Everything about Trial By Ordeal totally explained
Trial by ordeal is a judicial practice by which the guilt or innocence of the accused is determined by subjecting them to a painful task. If either the task is completed without injury, or the injuries sustained are healed quickly, the accused is considered innocent. In medieval Europe, like
trial by combat, it was considered a
judicium Dei: a procedure based on the premise that
God would help the innocent by performing a miracle on their behalf. The practice has much earlier roots however, being attested in
polytheistic cultures as far back as the
Code of Hammurabi and the
Code of Ur-Nammu, and in
animist tribal societies, such as the trial by ingestion of "red water" (
calabar bean) in
Sierra Leone, where the intended effect is
magical rather than invocation of a deity's justice.
In pre-modern society, the ordeal typically ranked along with the
oath and
witness accounts as the central means by which to reach a judicial verdict. Indeed, the term
ordeal itself,
Old English ordǣl, has the meaning of "judgement, verdict" (German
Urteil, Dutch
oordeel), from
Proto-Germanic *uzdailjam "that which is dealt out".
In
Europe, ordeals commonly required an accused person to test himself or herself against fire or water, though the precise nature of the proof varied considerably at different times and places. In
England, ordeals were common under both the
Anglo-Saxons and the
Normans. Fire was the element typically used to test noble defendants, while water was more commonly used by lesser folk.
Priestly cooperation in trials by fire and water was forbidden by
Pope Innocent III at the
Fourth Lateran Council of 1215, and replaced by
compurgation. Trials by ordeal became more rare over the
Late Middle Ages, often replaced by confessions extracted under
torture, but the practice was discontinued only in the 16th century.
Johannes Hartlieb in 1456 reports a popular superstition on how to identify a thief by an
ordeal by ingestion practiced privately without judicial sanction.
Ordeal of fire
This test typically required that the accused walk a certain distance, usually nine feet, over
red-hot ploughshares or holding a red-hot
iron. Innocence was sometimes established by a complete lack of injury, but it was more common for the wound to be bandaged and reexamined three days later by a priest, who would pronounce that God had intervened to heal it, or that it was merely
festering - in which case the suspect would be
exiled or executed. One famous instance of the ordeal of ploughshares concerned
Emma of Normandy, accused of
adultery with the
Bishop of Winchester in the mid-eleventh century. If church chroniclers are to be believed, she was so manifestly innocent that she'd already walked over the blades when she asked if her trial would soon begin.
Another form of the ordeal required that an accused remove a stone from a pot of boiling water, oil, or lead. The assessment of the injury, and the consequences of a miracle or lack thereof, followed a similar procedure to that described in the preceding paragraph. An early (non-judicial) example of the test was described by
Gregory of Tours in the seventh century AD. He tells how a Catholic saint (
Saint Hyacinth) bested an
Arian rival by plucking a stone from a boiling
cauldron. Gregory accepted that it took Hyacinth about an hour to complete the task (because the waters were bubbling so ferociously), but he was pleased to record that when the heretic tried, he'd the skin boiled off up to his elbow.
Ordeal of water
English Common Law
In the
Assize of Clarendon, enacted in 1166 and the first great legislative act in the reign of the English
Angevin King
Henry II, the law of the land required that: "anyone, who shall be found, on the oath of the aforesaid [ajury], to be accused or notoriously suspect of having been a robber or murderer or thief, or a receiver of them ... be taken and put to the ordeal of water."
Ordeal of hot water
First mentioned in the 6th century
Lex Salica, the ordeal of hot water requires the accused to dip his hand in a kettle of boiling water. In 12th Century Catholic churches the priest would demand a suspect to place his hand in the boiling water. If, after three days, God hadn't healed his wounds, the suspect was guilty of said crimes.
Ordeal of cold water
This ordeal has a precedent in the
code of Hammurabi, where a man accused of
sorcery is to be submerged in a stream and acquitted if he survives. The practice occurred in Frankish law and was abolished by
Louis the Pious in 829. The practice did re-appear in the Late Middle Ages, however. In the
Dreieicher Wildbann of 1338, a man accused of
poaching is to be submerged in a
barrel three times, and to be considered guilty if he sinks to the bottom.
