646 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Clotaire, in 593, was a clause that a man, accused of theft, should be 

 adjudged guilty of it if he was burned in the trial by fire. In 630 

 King Dagobert, in reforming the laws of the Bavarians, the Ale- 

 mans, and the Ripuarians, according to Christian ideas, continued 

 in effect the law of the Ripuarians providing that, if any one was cited 

 before a court to answer for an offense by his servant, he should be 

 adjudged guilty if the hand of his servant was hurt by the fire. In 

 819 Louis le Debonnaire ordained that a servant, who was burned in 

 the trial by boiling water, should be put to death. Hincmar relates 

 that Queen Thietberge, wife of King Lothair, when accused of a hor- 

 rible offense, proved her innocence by a man who underwent for 

 her in 860 the trial by boiling water without being scalded. In 876, 

 Louis, second son of Louis the German, established his rights over 

 Germany, which his uncle, Charles the Bald, contested, by means of 

 thirty men, ten of whom suffered the trial by cold water, ten that of 

 hot water, and ten that of red-hot iron. Charles the Bald, not willing 

 to give up to these proofs, marched against his nephew at the head 

 of an army, and was thoroughly beaten. It would be superfluous to 

 multiply examples of this kind, which became more and more numer- 

 ous till the end of the eleventh century, when the trials were formally 

 condemned by Popes Stephen V, Celestine III, Innocent III, and 

 Honorius III. 



We pass on to the description of the general course of proceeding : 

 Trial by hot water was made simply by plunging the arm into a boiler 

 full of boiling water, to take out from it a ring, or a nail, or a stone, 

 which had been suspended in it. In some causes the hand was put 

 in to the wrist, in others to the elbow. It is even said, in the formulas 

 of Saint Dunstan, that the stone was sometimes concealed under an 

 ell-deep of hot water. Commoners made the trial for themselves, 

 while people of quality hired others to make them. Those who were 

 burned were declared guilty, and those who escaped were considered 

 innocent. 



The trial with hot iron, called judgment by fire, was made in dif- 

 ferent ways. Sometimes one red-hot iron was taken hold of or 

 perhaps several in succession and was carried to a considerable dis- 

 tance. The iron was generally shaped like a plowshare, and was, 

 therefore, called Vomer. A second way was to walk upon red-hot 

 irons with the legs bare to the knee. Six, nine, or twelve irons were 

 made ready for the trial, according to the magnitude of the inrputed 

 offense. In Denmark a kind of red-hot iron glove, reaching to the 

 elbow, was used. 



The trials were made in the presence of priests delegated by the 

 bishop, and of secular officers of justice. Those who submitted to 

 them were obliged first to wash their hands, arms, or feet, with fresh 

 water, to remove any advantages they might have obtained from rub- 

 bing their limbs with some substance that could deaden the action of 



