sins are distinguished from venial sins according to fixed rules. In law, culpability is established in the first place by the formal nature of the deed. The ancient judicial adage, “The deed judges the man,” had lost nothing of its force. Although jurisprudence had been long ago freed from the extreme formalism of primitive law, which knew no difference between the intentional and the involuntary deed and did not punish an attempt that had miscarried, yet traces of a severe formalism existed in great number at the close of the Middle Ages. Thus, there was a rule of long standing that a slip of the tongue in the formula of an oath rendered it null and void, the oath being a sacred thing. In the thirteenth century an exception was made in favour of foreign merchants who only knew the language of the country imperfectly, and it was conceded that their incorrect language in taking the oath should not lose them their rights.
The extreme sensibility to everything touching honour is an effect of the general formalism. A nobleman is blamed for having the caparison of his horse ornamented with his armorial bearings, because, if the horse, “a brute beast,” should stumble at the joust, the coat of arms would be dragged through the sand and the whole family dishonoured.
The formal element occupied a large place in everything connected with vengeance, expiations, reparations for wounded honour. The right of vengeance, a very vital element in the “ customs of France and the Netherlands in the fifteenth century, was exercised more or less according to fixed rules. It is not always furious anger which urges people to acts of violence in pursuit of vengeance; amends for offended honour are sought according to a well-regulated plan. It is, above all, a question of shedding blood, not of killing; sometimes care is taken to wound the victim only in the face, the arms, or the thighs.
The satisfaction sought for, being formal, is symbolic. In political reconciliations in the fifteenth century, symbolic actions have a very large share: demolition of houses which recall the crime, erection of commemorative crosses or chapels, injunctions to block up a doorway, etc., not to mention expiatory processions and masses for the dead. After his reconciliation with his brother at Rouen in 1469, Louis XI’s first
