Between a Rock and a Hot Place: The Role of Subjectivity and Rationality in the Medieval Ordeal by Hot Iron

Abstract

Before their gradual disappearance in the middle ages, ordeals were used as a form of adjudication of guilt and innocence in criminal proceedings. Based on the supposition that divine knowledge and intervention would steer the results in such a way as to punish the guilty and protect the innocence, ordeals fell into disrepute after the Catholic Church banned clerical participation in 1215 A.D. This article discusses various forms of ordeals, such as the ordeal of hot iron, and analyzes whether, and to what extent, these ordeals could have served as "rational" forms of adjudication during the period.

Keywords: ordeals, church and criminal justice, church and ordeals, criminal law in middle ages, medieval criminal justice, medieval criminal law, medieval criminal law, ordeal by hot iron, ordeals, rationality of ordeals, adjudication of guilt, water ordeal, medieval criminal justice, ordeal by fire