both to the antiquarian and the philofopher, and will not be wholly uninteresting even to a mere English reader, as he will find feveral things in it which have a reference to the manners and customs of his own countrymen in those ages of ignorance and barbarifm.

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Nothing conveys greater inftruction, as well as amusement, to a thinking mind, than to fee the various and different states of jurifprudence in human focieties. From thence we may form certain conclufions about the progrefs they have made in civilization, the great object, as well as advantage, of political fociety and by comparing the rites and modes of trial,and doing what is called justice between man and man, which obtained in distant nations, at different periods, form no improbable analogies between them. For this reason we have felected as a specimen of this performance thofe chapters which treat of judges and laws, and of trials, during the dark uncultivated ages of the French monarchy.

Anno 617. It must not be imagined that the adminiftration of juftice was neglected. Every profeffion had its court, together with its laws and cuftoms. The ecclefiaftic was tried by the clergy; the military man, by officers; the nobles, by the nobleffe; the people by centeniers in villages, by counts in the towns, and by dukes in the metropolitan cities or capitals. Thefe tribunals were under no fubordination to each other, an appeal from their fentence lying only to the king. If the appeal proved well grounded, the judge was anfwerable for both damages and cofts; if the sentence appeared juft, the appellee, if a noble, was condemned to a pecuniary fine; and to be publickly fcourged, if only a plebeian. These p cuniary mulets were almoft the only penalties of those times. It was very seldom that a capital punishment was inflicted, but for a crime against the state. Other offences were bought off for money. The Salic law prescribes the fine payable to the king, and the compenfation to be made to the party injured. The life of a bifhop was rated at nine hundred golden fols; that of a priest, at fix hundred; that of a layman, at fomething lefs, according to his quality: the centenier had no power of death; the count only in certain circumstances; and it was very rarely and with great precautions that the duke exercised it: the court ufed, from time to time, to fend commiffaries into the country, never lefs than two, who were a bishop, a duke, or a count; their bufinefs was to receive com. plaints, and report them to the fovereign.

• Under the first race, no fuch thing was known as the long robe. The judges, fuch as were laics, fat on the bench, with their sword, battle-axe, and buckler. Their commiffion, which was only temporary, prohibited them from making any acquifition within their jurifdiction. It required withal, an extenfive knowledge of the national laws and local customs; the Frank being to be tried by the Salic law; the Gaul beyond the Loyre, by the Roman law; and in the northern counties by the common law. They held their feffions every week or fortnight, according to the urgency of business, and always in a public place, where all ranks every day might have free access. Every perfon was allowed to plead his own caufe; that of the widows and poor was privileged under the protection of the church, that no fentence could be paffed against them, without advising the bishop of it. The prelates were, at that time, in fuch confideration that not only criminals were discharged at their interceffion, but a cause began in a fecular tribunal, might be removed to them. The bishop, either perfonally, or by his official, took cognizance of whatever implied or might be matter of fin, as contracts on oath, marriages, wills, facrilege, perjury, and adultery. This exorbitant power was grounded on the dignity of their character, the holiness of their life, and the fuperiority of their abilities, as most of the nobility could neither read nor write, till difdaining to be subjected, like the commonalty, to the controul and cenfures of priests, they at length applied themselves to study the laws.

Sometimes the monarch himself administered juftice; and, on these occasions, the court was always held at the gate of his palace. When he could not affift in perfon, he commiffioned two officers to receive petitions and give an immediate answer to fuch where no long difcuffion was required.'

Decifions of accufations by fingle combat.

• Anno 593. A wife of Gontran, king of Burgundy, in her laft moments, requested of him to put two phyficians to death, whofe medicines fhe pretended had been fatal to her; he was fo weak as to promife it, and had the cruelty to keep his word. The fame king feeing one day, a wild bull newly killed, he caufed the ranger of the foreft to be apprehended, who laid it on a chamberlain of the king's, named Chundon, and he denied the fact. The king ordered the difpute to be decided by combat. The party accufed, being aged and infirm, he put in his ftead one of his nephews, who mortally wounded the accufer, but going about to difarm him, killed himself with his adverfary's poignard. The champion's death being con

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fidered as a conviction of the chamberlain, the monarch ordered him to be seized, and he was ftoned on the spot. This was what those barbarous times called a regard to justice.'

The unhappy Chundon's cafe brings to mind another no lefs curious point of our ancient laws, as inftancing that formerly in cafes of law where no decifive proof could be had, a duel was allowed both to plaintiff and defendant. This was fo ufual a way of terminating the differences of nobles, that the very ecclefiafticks and monks were not exempted from it, But that thofe hands which offered the unbloody facrifice might not be stained with human blood, they were to find a man to fight in their ftead. Women, the fick and maimed, and perfons under twenty years or above fixty, were exempted from this ftrange decifion. At first it was appointed in all cafes, criminal or civil, but afterwards limited to fuch circumftances only where honour or life was concerned. This custom came from the north. The Burgundians made a law of it; the Franks, at their entrance into Gaul, adopted it, Religion and reafon long united their efforts to abolish it; yet, amidst all the anathemas and fulminations of Rome, it fubfifted near twelve centuries.

