ORDALIA. — From the Anglo-Saxon *ordeal*, Old High German *urtheil* “sentence,” “judgment,” ordeal is a judgment in which a deity or supernatural power is invoked to declare the innocence or guilt of an accused person through the outcome of a physical test to which the defendant is subjected. It is practiced by peoples belonging to the most diverse types of civilization, with the exception of the lowest and the highest.
The Church, in certain periods, tolerated ordeals among the peoples it welcomed into its fold, but never approved them in an absolute, formal, or official manner; indeed, even in the darkest ages, it raised its voice against the horrors they provoked (see GIUDIZIO DIVINO).
Various types of ordeals are known. The ordeal by poison is widespread in the primitive world (especially in Africa, etc.) and is connected with the idea that death is not a natural phenomenon. It is often practiced on widows. The widow who succumbs to the test poison is deemed to have killed her husband. Livingstone, near Lake Tanganyika, heard a man and a woman quarreling over a marital dispute; both cried out, “Bring the *nuace*,” that is, the test poison. The ordeal by pseudo-poison is one in which the accused is made to drink not poison but some emetic or other harmless drink that acts through the force of suggestion. Among such drinks was, for example, the blood of an ox used by the Greeks in chastity tests. Ordeals by fire generally consist of walking on burning coals. Closely related are the ordeal by fire (so common in the Middle Ages) and the ordeal by red-hot iron, which involves placing a red-hot iron in contact with the body (usually the tongue) or carrying it from one place to another. The ordeal by water, widespread among Indo-European peoples down to modern times, consists of immersing the accused in water: if guilty, the water rejects him and he floats. The ordeal by combat has persisted to this day in the form of the duel, especially widespread in the Germanic world.
The ordeal may be performed directly on the accused or on another person. In ordeals by combat, it is possible to be replaced by others, especially in the case of women or individuals unfit for combat. Sometimes the substitute is an animal, as in certain cockfights. Even in the ordeal by poison, substitution is possible (e.g., among the Dinka of Africa, the wealthy have a bull act as their substitute). Besides an animal, the substitute may also be a slave.
Some forms of oath-taking have an ordeal-like character (“May God strike me down...” and similar formulas), both among primitive peoples and in the modern world.