Before such arbitrary tribunals, when the judges were themselves unruly soldiers, utterly ignorant of any kind of jurisprudence, and knowing no other method of deciding a difference than by an appeal to force, the most expeditious method of deciding a quarrel was to make the litigants fight it out.
The only check upon the power of feudality was the influence of the clergy, then divided into _secular_ and _regular_. The secular clerks officiated in the several sees and parishes, while the regular lived under monastic institutions and discipline.
_Ecclesia abhorret sanguine_ was an old maxim of the church; and, when they condemned thousands to the torture or to death, they considered that they conformed themselves to the letter of this humane precept while handing their victims over to the _secular arm_ to put their sentence into execution. Moreover, as the jurisprudence of the sword interfered with that of the altar, many were the prelates who powerfully declaimed against duelling and its excesses. Such were Gregory of Tours, Avitus, and Agobard. Various councils fulminated their anathemas on the barbarous practice; that of Valence in 855, and of Limoges in 994, and Trent so late as 1563: while several pontiffs, amongst whom we find Nicholas I, Alexander III, Celestin III, and Julius II, excommunicated all sovereigns who permitted duels to take place within their realms; and we see Charles IX. protesting against this papal interference, when, in his edict of 1564, he reserved to himself the power of authorizing duels when he thought it meet.
It is to this interference of the clergy that Europe was indebted for that pacific act called the _Truce of God_, to which I have already referred. This ordonnance, called _Treuga Dei_, was promulgated by a council at Toulujes in Roussillon, in the year 1041, when it gradually spread over Europe. In this celebrated act it was specified that upon all festivals, and from Wednesday evening until Monday morning in each week, no disputes should lead to any issue. This regulation was most wise, as it gave three entire days in each week to offended persons to reflect calmly on the nature of their supposed injury, or the benefits that might result from vindictive proceedings.