1185 Institutes of Vishnu XIII.—Yajnavalkya, II. 110-111. Yajnavalkya classes it among the ordeals reserved for the Sudra caste (Ib. II. 98).

1186 Ayeen Akbery, II. 497.

1187 Ali Ibrahim Khan (As. Researches, I. 391).

1188 Wheeler’s India, III. 262.

1189 Ali Ibrahim Khan, ubi sup.

1190 Fratricidas autem et parricidas sive sacerdotum interfectores ... per manum et ventrem ferratos de regno ejiciat ut instar Cain jugi et profugi circueant terram.—Leg. Bracilai Boæmor (Annal. Saxo ann. 1039). So also a century earlier for the murder of a chief.—Concil. Spalatens. ann. 927, can. 7 (Batthyani, I. 331).

1191 De Successoribus S. Hidulfi cap. xviii. (Patrolog. CXXXVIII. p. 218). A similar case attested the sanctity of St. Mansuetus (Vit. S. Mansueti Lib. II. c. 17.—Martene et Durand. Thesaur. III. 1025).

1192 Folcardi Mirac. S. Bertin. Lib. I. c. 4.

1193 Batthyani, Legg. Eccles. Hung. T. I. p. 413. See also Mirac. S. Swithuni c. ii. § 32.—Mirac. S. Yvonis c. 21 (Patrol. CLV. 76, 91). Various other instances may be found in Muratori, Antiq. Med. Ævi, Diss. 23. Charlemagne seems to have considered it a deception to be restrained by law.—Car. Mag. cap. I. ann. 789, § lxxvii.

1194 Martene de antiquis Ecclesiæ Ritibus Lib. I. cap. vi. art. 4 n. 12.

1195 Cæsar. Heisterb. Dial. Mirac. Dist. XI. c. xxvii. xxix.

1196 Greg. Turonens. Vitæ Patrum, Cap. viii. n. 10.

1197 Bernald. Vit. S. Gerald. cap. xv. (Baluz et Mansi I. 134).

1198 Socratis Hist. Eccles. Lib. I. c. 25.

1199 Theodori Lector. H. E. Lib. II. When, about the year 500, St. Avitus bishop of Vienne was disputing with the Arians before King Gundobald, he offered to leave the decision as to the rival faiths to Heaven by both parties going to the tomb of St. Justus and appealing to him, but the Arians prudently refused to imitate Saul and practise necromantic arts.—Collatio Episcoporum coram R. Gundebaldo (Migne’s Patrologia, LIX. 391).

1200 Remberti Vit. St. Anscharii c. xvi. (Langebek I. 458-9).

1201 Gesta Consul. Andegavens. c. iii. § 16 (D’Achery III. 241).

1202 Cæsar. Heisterbach Dial. Mirac. Dist. VIII. c. lxxiii.

1203 Legendæ de S. Olavo (Langebek II. 551-2).

1204 Pet. Damian. Opusc. LVII. Diss. ii. c. 3, 4.

1205 Conc. Roman. ann. 904 (898) c. 1 (Harduin. VI. I. 487).—Liutprand. Antapodos. Lib. I. c. 30, 31.

1206 Patetta, Le Ordalie, p. 218.

1207 Wieri de Præstigiis Dæmonum, pp. 589-90.

1208 That this was a settled practice is shown by its existence in the earliest text of the law (Tit. LVI.) as well as in the latest (L. Emend. Tit. LIX.).

1209 Si aufugerit et ordalium vitaverit, solvat plegius compellanti captale suum et regi weram suum.—L. Cnuti Sæc. cap. xxx.—See also cap. xli.

1210 Et eligat accusatus alterutrum quod velit, sive simplex ordalium, sive jusjurandum unius libre in tribus hundredis super xxx. den.—L. Henrici I. cap. LXV. § 3. By the municipal codes of Germany, a choice between the various forms of ordeal was sometimes allowed to the accused who was sentenced to undergo it.—Jur. Provin. Alaman. cap. xxxvii. §§ 15, 16. Jur. Provin. Saxon. Lib. I. Art. 39.

