... It is amusing to see how Phrantzes, who wrote under the descendants of Palaeologos, represents his conduct.  He says Michael offered boldly to seize the red-hot ball of iron, but that the Patriarch Arsenios refused to admit a proceeding so completely at variance with Roman law and Greek wisdom.  Phrantzes overlooked the fact that Arsenios only became Patriarch during the reign of Theodore II.  Phrantzes, p. 8, edit. Bonn.  The trial by ordeal had been already prohibited by the council of the Lateran, A.D. 1215. (A History of Greece, Finlay, 1877)