If the principle of this rough combatant justice be once admitted, it must be acknowledged that a spirit of wisdom dictated every possible precaution to render its inconveniences as few as possible. The duel, in fact, only took place when a crime punishable by death had been committed, and then only when there were no witnesses to the crime, but merely grave suspicions against the supposed criminal. All persons less than twenty-one or more than sixty years of age, priests (Fig. 125), invalids, and women (Fig. 126), were dispensed from taking part in these combats, and were allowed to be represented by champions. If the two parties to a dispute were of a different rank in life, certain regulations were drawn up in favour of the plaintiff. A knight who challenged a serf was forced to fight with a serf’s weapons, that is to say, with a shield and a staff, and to wear a leathern jerkin; if, on the contrary, the challenge came from the serf, the knight was allowed to fight as a knight, that is to say, on horseback and in armour. It was customary for the two parties to a judicial duel to appear before their count or lord; after reciting his wrongs, the plaintiff threw down his gage--generally a glove or gauntlet--which his adversary then exchanged for his own as a sign that he accepted the challenge. Both were then led to the seignorial prison, where they were detained till the day fixed for the combat, unless they could obtain substantial sureties who would make themselves responsible for their safe custody, and bind themselves, in case their bailee failed to appear at the appointed time, to undergo the penalties attached to the committal of the act that had necessitated the appeal to arms. This was termed the _vice prison_. [Illustration: Fig. 127.--“How the plaintiff and the defendant take the final oath before the judge.”--Fac-simile of a Miniature in “Cérémonies des Gages de Bataille,” a Manuscript of the Fifteenth Century in the National Library of Paris.]