medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Dear Pat,
What I should have written is that council canons urged ecclesiastics to
deter individuals from participating in tournaments by excommunicating
participants, who would then presumably have to repent and be absolved
before being allowed access to the sacraments.
Trial by combat was a bilateral form of an ordeal, used in customary and
ecclesiastical courts when other forms of proof of innocence or guilt
were lacking (unilateral forms of ordeals included trials by water, hot
iron, etc). Ecclesiastics were ambivalent concerning the role of the
ordeal in the judicial process and some reformers and canon lawyers
complained that both forms of ordeals were attempts to force God's
miraculous intervention to indicate the guilt or innocence of the
parties involved. Ecclesiastical participation in them was banned at
the Fourth Lateran Council (although this of course did not kill off the
practice, which lingered on for centuries in some regions). I would try
Robert Bartlett's book on the subject, which musters a lot of the
evidence for the use of and movement to ban ordeals.
--
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