THE ORDEAL OF THE CROSS.
The ordeal of the cross (_judicium crucis, stare ad crucem_) was
one of simple endurance and differed from all its congeners, except
the duel, in being bilateral. The plaintiff and defendant, after
appropriate religious ceremonies and preparation, stood with uplifted
arms before a cross, while divine service was performed, victory being
adjudged to the one who was able longest to maintain his position.
An ancient formula for judgments obtained in this manner in cases of
disputed titles to land prescribes the term of forty-two nights for
the trial.[1065] It doubtless originated in the use of this exercise
by the Church both as a punishment and as a penance.[1066] Of its use
as an ordeal the earliest instance which I have observed occurs in a
Capitulary of Pepin le Bref, in 752, where it is prescribed in cases of
application by a wife for dissolution of marriage.[1067] Charlemagne
appears to have regarded it with much favor, for he not only frequently
refers to it in his edicts, but, when dividing his mighty empire, in
806, he directs that all territorial disputes which may arise in the
future between his sons shall be settled in this manner.[1068] An
example occurring during his reign shows the details of the process. A
controversy between the bishop and citizens of Verona, relative to the
building of certain walls, was referred to the decision of the cross.
Two young ecclesiastics, selected as champions, stood before the sacred
emblem from the commencement of mass; at the middle of the Passion,
Aregaus, who represented the citizens, fell lifeless to the ground,
while his antagonist, Pacificus, held out triumphantly to the end, and
the bishop gained his cause, as ecclesiastics were wont to do.[1069]
When a defeated pleader desired to discredit his own compurgators, he
had the right to accuse them of perjury, and the question was then
decided by this process.[1070] In a similar spirit, witnesses too
infirm to undergo the battle-trial, by which in the regular process of
law they were bound to substantiate their testimony, were allowed, by a
Capitulary of 816, to select the ordeal of the cross, with the further
privilege, in cases of extreme debility, of substituting a relative or
other champion, whose robustness promised an easier task for the Divine
interference.[1071]
A slight variation of this form of ordeal consisted in standing with
the arms extended in the form of a cross, while certain portions
of the service were recited. In this manner St. Lioba, Abbess of
Bischoffsheim, triumphantly vindicated the purity of her flock,
and traced out the offender, when the reputation of her convent
was imperilled by the discovery of a new-born child drowned in a
neighboring pond.[1072]
The sensitive piety of Louis le Débonnaire was shocked at this use of
the cross, as tending to bring the Christian symbol into contempt,
and in 816, soon after the death of Charlemagne, he prohibited its
continuance, at the Council of Aix-la-Chapelle;[1073] an order which
was repeated by his son, the Emperor Lothair.[1074] Baluze, however,
considers, with apparent reason, that this command was respected
only in the Rhenish provinces and in Italy, from the fact that the
manuscripts of the Capitularies belonging to those regions omit the
references to the ordeal of the cross, which are retained in the
copies used in the other territories of the Frankish empire.[1075]
Louis himself would seem at length to have changed his opinion;
for, in the final division of his succession between his sons, he
repeats the direction of Charlemagne as regards the settlement of
disputed boundaries.[1076] The procedure, however, appears to have
soon lost its popularity, and indeed never to have obtained the wide
and deeply-seated hold on the veneration of the people enjoyed by the
other forms of ordeal, though there is extant a formula for confirming
disputed titles to real estate decided in this manner.[1077] We see
little of it at later periods, except the trace it has left in the
proverbial allusion to an _experimentum crucis_.
In India a cognate mode is adopted by the people of Ramgur to settle
questions of disputed boundaries between villages. When agreement by
argument or referees is found impossible, each community chooses a
champion, and the two stand with one leg buried in the earth until
weariness or the bites of insects cause one of them to yield, when the
territory in litigation is adjudged to the village of the victor.[1078]