defamatory libels impugning the authenticity of the relics, and finally persuaded Count Baldwin to have them tested by the ordeal of fire. This was accordingly done, and the genuineness of the holy remains was proved to the satisfaction of all. Bochard and his descendants continued inveterately hostile to St. Rotruda and her monks, but all, without exception, were compelled, upon their death-beds, to contribute a portion of their substance to her honor.[997] The custom continued even until the sixteenth century was well advanced. In the Jeronymite monastery of Valdebran in Catalonia, a piece of the true cross bears inscription that its genuineness was tested with fire by Archbishop Miralles on October 2, 1530.[998] The persistency of popular belief in this method of ascertaining guilt or innocence is seen as recently as 1811, when a Neapolitan noble, suspecting the chastity of his daughter, exposed her to the ordeal of fire, from which she barely escaped with her life.[999] CHAPTER V. THE ORDEAL OF COLD WATER. The cold-water ordeal (_judicium aquæ frigidæ_) differed from most of its congeners in requiring a miracle to convict the accused, as in the natural order of things he escaped. The preliminary solemnities, fasting, prayer, and religious rites, were similar to those already described; holy water sometimes was given to the accused to drink; the reservoir of water, or pond, was then exorcised with formulas exhibiting the same combination of faith and impiety, and the accused, bound with cords, was slowly lowered into it with a rope, to prevent fraud if guilty, and to save him from drowning if innocent.[1000] According to Anglo-Saxon rule, the length of rope allowed under water was an ell and a half;[1001] in one ritual it is directed that a knot be made in the rope at a distance of a long hair from the body of the accused, and if he sinks so as to bring the knot down to the surface of the water, he is cleared;[1002] but in process of time nice questions arose as to the precise amount of submergence requisite for acquittal. Towards the close of the twelfth century we find that some learned doctors insisted that sinking to the very bottom of the water was indispensable; others decided that if the whole person were submerged it was sufficient; while others again reasoned that as the hair was an accident or excrement of the body, it had the privilege of floating without convicting its owner, if the rest of the body was satisfactorily covered.[1003]