“JUDICIUM DEI” IN MEDIEVAL EUROPEAN LEGAL CONSCIENCE (BASING ON NARRATIVE SOURCES OF IX–XII CENTURIES)

Abstract

In this article the features of medieval European legal conscience are investigated. They are shown through the practice of ordeals – “Judicium Dei” (“God’s Judgment”). It is found that medieval justice regarded the ordeals not only as procedural process, the mean of establishing the truth, but also as a miracle of God’s intervention in earthly life.