Diaconescu, Marius (szerk.): Mediaevalia Transilvanica 1999 (3. évfolyam, 1-2. szám)
Mentalităţi
8 Mária Makó Lupescu In the second period of the ordeals, which started in the reign of Charlemagne, three related developments took place: there was a multiplication of different types of ordeal, a dissemination of the practice into new areas, and a novel governmental emphasis on the ordeal." The variety of ordeals that emerged around the year 800 is striking. Laws, rituals, accounts in chronicles and charters, comments of ecclesiastics mention the ordeal of the cross,23 the ordeal of walking on hot ploughshares,24 the ordeal of cold water,25 or the trial by battle.26 Trial by hot iron, the last of the important trials of fire and water was used as evidence during the Carolingian period also.27 Thus, by the mid-ninth century all the ordeals of fire and water had come into vigorous life and their credibility was backed by royal command. The evidence allows one to see not only the different types of ordeal in the sense of the different modes of trial, hot water, cold water, and the rest, but also how they were applied, against whom they were directed, and in what circumstances men had recourse to them. Thus, there were different types of ordeal in the sense of different situations, which generated ordeals. We have knowledge about some political ordeals from the ninth century. The point of these ordeals was that they shifted the interplay of political manoeuvres on to a new plane. The ordeal could thus be a political gambit, volunteered by those on the defensive or by the weaker party.28 Ordeals were also important in the history of the Gregorian 22 Bartlett, Trial by Fire and Water, 9. 23 It was a bilateral ordeal in which the two contendents stood with their arms outstretched in the shape of a cross until one flagged. Kabos Kandra, A váradi regestrum (The register of Oradea) (Budapest, 1898), 19. 24 In this ordeal the accused walked on six, nine or seventeen pieces of hot plougshares put one after the other. This trial had a long and continuous history as a form of proof, especially for suspected marital infidelity. Gyula Vajda, A Váradi Regestrum (The register of Oradea) (Budapest, 1880), 10. Bunyitay, A váradi püspökség, voll, 70. 25 This type of trial was probably an innovation of Charlemagne's reign. It is ironically characteristic of the sources for early medieval history that the earliest certain evidence for the existence of trial by cold water should be in the form of an edict condemning it. In this trial the accused’s hand and feet were bound and he/she was thrown into a lake or river. If the body had drowned, the person was innocent, otherwise he was found guilty. This type of ordeal was used especially for suspected witchcraft, because it was thought that witches lost their natural weight. Ibid., 70-71 cp. Kandra, A váradi regestrum, 9. 26 In ecclesiastical cases it was envisaged as a normal alternative to trial by battle. The trial by battle was a practice akin to the other ordeals and, as the relationship of kindred implies, it exhibited both a family resemblance and unique features. As an ordeal in the most fundamental sense of the word, it was supposed to reveal the judgment of God. On the other hand, its distinctive mode - a fight between individuals - meant that it was in a class of its own. Frigyes Pesty, A perdöntő bajvívások története Magyarországon (The history of the trial by battle in Hungary) (Pest, 1867), 25-31; Kandra, A váradi regestrum, 15-16; Bunyitay, A váradi püspökség, voi. 1,71. 27 It was a fire ordeal in which the accused had to carry three or nine paces a piece of hot iron weighing from one to three pounds (lpound=453 grams). As the ordeal of cold water, it was prescribed for a wide range of offences, including murder, fire-raising, witchcraft, and forgery, as well as simple theft. Kandra, A váradi regestrum, 10-11, 26; Bunyitay, A váradi püspökség, voll, 70; Solymosi, “Guden magánoklevele,” 103. 28 Kings could also find this ordeal a useful tool in the pursuit of their ends, and the subjection of rivals to the ordeal might be simply another aspect of the exercise of royal domination.
