Superstition and Force / Essays on the Wager of Law, the Wager of Battle, the Ordeal, Torture

by Henry Charles Lea

[1204] Pet. Damian. Opusc. LVII. Diss. ii. c. 3, 4.

[1205] Conc. Roman. ann. 904 (898) c. 1 (Harduin. VI. I. 487).—Liutprand. Antapodos. Lib. I. c. 30, 31.

[1206] Patetta, Le Ordalie, p. 218.

[1207] Wieri de Præstigiis Dæmonum, pp. 589-90.

[1208] That this was a settled practice is shown by its existence in the earliest text of the law (Tit. LVI.) as well as in the latest (L. Emend. Tit. LIX.).

[1209] Si aufugerit et ordalium vitaverit, solvat plegius compellanti captale suum et regi weram suum.—L. Cnuti Sæc. cap. xxx.—See also cap. xli.

[1210] Et eligat accusatus alterutrum quod velit, sive simplex ordalium, sive jusjurandum unius libre in tribus hundredis super xxx. den.—L. Henrici I. cap. LXV. § 3. By the municipal codes of Germany, a choice between the various forms of ordeal was sometimes allowed to the accused who was sentenced to undergo it.—Jur. Provin. Alaman. cap. xxxvii. §§ 15, 16. Jur. Provin. Saxon. Lib. I. Art. 39.

[1211] Dooms of Ethelstan, I. cap. 21.

[1212] First Text, Tit. LIII. and L. Emend. Tit. LV.

[1213] Jura primæva Moraviæ, Brunæ, 1781, p. 27.