322 



ORBILIUS PUPILLUS ORDKAL. 



exists ; but the mort important congregation of the 

 fathers of the oratory of Jesus in France which was 

 founded in 161 1, at Paris, and has contained several 

 distinguished members, as the philosopher Male- 

 brancne, the Orientalist Morin, and the liberal 

 theologian Richard Simon is no longer in existence. 

 The Italian order follows, as did the French, the rule 

 of St Augustine. 



ORBILIUS PUPILLUS ; a grammarian of Bene- 

 ventum, who taught in Rome during Cicero's consul- 

 ship. He lias acquired celebrity by the mention 

 which Horace has made' of him (Ep. 2, 1, 70), as 

 the plagosus Orbilius (the flogging Orbilius). 



ORBITS OF THE PLANETS. See the 

 article Astronomy; also the articles Keplar and 

 Planets. 



ORCADES. See Orkney Islands. 



ORCHALL, or ARGOL, (rocella tinctoria) ; a 

 species of lichen, celebrated for yielding a fine 

 purple colour, which is employed in dyeing. It is 

 c-hiefly obtained, in commerce, from the Canaries, 

 Cape Verd islands, and the Grecian archipelago. It 

 is the substance generally employed for colouring 

 the spirits of thermometers ; and it is a remarkable 

 circumstance that, after the colour has been destroyed 

 by time, it is again restored on breaking the tubes. 



ORCHAN. See Ottoman Empire. 



ORCHESTRA; the space in theatres between 

 the seats of the spectators and the stage, appro- 

 priated by the Greeks to the chorus and the musi- 

 cians, by the Romans to the senators, and by the 

 moderns to the musicians. It is also used for the. 

 part of concert-rooms assigned to the musicians, and, 

 lastly, for all the instruments performing together 

 in modern concerts, operas, or sacred music. See 

 Architecture. 



ORCHESTRICS; the same as #, q. v., in 

 the article Dancing. 



ORCO RIVER, CASCADE OF. See Cataract. 



ORCUS; the same as Hades, or Pluto; thence, 

 also, the kingdom of Pluto (the infernal regions). 

 See Pluto, and Tartarus. 



ORDEAL. It was formerly believed by almost 

 all nations, that, when proofs of right or wrong, in- 

 nocence or guilt, were wanting, the God of truth and 

 justice would himself interpose, and make known the 

 truth by a miracle. In accordance with this opinion, 

 a person suspected of any crime was made to per- 

 form solemnly before the priests certain acts which 

 would, in the natural course of things, be injurious to 

 him ; and if he escaped unhurt, he was declared to 

 be innocent. These processes were called ordeals, 

 or judgments of God, and were in use particularly 

 among the Germans. They are found also in the 

 ancient sacred writings of the Hindoos. As success 

 or failure, except in a few cases, depended on those 

 who made the requisite preparations, a wide field was 

 opened to deceit and malice, especially of the priest. 



The following ordeals were in use in Germany and 

 England : The judicial duel, in which the conquered 

 was viewed as guilty ; the ordeal of fire ; the ordeal 

 of water ; the hallowed morsel ; the trial of the 

 eucharist ; the judgment of the cross ; and the trial 

 of the bier. In criminal cases, where the perpe- 

 trators of the deed could not be discovered, these 

 ordeals were applied ; some of them even in civil 

 cases, so that the defendant could free himself in this 

 way from claims or charges not sufficiently substan- 

 tiated. Even among the Celts, children, whose mo- 

 thers were suspected of adultery, were placed in a 

 shield on the Rhine, and if they sunk, it was inferred 

 that the suspicion was correct. The Salian Franks, 

 at the beginning of the fifth century, used the ordeal 

 of hot water, and the ordeal of cold water was in- 

 troduced afterwards. After the introduction of 



Christianity, the use of ordenls soon became general; 

 for the oath of purgation was but little, if at all, 

 known, and by means of ordeals an opportunity was 

 given to the clerpy to subject legal trials of every 

 kind to their own decisions, and thus to increase their 

 authority. The ordeal of fire was as follows : The 

 accused was compelled to walk barefooted over 

 glowing coals, or over nine red-hot ploughshares, or 

 to carry a red-hot iron in his naked hand a consider- 

 able distance; or else glowing coals were laid upon 

 his feet, or he was made to walk through fire : in the 

 last trial, the accused was often dressed in a robe 

 covered with wax (the trial of the waxen shirt ;) if 

 he was unhurt by the fire, it was regarded as a proof 

 of his innocence. In other cases, a priest put the 

 hallowed morsel into the mouth of the accused, with 

 various imprecations. This was called the " trial by 

 the hallowed bread or cheese." If the accused 

 swallowed it instantly, and felt no sensation of sick- 

 ness or pain, he was freed from punishment. The 

 trial of the eucharist was used chiefly among the 

 clergy and monks. They took the sacrament in at- 

 testation of their innocence, and it was believed that 

 God would immediately smite the guilty with sick- 

 ness or death. The trial of the cross was of two 

 kinds. Both the accuser and the accused were placed 

 under the cross with their arms extended or cross- 

 wise, and the one was condemned who first moved 

 his hands, or suffered them to fall : or else the sup- 

 posed criminal was conducted into a church, or placed 

 before relics. Two dice were then produced, one of 

 which was previously marked with a cross. Of these, 

 one was taken up at hazard. If it happened to be 

 the die having the sign of the cross, the accused was 

 exempted from punishment. Finally, and, indeed, 

 from the earliest times, the trial of the bier was used 

 in the crime of murder ; that is, the murdered per- 

 son was placed upon a bier, and the supposed per- 

 petrator made to touch the body, especially the 

 wounds. If blood flowed out, or foam appeared at 

 the mouth, or the dead body altered its position, the 

 suspected person was considered guilty. Sometimes, 

 instead of the whole body, only the hand was taken. 

 Superstition and artifice gave to these absurd cere- 

 monies the highest authority ; and even the prohibi- 

 tions of enlightened emperors from the time of Louis 

 the Pious till the ninth century, were insufficient to 

 abolish them. The papal chair had more influence 

 in restraining them by frequent denunciations, and 

 by the introduction of an improved judicial system. 

 Indeed, many rulers and magistrates saw their absur- 

 dity. Hence, after the fourteenth century, ordeals 

 became more uncommon, and, in the fifteenth, they 

 were wholly put down by the increasing use of the 

 canon law, which invented new means for the re- 

 moval of suspicion, especially the oath of purgation, 

 and still more by the universal use of the Roman 

 law. In the sixteenth century, only the trial of the 

 bier was used, and this continued even into the first 

 part of the eighteenth. In consequence of the still 

 prevalent belief in sorcery, the ordeal by cold water 

 was also retained in the trials of witches. The sup- 

 posed witches were placed in the water, and if they 

 floated they were declared guilty. Besides this or- 

 deal (found in Prussia in the seventeenth century, and 

 in the neighbouring countries in the first half of the 

 eighteenth,) there was also the weighing of witches ; 

 they were weighed, and if they were found to be 

 uncommonly light, they were pronounced guilty. 

 These foolish customs were gradually done away, 

 when -Thomasius succeeded in almost wholly annihi- 

 lating the belief in witches. It deserves to be men- 

 tioned as a singular circumstance, that, as lately as 

 1728, several witches were weighed at Szegedin, in 

 Hungary. With the exception of these few relics of 



