There was once no purgation more frequent than this. Whenever knowledge or proof of a crime was obscure, either the accuser challenged the defendant, or the defendant himself offered himself or someone in his place. Some attribute the invention to the Mantineans; others hold that it is more ancient. It is clear from Goliath, whom David conquered, that it was also in use among the Palestinians. It was especially in use after the irruption of the barbarians into Italy, among the Lombards, and among the Germans and Franks, and also the Spaniards; not only in a cause of homicide, but also for any other grave crime or matter of great importance, as Baldus and after Baldus the common doctors judged.
Indeed, because of frequent perjuries, it was introduced in place of an oath, under John XIII and Otto IV [I] in Romandiola; but earlier Charlemagne had already established this among the Franks for criminal cases, and afterward it was extended to civil cases also. It was formerly in use among the Muscovites and Danes as well. The rites of the duel can be gathered both from the Bavarian Annals, book 4, and from the Ticinese history of Bernard Sacco, book 9. Yet in customs, and especially in the kind of arms, the same thing was not observed among all nations. It was generally received that they should use the military arms of that region. Charlemagne wanted them to use clubs; afterward it was received that the defendant should have the choice and the right of prescribing the arms. In the famous Cambron duel, between the Jew who had wounded the image of the Mother of God and the paralytic, the Carolingian law was observed.
[margin: Alciati, On Single Combat, chapter 2; Lombard law titles on how five men make equal combat, on purgation of the accused, and on homicide of a free man; Lambert of Hersfeld/Schaffnaburg; Guidus Papa, decision 191; Hotman, book 3, observation 13; Charon, decision 607; Menchaca, Illustrious Controversies, part 7 and passim; Mariana, History of Spain; Lombard law book 1, title 14; Frankish law book 5, title 4, chapter 2; Saxo, book 5; the Bavarian Annals; and Bernard Sacco’s Ticinese history]
In the year 1326, under William III, count of Hainaut, a certain Jew had pretended with sincere mind to be initiated into the Christian rites by baptism. The count received him from the font, named him William as his godson, and ordered him to be an officer of the court at Mons. Not long afterward the impious man entered the church of the monastery of Cambron, driven by furies, poured out many blasphemies against the image of the Mother of God, and, a horrible thing, inflicted four wounds on it with a hunting spear, from which streams of blood at once flowed. A certain carpenter and Matthew Lobbius, a lay monk, saw it. The carpenter was preparing to split the Jew’s head with an axe, but he was prevented by the monk. They therefore reported the matter to the abbot, John of Montibus, and he reported it to the count. The Jew stubbornly evaded torture.
Thus he was dismissed. Four years afterward, by the appearance of an angel, a certain old man named John Flander of Estinnes, who for seven years had been bedridden with paralysis, was ordered to accuse the Jew and challenge him to a duel. Twice admonished, by order of the parish priest the old man still delayed the matter. A third time the Virgin herself, wounded with those five wounds, offered herself to him to be seen and commanded the monomachy. Full of hope and faith, the old man went to Cambron, saw in the image the wounds which he had seen in the vision, approached the count, accused the backslider, and a day for battle was set. The arms, rough clubs and wooden shields, survive today.
The Jew, with a squinting body and fierce in strength, had bound little bells to his leggings, and thus he laughed at the old man. But God aided his champion, matched so unequally. The sick man overthrew the healthy, the weak overthrew the strong, the old man overthrew the young man; and the count ordered the convicted man, horribly blaspheming and not repenting, to be tied to a horse’s tail and dragged to the gallows, and there to perish hung head downward, with two mastiffs at the side tearing him savagely, beneath smoke from a fire set below. Robert Hauportius narrates the same things at length in two books written in verse.
