Herbal cures were common in the Middle Ages. Some could be grown at home, but others had to be purchased at an apothecary’s shop. Herbs from the vessels on the shelves were mixed and ground in different proportions according to the patient's needs.
He following recipe, from a 15th-century English manuscript, gives instructions for servants to follow to cure their lord of iUness.
A medicinal bath: “Boil together hoUy-hock, mallow, wall-pellitory and brown fennel, danewort, St. John’s
Wort, centaury, ribwort and camomile, heyhove, heyriff, herb-bennet, bresewort, smallage, water speedwell, scabious, bugloss, and wild flax which is good for aches—boil withy leaves and green oats together with them and throw them hot into a vessel
And put your lord over it and let him endure for a while as hot as he can, being covered over and closed on every side; and whatever disease, grievance or pain ye be vexed with, this medicine shall surely make you whole, as men say.”
Life was fairly comfortable in castles. Drinking water came from wells. Water for washing came from a cistern, or retaining tank, on the roof that collected rain, and pipes provided a flow of water through spigots to washbasins, called lavatories, in the living quarters and the great hall. Latrines in the castles might feed into chutes within the walls, or they might be outside the keep (central tower and living quarters) and drop directly to the ground or into the moat. The problems with latrines were re
Corded with some vividness by one English king when he implored the engineers, “for the love of God,” to fix the latrines, since the cold updrafts and their odor in a castle that he frequently visited were intolerable.
The bailey area of the new stone castles was also more sophisticated. The bailey was defended by a gate that would serve as a first line of defense during an attack. The walls were punctuated with towers, and protected pathways ran around the walls so that the garrison could move around the castle to defend it. Within the bailey walls, the buildings were arranged for times of both war and peace. There were stables for animals and workshops for repairing armor and shoeing horses. The kitchen was often located in the bailey as well, to keep the heat generated during food preparation outside the main hall, particularly during the summer. In addition, there was room for storage barns for hay and straw. The gardens were the preserve of the lady of the castle, who grew herbs used to treat the various ailments and wounds that the garrison might suffer. Women generally were responsible for preparing herbal medicines and healing foods for the ill in their households.
Castles were, of course, primarily meant to be defensive structures rather than pleasant residences, so they were constructed to withstand a siege. Walls were thick, and the external windows were narrow, permitting arrows to be shot out but not in. A castle had to be weU stocked with food, wine and beer, weapons and armor, firewood, timber, and other necessities. One of the most essential elements, however, was a source of water. Although water could be piped
Into a castle from outside its walls, relying on such a system was too dangerous. Besiegers could block the supply, and the castle’s defendants would be “parched out”—that is, they would be threatened with dying of thirst. A casde, therefore, was best situated if it had a well within its walls. If a castle was built on a hill of rock, as many were in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, the wells would be very deep.
Although castles were built as defensive structures, few experienced sieges. The most effective way to lay siege was to surround a castle and cut off its water and food supplies. This maneuver would eventually starve or parch out the defenders. With exposure to the more sophisticated siege strategies used during the Crusades, however, the use of various siege machines became more common. The weak point of a castle was the bailey gate, and a battering ram could be used to break it down. To scale walls, ladders and even wooden towers that could be roUed up the castle walls were popular. Finally, more accurate weapons, snch as the trebuchet, were developed. A trebuchet was a type of catapult that could hurl stones repeatedly at one place in a castle wall and thus weaken it.
Perhaps one of the most effective siege tactics was to undermine or sap the castle walls. This process was similar to putting a mineshaft under the walls. A description of the attack of Kingjohn I ofEngland on his barons, who had seized Rochester castle, gives a vivid account of the sapping process. Kingjohn hired minen to sink a shaft under the wall and build supports of dry wood. He then called for a dozen hogs that were too fat to be eaten. These he had killed and their lard rendered. The lard was spread over the wooden supports in the
The Krak des Chevaliers in Syria was built for defense against Turkish attack on the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem. The walls were extremely thick and a well was dug down through the rock so that the castle would have an internal water supply. The castle held out against attack until 1268.
