Trial by Ordeal

A judicial practice where in the guilt or innocence of the accused is determined by

subjecting him to an unpleasant, usually dangerous, experience. (In present terminologies, it
would mean an employment of a “3rd degree.”) The word “ordeal” was derived from the
Medieval Latin word “Dei Indicum” which means “a miraculous decision.”

By combat
Ordeal by combat took place between two parties in a dispute, either two individuals, or
between an individual and a government or other organization. They, or, under certain
conditions, a designated "champion" acting on their behalf, would fight, and the loser of the
fight or the party represented by the losing champion was deemed guilty or liable.
Champions could be used by one or both parties in an individual versus individual dispute
and could represent the individual in a trial by an organization; an organization or state
government by its nature had to be represented by a single combatant selected as
champion, although there are numerous cases of high-ranking nobility, state officials and
even monarchs volunteering to serve as champion. Combat between groups of
representatives was less common but still occurred.
By fire

After being accused of adultery Cunigunde of Luxembourg proved her innocence by walking over red-
hot ploughshares.

Ordeal by fire was one form of torture. The ordeal of fire typically required that the accused
walk a certain distance, usually 9 feet (2.7 metres) or a certain number of paces, usually
three, 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 re-examined 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 put to death. One famous story about the ordeal of ploughshares
concerns Edward the Confessor's mother, Emma of Normandy. According to legend, she
was accused of adultery with Bishop Ælfwine of Winchester, but proved her innocence by
walking barefoot unharmed over burning ploughshares.
Peter Bartholomew undergoing the ordeal of fire, by Gustave Doré.

During the First Crusade, the mystic Peter Bartholomew allegedly went through the ordeal by
fire in 1099 by his own choice to disprove a charge that his claimed discovery of the Holy
Lance was fraudulent. He died as a result of his injuries.
Trial by ordeal was adopted in the 13th century by the Empire of Nicaea and the Despotate
of Epirus; Michael Angold speculates this legal innovation was most likely through "the
numerous western mercenaries in Byzantine service both before and after 1204." It was
used to prove the innocence of the accused in cases of treason and use of magic to affect
the health of the emperor. The most famous case where this was employed was
when Michael Palaiologos was accused of treason: he avoided enduring the red-iron by
saying he would only hold it if the Metropolitan Phokas of Philadelphia could take the iron
from the altar with his own hands and hand it to him. However, the Byzantines viewed trial of
ordeal with disgust and considered it a barbarian innovation at odds with Byzantine law and
ecclesiastical canons. Angold notes, "Its abolition by Michael Palaiologos was universally
acclaimed."
In 1498, Dominican friar Girolamo Savonarola, the leader of a reform movement in Florence
who claimed apocalyptic prophetic visions, attempted to prove the divine sanction of his
mission by undergoing a trial by fire. The first of its kind for over 400 years, the trial was a
fiasco for Savonarola, since a sudden rain doused the flames, canceling the event, and was
taken by onlookers as a sign from God against him. The Holy Inquisition arrested him shortly
thereafter, with Savonarola convicted of heresy and hanged at the Piazza della Signoria in
Florence.
Ordeal by fire (Persian) was also used for judiciary purposes in ancient Iran. Persons
accused of cheating in contracts or lying might be asked to prove their innocence by ordeal
of fire as an ultimate test. Two examples of such an ordeal include the accused having to
pass through fire, or having molten metal poured on his chest. There were about 30 of these
kinds of fiery tests in all. If the accused died, he was held to have been guilty; if survived, he
was innocent, having been protected by Mithra and the other gods. The most simple form of
such ordeals required the accused to take an oath, then drink a potion of sulphur (Avestan
language saokant, Middle Persian sōgand, Modern Persian sowgand). It was believed that
fire had an association with truth, and hence with asha.
In Ancient India, the trial by fire was known as agnipariksha, in which Agni, the Fire God,
would be invoked by a priest using mantras. After the invocation, a pyre is built and lit, and
 the accused would be asked to sit on it. According to Hindu mythology, the Fire God would
preserve the accused if he was innocent, if not, he would be burned to ashes.
By boiling oil
Trial by boiling oil has been practiced in villages in certain parts of West Africa, such
as Togo. There are two main alternatives of this trial. In one version, the accused parties are
ordered to retrieve an item from a container of boiling oil, with those who refuse the task
being found guilty. In the other version of the trial, both the accused and the accuser have to
retrieve an item from boiling oil, with the person or persons whose hand remains unscathed
being declared innocent.
By water
Hot water
First mentioned in the 6th-century Lex Salica, the ordeal of hot water required the accused to
dip his hand in a kettle or pot of boiling water (sometimes oil or lead was used instead) and
retrieve a stone. The assessment of the injury and the consequences of a miracle or lack of
one followed a similar procedure to that described above. An early (non-judicial) example of
the test was described by Gregory of Tours in the late 6th century. He describes how a
Catholic saint, Hyacinth, bested an Arian rival by plucking a stone from a boiling cauldron.
Gregory said 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
had the skin boiled off up to his elbow.
Legal texts from reign of King Athelstan provide some of the most elaborate royal regulations
for the use of the ordeal in Anglo-Saxon England, though the period's fullest account of
ordeal practices is found in an anonymous legal text written sometime in the tenth
century. According to this text, usually given the title Ordeal, the water had to be close to
boiling temperature, and the depth from which the stone had to be retrieved was up to the
wrist for a 'one-fold' ordeal and up to the elbow for a 'three-fold' ordeal. ] The distinction
between the one-fold and three-fold ordeal appears to be based on the severity of the crime,
with the three-fold ordeal being prescribed for more severe offences such as treachery or for
notorious criminals. The ordeal would take place in the church, with several in attendance,
purified and praying to God to reveal the truth. Afterwards, the hand was bound and
examined after three days to see whether it was healing or festering.
This was still an isolated practice in remote 12th-century Catholic churches. A suspect would
place his hand in the boiling water. If after three days God had not healed his wounds, the
suspect was guilty of the crime.
Cold water
The ordeal of cold water has a precedent in the thirteenth law of the Code of Ur-Nammu and
the second law of the Code of Hammurabi. Under the Code of Ur-Nammu, a man who was
accused of what some scholars have translated as "sorcery" was to undergo ordeal by
water. If the man were proven innocent through this ordeal, the accuser was obligated to pay
three sheckles to the man who underwent judgement. The Code of Hammurabi dictated that,
if a man was accused of a matter by another, the accused was to leap into a river. If the
accused man survived this ordeal, the accused was to be acquitted. If the accused was
found innocent by this ordeal, the accuser was to be put to death and the accused man was
to take possession of the then deceased accuser's house.
An ordeal by cold water is mentioned in the Vishnu Smrti, which is one of the texts of
the Dharmaśāstra.
 The practice was also set out in Frankish law but was abolished by Louis the Pious in 829.
The practice reappeared in the Late Middle Ages: in the Dreieicher Wildbann of 1338, a man
accused of poaching was to be submerged in a barrel three times and to be considered
innocent if he sank, and guilty if he floated.
Witch-hunts in Europe
Ordeal by water was associated with the witch-hunts of the 16th and 17th centuries, although
an inverse of most trials by ordeal; if the accused sank, they were considered innocent,
whereas if they floated, this indicated witchcraft. The ordeal would be conducted with a rope
holding the subject, so that the person being tested could be retrieved following the trial. A
witch trial including this ordeal took place in Szeged, Hungary as late as 1728.
Demonologists varied in their explanations as to why trial by water would be effective,
although spiritual explanations were most common. Some argued that witches floated
because they had renounced baptism when entering the Devil's service. King James VI of
Scotland claimed in his Daemonologie that water was so pure an element that it repelled the
guilty. Jacob Rickius claimed that they were supernaturally light and recommended weighing
them as an alternative to dunking them; this procedure and its status as an alternative to
dunking were parodied in the 1975 British film Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

