ordeal was esteemed a privileged sort of trial for persons of condition: it was practised by the accused or suspected party carrying a piece of red-hot iron, or in walking bare-footed upon redhot iron bars. The water ordeal was passed through by the lower order of criminals, or complainants, or defendants, in judicial proceedings, plunging their hands in boiling water, or suffering themselves to be thrown into ponds or rivers.

The principle asserted by those who passed through the ordeal, or directed it to be attempted, was, that God ever watched over innocence for its protection, and looked down on guilt for its punishment.

It is only necessary to observe, that by asserting this principle men constituted themselves the judges of the justice of God, determining the precise period when innocence should cease to be oppressed, and when guilt should be visited by the wrath of

heaven.

The ordeal was one of the many impious usages of feudalism, and one of the last of its barbarities, which in the modified form of single combat having gained a footing in modern civilisation, has subsisted in it, even to the present day.

Nevertheless, even in the dark ages, there was not wanting Christian testimony against this impious practice.

But, unfortunately, the error had been fallen into so frequently, in the dealings of men with what is wrong in practice and false in principle, and opposed to what is right and true in morals and in virtue, of compromising with evil, that custom had given a sanction to it in the eyes of worldly men. Well-meaning, but weak-minded ecclesiastics, undertook to regulate the proceeding by ordeal; the superintendence of it was assumed by them from mistaken notions of benevolence, and of duty to religion.

The same compromising spirit was manifested in this course of conduct, which in our own times has led statesmen to attempt to regulate the slave trade, by taking on government the supervision of the freighting of the ships with slaves, the stowage of the human cargo, the conduct of the brutal captain and mariners of the slave ship on the middle passage, and even the sale of the

human beings, who, though reduced to slavery, were still men, in the words of Gregory the Great, "whom Christ hath redeemed at a rich price."

Great evils, which outrage religion and humanity, cannot be restrained by partial measures of reform, in the administrative machinery of the institution out of which they emanate.

No legislative measures of a mere remedial character can reach the heart of such great evils. Neither temporal nor spiritual governments can say to them,-" I will sanction the great original crime against justice that custom has established, and that you find in accordance with your tastes or interests, but I will superintend the commission of that crime, and the perpetration of it shall be so regulated by me, that more iniquity than is absolutely necessary for the advantage of your interests, or the gratification of your tastes, shall not be put into execution."

The ordeal underwent various modifications at different periods; we have traces of it in the annals of these countries as well as of Italy. The corsned, or "morsel of execration," accompanied with solemn prayers for the establishment of innocence, and imprecations on those discovered to be guilty—the approach to the holy sacrament of the eucharist by men of blood and rapine, as a part of oaths, of amity, or alliance entered into for political purposes-seldom or ever entered into with honest intentions between man and man, or for objects that concerned religion, or which its ministers could approve.

It cannot be too often observed, that the barbarous manners and customs of people in feudal times, and the engrafting of their usages even on religious observances, are to be considered separately, and apart from the spirit, character, and doctrines of religion itself. The proposed settlement of theological differences by the ordeal experiment in Christian times, was of a date long anterior to the age of Savonarola. Indeed, at that period it was exploded in almost all European countries. In the sixth century we read of the ordeal being appealed to for the settlement of a theological dispute. During the middle ages, the trial by ordeal had become more a test of innocence in civil or

criminal jurisprudence, than of orthodoxy and belief. In England it began to fall into disuse in the thirteenth century. And in fact, when it was revived in Florence for a polemical purpose, it had ceased to be a part of the judicial proceedings in most other countries.

In the year 1063, great tumults and dissensions broke out in Florence, occasioned by the monks, (of what order it is not stated), zealous for the honour of religion, taking an active part against the secular clergy and prelates, and especially a Florentine bishop of great eminence, who were charged, to all appearance justly, with outrageous acts of simony. The Florentine prelate complained to the Pope of sedition against his authority on the part of some of the friars. Peter Damien was sent from Rome to inquire into the dispute to which the people of Florence had become a party against the bishop. Damien decided nothing, but rather favoured the bishop and his party, whereupon the monks appealed against the proceedings of Damien ; and finally went to Rome, reiterated their accusations, and, in confirmation of them, made a solemn supplication to the Pope to be permitted to undergo the ordeal of fire. The matter was discussed in a council held in Rome, specially called, for the consideration of the controversy between the monks and the prelate. Simony generally was condemned; and it was strictly forbidden for ecclesiastics to receive any benefice from laymen, either gratuitously, or for recompense. But the proposal for the trial by ordeal was neither expressly approved nor prohibited.

