The purgation commonly employed by water was either by hot water or by cold. That by hot or boiling water is known to have been received in the laws of the Lombards, Saxons, Rhenish peoples, and Frisians; and it crept in through a bad imitation of the cup of jealousy which Moses had introduced among the Jews. But this boiling water was brought in by the devil’s persuasion; that cup of bitter herbs, however, was instituted by God, who alone knows and judges the hidden things of the heart and cannot lie when he indicates them. Moses had promised that God would in this way disclose the truth. No such promise is present in the judgment of water; therefore by a depraved custom and a perverse imitation it was introduced abusively.
[margin: Lombard, Saxon, Rhenish, and Frisian laws on water purgation; Numbers 5 on the jealousy-water rite; Jerome on 1 Samuel 6; Cyril, Theodore, Josephus, Philo, and Seneca on the jealousy-water tradition]
For what Blessed Jerome records on 1 Samuel, chapter 6, in these words, “and they drew water and poured it out before the Lord,” is this: “The Hebrews hand down that before the Lord cursed things were heaped together in that same water; and just as under the law a jealous woman was tested by drinking water, so also idolaters were tested by this water. For those who denied that they had worshiped idols also hand down that whoever, being an idolater, had tasted this water had his lips so adhere to one another that the idolater could in no way separate them. By this sign the idolater was detected and killed. The following words also show this, when he says, ‘Samuel judged the children of Israel in Mizpah.’ In this place ‘to judge idolaters’ must be understood as handing them over to death according to the law. They also say that Moses tested in this way the idolaters who had made themselves the calf, when he took the calf, burned it, ground it to powder, scattered it into water, and gave it to the children of Israel to drink.”
Since all this rests only on Jewish affirmation, and St. Jerome does not affirm it, he leaves us freedom of belief. I could say in one word, “I do not believe the circumcised.” If it was done, it was done by Moses with God commanding it. But concerning the proof by cold water which these people use there are no revelations, testimonies, or signs of divine command. Therefore the canons most rightly removed it by name.
[margin: Canon-law references to chapters Menna and consuluisti; Aimoinus, History of the Franks, book 5, chapter 34; Carlo Sigonio, On the Kingdom of Italy, book 5]
In the preceding section I briefly touched on Charles the Bald; here I shall narrate the matter more fully and more clearly in the words of Carlo Sigonio and Aimoinus:
When Louis, king of Germany, had died at Frankfurt, Charles the Bald, emperor and king of France, quickly hastened to Aachen and Cologne in order to occupy Lotharingia, which had belonged to his brother and to that brother’s son Lothar. Louis had left three sons: Carloman, Louis, and Charles, surnamed the Fat. Of these, Louis, who had attended his father’s funeral, when he heard that his uncle had entered the borders of his father’s kingdom and had placed camps at the Rhine, was inflamed with anger because he had dared to invade the paternal kingdom. He moved his forces from Frankfurt and took his stand opposite him on the other bank of the Rhine. There, after he first sought right and then favor through envoys and had obtained neither, he sent ten men with hot water, the same number with cold water, and ten others with glowing iron, ordered to test by judgment to which king that realm belonged, which his father Louis had divided with Charles after an oath had been interposed. After they had undergone the tests, when they had suffered no harm, nevertheless they obtained nothing fair.
And so forth, concerning Louis.
But in what manner did they “test”? Certainly by putting the hand into boiling water and not being burned. The ritual prayer usually applied teaches this:
[margin: Bavarian Annals, book 4, cited for the Louis/Charles water and iron judgment; the ritual prayer invokes Daniel’s three youths and Susanna]
God, just judge, strong and patient, you who are the author and lover of justice, who judge equity, judge, Lord, what is just, because your judgments are right; you who look upon the earth and make it tremble. You, almighty Lord, who through the advent of your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, saved the world, and through his Passion redeemed the human race, sanctify this water by boiling fire; you who preserved the three boys, that is, Sidrach, Misach, and Abdenago, when they were sent by order of the king of Babylon into the furnace of fire; most mercifully grant that if any innocent person puts his hand into this boiling water, just as you rescued the three aforesaid boys from the furnace of fire and freed Susanna from a false accusation, so, Lord, you may bring his hand safe and unharmed from it. But if anyone culpable, or with a heart hardened by the devil growing strong within him, presumes to put in his hand, may your most just mercy deign to declare this, so that in his body your power may be manifested and his soul may be saved through penitence.