Shaft and set ablaze. The wall tumbled down as the supports burned.
Most castles were living quarters for noble families and their households. Children who grew up in cashes were not necessarily raised by their parents in their early years, because their parents might be away at other castles, on crusade, or at the king’s court. These children had nurses who fed and entertained them. But their lives were not lonely, because there were many adults in the castle as well as other children to play with. They rode horses, cHmbed around the battlements, went out into the countryside, and received some early instmction from a clergyman hired to teach them their letters. Parents customarily sent both boys and girls to another noble family of higher status when they reached the age of seven or eight. This practice was called fostering. There they learned the correct court manners from the lord and lady of the household. Both boys and girls learned to ride and hunt, to wash their hands before coming to the table, to eat properly with their fingers (they had no forks), and to share their trencher (a piece of rough bread that served as a plate) with their dinnerpartner. Glasses were also shared, and the proper young courtier learned to wipe the glass after drinking so that the rim would be clean for his or her dinner partner. Dogs were not fed at the table for fear that they would fight over the bones. Young boys might also become pages (perhaps late Latin or German for “child”) and serve their lord and lady and their guests at the table.
As children grew up, boys and girls were trained to take on different roles. Young women learned to sew and embroider. They spent most of their time with the other women of the household in the women’s quarters. Here they might also learn to read romances and lyric poetry, play musical instruments and cards, and dance. Young men, on the other hand, became squires and learned to fight. They had to practice using a sword and lance while riding on a horse. Some young squires even accompanied their lords to battles or on crusades. The knighting ceremony, usually held when a man reached 21, ended his tenure as a squire.
Marriage was important for those noble children who would inherit their father’s or mother’s property. Usually, the older children in the family would marry, and the younger children might find careers in the administration of the Church or in monasteries. Parents or often a lord arranged the marriages. The Church taught that girls of 12 and boys of 14 were old enough to be married, but the age of marriage varied greatly depending on the couple’s social class and the circumstances at the time. Among the nobility, girls were often mar-
Ried at a young age because the marriages could create alliances of political or economic importance. They might have been heiresses with valuable land, or given in marriage to a former enemy of their father as a symbol of peace between two families. Their marriage partners could be as young as they were or as old as their fathers. A large age disparity between husband and wife was not uncommon.
Major negotiations took place between the families of the bride and groom. The bride’s family provided a dowry that might include land, but could also be wealth in the form of jewels, serving vessels of gold and silver, war horses, armor, or fine clothing. Princess Philippa, the fiancee of the young man who became Edward III of England, was given a dowry of a fleet of boats and fighting men so that the groom’s mother could invade England in his name.
The husband’s family promised a dower (a benefit that a wife could collect on her husband’s death) composed of a third of his lands and estates. She would have the use of this land for as long as she lived, then it would be inherited by the children of the marriage. Widows living on their dower lands were called dowagers. Practices varied from region to region. In Italy the dower disappeared, but in other areas both the dower and the dowry remained important parts of contracts for arranged marriages.
The marriages might be happy or at least acceptable to the married couples, or they could be miserable. Women were expected to produce children to carry on the family name, but their husbands might be away much of the time. One of the reasons that courtly love flourished was that ritualized flirtations helped to pass the time and ease the loneliness of a loveless marriage. Casdes always had a number of young fighting men around to sing, compose songs, and participate in tournaments for the entertainment of the women and girls who lived there.
The elaborate castles of the Middle Ages were also centers of government. From them, lords administered their estates, and kings administered their kingdoms.
