Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 3.djvu/415

 WISIGOTIIIC LEGISLATION. 399 In the West the Barbarian domination introduced a new ele- ment. The Ostrogoths, who occupied Italy under Theodoric, were, it is true, so much Eomanized that, although Arians, they adopted and enforced the laws against magic. Divination was classed with paganism and was capitally punished. About the year 500 we hear of a persecution which drove all the sorcerers from Rome, and Basilius, the chief thaumaturge among them, although he escaped at the time, was burned on venturing to return. When Italy fell back into the hands of the Eastern Empire the prosecu- tion of these offences seems to have been committed to the Church as a part of its ever-widening sphere of influence and jurisdic- tion.* The Wisigoths who took possession of Aquitaine and Spain, although less civilized than their Eastern brethren, were profoundly influenced by Roman legislation, and their princes issued repeated enactments to discourage the forbidden arts. It is significant of the Barbarian tenderness for human life, however, that the penal- ties were greatly less than those of the savage Roman edicts. A law of Recared declares magicians and diviners and those who consult them to be incapable of bearing testimony ; one of Egiza places these crimes in the class for which a slave could be tortured against his accused master; and several edicts of Chindaswind provide, for those who invoke demons or bring hail upon vine- yards, or use ligatures or charms to injure men or cattle or har- vests, scourging with two hundred lashes, shaving, and carrying around for exhibition in the vicinage, to be followed by imprison- ment. Those who consult diviners about the health of the king or of others are threatened with scourging and enslavement to the fisc, including confiscation, if their children are accomplices ; judges who have recourse to divination for guidance in doubtful cases are subjected to the same penalties, while the simple observation of auguries is visited with fifty lashes. These provisions, which were mostly carried with little change into the Fuero Juzgo, re- mained the law of the Spanish Peninsula until the Middle Ages Nomocanon. Tit. ix. cap. 25. — Nicet. Choniat. Man. Comnen. Lib. iv. ; Andron. Lib. 11. Variar. iv. 22, 23, ix. 18.— Gregor. PP. I. Epist. xi. 53.
 * Edict. Theodorici c. 108. — Gregor. PP. I. Dial. Lib. 1. c. 4.— Cassiodor