With God on Our Side. The Impossible Peace and the Judgment of God

In some regions of Europe, when a conflict between two parties could not be resolved through ordinary justice and one of the parties felt that they had been wronged, one possible solution was to sue the other party before the court of God, located in the valley of Jehoshaphat. Condemned by the ecclesiastical courts of the early modern age as 'superstition', this custom continued to survive for a long time. In addition to investigating the forms in which it was expressed - that is, the ways in which divine justice was invoked and the beliefs that this practice implied - one may ask what kind of conclusion to the dispute it led to. At first glance, the invocation of divine justice would seem to go in the opposite direction of peace and concord; in reality, the issue is more complex, and the practice of suing one's opponent in the valley of Jehoshaphat reveals unexpected nuances.