Combat,” pp. 18, 328.) [16] Coke, Litt. 261. [17] 2 Hawk. P. C. c. 45. [18] Neilson’s “Trial by Combat,” p. 40. [19] Coke, III. Inst. 157; I. Russell, Crimes, 495. That Trial by Battle was introduced into England by the Normans, is now quite generally conceded. “One ordeal the Normans recognized which had no place in English law, namely, the ordeal of battle.” I. Pollock and Maitland’s History Eng. Law, p. 74.