The ordeal of the cross was apparently introduced in the Early Middle Ages in an attempt to
discourage judicial duels among Germanic peoples. As with judicial duels, and unlike most
other ordeals, the accuser had to undergo the ordeal together with the accused. They stood
on either side of a cross and stretched out their hands horizontally. The first one to lower
their arms lost. This ordeal was prescribed by Charlemagne in 779 and again in 806. A
capitulary of Louis the Pious in 819 and a decree of Lothar I, recorded in 876, abolished the
ordeal so as to avoid the mockery of Christ.
By 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:AD; the
accused was to take the oath of innocence. It was believed that if the oath had been false,
the person would die within the same year.
Both versions are essentially the opposite of ordeals, as they rely on the guilty parties' self-
incrimination, while providing what amounts to a presumption of innocence. They are
designed to be harmless and merciful.
Numbers 5:12–27 prescribes that a woman suspected of adultery—one called a Sotah in
later commentaries—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'. 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) (unless of course the woman was impregnated by her
own husband; and of course even historical people were well aware that pregnancy would
manifest itself in a very obvious fashion without bothering with rituals and drinking of special
potions. Other scholars think an abortifacient a more likely explanation; if the holy water
causes miscarriage, it is proof of guilt).
By poison

A 19th-century artist's depiction of the tangena ordeal in Madagascar

Some cultures, such as the Efik Uburutu people of present-day Nigeria, would administer the

poisonous Calabar bean (Physostigma venenosum; known as esere in Efik), which
contains physostigmine, in an attempt to detect guilt. A defendant who vomited up the bean
was innocent. A defendant who became ill or died was considered guilty.
Residents of Madagascar could accuse one another of various crimes, including theft,
Christianity, and especially witchcraft, for which the ordeal of tangena was routinely
obligatory. In the 1820s, ingestion of the poisonous nut caused about 1,000 deaths annually.
This average rose to around 3,000 annual deaths between 1828 and 1861.
The "penalty of the peach" was an ancient ordeal that involved peach pits or their extracts.
Peach pits contain amygdalin, which is metabolized into cyanide.
In early modern Europe, the Mass was unofficially used as a form of poison ordeal: a
suspected party was forced to take the Eucharist on the grounds that, if he was guilty, he
would be eternally damned, and hence his unwillingness to take the test would give an
indication of his guilt.
By turf
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.