In the 12th and 13th centuries throughout Europe, monarchs consolidated their power. To trace the development of the monarchies, it is necessary to go back a century to the time of Henry IPs grandfather, Henry I (reigned 1100—1135). When William the Conqueror died in 1087, he had three sons—Robert, William, and Henry. Robert received Normandy, William got England, and young Henry was given a cash setdement. Henry was ambitious, and when William died from an arrow wound during a hunt, rumors spread that Henry was responsible. But Henry became king of England and, after Robert died, Duke of Normandy as weU. In France the Capetians continued to rale from Paris. They tried to gain recognition from their wayward counts and dukes, among whom Henry 1 of England was the most troublesome. Henry controlled not only Normandy, but also Brittany and some of the territory along the Seine River. He consolidated his power in England, then began to extend his authority throughout the realm.
Henry 1 had misfortunes as weU as successes. His two sons died crossing the English Channel, so as he approached death as an old man who had ruled for 35 years, his only heir was a daughter, Matilda. He took the
Sie?e weapons included the catapult, which was used to throw large stones, boiling oil, and other objects in besieging a castle. The catapult was cranked down with a winch which, when released, caused the arm to rise swiftly and throw the object at or over a wall.
Thomas Becket (on horse at right) refused to agree to the demands of Henry II that members of the clergy be tried for any crimes in the king's court. When Henry enlisted the help of Louis VII (both at left), Becket went into exile to enlist the help of the pope.
Best measures he could to assure his succession. Henry married her to his worst enemy—Geoffrey Plantagenet, the Count of Anjou—in the hope that this maneuver would protect her inheritance of Normandy and Brittany. He then persuaded the English and Norman vassals to accept her as queen. Before he died he had the satisfaction of knowing that she had a son who was named Henry.
But the barons of England refused to accept Matilda as their queen, partly because she was a woman and partly because she married the Count of Anjou, who was their enemy as well. They selected a grandson of William the Conqueror, Stephen of Blois, to become king. Civil war raged, and Matilda sometimes took to the saddle herself to lead her army against Stephen. Eventually a compromise was reached, and Henry II, son of Matilda and Geoffrey and grandson of Henry I, became king. His kingship marked the beginning of what is known as the Plantagenet dynasty. The name derives from a type of heather flower that Geoffrey customarily wore. Henry Plantagenet, of course, added the Duchy of Aquitaine to his fiefs in France by marrying Eleanor in 1152, after her marriage to Louis VII of France was annulled. Historians have called this vast territory, which included half of France, the Angevin Empire.
Henry II set about reorganizing England so that he would be free to defend his fiefs in France. Since William the Conqueror, all the kings of England had regarded the realm as a convenient source of revenue, but not as a fit place for a French-speaking Norman to live. So Henry II followed his grandfather’s example in making England’s judicial system work very smoothly and for his own financial gain. He encouraged the lesser barons and freemen to purchase writs from the crown. Writs were legal instruments that allowed the free population to have the king’s officials and judges try their cases. Henry not only made a profit on providing uniform legal standards to the English, but also won support for the idea that the king’s law should prevail throughout the land.
When a dispute arose over who had the better claim to a piece of land, a writ empowered the king’s judges to call a jury (from the Latin term jurati, or men serving on oath to teU the truth) of the best informed people from the surrounding country. The judges called on the oldest and wisest members of the community to serve on an inquest jury, and asked them to determine who had the best claim to the property. On the basis of their testimony and verdict (from the Latin word veredictum, or true statement), the judges settled land
Disputes, with the authority of the king backing up their decision. The system was very popular and in time England used juries to decide criminal matters as well.
For Henry the benefits were peace and increased profits. To keep track of the revenues that he received from England, he reinvigorated the Exchequer established by Henry I, which is still the chief cabinet office in charge of finances today. The Exchequer takes its name fi'om a large tablecloth on which the accounts of the realm were calculated. On it was a series of columns, which were crossed by horizontal lines. The tablecloth was simply a large abacus that permitted calculation of sums owed without using cumbersome Roman numerals. The word “exchequer” derived from the Arabic word for the game of chess or checkers. The Exchequer usually met in Westminster (the royal palace located just west of London), and aU county officials and royaljustices rendered their accounts at this central location. All debtors, even if they were officials, were imprisoned until they paid the amount due to the king.
