preliminary oaths were to be taken, for churchmen were prohibited from being concerned in bloodshed.[501] These precepts and examples were equally unavailing. Churchmen continued to award the wager of battle, and resolutely resisted any invasion of their privileges. In 1150 the statutes of the chapter of Lausanne direct that all duels shall be fought before the provost—and the provost was Arducius, Bishop of Geneva.[502] In 1201 we see the Abbot of St. Alban’s and the Abbot of Westminster pleading as to their rights over the manor of Aldenham, including that of the duel.[503] Even in the thirteenth century, in the archbishop’s court or officiality of Reims, the duel was a matter of course;[504] and a case is recorded, occurring in 1224, in a dispute about the ownership of a house, which was decided by a duel in the court of the abbey of St. Remy, where the abbot presided over the lists and they were guarded by the royal officials.[505] In 1239 the Bishop of Orleans contested with the king as to the right of the former to the jurisdiction of the duel in his diocese;[506] and in a judgment rendered in 1269, concerning a combat waged within the limits of the chapter of Nôtre Dame of Paris, we find that the first blows of the fight, usually known as _ictus regis_ or _les cous lou roi_, are alluded to as _ictus capituli_.[507] How eagerly these rights were maintained is apparent from numerous decisions concerning contested cases. Thus, an agreement of 1193, between the Countess of St. Quentin and the chapter of Nôtre Dame, respecting the disputed jurisdiction of the town of Viry, gives the official of the chapter the right to decree duels, but places the lists under the supervision of both parties, and divides the spoils equally between each.[508] A charter of 1199, concerning the village of Marne, shows that the sergeant, or officer of the chapter, had the cognizance of causes up to the gaging of battle, after which further proceedings were reserved for the court of the bishop himself.[509] In 1219 the commune of Novara arrogated to itself the right of decreeing the duel, but the bishop resisted this invasion of his privileges, and on the matter being referred for arbitration to the Bishop of Turin he decided in favor of his episcopal brother. The Bishop of Modena had a long and expensive suit with his city on the same question, which ended in 1227 with a compromise by which he abandoned the right; the Bishops of Vercelli were more fortunate, for they maintained it until the beginning of the fourteenth century, when judicial duels were going out of fashion.[510] In 1257, while St. Louis was exerting himself with so much energy to restrict the custom, an abbey is found engaged in a suit with the crown to prove its rights to decree the duel, and to enjoy the fees and mulcts thence arising;[511] and in 1277 a similar suit on the part of the abbey of St. Vaast d’Arras was decided in its favor.[512] From a verdict given in 1293,