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. A notable case was that of
Gero, Count of Alsleben, whose daughter married
Siegfried II, Count of Stade.
By fire proved her innocence by walking over red-hot
plowshares. Ordeal by fire was one form of
torture. The ordeal by fire has been recorded as having been conducted throughout Europe, as well as in Eastern societies, such as ancient India and Iran. In Europe, the ordeal typically required that the accused walk a certain distance, usually or a certain number of paces, usually three, over red-hot
plowshares 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. It would either be pronounced that God had intervened to heal the wound, or that it was
festering, in which case the suspect would be exiled or
put to death. Ordeal by fire could also include methods where the accused was made to pass through flames, with evidence of such methods being mainly found outside Western Europe.
In Europe One famous story about the ordeal of plowshares concerns the English King
Edward the Confessor's mother,
Emma of Normandy. According to a legend, she was accused of
adultery with Bishop
Ælfwine of Winchester but proved her innocence by walking barefoot unharmed over red-hot plowshares. undergoing the ordeal of fire, by
Gustave Doré. During the
First Crusade, the French 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
Byzantine successor states 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 by 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 in over 400 years, the trial was a fiasco for Savonarola, since a sudden rain doused the flames, canceling the event and taken by onlookers as a sign from God against him. The
Inquisition arrested him shortly thereafter, with Savonarola convicted of heresy and hanged at the
Piazza della Signoria in Florence.
In Persia Ordeal by fire () 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 their chest. There were about 30 of these kinds of fiery tests in all. If the accused died, they were held to have been guilty; if survived, they were 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
sulfur (, , ). It was believed that fire had an association with truth and hence with
asha. in an
agnipariksha,
Yuddha Kanda In India 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 would be 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 they were innocent, if not, they would be burned to ashes.
By boiling oil Trial by
boiling oil has also been practiced in villages in certain parts of
West Africa, such as
Togo. There are two primary versions of this trial. In one, 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, 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 There were different types of trials by water: trial by hot water and trial by cold water.
Hot water First mentioned in the
6th-century Salic law, the ordeal of hot water required the accused to dip their hand into a kettle or pot of boiling water (sometimes oil or
lead was used instead) and retrieve a stone. Assessment of the injury was similar to that of the fire ordeal. An early (non-judicial) example of the test was described by Bishop
Gregory of Tours in the late 6th century. He describes how a Catholic priest, Jacintus of Ravenna, bested an
Arian rival by plucking a ring from a boiling cauldron. Gregory said that it took Jacintus about two hours to complete the task, due to the rapid boiling, but when the Arian tried after him, his skin was quickly boiled off up to the elbow. Legal texts from the reign of
King Athelstan during the first century CE 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 10th century. According to this text, usually given the title
Ordal, 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. Suspects of trivial offenses were typically sentenced to the onefold ordeal, while the threefold ordeal was prescribed for more severe offences such as treachery or for notorious criminals. The ordeal would take place in a 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, under the assumption that God would heal the innocent but not the guilty. This ordeal continued to be practiced up until the
12th-century in Catholic churches in remote areas.
Cold water The ordeal of cold water has a precedent in the 13th law of the
Code of Ur-Nammu (the oldest known surviving code of laws) 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 shekels to the man who underwent judgment. An ordeal by cold water is mentioned in the
Vishnu Smrti, The practice was also set out in
Salic law but was abolished by Emperor
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.
Use in witch-hunts in Europe Ordeal by water was associated with the
witch-hunts of the 16th and 17th centuries. A suspect would be thrown into a body of water; 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 witches 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.
By cross 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 the accused choked on the food, they were 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.
Numbers 5:12–27 prescribes that a woman suspected of adultery 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). Other scholars think an
abortifacient a more likely explanation; if the holy water causes miscarriage, it is proof of guilt. The descriptor "bitter" in the original Hebrew is written as "mārîm" (מָרִים) which can also be understood as "poison". However, it is unclear if the water actually contains any actual poison.'' 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 (
Cerbera manghas) was routinely obligatory. In the 1820s, ingestion of the poisonous nut caused about 1000 deaths annually. This average rose to around 3000 annual deaths between 1828 and 1861. Ancient
Liberian cultures practiced a tradition known as
sassywood. In it, a poisonous brew of
erythrophleine, extracted from the bark of the "Ordeal Tree" (
erythrophleum suaveolens), was administered to the defendant. While it has largely been outlawed, the practice is still in sporadic use by local communities. In Africa
Cassaine has been, and is still, used as an ordeal poison. The "penalty of the peach" was an ancient ordeal that involved
peach pits or their extracts. The pits contain
amygdalin, which is metabolized into
cyanide.
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.
The ordeal of bleeding (Bier-Right) (Cruentation) This ordeal took place when there was a murder. The person who was charged with the murder is to approach the victim's corpse. If the corpse starts to bleed, then the case is proven. In other cases the wounds of the victim would start to bleed "...the blood cry as a divinely revealed piece of legal evidence, extracted through irrepressible force and expressed through the active demonstration of the corpse 'bleeding afresh.'" ==English common law==