The Holy Lance, Part Three

So Peter Bartholomew was about to undergo Trial by Ordeal to verify whether he was being honest about his visions and  discovering the Holy Lance. Two fires had been lit, each 13 feet long and four feet high with a single foot of space between them. Peter, carrying the "lance" and wearing only a light tunic, would walk between them. If he and the lance were unharmed, then it could truly be believed that his visions were real and this was the spear that had pierced the side of Jesus while on the Cross. It was 8 April 1099, Good Friday.

Raymond of Aguilers, from whom we have the details of this entire incident regarding Peter Bartholomew, was the "master of ceremonies." He announced the purpose of the test to the crowd, that Peter and the lance would be consumed if Peter were lying. To this the crowd responded "Amen."

When the flames were 40 feet high, Peter bowed before Bishop Peter of Narbonne and again swore that his visions were true. The bishop handed him the lance, and Peter walked through the flames, although at one point inside he stopped briefly.

(The illustration here is by Gustave Doré, showing he moment when Peter approaches the waiting crowd and a bishop—probably Peter of Narbonne—with the fire behind him.)

Once through, he shouted Deus adjuva! "God help (me)." The crowd was amazed and elated, and rushed toward him. Some rushed to grab sticks from the fire as souvenirs of the miracle. He was surrounded by a mass of supporters.

He was dead by 20 April.

What happened? According to Raymond of Aguilers, the burns were minimal. He was, however, physically wounded in the crowd that surrounded him after the ordeal. Was it accidental? Crushed in the throng? Raymond says his spine was shattered; also, that his legs were cut three or four times. The theory is that, even though the trial was doable—the pause inside the flames, Peter says, was because Christ spoke to him—he had detractors among the nobles because of the way he tried to trade on his popularity and criticize the Crusade's leaders and take over the spiritual leadership. These detractors had their agents in the crowd, with the intent to make sure he did not survive the day, even if he survived the ordeal. Maybe God was on his side, but he had made human enemies that were determined to eliminate him. In the crowd that rushed to him after he came through the fire there were men with knives who cut him.

We have this story in far more detail than I have shared here thanks to Raymond of Aguilers, who wrote a history of this part of the Crusade. I want to talk more about his role as a historian and participant, next time.

The Holy Lance, Part Two

After the "finding" of the Holy Lance, the Crusaders in Antioch felt emboldened to break the siege around the city by Kerbogha, the atabeg of Mosul.

Peter the Hermit was sent to Kerbogha to suggest settling the conflict with a duel, but Kerbogha declined. A different Peter, Peter Bartholomew, whose "visions" led to the "buried" "Lance," joined the fight against the Muslims. Unknown to the Crusaders, Kerbogha's army had some internal conflicts and was not as powerful as it appeared. His superiors decided to teach the arrogant Kerbogha a lesson by not sending reinforcements. Kerbogha was forced to retreat to Mosul.

Inside Antioch afterward, the issue of the Holy Lance was re-examined, even though some attributed their military victory to its presence. Peter Bartholomew's vision of the Lance suggested it was buried just below the surface, but teams of men dug far down without success, until Peter went alone into the hole and "found" the lance point sticking up from the ground. Even though Peter's vision predicted a win against the Muslims, there were those who questioned Peter's truthfulness. One was papal legate Adhemar of Le Puy, who may have already been aware that a piece of the Lance was said to be in Constantinople. 

Then, Adhemar died from plague on 1 August 1098, and Peter put himself forward as the spiritual leader on the Crusade. Peter actually claimed that Adhemar appeared to him in a vision and said he had suffered in Hell for three days because he had doubted the discovery of the Lance.

Peter claimed that Christ told him the Crusaders must march barefoot to Jerusalem, and other visions from Jesus and St. Andrew expressed anger at the sins of the Crusaders. When his further visions were ignored, and the veracity of the Lance was questioned, Peter volunteered to submit to a Trial by Ordeal to prove his innocence.

As a result, he went through trial by fire on 8 April 1099, which was Good Friday*. Peter would walk through a fire. Two piles of dry olive branches were made, four feet high and 13 feet long, with a one-foot space between them for Peter to walk through. Peter came to the trial wearing a simple tunic and prepared to walk through, carrying the Lance. If both appeared unharmed after the ordeal, he would be vindicated.

..and I will leave you there until tomorrow.

