[1252] Martene de Antiq. Eccl. Ritibus Lib. III. c. vii. Ord. 6. For the beliefs connected with mortuary masses see Concil. Toletan XVII. ann. 694 c. 5; D’Argentré Collect. Judic. de novis Error. I. II. 344; Angeli de Clavasio Summa Angelica s. v. Interrogationes; Diaz de Luco, Practica Criminalis Canonica cap. xxxv.; Grillandi de Sortilegiis q. xiv.
[1253] The severity of the ordeal, when the sufferer had no friends among the operators to save him, may be deduced from the description of a hand when released from its three days’ tying up after its plunge in hot water: “inflatam admodum et excoriatam sanieque jam carne putrida effluentem dexteram invitus ostendit” (Du Cange, s. v. Aquæ Ferv. Judicium). In this case, the sufferer was the adversary of an abbey, the monks of which perhaps had the boiling of the caldron.
[1254] L. Wisig. L. VI. Tit. i. § 3.
[1255] Ivon. Carnot. Epist. 74; Ejusd. Decr. X. 27.—C. 20 Decr. Caus. II. q.v.
This epistle is generally attributed to Stephen V., but two MSS. of Ivo of Chartres ascribe it to Sylvester II. (Migne’s Patrologia CLXII. 96).
[1256] Concil. Basol. cap. xi. Rainer, private secretary of Arnoul, offered to prove his statement by giving up a slave to walk the burning ploughshares in evidence of his truth (Ibid. cap. xxx.).
[1257] Yajnavalkya, II. 99.
[1258] Wharton and Stillé’s Med. Jurisp., 2d Edit. 1860.
[1259] Michelet, Origines du Droit, p. 349.—Proost, Jugements de Dieu, p. 80. This seems to be derived from the skirsla of the Norsemen described above.
[1260] London Athenæum, Aug. 20, 1881, p. 247.