Ashes of Heaven’s Pillar

Who’s Guilty? God Knows. By Kim Rendfeld  Delve into the justice system of early medieval Francia and you might find yourself grateful for what we have today, imperfect as it is.  And I’m not only talking about the punishments for the guilty: slit nostrils, the slow strangulation of hanging, chopping off a hand, the witch’s death of being sealing in a barrel and thrown into a river, or the traitor’s death of being tied to stallions and torn apart, to just give a few examples. Even with recognizable elements such as oaths, the trials themselves are problematic to a modern