The Ordeal / Henry Charles Lea.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Lea, Henry Charles, author.

Contributor:

Howland, Arthur E.

Peters, Edward.

Series:

The Middle Ages Series

Standardized Title:

Superstition and force. pt. 3

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Law, Medieval.

Ordeal.

Genre:

Electronic books.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (230 pages)

Place of Publication:

Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, [2016]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

Henry Charles Lea was one of the first American historians to use what would later be termed comparative and anthropological approaches to history. Under his pen, the study of the medieval ordeal becomes a study in cultural history.Reprinted here from the fourth revised edition of 1892, the book begins by tracing the role of the ordeal in non-Western and ancient societies, showing the mental world to which it belongs: a limited trust in the public order and purely human methods of inquiry, and a larger faith in divine intervention and immanent justice. The work then describes the uses of the institution through the European Middle Ages to its final abolition, and in the process offers a rich typology of ordeals. Additional documents included in this edition present formulas and descriptions of some of the ordeals most frequently used: the ordeal by boiling water, by hot water, by cold water, by hot iron and water, by glowing plowshares, by fire, and the ordeal of the cross.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Introduction

I. Universal Invocation of the Judgment of God

II. Ordeal of Boiling Water

III. Ordeal of Red-Hot Iron

IV. Ordeal of Fire

V. Ordeal of Cold Water

VI. Ordeal of the Balance

VII. Ordeal of the Cross

VIII. The Corsnæd

X. Ordeal of the Lot

XI. Bier-Right

XII. Oaths as Ordeals

XIII. Poison Ordeals

XIV. Irregular Ordeals

XV. Conditions of the Ordeal

XVI. Confidence Reposed in the Ordeal

XVII. The Church and the Ordeal

XVIII. Repressive Secular Legislation

Appendix

Notes:

"First published, 1866, as part III, Superstition and force."

Includes bibliographical references.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 25. Jul 2018)

ISBN:

1-5128-1749-X

OCLC:

755240994