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LONDON (Reuters) - Some heated verbal exchanges erupted on Friday in the closing stages of "The Da Vinci Code" copyright court case, in which two historians accuse author Dan Brown of lifting their research wholesale in his bestseller.

Richard Leigh took to the witness box after more than three days of painstaking cross examination of co-claimant Michael Baigent, enlivening proceedings and saying all he had wanted was proper acknowledgement from Brown in his novel.

Leigh could hardly have been more different than the soft-spoken, professorial Baigent. In delivery he was clear and aggressive, and instead of dark, sober suits he appeared in court this week in a brown leather jacket and dark sunglasses.

Leigh and Baigent are co-authors of the 1982 historical work "The Holy Blood, and the Holy Grail," and say Brown copied their central themes in his religious thriller.

They are suing Brown's British publisher Random House in a case that has attracted huge media attention, both because of Brown's superstar status among writers and the potential precedent the case could set should the historians succeed.

Brown, 41, has been in court for most of the hearings and watched on Friday when Leigh was in the witness box. Brown is expected to give evidence on Monday.

PACKED COURTROOM

"If Mr. Brown had acknowledged Holy Blood, Holy Grail at the opening of his book ... I question whether in fact we would be here," Leigh told a packed courtroom.

After Leigh's cross-examination ended surprisingly quickly, Judge Peter Smith closed the second week of the case by pointing out that a character in The Da Vinci Code actually refers to the 1982 book.

The name of the character, Sir Leigh Teabing, is in fact an anagram of the names of the two claimants.

"In the first place it damns us with faint praise," said Leigh, adding he found Teabing's reference to the book "patronising."    Continued ...

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