"Now don't let us give ourselves a parcel of airs and pretend that
the oaths we make free with in this land of liberty of ours are our
own; and because we have the spirit to swear them,--imagine that we
have had the wit to invent them too."--_Tristram Shandy._
When Hesiod fabled the god of oaths to be the son of Discord, the poet
could hardly have foreseen the grim reality that would attach to his
satiric allegory. It is now a very small thing--a matter of no
consequence at all--that serious and well-meaning men once attested
their assertions by making passing reference to Minerva or Helios. But
yet is it none the less necessary to realise that they made such
reference for the express purpose of being believed, and that when not
pronouncing one or other of these forms of speech, they ran a strong
chance of being absolutely disbelieved.
Hesiod has dimly chronicled the genealogy of oaths. But it was for other
generations to chronicle their posterity, to hear them derided in the
amphitheatre, and to see the divinities that inspired them shattered
and broken down. But there is a singular survival and continuity of the
ancient practice: men still swear by Jove.
A like process of declension seems to have gone on in all countries and
in the same fashion. To begin with, the origin of all swearing was the
same--the one intense dread of falsehood against which as yet no laws
were sufficient to guard. Fancy the mortal distress of barbarian man
when he first wakes to the belief that his enemies can, by smooth
speech, wrest from his hands what his prowess or his labour has
acquired. No art that he is aware of can pervert the action of tongues
set falsely going. Seeing how illimitable is the crop of words, he may
even imagine a plague of lies that will fall thick about him like
locusts or caterpillars; and then arrives the old expedient. Men fasten
upon a symbol such, as it is hoped, the hardiest will revere, and
syllable it out as evidence of truth.
If we are not mistaken, it may even be said that the degree of
refinement that a community has attained is discernible by taking as a
standpoint the merchantable character of truth. Wherever civilisation is
advancing, the ultimate unserviceability of lying becomes the more
apparent, and there ensues in consequence a depreciation in the value of
veracity. The more widely truth is recognised, the more does it
deteriorate in price, while falsehood ceases to arouse its former
measure of reprobation. Then it is, and not, indeed, until then, that
the old blundering remedy by means of oaths and oath-taking is laid
aside as out of date and no longer availing. Nowadays, at least among
most races of mankind, the ordinary inducements to veracity are of
themselves felt to be sufficiently powerful as to leave no ground for
contending that truthfulness should be the subject of rewards and
bounties. No money value is attached as of right to the performance of
an obvious duty, but in remoter times the recognition of such a
doctrine, could it have been recognised at all, would have spared the
coffers of Roman sesterces and have made the work of the Athenian
pay-clerks hang lightly on their hands. The fact would seem to be that
the prevalency of this deliberative swearing will always be found in
inverse ratio to the prevalency of truth.
The later civilisations may, therefore, be said to have profited by
centuries of untruthfulness in that they have learnt the preponderating
advantages of an intelligible code of truth. To seek an illustration by
comparison of two periods perfectly dissimilar, it may be affirmed that
there was no greater proportion of really truthful men in France at the
period, say, of Voltaire, than twelve hundred years previously at the
period of Gregory of Tours. But the countrymen of Voltaire had become
fairly apprised of the expediency of common veracity, and their
assertions, in consequence, were not accustomed to be disbelieved. But
among the Fredegondes, the Clotaires, and the Cunegondes of Gregory's
Frankish history, the case is wholly different. In that day it might
almost be supposed from a perusal of the work that the faculty of
truth-telling was lost, or more correctly that it had never arisen, so
necessary was it considered to put a statement to the severest test
before the possibility of its accuracy could be admitted. In an
indulgent, selfish, but disciplined civilisation, a statement is
generally presumed to be true which bears the ordinary impress of
veracity. In periods considerably less intellectual and enlightened, we
shall find that nothing is presumed to be true until it has been
subjected to a searching process of corroboration. It is in fact this
process of corroboration that has furnished all ranks of swearers with
their necessary side-arms and equipment.