[margin: Robert Hauportius, two verse books on the Cambron miracle and duel]
The Spaniards always retained military arms, as is clear from all their annals. Duels were fought both among princes for a kingdom, as between the Spaniards Corbis and Orsua in Livy, between the English king Edmund and the Danish king Canute in Polydore, between Hunding and Roheus, kings of Denmark, in Crantzius, and between Peter of Aragon and Charles of Anjou in Antoninus; and for princes among private persons, as between Charellus and the accuser of Queen Gundelberga; also by boys for the wife of Henry III against a giant; and by Burchard against Conrad, who boasted that he had lain with the king’s niece in the year 950, in the continuator of Regino. There were duels also among private persons, as before Otto I, when it was disputed whether in the succession of grandparents grandchildren should be admitted with paternal uncles as representing their father; those who fought for the grandchildren conquered.
[margin: Livy, book 28; Plutarch; Polydore Vergil, English History, book 7; Crantzius on Denmark; Antoninus, part 3, title 20; Ritius, History of Naples, book 3; Froissart, Chronicle, book 1; Paul the Deacon, Lombard History, book 4, chapter 16; Nauclerus, generation 35]
Marvelous things often happened in these matters. I shall narrate only two. The first is from the fidelity of Dubravius. Radislaus, prince of Gurim and son of Mistibogius, had unjustly invaded the borders of Bohemia. Wenceslaus, that most excellent king, compelled by his people, gathered soldiers. When the battle lines were already about to clash, Wenceslaus cried out: “If the matter cannot be settled otherwise than by battles, why do we ourselves not rather decide it by single combat without the blood of the innocent?” No delay was made. Dressed in a little coat of mail over a hair shirt, and girded with a small sword, Wenceslaus came out into the arena. Radislaus, armored and bearing a spear, advanced against him with a huge sword. Wenceslaus, marking his forehead with the sign of the cross, suddenly saw angels and heard this voice, as if uttered by a man: “Do not strike.” Immediately Radislaus fell on the ground, begged pardon for his audacity, and entrusted himself to the power of the victor. Wenceslaus lifted the fallen man, granted pardon, restored him to his dignity, and warned him to turn contumacy into the obedience due, lest afterward he be punished more severely by the angry deity. Here God declared the justice of the cause by a miracle. When God does not favor by a miracle, it is usual that either the matter remains doubtful or the one favoring a just cause succumbs.
[margin: Widukind, book 2; Vincent of Beauvais, Speculum, book 24, chapter 70; Dubravius, History of Bohemia, book 5]
The former occurred in the fight of two Spanish nobles in the time of King Alfonso, father of King Peter of Castile. These were Ruy Paez de Viedma and Pay Rodriguez de Avila. The first accused the second of treason; the second in turn struck back at him with a recrimination of a graver crime. When they came to the duel, they fought for three continuous days from sunrise to sunset, inflicted many wounds on each other, and with victory wholly doubtful and inclining to neither one nor the other, the king pronounced both innocent and wished them, endowed with equal courage, to be friends. Pedro Mexia narrates it at length.
[margin: Pedro Mexia, Silva de varia leccion, part 2, chapter 10, on the three-day duel of Ruy Paez de Viedma and Pay Rodriguez de Avila]
So also the cause of the men of Zamora remained doubtful. Diego Ordonez de Lara accused them of treason, while the sons of Arias Gonzalo contended they were innocent. After Ordonez had already killed two of them and inflicted a lethal wound on the third, the wounded man, falling from his horse, cut the reins with a wandering sword. The horse carried Ordonez unwillingly outside the barriers of the monomachy, which was an indication of defeat. Thus he was not victor, through the fault of the horse; he was not defeated, by his own virtue. The judges pronounced judgment for themselves by a non liquet. Mariana narrates this in book 8 of the history of Spain.
That many whose cause was just have often fallen in monomachy is taught, after the rescript of Pope Innocent III and the law of King Rothari among the Lombards, also by Giovanni Battista Susius and the Spaniard Urrea.
