Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 3.djvu/476

 460 SORCERY AND OCCULT ARTS. counts given by grave historians of the feats of Zyto, the favorite magician of the Emperor AYenceslas, who, in spite of the repeated condemnation of magic by the Councils of Prague during the latter half of the century, reckoned among his evil qualities a fondness for forbidden arts. "When, in 1389, he married Sophia, daughter of the Elector of Bavaria, the latter, knowing his pro- clivities, brought to Prague a wagon-load of skilful conjurers and jugglers. AVhile the chief of these was giving an exhibition of his marvels Zyto quietly walked up to him, opened his mouth, and swallowed him entire, spitting out his muddy boots, and then evacuated him into a vessel of water and exhibited him dripping to the admiring crowd. At the royal banquets Zyto would bother the guests by changing their hands into the hoofs of horses or oxen so that they could not handle their food ; if something at- tracted them to look out of the window he would adorn them with branching antlers, so that they could not withdraw their heads, while he would leisurely eat their delicacies and drink their wine. On one occasion he changed a handful of corn into a drove of fat hogs which he sold to a baker, with a caution not to let them go to the river, but the purchaser disregarded the warning and they suddenly became grains of corn floating on the water. Of course such a character could not end well, and Zyto, when his time came, was carried off by his demon. Xot only are all these marvels recorded as unquestionable facts by the Bohemian chroni- clers, but they are conscientiously copied by the papal historian Raynaldus.* Although Gregory XL, in 1374, had authorized the Inquisition to prosecute in all cases of sorcery, in France the Parlement in- cluded the subject within its policy of encroachment upon the ecclesiastical jurisdiction. In 1390 an occurrence at Laon, where a secular official named Poulaillier arrested a number of sorcerers, gave it occasion to intervene. As Bodin says, at that time Satan cil. Carnotens. ann. 1366 c. 11 (Martene Ampl. Coll. VII. 1368).— Florez, Espafia Sagrada, XLIX. 188. — Acquoy. Gerardi Magni Epistt. pp. 107-11. — Concil. Pragens. ann. 1355 c. 61 (Hartzheim, IV. 400). — Statuta brevia Arnesti ann. 1353 (Hofler, Prnger Concilien, p. 2). — Concil. Pragens. ann. 1381 c. 7 (lb. p. 28). — Statut. Synod. Pragens. ann. 1407, Xo. 6 (lb. p. 59). — Dubrav. Hist. Bohem. Lib. xxm. — Ravnald. ann. 1400, Xo. 14.
 * Lilienthal. Die Hexenprocesse der beiden Stadte Bnunsberg, p. 113. — Con-