The ordeal or 'judgments of God "were neither more nor less than those tests, especially made to the accused to prove his
innocence. The origin of the ordeal is lost in the mists of time, and was common among primitive peoples, but in the Middle Ages that took importance in our civilization. In the slow path of society towards the ordeal is ideal justice legal babble of men who strive to regulate their conflicts through a different path than the use of brute force, and the history of law is an important step towards forward. Until then, what prevailed was the law of the strongest, and while testing with the ordeal of the force continues, is placed under the sign of powers superior to men. Several systems were in use at the ordeal. Germanic law stated that this form of combat was consensual if the dispute concerned fields, vineyards or money, was prohibited insulting and it was necessary to appoint two persons responsible for deciding the case in a duel. The ordeal by poison was little known in Europe, probably because of the lack of a suitable toxic good for this type of justice, but was used sometimes curious proof of bread and cheese, which was already practiced in the second century in some parts of the Roman Empire. The accused, before the altar, should eat a certain amount of bread and cheese, and the judges were holding that if the accused was guilty, God would send one of his angels to tighten the throat so that she could not swallow what I ate. The test of the iron, however, was very popular. The defendant must take his hands a red-hot for some time. In some ordeals was prescribed that should be hand carried, this iron time to serve seven steps and then examined their hands to discover if they had signs of burns accusing the guilty. The hot iron was often replaced by water or boiling oil or molten lead. In the first case the ordeal was to hand pick a heavy object that was at the bottom of a pot of boiling water in the event that the hand might be harmless, the defendant was presumed innocent. In 1215, in Strasbourg, numerous persons suspected of heresy were sentenced to be burned after an ordeal with a hot iron that had been the culprits. It was the punishment imposed on the mother of the King of England Edward the Confessor, who passed the test. The ordeal by water was very popular in Europe to acquit or convict the defendants. It was felt that if floated he was guilty, and if, by contrast, went down, was innocent, because it was thought that water was always ready to welcome into its bosom rejected an innocent while the guilty. Therefore, in the ninth century Hincmar of Reims, archbishop of the city, recommended mitigating evidence tying a rope to each of those who were subjected to this ordeal to be avoided if they sank, that "for too long drink. This test was widely used in Europe with the people accused of witchcraft. In all civilizations, the ordeals they had a magical origin were entrusted to the priests, chosen as communicators between man and divinity, and when the Church assumed with his spiritual power plots of temporal power, had to scrounge a lift with the responsibility of a habit that was difficult to make disappear quickly, and suddenly failing to prohibit progressively worked to modify their use magic to make him lose the aspect that the church considered too neighbor to witchcraft. The ordeal was then practiced as an appeal to divine providence so that it weighs about the fighting or in general, and the bishops took pains to humanize everything there was to be cruel and arbitrary. During the second half of the twelfth century Pope Alexander III forbade the trials of boiling water, the iron and even the "duel of God and the Fourth Lateran Council, under Pope Innocent III forbade all forms of ordeal except of fighting: "Nobody can bless or consecrate a test with boiling water or cold or hot iron." Many times the colonial authorities had to intervene to prohibit this type of action, but without much result.