Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 3.djvu/429

 ECCLESIASTICAL PENALTIES. 413 In the Carlo vingian reconstruction which followed, efforts were made to suppress all superstitious arts, and they were treated with gradually increasing severity, but still with comparative lenity. The most vigorous legislation was an edict of Charlemagne in 805, which confides the matter to the Church, and orders the archpriest of each diocese to investigate all who were accused of divination or sorcery, apparently permitting moderate torture to obtain con- fession, and keeping the culprits in prison until they amend. In his efforts to christianize Saxony, on the one hand Charlemagne punished with death all who burned witches and ate them, under the belief so widely spread that they ate men, and on the other hand all soothsayers and sorcerers were made over to the Church as slaves. During this period, moreover, and for a couple of cen- turies following, the parallel legislation of the Church, inflicting spiritual penalties, was singularly mild, although the different pen- itentials vary so much that it is impossible to deduce any system from them. That which passes under the name of Theodore of Canterbury, and was of general authority, only prescribes a pen- ance of twoscore days or a year for sorcery, or, if the offender is an ecclesiastic, three years, but it orders seven years for placing a child on a roof or in an oven to cure it of fever, and Ecbert of York indicates five years for the same practice. There evidently was no settled rule, but the most systematic code is that of Gaer- bald, who was Bishop of Liege about the year 800. He orders all offenders to be brought before him for trial, and enacts seven years' penance and liberal almsgiving for committing homicide by means of sorcery, seven years without almsgiving for rendering the victim insane, five years and almsgiving for consulting diviners or practising augury from birds, seven years for sorcerers who bring on tempests, three years and almsgiving for honoring sor- cerers, one year for sorcery to excite love, provided it did not re- sult in death, but if the offender was a monk, the penalty was increased to five years. Another penitential of the period pre- scribes twoscore days or a year for divination or diabolical incan- tations, but seven years if a woman threatens another with sor- cery, to be reduced to four if she is poor. In 829 the Council of (Caroloman. Capit. I., Baluz. I. 104-5).— Concil. Liptinens ann. 743 (Caroloraau. Capit. II., Baluz. I. 106-8).— Bonifac. Epistt. 49, 63.— Zachar. PP. Epist. n. c. 6.