A church dictionary

by Walter Farquhar Hook

After the death of Cardinal Berulle, which happened the 2nd of October, 1629, the priests of the Oratory made a great progress in France and other countries. This order had eleven houses in the Low Countries, one at Liege, two in the county of Avignon, and one in Savoy, besides fifty-eight in France. The first house, which was, as it were, the mother of all the rest, was that of the street St. Honoré, at Paris, where the general resided. The priests of this congregation were not, properly speaking, monks, being obliged to no vows, and their institute being purely ecclesiastical or sacerdotal.—Broughton. The Oratorians have lately appeared in England.

ORDEAL. An appeal to the judgment of Almighty God, in criminal cases, when the innocence or guilt of the accused rested on insufficient evidence.

Among the Saxons and Normans, if any person was charged with theft, adultery, murder, treason, perjury, &c., in these cases, if the person neither pleaded guilty, nor could be convicted by legal evidence, it was either in the prosecutor’s or judge’s power to put him upon the ordeal; and provided he passed through this test unhurt, he was discharged; otherwise he was put into the hands of justice, to be punished as the law directed, in case he had been cast by the ordinary forms of prosecution. For we are to observe, that this trial by ordeal was not designed for the punishment of those in whose cases the ordinary forms had miscarried; the intention of it was rather to clear the truth, where it could not be otherwise discovered, and make way for the execution of the law.

There are several sorts of this inquiry; the trial was sometimes made by cold, and sometimes by scalding, water; sometimes by ploughshares, or bars of iron, heated burning hot; sometimes the accused purged their innocence by receiving the sacrament; and sometimes by eating a piece of barley bread called the corsned.

In the trial by cold water, the persons suspected were thrown naked into a pond, or river: if they sank they were acquitted, but if they floated upon the river without any swimming postures it was taken for an evidence of guilt.

When scalding water was the test, they were to plunge their arm in a tub, or kettle, to the elbow; if this was done without any signs of pain, or marks of scalding, the person was discharged; but if there was the least complaint under the operation, or any scar or impression to be seen, it was taken for proof against him. Slaves, peasants, and people of mean condition, were put upon this water ordeal.

Persons of figure and quality were generally tried by the burning iron. This ordeal had different circumstances in proportion to the crimes objected. If the person was only impeached for a single crime, the iron was to weigh but one pound: but if he was prosecuted upon several articles, the weight of the iron was to increase proportionably; and here the person impeached was either to hold a burning ball of iron in his hand, and move with it to a certain distance, or else to walk barefoot upon heated ploughshares, placed about a yard from each other. If after this trial his hands and feet were untouched, and he discovered no signs of feeling any pain, he was discharged by the court; but if the matter fell out otherwise, he was remitted to the punishment of the law.

Before the person accused was brought to the ordeal, he was obliged to swear his innocence, and sometimes receive the holy eucharist.

The Christians of this age had a strong reliance upon this way of trial, not in the least doubting but that God would suspend the force of nature, and clear the truth by a supernatural interposition. If we may believe the records of those times, we shall find that innocent persons were frequently rescued, in a surprising manner, perhaps by some skilful management on the part of the authorities aware of the fact.

To proceed to some of the preliminaries of the ordeal. After the charge was legally brought in, the person impeached was to spend three days in fasting and prayer. At the day of the trial, which was made in the church, the priest, appearing in the habit of his function, took up the iron which lay before the altar, and, repeating the hymn of the Three Children, put it into the fire. This being done, he proceeded to some forms of benediction over the fire and iron; after which, he sprinkled the iron with holy water, and made the sign of the cross in the name of the Blessed Trinity: upon which the person accused passed through the test.