Diaconescu, Marius (szerk.): Mediaevalia Transilvanica 1999 (3. évfolyam, 1-2. szám)
Mentalităţi
The Trial by Hot Iron Ceremony 9 Reform.29 We have examples of the use of the ordeal in a matter of great political importance as well. This was strongly connected to another major category in which ordeals were applied, namely questions of sexual purity (accusations of incest and sodomy).30 Just as men of this time judged that doubts about sexual purity could best be settled by the searing pain of the ordeal iron, so too they felt that this was the right way to determine the orthodoxy of religious beliefs.31 Some of these ordeals were entered into voluntarily, and some were not strictly judicial, but in the twelfth century we see the rise of the regular judicial use of the ordeal in one particular trial of heresy, where the individuals were particularly firm in their beliefs. The ordeal was a natural proof to apply in such cases and the increase in heresy at this time made its use more common.32 Thus, when the orthodoxy of belief was at stake, when charges of heresy or witchcraft were raised, the ordeal was a favoured form of proof over many centuries. One of the most important ways in which the ordeal spread in the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries was in association with the spread of Christianity.33 This can partly be guessed and partly demonstrated. The picture in Eastern Europe is a little different, because in Poland the first evidence for trial by ordeal is later (thirteenth century). In Hungary, on the other hand, the ordeals of fire were employed by the later eleventh century for charges of theft and false witness.34 The continued expansion of Latin Christendom in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries also involved the spread of the ordeal. In the twelfth century the newly subjugated pagan Slavs experienced this change. The Crusaders brought 29 The reformers used the ordeal against simoniacs, and ordeals were employed by both sides in the Investiture Conflict to justify their position. 30 It was not only women who went to the ordeal on sexual charges. Men, too, might find themselves faced with the hot iron when accused of crimes of this type. Ordeals “resolved” not only cases of adultery, but also, very frequently, the related issue of disputed paternity. It was not only royal inheritance whose fate was determined by the ordeal. 31 For example, Gregory of Tours describes a trial that was intended to decide between Arian and catholic doctrine. Gregory of Tours, The History of the Franks, trans. Lewis Thorpe (London, 1974), 302-303. 32 For example, a certain man, Robert, who was convicted of the heresy of the Cathars, was burned at Arras in 1172 after being convicted by the ordeal of hot iron. In 1167 certain heretics who were called Deonarii or Publicans, were arrested at Vézelay. Two of them were conducted to the judgment by ordeal of water. One of them was acquitted by the water, the other was declared guilty and was sentenced by all to the fire. In 1183 in the town of Ypres, twelve men considered heretics (some called them Manichaens, others Cataffigians, others Arians or Patarines) were submitted to the ordeal of the hot iron, but all were delivered safely. Walter L. Wakefield, and Austin P. Evans, Heresies of the High Middle Ages (New York, 1991), 39, 248-49, 257. 33 Bartlett, Trial by Fire and Water, 42-45. 34 The eleventh century Hungarian decrees and counciliar decisions prescribed the utilization of those types of ordeal which required the seal-usage. From all of them in Hungarian judicial practice the trial by hot iron was the one which benefited of an widespread utilization. Imre Hajnik, A magyar bírósági szervezet és perjog az Árpád- és a vegyesházi királyok alatt (The Hungarian judicial organization and rules of procedure during the Middle Ages) (Budapest, 1899), 257; Ferencz Eckhart, "Hiteles helyeink eredete és jelentősége” (The origin and importance of the Hungarian hca credibilia), Századok 47(1913): 649; Bemát Kumorovitz, A magyar pecséthasználat története a középkorban (The history of the Hungarian seal-usage in the Middle Ages) (Budapest, 1993), 295; Bunyitay, A váradipüspökség, voi. 1,72 cp. Solymosi, “Guden magánoklevele,” 103.