They therefore did not drink with the mouth but put in the hand. The story which Gregory of Tours narrates also teaches this, concerning a Catholic deacon disputing with an Arian priest and provoking him in this way to confirm the truth of the faith:
Let the truth of the matter be approved by facts. Let a bronze vessel be kindled with fire, and let someone’s ring be cast into boiling water; and whoever lifts it from the boiling wave shall be proved to have pursued justice.
The heretic accepted the condition. Meanwhile the deacon, tempted by a certain distrust, anointed his arm and hand with certain ointments. The heretic refused to undergo the danger; when the Catholic stretched out his arm, the heretic saw that it was smeared with ointments and cried out that his opponent trusted in magical aids, not in faith. A quarrel arose.
As they were thus arguing, another deacon from the city of Ravenna, Hyacinthus by name, came upon them and asked what this quarrel was. When he learned the truth, without delay, drawing his arm from his garments, he plunged his right hand into the bronze vessel. The ring which had been thrown in was very light and small, and it was carried no less by the water than a piece of iron or straw could be by wind. After searching for it long and much, within the space of an hour he found it. Meanwhile that fire under the vessel was burning fiercely, so that, with the water boiling more strongly, the ring could not easily be reached by the hand of the one seeking it. At last it was drawn out. The deacon felt nothing in his flesh; rather, he declares that the bronze vessel itself was cold at the bottom, while at the top it contained the heat of moderate warmth. When the heretic saw this, greatly confounded, he boldly threw his hand into the bronze vessel, saying, “My faith will give me this.” As soon as his hand had been put in, all the flesh, down to the intervals between the bones, was dissolved and ran off; and so the quarrel came to an end.
Thus Gregory, book 1, On the Glory of the Martyrs, chapter 81.
[margin: Gregory of Tours, On the Glory of the Martyrs, book 1, chapter 81; the deacon Hyacinthus of Ravenna; Del Rio then introduces two fuller formulas supplied after the first edition, one from Petrus Pantinus and one noted by Marcus Velser from Iuretus]
After the first edition of this work, I obtained two formulas more exact than that of Aventinus, if they are two and not rather one. The fuller of them was supplied to me by Petrus Pantinus, dean of Brussels, a man distinguished for learning and religion and well deserving of letters; he had carefully copied it in Spain from a certain codex of the royal library, written in Gothic letters at least six hundred years earlier. Of the other, Marcus Velser, a noble man and most knowledgeable in all ancient and modern history, informed me. Iuretus published it from a manuscript codex together with notes on Ivo’s letter. It is appended at the end to a certain Lord Eugenius in these words: “This judgment of water, at the petition of lord Louis the emperor, Blessed Eugenius established, commanding that all bishops, counts, abbots, and every Christian people within his empire should defend this judgment for the innocent, and that the guilty be examined; and that perjurers, while consenting to evil, should not lose their souls.” These words are not merely faulty but very mutilated.
Indeed I suspect this whole matter, and I do not believe that Louis sanctioned any such thing, since in the capitularies of his father Charlemagne the proof by cold water is expressly forbidden. Next, who is that Saint Eugenius, or when did he live? There is no reason to suspect Eugenius of Toledo, though the formula seems the same as that which the Visigoths used. Iuretus’s formula also lacks some of the first prayers and some other things which stood in that Gothic formula. Therefore I shall exhibit it here for you, with the variants from Iuretus written in the margin.
The Exorcism or Blessings of Hot Water, in Which the Hand Is Put to the Judgment of God Begins
When you wish to send men to the proof of the judgment of hot water, first make them enter the church with all humility; and, while they are prostrate in prayer, let the priest say these prayers.
First Prayer
Help, Lord, those seeking your mercy, and give pardon to those confessing. Spare those who supplicate, so that we who are scourged by our own merits may be saved by your compassion. Through our Lord.
Second Prayer
We beseech you, almighty God, look upon the tears of an afflicted people and turn away the wrath of your indignation, so that we who acknowledge the guilt of our weakness may be freed by your consolation. Through our Lord.
Third Prayer
O God, who see that we are destitute of every virtue, guard us within and without, so that we may be protected in body from all adversities and cleansed in mind from depraved thoughts. Through our Lord.
