Corsned Bread

Corsned bread [fr. Corsian, to curse, and snaed, a morsel, A.S.; panis conjuratus, or offa execrata, Lat., the morsel of execration, or ordeal bread]. It was a kind of superstitious trial or ordeal used among the Saxons, to purge themselves of any accusation, by taking a piece of barley bread and eating it with solemn oaths, curses, and excrations, that it might prove poison, or their last morsel, if what they asserted , or denied, were not true. 4 Bl. Com. 345, 414; and see Norton's City of London, 34d Edn. 36, 265.