ORDEAL

An appeal to the judgment of Almighty God , in criminal cases, when the innocence or guilt of the accused rested on insufficient evidence. Among the Saxons and Normans, if any person was charged with theft, adultery, murder, treason, perjury, ., in these cases, if the person neither pleaded guilty, nor could be convicted by legal evidence, it was either in the prosecutor’s or judge’s power to put him upon the ordeal; and provided he pa ed through this test unhurt, he was discharged; otherwise he was put into the hands of justice, to be punished as the law directed, in case he had been cast by the ordinary forms of prosecution. For we are to observe, that this trial by ordeal was not designed for the punishment of those in whose cases the ordinary forms had miscarried; the intention of it was rather to clear the truth, where it could not be otherwise discovered, and make way for the execution of the law. There are several sorts of this inquiry; the trial was sometimes made by cold, and sometimes by scalding, water; sometimes by ploughshares, or bars of iron, heated burning hot; sometimes the accused purged their innocence by receiving the sacrament; and sometimes by eating a piece of barley bread called the corsned. In the trial by cold water, the persons suspected were thrown naked into a pond, or river: if they sank they were acquitted, but if they floated upon the river without any swimming postures it was taken for an evidence of guilt. When scalding water was the test, they were to plunge their arm in a tub, or kettle, to the elbow; if this was done without any signs of pain, or marks of scalding, the person was discharged; but if there was the least complaint under the operation, or any scar or impre ion to be seen, it was taken for proof against him. Slaves, peasants, and people of mean condition, were put upon this water ordeal. Persons of figure and quality were generally tried by the burning iron. This ordeal had different circumstances in proportion to the crimes objected. If the person was only impeached for a single crime, the iron was to weigh but one pound: but if he was prosecuted upon several articles, the weight of the iron was to increase proportionably; and here the person impeached was either to hold a burning ball of iron in his hand, and move with it to a certain distance, or else to walk barefoot upon heated ploughshares, placed about a yard from each other. If after this trial his hands and feet were untouched, and he discovered no signs of feeling any pain, he was discharged by the court; but if the matter fell out otherwise, he was remitted to the punishment of the law. Before the person accused was brought to the ordeal, he was obliged to swear his innocence, and sometimes receive the holy eucharist. The Christians of this age had a strong reliance upon this way of trial, not in the least doubting but that God would suspend the force of nature, and clear the truth by a supernatural interposition. If we may believe the records of those times, we shall find that innocent persons were frequently rescued, in a surprising manner, perhaps by some skilful management on the part of the authorities aware of the fact. To proceed to some of the preliminaries of the ordeal. After the charge was legally brought in, the person impeached was to spend three days in fasting and prayer. At the day of the trial, which was made in the church, the priest, appearing in the habit of his function, took up the iron which lay before the altar, and, repeating the hymn of the Three Children, put it into the fire. This being done, he proceeded to some forms of benediction over the fire and iron; after which, he sprinkled the iron with holy water, and made the sign of the cro in the name of the Ble ed Trinity : upon which the person accused pa ed through the test. The ceremony of the scalding water ordeal was much the same. But when the trial was to be made by cold water, the three days’ fast and the other religious circumstances being premised, the person suspected drank a draught of holy water, to which the priest added an imprecation in case he was guilty: then the water, into which the presumed criminal was to be thrown, had a sort of exorcising form of prayer said over it; by which the element was, as it were, conjured, by the most solemn expre ions, to detect the guilty and discover the truth. The bread called the corsned was another way of trial. The person prosecuted took an ounce of it fasting, or sometimes the same quantity in cheese, and sometimes the holy eucharist. Immediately before this was done, the priest read the Litany proper to the occasion, and proceeded to another prayer, in which he desired that God would please to bring the truth of the matter in question to light, and that the evil spirits might have no power to perplex the inquiry, and prevent the discovery; that if the person was guilty, the morsel might stick in his throat and find no pa age; that his face might turn pale, his limbs be convulsed, and an horrible alteration appear in his whole body; but if innocent, he desired that which the party received might make its way easily into his stomach, and turn to health and nourishment. Notwithstanding the commonne of this custom in England, and other parts of Christen dom, it began to be disliked at last, and fell several times under the censure of the Church and State: thus Louis, and Lotharius his succe or, emperors of Germany, positively forbade the ordeal by cold water. The trial likewise by scalding water, and burning iron, was condemned by Pope Stephen V. It is probable they might think it a rash way of proceeding, and a tempting of God ; and that it was unreasonable to put innocence upon supernatural proof, and pronounce a man guilty, unle he had a miracle to acquit him. The first public discountenance of it from the State which we meet with in England, was in the third year of King Henry III. Most of the judges in their circuits received an order from the king and council not to put any person upon the trial ordeal, in regard it was prohibited by the court of Rome. This order of the king and council, Sir Edward Coke, as Sir Henry Spelman observes, mistakes for an act of parliament. It is true, as that learned antiquary goes on to say, at that time of day, a public regulation, pa ed in council, and sealed with the king’s seal, had the force of a law. It must, however, be said, this prohibition does not run to the judges of all the circuits; but, it may be, the rest of the justices might receive the same instructions another way. And though we meet with no expre law afterwards to this purpose, yet this method of trial, standing condemned by the canons, languished by degrees, and at last grew quite out of practice.