BAT 
Naples, and province of Capatinata : three miles north- 
WeftofViefte. 
BAT'TAILOUS, adj. [from bataille, Fr.] Having the 
appearance of a battle j warlike; with a military appearance: 
A fiery region, flretch’d 
In battailous afpeft, and nearer view 
Bridled with upright beams innumerable 
Of rigid fpears and helmets throng’d. Milton. 
BATTA'LIA,./. [. battaglia , Itah] The order of bat- 
tie.—Next morning the king put his army into battalia. 
Clarendon. —The main body of an army .in array, diftin- 
guilhed from the wings. 
BATTAL'ION, f. [bataillon , Fr.] A divifion of an 
army ; a troop ; a body of forces. It is now confined to 
the infantry, and the number is uncertain, but generally 
from five to eight hundred men. Some regiments confift 
of one battalion, and ethers are divided into two, three, 
or more: ' 
The pierc’d battalions difunited fall 
In heaps on heaps: one fate o’erwhelms them all. Pope. 
BATTARIS'MUS,/ [fromBarr©-,a Cyrenaean prince 
who Hammered; hence £aT'r«gn£b 3 to Hammer. ] Stammer¬ 
ing: a defefl in pronunciation. 
BAT'TATA,/. in botany. See Dioscorea. 
B AT'TATAS,/. in botany. See Helianthus. 
BAT'TE-L, a market-town in Sulfex, fix miles from 
Haftings, and fifty-feven from London. Its original name 
was Epiton; but it took the prelent from the decilive bat¬ 
tle fought October 14, 1066, between king Harold and 
William duke of Normany, in which the former, with 
60,000 men on both ftdes, were killed. This is commonly 
called the battle of HaJUngs. By this decifive blow in fa¬ 
vour of the conqueror, Britain became fubjeft to him, and 
he was foon after acknowledged king of England. On 
Heathfield or rather Headfield-plain, where the battle 
was fought, (fo called, probably, from fo many heads or 
lives having been loH on it,) he founded a monaftery of 
Benedidtines, dedicated to St. Martin, whofe abbot was 
mitred, and called it Battel-abbey , both in commemoration 
of his own fuceefs, and that the monks of it fhould pray 
for the fouls of the llain. Its abbots could protect the 
greateH villains that fled to it, and even fave the lives of 
any that were going to be executed. It was a ftately pile, 
and almoH a mile in compafs. The gate-houfe, which is 
almoH entire, ferves for the fellions, and other public 
meetings. The incumbent of the church is called dean of 
Battel. Here is made the fined gunpowder in England, 
very much prized by fportfmen, called Battel-powder, 
which employs a number of labouring people ; the town 
has elfe very little trade. It has a harbour for barges, 
and a charity-fchool for forty boys. There is a hill near 
it, with a beacon, thence called Beacon-hill , though its old 
name is Standard-hill , becattfe the conqueror fet up his 
fiandard on it, the day before his victory. From the be¬ 
ginning of Romney-marfh, that is to fay, at Sandgate or 
'Sandfoot caflle, near Hythe, to this place, the country is 
a rich fertile foil, full of feeding-groundsand an incre¬ 
dible number of large flieep are fed every year upon them, 
and fent up to the London markets j^alfo large bullocks, 
efpecially thofe they call failed or houfe-fed oxen, from their 
being kept within the farmers ftieds or .yards all the latter 
feafon, where they are fed for the winter-market, and ge¬ 
nerally deemed the largeH beef in England. In Romney- 
marfh are found great timber-trees, lying at length under 
ground, as black as ebony, and fit for ufe, when dried in 
the fun. Market on Thurfday ; fairs the 22d of November 
and Whit-Monday ; and on Battel-field the 2d of Augtift. 
Battel, or trial by wager of Battel, f. in law, a 
fpectes of trial of great antiquity, which is Hill in force, 
though difufed. It feems to have owed its origin to the mi¬ 
litary fpirit of our ancefiors, joined to a fuperftitious frame 
of mind; it being in the nature of an appeal to Providence, 
under an apprehenfion and hope (however prefumptuous 
Vol. II. No. 104. 
