Ordeals in the Ancient Trial
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Abstract
The topic of the article has not been studied sufficiently in the works of the law historians. More exhaustive studies on this issue were started at the end of the 19th century. German scientists J. Grimm, V. Schlagenweit and H. Nottarp conducted more extensive studies of ordeals as trial evidence. Most frequently this trial evidence is presented as most irrational evidence in the history of the criminal case. The author willing to justify certain rationality of evidence has studied the concept of ordeals and its evolution, the prerequisites for emergence of the trial evidence and its distribution. Special focus is laid on the special character of ordeals in the legal proceedings of Lithuania. Basing mostly on 16th-18th century legal acts collected by K. Jablonskis and the surviving law sources, a conclusion has been made that ordeals in Lithuania in the essence have been taken over from the Western European legal acts especially from the Magdeburg City Rights. It has been observed that ordeals applicable in Lithuania had lost their primary form and meaning.
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Articles
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