When these prayers have been completed, let them rise together; and in the presence of those men let the priest sing Mass and cause them to offer at that Mass. When they have come to communion, before he communicates them, let the priest question them with an adjuration, and say:
I adjure you, men, by the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and by the Christianity which you have received, and by the only-begotten Son of God whom you believe to be the Redeemer, and by the Holy Trinity, and by the holy Gospel, and by the relics which are laid away in this holy church, that you presume in no way to come to this holy communion, nor by receiving to communicate, if you have done this or that, or have consented to it, or know any truth concerning it, or know who did this.
But if they are silent and say no profession concerning it, let the priest go to the altar and communicate in the accustomed way; afterward let him communicate them. When they communicate before the altar, let the priest say:
May this body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ be for you today for proof.
When Mass has been completed, let the priest go down to the designated place where the examination itself is to be performed. Let him carry with him the book of the Gospels and the cross, and let him sing a short litany. When he has completed that litany, let him exorcize and bless the water before it becomes hot, saying in this way:
I exorcize you, creature of water, in the name of God the Father almighty, and in the name of Jesus Christ his Son, our Lord, so that you may be exorcized water for driving away every power of the enemy, his opposition, and the enemy himself; so that he may not in any way prevail to contain, or contaminate, the justice of God or its manifestation, by the power of him who will come to judge the living and the dead, and the world by fire. Amen.
[margin: The Gothic formula begins the exorcism/blessings of hot water; first, second, and third prayers; adjuration before communion; Gospel, cross, litany, and blessing of the water. The marginal apparatus records Pantinus’s continere, vel contaminare (“to contain or contaminate”), noting that the same wording also occurs below; variants also include omne phantasma, innocence/reputation wording, praesumptuose, and an omnipotens virtus super eum phrasing]
Another
I exorcize you, creature of water, in the name of God the Father almighty, and in the name of Jesus Christ his Son, our Lord, so that you may be exorcized water for driving away every power of the enemy and every phantasm of the devil; so that if this man puts his hand into you and is innocent of this fault, or of the matter about which he is accused, the mercy of almighty God may free him. And if, which God forbid, he is culpable and has presumptuously dared to put his hand into you, may the power of that same almighty God deign to declare this in him, so that every man may fear and tremble before the holy name of the glory of our Lord, who lives and reigns as God through all ages.
Prayer
Lord Jesus Christ, you who are the just, strong, and patient judge, and most merciful, through whom all things were made; God of gods and Lord of lords, you who for us men and for our salvation descended from the bosom of the Father, and from the Virgin Mary deigned to assume flesh, and through your Passion redeemed the world on the cross, and descended to the lower regions, and bound the devil in outer darkness, and by your great power freed from there all the just who were detained there because of original sin: we ask you, Lord, that you deign to send your Holy Spirit from the height of heaven upon this creature of water, which we presume to make boil and grow hot by fire, so that through it you may prove and manifest a right judgment over this man, named N.
We humbly beseech you, Lord: you who in Cana of Galilee by an admirable sign made wine from water by your power, and led the three boys, Sidrach, Misach, and Abdenago, unharmed from the furnace of burning fire, and freed Susanna from a false accusation, and opened the eyes of the man born blind, and raised four-day-dead Lazarus from the tomb, and stretched out your hand to Peter as he was sinking in the sea, do not look upon our sins in this prayer, but deign to manifest your true and holy judgment before all; so that if this man, for this cause of accusation, namely this or that, now puts his hand into this water boiling by fire, and is not culpable of this cause of accusation, you may deign to grant him this, that no injury, no mark, no evil appear in that hand through which, without fault, he incurs slander.
Again, almighty God, we your unworthy and sinful servants humbly beg you, according to your true and right judgment, that you deign to manifest to us in this same place also whether this man, for this cause of accusation, if through some malefice at the devil’s instigation, or with greed or pride inciting him, is culpable in deed or consent, and, trusting in wicked craft, has wished to overturn or violate the judgment of this proof and has presumptuously dared to put his hand into this water. May your mercy declare this, so that it may be recognized in his hand that he acted unjustly; and may he thereafter do penance through true confession and come to amendment, so that your holy and true judgment may be declared among all nations. Through you, Redeemer of the world, who will come to judge the living and the dead and the world by fire. Amen.
