The Historians' History of the World 08 [Parthians, Sassanids and Arabs; The Crusades and the Papacy]

Besides the Fehde or right of private warfare—an old Germanic custom—there was the “trial by combat,” which must not be confused with it. The true “judicial combat,” in which champions fight for a cause, or for the settlement of a quarrel, is a product of the Middle Ages, when faith in God was as strong as faith in the strength of the human arm. This custom became so universal a method of settlement of difficult questions that it was even used by Alfonso, the great Spanish lawgiver, to decide upon the introduction of new laws concerning inheritance. This much at least may be said in favour of it, that it was less of an evil than the torture which tended to supplant it in judicial proceedings in the later Middle Ages.a

Justice was not the prerogative of all the lords to the same extent. It was distinguished in France by three degrees, high, low, and middle justice. The first alone gave the right of life and death. In general it may be said it was the largest and most important fiefs that had powers of justice to the greatest extent. Still it was possible for a simple vavasseur to possess the functions of “high justice,” and in some places the lord who could dispense but “low justice” could punish with death the robber caught at his crime. Within these variable limits the lord alone dispensed justice on his fief, and when, later on, royalty usurped the right, there was a revolution.

To complete the enumeration of rights inherent in the sovereignty of the lords it is necessary to mention two: first, that of recognising throughout the whole extent of the fief no higher legislative power. We find in the last collection of laws made in the ninth century by Charles the Simple the final manifestation of law-bearing public power. After that, there were no laws, civil or political, to be applied generally, but only local customs, isolated, independent, and differing one from the other, in fact possessing a territorial character in distinction from those of the barbaric nations, which were entirely personal.

Second, the right to coin money, which was always a sign of lordship. Before Charlemagne it seems that some private individuals, who doubtless possessed the privilege, coined money. After him this was one of the prerogatives of the lords, and at the advent of Hugh Capet there were no less than 150 who exercised this right.

Every political régime may be characterised by the place where the exercise of power is bestowed. Ancient republics had their agora and fora. The great monarchy of Louis XIV had its palace of Versailles. The feudal lords had their castles. They were, as a usual thing, enormous edifices, situated on high places, massive, round, or square, without architecture or ornamentation, the walls pierced by a few loopholes for the discharge of arrows. There was a single entrance giving on a great moat which could only be passed by a drawbridge. The castle was crowned with parapets and battlements, from which rocks, molten pitch, and lead could be thrown down on the heads of too venturesome assailants at the foot of the walls. To-day the gaping gray masses are but nests for crows, crumbled and eaten away by time. Seen from afar they quite eclipse the small and light habitation of modern days—these monuments at once of legitimate defence and oppression. But they could have been nothing less than they were to provide shelter from the northern incursions and the feudal wars. Everyone sought refuge in them. Those who had not the right to live within the castle, who were neither lords nor warriors, settled around its great walls, under their powerful protection. This was the nucleus of many towns.