If a man maim another's hand outwardly, let twenty shillings be paid him as 'bot,' if he can be healed; if it half fly off, then shall forty shillings be paid as 'bot.'
CHAPTER XII.
THE ORDEAL
33. Tests by Hot Water, Cold Water, and Fire
Among the early Germans the settling of disputes and the testing of the guilt or innocence of an accused person were generally accomplished through the employment of one or both of two very interesting judicial practices—compurgation and the ordeal. According to the German conception of justice, when one person was accused of wrongdoing by another and chose to defend himself, he was not under obligation to prove directly that he did not commit the alleged misdeed; rather it was his business to produce, if he could, a sufficient number of persons who would take oath that they believed the accused to be a trustworthy man and that he was telling the truth when he denied that he was guilty. The persons brought forward to take this oath were known as compurgators, or "co-swearers," and the legal act thus performed was called compurgation. The number of compurgators required to free a man was usually from seven to twelve, though it varied greatly among different tribes and according to the rank of the parties involved. Naturally they were likely to be relatives or friends of the accused man, though it was not essential that they be such. It was in no wise expected that they be able to give facts or evidence regarding the case; in other words, they were not to serve at all as witnesses, such as are called in our courts to-day.
If the accused succeeded in producing the required number of compurgators, and they took the oath in a satisfactory manner, the defendant was usually declared to be innocent and the case was dropped. If, however, the compurgators were not forthcoming, or there appeared some irregularity in their part of the procedure, resort would ordinarily be had to the ordeal. The ordeal was essentially an appeal to the gods for decision between two contending parties. It was based on the belief that the gods would not permit an innocent person to suffer by reason of an unjust accusation and that when the opportunity was offered under certain prescribed conditions the divine power would indicate who was in the right and who in the wrong. The ordeal, having its origin far back in the times when the Germans were pagans and before their settlements in the Roman Empire, was retained in common usage after the Christianizing and civilizing of the barbarian tribes. The administering of it simply passed from the old pagan priests to the Christian clergy, and the appeals were directed to the Christian's God instead of to Woden and Thor. Under Christian influence, the wager of battle (or personal combat to settle judicial questions), which had been exceedingly common, was discouraged as much as possible, and certain new modes of appeal to divine authority were introduced. Throughout the earlier Middle Ages the chief forms of the ordeal were: (1) the ordeal by walking through fire; (2) the ordeal by hot iron, in which the accused either carried a piece of hot iron a certain distance in his hands or walked barefoot over pieces of the same material; (3) the ordeal by hot water, in which the accused was required to plunge his bared arm into boiling water and bring forth a stone or other object from the bottom; (4) the ordeal by cold water, in which the accused was thrown, bound hand and foot, into a pond or stream, to sink if he were innocent, to float if he were guilty; (5) the ordeal of the cross, in which the accuser and accused stood with arms outstretched in the form of a cross until one of them could endure the strain of the unnatural attitude no longer; (6) the ordeal of the sacrament, in which the accused partook of the sacrament, the idea being that divine vengeance would certainly fall upon him in so doing if he were guilty; (7) the ordeal of the bread and cheese, in which the accused, made to swallow morsels of bread and cheese, was expected to choke if he were guilty; and (8) the judicial combat, which was generally reserved for freemen, and which, despite the opposition of the Church, did not die out until the end of the mediæval period.
The three passages quoted below illustrate, respectively, the ordeal by hot water, by cold water, and by fire. The first (a) is a story told by the Frankish historian Gregory of Tours [see [p. 46]]. The second (b) is an explanation of the cold water ordeal written by Hincmar, an archbishop of Rheims in the ninth century. The third (c) is an account, by Raymond of Agiles, of how Peter Bartholomew was put to the test by the ordeal of fire. This incident occurred at Antioch during the first crusade. Peter Bartholomew had just discovered a lance which he claimed was the one thrust into the side of Christ at the crucifixion and, some of the crusaders being skeptical as to the genuineness of the relic, the discoverer was submitted to the ordeal by fire to test the matter.
Sources—(a) Gregorius Episcopus Turonensis, Libri Miraculorum [Gregory of Tours, "Books of Miracles">[, Chap. 80. Text in Monumenta Germaniæ Historica, Scriptores Merovingicarum, Vol. I., p. 542. Translated by Arthur C. Howland in Univ. of Pa. Translations and Reprints, Vol. IV., No. 4, pp. 10-11.
(b) Hincmari Archiepiscopi Rhemensis, De divortio Lotharii regis et Tetbergæ reginæ [Hincmar, Archbishop of Rheims, "The Divorce of King Lothair and Queen Teutberga">[, Chap. 6. Text in Migne, Patroligiæ Cursus Completus, Second Series, Vol. CXXV., cols. 668-669. Translated by Arthur C. Howland, ibid.
(c) Raimundus de Agiles, Historia Francorum qui ceperunt Jerusalem [Raimond of Agiles, "History of the Franks who captured Jerusalem">[, Chap. 18. Text in Migne, Patrologiæ Cursus Completus, Second Series, Vol. CLV., cols. 619-621.