nations on the continent as a remedy against false evidence;[***] and though it was frequently dropped, from the opposition of the clergy, it was continually revived, from experience of the falsehood attending the testimony of witnesses.[****] It became at last a species of jurisprudence: the cases were determined by law, in which the party might challenge his adversary or the witnesses, or the judge himself;[*****] and though these customs were absurd, they were rather an improvement on the methods of trial which had formerly been practised among those barbarous nations, and which still prevailed among the Anglo-Saxons. [* Præf. Nicol. ad Wilkins, p. 11.] [** LL. Burgund. cap. 45. LL. Lomb. lib. ii. tit. 55, cap. 34.] [*** LL. Longob. lib. ii. tit. 55, cap. 23, apud Lindenbrog. p. 661] [**** See Desfontaines and Beaumanoir.] [***** Sometimes the laws fixed easy general rules for weighing the credibility of witnesses. A man whose life was estimated at a hundred and twenty shillings, counterbalanced six ceorles, each of whose lives was only valued at twenty shillings, and his oath was esteemed equivalent to that of all the six. See Wilkins, p. 72.] When any controversy about a fact became too intricate for those ignorant judges to unravel, they had recourse to what they called the judgment of God, that is, to fortune. Their methods of consulting this oracle were various. One of them was the decision by the cross: it was practised in this manner: When a person was accused of any crime, he first cleared himself by oath, and he was attended by eleven compurgators. He next took two pieces of wood, one of which was marked with the sign of the cross, and wrapping both up in wool, he placed them on the altar, or on some celebrated relic. After solemn prayers for the success of the experiment, a priest, or in his stead some unexperienced youth, took up one of the pieces of wood, and if he happened upon that which was marked with the figure of the cross, the person was pronounced innocent; if otherwise, guilty. [*] This practice, as it arose from superstition, was abolished by it in France. [* LL. Prison, tit. 14, apud Lindenbrog. p. 496. trial, not because it was uncertain, but lest that sacred figure says he, of the cross should be prostituted in common disputes and controversies.]