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Water-ordeal; miniature from the Luzerner Schilling. Trial by ordeal was an ancient judicial practice by which the guilt or innocence of the accused (called a "proband" [1]) was determined by subjecting them to a painful, or at least an unpleasant, usually dangerous experience.
The only trial available to the defendant remained the traditional trial by ordeal, specifically in the Assize of Clarendon, "the ordeal of water". [2] Nevertheless, Henry did not put much faith in the results of the ordeal. The unfortunate felon who was convicted through the ordeal was typically executed.
Secular courts in medieval times were numerous and decentralized: each secular division (king, prince, duke, lord, abbot or bishop as landholder, manor, [1] city, forest, market, etc.) could have their own courts, customary law, bailiffs and gaols [a] with arbitrary and unrecorded procedures, including in Northern Europe trial by combat and trial by ordeal, and in England trial by jury.
Trial by ordeal was an appeal to God to reveal perjury, and its divine nature meant it was regulated by the church. The ordeal had to be overseen by a priest at a place designated by the bishop. The most common forms in England were ordeal by hot iron and ordeal by water. [67]
Trial by water can refer to: Trial by ordeal; Castelseprio, the apocryphal Christian story of the trial of Mary and Joseph by water This page was last edited on 22 ...
The Last Duel, a drama documentary based on the book and including comments by Jager, was broadcast by BBC Four as part of a medieval-themed season on 24 April 2008. A film adaptation of the novel was announced in July 2019 to be directed by Ridley Scott, with Ben Affleck, Jodie Comer and Matt Damon as stars, co-writers, and producers.
Unlike for the trial by combat, scholars debate whether the trials by fire and water were inspired by Christianity or derive from pre-Christian Germanic tradition. [ 131 ] [ 64 ] Robert Bartlett argues for a Frankish origin of the practice of trial by fire and water, with Frankish influence spreading it around Europe.
Compurgation, also called trial by oath, wager of law, and oath-helping, was a defence used primarily in medieval law. A defendant could establish his innocence or nonliability by taking an oath and by getting a required number of persons, typically twelve, to swear they believed the defendant's oath. The wager of law was essentially a ...