The word ordeal was part of Old English as ordal and ordel but according to the OED it disappeared during much of the period of Middle English only to reappear around the time of Shakespeare.

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To us an ordeal might involve fighting the Christmas shopping crowds, or having our hard disk go up in a puff of smoke.

But originally an ordeal was a judgment.

The word has relatives in other languages where the meaning also includes “the dealing out of judgment” —as in apportioning blame—and it is thought that this sense of “dealing” influenced the re-adoption of the word as or-deal.

In English though, the older meaning was related to a specific kind of justice.  “Trial by ordeal” is mocked in Monty Python, but people who were thought to be witches really were tried by dunking them in water: if you float you’re a witch, if you sink, you’re innocent (the joke is that it’s too late ‘cause you’ve drowned).

Other gruesome practices included making the accused grab onto a piece of red hot iron, then binding up the burns and see if after a week or two they were infected or not. The logic behind this form of justice was that if one were guilty God would let you rot; if you were innocent he would perform a miracle and get you off.

Around the year 1300 Englishmen figured out that this was a stupid idea, and made it illegal—mostly.

They still dunked witches and allowed an accused person prove their innocence by challenging their accuser to a battle since whoever won was obviously telling God’s truth.  So with the ending of most forms of “trial by ordeal” so ended the use of the word—in fact it seems to have died out before that.

It wasn’t scientific progress and a desire to reduce unnecessary cruelty that made the English abolish trial by ordeal.  It was theology.

Think of God the almighty.

Clearly, thought the lawmakers of the day, we puny humans cannot invoke the miracles of God according to our will.  Hence trial by ordeal contradicts the supremacy of God.  We can’t have that now can we.  T

hus endeth the grabbing of red hot iron bars.

Yet somehow witch dunking got around this clause in the law, as did what was called “wager by battle” which lasted until 1818.

That was the year when a guy who had been accused of murder defended himself by calling for this “wager by battle.” The judge figured out that maybe it wouldn’t be a fair trial if the guy who was accused of murder got off by doing another murder.

Another quirk is that “wager by battle” was different than a “duel of honor.”  Duels continued to be legal since they were not over criminal accusations, only over social faux pas—it was okay to kill or maim someone over that.  By 1900 dueling itself was a social faux pas.