Mediæval London, Volume 2: Ecclesiastical

by Walter Besant

The next man stepped forward.

He plunged his hand at once; he groped about for the stone; he drew out his hand; he plunged again; he drew it out with a yell of agony. No need to look at the arm searchingly, it was horribly scalded. They hanged him up at once.

The third man was brought forward.

He looked at his companion hanging; he looked at the caldron and the fire. He fell on his knees confessing the crime.

So, likewise, did the fourth man.

So, out of four ropes, three were wanted; and for four of them who were accused, the Lord Himself had pronounced the guilt of three and established the innocence of one.

The fourth method was the ordeal by fire, in which the accused had to lift a red-hot bar of iron without burning his hands, or to walk barefoot over red-hot iron; or to put his hand into a red-hot iron glove; or to pass through a blazing fire with his clothes untouched. In the case of the bar of red-hot iron, the trial took place in the church, and as soon as mass was begun the bar was placed in the coals; at the last collect it was taken off. A stand of some kind was placed near the fire, then a space of nine times the length of the prisoner’s foot was measured off; this made a distance of about seven or eight feet. This space was divided by lines into three. The prisoner had to lift up the bar and to carry it by three steps across the space. His hand was then bound up, and after three days it was examined. If it showed signs of burning he was hanged.

These kinds of ordeal naturally fell into disuse as soon as people began to suspect that there was “management” by the priests; their suspicions began certainly as early as the time of William Rufus, and perhaps earlier. The Normans, indeed, scoffed at all the old ordeals. On one occasion, when twenty prisoners had successfully passed the ordeal by fire, William Rufus laughed at the whole business and ordered them all to be tried. But the ordeal by battle stood on a different footing. In this ordeal there could be no deception and no bribing; the priest had nothing to do with it; the two parties had to fight it out to the death; it was conducted in grim and solemn earnest; it was an appeal and a heartfelt prayer to the Lord of Justice. He was called upon to show the world which was the guilty party. And just as in the ordeal by water, the consciousness of innocence gave a man assurance, and thereby enabled him to undertake the fearful task without confusion or haste, so in the Ordeal by Battle, the consciousness of innocence sent a man into the field doubly armed.

The mediæval view of the Ordeal by Battle is set forth seriously and solemnly by Dante (De Monarchia, book ii. chap. x.)[19]:—

“Moreover, what is acquired by ordeal is acquired by Right. For wheresoever human judgment is at fault, either because it is involved in the darkness of ignorance or because there is not a presiding judge, then, lest justice should be left deserted, we must have recourse to Him, who so loved her as Himself to meet her demands with His own blood in death. Hence the psalm, ‘Just is the Lord, and deeds of justice hath he loved.’ Now this is what takes place when by the free assent of either side, not in hatred but in love of justice the divine judgment is sought through means of the mutual clash of strength, alike of mind and body. Which clash, since it was first tried in the single contact of man and man, we call the ordeal.

But we must ever take heed that like as, when it is a question of war, all means should first be tried in the way of award, and only in the last resort should the way of battle be tried (as Tully and Vegetius agree in saying, the one in Re militari, the other in the De Officiis), and like as in medical treatment, everything else should be tried before steel and fire, and they only in the last resort; so when every other way of finding judgment in a dispute has been exhausted, we are to recur in the last resort to this remedy, forced by a kind of compulsion of justice.

There are then two formal characteristics of the ordeal: one is that which has just now been spoken of; the other the one which was touched upon above, to wit, that the contenders or champions should enter the palæstra, not in hate or love, but in sole zeal for justice, with common consent. And therefore Tully said well in dealing with this matter, but wars, the aim of which is the crown of Empire, should be waged less bitterly.

But if the formal characteristics of the ordeal are preserved (else were it no ordeal) are not they who have gathered together by common consent, under compulsion of justice and in zeal for her, gathered together in the name of God? And if so, is not God in their midst, since He himself promises as much in the Evangel? And if God is present, is it not impious to think that justice may succumb?—justice whom He so loves as is forenoted above! And if justice cannot succumb in the ordeal is not that which is acquired by ordeal acquired by Right?”