[****] It became at last a species of
jurisprudence: the cases were determined by law, in which the
party might challenge his adversary or the witnesses, or the judge
himself;[*****] and though these customs were absurd, they were rather
an improvement on the methods of trial which had formerly been practised
among those barbarous nations, and which still prevailed among the
Anglo-Saxons.
[* Praef. Nicol. ad Wilkins, p. 11.]
[** LL. Burgund. cap. 45. LL. Lomb. lib. ii. tit.
55, cap. 34.]
[*** LL. Longob. lib. ii. tit. 55, cap. 23, apud
Lindenbrog. p. 661]
[**** See Desfontaines and Beaumanoir.]
[***** Sometimes the laws fixed easy general rules
for weighing the credibility of witnesses. A man whose life
was estimated at a hundred and twenty shillings,
counterbalanced six ceorles, each of whose lives was only
valued at twenty shillings, and his oath was esteemed
equivalent to that of all the six. See Wilkins, p. 72.]
When any controversy about a fact became too intricate for those
ignorant judges to unravel, they had recourse to what they called the
judgment of God, that is, to fortune.
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