King Alfred the Great (849-99) brought a degree of much needed unity to the disparate Saxon kingdoms he presided over when he became King of Wessex in 871. No sooner had he taken the throne than his Book of Laws made its appearance. The resulting Saxon Law was still going strong over 300 years later. In those Saxon times trial by ordeal was a standard way of establishing guilt or innocence in the days before trial by jury became the norm. Ordeal was the Saxons’ way of ‘letting God decide’, the judicium Dei. There were a number of options of varying unpleasantness, one of which was ordeal by iron. Naturally enough the ‘court’ was a church. Present would be a sheriff of the shire, representing the peacekeeping force of the land, and a bishop, representing the celestial judge on high. The trial took place during Mass but the large chalice of hot coals burning near the altar wasn’t to keep the congregation warm. A rod of iron was thrust into the fire, made red hot and planted firmly into the accused’s outstretched hand. Three marks had been made on the floor and the accused was ordered to walk a distance of nine paces, which he was allowed to complete in three large stride before dropping the iron and stumbling to the altar, probably screaming, to be bandaged. Part two of the trial took place three days later, when the parties reassembled for the ceremonious removal of the bandages. If the hand was cleanly healing the culprit was pronounced innocent by a cry of ‘God be praised!’ If it proved to be uncleanly festering then guilt was the verdict.
A variation on the theme was the ordeal by hot water, in which the hand was plunged into a boiling vat to retrieve a ring or coin. On other occasions the hands were spared and walking the distance on hot ploughshares was implemented instead. By comparison, the ordeal by cold water, reserved for the lowly, was a doddle. In this the accused was bound and suspended from a rope, then lowered gently into the village pond. The idea was that God accepted the innocent fully into the waters, so incongruously it was the sinkers who were pardoned and the floaters who were guilty.
Trial by ordeal was abolished by Henry III in 1219.
‘Law’s Strangest Cases’, Peter Seddon