ORDEAL. - From the Anglo-Saxon ordeal, German Urtheil "sentence", "judgment", the ordeal is a judgment that the divinity or a supernatural power is called upon to express regarding the innocence or otherwise of an alleged culprit through the result of a physical test to which the accused is subjected. It is practiced by peoples belonging to the most disparate types of civilization, with the exception of the lowest and the highest.
The Church, in certain periods, tolerated ordeals among the peoples it was receiving into its bosom, but never approved them in an absolute, formal, official manner; indeed, even in the epochs of deepest barbarism, it raised its voice against the horrors they provoked (v. GIUDIZIO DIVINO).
Various types of ordeal are known. The ordeal of poison is very 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 has killed her husband. Livingstone, in the vicinity of Lake Tanganyika, listening to a man and a woman insulting each other over a marital matter, heard them both shout "Bring the muace", that is, the test poison. The ordeal of pseudo-poison is that according to which the alleged culprit is made to drink not poison but rather some emetic or other harmless beverage that acts by force of suggestion. Among these beverages there was, for example, ox blood used by the Greeks in tests of chastity. Ordeals of fire consist mostly in walking on burning embers. Related to these are the ordeals of the pyre, so widespread in the Middle Ages, and the ordeals of the red-hot iron, which consist in placing a red-hot iron in contact with the body (in particular mostly the tongue) or in making it be carried from one place to another. The ordeal of water, very widespread among Indo-European populations down to modern times, consists in immersing the accused in water: if he is guilty the water refuses to receive him and he floats. The ordeal by combat has persisted down to our own days in the form of the duel, very widespread especially in the Germanic world.
The ordeal can be practiced directly on the accused or on another person. In ordeal tests by combat it is possible to have oneself replaced by others, especially in the case of women or of individuals unsuited to combat. Sometimes the substitution occurs with animals, as is the case with certain cockfights. Even in drinking the poison it is possible to have oneself replaced (for example, among the Dinka of Africa the rich have themselves replaced by an ox). Besides an animal, the substitute can also be a slave.
Some formulas of oath ("May God strike me with lightning..." and similar) have an ordeal character, both among primitive peoples and in the modern world.
Bibliography4 works
Tullio Tentori