Robert Bartlett
Oxford University Press (Clarendon Press), 1999, (reprint of 1986 ed.)
Book Number 22425
The first monograph on the subject, this book examines the workings of trial by ordeal from its first appearance in barbarian law codes, through its use by Christian societies down to its last days as a test for witchcraft in modern America and Europe. Bartlett presents a critique of recent theories about the operation and decline of the ordeal as a working institution and explains its disappearance.