Note 317 — Chapter II · ORIGIN OF THE JUDICIAL DUEL.
Reading edition
An Epistle from Theodoric to the Gaulish provinces, which he had just added to his empire, congratulates them on their return to Roman laws and usages, which he orders them to adopt without delay. Its whole tenor shows his thorough appreciation of the superiority of the Imperial codes to the customs of the barbarians, and his anxiety for settled principles of jurisprudence (Cassiodor. Variar. Lib. III. Epist. xvii.).