Henry was an energetic man. In fact, his courtiers complained that he exhausted them because he constantly administered, fought in tournaments and battles, hunted, and pursued his enemies with ruthlessness. Even during church services he had to have writing materials with him, or he would fidget. He was a redhead with a freckled face and a muscular physique. A fiery temperament accompanied his generally ruddy appearance. None felt the quick angermore than Thomas Becket, who became Archbishop of Canterbury. Becket, a London merchant’s son, had served Henry as Chancellor of the Exchequer. When the Archbishop of Canterbury died, Henry thought he could reward a loyal servant and have a subservient archbishop by appointing Becket.
But Becket seemed to have undergone a conversion when he was elevated to the archbishopric. He took the side of the Church against his old friend, Henry. The focus of their fight was the relations between the church courts and the royal courts. Henry wanted clergy who had committed crimes tried in the powerful royal courts, and Becket wanted them tried by their bishop. If the clerks were tried in royal courts, they would be hanged if convicted, but if they were found guilty in the bishop’s court, they would only have to say prayers or go on a pilgrimage to atone for their wrongdoing. Henry exiled Becket, but the
The Exchequer, or treasury, took its name from the checkered table cloth, a type of abacus on which they tallied the fines they had collected for the king. Officials presented their accounts and the money that was due. The Chancellor of the Exchequer and his clerks kept a record of the accounts and imprisoned those who did not pay the full amount.
Tire martyrdom of Thomas Beckei at the altar of his cathedral in Canterbury made him a saint almost immediately. His fame spread rapidly and illustrations of his martyrdom appeared quickly in England and as far away as Spain.
Move was so unpopular with both the pope and the laity that Henry had to reinstate him. When Becket came back to Canterbury and resumed the old fights, Henry allegedly remarked to four of his knights, “WiU no one rid me of this troublesome priest?” His courtiers were all too willing.
They went to Canterbury and killed the archbishop as he was praying before an altar. Immediately, Becket became a martyr and saint. Henry was forced to confess that his short-tempered remark had led to the death of his archbishop, and was beaten to atone for his role in the death. The tomb of St. Thomas became the most popular place of pilgrimage in England, and figures in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, written two centuries later.
Most of Henry’s energy went into protecting his continental possessions from the French kings who kept up continual warfare and intrigues against him. Louis VII was an obvious enemy even before Henry married his ex-wife, but when Louis died, his son, Philip II Augustus, became a formidable foe. Philip even succeeded in getting Henry’s heir, Henry “the Young King,” and Eleanor to conspire against Henry. Henry then imprisoned Eleanor in a rather comfortable English castle, where she was separated from the court culture that she had created and the pleasantries of life in her own Aquitanian duchy. Young Henry died before his father, so Richard, Eleanor’s favorite son, inherited all of the Angevin territory in France and the kingship of England.
Before his brother died, Richard was destined to become the Duke of Aquitaine and to follow in the footsteps of his great-grandfather: duke, fighter, troubadour, and chivalric figure. Richard carried out at least some of the roles. He sang and played musical instruments, but most of all, he was an ideal Christian knight who embraced the Third Crusade with zeal. The pope persuaded his archenemy, Philip II
Augustus of France, to crusade with him. Also entering into the scheme was Frederick I Barbarossa, emperor of Germany. Frederick had gained this name because of his large, red beard.
The Third Cmsade took careful planning. Richard was the only enthusiastic participant, but Philip and Frederick joined because the Church and laity were concerned that the Turks had unified under their great leader, Saladin, and threatened to take over the entire Holy Land once again. Richard, imbued with the romances of his mother’s court, flung himself wholeheartedly into the campaign. Indeed, his name became Richard the Lion-Hearted, or Coeur de Lion to his French-speaking subjects. According to myth, he fought single-handedly against Saladin. Whether or not this is true, he did in fact achieve major victories and succeeded in reaching a compromise with the Turkish leader, who agreed to give the Christians the port city of Acre and a corridor through which pilgrims could pass to worship in Jerusalem.
