The ingenuity of the church and the superstition of the people increased somewhat the varieties of the ordeal which we have seen employed in the East. Besides the judicial combat, the modes by which the will of Heaven was ascertained may be classed as the ordeal of boiling water, of red-hot iron, of fire, of cold water, of the balance, of the cross, of the _corsnœd_ or swallowing bread or cheese, of the Eucharist, of the lot, bier-right, oaths on relics, and poison ordeals. In some of these, it will be seen, a miraculous interposition was required for an acquittal, in others for a condemnation; some depended altogether on volition, others on the purest chance; while others, again, derived their efficacy from the influence exerted over the mind of the patient. CHAPTER II. THE ORDEAL OF BOILING WATER. The ordeal of boiling water (_æneum, judicium aquæ ferventis, cacabus, caldaria_) is the one usually referred to in the most ancient texts of laws. It was a favorite both with the secular and ecclesiastical authorities, and the manner in which the pagan usages of the ancient Aryans were adopted and rendered orthodox by the Church is well illustrated by the commendation bestowed on it by Hincmar, Archbishop of Reims, in the ninth century. It combines, he says, the elements of water and of fire; the one representing the deluge—the judgment inflicted on the wicked of old; the other authorized by the fiery doom of the future—the day of judgment, in both of which we see the righteous escape and the wicked suffer.[881] There were several minor variations in its administration, but none of them departed to any notable extent from the original form as invented in the East. A caldron of water was brought to the boiling-point, and the accused was obliged with his naked hand to find a small stone or ring thrown into it; sometimes the latter portion was omitted, and the hand was simply inserted, in trivial cases to the wrist, in crimes of magnitude to the elbow; the former being termed the single, the latter the triple ordeal;[882] or, again, the stone was employed, suspended by a string, and the severity of the trial was regulated by the length of the line, a palm’s breadth being counted as single, and the distance to the elbow as triple.[883] A good example of the process, in all its details, is furnished us by Gregory of Tours, who relates that an Arian priest and a Catholic deacon, disputing about their respective tenets, and being unable to convince each other, the latter proposed to refer the subject to the decision of the _æneum_, and the offer was accepted. Next morning the deacon’s enthusiasm cooled, and he mingled his matins with precautions of a less spiritual nature, by bathing his arm in oil, and anointing it with protective unguents. The populace assembled to witness the exhibition, the fire was lighted, the caldron boiled furiously, and a little ring thrown into it was whirled around like a