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Bible Dictionaries
Ordeals
1910 New Catholic Dictionary
or
Means used to determine the guilt or innocence of an accused person, in early medieval times. They were used in the belief that God would interpose to vindicate the innocent or to punish the guilty. They were resorted to when the ordinary means had failed, or when the contesting parties were unable to bring forth further necessary evidence. Ordeals were practised among many ancient people, but the medieval ordeals had their rise principally in the legal customs of the ancient Germanic pagans, and were in use among the newer Teutonic nations and in the old provinces of the Roman Empire, over which they held sway, lands comprised by the modern states of Germany, France, and England. They were never made use of by the tribunals of Rome. Among the ordeals were:
- the duel, the outcome of which was looked upon as the judgment of God
- the cross, before which the accuser and the accused stood with outstretched arms, and the first to let fall his arms was defeated
- the hot iron, in which ordeal the accused must walk a certain distance carrying a red-hot iron in his hands, or he must walk barefooted over red-hot ploughshares, and if he remained uninjured his innocence was established
- cold water, into which the accused with arms and legs bound was cast, and if he floated upon the water, he was declared not guilty
- the blessed morsel, consisting of a piece of cheese and bread which the accused must swallow, if he was to have his innocence established
- the suspended loaf, a loaf of bread, through which a stick of wood was passed and placed in an opening made in another piece of wood, so that it could turn, and a person was considered guilty if it turned from west to east
- the examen in mensuris (Latin: trial by ballot), seldom practised, an ordeal probably decided by lot or by the measuring of the accused by a stick of determined length
- bleeding, in which ordeal, a person suspected of murder was forced to look upon the wounds of the victim, and if these began to bleed afresh, his guilt was supposed to have been proven
The Christian missionaries and Churchmen generally were somewhat tolerant of the ordeals, excepting the duel. Their opposition would have been well-nigh fruitless; many of them were children of their age, and the ordeals were closely entwined with the legal customs of the Teutonic peoples. On the other hand, the popes always opposed these practises, and at an early date they began their efforts to suppress them. These prohibitions culminated in the general decree of Pope Innocent III, at the Council of the Lateran, 1215. In the course of the 14th and 15th centuries the last vestiges of the ordeals disappeared.
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Entry for 'Ordeals'. 1910 New Catholic Dictionary. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/ncd/o/ordeals.html. 1910.
