iv. p. 435.)]

[Footnote 76: See, in the sixth volume of the works of Heineccius, the
Elementa Juris Germanici, l. ii. p. 2, No. 261, 262, 280-283. Yet some
vestiges of these pecuniary compositions for murder have been traced in
Germany as late as the sixteenth century.]

The civil and military professions, which had been separated by
Constantine, were again united by the Barbarians. The harsh sound of the
Teutonic appellations was mollified into the Latin titles of Duke,
of Count, or of Praefect; and the same officer assumed, within his
district, the command of the troops, and the administration of justice.
[77] But the fierce and illiterate chieftain was seldom qualified to
discharge the duties of a judge, which required all the faculties of a
philosophic mind, laboriously cultivated by experience and study; and
his rude ignorance was compelled to embrace some simple, and visible,
methods of ascertaining the cause of justice. In every religion, the
Deity has been invoked to confirm the truth, or to punish the falsehood
of human testimony; but this powerful instrument was misapplied and
abused by the simplicity of the German legislators. The party accused
might justify his innocence, by producing before their tribunal a number
of friendly witnesses, who solemnly declared their belief, or assurance,
that he was not guilty. According to the weight of the charge, this
legal number of compurgators was multiplied; seventy-two voices were
required to absolve an incendiary or assassin: and when the chastity
of a queen of France was suspected, three hundred gallant nobles swore,
without hesitation, that the infant prince had been actually begotten by
her deceased husband. [78] The sin and scandal of manifest and frequent
perjuries engaged the magistrates to remove these dangerous temptations;
and to supply the defects of human testimony by the famous experiments
of fire and water. These extraordinary trials were so capriciously
contrived, that, in some cases, guilt, and innocence in others, could
not be proved without the interposition of a miracle. Such miracles were
really provided by fraud and credulity; the most intricate causes
were determined by this easy and infallible method, and the turbulent
Barbarians, who might have disdained the sentence of the magistrate,
submissively acquiesced in the judgment of God. [79]

[Footnote 77: The whole subject of the Germanic judges, and their
jurisdiction, is copiously treated by