m into a boiling cauldron, and taking out a stone, a ring, or a piece of iron, which was hung at a greater or less depth in proportion to the gravity of the offence in question. That of cold water was performed by throwing the accused into a pond with a cord attached to him, by which he might be drawn out. If he were laden with weights, sinking was a proof of guilt; if not, it was held to prove his innocence." In the ordeal of the cross (which, notwithstanding the name which it acquired, was probably of heathen origin)," the accused or his proxy held up the right arm, or both arms; psalms were sung during the trial, and the sinking or trembling of the arms was evidence of guilt. Among other kinds of ordeal were -holding the hand in fire; walking in a thin garment between two burning piles; eating a cake, which in England was called the corsned; and receiving the holy eucharist." Some of these practices were condemned after a time. Louis the Pious, after having in 816 prescribed the trial of the cross as a means of deciding between contradictory witnesses, abolished fidently, suggests a like explanation (M. A. ii. 359), and ancient receipts for enabling the hand to bear fire exist (Ducange, s.vv. Ferrum Candens; Münter, ii. 229; Raumer, v. 284). Grimm, (911) and Rettberg (ii. 753) say that the trial was very rarely made, and only in the case of persons against whom the popular feeling would be strong if they failed. Freemen might clear themselves by their own oath, or by that of compurgators (Ducange, s.v. Juramentum; Grimm, 911; Kemble, i. 210), so that the ordeal would be left to slaves (Martene, ii. 331) and to such women as could not find a champion. This explanation, however, does not at all account for the instances of success; and, moreover, cases are recorded in which the trial of hot iron was endured by monks and other freemen (Ducange s.v. Ferrum Candens; Muratori, in Patrol. lxxxvii. 962-4). Planck says (iii. 543-6) that in all recorded instances the issue of these ordeals was favourable, and supposes that the clergy employed a pious fraud to save the lives of innocent persons. See Augusti, x. 273. as is said to have happened in a case recorded by Gregory of Tours, De Gloria Martyrum, i. 69. Grimm, 926. See Ducange, s.vv. Crucis Judicium. P Capit. A.D. 779, c. 10; Pagi, xiii. 112. 4 Grimm, 912. Of this we shall meet with instances hereafter. Laws of Cnut, c. 5 (Thorpe, 155); Lingard, A. S. C. ii. 132; Augusti, x. 299. Some writers (as Ducange, s.v.) derive this word from corse (curse), and snaed (a piece or mouthful); but Grimm and Mr. Thorpe (Glossary to Ancient Laws) prefer a derivation from cor, trial. s Grimm, 932. This trial was especially used for ecclesiastics, who were not allowed to swear (Ducange, s.v.) Eucharistia, p. 115). A council at Worms, in 868, prescribes that, for discovery of theft in a monastery, all the monks should communicate (c. 15), but this was afterwards forbidden as improper (Hard. n. in loc.). Froumund, a monk of Tegernsee, in the earlier part of the eleventh century, by way of clearing himself from the suspicion of having stolen a book, prays that, if he had been anyhow concerned in the theft, the Eucharist may turn to his condemnation. Ep. 2 (Patrol, cxli.). This was by way of alternative, if they were not strong enough to fight with clubs and shields. The loser was to forfeit his right hand. Capit. A.D. 816, c. i. R b it in the following year, "lest that which hath been glorified by the passion of Christ should through any man's rashness be brought to contempt. ."" Under the same emperor, the ordeal of cold water was forbidden in 829, although in 824 it had been sanctioned by Eugenius II.-the only pope who ever countenanced the system of ordeals. Agobard, archbishop of Lyons, a strenuous opponent of popular superstitions, addressed to Louis two tracts against the judicial combat. He reflects on the heresy of the Burgundian king who had sanctioned it. He denounces such duels as unchristian, and as involving a breach of charity more important than any good which could be expected from them. He argues that, if truth might be thus ascertained, all judges are superfluous; that the system holds out a premium to brute strength and to perjury; that the idea of its efficacy is contrary to Scripture, since we are there taught to despise the success of this world—since God suffers his saints to be slain, and has allowed believing nations to be overcome by unbelievers and heretics; and he appeals to instances in which the vanity of such trials had been manifested. The ordeal, however, continued to be supported by the popular feeling, and the cause which Agobard had opposed soon after found a powerful champion in Hincmar. (10.) The privilege of Asylum in the Germanic kingdoms dif Capit. A.D. 817, c. 27. Capit. Wormat. c. 12. › Mabill. Analecta. 161; Augusti, x. 251. Adv. Legem Gundob.; Adv. Judic. Dei (Opera, t. i.). a Adv. Jud. Dei, 5. b Adv. Leg, Gund. init.; Adv. Jud. Dei, 6-11. C Adv. Jud. Dei, 5. e Ib. 14. See below, Book IV. c. ii. The third council of Valence, A.D. 855, ordered that persons who slew or hurt others in judicial combats should be put to penance as robbers and murderers; and that those slain in such combats should be excluded from the sacrifice of the mass and from Christian burial (c. 12). It also condemned the custom of admitting contradictory oaths (c. 11). There is a letter of Ivo, bishop of Chartres, A.D. 1099, to Hildebert, bishop of Le Mans (and afterwards archbishop of Tours), who had been required by William Rufus to clear himself, by the ordeal of hot iron, from the charge of having been concerned in the surrender of Le Mans to Elie de la Flèche (see Lappenb. ii. 204). Ivo cites several cum popes against the system, and exhorts fered considerably from that which had existed under the Roman empire. It arose out of the ancient national usages; the object of it was not to bestow impunity on the criminal, but to protect him against hasty and irregular vengeance, to secure for him a legal trial, to afford the clergy an opportunity of interceding for him, and, if possible, of mitigating his punishment. The operation of this institution was aided by the system of pecuniary composition for