32. Medieval Trials Could be Bonkers
Modern concepts of justice – especially the belief in rational adjudication as a means of determining justice – were not as widespread in the Middle Ages as they are today. A common alternative to trying a dispute before a neutral arbiter learned in the law, to decide the facts of a case and the rights and wrongs of it, was trial by ordeal. The idea was to subject an accused or both parties to a dispute to dangerous and painful experience, whose outcome was unknown going in, and then “let God decide” who was innocent or guilty or in the right.
Variations included ordeal by water, in which an accused was tied and thrown into a body of water, and were deemed innocent if they floated, and guilty if not. There was also the ordeal by fire, in which an accused held a red hot bar of iron and walked three paces. If their hand healed after three days, they were innocent, if not, they were guilty. For the aristocrats, there was ordeal by combat, with accusers fighting the accused, and victory presumably going to the one in the right.