Note 084 Montesquieu (The Spirit of Laws, xxviii. c. 14), who understands why the judicial combat was admitted by the Burgundians, Ripuarians, Alemanni, Bavarians, Lombards, Thuringians, Frisons, and Saxons, is satisfied (and Agobard seems to countenance the assertion) that it was not allowed by the Salic law. Yet the same custom, at least in cases of treason, is mentioned by Ermoldus Nigellus (1. iii. 543, in tom. vi. p. 48) and the anonymous biographer of Lewis the Pious (c. 46, in tom. vi. p. 112), as the "mos antiquus Francorum more Francis solito," etc., expressions too general to exclude the noblest of their tribes.

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The History Of The Decline and Fall Of The Roman Empire—Volume 1— Chapter 38