[margin: Long hot-water prayer with marginal variants: al. detinebantur; an alternate line around what is seen by fire; al. comprobet ac manifestet; supplices; al. mari; al. in hac oratione; an alternate wording around “men / this hand / this finger”; the named cause as theft, homicide, adultery, lust, or any fault; vel macula; famulitii; al. sanctum; al. reputatus; est nota criminis valens illud; al. factu; hoc comprobat iudicium; taliter hoc declarare dignatur; and a note that the following material is again absent from Iuretus’s manuscript, with Pantinus’s manare and rigare]
Likewise Another Exorcism
But you, creature of water, I adjure you by the living God, by the holy God, who in the beginning separated you from the dry land. I adjure you by the living God, who caused you to flow from the spring of Paradise, ordered you to go out into four rivers, and commanded the whole earth to be watered. I adjure you by him who at Cana of Galilee by his power changed you into wine; who walked over you with his holy feet; who imposed on you the name Siloah. I adjure you by God, who cleansed Naaman the Syrian from his leprosy in you, saying: Holy water, blessed water, water which wash away filth and cleanse sins. I adjure you by the living God, that you show yourself clean and retain no phantasm in you, but become an exorcized spring for putting to flight, emptying out, and proving every falsehood, and for investigating and proving every truth; so that if this man who puts his hand into you has truth, he may receive no injury in you; and if he has falsehood and injustice, his hand may appear burned by fire; so that all men may know the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will come with the Holy Spirit to judge the living and the dead and the world by fire. Amen.
After these things, let him remove the man’s garments and clothe him, or them, in clean garments from the church, that is, in the garment of an exorcist or of a deacon; and let him make them, or him, kiss the Gospel and the cross of Christ. Let him sprinkle over them some of that water; and to those who are about to enter into the examination of God let him give all of them some of that blessed water to drink. When he has given it to each one, let him say:
I give this water to you, or to you all, today for proof.
Then let fires be placed under the cauldrons, and let the priest say these prayers when the water itself begins to grow hot:
In the name of the Holy Trinity. God, just judge, strong and patient, you who are author and creator, clement and merciful, and who judge equity, you judge; you who commanded right judgment to be done, and you look upon the earth and make it tremble. You, almighty God, who through the advent of your only-begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, redeemed the world, who through his Passion aided and saved the human race, sanctify this boiling water, you who under Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, saved the three boys, that is, Sedrach, Misach, and Abdenago, in the furnace of burning fire and drew them out unharmed through your angel. Most merciful ruler, grant that if anyone innocent of this fault or of the cause of his accusation, of homicide, adultery, or theft, should put his hand into this water, he may draw it out safe and unhurt, as you freed the three aforesaid boys and Susanna from a false accusation.
So, almighty Lord, if he is culpable and, with the devil growing strong, has a heart stopped up, and if he has put his hand into this boiling element of yours, may your truth declare this, so that it may be manifested in his body and his soul be saved through penitence. And if he is culpable of this crime and has wished, through some malefice, through herbs, or through diabolical incantations, to hide the fault of this sin, or has believed that he can contaminate or violate your justice, may your magnificent right hand empty out this evil and show the truth of the whole matter. Through you, most merciful Father, who live and reign in the perfect Trinity through all ages.
Another
Let us pray.
Lord God, who freed Blessed Susanna from a false accusation; God, who freed Blessed Thecla from wild beasts; God, who freed St. Daniel from the lions’ den and rescued the three boys from the furnace of burning fire: free the innocent and mark the doers of the deed. Through our Lord.
[margin: Further hot-water exorcism and instructions. Pantinus reads a fuller line equivalent to “that you show yourself clean and exhibit no phantasm in yourself, as above”; another Pantinus variant has ligna, while Del Rio reads ignis. Del Rio discusses the wording around culpae/causae suae reputatione and says he strongly suspects reputatio has several times been written for a barbarous word connected with accusation or challenge, a usage still retained among Spaniards. Pantinus also flags missing words such as creaturae and ingenium]
And the person who puts his hand into the water, at the examination itself, should say the Lord’s Prayer, sign himself with the sign of the cross, and the boiling water itself should quickly be set down above, next to the fire. The judge should weigh the stone tied to a cord, according to measure N., down into the water itself in the accustomed way. And thus the one who enters the examination of judgment should draw it from there in the name of the Lord. Afterward this should be done with great care: the hand should be wrapped, sealed under the judge’s seal, until the third day, when it should be seen and assessed by suitable men.
