"I exorcize thee, most unclean dragon, ancient serpent, dark night, by the word of truth, and the sign of light, by our Lord Jesus Christ, the immaculate Lamb generated by the Most High, conceived of the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary—Whose coming Gabriel the archangel did announce; Whom seeing, John did call out: This is the living and true Son of God—that in no wise mayest thou permit that man to eat this bread and cheese, who has committed this theft or consented to it or advised it. Adjured by Him who is to come to judge the quick and the dead, so thou close his throat with a band—not, however, unto death."
The Judgment of the Psalter
Thieves were sometimes tried by means of two pieces of wood and a psalter. One of the pieces having a button on the top was inserted in the psalter above the verse: "Thou art just, O Lord, and righteous are Thy judgments." The book was then closed and pressed firm, and then the projecting button was placed in a hole made in the other piece of wood, from which the psalter now hung. The wood was held by two persons on opposite sides of the psalter, and the accused having been placed before them, one of them said thrice to the other: "He has the thing" (i.e., the stolen article). The other thrice answered: "He has it not." Thereupon the priest declared: "This He will deign to make manifest unto us, by Whose judgment are ruled things terrestrial and things celestial. Thou art just, O Lord, and righteous are Thy judgments. Turn away the evils of Thy enemies, and destroy them with Thy truth."
The fate of the accused depended on the miraculous turning of the psalter. If the direction was from left to right he was innocent; if from right to left, he was guilty. It would appear from the prayer, in which the priest invoked Divine revelation, that he held the book, and therefore it is natural to assume that, consciously or unconsciously, his opinion must have influenced its movement. The prayer ran:
"Omnipotent, everlasting God, who didst create all things from nothing, and didst form man from the clay of the earth, we pray Thee, as suppliants by the intercession of Mary the most holy Mother of God ... that Thou do make trial for us concerning this matter about which we are uncertain; so that if so be that this man is guiltless, that book which we hold in our hands shall [in revolving] follow the ordinary course of the sun; but that if he be guilty that book shall move backwards."
There were other forms of procedure, in some of which, as in the trial of the cross and the touching of the bier, the supposed criminal was confronted with his victim. Ordeals were abolished in England in the year 1219; but the tradition did not die, and in the time of the Commonwealth, Hopkins, the notorious witchfinder, ridiculed in "Hudibras," employed the cold-water ordeal for the conviction of witches. "The suspected person," says Sir Walter Scott, "was wrapped in a sheet, having the great toes and thumbs tied together, and so dragged through a pond or river. If she sank, it was received in favour of the accused; but if the body floated (which must have occurred ten times for once, if it was placed with care on the surface of the water) the accused was condemned."
That the issue of the ordeal might be arranged appears to have been recognized even in the Middle Ages. Thus, fifty Englishmen, it is said, having been ordered by William Rufus to be tried by the hot iron, every one of them escaped unhurt. Thereupon the King announced that he would try them again by the judgment of his court and not abide by the so-called judgment of God, "which was made favourable or unfavourable at any man's pleasure." By the Assize of Northampton (1176) suspected persons, who had been acquitted by the water ordeal, were liable to banishment, though again acquitted by the "judgment of God."
Trial by battle, though obviously based on the same principle, was technically distinguished from the ordeal or judgment. The former appears to have arisen in the countries of the North, where it was known as the holmgang, the combats taking place on islands. Among the English this mode of settling differences was not much in favour either before or after the Norman Conquest; and the statutes of William I. contain provisions whereby the natives were permitted to substitute the more familiar ordeal for the trial by battle.
"It was also decreed there that if a Frenchman summon an Englishman for perjury or murder, theft, homicide, or 'ran'—as the English call evident rape, which cannot be denied—the Englishman shall defend himself as he prefers, either through the ordeal of iron or through wager of battle. But if the Englishman be infirm, he shall find another who will do it for him. If one of them shall be vanquished he shall pay a fine of forty shillings to the King. If an Englishman summon a Frenchman, and be unwilling to prove his charge by judgment or by wager of battle, I will, nevertheless, that the Frenchman purge himself by an informal oath."
In subsequent reigns wager of battle was infinitely more common, and great encouragement was given to it by the martial race, whose ideas and habits were imposed on the subject population. The principles were established and the procedure regulated by the "Assises de Jérusalem" (1099), whose ordinances were received and recognized throughout Europe as a code of law and honour. For a general statement of conditions and effects we cannot do better than turn to the pages of the almost impeccable Gibbon.