The Customs of Old England — Edition Insights

The Cold Water Ordeal and Its Rationale

Snell describes the cold water ordeal as perhaps the most interesting of all tests. The accused was thrown into a pond or tank, technically called the fossa or pit. If the person floated, they were judged guilty; if they sank, innocent. The author notes that swimming was effectively prevented by binding the accused's thumbs to their toes or tying them hand and foot. He then contrasts two explanations: Grimm's view that the pure element would reject a wrongdoer, and King James I's argument that witches, having renounced baptism, would be rejected by the water of that holy rite. Snell reproduces the full Latin formula of consecration, in which the priest adjures the water not to receive the accused if guilty, and to make him swim above. The excerpt includes the exorcism of the water, invoking the Father who created it and separated it from the waters above.

The Corsned: Consecrated Bread and Cheese as Judgment

The Judgment of the Morsel, or corsned, involved the accused eating consecrated bread and cheese. Snell details the ritual: the priest wrote the Lord's Prayer on the bread, weighed out ten pennyweights each of bread and cheese, placed a poplar cross under the accused's right foot and another over his head, and threw a tablet inscribed with the theft over his head. The bread and cheese were placed in the accused's mouth simultaneously, while the priest recited a lengthy conjuration invoking the Father, Son, Holy Ghost, the twenty-four elders, patriarchs, prophets, apostles, evangelists, martyrs, confessors, and virgins. The prayer asked that if the accused were guilty, the morsel would not pass the gullet but cause trembling like an aspen leaf and vomiting with blood. Snell also includes a second prayer and exorcism to be repeated three times, addressing the 'most unclean dragon, ancient serpent, dark night.'

Ecclesiastical Formulas and Legal Procedure

Snell's excerpts reveal that these ordeals were not spontaneous folk practices but were embedded in formal ecclesiastical procedure. The prayers and exorcisms are quoted in full, showing a standardized liturgy: the priest adjures the water or the bread and cheese by naming Christ, the saints, and the elements' creation. The language is precise—'I adjure thee, water, in the name of the Father Almighty, who did create thee in the beginning'—and the conditions are explicit: the accused must be guilty 'by deed, or by consent, or by knowledge, or in any way.' Snell does not comment on the effectiveness or fairness of these tests; he presents them as historical evidence of how medieval English society attempted to discern truth through divine intervention. The catalog subject 'England -- Social life and customs -- 1066-1485' is thus illustrated by these detailed legal-religious rituals, which Snell treats as customs worthy of record.

Snell's work is valuable for the primary texts it preserves: the actual words spoken by priests during ordeals. Readers interested in medieval legal history or the intersection of religion and law will find these excerpts a direct window into a worldview where the divine was expected to intervene in courtroom proceedings. The book's broader scope likely covers many other customs, but these passages alone demonstrate the meticulous, formulaic nature of medieval English justice.

I keep thinking about the cold water ordeal in Snell’s book—how innocence was, for a moment, a matter of floating or sinking. It stays with me longer than the formulas. That same quiet inevitability haunts The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle — A Reader’s Guide, where every entry feels like a held breath before the next judgment came down.