ORDEAL

(In modern Latin ordalium; from the German urtYieW, judgment.) The practice of referring litigated questions, and the guilt or innocence of parties under accusation to the judgment of God (testified, in popular belief, either by the event of lots, or by the succe or failure of certain experiments), is of very ancient date; and was transferred, with other relics of their Pagan institutions, by the Teutonic nations, when settled in the provinces of ancient Rome, to their new bodies of j urisprudence. The ordeal was awarded in various cases; either arbitrarily by the court, or at the request of a party accused, who was anxious to clear himself; either as an alternative for trial by compurgation or by battle, or as the regular mode of deciding an i ue. In the earlier ages of modern European history, the ordeal was under the peculiar protection of the clergy, who afterwards discountenanced it; and its gradual suppre ion must be mainljf attributed to the decrees of popes and councils, of which several were pronounced against it in the course of the thirteenth century, beginning with the decree of the fourth Later an council in 121.5. Among the various forms of ordeal in use among different nations, the following are some of the most remarkable. The trial of the eucharist was used chiefly among the clergy; the accused party took the sacrament in attestation of his innocence, and it was believed that if he were guilty he would be immediately visited with punishment for ttie sacrilege.Of the same description was the corsnedd, or trial by the consecrated piece of bread or cheese, so much in use among the Anglo- Saxons. The trial of the cro was used, both in civil and criminal questions, in many European countries. See the supplementary formulae to those of Marculfus, cited by Meyer, Institutions Judiciaires,]iv. ii. c. 6. It appears that the litigants, or the accuser and accused, were to stand upright before a cro , and that he who fell Or changed his position first was cast or condemned. This popular mode of ordeal was abolished by the capitulary of 816, in the reign of Louis le Debonnaire, as irreverent towards the mystery of the cro ; but the abolition seems only to have been carried into efftect in Italy and the provinces adjoining the seat of empire. The ordeal of hot water, in which the accused party plunged his hand into a ve el of boiling water, was used by the Salian Franks, when pagans, as early as the fifth century. It was afterwards extensively practised. In what was called the expurgatio simplex, the accused plunged his arm to the wrist; in the triple ordeal, to tl>e elbow. Trials by burning iron were of various sorts: carrying a redhot bar in the hand, and walking barefoot over heated ploughshares, mentioned in the imperial capitulary of 803, and adopted in England, as is well known from the celebrated example of Queen Emma. Among the Saxons, the iron was awarded to freemen, the water to those of inferior conditions. There can be no doubt that, in these severer forms of ordeal, some precaution was occasionally used by the clergy, under whose inspection and management the trial took phice, to preserve parties whom it was wished to clear from suspicion from the ordinary consequences of such exposure. There were also ordeals by lot, as by the casual choice between a pair of dice, one marked with a cro and the other blank, mentioned in the laws of the Frisons. The famous trial of the bier, in which the supposed perpetrator was required to touch the body of a murdered person, and was pronounced guilty if the blood flowed, may be regarded as a species of ordeal, although founded more on usage than legal enactment; as this form of superstition did not become prevalent until later times, when ordeals were no longer a recognized part of the law. To the same head may be referred the various absurd and cruel methods which were adopted in difl"erent countries to try suspected witches. One of the most remarkable instances of the solemn application of the ordeal in later times took place in 1498, when the truth of the doctrines preached by Savonarola, a celebrated monk at Florence, was put to the test by a challenge between one of his disciples and a Francis can friar to walk through a burning pile. This, however, may be rather regarded as the appeal of an enthusiast to the divine judgment than as an example of a recognized usage. Ordeals are of common use in the judicial practice of various heathen nations, especially of the Hindoos. By the Anglo-Saxon laws, an option was given to the culprit in ordinary cases, when presented of a crime by the neighbourhood, or appealed against by the injured party, of defending himself by compurgation, or by the ordeal (of hot water or hot iron). If, being a villain, he could procure the testimony of his lord in favour of his character, the ordeal was simple; if otherwise, threefold. In the laws of William the Conqueror, we find that accusations between an English man and a French man were decided, either by the Roman mode of trial by inquest, by battle, or by the ordeal. In general, it may be considered as Sir F. Palgrave remarks, rather as having afforded a last chance of escape to the accused party, than as an ordinary mode of deciding on guilt or innocence: since 312 [s. 864]