*Coincidentally this post has been made on Good Friday in 2024.

Trial by Ordeal

Trial by Ordeal took many forms in the ancient world and the Middle Ages. In a sense, it was an appeal to God to reveal the culprit. In Old English it was called Godes dōm, "God's doom/judgement"; in Latin it was known as jūdicium Deī.

One simple method was cruentation, from Latin ius cruentationis, "law of bleeding," used in Germanic law. The belief behind cruentation was that the corpse of a murder victim would indicate the presence of its murderer by moving or spouting blood. It was used into the 18th century, even though after the Lutheran Reformation the application of a religious test in law was rejected in Denmark and Norway.

Another approach to Trial by Ordeal was the idea that God would not allow an innocent person to suffer. The accused would plunge his or her hands into boiling water, or carry red hot iron. Ordeal by fire was also tried, with the person walking at least three paces or walking across nine feet of coals. Of course this would produce burns, but they would be bandaged and re-examined in three days' time. A priest would then judge whether God had chosen to heal the innocent person's burns or let the guilty person's worsen and fester.

In Constantinople, before Michael VIII Paleologos (1224 - 1282) became emperor, he was accused of treason by Emperor John III Vatatzes and was ordered to go through trial by fire. He said he would hold the red-hot iron if the metropolitan bishop Phokas would take the hot iron from the altar with his own hands and place it in Michael's. This the bishop refused to do; the idea that innocents would not also be harmed by red-hot iron helped to discredit the practice. In fact, when Michael became emperor, he abolished the practice.

Pope Innocent III at the Lateran Council of 1215 forbade priests to take part in such things, and promoted compurgation instead.

The Byzantine Empire got the idea of trial by ordeal from the West, as the Crusades brought Western Europe ideas to Constantinople. One example they would have witnessed was the French mystic Peter Bartholomew, who submitted himself to ordeal by fire to prove his sincerity about a claim considered outlandish by others. What was he trying to prove, and how did it turn out? I'll tell you tomorrow.

The Oath of Purgation

The post Charlemagne and the Popes mentioned Pope Leo III taking an Oath of Purgation to "prove" his innocence of accusations made against him. It seems strange to a modern audience that simply swearing that you are innocent is enough to exonerate you, but the Middle Ages believed that God who sees the sparrow fall observes your deeds and will treat you accordingly if you lie. Therefore, swearing an oath puts yourself firmly into God's hands for judgment, and no one in his right mind would do that if he were actually guilty.

Detail from The Oath of Leo III by Raphael, 1516

There were two levels of purgation [from Latin purgare "to cleanse" by way of Old French  purgacion]. Vulgar Purgation was the clearing of one's name through ordeals such as trial by fire or water. You can read about those here.

The other form was Canonical Purgation, the act of clearing your name by swearing your innocence in the presence of reliable witnesses who would state their trust in your statement. (The number of witnesses was frequently required to be 12, like the Twelve Apostles.)

The Canonical Oath of Purgation is made with the hand on the Bible:

I, __________, now under process before the Session of the Congregation of C for the sin of _, alleged to have been committed by me: For ending said process, and giving satisfaction to all, do declare, before God and this session, that I am innocent and free of the said sin of charged against me. And I hereby call the great God, the judge and avenger of all falsehood, to be witness, and judge against me in this matter if I be guilty. And this I do by taking his blessed name in my mouth, and swearing by him who is the searcher of the heart, and that in sincerity, according to the truth of the matter and my own innocence, as I shall answer at the great day of judgment, when I stand before him to answer for all that I have done in the flesh, and as I would partake of his glory in heaven after this life is at an end.

These days, we don't allow the accused to declare his innocence without proof. Purgation is still used in minor cases. If charged with contempt of court, for instance, the accused may "purge himself of such contempt, by swearing that in doing the act charged, he did not intend to commit a contempt." [source]

The Assize of Clarendon

King Henry II of England had problems. The period known as The Anarchy was over, but the mercenaries employed during it were causing trouble in England now that no one was paying them. "Crusades Fever" was rampant, and aristocrats were leaving their lands for years at a time to liberate the Holy Land; when they returned, they might find someone else farming their estates without permission—and no office of land management that kept records as to who was the rightful owner. And, of course, the Church was doing as it pleased regarding the law, exercising sole authority over its clergy rather than allow them to be bound by civil laws.

