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  • Ordeal Balance Ordeal Balance: Ordeal by Hot Water

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    Gina Portuguese Gawon
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    Ordeals

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    4K views2 pages

    Ordeal Balance Ordeal Balance: Ordeal by Hot Water

    Uploaded by

    Gina Portuguese Gawon
    retgerytr

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Flag for inappropriate content
    of 2

    ordeal by hot water where the accused would reach into a pot of boiling water and retrieve an object.

    If the
    accused was innocent, the water would not burn their skin, but if they were guilty then the burns would reveal their
    guilt.

    Ordeal of balance (Tula, Dhata)—mostly given to women, minors and old or disabled people. The person
    performing the ordeal was twice weighed on a balance. If the person weighed lighter than the previous weight
    they were considered innocent; if they were heavier the second time they were considered guilty.
    The hot iron ordeal involved a defendant carrying a red-hot iron bar and, as with other trials by ordeal, tended to
    be used by the powers that be when there were no witnesses to a crime or when the word of the accused was not
    deemed wholly credible. The belief at the time was that, if the defendant was burned, they were guilty and if they
    were not burned they were innocent but Leeson suggests the process was not quite so binary.
    Trial by ordeal was an ancient judicial practice by which the guilt or innocence of the accused was determined by
    subjecting them to a painful, or at least an unpleasant, usually dangerous experience. The test was one of life or
    death, and the proof of innocence was survival. In some cases, the accused was considered innocent if they
    escaped injury or if their injuries healed.

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