slaves to Jews. The tenth Council of Toledo (656 or 657) complains of this practice, protests against it with Bible passages, and reminds the Christians that "the slaves were redeemed by the blood of Christ, and that Christians should rather buy than sell them."1 Individual emancipation was constantly encouraged as a meritorious work of charity well pleasing to God, and was made a solemn act. The master led the slave with a torch around the altar, and with his hands on the altar pronounced the act of liberation in such words as these: "For fear of Almighty God, and for the cure of my soul I liberate thee;" or: "In the name and for the love of God I do free this slave from the bonds of slavery."

Occasionally a feeble voice was raised against the institution itself, especially from monks who were opposed to all worldly possession, and felt the great inconsistency of convents holding slave-property. Theodore of the Studium forbade his convent to do this, but on the ground that secular possessions and marriage were proper only for laymen." A Synod of Chalons, held between 644 and 650, at which thirty-eight bishops and six episcopal representatives were present, prohibited the selling of Christian slaves outside of the kingdom of Clovis, from fear that they might fall into the power of pagans or Jews, and he introduces this decree with the significant words: "The highest piety and religion demand that Christians should be redeemed entirely from the bond of servitude."3 By limiting the power of sale, slave-property was raised above ordinary property, and this was a step towards abolishing this property itself by legiti

mate means.

Under the combined influences of Christianity, civilization, and œconomic and political considerations, the slave trade was forbidden, and slavery gradually changed into serfdom, and

1 Hefele III. 103; comp. IV. 70. Balmes, p. 108.

2 Overbeck, l. c., p. 219.

3 Conc. Cabilonense, can. 9: "Pietatis est maxima et religionis intuitus, ut captivitatis vinculum omnino a Christianis redimatur." The date of the Council is uncertain, see Mansi, Conc. X. 1198; Hefele, III. 92.

finally abolished all over Europe and North America. Where the spirit of Christ is there is liberty.

NOTES.

In Europe serfdom continued till the eighteenth century, in Russia even till 1861, when it was abolished by the Czar Alexander II. In the United States, the freest country in the world, strange to say, negro slavery flourished and waxed fat under the powerful protection of the federal constitution, the fugitive slave-law, the Southern state-laws, and King Cotton," until it went out in blood (1861-65) at a cost far exceeding the most liberal compensation which Congress might and ought to have made for a peaceful emancipation. But passion ruled over reason, self-interest over justice, and politics over morals and religion. Slavery still lingers in nominally Christian countries of South America, and is kept up with the accursed slave-trade under Mohammedan rule in Africa, but is doomed to disappear from the bounds of civilization.

§ 78. Feuds and Private Wars. The Truce of God.

A. KLUCKHOHN: Geschichte des Gottesfriedens. Leipzig 1857. HENRY C. LEA: Superstition and Force. Essays on the Wager of Law— the Wager of Battle-the Ordeal-Torture. Phila. 1866 (407 pages).

Among all barbarians, individual injury is at once revenged on the person of the enemy; and the family or tribe to which the parties belong identify themselves with the quarrel till the thirst for blood is satiated. Hence the feuds and private wars, or deadly quarrels between families and clans. The same custom of self-help and unbridled passion prevails among the Mohammedan Arabs to this day.

The influence of Christianity was to confine the responsibility for a crime to its author, and to substitute orderly legal process for summary private vengeance. The sixteenth Synod of Toledo (693) forbade duels and private feuds. The Synod of Poitiers, A. D. 1000, resolved that all controversies should hereafter be adjusted by law and not by force. The belligerent individuals

1 Saxon Fæhth, or Fæght, Danish feide, Dutch veede, German Fehde, low Latin faida or faidia. Compare the German Feind, the English fiend. Du Cange defines faida: "Gravis et aperta inimicitia ob cædem aliquam suscepta, and refers to his dissertation De Privatis Bellis.

2 Hefele III. 349.

3 IV. 655, 689.

or tribes were exhorted to reconciliation by a sealed agreement, and the party which broke the peace was excommunicated. A Synod of Limoges in 1031 used even the more terrible punishment of the interdict against the bloody feuds.

These sporadic efforts prepared the way for one of the most benevolent institutions of the middle ages, the so-called "Peace" or "Truce of God." It arose in Aquitania in France during or soon after a terrible famine in 1033, which increased the number of murders (even for the satisfaction of hunger) and inflicted untold misery upon the people. Then the bishops and abbots, as if moved by divine inspiration (hence "the Peace of God"), united in the resolution that all feuds should cease from Wednesday evening till Monday morning (a feria quartæ vespera usque ad secundam feriam, incipiente luce) on pain of excommunication. In 1041 the archbishop Raimbald of Arles, the bishops Benedict of Avignon and Nitard of Nice, and the abbot Odilo of Clugny issued in their name and in the name of the French episcopate an encyclical letter to the Italian bishops and clergy, in which they solemnly implore them to keep the heaven-sent Treuga Dei, already introduced in Gaul, namely, to observe peace

1 Treuga Dei, Gottesfriede. See Du Cange sub. “Treva, Treuga, seu Trevia Dei." The word occurs in several languages (treuga, tregoa, trauva, treva, trêre). It comes from the same root as the German treu, Treue, and the English true, troth, truce, and signifies a pledge of faith, given for a time to an enemy for keeping peace.

