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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.
When a defendant failed to establish his innocence by oath in criminal cases (such as murder, arson, forgery, theft and witchcraft), he might still redeem himself through trial by ordeal. 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 ...
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.
During the Middle Ages, crime and punishment were dealt with through blood feuds (or trial by ordeal) between the parties. Payment to the victim (or their family), known as wergild, was another common punishment, including for violent crimes.
The ordeal (judicium Dei "judgment of God") was a method used to cause God to reveal the guilt or innocence of a person accused of a crime. It relied on the notion that God would intervene in the world to prevent the condemnation of an innocent person. [125]
Trial by combat (also wager of battle, trial by battle or judicial duel) was a method of Germanic law to settle accusations in the absence of witnesses or a confession in which two parties in dispute fought in single combat; the winner of the fight was proclaimed to be right. In essence, it was a judicially sanctioned duel.
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.
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.