In regard to marriage--the most important of social institutions--the provisions of the canon law are mainly reproduced, with the genuine German practice of joint possession of the property, as expressed in the passage: _Sachés que nul home n'est si dreit heir au mort come est sa feme._ ('No one so properly as the wife inherits the property of a deceased husband.') Still, however, oriental views left their traces upon this institution. This appears in the facility with which a man could obtain a divorce from his wife, and in the jealous strictness in regard to conjugal infidelity. Vitry says: 'The pullans'--a name analogous to that of creole in the West Indies, given to the descendants of the Crusaders in the Orient--'have gone so far in their oriental zeal, that they no longer allow their wives to go to church, to processions, or to any religious exercises.' When the council of Neapolis had provided cruel and barbarous mutilations for persons unfaithful to the marriage vow, King Amalrick issued the assize that 'the man who should detect his wife in the commission of such offence, might without guilt kill both parties;' but he added the very nice distinction, that 'if he killed _one_ party and spared the _other_, he should, as a murderer, be hanged without grace.' Perhaps this law may have been a device to save both parties; for a man would naturally hesitate to undertake a work, failure to _complete_ which would cost him his life. The last means everywhere for establishing truth was the judicial combat. There are found, by way of exception, in the assizes of the burghers' court, cases of the judgment of God by the fire test, in which the defendant is acquitted of the charges against him, by holding in his hand, without injury, for a given length of time, a red-hot iron. Torture was sometimes prescribed, and the so called abrevement (water test) used. The assize says: 'If the accused confess the crime charged, he shall be hanged; if he do not confess, he shall be drawn to the torture, and kept in the water until he shall confess, and shall then be immediately hanged. But if he continue three days without confessing or dying under torture'--a thing not easily imagined--'he shall be imprisoned one year, and then set free.' The complainant must prove a charge of murder, high treason, or manslaughter, by single combat with the accused. Women, old men, and non-combatants might be represented by a so-called champion. John of Ibelin describes the combat as follows: