The method of trial used in England from approximately the tenth to the twelfth century, and elsewhere in Europe from 800 A.D. until 1200A.D., was "trial by ordeal."

Urban exemptions, or exemptions for townsmen, developed because of the townmen’s hostility towards the ordeal.  One source indicates “the rise of towns in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries was an important cause of the supposed decline of trial by ordeal in that period.”  This could be related to the belief that the bourgeoisie is invariably progressive and rational – and thus tradesmen and townsmen would reject a practice a irrational and primitive as the ordeal.

3. Types of Ordeals

There are seven varieties of trials by ordeal addressed in this paper, which include: .  Not all of them were used in England, but are nevertheless included in this essay in order to form the most comprehensive understanding of trials by ordeal.  The two most cited types of ordeals used in England were the trial by cold water and the trial by the red-hot iron.

6. Trial By Water

1. Hot Water

The trial by hot water consisted of the accused plunging his arm, up to his elbow, into boiling hot water, oil, or molten lead.  The hand and forearm were then bandaged.  After three days the bandages were removed and the arm was inspected for injuries, infections or festering.  If the wounds healed, the without any injuries or infections, it was a divine indication that the man was innocent.  If, on the other hand, the wounds had festered, or the victim died, he was judged to be guilty.

2. Cold Water

One variation of the cold water ordeal consisted of binding the suspect’s hands and feet together and then throwing them into the water. If the person floated, he was guilty and if he sank he was innocent.  This outcome seems counterintuitive, but water was viewed as pure, so if a person floated this indicated the water rejected the person because he was guilty.  However, if the person sunk, the water had accepted the person – because they too were pure.  The irony is that people would oftentimes drown due to their “purity” and innocence.

A second variation consisted of the consumption of “bitter water” without harm.  Another variation involved a “ducking stool.  This was a “traditional method of punishment – primarily used for women – in which the accused was tied to a post and see-sawed into the water until she confessed or repented.  The device was used for trying those convicted of witchcraft and noisy ale wives (or drunks).” 

Some special attention is due to alleged “witches” who often suffered this type of trial by ordeal.  The justification for denouncing on guilty of witchcraft if they floated arose because “[w]itches were imagined to supernaturally float above water because they had renounced baptism when entering the Devil’s service.”  An interesting side note to this it that some researchers believe the reason these alleged witches floated was due to their diet – which increased the amounts of gas in their stomachs.

7. Trial By Fire

There were two main forms the trial by fire could take.  The first consists of the suspect holding red-hot iron in his hands and walking nine paces.  In the second form, the suspect had to walk blindfolded on his bare feet around nine red-hot ploughshares, randomly placed on the ground.  If the suspect finished the ordeal unharmed, it was an indication of his innocence.  A likeness can be drawn to a familiar Old Testament Bible story where three men – Shadrach, Meshach and Abendego – were thrown in the fiery furnace.  God helped the men to survive the ordeal and exit unharmed, which served as proof that their God was the true God.

8. Trial by Battle or Duel 

The duel, or trial by combat, was introduced from France to England after the Norman Conquest.  One source states in the 11th century William I introduce the judicial duel to England; it was finally abolished in 1819.  The trial by battle was adopted because “solemn affirmation, or swearing of oaths, in legal disputes had led to widespread perjury and because [trials by]ordeal seemed to leave too much to chance or to manipulation by priests.”

In a trial by combat the suspect was issued a wager of battle or challenge.  “[T]he judge ordered the parties to meet in a duel for which he established the place, time and arms; both parties had to deposit sureties for their appearance.”  Both parties swore under oath that their assertions were truthful. The suspect was then forced to fight the person who had charged him.  The victor was said not to have won by his own strength, force or right, but rather because the supernatural intervened on behalf of the righteous.  The “judgment of God” determined the winner.  If the winner survived the combat, he might be hanged or burned for a criminal offense, or have his hand cut off and property confiscated in civil actions.

Trial by battle was “open to all free men and, in certain cases, even to serfs.  Only ecclesiastics, women and the sick, and men under 20 or over 60 years of age could claim exemption.”  In addition, if one of the “parties as a woman, child, or feeble man, he or she could be represented by a champion, i.e., a knight who was a relative or who had agreed to fight.”  Over time, a class of professional champions formed. 

Trials by ordeal took place in lists, or champs elos, usually in the presence of the court and high judicial and ecclesiastical dignitaries.  When one of the combatants was wounded or thrown, his opponent usually placed a knew on his chest and, unless asked for mercy, drove a dagger through a joint in the armour.” 

9. Trial by Morsel

This ordeal consisted of the accused person swallowing a one ounce piece of cheese, cake or bread.  His innocence was proven if he could do so without effort.  If the morsel got stuck in the suspect’s throat, it was a sign of his guilt.  Clergymen were not willing to submit themselves to trial by fire or water, so their ordeal, as one source states, was a “piece of cake.”

10. Ordeal by Divination

A Burmese trial by divination consisted of two different ordeals.  One is an ordeal by bier.  This is where the accused murderer would come near the corpse of the victim, or either touches the victim, and if the wounds on the body of the murdered corpse opened, and blood began coming out of the corpse, the accused was guilty.  “The ordeal of the bier in Medieval Europe was founded on the belief that a sympathetic action of the blood causes it to flow at the touch or nearness of the murderer.”  The trial by biel was last used in England in 1628.   

The second type of Burmese divination ordeal involved two people holding candles – equal in size and lit at the same time.  The person’s candle that outlasts the other was determined to have won his cause.

11. Casting lots

This type of ordeal was employed in contention between two parties – it was “a submission to some trial of chance. . . . .”  It was seldom listed as a method of ordeal in the sources researched in the course of writing this essay.

4. How it Worked – The Mechanics of Trial By Ordeal

The first issue that was decided was the type of proof that would be required for each case.  Courts had broad discretion in this area.  Parties may propose a whole range of “draft judgments” and it was within the court’s power to select and provide the terms for performance of the proof.  One author’s research provides in detail:

Before the test, the proband was cloistered away from the everyday world of his community and submitted to intense psychological pressure.  By now it was common knowledge what result was desired.  Even the parties knew.  Concord, or straight confession and capitulation, remained possible and indeed frequently occurred right up to the final moment.  In a sense they were the most satisfactory conclusion to the case.  A judicium actually performed meant obstinate disputants, a quarrel that might yet revive.  Men had to hope that the rare spectaculum of a “good ordeal” would mercifully release tensions and reinforce the community’s standards of proper behavior.  Otherwise, trouble might recur in the future.  Hence the final moment, when the court perceived the result of God’s judgment . . . was of paramount importance.

        …

Once the court had agreed on formal award of proof, the parties’ sureties were expected to ensure that the principals reappeared on a later day fixed for the ceremonial attempt to make proof, by the ordeal or the swearing of oaths.  Sundays and holy days were deemed inapprpiate for such a solemn event.  The accuser swore his foreaoth and witnessed the accused’s attempt to make his law. 

        

As previously mentioned, many were acquitted under this system, but countless others, no doubt, surrendered.  Others were so nervous that they forfeited their chance of success altogether. The trial by ordeal also served as a deterrent for onlookers and the community, and taught important lessons.  “The spectaculum presented a visible sign ‘so that the rest seeing this might be freed from their incredulity through God’s mercy . . . . God proclaim[ed] a man’s guilt or innocence of a particular act in the course of a judgment on the whole man and his soul.”

5. Crimes Punished and Purposes Served

The acts subject to trial by ordeal include both civil and criminal.  However, “the overwhelming proportion of ordeal evidence points to its use for crime alone, from the tenth century right through to . . . the twelfth century.  England apparently differed from its neighbors preferring to close property disputes with a judicial oath rather than an ordeal.”  The acts include, but are not limited to: adultery, paternity, lechery, treason, sodomy, carnal relations with animals, incest, heresy, theft, forgery, disputes over property or status, murder, ordinary criminal charges, fire-raising, and witchcraft.  A number of these will be discussed in detail in the following section.

12. Sexual Issues

Ordeals were oftentimes used to try cases of adultery.  Most of the cases involved the men accusing their wives of adultery, and in turn the wives would have to prove themselves faithful by successfully completing an ordeal. An example is provided in the law codes from the thirteenth century: “If a woman’s husband accuses her of adultery, she must clear herself with the iron.” There were instances, however, where men would be subject to similar tests for sexual misconduct.  For example, “[t]he Norwegian provincial law, known as the Frostathing law . . . proscribes that ‘if a man is charged with having carnal dealings with cattle of any sort, which is forbidden to all Christians, the bailiff shall bring action against him with witnesses to the fact of the common rumour; and let him carry the hot iron or go into outlawry.’”  Norwegian law also proscribes the ordeal against men for sodomy and incest charges.

Ordeals were also used to prove cases of paternity.  Royal lineage, as well as commoners inheritance was determined by ordeals.  At this time in history, it was common for men to have concubines – second-class wives with some rights in customary law – which made paternity issues even more complicated and important, especially for inheritance purposes.

13. Determining the Orthodoxy of Religious Beliefs/Dramatic Conversion

There are numerous cases of individuals willing to undergo an ordeal to “prove” the truth of their beliefs and professions.  One source states:

[t]he very earliest extant account of an ordeal, that by Gregory of Tours, describes a trial that was intended to decide between Arian and Catholic doctrine.  Several centuries later, in the mid-ninth century, the Saxon monk Gottschalk, who was suspected of heresy because of his doctrine of predestination, offered to undergo an elaborate form of ordeal by fire and water ‘in order, in this way, to prove the truth of his profession.

The testing of true religious belief by fire was first accounted in the Bible when Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were thrown into fiery furnace.  The reason for this was that “deos tuos non colunt – ‘they do not worship your gods’ – and the aftermath was that the king recognized the supremacy of their [G]od.” 

14. Property Disputes

It should be noted that “England is distinctive in relation to the ordeal of fire and water, since it appears that they were almost never employed in disputes concerning property, or ‘civil cases,’ was they might be called.  Before the Conquest testimony and the oath, after the Conquest testimony, the oath, and the duel must have determined such cases.”

15. Theft

The use of the ordeal was oftentimes used for proof in theft accusations.  An accuser would vouch his reputation against that of a suspect before God.  In order to put the suspect before the law, the accuser had to make a prima facie showing.  The court would hear the oral argument before deciding on the details of the accuser’s fore-oath, in addition to hearing the accused himself.  Other considerations included the gravity of the alleged offense, the social rank of the parties, and most importantly the reputation among the community – especially of the accused. 

16. Heresy

Cases of heresy were oftentimes tried by ordeals.  The most frightening aspect of heresy was its invisible nature.  It was difficult for Catholics to know if their neighbors were entertaining heretical thoughts.  “[The] creeping, nightmarish quality of heresy, as apprehended by the orthodox, created a mood similar to that of the with persecution of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries or McCarthyism in the twentieth.”  Although the extreme nature of the ordeal by fire was appropriately fit to the charge, it had the disadvantage of not providing an immediate result.  There was a three day waiting period before the results were determined, and “[f]or an angry orthodox crowd trial by cold water was much more satisfactory” – providing an immediate result.  However, if the suspect floated and was thus “guilty”, he may suffer at the hands of the angry mob – as opposed to receiving a judicial sentence.

17. Crimes

A treatise written around 1188 A.D. entitled Glanville discusses the criminal cases which the  king’s justices might encounter.  These issues include: treason, concealment of treasure trove, homicide, arson, robbery, rape and falsifying. There were two distinct procedural patterns.  In the first, no specific accuser is present, but the case rests upon public notoriety.  In the second a specific accuser appeals the accused.  In the latter, the issue is usually determined by battle.

6. End of Ordeals

The demise of the ordeal was not due to man’s dissatisfaction with its workings.  To the contrary, there is evidence that the ordeal was spreading and flourishing in the eleventh, twelfth and thirteenth centuries.  The use of trial by ordeal in the English common law began to decline into disuse with the Assize of Clarendon established by Henry II.  The Assize of Clarendon and Northampton,

whose criminal provisions created such a flurry of judicial activity in 1166 and 1176, enact as follows: anyone accused of murder, robbery, or other serious crimes by a jury of twelve lawful men of the hundred, and by the oath of four men from each vill in the hundred, should go to the ordeal of cold water; if they failed, they would be mutilated; if there were cleared the could find pledges ‘unless they are accused of murder or some other foul felony by the commune of the county and the law-worthy knights of the country; if they are accused in this way, even if they are cleared by the ordeal of water, nevertheless they must quit the realm within forty days, taking their chattels with them.’

Most scholars interpret this provision as an indication of Henry II’s lack of faith in the ordeal.  The underlying rationale of the Assize of Clarendon is that “[a] man whose reputation is completely besmirched and who has been accused on very powerful grounds, must go to the ordeal.  Failure means mutilation or death.  But success at the ordeal does not enable him to leave the court without a stain on his character.  His character is already stained.”However, trials by ordeal were still used, judicially or extrajudicially, “in cases where no other proof was thought possible, as in the case of secret and unwitnessed murders or supernaturally concealed crimes such as witchcraft.”

There was a growing unease in ecclesiastical circles on whether it was right to use the ordeal and as a result in 1215, the Fourth Lateran Council forbade the Roman Catholic clergy from administering the ordeals.  In light of the clergy’s pivotal role in the trial by ordeal process, this prohibition greatly impeded the use of the practice.  Finally in 1220, during the reign of Henry III, trial by ordeal was abolished in England and replaced with trial by jury in every case that was formerly tried by ordeal. The practice of dunking for witchcraft was used well into the seventeenth century.  “When the witch persecutions died out at the end of the seventeenth century, the last vestiges of ordeal ended with them.”

Over time, other monarchies through Europe followed England’s lead in abolishing trial by ordeal.  “In Denmark and England the abolition of trial by ordeal was recognized in royal ordinances of 1216 and 1219 respectively.”  Other countries which abolished trial by ordeal include:  Scotland (1230); Sicily (1231); Sweden (supposedly abolished during the reign of Birger Jarl, the regent of Sweden from 1248-1266, but the prohibition was repeated in Helsingeland in 1320); Norway (omitted from the provincial law which were codified by Magnus VI in 1274); France (unilateral ordeals were a rarity in the thirteenth century); and in the Spanish kingdoms (“James I of Aragon (1213-76) ‘can be considered the chief enemy of ordeals in the peninsula.’”).

Even after the demise of the trial by ordeal, there were certain cultures and countries that continued to use this method.  In England, one writer notes, “[t]he same Lateran Council that outlawed in the ordeal one type of controlled miracle approved another by sanctioning the doctrine of transubstantiation  Thus the twelfth century still proceeded a trickle of approving exempla about the ordeal.”  There were also cited cases of men who were so confident of their innocence, or “the justice of their cause,” that they would offer “to submit to the judgment of God by the hot iron.” One source reports the fact that until recently the ordeal was practiced in many parts of Asia and Africa.   Also, when an American reads about this ancient form of trial, one cannot help but to think about the Salem witch trials – where similar methods of determining guilt, such as rock presses, were used.  There was also underlying belief that God would judge the guilt or innocence of a suspected witch.

7. Conclusion

Trial by ordeal, as  “‘ an ancient . . . mode of trial, in which a suspected person was subjected to some physical test fraught with danger, . . . the result being regarded as the immediate judgment of the Diety’” is a fascinating subject.  The critics of the jury system may argue that trial by jury is no more error-proof and as useful as the trial by ordeal – both leaving the ultimate determination to God, rather than rationality and the truth.  An advantage the ordeal had over the jury system is the res judiciata, or finality, established by trial by ordeal. “The conclusion of cases by God’s judgment gives the court’s verdict a better chance of lasting acceptance, for God is uniquely qualified to settle authoritatively just those cases most difficult for human tribunals.” 

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