Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 3.djvu/432

 416 SORCERY AND OCCULT ARTS. stake. TVe see also what an atmosphere of superstitious terror pervaded the life of Europe.* Carlovingian civilization was but a brief episode in the dark- ness of those dreary centuries. In the disorder which accom- panied the breaking-up of the empire, the organization of feudal- ism, and the founding of the European monarchies, although the Church was quietly attributing to itself the functions and the juris- diction on which were based its subsequent claims of theocratic supremacy, it took no efficient steps to destroy the kingdom of Satan, though his agents the diviners and sorcerers were as nu- merous as ever. The Council of Pavia in 850 merely prescribed penance during life for sorceresses who undertook to provoke love and hatred, leading to the death of many victims. There may have been an occasional explosion of popular cruelty, such as indi- cated by the brief mention in a doubtful MS. of the burning of a number of sorcerers in Saxony in 914, but in fact the Church came almost virtually to tolerate them. About the middle of the tenth century Bishop Atto of Yercelli felt it necessary to revive and publish anew a forgotten canon of the Fourth Council of Toledo, which threatened with degradation and perpetual penance in a monastery any bishop, priest, deacon, or other ecclesiastic who should consult magicians or sorcerers or augurs. Atto, however, was a puritan, who endeavored to resist the general demoraliza- tion of the age. How little repugnance was felt for the for- bidden arts is seen in the fact that the reputation for necromantic skill gained in Spain did not prevent the election of Gerbert of Aurillac to the archiepiscopal sees of Eeims and Eavenna, and finally to the papacy itself ; while as late as 1170 we have seen an Burchard. Decret. x. 8. — Ivon. Decret. xi. 30. — Bernardi Coinens. de Strigiis c. 14. — Ghaerbald. Judic. Sacerd. 20. — Herard. Turon. capit. iii. — Cone. Paris, arm. 829 Lib. in. c. 2.— S. Agobardi Lib. de Grandine c. 1, 2, 15, 16. Even as late as the eleventh century Bishop Burchard prescribes penance for believing that sorcerers can affect the weather or influence the human mind to affection or hatred (Decret. xix. 5). In less than two centuries and a half Thomas of Cantimprg shows that it was perfectly orthodox to assert that tempests were caused bj demons (Bonum universale, Lib. n. c. 56). — It could scarce be other- wise when we consider the complete control over the weather attributed to sor- cerers in Norse magic, and the adoption of the heathen superstitions by medi- aeval Christianity.
 * Xithardi Hist. Lib. i. c. 5, aim. 834. — Concil. Bracarens. I. ann. 563 c. 8. —