Trial by Ordeal and Trial by Combat | A Not So Fair Way of Dealing out Justice

In most European countries today, we use the premise that a person is presumed innocent unless they have been proven guilty. At trial, evidence has to be produced so that a jury or a judge can decide on the culpability of the accused. But during the Middle Ages when someone was suspected of a crime, and they were actually innocent it was believed that God would intervene on their behalf. So, they were made to go through a physical trial and the ‘Judgement of God’ would enable them to prove it. It seems illogical to us now, but religion played such an important part in the lives of the Medievals that it is easy to see why they would want to model their justice system on the trials that God had set out in the Bible. It was easier to give judgement over to an omnipotent God rather than rely on fallible human beings.