Kevin Hastings is ready to stake out his piece of the good life. The last thing he has in mind is a spot under the Chicago River.courtesy of the local mafia.

Although seemingly bizarre and barbaric in modern times, trial by ordeal-the subjection of the accused to undergo harsh tests such as walking over hot irons or being bound and cast into water-played an integral, and often staggeringly effective, role in justice systems for centuries. In "Trial by Fire and Water," Robert Bartlett examines the workings of trial by ordeal from the time of its first appearance in the barbarian law codes, tracing its use by Christian societies down to its last days as a test for witchcraft in modern Europe and America. Bartlett presents a critique of recent theories about the operation and the decline of the practice, and he attempts to make sense of the ordeal as a working institution and to explain its disappearance. Finally, he considers some of the general historical problems of understanding a society in which religious beliefs were so fundamental. Robert Bartlett is Wardlaw Professor of Medieval History at the University of St. Andrews.

Contributions to this Festschrift for the renowned American legal and literary scholar William Ian Miller reflect the extraordinary intellectual range of the honorand, who is equally at home discussing legal history, Icelandic sagas, English literature, anger and violence, and contemporary popular culture. Professor Miller's colleagues and former students, including distinguished academic lawyers, historians, and literary scholars from the United States, Canada, and Europe, break important new ground by bringing little-known sources to a wider audience and by shedding new light on familiar sources through innovative modes of analysis. Contributors are Stuart Airlie, Theodore M. Andersson, Nora Bartlett, Robert Bartlett, Jordan Corrente Beck, Carol J. Clover, Lauren DesRosiers, William Eves, John Hudson, Elizabeth Papp Kamali, Kimberley-Joy Knight, Simon MacLean, M.W. McHaffie, Eva Miller, Hans Jacob Orning, Jamie Page, Susanne Pohl-Zucker, Amanda Strick, Helle Vogt, Mark D. West, and Stephen D. White.

A New York reporter chronicles the events of the Alice Crimmins' murder case, bringing into view the extraordinary circumstances surrounding her 1971 conviction

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."

Lucy McLauchlan went to Saudi Arabia to work as a nurse, but within months of her arrival found herself accused of murder and facing the possibility of public execution by beheading. Here, in her own words, she tells her fateful story. Lucy and her fellow nurse, Deborah Parry, both signed confessions, but only after being threatened with assault and rape by the police. The Saudi legal system then refused to listen when the nurses tried to retract them. For 17 months they were held in prison in Dharhan. Behind bars, Lucy maintained her sanity by keeping a regular diary which recorded her every thought and mood swing.