Paper's abstract

Robert Jacob, God's Judgement and the Development of the Function of Judging in European History
Whereas the ordeal, ritual way to resolve conflicts, has been known in many different cultures, God's Judgement properly speaking, understood as the stepping in the trial of a perfect, omniscient, God, absolute holder of the discrimination between good and evil, is a particularity in the history of Latin West in the first millennium. Far from trivial, this episode was fraught with consequence for the development of the judiciary function in European cultures. One may advocate that the spirituality of the act of judging and its necessary autonomy towards the political power, among other things, stem from it.

Key Words : ordeal, God
t. 39, 1994 : p. 87-104

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