Talk:Trial by drowning

The reason for placing an accuracy dispute on the article is that this story has no sourcing and is never told with a source: it has the marks of an historical urban legend.

According to Kempin's Introduction to Anglo-American Legal System's In A Nutshell, a West legal text, the actual practice in an "ordeal of cold water" was to hurl the tied-up victim into a body of water. If the water received the defendant, he was innocent and hopefully pulled out of the water and freed. Kempin notes that the historical record indicates a preponderance of acquittals. Also per Kempin, this was not a method of trial exclusive to charges of witchcraft, but was for villeins and other "unfree" people in medieval England.

The other reason the "trial by drowning" story smells phony is that it assumes that medieval legal authorities were really stupid: anyone with half a brain can figure out that everyone tried by this method would die. 209.149.235.241 23:52, 30 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Also, ordeal was a dead duck after the [Fourth Lateran Council], yet the major witch hunts of Europe didn't start until a century or two after that. It sounds like someone made it up after a half-remembered story about ordeals. Francis Davey 20:22, 28 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Although I agree with 209.149.235.241 that medieval legal authorities were not stupid (and I also suspect the story is an urban legend) it is a mistake to apply the modern concepts of cause and effect, and evidence to the medieval period. I have read that Frankish legal disputes were sometimes solved by plunging the hand of the accused into boiling water. If the blisters became infected the person was guilty and dealt with appropriately. This was only a few centuries before the period claimed to resort to "Trial by Water". We need more evidence one way or the other. Robertbrockway 23:35, Nov 22 2004 (UTC)

What you're referring to, the "ordeal of hot water", is also covered in Kempin. Since no other sources have been cited to prove that trial by drowning ever took place in the manner stated in the article, I am removing the factual dispute and putting that it was an urban legend. Ellsworth 19:52, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)


 * There is an example in the autobiography of Usamah ibn-Munqidh, where the crusaders subject a Muslim criminal to this ordeal (he didn't sink, and he was blinded as punishment). I'm sure there are more examples; it's certainly not an urban legend. Adam Bishop 01:33, 1 April 2006 (UTC)


 * What is objected to is the idea that if you sink you drown, but if you float you are executed (i.e. its a no-win situation). That is clearly nonsense. Its not how ordeal by cold water worked, nor how witch trials were carried out, nor is it credible that the Mediaevals were as stupid as that. Obviously to our mind treating whether someone sinking or floating as being determinative of guilty seems odd, but it made sense to them. The example you give is of someone not sinking and being punished. No-one argues that that is something that happened (though decreasingly after the fourth lateran council). I will revert unless someone finds either a source or example of this having happened. Francis Davey 10:48, 1 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Oh, I see...I misunderstood. Yeah, I don't know of any trials by water where the person was executed if they floated. Adam Bishop 16:36, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Not sure if this adds to the discussion regarding this practice, but here is an interesting story from the washington post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/11/AR2006071101218.html

It is really disingenuous to emphatically state that this is an urban legend. Just because it *sounds* like one to *you* does not make it so. Surely you would not want to positively state that the entry is urban legend without a proper reference would you? The entry already makes it clear that it was "allegedly used". Let's leave the Kempin discussion in tact and let the reader judge. Nablad 08:41, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Erroneous name
Kempin isn't discussing any such thing as a "trial by drowning". What he is discussing, trials by ordeal and petit juries, we already have better covered at trial by ordeal. Ironically, it is the World Wide Web, and even Wikipedia itself, that is the major source of this erroneous name. Uncle G (talk) 16:47, 10 November 2010 (UTC)