Brown cover

De Re Militari | Book Reviews

Vickie L. Ziegler

Trial by Fire and Battle in Medieval German Literature

Rochester NY. Camden House [Boydell]. 2004). Pp.xiii + 234. ISBN 1-57113-291-0. $75/£50.

This book is a study of a series of vernacular German medieval works in which the ordeal plays a major role. The stories are fictional, but Ziegler argues that the manner of the telling is highly revealing of contemporary attitudes. In each case, because of the high rank of the people concerned or the particular circumstances, an element of treason enters in, and this provides an added interest. Medieval people believed in an imminent God. Those who went on the First Crusade recorded their experiences and regarded their failures as God's punishment for their sins and their successes as his forgiveness for their contrition, while saints travelled the eastern Mediterranean to enquire into and reward or punish their conduct. Charlemagne was deeply convinced that God's aid could be invoked in the name of justice and imported the ordeal into European law codes. Judicial procedure sought proof, but this was, as Ziegler points out (p.1), extremely difficult. In fact, the ordeal was used sparingly, and only after enquiry and oath-taking had failed to produce a convincing result. The ordeal came in two forms:

There was always doubt about the whole business in clerical circles because in both processes man seemed, in a sense, to be conjuring God. But clerics really disliked trial by battle because of its violence and because they feared being required to participate if they were involved in a legal process. By contrast, their objection to the unilateral ordeal was far stronger, because God was expected to interfere at man's behest, in the natural order of things – by providing that the iron would not burn the innocent or the water not drown them. But the persistence of trial by battle was surely due to another factor which Ziegler does not note – that it became particularly associated with the upper class from whom many senior clergy were drawn. This made it virtually impossible to stop, even though it was open in principle to the charge of manipulating God. Trial by battle was, in a wider sense, seen as a way by which God delivered His judgement on human affairs. Count Fulk le Réchin of Anjou recorded that when he and his brother were rivals for the county of Anjou they met in battle at Brissac in 1068: ‘I fought with him in a pitched battle in which, by God's grace, I overcame him.' [1] For long, victory in battle, whether individual or collective, was viewed as the judgement of God and seen as validating the feud and its continuation in the duel. Even to this day the outcome of war is often seen as God's judgement. By contrast, the unilateral ordeal was virtually killed by the decision of Fourth Lateran that clergy should be prohibited form participating. This owes much to the thinking of Peter Chanter who had, as Ziegler comments (p.151) taught Innocent III at Paris.

But, as Ziegler also shows, belief in the ordeal was deeply founded and died hard. In the Kaiserchronik, written c.1150, Richardis, the queen of Charles the Fat, is presented as volunteering to undergo the unusual ordeal of being clad in a wax-shirt which was ignited. The author shows only limited interest in the legal aspects of the process because his main concern was to validate the glory of a saintly woman. The author of Heinrich und Kunegunde, writing about the time of Fourth Lateran, also took a fictional story of a queen accused of impurity, but has given it a quite different ‘spin'. Kunegunde chooses to refute her accusers by walking on red-hot ploughshares, a form of ordeal associated with accusations of adultery. But this author was deeply interested in the actual legal process, something he shares with most of the other writers covered in this book. It would appear that the decision of Fourth Lateran was not universally welcomed, something which is hardly surprising in an age which believed so firmly in an imminent God. But by about 1230 Der Stricker wrote a satire, Das heisse Eisen (pp.168-70) poking fun at the peasantry for their belief in the ordeal of the hot iron; by that time the Fourth Lateran's prohibition had obviously been accepted by educated people, at least ones as interested in the law as this author evidently was.

In the same period Gottfried of Strasbourg produced his celebrated version of Tristan und Isolde. This features two trials by ordeal: of Tristan by battle and Isolde by the ordeal of the hot iron. Gottfriede has very different attitudes to these two events. He discredits ordeal subtly, by showing Isolde's manipulation of the oath and the procedure for her own ends- despite her evident guilt. By contrast, Tristan undergoes trial by battle to clear his name, and this is depicted as a clear and honest procedure. Gottfriede was, of course, writing fiction, but he used it to examine current themes, and in this case the evolving legal attitude to the ordeal. He had been at Paris and, like Innocent III had studied under Peter the Chanter, so his attitude is highly explicable.

