Voices About the Hall
Me too.
I also take my oath by the Captain.
Michael Bryant
Master Sergeant
U.S. Marine Corps (Retired)
Howdy Grim,
As well, the early Teuton needn't even bare his blade before the words of a lesser man.
"Why did you kill that man?"
"Because his brother gave me insult"
"Then why not kill the offender?"
"Because this was the better man"
However, this:
"In the days before the duel, the ancient Germanic code held that oath-swearing could take the place of trials by combat."
I disagree with. I believe the oath followed after the duel; and even in the conversion era with Christian Humility being at odds with Teutonic Ár (roughly: honour/glory/fame), the duel was still the final arbitrer. Even among the well-born Teutons who became clergy, the duel (and ancient honor code) was still prevalent: "What has Ingeld to do with Christ" or clerics bemoaning their shame that it is by oath and not sword that they must seek compensation.
Two excellent works are:
Southern Honor - Wyatt-Brown
Honor in German Literature - Jones
Sorry-- cut my post short.
Southern Honor does an excellent job of tracking that ancient honour code and shows the last vestiges in the South.
Honor in German Literature chiefly concerns itself with the Germanic 'Shame Culture' contrasted with Christian 'Guilt Culture'; going into more depth on pre-conversion honour codes. It's interesting to see what influences an alien culture has made upon the indigenous.
Let me clarify: the duel was an outgrowth of trial by combat. However, what we think of as a formal duel was a late development.
Trial by combat has an ancient history, but my understanding -- from the book by Henry Charles Lea I cited -- is that oath-swearing existed as an alternative to 'the wager of battle' even in the earliest surviving examples of law. Lea cites not just Germanic but broader Indo-European evidence to show how it played out in various forms, not only among the Germanic tribes but among the Celts, the Greeks, and the Aryans who settled in India.
So, I'm not trying to assert that oath-swearing preceeded trial by combat; just that the old forms of 'trial by combat OR oath-swearing' preceeded the development of the duel as a way of clearing one's honor. I think that's accurate. You're right, however, that "trial by combat" was considered the more important of the two forms, and in some of the law codes (such as the Frisian) a man could rebut an oath by electing to fight the man who made it.
In viking Iceland, either party to a legal dispute could insist on trial by combat. One of the more famous instances being a divorce case where a younger husband challenged his older father-in-law when the father-in-law sued him for the dowry. Of course, the older man was not able to fight and so lost his case. This and other injustices led to trials by combat being banned the year 1010. So in viking Iceland´s case, trials by combat trumped oath-swearing.
Oath-swearing by 12 of your neighbors or witnesses, on the other hand, was an integral part of the Viking legal process. As far as the legal process was concerned no fact and no act or even a state of mind was established until such a "kviður" (always translated as "jury") would swear by oath that it did happen or that it was a fact.
It is interesting that today, the more you know about a defendant, his circumstances, his alleged crime, the less qualified you are to be a juror. The exact opposite of these Germanic proto juries. I wouldn´t be surprised if this origin of juries explains the origin of the phrase "a jury of your peers".
I too will take my oath by the Captain.
U.S. Army Ranger (former)
51st SOC, Okinawa
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