Behold the whole formula and ritual acts, in which there are many things on account of which the Apostolic See rightly prohibited them. What is said here at the end about the hand wrapped until the third day I would refer to this: they believed that, if by some illusion the hand was injured or uninjured, meanwhile, when the illusion vanished, the truth of the matter would appear.
[margin: The judge’s weighing of the stone and the third-day inspection of the wrapped hand; marginal note debates whether the stone is driven down by pressure or pulled down by a cord, and whether the boiling water itself was examined by the wrapped stone]
As to cold water, I think it was used in the proof in the same way: namely, that God, just as in boiling water he preserved the innocent person’s hand unharmed from burning, with the action of the fire being prohibited, so in cold water he sometimes burned the hand of a guilty person, giving water a contrary action and changing natural coldness into supernatural burning. The writer of the Life of St. Gangulph the Martyr leads me to this conjecture with these words:
Meanwhile they came to a certain spring, Gangulph namely and his wife, where he addressed his wife with these words: “Many things, indeed, are passed around everywhere about you, foul and unworthy of your birth, and yet I am not certain whether they are said truly or falsely.” Then she, ready even to swear, said that false rumors had been spread concerning her, and that she had never been defiled by another’s intercourse. But Gangulph said: “Divine providence, from which nothing escapes, will now declare by certain signs how the matter truly stands. See, a spring has been set before us here, neither very cold nor immoderately hot. Put your hand into it, then, and draw a little stone from the bottom; if you are free from fault, you will suffer no evil, but if you are defiled, God will not allow your crime to lie hidden.” She, assigning these words too, as all his other words, to the blessed man’s folly, without delay put her hand into the spring. But behold, as soon as she tried to gather out the little stone, she grew stiff in almost all her limbs; and in her fingers and arm, as far as the water touched, the skin was drawn away and the naked flesh was seen, and that miserable woman awaited nothing else than sudden death.
[margin: Life of St. Gangulph; Surius, 11 May; Sigebert; Gangulph’s miraculous spring transferred from the countryside of Varennes and the test of his adulterous wife]
Sigebert confirms the same and indicates that this was the spring which Gangulph had miraculously transferred from the countryside of Varennes. After he had left his wife convicted of adultery, he was not long afterward killed by the adulterer at the urging of his wife. Therefore in this purgation they did not look to whether people were drowned in the waters. What I have related about the envoys of King Louis confirms this: for by what arrangement would ten men have carried water with them into which they were to be wholly plunged? Nevertheless Aimoinus narrates that they were sent with cold water. In this way I understand what the Alsatian laws held: that commoners and peasants of lesser testimony should purge themselves by the judgment of cold water.
Yet there was also another proof by cold water, by which someone was wholly plunged into the water; if he emerged a third time, they absolved him as innocent, as the Abbot teaches on the chapter licet, at the end, extra, ne clerici vel monachi, and Afflictus on the Constitutions of the Kingdom of Naples, book 2, title 31. There he deservedly ridicules this custom of Frederick II the emperor. Lothair the emperor had even already forbidden it in the Lombard laws, enacting that the examinations of cold water be everywhere interdicted to all through the envoys and commissioners of the empire, and that they no longer be done; and before him Charles the Great prohibited it in the last book of the capitularies.
[margin: Rhenish/Germanic law on peasants and cold-water judgment; Abbas on chapter licet; Afflictus on Neapolitan Constitutions, book 2, title 31; Frederick II, Lothair, Lombard law, and Charlemagne’s capitularies]
The pontiff, whoever he was, also prohibited it in Gratian; and Lucius judged it invalid in these words:
From the contents of your letters we have understood that, when you had suspended H. the priest from the priestly office because he was accused of homicide, he brought forward the letters of your predecessor, by which it appeared that by the judgment of cold water he had purged his innocence, and that the bishop had absolved him by his letters. But because foreign judgments have been prohibited, and we do not think that the purgation which he furnished suffices, we command, and so forth.
Lucius admits the accusation anew and prescribes canonical purgation by oath. He calls the judgment foreign because it is alien to the canons and to the manner of trials received by the Church. And because water of this kind used to be blessed by clerics, Innocent III in a general council sanctioned this with the very purpose of removing the proof itself, since clerics would not be found for this duty: that no cleric should bestow any rite of blessing or consecration upon purgation by boiling or cold water, or by glowing iron. Chapter sententiam sanguinis, ne clerici vel monachi saeculares, and so forth.
