ORD 
purgation by ordeal feems to have been very ancient, and 
very univerfal, in the time of fuperttitious barbarity. I 
was known to the ancient Greeks, vide Antigone of So- 
phocles, v. 270. AndG um 17. gives 
many inftances of water-ordeal, in Bithynia, Sardinia, and 
other places. 
It was very anciently known in Perfia, and perhaps origi- 
nated from their fuperftitious veneration for fire. Records 
of trial by ordeal remain above 500 years before the Chrif- 
tianera. It is n practice, where fatisfactory evidence 
cannot = Re among the Gentoos, in Hindooftan, 
and of very high antiquity. It is mentioned feveral times 
in the eae of Gentoo, laws, as 
ct 
t 
the infallibility of ae refult is to this day as implicitly be- 
lieved, as it could have been in the darkeft ages of antiquity. 
ee chap. iii. of the Code of Gentoo Laws, by Halhed. 
e moft refpeCtable authors, ancient and modern, attri- 
bute the invention of water-ordeal, in th 
authority of Lewis the year 829. Ww 
afterwards ert and pradtiled i in the roth, 11th, and 12th 
nt ° 
e firft account we,have of Chriftians Bal ena 4 ig the 
fire-ordeal, as a proof , is that 
of their innocence impli- 
cius, bifhop of Autun, who lived in the qth ay This 
prelate, as the ftory is related, be is promotion to 
the aga order, had a wife, who loved him 
ment, el to flee 
The fan@ity of Sheplicies fuffered, at leaft in the voice of 
fame, by the conftancy of his wife's affection: and it was 
rumoured about, that the holy man, though a bifhop, aa 
fifted, in oppofition to the ecclefiaftical canons, to tafte t 
weets of matrimony; upon which, his wife, in the nn a 
f people, took up a confiderable 
and ex- 
with the like facets 
iracl ey ee proclaimed the 
oving pair. fimilar trick wa ae ed 
- Brice, in the fifth century. Mofh. Eccl. Hitt 
raétice of ordeal obtained very generally in more 
modern times; and even in England fo late as king John’s 
time, we find grants to the bifhops and clergy to ufe the 
judicium ferri, aque, et ignis. And both in England and 
Sweden, the clergy prefided at this trial, and it was only 
performed in the churches or in other confecrated ground. 
However, the canon law declared very early againft trial 
by ordeal, as being the fabric of the devil. Upon this 
great though the canons themfelves were of no validity 
n England, it was thought proper (as had been done in 
ee rk, above a century before,) to difufe and abolifh 
this trial entirely in our courts of juftice, by an a&t of par- 
liament of 3 Hen. III. according to fir Edward Coke, 
or rather by an order of the king in council. Blackft. 
Com. vol. iv. 
It agine that few or none efcaped conviction, who 
expoled 1 Qective to thefe ordeals, we fhall be much mif- 
taken: for the hiftories of thofe times in which the ey were 
in ufe contain innumerable examples of perfons plunging 
their naked arms into boiling water, beading red-hot balls 
ORD 
of iron, and walking upon burning plough- ae without 
receiving the leaft injury. (Duc iene Gloff. . es (399 
eral learned men 
manner 
e day of a no gets was permitted to enter ie 
r 
that purpofe, three days. From all thefe precautions may 
we not fufpe& that thefe priefts were in poffeffion of fome 
fecret that fecured the hand from the impreffions of fuch a 
momentary touch of hot iron, or removed all appearance of 
thefe impreffions in three days; and that they made ufe of 
this fecret when they faw reafon? oreover, we meet 
with no example of any champion of the church, who fuf- 
church of any of her poffeffions, he never failed to burn his 
ey and lofe his caufe, Ducange Gloff. t. ii. Henry’s 
ilt. ili, 
or OREDEF, a word frequently ufed, in char- 
ters of preges, fo a “ges = a man claims the ore 
found in his 
to arrangement, and in archite€ture may be confidered a 
decorated imitation of fuch a portion of a primitive ik, 
of a certain conftruction, as might comprehend the whole 
defign by a continuity and repetition of its parts. The 
hut originally confifted of a roof or covering, fupported by 
pofts made of the trunks of trees, in four rows, forming a 
quadrangular enclofure. Beams were laid upon the tops 
of the polts, in order to connect them, in their longitudinal 
diredtion, in one body. 
bre ; and to 
throw off the wet, other beams were laid dei to thofe 
certain mouldings ; orname ts each part ftill pre- 
ferving its diftinG@ coe ‘hough perhaps not ceadlly fimi on 
9 
