TRIAL B' { ORDEAL. /"^NE of the most remarkable judicial systerns of olden times was the trial by ordeal, — a mode of procedure founded on the presumption that, should a person be wrong fully accused, Heaven would interpose and in some marked way make his innocence undeniable. With the exception of China, this test was of almost universal adoption in the Middle Ages; and whilst still surviving amongst the uneducated portion of most civi lized communities, is even nowadays largely practised by uncultured races. So far as its origin is concerned, it may be traced back to remote antiquity; and the bitter water by which conjugal infidelity was revealed — an ordeal pure and simple — will readily occur to the biblical student as an interesting instance in Hebrew legislation and history. Herodotus relates how King Amasis — whose reign immediately preceded the invasion of Cambyses — "was, when a private person, fond of drinking and jest ing, and by no means inclined to serious business. As soon, however, as means failed him for the indulgence of his amusements, he used to go about pilfering; and such per sons as accused him of having stolen their property, on his denying it, were wont to take him to the oracle of the place, where he was oftentimes convicted, and occasion ally acquitted." The Greeks had their or deals, a good illustration of which occurs in the " Antigone " of Sophocles, where the sol diers offer to prove their innocence in vari ous ways : — "Ready with hands to bear the red-hot iron. To pass through fire, and by the gods to swear, That we nor did the deed, nor do we know Who counselled it, nor who performed it." This mode of purgation, the Scholiast tells us, was in common use at that time. There was also the water ordeal, and a certain fountain near Ephesus was specially employed for this purpose. As soon as the
accused had sworn to her innocence, she entered the water with a tablet affixed to her neck, on which was inscribed her oath. If she were innocent, the water remained sta tionary; but if guilty, it gradually rose until the tablet floated. Traces of the same sys tem are to be met with in the history of ancient Rome; and amongst notable in stances may be quoted that of the vestal Tucca, who proved her purity by carrying water in a sieve, and that of Claudia Quinta, who cleared her character by drag ging a ship against the current of the Tiber, after it had run aground and resisted every effort to remove it. But, as Mr. Lea points out in his essay on "The Ordeal," "in stances such as these had no influence on the forms and principles of Roman juris prudence, which was based on reason and not on superstition. With the exception of the use of torture, the accused was not re quired to exculpate himself. He was pre sumed to be innocent, and the burden of proof lay not on him, but on the prose cutor." The ordeal trial prevailed in France from before the time of Charlemagne down to the eleventh century. The ancient Germans, too, were in the habit of resorting to div ination; and their superstitious notions, writes Mr. Gibson, led them to invent many methods of purgation or trial now unknown to the law. It should be added, also, that the Germans were specially tardy in throw ing off this relic of barbarism; for at a period when most vulgar ordeals were fall ing into disuse, the nobles of southern Germany established the water ordeal as the mode of deciding doubtful claims on fiefs, and in northern Germany it was in stituted for the settlement of conflictingtitles to land. Indeed, as recently as the commencement of the present century, the populace of Hela, near Dantzic, twice plunged into the sea an old woman, reputed to be a
