What Was Trial by Ordeal?

Trial by ordeal was a legal procedure in which the accused was subjected to a physical test - hot iron, boiling water, cold water, or other trials - and the result was taken as a sign of divine judgment. It was a common feature of early medieval law, used when the ordinary procedures of oath and witness had failed to produce a clear answer. The ordeal was a religious act, presided over by a priest, and it was based on the belief that God would reveal the truth to a community that could not find it by ordinary means. The procedure was eventually forbidden by the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215, but it remained an important part of the early medieval legal system for centuries.

For the broader context of early medieval law, see the Law and Governance. For the system of lordship in which the procedure was used, see the Who Were Medieval Nobles?. For the religious background, see the Early Medieval Christianity.

The forms of ordeal

The most common forms of ordeal in the Early Middle Ages were the ordeal of hot iron, the ordeal of boiling water (or oil), the ordeal of cold water, the ordeal of the cross, and the ordeal of the Eucharist.

The ordeal of hot iron required the accused to carry a piece of red-hot iron for a prescribed distance, usually nine paces, or to walk barefoot over a row of red-hot ploughshares. The hand or the foot was then bound and inspected three days later; if the wound was clean, the accused was judged innocent; if it was infected, he was judged guilty. The ordeal of hot iron was a common form of trial in the Frankish and Anglo-Saxon worlds, and it was used especially in cases of theft, of treason, and of unchastity.

The ordeal of boiling water (or oil) required the accused to plunge his hand into a cauldron of boiling water or oil and retrieve a stone or a ring from the bottom. The hand was bound and inspected three days later; the result was judged in the same way as in the ordeal of hot iron. The ordeal of boiling water was used in similar cases to the ordeal of hot iron, and it was especially common in the early medieval kingdoms of the Merovingian Franks, the Anglo-Saxons, and the Lombards.

The ordeal of cold water was a different kind of test. The accused was bound and thrown into a body of cold water, usually a river or a pond. If he sank, he was judged innocent (the water, as a form of baptism, was thought to reject the guilty); if he floated, he was judged guilty. The ordeal of cold water was especially common in the early medieval world, and it was the form of ordeal most often used in the trials of witches in the central and later Middle Ages.

The ordeal of the cross was a milder test. The accused stood with arms outstretched in the form of a cross, and the one who held the position longest was judged innocent. The ordeal of the cross was used in cases of lesser importance, and it was preferred in cases involving the clergy, for whom the more violent ordeals were considered inappropriate. The ordeal of the cross was common in the Frankish and Anglo-Saxon worlds, and it was used as late as the twelfth century.

The ordeal of the Eucharist (or “judgment of the cross”) required the accused to swallow a piece of bread or cheese that had been blessed, with the prayer that it would choke him if he were guilty. If he swallowed it without difficulty, he was judged innocent; if he choked, he was judged guilty. The ordeal of the Eucharist was a common form of trial in the early Middle Ages, and it was used especially in cases involving the clergy and the laity of the higher ranks.

The theology of ordeal

The ordeal was a religious act, and it required theological justification. The justification was based on the belief that God, who is just and all-knowing, would reveal the truth to a community that could not find it by ordinary means. The ordeal was thus an appeal to divine judgment, and it was valid only when the ordinary procedures of the law had failed to produce a clear answer. The priest who presided over the ordeal was expected to be in a state of grace, and the procedure was surrounded by prayers, by the blessing of the water or the iron, and by the invocation of the saints.

The theology of ordeal was not universally accepted. Some Church fathers had doubts about the practice, especially the ordeal of cold water, which seemed to be testing the defendant’s relationship to the water rather than to God. The bishops who attended the Council of Worms in 868, for example, were uncertain about the validity of the ordeal, and they recommended that it be used only as a last resort. The famous Hincmar of Reims, in his letters of the 860s, set out a careful defense of the ordeal, arguing that it was a legitimate appeal to divine judgment and that it was supported by the example of the Old Testament (the ordeal of Susanna, the bitter water of Numbers 5).

The practice of ordeal

The practice of ordeal varied considerably by region and by period. In the Frankish world, the ordeal was a common feature of legal procedure, and the bishop’s court was often the place where the ordeal was administered. The Anglo-Saxon codes of law prescribed the use of the ordeal in cases of theft, of treason, and of unchastity, and they specified the details of the procedure. The Lombard law of Liutprand, in the early eighth century, prescribed the ordeal in cases of disputed inheritance, of treason, and of the violation of church property.

The ordeal was a public act, performed in front of the community, and it was an important social as well as legal event. The result of the ordeal was widely known, and it was often a major feature of local memory. The saints’ lives of the period contain many examples of ordeals, and they make clear that the procedure was a regular feature of early medieval life. The famous ordeal of the Calf of Cury, performed in 858 in the presence of Charles the Bald, the bishop of Laon, and a great assembly of the people, is a striking example of the public and the political character of the procedure.

The decline of ordeal

The ordeal was a remarkably durable institution. It survived the Viking raids, the Magyar and Saracen incursions, the collapse of the Carolingian Empire, the demographic recovery of the tenth century, and the beginnings of the high medieval revival. It was only in the twelfth century that serious doubts about the practice began to be expressed, and it was only in 1215 that the Fourth Lateran Council forbade clergy from participating in ordeals. The Fourth Lateran Council’s decree was not, however, an outright ban. It forbade the participation of clergy, but it did not forbid the ordeal itself. The practice continued in some regions, especially in the cases of witches and heretics, into the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

The reasons for the decline of the ordeal are several. The rise of more effective royal justice, with its professional judges, its careful procedures, and its reliance on written evidence, made the ordeal less necessary. The development of scholastic theology, with its emphasis on the rational examination of evidence, made the appeal to divine judgment less credible. The increasing sophistication of the law of evidence, with its rules about the admissibility of testimony, the weight of documents, and the role of the judge, made the ordeal less useful. The result was a slow but real decline, and by the end of the Middle Ages, the ordeal was a thing of the past.

The legacy of ordeal

The ordeal left a significant legacy in the development of European law. The detailed procedures of the ordeal, with their careful attention to the conditions of the test, the role of the priest, the inspection of the result, and the right of appeal, were an important step in the development of formal legal procedure. The principle that the community has a right to a clear answer in difficult cases, and that the procedure for finding that answer must be carefully regulated, is one of the lasting contributions of the ordeal to the European legal tradition. The fact that the procedure was eventually abandoned in favor of a more rational and more humane system is one of the marks of the development of European civilization from the early Middle Ages to the modern world.

For a broader account of the legal system in which the ordeal was used, see the Law and Governance. For the social context, see the Daily Life and Society in the Early Middle Ages. For the religious context, see the The Papacy in the Early Middle Ages.

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