From a very early period, a minimum limit of value was established, below which a pugnacious pleader was not allowed to put the life or limb of his adversary in jeopardy. This varied of course with the race and the period. Thus, among the Angli and Werini, the lowest sum for which the combat was permitted was two solidi,[428] while the Baioarians established the limit at the value of a cow.[429] In the tenth century, Otho II. decided that six solidi should be the smallest sum worth fighting for.[430] The so-called laws of Henry I. of England decreed that in civil cases the appeal of battle should not lie for an amount less than ten solidi.[431] In France, Louis le Jeune, by an edict of 1168, forbade the duel when the sum in debate was less than five sous,[432] and this remained in force for at least a century.[433] The custom of Normandy in the thirteenth century specifies ten sous as the line of demarcation between the _lex apparens_ and the _lex simplex_ in civil suits,[434] and the same provision retains its place in the Coutumier in use until the sixteenth century.[435] In the Latin States of the East founded by the Crusaders, the minimum was a silver marc in cases of both nobles and roturiers.[436] A law of Aragon, in 1247, places the limit at ten sous.[437] As regards the inferior classes of society, innumerable documents attest the right of peasants to decide their quarrels by the ordeal of battle. By the old Lombard law, slaves were allowed to defend themselves in this manner;[438] and they could even employ the duel to claim their liberty from their masters, as we may infer from a law of King Grimoald denying this privilege to those who could be proved to have served the same master for thirty continuous years.[439] Similarly, among the Frisians, a _litus_ claiming his liberty was allowed to prove it against his master with arms.[440] The institutions of feudalism widened the distance between the different classes of society, and we have already seen that, in the thirteenth century, serfs were enfranchised in order to enable them to support their testimony by the combat; yet this was only the result of inequality of rank. In the time of Beaumanoir (1283), though an appeal would not lie from a serf to a freeman, it may be safely inferred from the context that a combat could be legally decreed between two serfs if the consent of their masters were obtained,[441] and other contemporary authorities show that a man claimed as a serf could defend his freedom with the sword against his would-be master.[442] Even Jews were held liable to the appeal of battle, as we learn from a decision of 1207, preserved in an ancient register of assizes in Normandy,[443] and they no doubt purchased the exemption, which was granted to them, except in cases of flagrant murder, by Philippe le Long, as a special favor, in 1317.[444]