Trial by ordeal
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.
In medieval Europe, like trial by combat, trial by ordeal, such as cruentation, was sometimes considered a "judgement of God" : a procedure based on the premise that God would help the innocent by performing a miracle on their behalf. The practice has much earlier roots, attested to as far back as the Code of Hammurabi and the Code of Ur-Nammu.
In pre-industrial society, the ordeal typically ranked along with the oath and witness accounts as the central means by which to reach a judicial verdict. Indeed, the term ordeal, Old English ordǣl, has the meaning of "judgment, verdict" from Proto-West Germanic uʀdailī, ultimately from Proto-Germanic *uzdailiją "that which is dealt out".
Priestly cooperation in trials by fire and water was forbidden by Pope Innocent III at the Fourth Council of the Lateran of 1215 and replaced by compurgation. Trials by ordeal became rarer over the Late Middle Ages, but the practice was not discontinued until the 16th century. Certain trials by ordeal would continue to be used into the 17th century in witch-hunts.
Types of ordeals
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
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.File:Gustave dore crusades barthelemi undergoing the ordeal of fire.jpg|thumb|Peter Bartholomew 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.File:Sita Mughal ca1600.jpg|thumb|Sita 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.In 13th-century Angkor, according to a book written by a visiting Chinese official, trial by ordeal was a common solution to disputes. Members of two feuding families were ordered to sit in separate stone pagodas for up to four days, and it was believed that only the family in the wrong would get sick. Suspected thieves were tried by boiling oil.
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 and retrieve a stone. Assessment of the injury was similar to that of the fire ordeal. An early 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 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. 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. The Code of Hammurabi also stated that if a woman is accused of adultery she "will leap into the river-god for her husband". However, it is unclear if innocence is proved by drowning or surviving.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 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.