Not so, however, was the subject treated in Florence by the people. They called on the monks to make good their accusations, by the proof of fire; and the monks consenting, a time was fixed for the ordeal. On the appointed day, two piles were erected near the neighbourhood of the convent of S. Salvador, and a vast number of people, lay and clerical, were assembled to witness the ordeal. The principal author of the movement against the prelate charged with simony, was a Benedictine monk of the name of Theuzan. The council was unfavourably disposed towards him and his brethren; but of the guilt of the

prelate, and the pious zeal of the monk in this matter, it is a sufficient proof that Hildebrand espoused the cause of the friars, and that of upwards of one hundred prelates who attended the council, which had been convoked to investigate the charges against the bishop of Florence, nearly all were partizans of this prelate, and adversaries of the principle of reform, which those poor, though virtuous monks represented in those worst of times.

In the adjoining church, hymns were sung, and fervent prayers were offered up to heaven, to be led to make a fitting choice of the monk, who, by the appointment of the abbé, should traverse the flames. The choice fell on Peter, a monk of Vallombrosa, a man of irreproachable conduct.*

Peter, at the appointed time, proceeded to the altar erected near the pile, and celebrated the mass. All hearts thrilled at the sight of the celebrant. Four monks then proceeded to the piles. The first of them bore a crucifix; the second, a vase with holy water; the third, twelve blessed candles; and the fourth, a censer with ignited charcoal, to set fire to the pile.

The people of Florence, on this occasion, as in a succeeding one, in the days of Savonarola, 435 years later, left nothing undone to secure the exciting spectacle of Trial by Fire; they forced the monks to the accomplishment of their proposal, and the demonstration of the truth of their accusation.

This people of Florence were composed of very strange elements. "They took on themselves," says Voight, "the erection of two piles for the fiery ordeal, having a length of ten feet by five in breadth, and four in height; they were separated by a narrow passage, strewn with dry wood of a very inflammable quality,-'ils etaient separès, par un sentier semè de bois sec et tres inflammable.'

The multitude lifted up their hearts to God for the success of the perilous enterprize of the heroic monk. As soon as brother

*It was in this convent of Vallambrosa the charge against the prelate of Florence originated. The chronicles of the time speak of the monk Peter as 66 Vir egregius et excellentissimus, alter quasi Gamaliel."

Peter had finished the mass, he took the crucifix from the altar, and made a solemn procession round the piles (to which the fire had been applied), accompanied by the abbé and the monks. When he approached the flames, an explanation was made to the people of the object of the ceremony. The fire was now bursting forth. The inflamed wood cracked with the ardour of the fire. The priest knelt down and prayed aloud to the Lord Jesus Christ, to enable him to traverse the flames unhurt, if the bishop Peter was culpable. The people, as if with one voice, cried out, Amen!

"Then the heroic monk made on this burning furnace the sign of the cross, took the crucifix in his hands, and walked into the fire with a serene countenance, and traversed the flames unhurt. God and his faith protected him. When he appeared at the other extremity, the people rushed before him, fell on their knees, and kissed his feet, thinking themselves fortunate to obtain a shred of his robe. It was with great difficulty that his brethren could extricate him from the crowd. As soon as the holy father heard of this occurrence, he deposed the accused bishop, as being convicted of the crime imputed to him. The monk Peter arrived at great honours. He was elevated to the office of a bishop, and subsequently to the dignity of a cardinal."*

The practice of burning human beings in the name of religion, and on the pretext of advancing its interests, appears to have been looked on as a solemn spectacle, exciting and edifying, by the good people of Florence, and to have been enjoyed by them at all times with peculiar satisfaction.

"In 1327, Cecco D'Ascoli (Francesco Stabili), the author of 'The Acerba,' who had been a professor of astrology in Bologna, was burned in Florence for heresy, contained in a treatise of his on the sphere." †

Cecco or Francesco Stabili, an intimate friend at one period of Dante, a scholar, and a mathematician, and an astrologer of * Voight. Hist. Greg. VII. tom. i. p. 138.

+ Storia Fiorentina (Chronologica) da Sig. Reumont, 4to. Firen. 1841.

VOL. II.

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