“Sed jacet aurato vix ulla puerpera lecto;
Tantum artes hujus, tantum medicamina possunt,
Quæ steriles facit, atque homines in ventre necandos
Conducit.”
Sat. vi. 592-595.
There are also many allusions to it in the Christian writers. Thus Minucius Felix (Octavius, xxx.): “Vos enim video procreatos filios nunc feris et avibus exponere, nunc adstrangulatos misero mortis genere elidere. Sunt quæ in ipsis visceribus, medicaminibus epotis, originem futuri hominis extinguant, et parricidium faciant antequam pariant.”
Hecker's Epidemics of the Middle Ages (London, 1844), p. 121. Hecker in his very curious essay on this mania, has preserved a verse of their song:—
“Allu mari mi portati
Se voleti che mi sanati,
Allu mari, alla via,
Così m'ama la donna mia,
Allu mari, allu mari,
Mentre campo, t'aggio amari.”
“Quas vilitates vitæ dignas legum observatione non credidit.”—Cod. Theod. lib. ix. tit. 7. See on this law, Wallon, tome iii. pp. 417, 418.
Dean Milman observes, “In the old Roman society in the Eastern Empire this distinction between the marriage of the freeman and the concubinage of the slave was long recognised by Christianity itself. These unions were not blessed, as the marriages of their superiors had soon begun to be, by the Church. Basil the Macedonian (a.d. 867-886) first enacted that the priestly benediction should hallow the marriage of the slave; but the authority of the emperor was counteracted by the deep-rooted prejudices of centuries.”—Hist. of Latin Christianity, vol. ii. p. 15.
The penalty, however, appears to have been reduced to two years' exclusion from communion. Muratori says: “In più consili si truova decretato, ‘excommunicatione vel pœnitentiæ biennii esse subjiciendum qui servum proprium sine conscientia judicis occiderit.’ ”—Antich. Ital. Diss. xiv.
Besides the works which treat generally of the penitential discipline, the reader may consult with fruit Wright's letter On the Political Condition of the English Peasantry, and Moehler, p. 186.
Milman's History of Latin Christianity, vol. vii. pp. 353, 354.