[margin: Mariana, History of Spain, book 8, on Zamora; Innocent III, chapter 2, de purgatione vulgari; Rothari’s Lombard law on monomachy; Giovanni Battista Susius, On the Injustice of the Duel; Urrea, On the Duel]
However it stands, monomachy is repugnant to every law. This is the common opinion of the doctors against Paris de Puteo, as many recent writers teach: Lancellotus Conradus, Menchaca, Vinnius, Petrinus Bellus, Julius Ferrettus, Alciati, and others. Susius, in the cited work, Antoninus Bernardus Mirandulanus in his book against Possevino on the expugnation of single combat, and Pedro Mexia excellently teach that it is repugnant to natural law. That it is repugnant to civil law the doctors commonly prove from the law concerning gladiators, although that law does not establish the point by itself. It is enough that this purgation by monomachy is approved by no law of the Romans; and since it is repugnant to natural law, it is certain that every custom to the contrary is invalid, as the canons rightly say.
[margin: Lancellotus Conradus, book 1, De iudicio temerario, chapter 1, section 3, at duellum prohibere, and his treatise on the duel, preface; Menchaca, book 1, Illustrious Controversies, decision 99, chapter 12 and chapter 49; Vinnius, book 1, Common Opinions, letter D, at anellum; Petrinus Bellus, part 10, De re militari, title 2, note 128; Julius Ferrettus, counsel 1, numbers 3 and 6, counsel 2, number 4 and following, counsel 8, number 4, counsel 20, number 19, and elsewhere in the treatise on the duel; Alciati’s fifth response on the duel; Susius; Antoninus Bernardus Mirandulanus against Possevino on single combat; Pedro Mexia; Roman law C. de gladiatoribus; and chapter 1, De clericis pugnantibus in duello]
That the duel is prohibited by divine law and Sacred Scripture they prove from all the passages by which we are forbidden to tempt God and by which we are forbidden to kill. The proof from ecclesiastical law, or positive divine law, is clearer. For the canons formerly prohibited this, and the Council of Trent did so most openly. These are its words:
[margin: Bernardinus Matthaei on the bull of Gregory XIII is noted for the forthcoming papal prohibition; the margin also points to scriptural loci on tempting God and killing; chapter de purgatione vulgari; and the chapter on monomachia, 2 question 4]
Let the detestable use of duels, introduced by the devil’s contrivance so that by the bloody death of bodies he may also gain the destruction of souls, be utterly exterminated from the Christian world. Emperors, kings, dukes, princes, marquises, counts, and temporal lords by whatever other name, who shall grant a place for monomachy among Christians in their lands, are by that very fact excommunicated, and are to be understood as deprived of the jurisdiction and lordship of the city, castle, or place, in which or near which they permitted the duel to be fought, which they hold from the Church; and if those places are feudal, they are immediately acquired by the direct lords. Those who have engaged the fight, and those who are called their seconds, incur the penalty of excommunication, proscription of all their goods, and perpetual infamy, and ought to be punished as homicides according to the sacred canons; and if they die in the very conflict, they are forever deprived of ecclesiastical burial. Those also who have given counsel in the cause of the duel, whether in law or in fact, or in any other way have persuaded anyone to it, as well as spectators, are bound by the bond of excommunication and perpetual malediction, notwithstanding any privilege or depraved custom, even immemorial.
Julius II had condemned the same abuse under penalty of excommunication, though only with respect to subjects of the Roman See, in April 1508, and he added many good and grave reasons for the condemnation. First, because this evil happens at the instigation of the enemy of the human race. Second, because from it arise sudden deaths of men, perdition of souls, new hatreds and quarrels among distant friends of the combatants, and from one inconvenience many others, to the danger of souls and bodies, the loss of the human race, pernicious example, and scandal of many. Third, because Christ taught that God is not to be tempted. Fourth, because it is wicked for man to lay ambush against man. Fifth, because gladiatorial shows and vulgar purgations of this kind are condemned by the piety of our religion. Sixth, because bloody spectacles of this kind are prohibited by the canons of the pontiffs and by imperial laws.
