The Test of Sacred Bread in Ancient Times

Between AD500 and 1100 England changed form being a mass of small kingdoms into one united country. During these centuries, kings played a vital part in every aspect of government and especially in crime and punishment. A king’s most important tasks were to defend his country from attacks and to make sure his laws were obeyed. Laws were made by kings after consulting nobles and bishops. At first, Laws had two main aims, to protect landowners’ property from damage or theft and to protect people from violence although freemen got more protection than slaves.

Early Saxon kings allowed the victims of crimes to punish the criminal themselves. If someone was murdered, the family had the right to track down and kill the murderer. This right was known as the Blood Feud. There were two problems about this legal violence. Firstly, it often led to even more violence as families and their friends banded together to take revenge for an attack and then this led to another attack.

Secondly, it did not protect people who did not want to use violence against those who had harmed them.

Later kings abolished the Blood Feud and introduced money fines called wergilds for many crimes including some murders. The victims received compensation in money. The level of punishment was decided by the king, through his laws. This made further violence much less likely. Saxon laws were extremely detailed about fines that criminals had to pay. The wergild for killing a nobleman was 300 shillings. If the criminal could not afford to pay the fine, then he or she was sent into slavery.

Get quality help now

Writer Lyla

Verified

Proficient in: Common Law

5 (876)

“ Have been using her for a while and please believe when I tell you, she never fail. Thanks Writer Lyla you are indeed awesome ”

+84 relevant experts are online

Hire writer

However, not all crimes were punished by fines.

Some serious crimes carried the death penalty – treason against the king, arson and betraying your lord. Reoffenders were also punished harshly if they were caught. Punishments for regular offenders included mutilation, for example, cutting off a hand, ear or nose or ‘putting out’ the eyes. Any accused person who did not come to court was ‘Outlawed’. This meant he no longer had the protection of the law and could be killed by anyone as a punishment. Prisons were only used for holding accused people before trial. Imprisonment was rarely used as a punishment because it was expensive.

Gaolers would have to be paid and criminals would have to be fed. This was impossible at a time when kings only collected taxes for wars or to pay for other out of the ordinary events. There was no police force in Saxon England. In the early Saxon kingdoms people relied on their families to help them catch thieves or other wrongdoers. By the tenth century, kings had set up a different kind of self-help system – known as a tithing. A tithing was a group of ten people. All males over the age of twelve had to belong to a tithing.

This meant that they were responsible for each other’s behaviour. If a member of the tithing broke the law, the others had to bring him to court or pay the compensation fine to the victim. In a modern trial there are lawyers to prosecute and defend, and jury members must have no prior knowledge of the accused. By contrast, at a Saxon trial there were no lawyers to prosecute or defend the accused person. The accuser was the person who claimed to be the victim of the crime. The jury was also different. It was made up of men from the area who probably knew the accuser and the accused.

Both the accused and the accuser told their version of events to the jury. It was then up to the jury to decide who was telling the truth. If there was no clear evidence (such as a witness having seen the crime take place) they used their experience of people concerned. If the jury felt the accuser was more honest in general than the accused, they swore an oath that the accused was guilty. The jury’s oath taking was called Compurgation. There were times when the jury members could not agree with each other. This was usually in cases of theft or murder when there was no witness.

Trial by ordeal was the solution to this problem. A twelfth-century law said that the ordeal of hot iron is not to be permitted except where the naked truth cannot otherwise be explored. Then God was asked to decide whether the accused person was guilty and the accused had to undergo trial by ordeal. Human beings might not know the truth but God certainly would! There were different kinds of trial by ordeal but whichever one was used; a careful religious ritual was followed. The person taking the ordeal had to fast for three days beforehand and hear mass in the church.

As the ordeal by hot iron began the priest said these words: “If you are innocent of this charge you may confidently receive this iron in your hand and the Lord, the justice judge, will free you, just as he snatched the three children from the burning fire”. Trial by hot iron was usually taken by women. The accused had to carry a piece of red-hot iron for three metres. Her hand was then bandaged and unwrapped three days later. If the wound was healing cleanly without festering everyone would know that god was saying she was innocent. But if the wound was not healing cleanly God was saying she was guilty.

Trial by hot water was usually taken my men. The accused put his hand into boiling water to pick up an object and lift it out. This might not be so easy. One of the earliest accounts of this ordeal describes how the accused “plunged his right hand into the cauldron. In the bubbling it was not easy for him to grasp the little ring but at last he drew it out”. The arm was then bandaged. Three days later the bandage was taken off. Again, the person was innocent if the wound was healing cleanly. Trial by cold water was also usually taken by men. People believed that the water was pure and so would reveal the truth.

The accused was lowered into the water (a river or pond as close to the church as possible) on the end of a rope. The rope was knotted above the waist. If the person sank and the knot went below the surface then he was innocent because the pure water had been willing to let this innocent beneath its surface. However, if he and the knot floated then they believed the water was rejecting him because he was guilty. Trial by consecrated bread was taken by priests. The priest first had to pray, asking that he be choked by the bread if he lied. Then he had to eat a piece of consecrated bread.

If he choked then he was guilty because God would not let a sinner eat consecrated bread. This might seem a much more lenient ordeal but people believed that God was sure to punish a priest who lied and so it was seen as the most effective or all ordeals. I think that the Saxons used trial by ordeal as a means of finding out whether someone was guilty or not to deter other would be criminals from committing crime. In my opinion, Saxon trials were based on superstition rather than logic because the trials in order to ascertain whether the person was guilty were based on a chance result and were often biased of finding them guilty.