420 SORCERY AND OCCULT ARTS. doubtless the genuine one, describes her as a cultured and exem- plary woman, who ruled her nunnery in the service of God for forty years, leaving a happy memory behind her ; another MS. of the same chronicle calls her a blasphemous witch and sorceress, under whose government the convent was almost ruined. After the Church had triumphed over the empire, it is easy to under- stand why such an interpolation should have been made.* While thus the ancient laws against sorcery were practically falling into desuetude on the Continent, the legislation of the Anglo-Saxons shows that in England lijblac or witchcraft was the object of greater solicitude. About the year 900 the laws of Edward and Guthrum class witches and diviners with perjurers, murderers, and strumpets, who are ordered to be driven from the land, with the alternatives of reforming, of being executed, or of paying heavy fines — a provision which was repeatedly re-enacted by succeeding monarchs to the time of Cnut. At heist an soon after decreed that when death was caused by hjblac, and the perpe- trator confessed it, he should pay with his life ; if he denied, he underwent the triple ordeal : failing in this he was imprisoned for four months, after which his kinsmen could release him on paying the wer-gild of the slain, the heavy fine of one hundred and twenty shillings to the king, and giving security for his good behavior. Towards the middle of the tenth century, Edward the Elder de- nounced perpetual excommunication for lyhlac unless the offender repented. In the compilation known as the Laws of Henry I. murder by sorcery forfeited the privilege of redemption by paying wer-gild, and the perpetrator was handed over to the kinsmen of the slain, to be dealt with at their pleasure. Eor minor injuries thus caused, redemption was allowed as in other cases. When the accused denied, he was tried before the bishop, thus subjecting this offence to ecclesiastical jurisdiction. This severity seems to have changed with the Xorman Conquest, for William the Conqueror, when besieging the Island of Ely, by advice of Ivo Taillebois placed at the head of his army a sorceress whose incantations w^ere expected to paralyze the resistance of the defenders. Unluckily for the scheme, Hereward of Burgh made a flank attack on the
- Chron. Turon. arm. 1061. — Chron. Halberstadiens. (Leibnit. S. R. Brunsv
II. 127-8).— Gest. Treviror. c. 38 (Martene Ampl. Coll. IV. 181-2).