This ordeal became also associated with the
witch-hunts of the 16th and 17th centuries, and
demonologists would develop inventive new theories about how it worked. Some argued that witches floated because they'd renounced
baptism when entering the
Devil's service. Jacob Rickius claimed that they were supernaturally light, and recommended weighing them as an alternative to dunking them.
King James I (and VI of Scotland) claimed in his
Daemonologie that water was so pure an element that it repelled the guilty. A late witch process to include this ordeal took place in
Szegedin,
Hungary in 1728.
Gregory of Tours (died 594) recorded the common expectation that with a
millstone round his or her neck, the guilty would sink: "The cruel
pagans cast him [Quirinus,bishop of the church of Sissek] into a river with a millstone tied to his neck, and when he'd fallen into the waters he was long supported on the surface by a divine
miracle, and the waters didn't suck him down since the weight of crime didn't press upon him."
The ordeal of water is also contemplated by the
Vishnu Smrti, which is one of the texts of the
Dharmaśāstra. this process of ordeal happened once or twice a week.
Ordeal of the cross
The ordeal of the cross was apparently introduced in the
Early Middle Ages by the church in an attempt to discourage
judicial duels among the
Germanic peoples. As in the case of such duels, and unlike the case of most other ordeals, the accuser has to undergo the ordeal together with the accused. They stand on either side of a cross and stretch out their hands horizontally. The one to first lower his arms loses. This ordeal was proscribed by
Charlemagne in 779 and again in 806. On the other hand, a decree of
Lothar I, recorded in 876, rules its abolition so as to avoid mockery of Christ.
Ordeal of ingestion
Franconian law prescribed that an accused was to be given dry bread and cheese blessed by a priest. If he choked on the food, he was considered guilty. This was transformed into the ordeal of the eucharist (trial by sacrament), mentioned by Regino of Prüm ca. 900: the accused was to take the eucharist after a solemn oath professing his innocence. It was believed that if the oath had been false, the criminal would die within the same year.
Numbers 5:12–27 prescribes that a woman suspected of adultery should be made to swallow "the bitter water that causeth the curse" by the priest in order to determine her guilt. The accused would be condemned only if 'her belly shall swell and her thigh shall rot'. It can be found in the Torah (where it's known as the Sotah) and the Old Testament (Numbers 5:12-31). One writer has recently argued that the procedure has a rational basis, envisioning punishment only upon clear proof of pregnancy (a swelling belly) or venereal disease (a rotting thigh), but a more likely origin is the connection of ascites with oath-breakers in the Ancient Orient (see Hittite military oath).
Some cultures administer the poisonous calabar bean to attempt to detect guilt. If the defendant vomits and their stomach rejects the bean, he or she's proclaimed innocent. If the defendant dies or becomes ill, he's considered guilty.
Other ordeal methods
A Burmese ordeal tradition involves the two accused persons to light a candle, with the winner being the owner of the candle that outlasts the other's.
An Icelandic ordeal tradition involves the accused walking under a piece of turf. If the turf falls on the accused's head, the accused person is pronounced guilty.
Parodies of trials by ordeal
A humorous parody, illustrating the absurdity of trials by ordeal, is included in the Monty Python film, Monty Python and the Holy Grail. A crowd of medieval villagers bring a woman to Sir Bedevere, accusing her of witchcraft. The villagers admit that they gave her a fake nose and had dressed her up to appear more like a witch. Sir Bedevere, not fully convinced, proposes a non sequitur test to determine whether or not she's a witch: witches burn, and so does wood, so witches are made of wood; wood floats on water, and so do ducks, therefore, if she weighs as much as a duck, she's a witch. (She does, and is carried off by the villagers to be burned, adding, "It's fair cop"—that is, that she was rightly accused and properly tried.)
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