Cruentation

Last updated
A body in its coffin starts to bleed in the presence of the murderer in an illustration of the laws of Hamburg in 1497 Hamburger Stadtrecht (1497).jpg
A body in its coffin starts to bleed in the presence of the murderer in an illustration of the laws of Hamburg in 1497

Cruentation (Latin : ius cruentationis 'law of bleeding' or ius feretri sive sandapilae 'law of the bier') was one of the medieval methods of finding proof against a suspected murderer. The common belief was that the body of the victim would spontaneously bleed in the presence of the murderer.

Contents

Cruentation was used in Germanic law systems as early as the medieval period, whence it spread to Germany, Poland, Bohemia, Scotland, and European colonies in North America. [1] The practice is mentioned in the Germanic epic poem Nibelungenlied, which was written around 1200. [2] It continued being used as a method to determine guilt of murder in Germany until the middle of the 18th century. [3]

Use in judicial proceedings

Early modern trials privileged explicit human testimony over forensic evidence, unless that evidence represented the testimony of a divine being (i.e., God). [4] However, not all cases could be resolved simply by obtaining a confession. In cases where it was difficult for the jurors to determine whether someone accused of murder was guilty or innocent, the case could be solved by means of a trial by ordeal. [5] In the case of cruentation, the accused was brought before the corpse of the murder victim and was made to put his or her hands on it. If the wounds of the corpse then began to bleed or other unusual visual signs appeared, that was regarded as God's verdict, announcing that the accused was guilty. [6] At the same time, cruentation alone rarely convicted a suspect; more often, the psychological impact of the test caused the suspect to confess. [7]

Cruentation appears in many texts relating to criminal procedure: the Malleus Maleficarum , or King James VI and I's Daemonologie . [8] [9] Nonetheless, contemporaries drew a distinction between cruentation and (to a modern observer) equally occult practices. Other forms of trial by ordeal vanished during the centuries before cruentation's demise, precisely because they (hubristically) effected divine judgement. [10]

Cruentative procedures became increasingly stringent, [11] and in 1545, Antonius Blancus was the first to question the reliability of cruentation as a practice. [12] Nonetheless, the first published refutation appeared in 1669, more than a century later. [13] Yet Michael Alberti's Systema jurisprudentiae medicae [System of Forensic Medicine], published almost a century later, still encourages investigators to rely on torture and cruentation. [14]

Use in anti-semitism

Cruentation was also commonly cited in medieval Europe as evidence against Jews accused of committing ritual murder. Multiple instances of cruentation are described in Thomas of Cantimpré’s mid-13th century work, Bonum universale de apibus (On Bees). In these stories, Jews are accused of torturing and murdering young Christian children, evocative of the narrative of Jews crucifying Jesus. One of the more notable cases was that of Margaretha, a seven-year-old Christian girl in Germany. While Margaretha's story was described rather vaguely by Thomas of Cantimpré, the tale grew increasingly infamous and detailed as it spread throughout Europe and was elaborated on by later authors.

Thomas claims that a group of Jews purchased Margaretha from her mother; they gagged her, beat her, and slashed her body with knives. Afterwards, the Jews weighed her dead body down to the bottom of a river with stones. A few days later a fisherman found her body and carried it throughout the town, claiming the Jews had committed this malicious act. In the case of Margaretha and other ritual murder stories, as soon as the local Jews were in the presence of the Christian child's corpse, the corpse began to spout blood and occasionally reanimate as if to beg for revenge against their Jewish murderers. The cruentation, Thomas claims, was a testimony to the Jews' guilt.

Cruentation was essential to developing the antisemitic myth of ritual murder and also is related to that of blood libel. Works following the 13th century On Bees describe similar narratives that rely on cruentation as a piece of evidence stacked against Jews accused of the deaths of Christian children in Europe. [15] It is important to note that Thomas never names the little girl; later stories identify her as Margaretha. Additionally, there has been uncertainty surrounding the date and location.