BAT 
and unwarrantable), that heaven would give the viftory 
to him who had the right. The decifion of fuits, by this 
appeal to the God of battles, is by fome faid to have been 
invented by the Burgundi, one of the northern or Ger¬ 
man dans that planted themfelves in Gaul. And it is 
true, that the firfi written injunction of judicatory com¬ 
bats that we meet with, is in the laws of Gundebal, 
A. D. 501, which are preferved in the Burgundian code. 
Yet it does not feem to have been merely a local cuflom 
of this or that particular tribe, but to have been the com¬ 
mon ufage of all thofe warlike people from the earlieft 
times. And it may alfo feem, from a paffage in Velleius 
Paterculus, that the Germans, when firfi they "became 
known to the Romans, were wont to decide all contefis of 
right by the fword : for when Quintilius Varus endea¬ 
voured to introduce among them the Roman laws and 
method of trial, it was looked upon (fays the hifiorian) as 
novitas incognita dfeiplina , ut folita armis decerne jure termi- 
narentur. And among the ancient Goths in Sweden we find 
the practice of judicatory duels eftablifhed upon much the 
fame footing as they formerly were in our own country. 
This fpecies of trial by baftel, fays Sir William Black- 
Hone, was introduced into England by William the Con¬ 
queror; but was only ufed in three cafes, one military, 
one criminal, and the third civil. The firfi in the court- 
martial, or court of chivalry and honour ; the.fecond in 
appeals of felony; and the third upon ifliie joined in a 
writ of right, the laft and mod folemn decifion of real pro¬ 
perty. For in writs of right the jus proprietors, which is 
frequently a matter o.f difficulty, is in queftion ; but other 
real aClions being merely queftions of the jus pojfejjionis , 
which are ufually more plain and obvious, our ancefiors 
did not in them appeal to the decifion of Providence. An¬ 
other pretext for allowing it, upon thefe final writs of 
right, was alfo for the fake of fuc-h claimants as might 
have the true right, but yet by the death of witnefies or 
other defeCt of evidence be unable to prove it to a jury. 
But the mod curious reafon of all is given in the Mirror, 
that it is allowable upon warrant of the combat between 
David for the people of Ifrael of the one party, and Goliah 
for the Philiftines of the other party : a reafon which pope 
Nicholas I. very ferioufly decides to be inconclufive. The 
laft trial by battel that was waged in the court of common 
pleas at Weftminfier-(though there was afterwards one in 
the court of chivalry in 1631, and another in the county 
palatine of Durham in 1638) was in the 13th year of 
queen Elizabeth, A. D. 1571, as reported by Sir James 
Dyer; and was held in Tothill-fields, Weftminfier, non 
fine magna juris confultorum perturbatione, faith Sir Henry 
S pel man, who was himfelf a witnefs of the ceremony. 
The form, as appears from the authors before cited, is 
as follows. 
When the tenant in a writ of right pleads the general 
iffue, viz. that he hath more right to hold than the de¬ 
mandant hath to recover ; and offers to prove it by the 
body of his champion, which tender is accepted by the de¬ 
mandant ; the tenant in the firfi place mu ft produce his 
champion, who, by throwing down his glove as a gage or 
pledge, thus wages or ftipulates battel with the champion 
of the demandant; who, by taking up the-gage or glove, 
ftipulates on his part to accept the challenge. A piece 
of ground is then fet out, -of-fi-xty feet fquare, incloled 
with lifts, and on one fide a court erefted for the judges 
■of the court of common pleas, who attend in their fear- 
let robes; and alfo a bar is prepared for the ferjeants 
and barrifters at law. 'When the court fits, which ought 
to be by funrifing, proclamation' is made for the parties 
and their champions; who are introduced by-two knights, 
and are drefled in a coat of armour, with .red fandals, . 
barelegged from the knee downwards, bareheaded, and 
with bare arms-to ; the elbows; The weapons allowed them 
are only batoons, or Haves, of an ell long, and a four-cor¬ 
nered leather target; fo that death very feldom -enfued 
this civil combat. In the court military, indeed,, they 
fought with fword and lance, -according to Speiman and 
9 U Rufhworth 3 
