manic race, for they granted to the disputants trial by
combat. After having employed the ordeal of red-hot iron, and of scalding
water, the Franks adopted the judicial duel (Fig. 300). This was imposed
first upon the disputing parties, then on the witnesses, and sometimes
even on the judges themselves. Dating from the reign of the Emperor Otho
the Great in 967, the judicial duel, which had been at first restricted to
the most serious cases, was had recourse to in almost all suits that were
brought before the courts. Neither women, old men, children, nor infirm
persons were exempted. When a person could not himself fight he had to
provide a champion, whose sole business was to take in hand the quarrels
of others.

[Illustration: Fig. 301.--Judicial Duel.--Combat of a Knight with a
Dog.--Fac-simile of a Miniature in the Romance of "Macaire," of the
Thirteenth Century (Library of the Arsenal of Paris).]

Ecclesiastics were obliged, in the same maimer, to fight by deputy. The
champion or substitute required, of course, to be paid beforehand. If the
legend of the Dog of Montargis is to be believed, the judicial duel seems
to have been resorted to even against an animal (Fig. 301).

In the twelfth century Europe was divided, so to speak, into two vast
judicial zones: the one, Southern, Gallo-Roman, and Visigoth; the other,
Northern and Western, half Germanic and half Scandinavian, Anglian, or
Saxon. Christianity established common ties between these different
legislations, and imperceptibly softened their native coarseness, although
they retained the elements of their pagan and barbaric origin. Sentences
were not as yet given in writing: they were entrusted to the memory of the
judges who had issued them; and when a question or dispute arose between
the interested parties as to the terms of the decision which had been
pronounced, an inquiry was held, and the court issued a second decision,
called a _recordatum_.

As long as the King's court was a movable one, the King carried about with
him the original text of the law in rolls (_rotuli_). It was in
consequence of the seizure of a number of these by the English, during the
reign of Philip Augustus in 1194, that the idea was suggested of
preserving the text of all the laws as state archives, and of opening
authentic registers of decisions in civil and criminal cases. As early as
the time of Charles the Bald, the inconvenience was felt of the high court
of the count being m