Scientific explanations

As the practice of anatomical dissection became more prevalent, medical professions became increasingly aware of circumstances in which dead bodies could spontaneously emit fluids. As a body begins to decompose, purge fluid begins to accumulate in the lungs. This reddish-brown fluid could leak from the mouth or nose of a corpse as it was moved at a trial. [2]

Views of the Protestant Church

The rise of anatomical approaches to sanguine emissions also coincided with disruption in the theological underpinnings of cruentation. After the Lutheran reformation the practice of cruentation was unwarranted from a legal point of view in Denmark and Norway, and during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries leading theologians of the Danish Church condemned it several times. Nevertheless, cruentation continued to be used well into the eighteenth century, and its outcome continued to be accepted as evidence by law courts – indeed, in a few cases, the ordeal was overseen or even organized by clergymen. Apparently the practice was so popular that it continued to remain judicially sanctioned for some time even when that meant circumventing the official teaching of the Protestant state church. [16]

The Ordeal of the Bier (1881), a scene from a ballad by Janos Arany Gyarfas, Jeno - The Ordeal of the Bier (1881).jpg
The Ordeal of the Bier (1881), a scene from a ballad by János Arany

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Blood libel</span> False claim that Jews killed Christians to use blood in ceremonies

Blood libel or ritual murder libel is an antisemitic canard which falsely accuses Jews of murdering Christians in order to use their blood in the performance of religious rituals. Echoing very old myths of secret cultic practices in many prehistoric societies, the claim, as it is leveled against Jews, was rarely attested to in antiquity. According to Tertullian, it originally emerged in late antiquity as an accusation made against members of the early Christian community of the Roman Empire. Once this accusation had been dismissed, it was revived a millennium later as a Christian slander against Jews in the medieval period. The first examples of medieval blood libel emerged in England in the mid 1100s before spreading into other parts of Europe, especially France and Germany. This libel, alongside those of well poisoning and host desecration, became a major theme of the persecution of Jews in Europe from that period down to modern times.

Witchcraft, as most commonly understood in both historical and present-day communities, is the use of alleged supernatural powers of magic. A witch is a practitioner of witchcraft. Traditionally, "witchcraft" means the use of magic or supernatural powers to inflict harm or misfortune on others, and this remains the most common and widespread meaning. According to Encyclopedia Britannica, "Witchcraft thus defined exists more in the imagination of contemporaries than in any objective reality. Yet this stereotype has a long history and has constituted for many cultures a viable explanation of evil in the world". The belief in witchcraft has been found in a great number of societies worldwide. Anthropologists have applied the English term "witchcraft" to similar beliefs in occult practices in many different cultures, and societies that have adopted the English language have often internalised the term.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Witch-hunt</span> Search for witchcraft or subversive activity

A witch-hunt, or a witch purge, is a search for people who have been labeled witches or a search for evidence of witchcraft. Practicing evil spells or incantations was proscribed and punishable in early human civilizations in the Middle East. In medieval Europe, witch-hunts often arose in connection to charges of heresy from Christianity. An intensive period of witch-hunts occurring in Early Modern Europe and to a smaller extent Colonial America, took place from about 1450 to 1750, spanning the upheavals of the Counter Reformation and the Thirty Years' War, resulting in an estimated 35,000 to 60,000 executions. The last executions of people convicted as witches in Europe took place in the 18th century. In other regions, like Africa and Asia, contemporary witch-hunts have been reported from sub-Saharan Africa and Papua New Guinea, and official legislation against witchcraft is still found in Saudi Arabia and Cameroon today.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Trial by ordeal</span> Medieval judicial practice to determine guilt through a life-threatening experience

Trial by ordeal was an ancient judicial practice by which the guilt or innocence of the accused was determined by subjecting them to a painful, or at least an unpleasant, usually dangerous experience. In medieval Europe, like trial by combat, trial by ordeal, such as cruentation, was sometimes considered a "judgement of God" : a procedure based on the premise that God would help the innocent by performing a miracle on their behalf. The practice has much earlier roots, attested to as far back as the Code of Hammurabi and the Code of Ur-Nammu.

The presumption of innocence is a legal principle that every person accused of any crime is considered innocent until proven guilty. Under the presumption of innocence, the legal burden of proof is thus on the prosecution, which must present compelling evidence to the trier of fact. If the prosecution does not prove the charges true, then the person is acquitted of the charges. The prosecution must in most cases prove that the accused is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. If reasonable doubt remains, the accused must be acquitted. The opposite system is a presumption of guilt.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Leo Frank</span> American Jewish man (1884–1915) wrongfully convicted and lynched

Leo Max Frank was an American lynching victim convicted in 1913 of the murder of 13-year-old Mary Phagan, an employee in a factory in Atlanta, Georgia where he was the superintendent. Frank's trial, conviction, and unsuccessful appeals attracted national attention. His kidnapping from prison and lynching became the focus of social, regional, political, and racial concerns, particularly regarding antisemitism. Modern researchers generally agree that Frank was wrongly convicted.

Not proven is a verdict available to a court of law in Scotland. Under Scots law, a criminal trial may end in one of three verdicts, one of conviction ("guilty") and two of acquittal.

