hot iron,^356 or by pure fire.^357 The person accused or suspected of a crime was exposed to the danger
of death or serious injury by one of these elements: if he escaped unhurt—if he plunged his arm to
the elbow into boiling water, or walked barefoot upon heated plough-shares, or held a burning ball
of iron in his hand, without injury, he was supposed to be declared innocent by a miraculous
interposition of God, and discharged; otherwise he was punished.
To the ordeals belongs also the judicial duel or battle ordeal. It was based on the old
superstition that God always gives victory to the innocent.^358 It was usually allowed only to freemen.
Aged and sick persons, women, children, and ecclesiastics could furnish substitutes, but not always.
Mediaeval panegyrists trace the judicial duel back to Cain and Abel. It prevailed among the ancient
Danes, Irish, Burgundians, Franks, and Lombards, but was unknown among the Anglo-Saxons
before William the Conqueror, who introduced it into England. It was used also in international
litigation. The custom died out in the sixteenth century.^359
The mediaeval church, with her strong belief in the miraculous, could not and did not
generally oppose the ordeal, but she baptized it and made it a powerful means to enforce her authority
over the ignorant and superstitious people she had to deal with. Several councils at Mainz in 880,
at Tribur on the Rhine in 895, at Tours in 925, at Mainz in 1065, at Auch in 1068, at Grau in 1099,
recognized and recommended it; the clergy, bishops, and archbishops, as Hincmar of Rheims, and
Burckhardt of Worms, and even popes like Gregory VII. and Calixtus II. lent it their influence. St.
Bernard approved of the cold-water process for the conviction of heretics, and St. Ivo of Chartres
admitted that the incredulity of mankind sometimes required an appeal to the verdict of Heaven,
though such appeals were not commanded by, the law of God. As late as 1215 the ferocious inquisitor
"Let not the water receive the body of him who, released from the weight of goodness, is upborne by the wind of iniquity." It
was supposed that the pure element would not receive a criminal into its bosom. It required therefore in this case a miracle to
convict the accused, as in the natural order of things he would escape. Lea (p. 221) relates this instance from a MS. in the British
Museum In 1083, during the deadly struggle between the Empire and the Papacy, as personified in Henry IV. and Hildebrand,
the imperialists related with great delight that some of the leading prelates of the papal court submitted the cause of their chief
to this ordeal. After a three days’ fast, and proper benediction of the water, they placed in it a boy to represent the Emperor,
when to their horror he sank like a stone. On referring the result to Hildebrand, he ordered a repetition of the experiment, which
was attended with the same result. Then, throwing him in, as a representative of the Pope, he obstinately floated during two
trials, in spite of all efforts to force him under the surface, and an oath was exacted from them to maintain inviolable secrecy
as to the unexpected result." James I. of England was a strict believer in this ordeal, and thought that the pure element would
never receive those who had desecrated the privileges of holy baptism. Even as late as 1836, an old woman, reputed to be a
witch, was twice plunged into the sea at Hela, near Danzig, and as she persisted in rising to the surface, she was pronounced
guilty and beaten to death. See Lea, p. 228 and 229.(^356) Judicium ferri or ferri candentis. A favorite mode, administered in two different forms, the one by six or twelve
red-hot plough-shares (vomeres igniti), over which the person had to walk bare-footed; the other by a piece of red-hot iron,
which he had to carry for a distance of nine feet or more. See Lea, p. 201 sq.
(^357) The accused had to stretch his hand into a fire; hence the French proverbial expression: "J’en mettrais la main au
feu," as an affirmation of positive belief. Sometimes he had to walk bare-legged and bare-footed through the flames of huge
pyres. Petrus Igneus gained his reputation and surname by an exploit of this kind. See examples in Lea, p. 209 sqq. Savonarola
proposed this ordeal in 1498 to his enemies in proof of his assertion that the church needed a thorough reformation, and that
his excommunication by Pope Alexander VI. was null and void, but he shrunk from the trial, lost his cause, and was hanged
and burned after undergoing frightful tortures. He had not the courage of Hus at Constance, or Luther at Worms, and his
attempted reformation left nothing but a tragic memory.
(^358) Tacitus (German, cap. 7) reports of the heathen Germans: "[Deum] adesse, bellantibus credunt."
(^359) See Lea, p. 75-174. The wager of battle, as a judicial institution, must not be confounded with the private duel which
has been more or less customary among all races and in all ages, and still survives as a relic of barbarism, though misnamed
"the satisfaction of a gentleman." The judicial duel aims at the discovery of truth and the impartial administration of justice,
while the object of the private duel is personal vengeance and reparation of honor.