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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Doug McCrae" data-source="post: 8007092" data-attributes="member: 21169">Eberhard II von Otelingen, bishop of Bamberg from 1146 to 1170, described the procedure for organising an ordeal by boiling water when someone is accused of, among others things, veneficium or maleficium. The water must be asperged (sprinkled with holy water) in case the Devil should render it harmless. He also said that the accused may be protected by magical herbs “prepared by the Devil’s art.”Heribert, a monk who subsequently became archbishop of Torres in Sardinia, wrote in c. 1147 “False prophets who are striving to cause the downfall of Christianity... cannot be held in prison by any means because, if they are arrested they cannot be restrained by being tied up or put in chains, since the Devil sets them free.”The penitential of Bartholomew Iscanus, bishop of Exeter from 1161 to 1184, prescribed penance of  five years for those who conjure storms or, by invoking demons, induce madness. Using an incantation to steal food only merited three years’ penance. (Believing in nocturnal rides or transformation into wolves – one, which demonstrates that it was possible to consider some forms of magic to be real while denying others.)“The bishop of Beauvais in northern France led the citizens in trying and executing a woman for practising magic in 1190.” (Hutton)</blockquote>