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.

Role of the clergy

The elements in the trial by fire and the trial by water were usually under the control and supervision of the local clergy. Judicial records of these proceedings indicate that a fair number of those accused were in fact acquitted by the ordeals. Since the priests of the era knew their parishoners, knew of their reputations, and heard their confessions, it seems probable that the ordeals were rigged in some manner to yield a verdict that the priests thought were just.

Related Topics:
Clergy - Priest - Confession

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The clergy were unwilling to submit to the hazards of the ordeals by fire and water themselves, so their ordeal was literally a piece of cake. Called the corsned ("cursed morsel") a piece of cake, bread, or cheese was placed on the altar of a church. The accused was taken to the altar and there made to recite a prayer to the effect that God would send the archangel Gabriel to stop his throat and make him choke if he was guilty. Few were convicted at these trials. Although it is plausible that the selection of the size of the morsel was up to the inquisitor, who likewise would have secret knowledge of the behavior of the accused from the confessional.

Related Topics:
Cake - Bread - Cheese - Altar - Archangel - Gabriel

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Some ordeals were less painful, both coscinomancy and axinomancy were considered ordeals but without harm being caused during the process of determining the guilty. Trial by bier, where it was believed that the wounds on the body of a murdered corpse would reopen and bleed in the presence of the murderer, was also an ordeal, last used in England in 1628. The practice of dunking for witchcraft was practiced well into the seventeenth century. Pricking an accused witch to find the Devil's mark can also be considered a type of ordeal. Matthew Hopkins, the notorious "Witch-Finder Generall," made his victims submit to these ordeals. These latter ordeals were more in the manner of divination used as a tool for investigating crimes rather than actual trials.

Related Topics:
Coscinomancy - Axinomancy - 1628 - Witchcraft - Seventeenth century - Devil - Matthew Hopkins - Divination - Trial

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