Note 1220 — Chapter XV · CONDITIONS OF THE ORDEAL.

Si certa probatio non fuerit.—L. Sal. Tit. XIV. XVI. (MS. Guelferbyt). The same is found in the Pact. Childeberti et Chlotarii § 5.—Decret. Chlotarii II. ann. 595, § 6.—Capit. Carol. Calvi, ann. 873, cap. 3, 7.—Cnuti Constit. de Foresta § 11: “Sed purgatio ignis nullatenus admittatur nisi ubi nuda veritas nequit aliter investigari.”—In the customs of Tournay in 1187, when a man has been wounded and has no witnesses the accused can clear himself with six conjurators if the affair occurred in the daytime, but if at night he is forced to the cold-water ordeal (Consuet. Tornacens. § ii. ap. D’Achery, Spicileg. III. 551). Horne’s Myrror of Justice, cap. III. Sect. 23: “En case ou battaille ne se poit joindre ne nul tesmognage n’avoit lieu ... e le actor n’ad point de testmoignes a prover sa action, adonque estoit en le volunt del deffendant a purger sa fame per le miracle de Dieu.” Yet in an English case of murder early in the thirteenth century, the accused was found with the murdered man’s cap and the knife with which he had been slain, and the whole vicinage testified to it, yet he was allowed to purge himself with the water ordeal.—Maitland, Pleas, etc., p. 80.