The most important of the vernacular writers discussed at length in this book are those whose works were inspired by the Charlemagne cycle best known to most people from the Song of Roland. This was first introduced into German by Konrad's Rolandslied. Der Stricker's Karl der Grosse (1215-30) and the anonymous late fourteenth century Karlmeinet have often been dismissed as mere copyists who add nothing to the poetic tradition. Ziegler argues convincingly, however, that they are much more than this. Both these writers adapted the Roland story very liberally in order to expound particular themes. Der Stricker's Karl der Grosse (1215-30) lays considerable emphasis on the treason trial of Genelun. In a very long treatment, Der Stricker shows considerable knowledge of legal processes as they related to the trial by battle. But even more interesting is the way in which imperial authority, as embodied in the person of Charlemagne, is threatened by the noble clan of Genelun who manage to cow many of the imperial nobility of the court, though not the emperor himself. Moreover, Charlemagne's royal authority is shown in opposition to traditional German compensatory justice (p.52), when Genelun's family offers compensation for the killing of Roland: ultimately they are made to submit to royal justice, though in the process Der Stricker makes much of the dramatic tension. The power of kin-groups and the sheer utility of compensatory justice meant that it survived for a very long time in medieval Europe. In a celebrated article, the late Rhys Davies showed that although English lawyers had completely forgotten wehrgild by 1281, it was a living tradition in Wales. In 1365 Dafydd ab Einon's kin were allowed to compensate the family of a man he had killed and so to avoid the royal court, and such cases continued into the fifteenth century. [2]

The anonymous author of the Karlmeinet also lays considerable emphasis on the treason trial of Wellis, his Genelun-figure. But although the anonymous clearly knew something of the law his emphasis is quite different. For him Wellis is in no position to resist the emperor and must submit to his judgement. What he dwells upon are the horrors of the punishment. For one of the consequences of the abolition of the trial by ordeal was the resurrection of torture. After the effective abolition of the unilateral ordeal in 1215 lawyers sought new means of proof and discovered them in the Roman Codes which sanctioned torture. Ziegler argues that this had an enormous impact upon depictions of Christ's sufferings (and those of the saints) in the later Middle Ages, and that this is here reflected in the author's rather gruesome dwelling upon the eventual fate of Wellis. Thus changing legal concepts and ideas are reflected in the way in which a great story like that of Roland was told. Ziegler lays considerable emphasis upon the legal expertise of these writers. It would be fascinating to know who commissioned the works, what they wanted and the degree to which they influenced what was written, but it is unlikely that such information will ever come our way.

This is a fascinating and learned study. The Introduction provides a sharp and clear summary of the changes in legal procedure which are at the heart of the book. The inclusion in the appendices of short synopses of the plots of the works Ziegler analyses is very useful indeed. However, the main body its argument is rather fragmented, with works being discussed serially, and this makes any coherent argument hard to follow. The author demonstrates immaculate technique and great learning: the footnotes are very impressive. Perhaps this could be applied more widely. Some years ago, J.Flori suggested that the roots of chivalry were to be found in Germany. [3] This idea has not found universal approbation. Ziegler has the expertise to produce a substantial analysis of this difficult topic. In the meantime this book is a considerable contribution to our understanding of legal perception and a revelation of the speed of change in the Middle Ages.

Notes

    1. L.Halphen and R.Poupardin (eds), Chroniques des comtes d'Anjou et des seigneurs d'Amboise (Paris, 1913), 237 tr. J.Gillingham, "William the Bastard at War", in Studies in history presented to R.Allen Brown, ed. C.Harper-Bill, J.Holdsworth and J.Nelson (Woodbridge: Boydell,1986), 147.
    2. R.R.Davies, "The Survival of the Bloodfeud in Medieval Wales", History 54 (1969), 347 (338-57).
    3. J.Flori, L'essor de la chevalerie (Geneva : Droz, 1986) p.267.

John France

University of Swansea <[email protected]>

Page Added: October 2005