The form of this fingular proceeding is not unworthy the attention of the curious. The accufed and the accufer threw down a gage, ufually a gauntlet, which the judge took up. The two combatants on this were taken into cuftody, and now the affair admitted of no accommodation but by the judge's confent. The lord chief justice himself fixed the day, named the field, and furnished the weapons, which were carried to the fpot, preceded by fifes and trumpets. There a priest bleffed them with a multitude of ceremonies. The action be gan by giving the lie to each other, till gradually they grew calm; and though deliberately going on an act of impiety, they with feeming devotion threw themfelves on their knees, faid fome prayers, made a profeflion of their faith, and then proceeded to engage. The victory decided the innocence of the victor, or the juftice of the caufe which he maintained. The penalty of the vanquished was that due to the crime in queftion. The unfortunate champion underwent the fame fate; he was ignominioufly dragged out of the field together with his principal, and hanged or burnt, according to the crime.'

Trial by the cross.

• Charlemain ordered by his will, that in cafe of any dif ferences between his fons concerning the appointed partitions of his dominions, and which could not be properly decided by

the

the depofitions of men, recourse should be had, not to combat or a duel, but to the trial of the crofs: this was now become the custom, and however odd, was dignified with the appellation of God's Judgment. In doubtful cases two men were chofen, and led in great ceremony to a church. Here they stood upright, with their arms extended in the figure of a cross, and in the mean time divine fervice was celebrated. That party whofe champion kept his posture the longest, was declared to have gained the cause.'

Trials by fire and water.

Anno 831. The emprefs Judith had been difmiffed, on a fufpicion of incontinency, and being feized by the king of Aquitain, he had her condemned to perpetual banishment, and forced her to take the veil in a monaftery; but the ftorm of a revolt being now blown over, the great bufinefs was to recall the emprefs. The pope and the bishops affured the emperor he might do it with a fafe confcience; that the princess's monaftic engagement having been forced, it was abfolutely void. She accordingly made her appearance before the affembly at Aix la Chapelle, where the folemnly fwore herfelf innocent of all the crimes laid to her charge, offering likewife to ftand the trial by fire. An abfurd cuftom, and inferted here only as a farther inftance of the weakness of the human mind.

A way of clearing one's innocence in those ancient times, was to handle a piece of iron, heated more or lefs, according to the violence of the fufpicion. It was confecrated, and carefully kept in fome churches; for all had not this privilege, which was no lefs profitable than honourable. This piece of iron was either a gantlet, in which the party accused was to thrust his hand, or a bar, which he was to take up two or three times. His hand was then wrapped up in a bag, on which the judge and the adverfary put their feals, not taking them off till three days after. If there was no mark of a burn, he was acquitted; but any remaining impreffion of the fire, was a proof of guilt. This was the trial of the nobles, priefts, and gentry. That of the commonalty was by plunging the hand in boiling water; or by throwing the party into a large veffel of water, with his hands and feet tied. These ceremonies were preceded by a form of prayers. If he floated, he was concluded guilty; if he funk, he was declared innocent. It was the perfuafion, at that time, that God would work a miracle fooner than innocence fhould fuffer; a notion equally fuperftitious and abfurd; but withal fo ftrong, that it ever proved one of the great obftacles towards the abolishment of customs fo contrary to reafon. Accord

ingly it was not till the thirteenth century that they were fuppreffed, and then by a folemn decree of the council of Lateran, under the pontificate of Innocent III.'

The paffages above quoted, convey strong ideas of the ignorance, barbarity, and superstition, of all ranks of men int ⚫ thofe ages. Were we to reason from analogy, we might be led to conclude, that the Europeans had not attained to a much higher state of civilization in those days than the Africans enjoy at prefent on the coaft of Guinea; amongst whom it is ufual to try the fidelity and chastity of their wives, when labouring under fufpicion, by obliging them to dip their arms into a kettle full of boiling palm oil, and take from the bottom a ring, or fome other fuch trinket. If they escape all marks of burning, they are held to be exculpated; if they do not, their guilt is thought to be proved, and they are punished accordingly. No doubt there was at times a great deal of management, or rather juggling, in this and all the other modes of trial of that nature; but, unfortunately, the guilty, had a much greater chance of efcaping that way than the innocent, as the former would be much more apt to have recourse to artifice than the latter. The manner in which a certain person escaped the trial by fire is pleasant enough, and is told in this book as follows. George Logothetes fpeaks of a perfon who, in the thirteenth century, refused to stand the fiery trial, faying, that he was no mountebank. The archbishop beginning to urge him to a compliance, he made anfwer, that he would take the red-hot iron into his hands, if his grace would give it him in his. The prelate, who was too knowing to comply with the propofal, allowed that it was not proper to tempt God.'

It is not long fince the trial by cold water, we mean by fwimming or finking in it, was abolished in this ifland. Jaines I. was a great believer in witchcraft, infomuch that he wrote a large book on the fubject. He was alfo very diligent in fearching after witches, and it is faid, took a very effectual method of ridding the world of those imaginary nuisances. Those who were accused of that crime were thrown into a pond; if they funk they were concluded to be innocent, and only drowned; if they floated, their guilt was then manifeft, and they were taken out and burnt. It is even within our own memory, that the fame fpecies of trial was adopted by the popu lace in a village not far from the capital. But the perfons who were the objects of it, having unfortunately perished in the experiment, and fome of the actors in the tragi-comedy having been tried, condemned, and executed for murder, a ftop feems to be put to all future trials of that fort in this

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