The Tiszaeszlár affair was originally a murder case which was represented in journals as a blood libel that led to a trial that set off anti-semitic agitation in Austria-Hungary in 1882 and 1883. After the disappearance of a local girl, Eszter Solymosi, Jews were accused of murdering and beheading her. A body was found some time later in a river, she having apparently drowned, but the Hungarian Highest Court (Kúria) found that the body was not that of Eszter, but had been dressed in her clothes. A lengthy trial followed, eventually resulting in the acquittal of all the accused.

Murder for body parts also known as medicine murder refers to the killing of a human being in order to excise body parts to use as medicine or purposes in witchcraft. Medicine murder is viewed as the obtaining of an item or items from a corpse to be used in traditional medicine. The practice occurs primarily in sub-equatorial Africa.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pricking</span> Method of purported witch identification

During the height of the witch trials of the 16th and 17th centuries, common belief held that a witch could be discovered through the process of pricking their skin with needles, pins and bodkins – daggerlike instruments for drawing ribbons through hems or punching holes in cloth.

Ariel Toaff is a professor of Medieval and Renaissance History at Bar-Ilan University in Israel, whose work has focused on Jews and their history in Italy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Basque witch trials</span> 17th-century process by the Spanish Inquisition against thousands of alleged witches

The Basque witch trials of the seventeenth century represent the last attempt at rooting out supposed witchcraft from Navarre by the Spanish Inquisition, after a series of episodes erupted during the sixteenth century following the end of military operations in the conquest of Iberian Navarre, until 1524.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cadaver</span> Dead human body

A cadaver, often known as a corpse, is a dead human body. Cadavers are used by medical students, physicians and other scientists to study anatomy, identify disease sites, determine causes of death, and provide tissue to repair a defect in a living human being. Students in medical school study and dissect cadavers as a part of their education. Others who study cadavers include archaeologists and arts students. In addition, a cadaver may be used in the development and evaluation of surgical instruments.

Krystyna Ceynowa, also spelled as Cejnowa, was an ethnic Polish victim of murder by lynching and an alleged witch. Accused of sorcery, she was subjected to the ordeal of water and drowned in Ceynowa. She was the last person in Poland and among the last people in Europe to be subjected to lynching on the grounds of sorcery and witchcraft.

Witchcraft in Anglo-Saxon England refers to the belief and practice of magic by the Anglo-Saxons between the 5th and 11th centuries AD in Early Mediaeval England. Surviving evidence regarding Anglo-Saxon witchcraft beliefs comes primarily from the latter part of this period, after England had been Christianised. This Christian era evidence includes penitentials, pastoral letters, homilies and hagiographies, in all of which Christian preachers denounce the practice of witchcraft as un-Christian, as well as both secular and ecclesiastical law codes, which mark it out as a criminal offence.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">New England vampire panic</span> Reaction to an outbreak of tuberculosis in the 19th century

The New England vampire panic was the reaction to an outbreak of tuberculosis in the 19th century throughout Rhode Island, eastern Connecticut, southern Massachusetts, Vermont, and other areas of the New England states. Consumption (tuberculosis) was thought to be caused by the deceased consuming the life of their surviving relatives. Bodies were exhumed and internal organs ritually burned to stop the "vampire" from attacking the local population and to prevent the spread of the disease. Notable cases provoked national attention and comment, such as those of Mercy Brown in Rhode Island and Frederick Ransom in Vermont.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of the Jews in Peru</span> Ethnic group

The history of the Jews in Peru begins with the arrival of migration flows from Europe, Near East and Northern Africa.

Elizabeth Ridgeway was an English woman convicted of poisoning her husband. While awaiting execution by burning at the stake, she confessed to previously poisoning her mother, a fellow servant, and a lover.

In November 2019, the gang rape and murder of a 26-year-old veterinary doctor in Shamshabad, near Hyderabad, sparked outrage across India. Her body was found in Shadnagar on 28 November 2019, the day after she was murdered. Four suspects were arrested and, according to the Cyberabad Metropolitan Police, confessed to having raped and killed the doctor.

The witch trials in the Netherlands were among the smallest in Europe. The Netherlands are known for having discontinued their witchcraft executions earlier than any other European country. The provinces began to phase out capital punishment for witchcraft beginning in 1593. The last trial in the Northern Netherlands took place in 1610.