[margin: Gratian’s chapter Menna; Lucius in chapter ex tuarum, on canonical purgation; Innocent III, general council, chapter sententiam sanguinis, forbidding clerical blessing or consecration for hot-water, cold-water, and hot-iron ordeals]
Here, then, you have the formula of blessing from the said Gothic book, together with collations from the formula edited by Iuretus.
The Exorcism of Cold Water Begins
When you wish to send a person to the judgment of cold water for proof, you ought to do it this way. Take those men whom you wish to send into the water. Bring them into the church; and in the presence of them all let the priest sing Mass and make them offer at that Mass. When they come to communion, before they communicate, let the priest question them with this adjuration, and say:
I adjure you, men, by the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and by the Christianity which you have received, and by the Holy Trinity which you have been taught, and by these holy relics or holy veneration which are in this church, that you do not presume to approach this holy altar nor to receive this sacred communion in any way if you have done this cause of your accusation, namely this or that, or have consented, or know who did this.
But if they are silent or say no profession concerning it, let the priest go to the altar and communicate in the accustomed way; afterward let him communicate those who are to be put into the water. When he communicates, let the priest say at the altar:
May this body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ be for you today for proof.
After Mass has been completed, let the priest take the cross, Gospel, and incense, and let them proceed with the sprinkling of blessed water to the designated place where they are to be tested. When they have come to that place, let him give those men blessed water to drink. And when he gives it to each, let him say:
I give this water to you today for proof.
Afterward let him adjure the water where he is to put them, saying thus.
Note that in the following passage our Gothic exemplar is mutilated and must be supplied from the manuscript of Iuretus. Therefore from both I shall fashion, as it were, one formula; nevertheless I shall report the Iuretian reading in the margin, so that I do not confuse them.
[margin: Cold-water formula; Iuretus and Gothic exemplars collated. Marginal variants note “all” or “only-begotten Son of God”; additions about the holy Gospel and holy relics; alternate communion and procession instructions; Iuretus has confusion and repetition in this passage, and Del Rio consciously constructs one formula from both witnesses]
I adjure you, water, in the name of God the Father almighty, who created you in the beginning and commanded you to serve human necessities; who also commanded you to be separated from the waters above. I adjure you by the ineffable name of the Lord, namely Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, beneath whose feet the element offered itself to be trodden; who also willed to be baptized in you, the element of waters. I also adjure you by the Holy Spirit who descended upon the Lord when he was baptized in you. I adjure you by the holy and undivided Trinity, by whose will the element of waters was divided and made the people Israel pass through with dry steps; and at whose invocation Elijah made the iron which had come off from the handle swim upon you. In no way receive these men, named N. and N., if they are culpable in any matter concerning this which is charged against them, that is, either by deed, by consent, or by that device; but make him swim upon you, and let no cause of malefices be able to act against you, nor any illusion of demons be contrived, so that the investigation or manifestation of God can be hidden.
And, water adjured by the name of Christ our God, we command you to obey us in his name, whom every creature serves; whom the Cherubim praise together, saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of hosts; who also reigns and rules through infinite ages of ages. Amen.
The Gallic exemplar more rightly inserts the title:
Adjuration of the Person
I adjure you, man N., by the invocation of our Lord Jesus Christ, by all the angels and archangels, by all the saints of God, by the dreadful day of judgment, by the twenty-four elders who daily praise the Lord, by the four evangelists Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John, by the twelve apostles, by the twelve prophets, by all the holy martyrs of God, by the holy confessors and holy virgins, by the principalities and powers, by the dominions and virtues of the heavens, by the Cherubim and Seraphim, by all the heavenly companies of angels. I adjure you by the three boys, Sidrach, Misach, and Abdenago, and by the one hundred forty-four thousand martyrs who suffered for the name of Christ, and by holy Mary, mother of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by the people of holy God, and by that baptism which regenerated you through the hands of the priest.
I adjure you that if you have done this theft or homicide or adultery, or have been consenting in it, and if you have a heart grown thick and hardened, so that you have believed that you could empty out or overturn this judgment of God’s proof through some malefice, if you are culpable, may your heart vanish and may this water not receive you; and may no evil of the enemy prevail against this element, but may the power of God be manifested or declared in this place through the invocation of our Lord Jesus Christ. On this account, Lord, we earnestly pray you: make such a sign in this person, that if he is culpable of this cause of accusation, the truth of the matter may be declared by this judgment of yours, and that this water may in no way receive him. Do this, Lord, to your praise and glory, through the invocation of your name, so that all may know that you are our blessed and praiseworthy God, through immortal ages of ages. Amen.
