(96) The usual statement is, that Calixtus excommunicated the comet by a bull, and this is accepted by Arago, Grant, Hoefer, Guillemin, Watson, and many historians of astronomy. Hence the parallel is made on a noted occasion by President Lincoln. No such bull, however, is to be found in the published Bulleria, and that establishing the Angelus (as given by Raynaldus in the Annales Eccl.) contains no mention of the comet. But the authority of Platina (in his Vitae Pontificum, Venice, 1479, sub Calistus III) who was not only in Rome at the time, but when he wrote his history, archivist of the Vatican, is final as to the Pope's attitude. Platina's authority was never questioned until modern science changed the ideas of the world. The recent attempt of Pastor (in his Geschichte der Papste) to pooh-pooh down the whole matter is too evident an evasion to carry weight with those who know how even the most careful histories have to be modified to suit the views of the censorship at Rome. But the superstition went still further. It became more and more incorporated into what was considered "scriptural science" and "sound learning." The encyclopedic summaries, in which the science of the Middle Ages and the Reformation period took form, furnish abundant proofs of this. Yet scientific observation was slowly undermining this structure. The inspired prophecy of Seneca had not been forgotten. Even as far back as the ninth century, in the midst of the sacred learning so abundant at the court of Charlemagne and his successors, we find a scholar protesting against the accepted doctrine. In the thirteenth century we have a mild question by Albert the Great as to the supposed influence of comets upon individuals; but the prevailing theological current was too strong, and he finally yielded to it in this as in so many other things. So, too, in the sixteenth century, we have Copernicus refusing to accept the usual theory, Paracelsus writing to Zwingli against it, and Julius Caesar Scaliger denouncing it as "ridiculous folly."(97) (97) As to encyclopedic summaries, see Vincent of Beauvais, Speculum Naturale, and the various editions of Reisch's Margarita Philosophica. For Charlemagne's time, see Champion, La Fin du Monde, p. 156; Leopardi, Errori Popolari, p. 165. As to Albert the Great's question, see Heller, Geschichte der Physik, vol. i, p. 188. As to scepticism in the sixteenth century, see Champion, La Fin du Monde, pp. 155, 156; and for Scaliger, Dudith's book, cited below.