Single combat to be decided by the judgment of God

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Few images capture the logic of medieval justice as directly as this engraving, whose title announces a combat to be decided by the judgment of God. Trial by battle rested on the belief that Providence would grant victory to the party in the right, so a dispute over guilt or property could be settled in the lists rather than in court. The print copies a 16th-century French manuscript and appeared in the July 1902 issue of the *Green Bag*, a legal periodical whose readers were interested in older procedures. The practice had faded well before the 16th century, though the 1386 duel between Jean de Carrouges and Jacques Le Gris in Paris remains its best-known late example.

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