Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 3.djvu/440

 42i SORCERY AND OCCULT ARTS. forth in the miracles wrought at his grave, and a chapel was built over it which stood as a warning against such inconsiderate zeal.* Caesarius of Heisterbach, to whom we owe this incident, has an ample store of marvels which show that superstition was as active as ever, that men were eager to gain what advantage they could from intercourse with Satan, and that such practices were virtually un repressed. He tells of a certain ecclesiastic named Philip, a celebrated necromancer, dead only a few years previous, apparently without trouble from Church or State. A knight named Henry of Falkenstein, who disbelieved in demons, applied to him to satisfy his doubts. Philip obligingly drew a circle with a sword at a cross-roads and muttered his spells, when, with a tu- mult like rushing waters and roaring tempests, the demon came, taller than the trees, black, and of a most fearful aspect. The knight kept within the charmed circle and escaped immediate ill, but lost his color, and remained pallid during the few years in which he survived. A priest undertook the same experience, but became frightened and allowed himself to be dragged out of the circle ; he was so injured that he died on the third day, where- upon Waleran of Luxembourg piously confiscated his house, show- ing that immunity was not always to be reckoned on.t Compacts with Satan were also not infrequent. The heretics burned at Besancon in 1180 were found to have such compacts inscribed on little rolls of parchment under the skin of their arm- pits. It would be difficult to find any historical fact of the period apparently resting on better authority than the story of Ever- wach, who was still living as a monk of St. Nicholas at Stalum when Caesarius described his adventures as related by eye-wit- nesses. He had been steward of Theodoric, Bishop of Utrecht, whom he served faithfully. Accused of malversation, he found some of his accounts missing, and in despair he invoked the devil, saying, " Lord, if thou wilt help me in my necessity I will do homage to thee and serve thee in all things." The devil appeared, Concil. Paris, ann. 1212 P. v. (Martene Ampl. Coll. VII. 105).— Caesar. Heisterb. iv. 99. t Caesar. Heisterb. v. 2, 3.
 * Concil. Rotomagens. aim. 1189 c. 29 (Bessin, Concil. Rotoinagens. I. 97). —