ABSTRACT
Historically, every age appears to have needed some mechanism of appeal to mystical, supra-human, forces for settling social issues. In the Middle Ages, trial by battle was common. By having disputees fight to the death, Divine Judgement was seen to intercede over rights and priorities in situations where human judgement could always be challenged as fallible. Indeed, as Hanson (1993:29) points out, ‘No legal procedure was more connected with feudalism or its spirit more thoroughly than the wager of battle’.
