Why Trial by Ordeal was like a medieval polygraph

[Medievalist]

@YetiLives

Three things come to mind here… one, why is not the water boiling? I’m thinking many of these Medieval torture guys just did it for the sake of torturing, no real evidence of guilt needed. I would think the water would be extra hot.

I’m sure you’re right that many torturers did enjoy the job, just like today, but history shows that many people did pass the test, and were not boiled or burned. The easiest explanation for non-believers is that the test was rigged.

Two, admitting to guilt in days of old when cauldrons of scalding water was the litmus test, I’m thinking, paying a fine would not be the punishment one would receive. More likely they would just go ahead and scald your hand off or cut it off, if not thrown in a dank, dark dungeon for your crime.

Although it varies wildly with time and place (just like today) Medieval punishments weren’t uniformly, grotesquely more harmful than modern ones. That’s just something that modern authorities want you to believe in order to excuse their own routine cruelties like waterboarding, life imprisonment, institutional rape, &etc.

Three… if the Christian believer has faith the Lord would save their limb from being boiled off and the truth is revealed that the Lord was having tea at that particular time and indeed, the innocent persons hand was scalded to the bone, would that said person lose faith and become a Satanist?

Although this no doubt happened from time to time, I believe it’s more common to become an atheist in such circumstances. Satanists haven’t lost their faith, they’ve just transferred allegiance to a different character in the same mythos.