it was notoriously current in his day. That eminent father, S. Augustine, De Ciuitate Dei, VII, 21, gives some account of the fascinum as used in the rites of Bacchus, and when he is detailing the marriage ceremonies (VI, 9), he writes: “Sed quid hoc dicam, cum tibi sit et Priapus nimius masculus, super cuius immanissimum et turpissimum fascinum sedere nona nupta iubeatur, more honestissimo et religiosissimo matronarum.” The historian, Evagrius Scholasticus (ob. post a.d. 504), in his Historia Ecclesiastica (XI, 2), says that the ritual of Priapus was quite open in his day, and the fascinum widely known. Nicephorus Calixtus, a later Byzantine, who died about the middle of the fourteenth century but whose Chronicle closed with the death of Leo Philosophus, a.d. 911, speaks of phallic ceremonies and of the use of ithy-phalli.[1]
Council after council forbade the use of the fascinum, and their very insistence of prohibition show how deeply these abominations had taken root. The Second Council of Châlon-sur-Saône (813) is quite plain and unequivocal; so are the synods of de Mano (1247) and Tours (1396). Burchard of Worms (died 25 Aug., 1025) is his famous Decretum has: “Fecisti quod quædam mulieres facere solent, ut facere quoddam molimen aut mechinamentum in modum uirilis dorum tuorum, aut alterius, cum aliquibus ligaturis colligares, et fornicationem faceres eum aliis mulierculis, uel aliæ eodem instrumento, siue alio, tecum? Si fecisti, quinque annos per legitimas ferias pœniteas.” And again: “Fecisti quod quædam mulieres facere solent, ut iam supra dicto molimine uel alio aliquo machinamento, tu ipsa in te solam faceres fornicationem? Si fecisti, unum annum per legitimas ferias pœniteas.”
Other old Penitentials have: “Mulier qualicumque molimine aut per seipsum aut cum altera fornicans, tres annos pœniteat; unum ex his in pane et aqua.”
“Cum sanctimoniali per machinam fornicans annos septem pœniteat; duos ex his in pane et aqua.”
“Mulia qualicumque molimine aut seipsam polluens, aut cum altera fornicans, quatuor annos. Sanctimonialis femina cum sanctimoniali per machinamentum polluta, septem annos.”
It is demonstrable, then, that artificial methods of coition,
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