1211 Dooms of Ethelstan, I. cap. 21.

1212 First Text, Tit. LIII. and L. Emend. Tit. LV.

1213 Jura primæva Moraviæ, Brunæ, 1781, p. 27.

1214 Yajnavalkya, II. 96.

1215 Institutes of Vishnu, IX. 18-19.

1216 Yajnavalkya, II. 22.

1217 Leg. Frision. Tit. III. c. 8, 9.

1218 Guthrunarkvida Thridja, 9, 10 (Thorpe’s Elder Edda, pp. 106-7).

1219 Roberti Pulli Sententt. Lib. VI. cap. liv. (Migne’s Patrologia, T. CLXXXVI. p. 905).

1220 Si certa probatio non fuerit.—L. Sal. Tit. XIV. XVI. (MS. Guelferbyt). The same is found in the Pact. Childeberti et Chlotarii § 5.—Decret. Chlotarii II. ann. 595, § 6.—Capit. Carol. Calvi, ann. 873, cap. 3, 7.—Cnuti Constit. de Foresta § 11: “Sed purgatio ignis nullatenus admittatur nisi ubi nuda veritas nequit aliter investigari.”—In the customs of Tournay in 1187, when a man has been wounded and has no witnesses the accused can clear himself with six conjurators if the affair occurred in the daytime, but if at night he is forced to the cold-water ordeal (Consuet. Tornacens. § ii. ap. D’Achery, Spicileg. III. 551). Horne’s Myrror of Justice, cap. III. Sect. 23: “En case ou battaille ne se poit joindre ne nul tesmognage n’avoit lieu ... e le actor n’ad point de testmoignes a prover sa action, adonque estoit en le volunt del deffendant a purger sa fame per le miracle de Dieu.” Yet in an English case of murder early in the thirteenth century, the accused was found with the murdered man’s cap and the knife with which he had been slain, and the whole vicinage testified to it, yet he was allowed to purge himself with the water ordeal.—Maitland, Pleas, etc., p. 80.

1221 Ruskaia Prawda, art. 28. Even the evidence of a slave was sufficient to condemn the accused to the red-hot iron. If he escaped, the accuser paid him a small fine, which was not required if the witnesses had been freemen. In all cases of acquittal, however, there were fines payable to the sovereign and to the ministers of justice.

1222 Et omnis accusator vel qui alium impetit, habeat optionem quid velit, sive judicium aque vel ferri ... et si fugiet (accusatus) ab ordalio, reddat eum plegius wera sua.—Ethelr. Tit. III. c. vi. (Thorpe II. 516).

1223 Thus, in the Icelandic code—“Quodsi reus ferrum candens se gerere velle obtulerit, hoc minime rejiciatur.”—Grágás, Sect. VI. c. 33. So in the laws of Bruges in 1190 (§ 31), we find the accused allowed to choose between the red-hot iron and a regular inquest—“Qui de palingis inpetitur, si ad judicium ardentis ferri venire noluerit, veritatem comitis qualem melius super hoc inveniri poterit, accipiet” (Warnkönig, Hist. de la Fland. IV. 372)—showing that it was considered the most absolute of testimony. And in a constitution of Frederic Barbarossa “Si miles rusticum de violata pace pulsaverit ... de duobus unum rusticus eligat, an divino aut humano judicio innocentiam suam ostendat.”—Feudor. Lib. II. Tit. xxvii. § 3.

1224 Thus an anonymous ecclesiastic, in an epistle quoted by Juretus (Observat. in Ivon. Carnot. Epist. 74)—“Simoniaci non admittuntur ad judicium, si probabiles personæ, etiam laicorum, vel feminarum, pretium se ab eis recipisse testantur; nec aliud est pro manifestis venire ad judicium nisi tentare Dominum.”

