The judges, who had no other rule to
go by than the usages, inquired very often by witnesses into every cause
that was brought before them.
The usage of judicial combats beginning to decline, they made their
inquests in writing. But a verbal proof committed to writing is never
more than a verbal proof; so that this only increased the expenses of
law proceedings. Regulations were then made which rendered most of those
inquests useless;
[309]
public registers were established, which
ascertained most facts, as nobility, age, legitimacy, and marriage.
Writing is a witness very hard to corrupt; the customs were therefore
reduced to writing. All this is very reasonable; it is much easier to go
and see in the baptismal register whether Peter is the son of Paul than
to prove this fact by a tedious inquest. When there are a number of
usages in a country, it is much easier to write them all down in a code,
than to oblige individuals to prove every usage. At length the famous
ordinance was made which prohibited the admitting of the proof by
witnesses for a debt exceeding an hundred livres, except there was the
beginning of a proof in writing.