References

Citations

  1. Nemec 1976, pp. 15–6: "70. Before 1200—The first known indication of the existence of ius cruentationis (Baarrecht; bier-right; jus feretri sive Sandapilae) among the Germanic nations appears in a poem 'Iwein', written by a German poet, Hartmann von Aue (fl.1180-1210). ... Ius cruentationis was originally an ancient custom of Germanic tribes, often invoked by the German courts and based on the firm belief that a cadaver would start to bleed when touched by the murderer. It was applied in the courts of Germany until 1750 but was known and practiced also in other countries (e.g. Bohemia, Poland, Scotland and even the North American Continent).
  2. 1 2 Engelhaupt, Erika (2020). Gory details: adventures from the dark side of science . Washington: National Geographic Partners. pp. 49–54. ISBN   978-1-4262-2097-5.
  3. Cohen, Barend A. J., ed. (2004). Forensische geneeskunde: raakvlakken tussen geneeskunst, gezondheidszorg en recht[Forensic medicine: interfaces between medicine, healthcare and law] (in Dutch). Assen: Koninklijke Van Gorcum. ISBN   90-232-3798-6.
  4. Peterson, Nora (2016). Involuntary Confessions of the Flesh in Early Modern France. Newark, Delaware: University of Delaware Press. pp. 47–51. ISBN   978-1-61149-625-3.
  5. Ingram 2017, p. 33: "The bier right was not just a popularly-held belief in the early modern period; it was an actual judicial process that magistrates ordered to be performed when there was no other way of discovering the truth."
  6. Ingram 2017, p. 15: "Cruentation can be placed under the more broadly defined umbrella term 'trial by ordeal'."
  7. Ingram 2017, p. 26: "Oftentimes the fact that the body bled was not the sole reason why the court condemned the suspect, but because the suspect would confess after seeing the body bleed. Therefore, the Law of the Bier was not only a visual test, but also a psychological test for the suspect."
  8. Engelhaupt, Erika (October 9, 2017). "How 'Talking' Corpses Were Once Used to Solve Murders". National Geographic . Archived from the original on October 9, 2017. Retrieved October 14, 2017. In Daemonologie, the king wrote of his belief in cruentation as a way to mete out justice
  9. Davies, Owen; Matteoni, Francesca (19 July 2017). Executing Magic in the Modern Era: Criminal Bodies and the Gallows in Popular Medicine. Springer. p. 22. ISBN   978-3-319-59519-1.
  10. Ingram 2017, p. 17–18.
  11. Ingram 2017, p. 23: "His Dissertatio de Jure Feretri sive Cruentationis vom Baar Rechte (1680) ... explains that the ordeal had to be administered in a specific way: the dead body needed to be exposed to air for a few hours, and it needed to have its chest and torso exposed to ensure the blood could thoroughly coagulate. The suspect had to approach the dead body and was required to read certain oaths to it. The suspect also had to touch various parts of the dead body: the mouth, the navel, and the fatal wound(s)."
  12. Nemec 1976, p. 31: "147. 1545—Marco Antonio Bianchi (1498–1548) published under the name Antonius Blancus his Tractatus de indiciis homicidii (Venetiis, apud Cominum De Tridino Montisferrati). In it he raised the question of the reliability of ius cruentationis in cases of homicide. He was probably the first person who openly voiced such doubts."
  13. Nemec 1976, p. 50: "237. 1669—Theodor Kirchmaier (fl.1669-72), professor in Wittenberg (?), published De cruentatione cadaverum fallaci praesentis homicidae indicio (Vitebergae), one of the first publications to refute the validity of ius cruentationis. It followed by more than 100 years the doubts expressed by Antonius Blancus (Bianchi)."
  14. Nemec 1976, p. 57"270. 1725—Michael Alberti (1682–1757), professor of medicine and natural sciences in Berlin, started publishing his Sytema[ sic ]jurisprudentiae medicae (Halae). The last volume (6th) appeared in 1736. Alberti's work is a mixture of backwardness and progress. He was in favor of torture and cruentation, and believed in magic and demons. On the other hand, he considered sorcery a mental disease and had an enlightened attitude toward other medical problems. The book, designed for both physicians and lawyers, was considered a cornerstone of legal medicine for many years. Alberti was the first to use the term jurisprudentia medica. He, however, admits that he received the idea for that term from Rodericus a Castro, Medicus politicus (1614)."
  15. Resnick, Irven M. (2019). "Cruentation, Medieval Anti-Jewish Polemic, and Ritual Murder". Antisemitism Studies. 3 (1): 95–131. ISSN   2474-1817.
  16. Fink-Jensen, Morten (17 June 2010). The Bleeding Corpse: Trial by ordeal in early modern Denmark and Norway (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 4 July 2013. Retrieved 25 March 2019. Talk given at University of Oslo workshop on religious belief and practices in the Danish-Norwegian united monarchy from the Reformation to the Age of Enlightenment, c. 1500–1814.

    General sources