Henry needed to put some order onto this chaos. We have already seen (later in his reign) the Assize of Arms. The major instrument of establishing new policies was the Assize of Clarendon in 1166. It was an attempt to establish the rule of law based on evidence and analysis rather than Trial by Ordeal, and to rest final authority with the Crown and its representatives.

It made certain that sheriffs kept records of any criminals in their territories, and that sheriffs would notify other sheriffs of criminals that fled in their direction, to be captured and held. A cleric who was found guilty in an ecclesiastical court was stripped of his office and turned over to the civil court. Compurgation was no longer sufficient as a defense in a felony. Sheriffs had to respond to requests by the "itinerant justices" (the "justices in eyre") sent around by the king.

One important innovation that modern law historians make note of is the first part of Clarendon:

1. In the first place the aforesaid king Henry, by thee counsel of all his barons, for the preservation of peace and the observing of justice, has decreed that an inquest shall be made throughout the separate counties, and throughout the separate hundreds, through twelve of the more lawful men of the hundred... [link]

This is seen as the first step to "Trial by Jury" with  jury of twelve of your peers chosen to analyze a case and help pass judgment.

...and Sometimes It Works

Holding hot iron in a Trial by Ordeal.

In the post on Margaret Eriksdottir we saw an example of how Trial by Ordeal doesn't always work out for the defendant. People still invoked that dubious method of justice, so belief in it (and, presumably, its efficacy in some cases) kept it alive.

The post linked above mentioned how Haakon III died without an heir, so a nephew named Guttorm Sigurdsson was put on the throne of Norway. He was only four years old, and so the responsibility of governing was put into the hands of regents. Guttorm only lived as king a few months, actually, dying of an illness (remember the sudden illness that killed his predecessor? it seems to have been a trend in Norwegian politics of the 13th century). One of his regents was Haakon the Crazy.

To give this new Haakon the benefit of the doubt, what we translate as "crazy" would probably more appropriately be defined as "furious in battle" than "unstable of mind." He was a supporter of King Sverre (Margaret's husband), and was made regent for Guttorm and leader of Norway's armies at the death of Sverre's son, Haakon III. Unfortunately, he had connections with Sweden that made him unsuitable for king, so at Guttorm's untimely death, Haakon the Crazy's half-brother Inge became king.

Haakon the Crazy died at the end of 1214; King Inge died in April 1217; and here's where it gets more interesting. A woman whom Haakon III had taken as a concubine in 1203 appeared in public with her young son, claiming that he was a son of Haakon III. Normally, this would not necessarily carry any weight, but she decided to go through a Trial by Ordeal. She carried a piece of hot iron without apparent damage from the heat, proving before all of Sweden that her claim of proper paternity for her son was true!

The boy, Haakon, became King Haakon IV and reigned from June of 1217 until his death on 16 December 1263. His reign is considered a golden age of medieval Norway.

Margaret of Sweden

Retrieving an object from boiling water without
suffering burns would prove innocence.

Margaret (or Margareta) Eriksdottir of Sweden (c.1155 - 1209) is only briefly mentioned in the histories of the time, but one incident in her life underscores the flaws of the medieval justice system.

She was the daughter of King Eric IX of Sweden (d.1160) and was married to King Sverre of Norway  (c.1151 - 1202) in 1189. Sverre fell ill and died on 9 March on his return from a military expedition. Margaret returned to Sweden after his funeral, but her daughter, Kristina, was not allowed to return with her. Sverre's successor (King Haakon III, a son from a previous marriage) kept Kristina at his court. This, presumably, caused some hostility between Margaret and Haakon.

Two years later, Margaret decided to return to Norway. Unfortunately for Margaret, Haakon died very shortly after her return, and accusations of poison were made against her.

Margaret invoked Trial by Ordeal* to prove her innocence, and had a man undergo the ritual in her place. Sadly, he was badly burned—not surprising to a modern audience, but proof of guilt to the law court of the time. The man was drowned, and Margaret had to flee for her life back to Sweden.

Haakon died without a son, so Guttorm (a grandson of Sverre) was named king, even though he was only four years old. No one was around to carry a grudge against Margaret, so in 1209 she returned to Norway for the wedding of Kristina to one of the regents for Guttorm. Sadly, she became ill and died a few weeks after the wedding.


*See the post on Trial by Combat.