Your correspondent asks "what form of Judicial oath was first sanctioned by Christians as a body?"
In the history of the Council of Constantinople, it is stated that--
"George, the well beloved of God, a deacon and keeper of the records, having touched the Holy Gospels of God, swore in this manner, 'By these Holy Scriptures, and by the God who by them has spoken,'" &c.
"Prayer having been offered up, every one saluted the Holy Gospels, the venerated cross and image of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and of our Lady the mother of God, and placed his hands upon them in confirmation of what he had said."
From these I infer that the custom of swearing on the Gospels received the sanction of the church at a very early period.
In reply to the question as to other modes of swearing, it may be said briefly, that men swore by anything to which they attached any importance, and generally by that to which they attached most importance.
By the laws of the Alamanni, a wife could claim her _Morgen-gabe_ (or the gift of the morning after the wedding night) by swearing to its amount on her breast; and by the Droits d'Augsbourg, by swearing to it on her two breasts and two tresses.
Nothing was more common than for a man to swear by his beard. This custom is alluded to by one of Shakspeare's fools, who suggests that if a certain knight swore by his honour, and his mistress by her beard, neither of them _could_ be forsworn.
In the canons of the Fourth Council of Orleans, we read--
"Le Roi lui-même, ou le plus renommé des chevaliers présents, ayant découpé le paon, se leva, et mettant la main sur l'oiseau, fit un voeu hardi; Ensuite il passa le plat, et chacun de ceux qui le reçurent fit un voeu semblable."
In the year 1306, Edward I. of England swore an oath on two swans.
It was also very common from an early period, both in England and abroad, to swear by one, two, seven, or twelve churches. The deponent went { 533} to the appointed number of churches, and at each, taking the ring of the church door in his hand, repeated the oath.
One of the most curious specimens of the practice of swearing men by that to which they attached most importance, is to be found in an Hindoo law. It says, let a judge swear a Brahmin by his veracity; a soldier by his horses, his elephants, or his arms; an agriculturist by his cows, his grain, or his money; and a Soudra by all his crimes.