1225 Duellum vel judicium candentis ferri, vel aquæ ferventis, vel alia canonibus vel legibus improbata, nullomodo in curia Montispessulani rati sunt, nisi utraque pars convenerit.—Statut. Montispess. ann. 1204 (Du Cange).

1226 Si accolis de neutrius jure constat, adeoque hac in re testimonium dicere non queant, tum judicio aquæ res decidatur.—Jur. Provin. Alaman. cap. cclxxviii. § 5.—Poterit enim alteruter eorum petere probationem per aquam (wasser urteyll) nec Dominus nec adversarius detrectare possit; sed non, nisi quum per testes probatio fieri nequit.—Jur. Feud. Alaman. cap. lxxvii. § 2.

“Aut veritas reperiatur de hoc per aquaticum Dei judicium. Tamen judicium Dei non est licitum adhiberi per ullam causam, nisi cujus veritas per justitiam non potest aliter reperiri, hoc terminabitur judicio Dei.”—Jur. Feud. Saxon. § 100 (Senckenberg. Corp. Jur. Feud. German. p. 249).—So, also, in a later text, “judicium Domini fervida aqua vel ferro non licet in causa aliqua experiri, nisi in qua modis aliis non poterit veritas indagari.”—Cap. xxiv. § 19 (Ibid. p. 337).

1227 Établissements de Normandie, Tit. de Prison (Éd. Marnier). Precisely similar to this was a regulation in the early Bohemian laws.—Bracilai Leges. (Patrol. CLI., 1258-9). And an almost identical provision is found in the Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence.—L. Cnuti Sæc. cap. xxxv.—L. Henric. I. cap. lxi. § 5.—See, also, Assises de Jerusalem, Baisse Court, cclix.

1228 Batthyany, Legg. Eccles. Hung. II. 105.

1229 Et qui inveniatur per sacramentum prædictorum rettatus vel publicatus quod fuerit robator vel murdrator vel latro vel receptor eorum, postquam dominus rex fuit rex, capiatur et eat ad juisiam aquæ.—Assisa de Clarenduna § 2 (Stubbs, Select Charters, p. 137). For examples, see Maitland, Pleas, pp. 3, 4, 5, etc.

1230 Maitland, Pleas, etc., I. 1. P. 75 is a case of a youth detained in prison and sent to the ordeal apparently without a trial.

1231 Ruskaia Prawda, Art. 28.

1232 Maitland, Pleas, etc., I. 10.

1233 Hincmari Capit. Synod. ann. 852, II. xxi.

1234 Hincmari Epist. xxxiv.

1235 Capit. Car. Mag. ann. 794, § 7.

1236 Se juratores non potuerit invenire, aut ad ineum ambulat aut, etc.—MS. Guelferbyt. Tit. XIV.

1237 Quod si ... juratores invenire non potuerit, ad ignem seu ad sortem se excusare studeat.—L. Ripuar. Tit. xxxi. § 5.

1238 Dooms of Edward the Elder, cap. iii. So also in the laws of William the Conqueror, Tit. I. cap. xiv.—“Si sen escundira sei duzime main. E si il auer nes pot, si sen defende par juise.” The collection known by the name of Henry I. has a similar provision, cap. lxvi. § 3.

1239 Radevic. de Reb. Frid. Lib. I. cap. xxvi. This was an old feature of the Barbarian codes which continued till late in the Middle Ages. See ante, p. 22.

1240 Concil. Tribur. ann. 895, can. xxii.

1241 Yajnavalkya, II. 99.

1242 Chart. Commun. Laudun. (Baluz. et Mansi IV. p. 39).

1243 Consuetud. Tornacens. § iii. (D’Achery III. 551). See above, p. 54.

1244 Ut deinceps non sint digni juramento sed ordalio.—Legg. Edwardi cap. iii.; Æthelredi cap. i. § 1; Cnuti Sæcul cap. xxii. xxx.; Henrici I. cap. lxv. § 3.