[margin: Cold-water adjuration of the water and the person. Del Rio marks the following words as mutilated and faulty; Pantinus reads inimici. A bracketed alternate passage mentions the holy Gospel, the holy cross, all sanctified things, blessed water, fear and reverence, and that the Son of God, from his clemency, provides in the water; Del Rio notes that Iuretus’s codex has nothing further]
After the adjuration of the water, let them be stripped of their garments and clothed in garments of the exorcist, and let him bind their hems on them singly according to right custom. Let him make them kiss the Gospel and the cross; after this let him sprinkle each one of them with this blessed water, say the following adjuration, and immediately throw them one by one into that water. He ought to do all this fasting; and neither they nor those who send them in should eat beforehand.
The Exorcism Follows
I exorcize you, creature of water, in the name of God the Father almighty and in the name of Jesus Christ his Son, our Lord, who reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit, so that you may be exorcized water for driving away and emptying out every power and every phantasm of the devil; so that if this man descends into this water and is innocent of this cause of accusation, the mercy of almighty God may free him and your element may receive him. But if he is culpable and presumptuously descends into this water, may your power deign to be declared in him, so that every man may fear and tremble before the holy name of your glory. Through all ages of ages. Amen. Lord, free the innocent and mark the doers of the deed. Amen.
You have, reader, the whole rite of this proof by cold water, once in use and forbidden by the pontifical canons, not because of the words or the ritual solemnities, which are for the most part pious, although there are some blemishes in them, but because of the thing itself, and because these things had gradually been received by the common people while the Roman pontiffs protested against them. For the pontiffs rightly condemned this rash tempting of God and this almost Jewish demand for a miracle.
It is worth observing that the pontifical prohibition gradually obtained everywhere: first with respect to the other crimes, and then, after the times of St. Bernard, even with respect to heresy. Finally the abuse clung only in the crime of malefice or magic; yet it clung in this crime in such a way that without any invocation of God, without any rite bearing any mark of piety, judges abuse this proof as though in play, though only in certain regions. For today in many places of Germany, especially in the circle of Westphalia, they use this proof for investigating harmful witches. Women whom they hold suspected by rumor or by another person’s deposition they immediately seize without further inquiry; and, once seized, they lead them outside the town and throw them into cold water in such a way that the right hand is bound to the left foot and the left hand to the right foot. If they float above the water, they suspect them more strongly of being poisoners or witches, and therefore subject them to harsher questioning. But if they sink, they believe them to be innocent.
[margin: End of the cold-water rite; Del Rio distinguishes pious ritual words from the illicit ordeal itself and notes the later Westphalian practice of binding suspected witches hand-to-foot and judging by floating or sinking]
Up to this point, concerning this kind of purgation or rather proof, among Catholics, to whom the unimpaired authority of the canons has been well established, it has been agreed that it is unlawful. But the innovators, because they have departed from the Roman Church, have fought wonderfully over it. Adolf Scribonius, a philosopher of Marburg, fiercely defends that it is lawful. Against him not only Weyer and Bodin, but also, in books written on purpose, Johannes Ewichius, Hermann Neuwald, and Augustin Lercheimer, and, from among jurists, Oldendorpius, Hotman, Johann Borcholt, Venatorius, and others whom Godelmann cites and follows, have shown at length that it is unlawful. I do not make much of them, as men of the same sect; but I set heretics against the heretic Scribonius, so that at least the innovators may understand that this is the common opinion of their own people, from which they ought not so rashly to depart in trials.
Afterward there came forth a little book by a certain jurist who, alone and by himself among Catholics, up to this point, so far as I know, has tried in writing to defend this abuse of judgment. The matter is of great importance, and therefore truth must be treated and investigated carefully, not casually, not by an abundance of words but by the weight of reasons. Therefore let it be so.
[margin: Adolph Scribonius of Marburg defends the cold-water proof; opponents include Weyer, Bodin, Johannes Ewichius, Hermann Neuwald, Augustin Lercheimer, Oldendorpius, Hotman, Johann Borcholt, Venatorius, and Godelmann, On Witches, book 3, chapter 4; a Catholic jurist’s defense of the cold-water proof was printed at Cologne by Gymnicus in 1568]