In
Anglo-Saxon law,
corsned (
OE cor, "trial, investigation", +
sn?d, "bit, piece";
Latin panis conjuratus), also known as the
accursed or
sacred morsel, or the
morsel of execration, was a type of
trial by ordeal consisting in the eating of a piece of
barley bread and cheese, totalling about an ounce in weight,
consecrated with a form of
exorcism, and to be swallowed by a suspected person, as a trial of his innocence. If guilty, it was supposed the bread would produce
convulsions and
paleness, and cause
choking. If innocent, it was believed the person could swallow it freely, and the bread would turn to nourishment.
[1][2] The term dates to before
1000 AD; the laws of
Ethelred II reference this practice "Gif man freondleasne weofod-þen mid tihtlan belecge, ga to corsnæde."
[3][4] The ecclesiastical laws of
Canute the Great also mention the practice.
[5] According to
Isaac D'Israeli, the bread was to be of unleavened barley, and the cheese made of
ewe's milk in the month of May.
[6] Writers such as
Richard Burn and
John Lingard have considered it an imitation of the "water of jealousy" used in the ordeal prescribed in
Numbers 511-31 for cases of
jealousy.
[7][8]In this ordeal, the priest wrote the Lord's Prayer on the bread, of which he then weighed out ten pennyweights, and so likewise with the cheese. Under the right foot of the accused, he set a cross of poplar wood, and holding another cross of the same material over the man's head, threw over his head the theft written on a tablet. He placed the bread and cheese at the same moment in the mouth of the accused, and, on doing so, recited the conjuration[9]
I conjure thee, O man, by the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost and by the four-and-twenty elders, who daily sound praises before God, and by the twelve patriarchs, the twelve prophets, the twelve apostles, the evangelists, martyrs, confessors, and virgins, by all the saints and by our Redeemer, our Lord Jesus Christ, who for our salvation and for our sins did suffer His hands to be affixed to the cross; that if thou wast a partner in this theft or didst know of it, or hadst any fault, that bread and cheese may not pass thy gullet and throat, but that thou mayest tremble like an aspen-leaf, Amen; and not have rest, O man, until thou dost vomit it forth with blood, if thou hast committed aught in the matter of the aforesaid theft. Through Him who liveth.
The following prayer and exorcism were also used and ordered to be repeated three times
