The _bleeding of a corpse_ was another proof of guilt in superstitious ages; nor is the custom yet entirely abolished. If a person were murdered, it was believed, that at the touch or approach of the murderer, the blood gushed out from various parts of the body. By the side of the bier, if the smallest change was perceptible in the eyes, mouth, feet or hands of the corpse, the murderer was conjectured to be present, and many innocent persons doubtless must have suffered death from this idle chimera; for when a body is full of blood, warmed by a sudden external heat and symptoms of ensuing putrefaction, some of the blood vessels will burst, as they will all in time. This practice was once allowed in England, and is still looked on in some of the uncivilized parts of these kingdoms as a means of detecting the criminal. It forms a rich picture in the imagination of our old writers; and their histories and ballads are laboured into pathos by dwelling on the suppositious phenomenon. All these absurd institutions, Robertson observes, cherished and inculcated, form the superstitions of the age believing the legendary histories of those saints who crowd and disgrace the Roman calendar. These fabulous miracles had been declared authentic by the bulls of the Popes, and the decrees of Councils—they were greedily swallowed by the populace; and whoever believed that the Supreme Being had interposed miraculously on those trivial occasions mentioned in legends, could not but expect his intervention in matters of greater importance when solemnly referred to his decision. Besides this ingenious remark, the fact is, that these customs were a substitute for written laws, which that barbarous period had not; and as it is impossible for any society to exist without _laws_, the ignorance of the people had recourse to these customs, which bad and absurd as they were, served to terminate controversies which might have given birth to more destructive practices. Ordeals are, in fact, the rude laws of a barbarous people, who have not obtained a written code, and not advanced enough in civilization, to embrace the refined investigations, the subtle distinctions, and elaborate inquiries, which are exacted by a Court of Law. It may be presumed, that these ordeals owe their origin to that one of Moses, called the “Waters of Jealousy.” The Greeks also had ordeals, for we read in the Antigonus of Sophocles, that the soldiers offer to prove their innocence by handling red hot iron, and walking between fires.