This accidental discovery produced a new era in Europe: it showed the barbarians who wielded the brute power of force, that there did exist other arguments than the sword’s point or the spear-head; and murder, which had usurped the seat of justice for upwards of six centuries, was obliged to yield to the influence of reason and interest. Schools of civil law were now opened, that superseded the exercises of the lists; and the study of Roman law succeeded the Lombardian code, despite the endeavour of the clergy to protect their canonical institutions by fulminating anathemas issued from the Vatican. The clergy of England, who, like their predecessors the Druids, had engrossed every branch of learning, lost no time in obtaining a proficiency in all the ancient oral maxims and customs, called common law, which had been handed down from former ages. Hence William of Malmsbury, soon after the Conquest asserted, _Nullus clericus nisi causidicus_. The judges were created out of the sacred order, and all the inferior offices filled up by the lower clergy, their successors to this day being called _Clerks_. Thus we see two events, the crusades and the introduction of civil law, checking the disastrous excesses of duelling and arbitrating all differences by the sword. The future was pregnant with two events of still greater importance towards humanizing Society,--the fall of the Eastern empire, and the discovery of the art of printing: by the one, civilization was thrown back on the West; and by the other gift of Providence man began to learn to think for himself. We thus perceive the progress of duelling, and its less frequent occurrence, depending in a great measure upon the state of society and the nature of government: by following this progress chronologically in the history of various countries, we shall attain much information, both as regards the prevalence of this barbarous custom, and the success of different governments in their endeavours to suppress, or, at least, restrain its excesses. When, after reading the details of many of these duels, (some of them of perhaps a tedious nature, but all tending to illustrate the manners of the age,) we glance on the civil and religious condition of the people amongst whom they took place, the deductions from these observations may be found to be of more importance than may at first sight appear. CHAPTER VI. DUELLING IN FRANCE. France may be considered the classic ground of duelling, the field of single combat _par excellence_; whence, from the duchy of Normandy, as we have already seen, it was introduced into the British isles.