ORDEAL, an ancient form of trial. It consisted in an appeal to the immediate interposition of divine power, being particularly distinguished by the appellation of judicium Dei; and was sometimes called purgatio vulgaris, to distinguish it from the canonical purgation, which was by the oath of the party. Two kinds of this trial were more common than the rest, at least in Europe; viz. fire-ordeal and water-ordeal. The former was confined to persons of high rank, the latter to the common people. Both these might be performed by deputy; but the principal was bound to answer for the success of the trial, the deputy only venturing some corporal pain, for hire, or perhaps for friendship.
That the purgation by ordeal, of some kind or other, is very ancient, admits not of a doubt; and that it was universal in the times of superstitious ignorance, seems to be equally certain. It appears even to have been known to the ancient Greeks; for, in the Antigone of Sophocles, a person suspected by Creon of a misdemeanour, declares himself ready "to handle hot iron and to walk over fire," in order to manifest his innocence, which, the scholiast tells us, was then an usual mode of purgation. And Grotius gives many instances of water-ordeal in Bithynia, Sardinia, and other places. It seems, however, to have been carried to a greater height amongst the Hindus than ever it had been in any nation or amongst any people, however rude or barbarous; for in a paper in the Asiatic Researches, communicated by Mr Hastings, we find that the trial by ordeal amongst that people is conducted in nine different ways: firstly, by the balance; secondly, by fire; thirdly, by water; fourthly, by poison; fifthly, by the cosha, or the water in which an idol has been washed; sixthly, by rice; seventhly, by boiling oil; eighthly, by red-hot iron; and ninthly, by images.
1. Ordeal by the balance is thus performed. The beam having been previously adjusted, the cord fixed, and both scales made perfectly equiponderant, the person accused and a pundit fast a whole day; then, after the accused has been bathed in sacred water, the homa or oblation presented to fire, and the deities worshipped, he is carefully weighed; and when he is taken out of the scale, the pundits prostrate themselves before it, pronounce a certain mentra or incantation, agreeably to the Shastras, and, having written the substance of the accusation upon a piece of paper, bind it on his head. Six minutes afterwards they place him again in the scale, and if he weigh more than before, he is held guilty; if less, innocent; if exactly the same, he must be weighed a third time, when, as it is written in the Mitachera, there will certainly be a difference in his weight. Should the balance, though well fixed, break down, this would be considered as a proof of his guilt.
2. For the fire-ordeal, an excavation, nine hands in length, two spans in breadth, and one span in depth, is made in the ground, and filled with a fire of pippal-wood. Into this the person accused must walk barefooted; and, if his foot be unhurt, they hold him blameless; but if it be burned, he is held guilty.
3. Water-ordeal is performed by causing the person
1 In Europe, fire-ordeal was performed either by taking up in the hand, unhurt, a piece of red-hot iron, of one, two, or three pounds weight; or else by walking, barefooted and blindfold, over nine red-hot ploughshares, laid lengthwise at unequal distances; and if the party escaped unhurt, he was adjudged innocent; but if it happened otherwise, as without collusion it usually did, he was then condemned as guilty. However, by this latter method, Queen Emma, the mother of Edward the Confessor, is mentioned to have cured her character, when suspected of familiarity with Alwyn, bishop of Winchester. The first account which we have of Christians appealing to the fire-ordeal, as a proof of their innocence, is that of Simplicius, bishop of Autun, who lived in the fourth century. This relate, as the story is related, before his promotion to the episcopal order, had married a wife, who loved him tenderly, and who, unwilling to quit him after his advancement, continued to sleep in the same chamber with him. The sanctity of Simplicius suffered, least in the voice of fame, by the constancy of his wife's affection; and it was rumoured about that the holy man, though a bishop, resisted, in opposition to the ecclesiastical canons, to taste the sweets of matrimony; upon which his wife, in the presence of a great concourse of people, took up a considerable quantity of burning coals, which she held in her clothes, and applied to her breasts, without the least hurt to her person or her garments, as the legend says; and her example being followed by her husband with similar access, the credulous multitude admired the miracle, and proclaimed the innocence of the loving pair. A similar trick was played at St. Brice, in the fifth century. (Mosheim, Ecclesiast. Hist. vol. ii.)