ORDEAL (Anglo-Saxon, ordaal ; from or, primitive, and daal, judgment; Ger. wadi, judgment), a practice which has prevailed largely among various widely separated nations, of referring disputed questions, particularly such as relate to the guilt or inno• cence of an individual, to the judgment of God, determined either by lot, or by the suc cess of certain experiments. Of its existence among the ancient Jews, we have an instance in Numbers v„ where a Hebrew woman, accused of adultery, is required to drink the-waters of jealousy as a test of innocence; in similar ordeal for incontinence is in use among the natives of the Gold Coast of Africa. Compurgation of accused persons by fire, as existing among the Greeks, is referred to in Sophocles's Antigone. Among the Hindus, the ordeal has been in use to be practiced in nine different ways—by the 1 dance, by water, by poisjn, by the coRha, or drinking water, in which images of I he can and other deities had been washed, by chewing-rice, by hot oil, ;I red-hot iron, arid by drawing two images out of a jar into which they have been thrown. (Asiatic Researches, vol. i., p. 389).
The ordeal seems to be prevalent throughout Africa. "When a man," says Dr. Livingstone, "suspects that any of his wives have bewitehed'him, lie sends for the witch-doctor, and all the wives go forth into the field, and remain fasting till that person has made an infusion of the plant (called ' goho'). They all drink it, each one holding up her hand to heaven in attestation of her innocency. Those who vomit it are consid ered innocent, while those whom it purgeS are pronounced guilty, and put to death by burning. The innocent return to their homes, and slaughter a cock as a thank-offering to their guardian spirits. The practice of ordeal is common among all the negro nations n. of the Zambesi." The women themselves eagerly desire the test on the slightest prov ocation: each is conscious of innocence, and has the fullest faith in the muari (the ordeal) clearing all but the guilty. There are varieties of procedure among the dif ferent tribes. The Barotse pour the medicine down the throat of a cock or dog, and judge of the innocence or guilt of the person accused by the vomiting or purging of the nimal.
Throughout Europe in the dark ages the ordeal existed under the sanction of law, and of the clergy. The most prevalent kinds of ordeal were those of fire, water, and the wager of battle. Fire ordeal was only allowed to persons of high rank. The accused had to carry a piece of red-hot iron for some distance in his hand, or to walk nine feet barefoot and blindfolded over red-hot plowshares. The hand or foot was bound up and inspected three (lays afterwards: if the accused ha'l escaped unhurt, he was pro nounced innocent; if otherwise, guilty. Under such a judicial system, there were probably few acquittals; but it is believed thht in the severer kinds of ordeal. precau tions were sometimes taken by the clergy to protect those whom they wished to clear from suspicion. Queen Emma, mother of Edward the confessor, when suspected of a criminal intrigue with Alwyn, bishop of Winchester, is said to have triumphantly vin dicated her character by walking unhurt over red-hot plowshares. Water ordeal was the usual mode of trial allowed to bondsmen and rustics, and was of two kinds—the ordeal of boiling water, and of cold water. The ordeal of boiling water, according to the laws of Athelstane, consisted in taking a stone out of boiling water, where the hand had to be inserted as deep as the wrist; what was called the triple ordeal, deepened the water to the elbow. The person allowed the ordeal of cold water (the usual mode of trial for witchcraft) was flung into a river or pond; if he floated without any appearance of swimming, he was judged guilty—while if lie sank, he was acquitted.
The wager of battle was a natural accompaniment of a state of society which allowed men to take the law into their own hands. The challenger faced the west, the chal lenged person the east; the defeated party, if he craved his life, was allowed to live as a "recreant;" that is, on retracting the perjury which he had sworn to. See BATTEL, TRIAL BY.