Note 34 — BOOK VI. CONCERNING CRIMES AND TORTURES.

This would have been readily accepted as law under James I, a thousand years subsequently; and, no doubt, would have been indorsed as sound by Cotton Mather, whose sanguinary executions for witchcraft took place nearly eleven centuries after the death of the Visigothic king, Chintasvintus. The penalties for sorcery set forth in the Forum Judicum, were far less harsh than those prescribed by the Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence. The punishment of death was not permitted by the former, except where life had been lost through the effect of incantations or charms; a rare occurrence, as may well be surmised; and torture by fire is not even referred to, still less tolerated. In this instance, as in many others, the more lenient policy of the barbarian appears in striking contrast to the fierce and blind intolerance and cruelty of nations in the possession of superior culture and intelligence, and living in a far more progressive age.—[Ed.]