1245 Capit. Car. Mag. I. ann. 809, cap. xxviii.—Capit Ludov. Pii. I. ann. 819.

1246 Burchardi Decret. Lib. XVI. cap. 19.

1247 Keure de la Châtellenie de Bruges, § 28 (Warnkönig, Hist. de la Fland. IV. 371).

1248 Jur. Provin. Alaman. cap. clxxxvi. §§ 4, 6, 7; cap. ccclxxiv.—Jur. Provin. Saxon. Lib. I. Art. 39.—Sachsische Weichbild, Art. xcii. § 2.—Richstich Landrecht, cap. lii.

1249 Si non fuere provada por mala, que aya yazido con cinco omes.—Fuero de Baeça (Villadiego, Fuero Juzgo, fol. 317 a).

1250 Capit. Car. Mag. III. ann. 813, cap. 46.

1251 Concil. Mogunt. ann. 847, can. xxiv.—Burchardi Decret. Lib. XVI. cap. 19.—Keure de Gand, §§ 7, 8, 12 (Warnkönig, II. 228).

The law of William the Conqueror (Tit. II. c. 3.—Thorpe, I. 488) by which the duel was reserved for the Norman, and the vulgar ordeal for the Saxon, might be supposed to arise from a similar distinction. In reality, however, it was only preserving the ancestral customs of the races, giving to the defendant the privilege of his own law. The duel was unknown to the Anglo-Saxons, who habitually employed the ordeal, while the Normans, previous to the Conquest, according to Houard, who is good authority (Anc. Loix Franc. I. 221-222), only appealed to the sword.

1252 Martene de Antiq. Eccl. Ritibus Lib. III. c. vii. Ord. 6. For the beliefs connected with mortuary masses see Concil. Toletan XVII. ann. 694 c. 5; D’Argentré Collect. Judic. de novis Error. I. II. 344; Angeli de Clavasio Summa Angelica s. v. Interrogationes; Diaz de Luco, Practica Criminalis Canonica cap. xxxv.; Grillandi de Sortilegiis q. xiv.

1253 The severity of the ordeal, when the sufferer had no friends among the operators to save him, may be deduced from the description of a hand when released from its three days’ tying up after its plunge in hot water: “inflatam admodum et excoriatam sanieque jam carne putrida effluentem dexteram invitus ostendit” (Du Cange, s. v. Aquæ Ferv. Judicium). In this case, the sufferer was the adversary of an abbey, the monks of which perhaps had the boiling of the caldron.

1254 L. Wisig. L. VI. Tit. i. § 3.

1255 Ivon. Carnot. Epist. 74; Ejusd. Decr. X. 27.—C. 20 Decr. Caus. II. q.v.

This epistle is generally attributed to Stephen V., but two MSS. of Ivo of Chartres ascribe it to Sylvester II. (Migne’s Patrologia CLXII. 96).

1256 Concil. Basol. cap. xi. Rainer, private secretary of Arnoul, offered to prove his statement by giving up a slave to walk the burning ploughshares in evidence of his truth (Ibid. cap. xxx.).

1257 Yajnavalkya, II. 99.

1258 Wharton and Stillé’s Med. Jurisp., 2d Edit. 1860.

1259 Michelet, Origines du Droit, p. 349.—Proost, Jugements de Dieu, p. 80. This seems to be derived from the skirsla of the Norsemen described above.

1260 London Athenæum, Aug. 20, 1881, p. 247.

1261 Polyptichum Irminonis, App. No. 34 (Paris, 1836, p. 373).

1262 Martene, De Antiq. Eccles. Ritibus Lib. III. cap. vii. Ordo 5.

1263 Patetta, Le Ordalie, p. 192.

1264 Hincmari Remens. Epist. XXII. (Migne’s Patrol. CXXVI. 136).

1265 Quod si accusatus contendere voluerit de ipso perjurio stent ad crucem.... Hoc vero de minoribus rebus. De majoribus vero, aut de statu ingenuitatis, secundum legem custodiant.—Capit. Car. Mag. ann. 779, § 10. That this was respected as law in force, nearly a hundred years later, is shown by its being included in the collection of Capitularies by Benedict the Levite (Lib. V. cap. 196).