In the two conditions of society we have just indicated, there is
revealed at once the cause and effect of promiscuous oath-taking. The
one, incredulous and diffident of belief, imposes oath upon oath as its
natural safeguard, and engages in an unremitting struggle to render
the bond of truthfulness subservient to a despotic will. The other is
weary of forms that have outlived whatever spirit was once imparted
them; it has snapped asunder the galling fetters, and made sportive
capital of the lumber that remains. An intervening age of irony probably
sufficed to undermine the sanctity of the swearing obligation, until at
last the oath of more sober times has come to be a common catchword, or
the fustian ornament of somewhat spirited talk. In short, we shall
always find that the sonorous expletive of recent days is nothing else
than the once deliberative oath of Christian piety.
Human ingenuity has seldom been more industriously employed than in
attempting to restore successive breaches in the observances of
swearing. Among the Western nations, it is said, religious sentiment had
nothing to do with the foundation of the usage. With them swearing is
represented to have been of purely military origin, and the oaths taken
upon sword and javelin to have owed nothing to the emotions of piety.
The process undergone by the military oath of Gaul before it finally
culminated in an expression of religious import, was of a very slow and
gradual kind. The Franks were accustomed to appeal to the drawn sword
as being the only arbiter of existence. In course of time the sanctity
of this engagement was broken through, and to ensure due regard for the
solemnity of the oath, it was found necessary to make the weapon the
subject of an impressive ceremony. By the capitularies of Dagobert, the
sword and harness of the warrior were required to be consecrated. Still
later, the name of God was brought into the compact. "If two
neighbours," ordains King Dagobert, "are in dispute as to the boundary
of their possessions, let them bring into the camp a turf of the
disputed territory; and each, with hands resting on the points of their
swords, and taking God to be the witness of the truth, shall give battle
until victory decides the question." Not only was the military oath
superseded; but, as years wore on, even these additional guarantees
proved themselves to be ineffectual. The interposition of saints next
came to be deemed essential, and again with the most conflicting
results. When Chilperic and his brothers divided the kingdom of
Clotaire, and swore never to enter the capital except as allies, their
treaty was ratified by oaths taken in the name of Saint Hilaire, Saint
Policeute, and Saint Martin. As time advanced, these further methods of
precaution in their turn proved abortive. Chilperic, seizing Paris in
contravention of his oath, carried as an antidote the relics of more
potent and illustrious saints in the van of his victorious army. So
dangerous a precedent being once admitted, it became necessary to resort
to still other expedients. It was thought as well to ascertain with what
degree of veneration the intending swearer might happen to regard that
particular member of the calendar whose name was proposed to be invoked.
In doubtful cases, therefore, it was not unusual to conduct a deponent
from one shrine to another, that among the multitude of oaths one of
them at least might prove effectual. A son of Clotaire, being plied by a
rebel agent with insurrectionary advice, thought it prudent to conduct
his adviser before the altars of no less than twelve churches before he
felt himself justified in listening to the representations that were
offered him.
It would seem, indeed, from the practice of half barbarous nations, that
so far from the Deity, or even the monuments of religion, being the
immediate subject of the swearing obligation, these were practically the
most remote. During the second siege of Rome by the Goths, the ministers
of Honorius were called upon to swear solemnly that they would refuse to
entertain any overtures of peace, and would wage implacable warfare upon
the enemy. With great difficulty were they induced to confirm this
engagement with an oath taken by the head of the emperor. This formula
was the most impressive and, in effect, the most binding that could well
have been resorted to, and it is reported by Gibbon that the ministers
were heard to declare that had the same oath been taken by the name of
the Deity they would have held themselves free to depart from it. In
doing blind obeisance to the arms of warfare or the symbols of
authority, the ancient world only varied from the modern as the usages
of religion differ from those of idolatry. In Rome, we are told, the
spear was sacred to Juno, and in the province of Rhegium was worshipped
as Mars. In Scythia the sword was glorified as the messenger of life and
death. And it is to be noticed as an evidence of the superstitious
sanctity that pervaded warlike implements, that in Rome, according to a
half-religious rite, the hair of newly-married women was parted with the
point of a spear. The oaths, in fine, of the Western military nations
distinctly breathe of the spirit of war, while those of the more
dreamful Eastern world are redolent of light and air, of sun and shade.
