As the punishment of boiling has been a matter of investigation lately
in your columns, perhaps the following contribution on the same subject
may not be uninteresting to some of your readers. It appears that in the
year 1392, when Florentius Wewelinghofen, or Wewelkofen, was Bishop of
Utrecht, a certain Jacobus von Jülich, by means of forged credentials
from the Pope, contrived to pass himself off, for a time, as suffragan
to the same see. Upon the discovery of the cheat, however, Florentius
summoned a synod of six bishops to Utrecht, who condemned the
unfortunate pretender to be sodden to death in boiling water! Zedler, in
his _Universal Lexicon_, tom. ix. col. 1282., alludes to the fact. Wilh.
Heda, in his _Hist. Episc. Ultraject._ pp. 259, 260., gives the story
thus:
"Circa hæc tempora, scilicet anno 1392 ... quidam ex professione
Divi Francisci, sese pro Sacerdote et Episcopo gerens, et in
Suffraganeum Episcopi Florentii assumptus, cum aliquandiu sacra
omnia peregisset, inventus falso charactere atque literis usus,
destituitur, et ferventibus aquis immergendus adjudicatur;
impositus vero aquis (quia clamore suo Episcopum ad pietatem
commovit) statim extrahitur et capite truncatus obtinuit
sepulturam."
Perhaps the Cardinal, should this meet his eye, or any one of your
readers equally skilled in Roman ecclesiastical archæology, can inform
the public whether this may not be the origin of the phrases, "getting
oneself into hot water," and "being sent to pot."