Frederick 1 Barbarossa never reached the Holy Land because he died while taking a swim. Philip 11, on the other hand, hated fighting, disliked cooperating with the chivalric Richard, and decided to return to France to take advantage of Richard’s absence by attacking his fiefs. On the way home from the Holy Land, Frederick’s heir. Holy Roman Emperor Henry VI, took Richard prisoner and held him for ransom. While England and the Angevin territories in France scrambled to pay the ransom, Philip waged war against Richard’s French fiefs. When Richard was released, he conducted campaigns against Philip, but died at Chateau GaiUard from an infection resulting from an arrow wound.
Philip 11 Augustus was not as loved by his subjects as Richard had been in England and in his French possessions, yet he was a very successful monarch. Unlike his father, Louis Vll, he was an intelligent politician. He expanded his kingdom north into Flanders through marriage and bided his time until he could challenge the English king. The opportunity came under Richard the Lion-Hearted’s successor, his brother John. The youngest son of Henry 11 and Eleanor, John 1 had not been in line for the succession, and became king only because his older brothers had died without sons. John was groomed for a more comfortable life than defending his territories against a calculating enemy such as Philip. John made a fatal blunder in marrying a young woman, Isabelle of Angoleme, who was engaged to one of King Philip’s vassals. Invoking a feudal lord’s right to protect his vassals’ interests, Philip invaded Normandy, Anjou, and Poitou (the northern part of the Angevin Empire) to punish John. He met with little resistance. John earned the name “Lackland” because of his loss of territory.
The capture of Richard I in Germany was related to German political ambitions. Frederick Barbarossa (1152-1190) came to the throne with grand plans to restore the influence of the Holy Roman Empire by gaining power either in Germany itself or in Italy and Burgundy. But to consolidate power in Germany would involve protracted fights with relatives and other German nobles. Frederick acquired the duchy of Burgundy by marrying its heiress, but Italy was a more difficult problem.
Frederick I Barbarossa got his name from his red beard. His dream to restore power to the Holy Roman Empire would naturally interest his sons (depicted here giving their father advice), one of whom would inherit the throne.
At the coronation of John I, two archbishops anoint him with holy oil and place the crown on his head. Medieval kings claimed that this ceremony, based on the crowning of David in the Bible, gave them sacred powers that permitted them to challenge the ecclesiastical officials. The Church, however, disagreed.
Italian towns had entered a period of great prosperity, but they had also become independent of lay and church authority. Frederick either had to overwhelm the towns of northern Italy or win them to his side. Finally, only Milan withstood his siege. At the end of three years, when the irate Frederick finally captured it, he threatened to destroy Milan entirely and salt the earth so that nothing would grow there. He relented to his regret, because Milan soon led a coalition of cities, called the Lombard League, against him. Frederick was defeated at the battle of Legnano in 1176. Facing ultimate defeat in Italy and rebellion among his dukes in Germany, Frederick had no choice but to retreat to Germany and try to base his empire there.
Although Frederick I died in 1190 during the Third Crusade, his plans to unite Italy with Gemaany looked as if they could be realized through marriage rather than war. Frederick’s able but ruthless son, Henry VI, detained Richard the Lion-Hearted simply because he needed a ready source of cash to unite his empire. Richard happened to be taking the land route home from crusading and was a convenient target. Henry pursued his father’s Italian policy by marrying the heiress to the kingdoms of Naples and Sicily. Before he died at the young age of 32, his wife produced a son, Frederick II, who became one of the most remarkable figures in medieval history.
The Holy Roman Emperors’ Italian ambitions were countered by popes, who remained strong advocates of papal independence. The Church continued building its political power in the 12th and early 13th centuries. Gregory VII and his successors had put the papacy in a good position to take control of its own bishops and abbots. Popes exercised greater power over the appointment of the bishops and kept in contact with their appointees. In this way, they directed both the spiritual and financial interests of the Church throughout Europe.
