[928] Baisse Court, cap. 132, 261, 279, 280, etc.
[929] Lesbroussart’s Oudegherst, II. 707.
[930] Radevic. de Reb. Frid. Lib. I. cap. xxvi.
[931] Rouskaïa Prawda, Art. 28.
[932] Grágás, Sect. VI. c. lv.
[933] Maitland, Pleas, etc., I. 5. Again in another case in 1207 (p. 55), while in yet another a man and woman, accomplices in the same crime, are both sent to the hot iron (p. 77). In 1203 a case occurs in which the court offers the accused the choice between red-hot iron and water, and he selects the former.—Ib. p. 30.
[934] O’Curry, ap. Pictet, Origines Indo-Européennes, III. 179.
[935] Regino. ann. 886.—Annales Metenses.
[936] Vit. S. Kunegundæ cap. 2 (Ludewig Script. Rer. German. I. 346-7).
[937] Gotfridi Viterbiensis Pars XVII., “De Tertio Othone Imperatore.” Siffridi Epit. Lib. I. ann. 998. Ricobaldi Hist. Impp. sub Ottone III.—The story is not mentioned by any contemporary authorities, and Muratori has well exposed its improbability (Annali d’Italia, ann. 996); although he had on a previous occasion argued in favor of its authenticity (Antiq. Ital. Dissert. 38). In convicting the empress of calumny, the Countess of Modena appeared as an accuser, making good the charge by the ordeal; but if we look upon her as simply vindicating her husband’s character, the case enters into the ordinary course of such affairs. Indeed, among the Anglo-Saxons, there was a special provision by which the friends of an executed criminal might clear his reputation by undergoing the triple ordeal, after depositing pledges, to be forfeited in cases of defeat (Ethelred, iii. § 6), just as in the burgher law of Northern Germany a relative of a dead man might claim the duel to absolve him from an accusation (Sachsische Weichbild, art. lxxxvii.). This was not mere sentiment, as in crimes involving confiscation the estate of the dead man was at stake.