The ordeals of water and iron are first mentioned in the 77th law of Ina (Wilkins, Leg. Anglo-Sax. p. 27). See also the laws of Athelstan, Edward the Con- fessor, and the Conqueror (ibid. p. 198, 229). In the Domesday Surrey the readiness of claimants to prove their title to land by ordeal or in battle occurs in a great variety of instances, as among the lands belonging to the monastery of Ely, at a place then called Pliote- storp, in Norfolk: "Hanc terram calumpniatur esse liberam Yichetel homo Hermeri quocunque modo ju- dicetur, vel bcllo vel juditio" (Domesd. tom. ii, fol. 212; see other instances, ibid. fol. 110 b, 137, 1C2, ItiO, 172 b, 193, 208, 277 b, 332). The ordeal of hot iron is the only ordeal of the Domesday Surrey. The reason for this is given by Glanville {Tract, de Leg. et Consuct. Regni Anglicv. lib. xiv, ch. i) : '"In such a case the ac- cused is bound to clear himself by the judgment of God, namely, by hot iron, or by water, according to the difference of rank— that is. by hot iron if he should be a free man, and by water if he should be a villain" (si fuerit rusticus). Eadmer {Hist. Xoror. p. 48) speaks of no fewer than fifty jiersons of Saxon origin who, in the reign of William Eufus, being accused of killing the king's stags, were at one time sentenced to the fire-
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ordeal. It is probable that the trial by ordeal was not discontinued in England by any positive law or ordi- nance, although Sir E. Coke (9 Rep. 32), and after him Blackstone (4 Comm. p. 345), have expressed an opinion that it was finally abolished by an act of Parlia- ment, or rather an order of the king in council, in the 3d Henry III (1219). This order is to be found in Ey- mer, Fmkra, i, 228; Spelman, Glossary, s. v. "Judici- um Dei;" and in Selden, Notes to Eadmer. Spelman, however, thinks that it was merely a temporary law, without any general or permanent operation, and that the trial by ordeal continued to a later period. This opinion seems confirmed by a reference in the Cal. Rot. Pat. p. 15, to another order in council in the 14th Henry III, '' De justitia facienda loco ignis et aquai." As how- ever it is only mentioned as a former custom, and not as an existing institution, by Bracton (lib. iii, ch. xvi), who wrote at the end of the reign of Henry III or the beginning of that of Edward I, it is probable that, in consequence of the judgments of the councils and the interference of the clergy, the trial by ordeal fell into disuse about the middle of the 13th century ; but this was long after it had disappeared from the judicial sys- tems of most other European nations.
Efforts for the suppression of trial by ordeal were made as earlj' as the beginning of the 11th centurj' by influential members of the clergy, but the custom, deeply rooted in antiquity, was not to be subverted at a blow. Conspicuous in this movement was the zeal- ous Agobard of Lj'ons, in his treatise Contra Judicium Dei. Pope Stephen VI (cir. 88G) condemned both fire and water ordeals. He adds, " Spontanea enim confes- sione vel testium approbatione publicata delicta . . . commissa sunt regimini nostro judicare: occulta vero et incognita illi sunt relinquenda, qui solus novit corda filiorum hominum" (Mansi, xviii, 25). On the other hand, the judicium aquce friyidce et calidce was de- fended even by Hincmar of Kheims {Oj^p. ii, 667). In Scotland, in 1180, we find David I enacting, in one of the assemblies of the frank tenantry of the kingdom, which were the germ of parliaments, that no one was to hold an ordinary court of justice, or a court of ordeal, whether of battle, iron, or water, except in presence of the sheriff or one of his sergeants; though if that of- ficial failed to attend after being duly summoned, the court might be held in his absence. The first step to- wards the abolition of this form of trial in Saxon and Celtic countries seems to have been the substitution of compurgation bj' witnesses for compurgation by ordeal. The near relatives of an accused party were expected to come forward to swear to his innocence. The num- ber of compurgators varied, according to the impor- tance of ihe case ; and judgment went against the party whose kin refused to come forw ard, or who failed to ob- tain the necessary number of compurgators. To repel an accusation, it was often held necessary to have double the number of compurgators who supported it, till at length the most numerous body of compurgators carried the day. It is remarkable that " proof by duel," which was abolished in Scandinavia by the introduction of Christianity, maintained its ground in England for cen- turies (Worsaa?, p. 167). It was also called the wa<jer of battle, and was a natural accompaniment of a state of society which allowed men to take the law into their own hands. The challenger faced the west, the chal- lenged person the east ; the defeated party, if he craved his life, was allowed to live as a " recreant ;" that is, on retracting the perjurv which he had sworn to. The Council of Valence (855) strongly denounced it, under pain of excommunication (can. xii), which incapacita- ted the subject of it for performing any civil function. Yet, down to the very days of the Keformation, all through Europe, instances of trial by ordeal are en- countered. Thus as late as 1498 we find the truth of Savonarola's doctrine put to the test by a challenge, be- tween one of his disciples and a Franciscan friar, to walk through a burning pile.