In Rome itself, they established a central bureaucracy to handle their far-flung interests. In addition to the College of Cardinals, the popes developed special bureaus that dealt with papal finances; a judicial branch
That specialized in appeals to the pope for divorces, annulments ofmarriages, andother matters of spiritual guidance; and a chancery that handled diplomatic issues. The bureaucrats of the papal government also developed special ways of writing and special seals so that the directives and letters that came out of their ofhces could not be easily counterfeited. Papal bulls, as the ofhcial directives were called, had nothing to do with the male bovine, but rather took their name from the lead seal or bulla (a knob) that was attached to the documents to authenticate them.
The most notable pope of the late 12th and early 13th centuries was Innocent III. He represented a new type of clergyman. Innocent had studied theology at the University of Paris and church law at the University of Bologna. His legal training was very helpful to the Church, which was expanding its bureaucracy throughout Europe and entering into political fights with the European monarchs. After becoming pope at the comparatively young age of 37, he had the energy and intelligence to accomplish much during his papacy (1198-1216).
Among Innocent Ill’s political goals was to ensure that the German emperor respected the pope’s authority and left Rome in peace. He feared that an aggressive Holy Roman emperor could take control of the papacy because Henry VTs marriage gave the family domination over Germany to the north and Naples to the south. Citing the coronation of Charlemagne as emperor, Innocent claimed that as pope he had the authority to intervene in the election of the German emperor. He thought that
Frederick, Henry Vi’s young son, would bend to his guidance. By 1209, Frederick II was old enough to be made emperor, and Innocent extracted three promises from him; He would follow the spiritual direction of the pope; he would lead a crusade; and he would abdicate as king ofNaples and Sicily and sever that territory from the Holy Roman Empire once he had gained control over his German possessions.
In England, Innocent played a more proactive role. John I hadhis own candidate for the position of Archbishop of Canterbury, but Innocent insisted on the appointment of Stephen Langton. Innocent excommunicated John and even threatened to encourage Philip II Augustus to invade England. John engaged in a series of unsuccessful campaigns to regain Normandy that proved very costly. In order to raise money for his batdes, he forced
The Holy Roman Empire
The imperial title of the Carolingians was abandoned in 924, but was revived in 962 by the emperor of Germany, Otto the Great. His realm is known to historians as the Holy Roman Empire. Despite its name, the Holy Roman Empire had little in common with the Roman Empire. In fact, it was geographically located, for the most part, in an area that had included no Roman settlement.
As a political unit, the Holy Roman Empire survived until 1806. Its unity relied on the wealth and personality of the emperor rather than on common institutions or even common languages, since Slavs, Hungarians, Bohemians, and Italians were all part of the empire. Its governance was weak compared with that of England and France, and its inhabitants developed no sense of a collective identity. If the emperor was strong and
Aggressive, the empire played a prominent role in European politics, but if the emperor was involved in internal civil wars, it was not a great power.
The German nobility continued to claim the right to elect the emperor, and they were often inclined to elect the weakest candidate that they could find from the royal family. Nonetheless, some notable figures held the tide, including Frederick I and his grandson, Frederick II.
Frederick II, king of Sicily and emperor of Germany, was a threat to the power of Rome and the Papacy. He holds an orb, a symbol of the globe and the emperor's control over it.
The English nobility and townspeople to pay more taxes than they had ever paid before. When they refused, he used extortion. He insisted on turning a profit on every feudal right that he had over the nobility. For instance, he sold the right to marry noble widows. The right to marry went to the man who would pay the most money for the privilege ofusing the widow’s dower (one-third of her former husband’s property). For a fee, he also allowed guardians of noble orphans to keep an orphan’s property beyond his or her 21st birthday, the age oflegal maturity. But faced with the possibility of revolt and invasion from the French king, John agreed to become Innocent’s vassal.
