But about the eighth century, this practice began to lose ground, as soon or late, reason and authority will get the better of that which is founded on neither. It was proscribed by several popes and councils, and in terms which rank it among Pagan superstitions. However, some traces of this custom are found for several ages after, both in the Greek and the Latin church. Upon the consecration of a bishop, after laying the bible upon his head, a ceremony still subsisted, that the first verse which offered itself, was accounted an omen of his future behaviour, and of the good or evil which was reserved for him in the course of his episcopacy. Thus, a Bishop of Rochester, at his consecration by Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury, had a very happy presage in these words: “Bring hither the best robe, and put it on him.” But the answer of the Scripture, at the consecration of St. Lietbert, Bishop of Cambray, was still more grateful: “This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased.” The death of Albert, Bishop of Liege, is said to have been intimated to him by these words, which the Archbishop, who consecrated him, found at the opening of the New Testament, “And the king sent an executioner, and commanded his head to be brought; and he went and beheaded him in the prison.” Upon this the primate tenderly embracing the new bishop, said to him with tears, “My son, having given yourself up to the service of God, carry yourself righteously and devoutly, and prepare yourself for the trial of martyrdom.” The Bishop was afterwards murdered by the treacherous connivance of the Emperor Henry VI. These prognostics were alleged upon the most important occasions. De Garlande, Bishop of Orleans, became so odious to his clergy, that they sent a complaint against him to Pope Alexander III. concluding in this manner: “Let your apostolical hands put on strength to _strip naked_ the iniquity of this man; that the curse prognosticated on the day of his consecration, may overtake him; for the gospels being opened, _according to custom_, the first words were, _And the young man, leaving his linen cloth, fled from them naked_.” William of Malmsbury relates, that Hugh de Montaigne, Bishop of Auxerre, was obliged to go to Rome, to answer different charges brought against the purity of his morals, by some of his chapter; but they who held with the bishop, as an irrefragable proof of his spotless chastity, insisted that the prognostic on the day of his consecration was, “Hail, Mary, full of grace.”