ordainment

[Eng. ordain: -ment.] The act of ordaining or appointing; ordination. *or-da-li-an, a. [Eng. ordal; -ian.] Pertain ing or relating to trial by ordeal. "To revive the old ordalian triall used by our Heathen 2. ancestors." -Bp. Hall: Cases of Conscience, Dec. 2, case or-de-al, *or-dal, s. & a. [A. S. ordél, ordál =a dealing out, discrimination, judgment decision, from a pref. answering to O. H. Ger. ur- ; Goth. us-; with O. Fries. ordel ; O. Sax. urdéli ; Dut. ordeel; Dut. oor-out, and dál Eng. dole (q. v.); cogn. DOLE.] Ger. urtheil; O. H. Ger. urtěli, urteili.] [DEAL, IMG:content-0350.png:[merged small][graphic] 1. Lit. & Anthrop .: The judicium Dei of medieval writers; the practice of referring disputed questions (especially those touching the criminality of a sus pected person) to supernatural decision, in the belief that the Deity would work a miracle rather than the innocent should suffer or the guilty escape punishment. Dr. E. B. Tylor ( Encyc . Brit ., ed. 9th, xvii. 818) says of the practice, that "in principle, and often in the very forms used. it belongs to ancient culture, thence flourishing up to the medieval European and modern Asiatic levels, but dying out before modern civilization." It existed among the Jews. A wife accused of adultery was required to drink "the bitter water that causeth a curse" (Numbers v. 12-31), and a strangely similar institution exists at the present day among the negroes of the Gold Coast of Africa; and ordeal in some form or other is still practiced by races of low culture, and by individuals of low culture among races standing in the forefront of civilization. In the Middle Ages in Europe ordeal was sanctioned both by the civil and the ecclesiastical authorities, and was chiefly of three kinds: (1) By fire-a survival from the early cla ic times (cf. Sophocles, Anti gone , 264; Æschylus, Frag . 284), in which the accused had to walk barefoot and blindfolded over red-hot hot iron a certain distance. This method was plowshares, or to take up and carry a piece of red allowed only to persons of high rank; (2) By water, chin, bench; go, gem; thin, this; sin, as; expect, Xenophon, exist. ph = f. for persons of the middle and lower cla es. This was of two kinds. The accused had to take a stone out of boiling water, and if, after a certain time, his arm presented no marks of injury, he was adjudged innocent. In the second case-a common method when witchcraft was alleged--the accused, bound hand and foot, was thrown into a river or pond, and it was believed that a guilty person would float without effort, and that an innocent person would infallibly sink; (3) Wager of battle. [BATTLE, 8. , B. 1.] Besides these three principal methods there were three others in le general use: A supposed murderer was required to touch the body of the murdered man, and was pronounced guilty if blood flowed from the wounds ( Shakesp .: Richard III ., i. 2); the Ordeal of the Eucharist, in which divine judgment was supposed to follow unworthy reception of the sacrament; and the Corsned (q. v.). 2. Fig .: A severe or strict trial through which one has to pa ; trying circumstances. B. As adj .: Pertaining to or connected with trial by ordeal; as, ordeal laws.