While medieval dramas like Game of Thrones may have raised the profile of the idea of trial by combat in more recent times, the legal process for the procedure still holds some weight in the United Kingdom’s justice system. As recently as 2002, a British citizen tried to opt for this kind of trial in the face of a 25 quid motoring offense.
Trial by combat is perhaps the simplest and oldest way to settle a dispute. In the case of a disagreement or spat over honor, the plaintiff and defendant would fight using simple weapons—often to the death. As legal systems became more sophisticated and fair, they became increasingly reserved for when witnesses were unavailable, or a consensus could be gathered no other way.
First becoming an accepted legal practice in Germany, judicial duels became the subject of many different sets of rules. The sorts of weapons and armor used, time of the confrontation, and even footing could all be decided by the letter of the law. The Dresden codex had rules that kept either combatant from starting the fight with the sun in their eyes, and another set of rules from a fencing school dictated that a combatant needed to slash at the air a few times in the case of a no-show.
Combat trials weren’t just reserved for disputes between men either; marital duels were commonplace as well. Used to settle arguments, the husband was buried to his waist and had his arm tied behind his back. He was given a club or mace while his wife was allowed to use a lengthened and weighted sleeve.
While laws in Germany incentivized fairness, knights in England were able to bring their full arsenals to bear on commoners who would only have access to the most basic equipment. Though judicial duels eventually fell out of favor with British courts, Queen Elizabeth II still retains a royal champion to defend the throne should someone challenge her to a trial by combat for the throne. The man who holds the office of “Queen’s Champion and Standard Bearer of England” today is named Francis John Fane Marmion Dymoke. He’s 64 years old and works mostly as an accountant.
Great topic! A couple of points here: the first European reference to judicial duelling does not come from Germany, but rather from the laws of the Burgundian king Gundobad in 502 CE.
We have no evidence that duels between a man and a woman were supposed to be between a husband and wife. The only places where this kind of duel was talked about were certain jurisdictions in what is now southern Germany and Switzerland, where it was supposed to be for cases of rape. There is only one recorded case of such a trial reaching the point of combat. The woman won. For further information about these duels, see pp. 18-20 of my recent article “Tradition, Innovation, Re-enactment: Hans Talhoffer’s Unusual Weapons” in the most recent volume of the online academic journal Acta Periodica Duellatorum.
Finally, the statement “knights in England were able to bring their full arsenals to bear on commoners who would only have access to the most basic equipment” may or may not be true, since there do not seem to have been any such cases. The general principle, stated in the thirteenth-century treatise Mirror of Justices, was that nobility and commoners could only fight men of their own class. For a more detailed discussion, see my doctoral dissertation, linked above, at p. 140.
Thank you Ripleys to accept the previous comment. Looks to me that she knows what she’s talking about ! Again, thank you for your open mind.