Trial by ordeal

Trial by ordeal is a judicial practice by which the guilt or innocence of the accused is determined by subjecting them to a painful task. If either the task is completed without injury, or the injuries sustained are healed quickly, the accused is considered innocent. Like trial by combat, it was a judicium Dei: a procedure based on the premise that God would help the innocent.

Ordeal by water

Ordeal by water varied. Gregory of Tours (died 695) recorded the common expectation that with a millstone round their neck, the guilty would sink: "The cruel pagans cast him into a river with a millstone tied to his neck, and when he had fallen into the waters he was long supported on the surface by a divine miracle, and the waters did not suck him down since the weight of crime did not press upon him." (Historia Francorum i.35)

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

A variant on the ordeal by water was the requirement to remove a stone from a pot of boiling water, the injury sustained indicating guilt as in the trial by fire, sometimes the liquid medium used could be oil or molten lead. Trial by water could also be the consumption of 'bitter water' without harm (this is present in the Torah as a test for a woman who allegedly committed adultery and is called the Sotah procedure in Judaism, however, it is the reverse of the normal case as the physically harmless water is seen to be transformed into a deadly potion if the accused was guilty). Or, it could be a variant on the dunking of witches, the accused would be bound and thrown into water - an innocent person would sink and a guilty person would float. The innocent person would then be rescued, not left to drown - not always successfully. Witches were imagined to supernaturally float above water because they had renounced baptism when entering the Devil's service. Some researchers theorise that specific diet was used to cause witches to float by increasing the amounts of gas within their intestines. By other theories of the time, the innocent person would float with God's aid while the guilty one would sink. Either way the accused had little chance of surviving this ordeal. {{dubious}}

Related Topics:
Torah - Adultery - Sotah - Judaism - Witch - Baptism

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~