Originally kinsmen 179 Employment of champions becomes general 180 Hired champions were originally witnesses 182 Punishment for defeated champions 184 Professional champions—their disabilities 186 Efforts to limit the use of champions 189 Champions of communities 196 of the Church 197 CHAPTER VIII. DECLINE OF THE JUDICIAL COMBAT. Iceland and Norway the first to prohibit it 199 Opposition of the Municipalities 200 of the Church 206 Influence of the Roman law 211 Decline of the Judicial Duel in Spain 214 Struggle over its abolition in France 216 Reforms of St. Louis 217 Resistance of the Feudatories 218 Reaction after the death of St. Louis 222 Renewed efforts of Philippe le Bel 222 Continued by his successors 227 Occasional cases in fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries 228 Final disappearance 235 Its later history in Italy, Hungary, Flanders, Russia, Scotland 235 Maintained in England until the nineteenth century 241 Traces of its legal existence in the United States 246 III. THE ORDEAL. CHAPTER I. UNIVERSAL INVOCATION OF THE JUDGMENT OF GOD. Tendency of the human mind to cast its doubts on God 249 China an exception 251 The Ordeal in Japan 253 in Africa 254 in the Indian and Pacific Archipelagoes 257 among pre-Aryan Indian Tribes 258 Traces of the Ordeal in Egypt 259 Among Semitic Races—The Assyrians, Hebrews, Moslem 260 Among Aryans—Mazdeism 265 Hinduism—Buddhism 267 Hellenes and Italiotes 269 Celts, Teutons, Slavs 272 The Ordeal in the Barbarian occupation of Europe 275 Adopted by the Church 276 CHAPTER II.