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‘Swimming the Witch, Pricking for the Devil's Mark’: Ordeals in the Early Modern Witchcraft Trials

Abstract The article focuses on the problem of why ordeals returned to use in the early modern European witchcraft trials after they had been prohibited in 1215. The problem is approached comparatively and in context of the law of proof, with special focus on Scandinavia. The main argument of the article is that the use of ordeals in the early modern period was dependent on the degree of professionalisation of the legal profession and of the ‘scientification’ of the procedural system. This explains why ordeals were used more in France, Germany and Switzerland than in Scandinavia. The study also sheds some light on the rarity of ordeals in England, Spain and Russia.