Superstition and Force: Essays on the Wager of Law, the Wager of Battle, the Ordeal, TortureLea, Henry Charles
History
Superstition and Force: Essays on the Wager of Law, the Wager of Battle, the Ordeal, Torture
Lea, Henry Charles
Ordeal; Torture; Wager of battle; Wager of law
purport were those of the judicial duel in civil or criminal cases.
So, when Charles V. offered to maintain in single combat the charge
that Francis I. had villainously forfeited his faith in disregarding
the treaty of Madrid, and Francis hotly replied with a demand for
a secure field in which to defend his honor, the challenge and its
acceptance wore the form of the judicial duel to decide the question
of guilt; although Charles in appointing the Bidasoa as the place of
meeting gave as his reasons the avoidance of bloodshed and the ending
of the war as well as the maintenance of his just cause.[293] The
celebrated duel, fought in 1547, between Jarnac and La Chastaigneraye,
so piteously deplored by honest old Brantôme, shows the distinction
maintained to the last. It was conducted with all judicial ceremonies,
in presence of Henry II., not to settle a point of honor, but to
justify Jarnac from a disgusting accusation brought by his adversary.
Resulting most unexpectedly in the death of La Chastaigneraye, who was
a favorite of the king, the monarch was induced to put an end to all
legalized combats, though the illegal practice of the private duel
not only continued to flourish, but increased beyond all precedent
during the succeeding half century—Henry IV. having granted in
twenty-two years no less than seven thousand letters of pardon for
duels fought in contravention of the royal edicts. Such a mode of
obtaining “satisfaction” is so repugnant to the spirit of our age that
it is perhaps not to be wondered at if its advocates should endeavor
to affiliate it upon the ancient wager of battle. Both relics of
barbarism, it is true, are developments from the same primitive habits
and customs, yet they are essentially distinct and have coexisted as
separate institutions; and, however much occasionally intermingled by
the passions of periods of violence, they were practised for different
ends, and were conducted with different forms of procedure. We have
only to deal with the combat as a strictly judicial process, and
shall, therefore, leave untouched the vast harvest of curious anecdote
afforded by the monomachial propensities of modern times.
CHAPTER II.
ORIGIN OF THE JUDICIAL DUEL.
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