There was one jurisdiction which held itself more carefully aloof from the prevailing influence of barbarism—that of the Admiralty Courts, which covered a large portion of practical mercantile law. This is a fact easily explicable, not only from the character of the parties and of the transactions for which those courts were erected, but from the direct descent of the maritime codes from the Roman law, less modified by transmission than any other portions of mediæval jurisprudence. These codes, though compiled at a period when the wager of battle flourished in full luxuriance, have no reference to it whatever, and the Assises de Jerusalem expressly allude to the Admiralty Courts as not admitting the judicial duel in proof,[519] while an English document of 12 Edward III. attests the same principle.[520] When, however, the case was one implying an accusation of theft or deception, as in denying the receipt of cargo, the matter entered into the province of criminal law, and the battle trial might be legitimately ordered.[521] CHAPTER VI. REGULATIONS OF THE JUDICIAL COMBAT. The forms and ceremonies employed in the judicial duel may furnish an interesting subject of investigation for the admirers of chivalry, but they teach in their details little concerning the habits and modes of thought of the Middle Ages, and for the most part are therefore interesting only to the pure archæologist. Although minute directions have come down to us in the manuals compiled for the guidance of judges of the lists, to enumerate them in their varying fashions would hardly be worth the necessary space. Yet there are some details which are of interest as illustrating both the theory and practice of the duel in its legal aspect. Thus the general principle on which the combat was conducted was the absolute assertion by each party of the justice of his cause, confirmed by a solemn oath on the Gospels, or on a relic of approved sanctity, before the conflict commenced.[522] Defeat was thus not merely the loss of the suit, but was also a conviction of perjury, to be punished as such; and in criminal cases it was also a conviction of malicious prosecution on the part of a worsted appellant. That it was regarded as much more serious than the simple loss of a suit is shown by the provisions of the custom of Normandy, whereby a vanquished combatant was classed with perjurers, false witnesses, and other infamous persons, as incapable thenceforth of giving evidence in courts, or of serving on a jury.[523] Accordingly, we find the vanquished party, whether plaintiff or defendant, subjected to penalties more or less severe, varying with time and place.