To this day in Servia the popular forms of swearing express dependence
and reliance upon the powers of nature. _Taku mi Suntza_, So help me
sun; _Taku mi Semlje_, So help me earth, are the methods of
asseveration that are in every-day use.
That period in modern history at which the deliberative oath had assumed
something of its ultimate shape is marked by the occurrence of one
singular invasion of its solemnity. The incident we refer to is the
charge preferred by Thomas-a-Becket against John the Marshal, to the
effect that he had sworn upon a "book of old songs" instead of upon the
sacred writings which had then become the proper instruments for this
purpose. Indeed, in tracing the history of these observances it would
seem as if an endeavour was being constantly made to frustrate the aims
and ends of swearing, and that the more Christian modes were only
resorted to when every pagan method had been found inoperative. To swear
upon the authority of everything that was terrible or grotesque--by the
sword or javelin of a conquering nation, as by the love-token on a
maiden's sleeve;[1] by the sepulchre of a debtor;[2] by the abbey church
at Glastonbury,[3] or by the price of the potter's field[4]--these were
expedients that had been tried and been forsaken before the modern forms
of swearing were reached. Like the time-expired worship of the
divinities of the mythology that, in the one solitary temple of Mount
Casano, was maintained for some hundred years after the gods of Olympus
had been deposed: so the impious oaths of pagandom continued to jostle
and wrestle with those of Christianity for many centuries after
authority had pronounced their doom. "Olympian Jupiter!" exclaims
Aristophanes, at the mention of that oath, "to think of your believing
in Jupiter, as old as you are!"
How stubbornly the ground was contested may be inferred from the
enactments of civil and ecclesiastical law. So early as the ninth
century, Justinian prescribed the punishment of death for the offence of
swearing by the limbs of God. The code that prevailed in the northern
districts of Britain was more severe than any that was enforced
elsewhere in these islands. By statutes of Donald VI. and Kenneth II.,
the penalty of cutting out the tongue was inflicted upon swearers. In
France, Charlemagne legislated expressly against the practice of impious
oath-taking, and by an edict of Philip II. swearers were condemned to
drowning in the Seine.[5] The Council of Constantinople passed a
sentence of excommunication upon the swearers of heathen oaths.
To how great an extent this unmeaning discord disturbed the current of
mediaeval life may be seen from an examination of contemporary
literature. In particular, we may instance an early fragment that has
come down to us, and was evidently intended as a glowing satire upon the
prevalence of the abuse. It is called the "Moralite des Blasphemateurs,"
and was issued from the Paris press in the early part of the sixteenth
century. The whole design of the piece is to exhibit the supposed agency
of the potentates of Hell in proselytising mankind towards the adoption
of the most abhorrent blasphemy. Satan, according to demonologists once
the governor of the north of Heaven, is now a feudatory prince in the
kingdom of Beelzebub. He is presumed to act under the orders of Lucifer,
the judge of Hell, and is joined in his commission by Behemoth, the
henchman and cupbearer of the infernal chiefs. There is a sufficiency of
invective in the opening greeting of these personages that was doubtless
calculated to add to the repulsive character of the performance:--
"Sathan, ennemy traistre et faulx,
Ou es tu mauldict loricart?"
To which Satan replies:--
"Que veulx tu, mauldict Lucifer?
Que te fault-il, beste saulvaige?"
Their salutation finished, these worthies proceed to recount the sport
they have had on earth. Satan has visited the land of France, where he
has spent his time in the company of horse-stealers and cattle-lifters,
fellows, he assures them, who have no thought for mass or vespers; and
he has left them feasting day and night, getting as drunk as herons.
This account of his stewardship seems to give but small satisfaction to
Lucifer, who thereupon bids his followers--
"Allez tost par mons et par vaulx
Faire jurer le nom de Dieu
A garses et a garsonneaulx
En toute place et en tout lieu.