wrongs. The clergy were usually able to stipulate for the safety of the offender's life and limbs on condition that he should pay a suitable fine, or perhaps that he should submit to a course of penance. Charlemagne in 779 limited the right of sanctuary by enacting that murderers or other capital offenders should not be allowed to take refuge in churches, and that, if they gained admittance, no food should be given to them. According to the Roman idea of asylum, the denial of food would have been an impiety sufficient to draw down some judgment from the patron saint of a church; but it was not inconsistent with the German view. The clergy, however, soon discovered a way of evading this law, by construing it as applicable to impenitent criminals only-i. e. to such as should refuse to confess to the priest, and to undergo ecclesiastical penance-a refusal which was not likely to be frequent, where it involved the choice between starvation and loss of sanctuary. The prohibition of food does not appear in later enactments of the reign." m The church could not fail to derive popularity from the power of offering shelter within its precincts against the lawlessness of which the world was then so full. With a view of investing it with such popularity among his new subjects, Charlemagne ordered, in his capitulary for Saxony (A.D. 785), that any person who should take sanctuary should, for the honour of God and His church, be safe in life and limb, and should be unmolested until the next court-day, when he was to be sentenced to make suitable amends for his offence. In legislating for the country after it had been reduced to a more settled state, this privilege was with drawn, and the church was required to surrender up persons convicted of capital crimes.a Among the Anglo-Saxons, the earliest law on the subject of asylum was that of Ina, in 696, which ordered that fugitives guilty of capital crimes should have their life protected by the church, but should be bound to make legal satisfaction; and that delinquents who had "put their hide in peril "-i. e. who had incurred the penalty of whipping-should be forgiven.' But the shelter of the church was only to be granted for a certain time. The laws of Alfred (A.D. 877) limit it in some monasteries to three days; it was, however, afterwards extended; and even in the same laws a longer term is allowed to other places. Persons guilty of murder, treason, or crimes against religion, might ordinarily be dragged even from the altar; but some churches of especial sanctity, among which that of Croyland enjoyed the most extensive immunities, had the right of protecting all fugitives whatever." The effect of such a privilege was probably felt as a serious hindrance to the execution of justice; for when Croyland, after having been laid waste by the Danes, was restored in the reign of Edred by his chancellor Turketul, the aged statesman declined to accept a renewal of its ancient rights of sanctuary.* VI. Slavery. Instead of absolutely condemning slavery as an unlawful institution—a course which would probably have introduced anarchy into society, and would have raised a serious hindrance to the progress of the Gospel-the New Testament had been content to prepare the way for its gradual abolition by exhorting both master and slave to the performance of their mutual duties on the ground of their common brotherhood in Christ. And as yet the church aimed only at a mitigation, not at an extinction, of slavery. Servitude was of two kinds-that of slaves properly so called, and that of the coloni. The slaves were individually liable to removal and sale; they were incapable, under the Roman empire, of contracting a legitimate marriage, and their property belonged to their master. The coloni were regarded as freeborn, so that, unlike slaves, they might become soldiers; they were attached to the land, so that they could not be separated from it, nor could it be sold without them. They were capable of marriage and of possessing property; for the land which they cultivated, they paid a fixed rent, generally in kind, and they were subject to the land-tax and to a poll-tax." It would, however, seem difficult to distinguish thoroughly between these classes in the canons which relate to the subject. с Theodore of Canterbury notes it as a point of difference between the eastern and the western monks, that, while the Latins have slaves, the Greeks have none. The oriental monks themselves performed the labour which was elsewhere devolved on slaves; it was usual for persons entering on the monastic life to emancipate their slaves; and some teachers, as Isidore of Pelusium in the fifth century and Theodore the Studite in the ninth, altogether questioned, or even denied, the lawfulness of having such property." In the west there are occasional appearances of a like kind. Thus Wilfrid, on getting possession of the Isle of Selsey, emancipated all the serfs who were attached to the soil; and Benedict of Aniane, whose ideas were chiefly drawn from the eastern monastic rules, on receiving gifts of land for his monasteries, refused to accept the serfs with it. Somewhat in the same spirit was the enactment of the council of Chalchythe, in 816, that a bishop at his death should liberate such of his English slaves as had been In the East, the marriage of slaves was only concubinage, till Basil the Macedonian (A.D. 867-886) altered the law; and that emperor's edict was not observed in practice (Biot, De l'Abolition de l'Esclavage en Occident, Paris, 1840, p. 213; Milman, i. 339). The barbarian codes, however, recognise it as proper marriage (Milman, i. 363). There are many regulations as to marriages between parties of various conditions, as to the effects of separation by sale, &c. ; e. g. Conc. Tolet. IX. A.D. 655, c. 13; Theodor. Capit. 17; Egbert. Excerpt. 126; Conc. Vermer. A.D. 753, c. 6; Conc. Compend. A.D. 756, c. 5; Conc. Cabil. III. A.D. 813, c. 30. z Guizot, iii. 125-133; Savigny, on the Roman Coloni, in Philolog. Museum, ii. 117-146; Thierry, Essai sur le Tiers Etat, c. 1. The coloni appear only in the later times of Rome, and the origin of the institution is unknown (Sa- Poenit. 8 (Patrol. xcix.). d Theodore, in his will (p. 66, ed. |