Note 189 — Chapter XV
Reading edition
In days to come people will be slow to believe that the law among Christian nations went beyond anything decreed concerning the olden slavery; that it wrote down as an actual right the most grievous outrage that could ever wound man's heart. The Lord Spiritual had this right no less than the Lord Temporal. The parson being a lord, expressly claimed the first fruits of the bride, but was willing to sell his rights to the husband. The Courts of Berne openly maintain that this right grew up naturally.—"La Sorcerie," Michelet, p. 62.