2 Rodulf Glaber, a monk of Cluny, gives a graphic account of this famine and the origin of the Peace movement, in his Historia sui Temporis. lib. IV. c. 4 and 5 (in Migne's Patrol. Tom. 142, fol. 675-679). Hefele, IV. 698, traces the movement to Provence and to the year 1040 with a “perhaps,” but Rodulf Glaber makes it begin "in Aquitaniæ partibus anno incarnati Christi millesimo tricesimo tertio," from whence it spread rapidly "per Arelatensem provinciam, atque Lugdunensem, sicque per universam Burgundiam, atque in ultimas Franciæ partes" (Migne, l. c. fol. 678). Comp. lib. V. 1 (fol. 693): "primitus in partibus Aquitanicis, deinde paulatim per universum Galliarum territorium," etc. He also reports that the introduction of the Peace was blessed by innumerable cures and a bountiful harvest. "Erat instar illius antiqui Mosaici magni Jubilæi." Balderich, in his Chronicle of the Bishops of Cambray, reports that in one of the French synods a bishop showed a letter which fell from heaven and exhorted to peace. The bishop of Cambray, however, dissented because he thought the resolution could not be carried out.

between neighbors, friends or foes on four days of the week, namely, on Thursday, on account of Christ's ascension, on Friday on account of his crucifixion, on Saturday in memory of his burial, on Sunday in memory of his resurrection. They add: "All who love this Treuga Dei we bless and absolve; but those who oppose it we anathematize and exclude from the church. He who punishes a disturber of the Peace of God shall be acquitted of guilt and blessed by all Christians as a champion of the cause of God."

The peace-movement spread through all Burgundy and France, and was sanctioned by the Synods of Narbonne (1054), Gerundum in Spain (1068), Toulouse (1068), Troyes (1093), Rouen (1096), Rheims (1136), the Lateran (1139 and 1179), etc. The Synod of Clermont (1095), under the lead of Pope Urban II., made the Truce of God the general law of the church. The time of the Truce was extended to the whole period from the first of Advent to Epiphany, from Ashwednesday to the close of the Easter week, and from Ascension to the close of the week of Pentecost; also to the various festivals and their vigils. The Truce was announced by the ringing of bells.'

§ 79. The Ordeal.

GRIMM: Deutsche Rechtsalterthümer, Göttingen 1828, p. 908 sqq. HILDENBRAND: Die Purgatio canonica et vulgaris, München 1841. UNGER: Der gerichtliche Zweikampf, Göttingen 1847. PHILIPPS: Ueber die Ordalien, München 1847. DAHN: Studien zur Gesch. der germ. Gottesurtheile, München 1867. PFALZ: Die german. Ordalien, Leipz. 1865. HENRY C. LEA: Superstition and Force, Philad. 1866, p. 175–280. (I have especially used Lea, who gives ample authorities for his statements.) For synodical legislation on ordeals see HEFELE, vols. III. and IV.

Another heathen custom with which the church had to deal, is the so-called JUDGMENT OF GOD or ORDEAL, that is, a trial

1 See further details in Mansi XIX. 549 sq.; Kluckhohn; Hefele (IV. 696702, 780); and Mejer in Herzog 2 V. 319 sqq.

of guilt or innocence by a direct appeal to God through nature.' It prevailed in China, Japan, India, Egypt (to a less extent in Greece and Rome), and among the barbaric races throughout Europe.2

The ordeal reverses the correct principle that a man must be held to be innocent until he is proved to be guilty, and throws the burden of proof upon the accused instead of the accuser. It is based on the superstitious and presumptuous belief that the divine Ruler of the universe will at any time work a miracle for the vindication of justice when man in his weakness cannot decide, and chooses to relieve himself of responsibility by calling heaven to his aid. In the Carlovingian Capitularies the following passage occurs: "Let doubtful cases be determined by the judgment of God. The judges may decide that which they clearly know, but that which they cannot know shall be reserved for the divine judgment. He whom God has reserved for his own judgment may not be condemned by human means."

The customary ordeals in the middle ages were water-ordeals and fire-ordeals; the former were deemed plebeian, the latter (as well as the duel), patrician. The one called to mind the punishment of the deluge and of Pharaoh in the Red Sea; the other, the future punishment of hell. The water-ordeals were either by hot water,3 or by cold water; the fire-ordeals were

1 From the Anglo-Saxon ordael or ordela (from or=ur, and dæl=theil) : German: Urtheil or Gottesurtheil; Dutch: oordeel; French: ordéal; L. Lat.; ordalium, ordale, ordela. See Du Cange sub. ordela, aquæ frigidæ judicium, Duellum, Ferrum candens; Skeat (Etymol. Dict. of the Engl. Lang.) sub. Deal. 2 See the proof in Lea, who finds in the wide prevalence of this custom a confirmation of the common origin of the Aryan or Indo-germanic races.

3 Judicium aquæ ferventis, æneum, cacabus, caldaria. This is probably the oldest form in Europe. See Lea, p. 196. It is usually referred to in the most ancient texts of law, and especially recommended by Hincmar of Rheims, as combining the elements of water-the judgment of the deluge-and of firethe judgment of the last day. The accused was obliged, with his naked arm, to find a small stone or ring in a boiling caldron of water (this was called in German the Kesselfang), or simply to throw the hand to the wrist or to the elbow into boiling water. See Lea, p. 196 sqq.

* Judicium aquæ frigida. It was not known in Europe before Pope Eugenius