Trial by ordeal were resorted to by many people and nations both in ancient and modern times, with the view of establishing the criminality or innocence of suspected persons. Among the ordeals may be enumerated: holding in the hand a red-hot bar of iron, plunging the arm into boiling water or oil, walking blindfold amidst burning ploughshares, passing through fires, swallowing a morsel of consecrated bread, swimming or sinking in water (or, as it was occasionally termed, weighing a witch), stretching out the arms before the cross until the sorest wearied competitor dropped his arms, and so lost his cause, and therewith perhaps his life or his estate, or it might be both.

A dispute occurred between the Bishop of Paris and the Abbot of St. Denis about the patronage of a monastery; and Pepin, surnamed the Short, not being able to decide such an intricate question, decreed that the matter should be settled by ordeal. Each of the disputants chose a man, and both the men appeared in a chapel, where they extended their arms in the form of a cross. Numerous spectators were present to witness the trial, and betted on the feat. The bishop's representative dropped his arms first, and thereby ruined his employer.

Warren Hastings has found, from Asiatic researches, that trial by ordeal was common among the Hindoos. He says these trials are conducted in nine ways: first, by the balance; secondly, by fire; thirdly, by water; fourthly, by poison; fifthly, by the CÓsha, or water in which an idol has been washed; sixthly, by rice; seventhly, by boiling oil; eighthly, by red-hot iron; ninthly, by images.

Touching the body of a murdered person was one way, in Scotland, England, and elsewhere, of discovering who the murderer was. The practice, we are informed, originated in Denmark. Certain gentlemen in that kingdom, being together in a house, one evening fell out among themselves, and from words came to blows. Unfortunately the candles went out during the fray, and before lights could be procured one of the gentlemen was stabbed. The murderer was unknown. Christernus II., then king, to find out the murderer, caused all who were present at the brawl to stand around the dead body, and commanded that one after the other should lay his right hand on the dead man's breast, and swear that he had not committed the foul deed. The gentlemen complied; and no sign appeared to indicate the guilt of any of them, until the king's pursuivant kissed the feet of the corpse, and laid his hand on the breast. As soon as he did so, the blood gushed out in great abundance from the wound and nostrils. Thus condemned, the pursuivant confessed his guilt. By the king's sentence, the criminal was beheaded. Hence arose the practice, which was long common in many places, of finding out unknown murders. In most cases the murderer was discovered by the corpse bleeding the instant the bloodstained hand was placed on the cold inanimate clay, but at times the sign was given by the dead man opening his eyes on the slayer approaching the corpse.

A traveller was found murdered on a highway in Denmark; and because the slayer was unknown, the magistrates of the place caused one of the hands of him that was slain to be cut off, and hung up by a string at the top of a room in the town prison. About ten years after the crime was committed, the murderer happened to enter the apartment; and as soon as he did so, the dry withered hand began to drop blood on a table below it. The gaoler, beholding this, detained the man and called in the magistrates, who extracted from him a confession of his guilt.

In Herefordshire, in the time of Charles I., Johan Norkett, wife of Arthur Norkett, was found dead. At first it was thought she had committed suicide, but afterwards circumstances transpired which led to the belief that the unfortunate woman did not lay violent hands upon herself. A jury was summoned, and, after deliberation, the coroner directed that the body, which had been buried for a month, should be exhumed, and four suspected persons brought to touch the corpse. The persons being afterwards brought to trial at the assizes, an old minister swore that, the body being taken out of the grave and laid on the grass, the accused were required to touch it. On laying their hands on the brow, which before was of a livid and carrion colour, it began to have a dew or gentle sweat upon it, which increased by degrees until the sweat ran down the face. The brow then turned to a lifelike and flesh colour, and the dead woman opened one of her eyes and shut it again, and this opening the eye was done three times. She likewise thrust out the ring or marriage finger three times, and the finger dropped blood on the grass. Another clergyman corroborated the statement of the first witness. Sir Nicholas Hyde threw doubt on the correctness of the evidence, but the jury found three of the prisoners guilty of murder, and two of them were executed; the third being a woman, escaped with her life.

The popular superstition that the wounds of a murdered person would bleed afresh when touched by the murderer, is thus referred to by Shakspeare:

And Dryden says:

That murder might be discovered in the way referred to, was generally believed in Scotland in the seventeenth century. Sir George Mackenzie, when conducting the prosecution in the trial of Philip Stansfield, said: "That divine power which makes the blood circulate during life, has oft-times, in all nations, opened a passage to it after death upon such occasions, but most in this case; for after the wounds had been sewed up, and the body designedly shaken up and down, and, which is most wonderful, after the body had been buried for several days, which naturally occasions the blood to congeal, upon Philip touching it, the blood darted and sprang out, to the great astonishment of the chirurgeons themselves, who were desired to watch this event; whereupon Philip, astonished more than they, threw down the body, and became so faint that they were forced to give him a cordial."

In the middle of the seventeenth century, Christina Wilson was accused, in one of the supreme courts of Scotland, of having killed her brother by sorcery. On being suspected of the crime by the minister and others, she was brought in to touch the corpse. At the first sight of the dead body, she prayed that He who made the sun to shine on their house would bring the murder to light, and immediately thereafter she touched the corpse. It bled, though it did not do so before when touched by others. Of course this was held sufficient proof against the unfortunate woman, and she suffered according to her supposed guilt.

In another case a man was condemned on similar evidence for the murder of his father; but the prisoner insisted that the bleeding was owing to an incision made on the body, and not to his presence. The defence was disregarded; but this need not be a matter of surprise, when such men as Sir K. Digby and Sir George Mackenzie took it for granted that the corpse of a murdered person would bleed on being touched by the murderer. He (Sir K. Digby) says in his Religio Medica: "And to this cause, peradventure, may be ascribed the strange effect which is frequently seen in England, when, at the approach of the murderer, the slain body suddenly bleedeth afresh: for certainly the souls of them that are treacherously murdered by surprise leave their bodies with extreme unwillingness, and with vehement indignation against them that forced them to so unprovided and abhorred a passage. The soul then, to wreak its evil talent against the hated murderer, and to draw a just and desired revenge upon his head, would do all it can to manifest the author of the fact. To speak it cannot, for in itself it wanteth organs of voice, and those it is parted from are now grown too heavy, and are too benumbed for it to give motion unto; yet some change it desireth to make in the body, which it hath so vehement inclination to, and therefore it is the aptest for it to work upon. It must then endeavour to cause a motion in the sublimest and most fluid parts (and consequently the most moveable ones) of it. This can be nothing but the blood, which, being violently moved, must needs gush out at those places where it findeth issues."

The swallowing of a piece of barley bread, over which mass had been performed, was not unfrequent in trials of ordeal. If the suspected person swallowed the bread without injury, he was declared innocent; but if the bread choked him in the attempt to swallow it, then was he considered to be guilty. At times cheese was given with the bread; but when that was done, it was essential to supply ewe-milk cheese made in the month of May.