As the Barbarians established themselves on the ruins of the Roman Empire and embraced Christianity they, with one exception, cultivated the institution of the ordeal with increased ardor. This exception is found in the Gothic nations, and is ascribable, as we have seen when treating of the judicial combat, to the influence of the Roman customs and laws which they adopted. For nearly two centuries after their settlement, there is no allusion in their body of laws to any form of ordeal. It was not until 693, long after the destruction of their supremacy in the south of France, and but little prior to their overthrow in Spain by the Saracens, that King Egiza, with the sanction of a Council of Toledo, issued an edict commanding the employment of the _æneum_ or ordeal of boiling water.[875] Various causes were at work among the other tribes to stimulate the favor with which the ordeal was regarded. As respects the wager of battle I have already traced its career as a peculiarly European form of the Judgment of God, which was fostered by the advantage which it gave, in the times of nascent feudalism, to the bold and reckless. With regard to the other forms, one reason for their increased prevalence is doubtless to be found in the universal principle of the Barbarians, in their successive settlements, to allow all races to retain their own jurisprudence, however much individuals might be intermingled, socially and politically. The confusion to which this gave birth is well set forth by St. Agobard, when he remarks that frequently five men shall be found in close companionship, each one owning obedience to a different law. He also states that under the Burgundian rules of procedure, no one was allowed to bear witness against a man of different race.[876] Under these circumstances, in a large proportion of cases there could be no legal evidence attainable, and recourse was had of necessity to the Judgment of God. Even when this rule was not in force, a man who appealed to Heaven against the testimony of a witness of different origin would be apt to find the court disposed to grant his request. If the judge, moreover, was a compatriot of one of the pleaders, the other would naturally distrust his impartiality, and would prefer to have the case decided by the Omniscient whose direct interposition he was taught to regard as undoubted. That the assumed fairness of the ordeal was highly prized under such circumstances we have evidence in the provisions of a treaty between the Welsh and the Saxons, about the year 1000, according to which all questions between individuals of the two races were to be settled in this manner, in the absence of a special agreement between the parties.[877]