Finally, Gregory XIII, that most praised pontiff, wished this prohibition to pertain to all Christians, as the fathers of the Council of Trent had also extended it; and what they had sanctioned concerning solemn or public duels, he prudently judged should be extended further to private and non-solemn duellings as well, because the same causes were seen in these too. In 1582, on December 9, he wrote in these words:
[margin: Gregory XIII’s bull beginning Ad tollendum detestabilem is cited for the extension of duel penalties to private/non-solemn combats]
Since the wickedness of men grows, there are not lacking criminal persons who do not hesitate to execute privately what is publicly prohibited, while they think they can thus evade the aforesaid penalties. We, judging that provision must be made more fully and clearly for the overturning of these things, and considering that a private duel is no less bloody and harmful to soul and body than one publicly perpetrated, by apostolic authority establish: first, that those who by agreement, at a fixed time and in an agreed place, have engaged in monomachy, even if no seconds or associates have been called to it, and no security of place has been had, and no letter of challenge or written notice of denunciation has preceded, are held by all the censures and penalties proposed by the said council, just as if they had entered upon single combat by the public and customary abuse. Second, we will that lords of places, if they have permitted a contest by agreement of this kind, or have not prevented it as far as it was in them to do so, and third, all who order it to be done, instigate it, give counsel or favor, knowingly supply horses, arms, money, provisions, and other aids, or fourth, who by arrangement present themselves in any way as spectators or associates, be subject to the same censures and penalties, even if those who had come to the appointed place to fight were prevented and did not engage in the fight, provided it did not stand by them that it should not be engaged.
From these things it plainly appears who today fall into this excommunication, reserved to no one, by private challenges. I seem to myself to gather certain things from the words of both prohibitions which are not useless to observe. First, those also fall into it who say, “Come to such a place; I will wait for you there.” For they appoint a fixed time, namely the present time itself, just as those do who say, “Tomorrow at such an hour,” and so forth.
Second, princes are not prohibited from granting this license to infidels, both because they are outside the care of the Church and because the council expressly says “among Christians.” Third, princes who wage a just war are not prohibited from committing to a few men a cause which they can decide by battle, so that it may be determined by duel. For then this succeeds in the place of war. Yet it would not be lawful for them to do this for recreation, or for glory alone, in order to display the strength of their soldiers, as Joab and Abner once did; for the word “play” there signifies a prelude to battle. This was instituted, as I think, as a certain divinatory prejudgment of victory, which Cornelius Tacitus testifies the Germans once customarily used. That divination itself is prohibited; and just as war may not be undertaken for human glory alone, so neither may a duel be permitted.
[margin: 2 Kings/2 Samuel 2:12 on Joab and Abner; Tacitus, On the Customs of the Germans, on German divinatory use of trial combat]
Fourth, with respect to those giving counsel, it is understood from Gregory’s words that only those incur who persuade affirmatively, not those who dissuade from the duel or compose or give counsel for that purpose. Such men do not sin. Fifth, with respect to spectators, those do not incur who, passing that way, looked at the contest by the way or stopped to look, I would add; indeed, not even those who had accompanied them by arrangement so that they might prevent the contest. For this reason the clause is added, “if it did not stand by them,” meaning by those spectators and associates. Hence, sixth, it is inferred that those who accompanied or associated would incur even if there was no fight, when they tried to bring it about that there should be a fight, or at least, if they were able to prevent it, did not prevent it themselves, but would have preferred that the fight be joined.
These things are said, saving the judgment of those who think more correctly, about an everyday matter. Some assert that a certain bull on the duel has been issued by our most holy lord Clement VIII, the present supreme pontiff; I have not yet been able to obtain it.
[margin: Gregory XIII’s decree on private duel participants, lords of places, instigators, suppliers, spectators, and associates; Del Rio also notes an as-yet-unobtained bull on the duel attributed to Clement VIII]