Was klagst du ueber Feinde?  Sollten Solche je warden Freunde Denen das Wesen, wie du bist, Im stillen ein ewiger Vorwurf ist?

[Footnote 1:  De Constantia, 11.]

It is obvious that people of this worthless description have good cause to be thankful to the principle of honor, because it puts them on a level with people who in every other respect stand far above them.  If a fellow likes to insult any one, attribute to him, for example, some bad quality, this is taken prima facie as a well-founded opinion, true in fact; a decree, as it were, with all the force of law; nay, if it is not at once wiped out in blood, it is a judgment which holds good and valid to all time.  In other words, the man who is insulted remains—­in the eyes of all honorable people—­what the man who uttered the insult—­even though he were the greatest wretch on earth—­was pleased to call him; for he has put up with the insult—­the technical term, I believe.  Accordingly, all honorable people will have nothing more to do with him, and treat him like a leper, and, it may be, refuse to go into any company where he may be found, and so on.

This wise proceeding may, I think, be traced back to the fact that in the Middle Age, up to the fifteenth century, it was not the accuser in any criminal process who had to prove the guilt of the accused, but the accused who had to prove his innocence.[1] This he could do by swearing he was not guilty; and his backers—­consacramentales—­had to come and swear that in their opinion he was incapable of perjury.  If he could find no one to help him in this way, or the accuser took objection to his backers, recourse was had to trial by the Judgment of God, which generally meant a duel.  For the accused was now in disgrace,[2] and had to clear himself.  Here, then, is the origin of the notion of disgrace, and of that whole system which prevails now-a-days amongst honorable people—­only that the oath is omitted.  This is also the explanation of that deep feeling of indignation which honorable people are called upon to show if they are given the lie; it is a reproach which they say must be wiped out in blood.  It seldom comes to this pass, however, though lies are of common occurrence; but in England, more than elsewhere, it is a superstition which has taken very deep root.  As a matter of order, a man who threatens to kill another for telling a lie should never have told one himself.  The fact is, that the criminal trial of the Middle Age also admitted of a shorter form.  In reply to the charge, the accused answered:  That is a lie; whereupon it was left to be decided by the Judgment of God.  Hence, the code of knightly honor prescribes that, when the lie is given, an appeal to arms follows as a matter of course.  So much, then, for the theory of insult.

[Footnote 1:  See C.G. von Waehter’s Beitraege zur deutschen Geschichte, especially the chapter on criminal law.]