Free Proving Woman by Dyan Elliott Page B

Berlioz’s analysis of exempla that use the ordeal to promote sacramental
     confession, in “Les ordalies dans les exempla de la confession,” in Aveu , pp. 315–40. Cf. Jacques Chiffoleau, “Sur la pratique et la conjoncture de l’aveu judiciare en France du XIIIe au XVe si[egrave]cle,”
     ibid., pp. 341, 343–47.
    32 Peter Brown, “Society and the Supernatural: A Medieval Change,” in Society and the Holy in Late Antiquity (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1982), p. 307. For liturgical rituals of ordeal by cold water,
     see Formulae Merowingici et Karolini Aevi: Ordines Iudiciorum Dei , ed. Karl Zeumer, MGH , Legum Sectio V. Formulae , pp. 621–22. See H. C. Lea’s discussion of the use of the eucharist in Superstition and Force: Essays on the Wager of Law — the Wager of Battle — the Ordeal — Torture , 4th ed. (Philadelphia: Lea Bros., 1892), pp. 344–51. Other forms of the ordeal likewise looked to divine providence in the
     midst of the quotidian workings of nature, such as the test of burning iron or boiling water. See Formulae Merowingici , MGH , Legum Sectio V, Formulae , pp. 604–17. The ritual ingestion of bread and cheese was also used to detect crimes like theft, the rationale being that
     the guilty party would choke on these appropriately consecrated morsels (ibid., pp. 629–36; see Lea, Superstition , pp. 300–382; Robert Bartlett, Trial by Fire and Water: The Medieval Judicial Ordeal [Oxford: Clarendon, 1986], pp. 4–33). See Peter Browe’s interesting collection of primary sources describing actual instances
     of ordeals in De Ordaliis , 2 vols., Pontificia Universitas Gregoriana, Textus et Documenta, nos. 4, 11 (Rome: Pontificia Universitas Gregoriana, 1932,
     1933).
    33 For early criticisms, see Jean-Philippe Lévy, “La probl[egrave]me de la preuve dans les droits savants au Moyen Age,” Recueils de la Soci è te é de Jean Bodin 17, 2 (1965): 141–43; Lea, Superstition , p. 395. Also see various theological and canonical objections, beginning in the late eleventh century (in Browe, De Ordaliis , 2:70 ff.). But for papally sponsored ordeals throughout the period of the Gregorian Reform, see Colin Morris, “ Judicium Dei : The Social and Political Significance of the Ordeal in the Eleventh Century,” in Church Society and Politics , ed. Derek Baker, Studies in Church History, vol. 12 (Oxford: Blackwell, 1975), pp. 95–111.
    34 See John Baldwin’s “The Intellectual Preparation for the Canon of 1215 against Ordeals,” Speculum 36 (1961): 613–36. For lay resistance to ordeals, see R. C. Van Caenegem, “La preuve dans l’ancien Belge des origines [agrave]
     la fin du XVIIIe si[egrave]cle,” Recueils de la Soci è te é de Jean Bodin 17, 2 (1965): 386–89.
    35 Lateran IV, c. 18, Tanner, 1:244.
    36 Aquinas, ST 3a, q. 80, art. 6, resp. ad 3, 59:56–57. Aquinas is using the Decretum of Gratian (ca. 1140) (C. 2 q. 5 c. 20). But note Gratian’s uncertainty as to whether this interdict pertains to all ordeals
     (dpc).
    37 Cf. Brown’s discussion of transubstantiation in “Society and the Supernatural: A Medieval Change,” in Society and the Holy , pp. 326–27.
    38 Lea, Superstition , pp. 344–51. Biblical passages are from the Douai-Reims translation of the Latin Vulgate .
    39 Aquinas, ST 3a, q. 79, art. 3, sed contra, 59:10–11; 3a q. 80, art. 4, sed contra and resp. ad 5, 59:42–43, 44–45. See Braeckmans, Confession , pp. 14–15.
    40 Lateran IV, c. 8, “De inquisitionibus,” Tanner, 1:238. For the inclusion of these decrees in Gregory IX’s Decretals , see X.3.12, c. un. (1198); X.5.34.10, X.5.3.31–32 (1199); X.5.1.21 (1212), culminating in Lateran IV (X.5.1.24). See Adhémar
     Esmein, A History of Continental Criminal Procedure with Special Reference to France , trans. John Simpson (Boston: Little, Brown, and Co., 1913), p. 81.
    41 Esmein, History of Continental Criminal Procedure , pp. 9–10. Walter Ullmann points out that the