3. The “modes of decision” for issues of fact, referred to in the extract from Stephen, were, at an early date, “trial” by ordeal, by combat, and by oath. These were not trials in the sense in which we now understand and use that term; rather they were proofs undertaken by one of the parties (or both in the case of combat) at the direction of the court. Ordeal proof by carrying a red-hot iron unscathed or by sinking when thrown into a pool of waterb disappeared in England after it was proscribed by the Lateran Council in 1215. Combat waged by champions of the parties was resisted as a Norman importation, and during the reign of Henry II (1154 1189) an early form of jury began to supplant it, although it was not formally abolished until 1819.