ous ordeals. For example, by the laws of the
Angles and Werini, if a woman was accused of murdering her husband, she
would ask a male relative to assert her innocence by a solemn oath[357]
or, if necessary, by fighting for her as her champion in the lists. God
was supposed to give the victory to the champion who defended an
innocent party. If she could find no champion, she was permitted to
walk barefoot over nine red-hot ploughshares[358]; and if she was
innocent, God would not, of course, allow her to suffer any injury in
the act.

[Sidenote: Women in slavery.]

Perhaps a word on the status of women in slavery among the Germanic
nations will not be out of place. The new nations looked upon a slave as
a chattel, much as the Romans did. If a wrong was done a slave woman,
her master received a recompense from the aggressor, but she did not,
for to hold property was denied her. But we may well believe that the
great value which the Church put on chastity and conjugal fidelity
rendered the slave woman less exposed to the brutal passions of her lord
than had been the case under the Empire. Thus, by a law of King
Liutprand, a master who committed adultery with the wife of a slave was
compelled to free both[359]; and the Visigot[360] inflicted fifty
lashes and a fine of twenty _solidi_ upon the man who used violence to
another man's slave woman.

On comparing the position of women under Roman law and under the
Germanic nations, as we have observed them thus far, we should note
first of all that under the latter women benefited chiefly by the
insistence of the Church on the value of chastity in both sexes. That
in those days the passions of men were difficult to restrain in practice
does not invalidate the real service done the world by the ideal that
was insisted upon,[361] an ideal which was certainly not held in pagan
antiquity except by a few great minds. Although the social position of
woman was thus improved, the character of the age and the sentiments of
the Bible which I have already quoted made her status far inferior to
her condition under Roman law so far as her legal rights were concerned.
In a period[362] when the assertion of one's rights constantly demanded
fighting, the woman was forced to rely on the male to champion her; the
Church, in accordance with the dicta of the Apostles, encouraged and
indeed commanded her to confine herself to the duties of the household,
to leave legal matters to men, and to be gu