Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 3.djvu/430

 4U SORCERY AND OCCULT ARTS. Paris attributes the misfortunes of the empire to the prevalence of crime, and especially of sorcery ; it quotes the savage provisions of the Mosaic law, and enumerates at considerable length the evil deeds of the offenders — how men are rendered insane by philtres and love-potions, how tempests and hail are induced, how harvests and milk and fruits are transferred from their lawful owners, and how the future is predicted, but it indicates no penalties, and only asks the secular rulers to punish these crimes sharply. Similarly Erard, Archbishop of Tours, in 838 uttered a general prohibition, but only threatened public penance without indicating details. All that we can gather from this confused legislation, from the collections known as the Capitularies, and from the speculations and arguments of Kabanus Maurus and Hincmar of Eeims, is that every species of divination and sorcery, Roman and Teutonic, was rife ; that it was held to derive its power directly from Satan ; that the Church was wholly unable to deal with it ; that secular legislation threatened only moderate penalties, and that these were for the most part wholly unenforced.* Yet, outside of the organized machinery of the Church and State, there was a rough popular justice — a sort of Lynch law — which handled individual offenders with scant ceremony. A chance allusion about this period to Gerberga, who was drowned by the Emperor Lothair in the river Arar, " as is customary with sorcerers," indicates that much was going on not provided for in the Capitularies. The same is seen in a curious statement by St. Agobard, Archbishop of Lyons, who waged such ineffectual battle with many of the superstitions of the time. One of these, as we have seen, was that tempests could be caused by sorcery — a belief which the Church at first pronounced heretical because it inferred Capit. de Partibus Saxon, ann. 789 c. 6, 23.— S. Gregor. PP. III. De Crimin. et Remed. 16.— Theodori Poenitent, Lib. i. c. xv. (Haddan and Stubbs, III. 190).— Egberti Poenitent. yiii. 1 (lb. p. 424).— Burchardi Decret. x. 8, 24, 28, 31.— Ghaerbaldi Instruct. Pastoral, c. x. ; Judic. Sacerdotal, c. x., xi., xx., xxiv., xxv., xxxi., xxxvi. (Martene Am pi. Coll. VII. 25-33). — Libell. de Remed. Peccat. c. 9 (lb. p. 44).— Concil. Paris, ann. 829 Lib. in. c. 2 (Harduin. IV. 1352).— He- rardi Turon. Capit. iii. ann. 838 (Baluz. I. 1285).— Capitul. i. 21, 63; v. 69; vi. 215; Addit. n. c. 21. — Rabani Mauri de Magicis Artibus. — Hincmar. de Divort. Lotliar. Interrog. xv.
 * Carol. Mag. Capit. Aquisgr. ann. 789 c. 1-8, 63 ; Capit. II. arm. 806 c. 25 ;