Download or read book Trial by Fire and Battle in Medieval German Literature written by Vickie L. Ziegler and published by Camden House. This book was released on 2004 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Well after the condemnation of ordeals by the Fourth Lateran Council, the Kunigunde legend preserves the ordeal by fire in a sort of hagiographic amber, much as it was portrayed in the mid-twelfth-century Richardis legend, while Stricker's short secular burlesque "The Hot Iron," written in the mid-thirteenth century, makes sport of this formerly serious legal proceeding, reflecting the almost immediate abandonment of trial by fire as a legal proof in many areas after the council's decision."