1215 CE
Fourth Lateran Council and trial by ordeal
Law & constitutions · Prueba, procedimiento y derecho canónico
Canon 18 of the Fourth Lateran Council barred clerics from blessing or participating in water- or hot-iron ordeals. By withdrawing ecclesiastical support, it altered an evidentiary mechanism in several jurisdictions; it did not by itself abolish every ordeal or every form of trial by combat.
Precision, calendar, and review
- Start
- year · no uncertainty qualifier in this record
- Calendar and convention
- Historical-era years; the source calendar is not identified. No conversion of days is assumed.
- Year zero
- The scale goes from 1 BCE to 1 CE without year zero. Changing era names changes labels only.
- Documentary review
- Date not recorded
Reading the date: point event.
Sources
- amesfoundation.law.harvard.edu (opens in a new tab)
Source provenance and scope
- Publication date
- 1961-10
- What this date describes
- The cited source or edition; it may postdate the historical event.
- Bibliographic date checked
- 2026-09-23
The correspondence between this reference and individual claims has not yet been itemized.
This record is an editorial synthesis. Consult the sources to check claims and their limits. Chronological relationships alone do not establish causation.