91 The whole history of suicide in the dark ages has been most minutely and carefully examined by M. Bourquelot, in a very interesting series of memoirs in the third and fourth volumes of the _Bibliothèque de l’École des Chartes_. I am much indebted to these memoirs in the following pages. See, too, Lisle, _Du Suicide, Statistique, Médecine, Histoire, et Législation_. (Paris, 1856.) The ferocious laws here recounted contrast remarkably with a law in the Capitularies (lib. vi. lex 70), which provides that though mass may not be celebrated for a suicide, any private person may, through charity, cause prayers to be offered up for his soul. “Quia incomprehensibilia sunt judicia Dei, et profunditatem consilii ejus nemo potest investigare.” 92 See the very interesting work of the Abbé Bourret, _l’École chrétienne de Séville sous la monarchie des Visigoths_ (Paris, 1855), p. 196. 93 Roger of Wendover, A.D. 665. 94 Esquirol, _Maladies mentales_, tome i. p. 591. 95 Lea’s _History of Sacerdotal Celibacy_ (Philadelphia, 1867), p. 248. 96 “Per lo corso di molti secoli abbiamo questo solo suicidio donnesco, e buona cosa è non averne più d’uno; perchè io non credo che la impudicizia istessa sia peggiore di questa disperata castità.”—Cromaziano, _Ist. del. Suicidio_, p. 126. Mariana, who, under the frock of a Jesuit, bore the heart of an ancient Roman, treats the case in a very different manner. “Ejus uxor Maria Coronelia cum mariti absentiam non ferret, ne pravis cupiditatibus cederet, vitam posuit, ardentem forte libidinem igne extinguens adacto per muliebria titione; dignam meliori seculo fœminam, insigne studium castitatis.”—_De Rebus Hispan._ xvi. 17. 97 A number of passages are cited by Bourquelot. 98 This is noticed by St. Gregory Nazianzen in a little poem which is given in Migne’s edition of _The Greek Fathers_, tome xxxvii. p. 1459. St. Nilus and the biographer of St. Pachomius speak of these suicides, and St. Chrysostom wrote a letter of consolation to a young monk, named Stagirius, which is still extant, encouraging him to resist the temptation. See Neander, _Ecclesiastical Hist._ vol. iii. pp. 319, 320. 99 Bourquelot. Pinel notices (_Traité médico-philosophique sur l’Aliénation mentale_ (2nd ed.), pp. 44-46) the numerous cases of insanity still produced by strong religious feeling; and the history of the movements called “revivals,” in the present century, supplies much evidence to the same effect. Pinel says, religious insanity tends peculiarly to suicide (p. 265).