II.
THE WAGER OF BATTLE.
## CHAPTER I.
Natural tendency to appeal to Heaven 101 Distinction between the Judicial Combat and the Duel 103
## CHAPTER II.
ORIGIN OF THE JUDICIAL COMBAT.
A prehistoric Aryan custom 107
## CHAPTER III.
UNIVERSAL USE OF THE JUDICIAL COMBAT.
Its form Christianized into an appeal to God 117 Causes of its general employment 118 Practice of challenging witnesses 120 of challenging judges 123
## CHAPTER IV.
CONFIDENCE REPOSED IN THE JUDICIAL DUEL.
Its jurisdiction universal 127 Implicit faith reposed in it 135
## CHAPTER V.
LIMITATIONS IMPOSED ON THE WAGER OF BATTLE.
Respective rights of plaintiff and defendant 140 Minimum limit of value 147 Questions of rank 148 Liability of women to the Combat 152 of ecclesiastics 155 The Combat under ecclesiastical jurisdiction 161 Not recognized in mercantile law 165
## CHAPTER VI.
REGULATIONS OF THE JUDICIAL COMBAT.
Penalty for defeat 166 _Lex talionis_ 169 Security required of combatants 173 Penalty for default 174 Choice of weapons 176
## CHAPTER VII.
CHAMPIONS.
Originally kinsmen 179 Employment of champions becomes general 180 Hired champions were originally witnesses 182 Punishment for defeated champions 184 Professional champions—their disabilities 186 Efforts to limit the use of champions 189 Champions of communities 196 of the Church 197
## CHAPTER VIII.
DECLINE OF THE JUDICIAL COMBAT.
Iceland and Norway the first to prohibit it 199 Opposition of the Municipalities 200 of the Church 206 Influence of the Roman law 211 Decline of the Judicial Duel in Spain 214 Struggle over its abolition in France 216 Reforms of St. Louis 217 Resistance of the Feudatories 218 Reaction after the death of St. Louis 222 Renewed efforts of Philippe le Bel 222 Continued by his successors 227 Occasional cases in fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries 228 Final disappearance 235 Its later history in Italy, Hungary, Flanders, Russia, Scotland 235 Maintained in England until the nineteenth century 241 Traces of its legal existence in the United States 246