JUDICIAL AND EXECUTIVE SYSTEMS. 493 



tuted a penalty adjudged by usage or authority ; but they are 

 paralleled by feuds between individuals in the like respeofc. 

 Prom the first stage in which each man avenges himself by 

 force on a transgressing neighbour, as the whole community 

 does on a transgressing community, the transition is to a 

 stage in which he has the alternative of demanding justice at 

 the hands of the ruler. We see this beginning in such places 

 as the Sandwich Islands, where an injured person who is too 

 weak to retaliate, appeals to the king or principal chief ; and 

 in quite advanced stages, option between the two methods 

 of obtaining redress survives. The feeling shown down to the 

 13th century by Italian nobles, who &quot; regarded it as dis 

 graceful to submit to laws ralher than do themselves justice 

 by force of arms,&quot; is traceable throughout the history of 

 Europe in the slow yielding of private rectification of wrongs 

 to public arbitration. &quot;A capitulary of Charles the Bald 

 bids them [the freemen] go to court armed as for war, for 

 they might have to light for their jurisdiction ;&quot; and our own 

 history furnishes an interesting example in the early form of 

 an action for recovering land : the &quot; grand assize &quot; which tried 

 the cause, originally consisted of knights armed with swords. 

 Again we have evidence in such facts as that in the 12th 

 century in France, legal decisions were so little regarded 

 that trials often issued in duels. Further proof is yielded by 

 such facts as that judicial duels (which were the authorized 

 substitutes for private wars between families) continued in 

 France down to the close of the 14th century ; that in 

 England, in 17G8, a legislative proposal to abolish trial by 

 buttle, was so strongly opposed that the measure was dropped; 

 and that the option of such trial was not disallowed till 1819. 

 We may observe, also, that this self-protection gradually 

 gives place to protection by the State, only under stress of 

 public needs especially need for military efficiency. Edicts 

 of Charlemagne and of Charles the Bald, seeking to stop the 

 disorders consequent on private wars, by insisting on appeals 

 to the ordained authorities, and threatening punishment of 



