--Capitula

Comte de Gabalis [1913], at sacred-texts.com

KAROLI MAGNI ET LUDOVICI PII CHRISTIONISS:--CAPITULA.

FFFThere are assuredly some who perform diverse evil FFF deeds, whom the divine law also frowns upon and condemns,

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and for whose diverse ill deeds and crimes the people are grievously punished with famine and pestilence, while the state of the Church is weakened and the kingdom endangered. Against these we, taking a most serious view of their wickedness (sternly anathematized though it is in Holy. Scripture) have thought it meet by admonition and exhortation to take all possible precautions. For they claim that by their evil ads they can confound the air and send down showers of hail, foretell the future, rob a man of his fruit and milk and give them to others, and numberless ads are said to be performed by such men. When men or women of this sort are discovered, the more openly they fear not to serve the devil with their rash and heinous daring, the more severely must they be punished by the unsparing rigour of the prince. Concerning these it is also written in the Ancyritan Council, chapter xxiii: "those who seek out divinations and follow after them after the manner of the Gentiles, or bring men of such sort into their houses in order by mischievous ads to seek out anything or atone for anything, are to be imprisoned for five years according to the degrees of punishment appointed. This must be done in all places, and especially so in those where many men trust that can do deeds of this sort lawfully and with impunity, to the end that may be admonished with the greater zeal and diligence and punished the more severely. TRANSLATED FROM

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[paragraph continues] "KAROLI MAGNI ET LUDOVICI PII CHRISTIONISS:--CAPITULA SIVE LEGES ECCLESIASTICÆ ET CIVILES." PARIS, 1603. EXTRACT ADDITIO ii, C. 18. " Of the diverse crimes of evil-doers."