1266 Ut omnes judicio Dei credant absque dubitatione.—Capit. Car. Mag. I. ann. 809, § 20.

1267 Aimoini Chron. Continuat. Lib. V. c. 34.

1268 Assisa facta apud Clarendune §§ 12, 13, 14 (Gesta Henrici II. T. II. p. clii.—M. R. Series). A case in accordance with this occurs in 1212 (Maitland, Pleas, I. 63).

1269 Gesta Henrici II. T. I. p. 108.—Cf. Bracton. Lib. III. Tract, ii. cap. 16 § 3.

1270 Simili modo, cauterium militis nullum tibi certum præbet argumentum, cum per examinationem ferri candentis occulto Dei judicio multos videamus nocentes liberatos, multos innocentes sæpe damnatos.—Ivon. Carnot. Epist. cccv.

1271 Pet. Cantor. Verb. Abbreviat. c. lxxviii.

1272 Vit. Carol. Comit. Flandren. cap. xx.

1273 Collin de Plancy, op. cit. S. V. Fer Chaud.

1274 Cæsar. Heisterbach. Dial. Mirac. Dist. X. c. xxxv.

1275 Ciruelo, Reprovacion de las Supersticiones, P. II. c. vii.

1276 Othlon. Narrat. de Mirac. quod nuper accidit, &c. (Migne’s Patrol. CXLVI. 243-4).

1277 Polyptichum Irminonis, App. No. 20 (Paris, 1836, p. 354).

1278 Olaf Haraldssons Saga, cxlv. (Laing’s Heimskringla, II. 210).

1279 Enimvero mirum fuit ultra modum, quod fautores arsuram et inflationem conspiciebant; criminatores ita sanam ejus videbant palmam, quasi penitus fulvum non tetigisset ferrum.—Mirac. S. Swithuni c. ii. § 37. In this case the patient was a slave, whose master had vowed to give him to the Church in case he escaped.

1280 Ad utramque partem sint ternas personas electas, ne conludius fieri possit.—Decret. Chlotharii II. cap. VII.

1281 Ethelred, III. § 4.

1282 Synod. Zaboles can. 27 (Batthyani, Legg. Eccles. Hung. T. I. p. 439).

1283 Martene de Antiq. Eccl. Ritibus Lib. III. c. vii. Ordo 1.

1284 Statut. Wilhelmi Regis cap. 7 § 3 (Skene II. 4).

1285 Ibid. cap. 16.

1286 Maitland, Pleas of the Crown, I. 75.

1287 Nam criminosos eodem chrismate unctos aut potatos nequaquam ullo examine deprehendi posse a multis putatur.—C. Turonens. III. ann. 813 c. 20 (Harduin. IV. 1026).

1288 Capit. Car. Mag. II. ann. 809.—Capitul. Lib. III. c. 55.—Reginon. de Discip. Ecclesiæ I. 73.

1289 Reginon. op. cit. I. 72.—Burchardi Decret. IV. 80.—Ivon. Carnot. Decret. I. 274.

1290 Martene de Antiq. Ritibus Ecclesiæ Lib. III. c. vii. Ordo 8. So in a ninth century exorcism of the hot water—“et si culpabilis de hac causa est et aliqua maleficia aut per herbas peccatum suum tegere voluerit tua dextera evacuare dignetur.”—Patetta, Archivio Giuridico, Vol. XLV.

