of
treason as in other cause whatsoever it be."

It cannot be repeated too often or too clearly understood that the duel
was not exclusively a chivalrous custom, confined to those of high
station. Like the ordeal, it was prescribed, as a mode of juridical
determination, for burgesses and others, though, as we have shown,
equality of rank was postulated in the combatants no less than equality
of "points." By way of illustration we may turn to the annals of
Leicester, where wager of battle was enforced on the townsmen for the
settlement of their disputes. We have seen that knights undertook to
bring matters to a conclusion within the space of one hour. Honest
burgesses, less expert in the use of lethal weapons, and either less
courageous or less callous in taking human life, appear to have shown
extremely poor "sport" in their involuntary matches. At Leicester a
combat is recorded to have commenced at 6 a.m. and continued till 3
p.m., when it was terminated through one of the parties falling into a
pit. The character of the affair and the behaviour of the champions
occasioned a great scandal; and the townsmen, in order to prevent a
repetition of the incident, engaged to pay the Earl their lord three
pence for each house, on condition that the "twenty-four jurors who were
in Leicester from ancient times should from that time forward discuss
and decide all pleas they might have among themselves."

In London and other chartered towns parties to a quarrel could not be
made to fight against their will. The rule was that wager of battle did
not lie between two freemen without the consent of both; and a case is
on record in which one citizen, having been charged with felony and
robbery, offered to defend himself with his body. The appellor declined
dereignment by battle, and so it was decided that the accused should be
tried by the Middle Law, with eighteen compurgators.

The duel was employed for the determination not only of criminal, but of
civil causes, and in such controversies the demandant, whatever his
condition, might not engage in the combat himself, but was represented
by a champion, who occupied the position of a witness. The claim would
be made in some such form as the following:

"I demand against B. one hide of land in such a vill (naming it) as my
right and inheritance, of which my father (or grandfather, as it might
be) was seised in his demesne as of fee, in the time of Henry I. (or,
after the first corona