In 1214 John and one of the German princes, who was a contender for the title of emperor, joined forces against Philip II Augustus at the battle of Bouvines. Philip won once again, and John returned to England in disgrace. The English nobility was no longer willing to accept his government and, under the leadership of Archbishop Stephen Langton, the nobles, townsmen, and knights banded together and defeated John at the battle of Runnymede in 1215. They then drew up a series of demands that have become known as the Magna Carta, and they insisted that John sign the document.
The Magna Carta (hteraUy, the “great charter”) derived its name from the large piece ofparchment on which it was written rather than from its historical significance. Most clauses of the Magna Carta dealt with John’s abuses of his power over the nobility and of his feudal rights as king. It held, for instance, that the king could levy taxes if they were customary, but extra taxes required the consent of the kingdom. It also addressed abuses involving the remarriage of widows and the property of heirs and heiresses.
Although some nobles dishked the judicial reforms the Magna Carta embodied, they were very popular among the townspeople, lesser nobles, and knights. One of the clauses, for example, read that “all free men shall be tried by ajury of their peers.” This provision ensured the continuance of thejury system. In a larger historical framework, the Magna Carta is seen as the beginning of the constitutional monarchy in England because it preserved the j ury and stated that the king could not be above the laws of the land, but rather must abide by them. Various monarchs fought against this type ofconstitutional monarchy, but political events in the 13th and 14th centuries only made the principle more binding.
Pope Innocent defended his vassal against the English nobility, claiming that John had signed the Magna Carta under duress and therefore should not be bound by it. When he died a few years later from consuming too many fresh peaches with cider, John left a nine-year-old son, Henry 111(1216-1272), as king. Because Henry was too young to rule, the nobility selected nobleman William Marshall to act as regent and formed a council that would rule according to the Magna Carta.
Pope Innocent, meanwhile, called a council of bishops and leading church figures to the Lateran Palace in Rome in 1215 to address reforms of church practices. Among the matters affecting the laity of Europe was the role of clergy in determin-
Ing the guilt or innocence of those accused of crimes. Until the Lateran Council, the accused were subjected to ordeals by fire or water or trials of combat. In an ordeal by fire, the person on trial would walk through a fire or carry a hot iron object. In an ordeal by water, he or she was thrown into a body of water. Before the trial began, a priest blessed the fire or water and asked God to allow the innocent to go unscathed. If the person was innocent, he or she would not be burned by the fire or would sink in the water. The guilty would float, having been rejected by the blessed water. In trial by battle, the innocent man would win and the guilty man would lose, whatever the natural advantages of either fighter.
Pope Innocent and his advisers believed that the presence of priests gave credence to these superstitious procedures. Furthermore, the ordeals did not prove very much. In a well-known example from the First Crusade when the army was besieged in Antioch, a man was told in a dream that if he dug in a certain place in a church, he would find the lance that had pierced Jesus’ side. Not convinced that his dream was true, he told no one. But when he had the same dream three times, he consulted a priest. Together they dug as directed and found a lance. Many crusaders were skeptical about this “miracle,” but their leaders were hard-pressed and decided to use the lance as a rallying symbol. Carrying it before them, they led a successful attack on the Turkish army outside the city walls. But the skeptics and the believers both wanted proof The man who found it was to undergo the ordeal by fire. A hot bed of coals was prepared, and the lance was wrapped in cloth. The finder walked across the coals carrying the lance. Surely, the spectators reasoned, Jesus would protect the man if it was the tme lance. But even when the poor man died, the sides were not reconciled. The skeptics believed that he died from his bums. But the believers argued that although he had made it across the coals safely
The Magna Carta is named for the size of the parchment it is written on rather than for its importance in constitutional history. Although considered the fundamental document of constitutionalism in the English-speaking world, it is really a reiteration of feudal rights and legal procedures that the barons forced John I to confirm.
World History