1291 Martene, loc. cit. Ord. 10, 18.

1292 Du Cange, s. v. Ferrum candens.

1293 Experimentum mirabile quod facit homines ire in ignem sine læsione, vel portare ignem vel ferrum ignitum sine læsione in manu. Recipe succum bismalvæ et albumen ovi et semen psilli et calcem et pulveriza et confice; cum illo albumine ovi succum raphani commisce et ex hac confectione illinas corpus tuum et manum et dimitte siccari; et postea iterum illinas et post hoc poteris audacter sustinere ignem sine nocumento.—Alb. Mag. de Miraculis Mundi (Binterim, Denkwürdigkeiten der Christ-Katholischen Kirche, Bd. V. Th. iii. p. 70).

1294 The “Liber adversus Legem Gundobadi” and “Liber contra Judicium Dei.”

1295 Concil. Salisburg. I. can. ix. (Dalham Concil. Salisburg. p. 35).

1296 Ahytonis Capitular, cap. xxi. (D’Achery I. 585).

1297 Capit. Carol. Calvi Tit. XI. c. iii. (Baluze).

1298 Concil. Turon. ann. 925 (Martene et Durand Thes. T. IV. pp. 72-3).

1299 Annalist. Saxo. ann. 1028.

1300 Höfler, Concilia Pragensia, p. xiv. Prag. 1862.

1301 Burchardi Decret. Lib. XIX. c. 5 (Migne’s Patrologia CXL. p. 973).—Corrector Burchardi cap. 155 (Wasserschleben, Bussordnungen der abenländischen Kirche, p. 660).

1302 Batthyani, Legg. Eccles. Hung. II. 126.

1303 Examinati judicio aquæ mendaces inventi sunt ... aqua eos non suscipiente.—In Cantica, Sermon. 66 cap. 12.

1304 De Vita Sua Lib. III. cap. 18.

1305 Concil. Remens. ann. 1157, can. 1 (Martene Ampl. Coll. VII. 75).

1306 Hist. Vizeliacens. Lib. IV. (D’Achery Spicileg. II. 560).

1307 Godefridi S. Pantaleon. Annal. ann. 1172 (Freher et Struv. Rer. German. Scriptt. I. 340).

1308 Pet. Cantor. Verb. Abbreviat. cap. lxxviii. (Patrol. CCV. 230).

1309 Cæsar. Heisterbach. Dial. Mirac. Dist. III. c. xvi. xvii.

1310 Döllinger, Beiträge zur Sektengeschichte des Mittelalters, München, 1890, II. 621, 622.

1311 Theodericus Abbas Vice-Comitem adiit paratus aut calidi ferri judicio secundum legem monachorum per suum hominem probare, aut scuto et baculo secundum legem secularium deffendere.—Annal. Benedict. L. 57, No. 74, ann. 1036 (ap. Houard, Loix Anc. Franç. I. 267).

1312 Judicium ferri igniti et aquæ ferventis Abrincis portaretur, si clerici lapsi in culpam degradationis forte invenirentur.—Chart. Joan. Abrinc. (Patrolog. CXLVII. 266).

1313 Ivon. Carnot. Epist. ccxxxii. ccxlix. cclii.

1314 C. Remens. ann. 1119 (Harduin. VI. 1986).—Hildeberti Cenomanens. Epist. (D’Achery Spicileg. III. 456).

1315 Gemma Animæ, Lib. 1 cap. 181. At least this is the only reading which will make the passage intelligible—“Horum officium est ... vel nuptias vel arma, vel peras, vel baculos vel judicia ferre et aquas vel candelas ... benedicere,” where “ferre et aquas” is evidently corrupt for “ferri et aquæ.”

1316 Hoc autem utrum ad omnia genera purgationis, an ad hæc duo tantum, quæ hic prohibita esse videntur, pertineat, non immerito dubitatur propter sacrificium zelotypiæ, et illud Gregorii.—C. 20, caus. II. q. v.

1317 Ordo ad Frigidam Aquam, etc. (Pez, Thesaur. Anecd. T. II. P. II. p. 635).