THE KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM 93
appoint a man to fight on her behalf. If that champion was
defeated or pleaded for mercy, the principal, if a man, was
hanged along with the champion in a criminal case; if the
principal in such a case was a woman, she was burned and
her champion was hanged. The Assizes lay down the dress
of the combatants and the weapons permitted in trial by battle.
Each combatant must swear that he carried no charms and
would use no sorcery against his opponent. In a murder case,
the corpse was to be brought to the place of battle and laid
naked on the field during the fight. A knight who felt him-
self aggrieved by the result of a legal trial could challenge
the court to combat, but if he did so then he must fight all
the judges one by one.
Over twenty lords in the Latin states had the right of
high, middle and low justice, and maintained their own courts
modelled on those of the King of Jerusalem. Any right of
justice was keenly valued5 the fines that were imposed by the
judges went to the lord and proved a profitable source of
income j or a lord could sell the revenue for a yearly sum.
Even more valuable was the right to maintain a mint.
Attempts to confine minting to the princes had not succeeded,
but the privilege was jealously guarded, and only the greatest
barons were permitted to issue their own currency. Usually
the coins bore a reproduction of a sacred object or a Christian
text, but to facilitate trade coins were at some periods also
issued with Arabic inscriptions from the Koran. While only
the great feudatories had the right of high justice and still
fewer were permitted to mint money, many lords were
entitled to impose taxes on caravans, merchandise, and
travellers passing through their territory $ and a noble who
controlled any part of one of the important routes to
Damascus or Egypt or Arabia was assured of a heavy yield
from such levies.
The Church in Palestine had provided no men to the feudal
army in the time of Godfrey de Bouillon, but Baldwin I and