campfight
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English[edit]
Noun[edit]
campfight (uncountable)
- (historical) A form of trial by combat between two people, the winner being deemed innocent.
- 1835, Thomas Rose, Historia technica Anglicana:
- William discovered an inclination to humanize his people by abolishing trials by ordeal and campfight. […] The trial by campfight was performed by single combat, in lists appointed for that purpose, between the accuser and the accused. He who, in such a case, came off victorious, was deemed innocent; and he who was conquered, if he survived his antagonist's resentment in the field, was sure to suffer as a malefactor some time after.