C'est une belle operation
De jurer Dieu a chascun point."
This strain of conversation continues through over a hundred pages of
closely-printed matter, and is only varied by the exordiums of certain
more admirable characters, who are introduced, as we must suppose, to
point a moral to the story.
The state of feeling disclosed by this offensive farce shows plainly,
even at that time, that the public which tolerated it had passed out of
a state of mere supineness and had assumed an attitude of disrespect and
defiance towards the authority of oaths. The system had been allowed to
overreach itself, and thenceforward its set forms and all the
paraphernalia that pertained to them were made over to the service of
criminality and to the uses of violent speech. The modern practice of
swearing, in either its flippant or vituperative shape, is derived from
the break-up of the process once devised as a protection of truthfulness
and fair dealing. So nearly allied have been the oaths of piety and
statecraft with those of violence and malice, that the severer thinkers,
whether Lollards, Puritans, or Quakers, have waged a war of
extermination against both alike. They have contended, and with some
amount of probability, that these jarring expletives of passion and
irreligion have only been perpetuated by reason of the familiarity that
has ensued from the undue exaction of legal tests. The same stubbornness
with which they combated the evil in endless tracts and broadsides they
maintained before courts and inquisitions. At the Lancaster Assizes of
1664, George Fox and Mrs. Margaret Fell stood upon their trial for
refusing to conform. "I have never laid my hand on the book to swear in
all my life," urged the woman. "I do not care if I never hear an oath
read, for the land mourns because of oaths." And then appealing to the
jury she exclaims: "I was bred and born in this county and never have
been at this assize before. I am a widow, and my estate is a dowry, and
I have five children unpreferred."
There was one device of oath-taking, half pagan and half barbaric, which
but very slowly relaxed its hold on Christian Europe. We have spoken of
the oath upon the sword--the oath of ancient Scythia, the oath of the
Antigone of Euripedes. In the terrors of an isolated death, remote from
all the outward appliances of his faith, the stricken warrior found
consolation in raising before his vision the hilt of his scabbardless
sword. The tapering metal-hafted blade threw the shadow of a cross upon
the dying soldier, and to this rude emblem the poor fevered lips would
stammer out their last words of petition. The sword had become a revered
symbol conveying to the departing the hope of divine favour and
intercession. This thought so powerfully arrested the imagination that
it did not relinquish its grasp when a period of security had succeeded
a reign of bloodshed and danger. In the traditions of Denmark, the oath
upon the sword-hilt was preserved in a spirit of deep solemnity. Later,
in English history, the King-Maker took his vows upon the cross of his
bared steel, and the custom lingered in effigy to the days of Elizabeth,
when the fencing-masters, practising their calling at the Bear Garden,
were required to take an oath upon their rapier's hilt to carry
themselves honourably in their profession.[6] The gravity with which
this form of conjuration is approached by Hamlet's followers is evident
from the passage:--
"_Hor._ }
} My lord, we will not.
_Mar._ }
_Hamlet._ Nay, but swear it.
_Hor._ In faith, my lord, not I.
_Ghost._ (beneath). Swear!
_Hamlet._ Ha, ha, boy! say'st thou so? art there, true-penny?
Come on--you hear this fellow in the cellarage,
Consent to swear.
_Hor._ Propose the oath, my lord.
_Hamlet._ Never to speak of this that you have seen,
Swear by my sword."
The ground that we have thus far traversed is really one of a remarkable
struggle, that has not abated even in our time. It is not the intention
of this essay to follow the history of judicial oath-taking, or of the
attestations that would seem to be demanded by conscience or religion.
But it must be remembered that the subject of vituperative swearing is
so interwoven with that of these legal and religious ordinances, that
the consideration of them must be frequently forced upon us. But whilst
doing so it should be no less borne in mind that we are never really
losing sight of the object we have in view. We aim simply at
disinterring a neglected, possibly a justly neglected, chapter in the
world's social history, and are called upon to judge both of the tree
and its fruit, of the seed and the grain.