CHAP. XXIII.: Of the Code of Laws on judicial Combats.

SOME perhaps will have a curiosity to see this abominable custom of judiciary combat reduced to principle, and to find a code of such extraordinary laws. Men, though reasonable in the main, reduce their very prejudices to rule. Nothing was more contrary to good sense, than those combats: and yet when once this point was laid down, a kind of prudential

In order to be thoroughly acquainted with the jurisprudence of those times, it is necessary to read with attention the regulations of St. Lewis, who made such great changes in the judiciary order. Défontaines was contemporary with that prince: Beaumanoir wrote after In the year 1283. ^†659 him; and the rest lived since his time. We must therefore look for the ancient practice in the amendments that have been made of it.