It was easy, from a belief such as this, to draw the deduction that when an oath was sworn on relics of peculiar sanctity, immediate punishment would follow perjury; and thus it followed that some shrines obtained a reputation which caused them to be resorted to in the settlement of disputed judicial questions. Even as early as St. Augustin there are traces of such practices, which that Father of the Church not only records, but imitated,[63] and at a later period the legends are numerous which record how the perjured sinner was stricken down senseless or rendered rigid and motionless in the act of swearing falsely.[64] From this point of view oaths were really ordeals, and as such we shall consider them hereafter. At present it suffices to observe that the profit which the church derived from thus administering oaths on relics affords an easy explanation of her teachings, and of the extension of these practices. Their resultant advantages are well illustrated by the example of the holy taper of Cardigan, in Wales. A miraculous image of the Virgin was cast ashore, bearing this taper burning in its hand. A church was built for it, and the taper “contynued styll burnynge the space of nyne yeres, without wastynge, until the tyme that one forsware himselfe thereon, so then it extincted, and never burned after.” At the suppression of the house under Henry VIII., the prior, Thomas Hore, testified: “Item, that since the ceasynge of burnynge of the sayd taper, it was enclosed and taken for a greate relyque, and so worshipped and kyssed of pylgremes, and used of men to sweare by in difficill and harde matters, whereof the advauntage admounted to greate sommes of money in tymes passed, payenge yerely to the same XXti nobles for a pencion unto thabbott of Chersey.”[65] In all this Spain would seem to be exceptional. In the thirteenth century the rule is expressed that a pleader must take the oath required of him by his antagonist; if he is required to swear by God, it will not suffice for him to swear by some saint, or by his own head. Oaths could indeed be taken on crosses or altars, but they could also be reduced to the simplest asseveration. Thus, there is a provision that if one party says “Swear to me on your simple word,” then the reply “know that it is so,” or “believe me that it is so,” suffices, and has all the force of the most solemn adjuration.[66] CHAPTER III. CONJURATORS, OR PARTAKERS IN THE OATH.