Page:Select historical documents of the Middle Ages.djvu/339

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FORMULAE LITURGICAE IN USE AT ORDEALS.
319

"He has this thing" (i.e. the thing stolen). The other shall reply thrice: "He has it not." Then the priest shall say: "This He will deign to make manifest unto us, by whose judgment are ruled things terrestrial and things celestial. Thou art just, O Lord, and righteous are Thy judgments. Turn away the evils of my enemies, and destroy them with Thy truth."

(Prayer.) Omnipotent, everlasting God, who did' st create all things from nothing, and did'st form man from the clay of the earth, we pray thee as suppliants through the intercession of Mary the most holy mother of God .... that Thou do make trial for us concerning this matter about which we are uncertain: so that if so be that this man is guiltless, that book which we hold in our hands shall (in revolving) follow the ordinary course of the sun; but if he be guilty that book shall move backwards.

III.
THE DONATION OF CONSTANTINE.

(From Zeumer's edition of the text, published in Berlin in 1888, V. Brunner-Zeumer: "Die Constantinische Schenkungsurkunde.")

In the name of the holy and indivisible Trinity, the Father, namely, and the Son and the Holy Spirit. The emperor Caesar Flavius Constantine in Christ Jesus, the Lord God our Saviour, one of that same holy Trinity,—faithful, merciful, supreme, beneficent, Alamannic, Gothic, Sarmatic, Germanic, Britannic, Hunic, pious, fortunate, victor and triumpher, always august: to the most holy and blessed father of fathers Sylvester, bishop of the city of Rome and pope, and to all his successors the pontiffs who are about to sit upon the chair of St. Peter until the end of time—also to all the most reverend and of God beloved catholic bishops, subjected by this our imperial decree throughout the whole world to this same holy Roman church, who have been established now and in all previous times—grace, peace, charity, rejoicing, long-