In other words, the mere possession of magic art, in the old heathen world, was not, in itself a crime, for while it was dreaded, as being liable to be turned to malicious or wrongful purposes, it was also recognized as a most beneficial art, through which the religion of domestic life and the remedy of healing the sick, was supposed to come. That this view of witchcraft continued to prevail for many centuries after the reception of Christianity, is evidenced by the laws of Constantine, in the fourth century, which ordained capital punishment for all those who practiced noxious charms against the life or health of others, by supernatural power, but exempted from the punishment of the law, all those who practiced magical arts for beneficial purposes, such as warding off hailstorms, and excessive rains or windstorms, or curing cattle or persons afflicted with disease.[7] The savage laws by the Christian Emperors in the early centuries did considerable harm in after ages. The Anglo-Saxons patterned their laws against sorcery and witchcraft after the folk-laws of the continent and Cnut, even, legislated against the witchcraft which was heathenish.[8] During the reign of Henry I., criminals who encompassed the maiming or sickening of a person by maltreating a waxen image of him—a belief that generally obtained from this time until the seventeenth century—were either hanged or burnt.[9] And during the reign of this monarch, in England, Archbishop Gerard, of York, was accused of necromancy and sorcery and when it was discovered that he had died suddenly, and a book on the subject of astrology was found under his pillow, his body was refused burial in the Cathedral.[10] After the influence of the Catholic religion had safely extended its power over the western world, however, and the fear of a return to paganism was looked upon as most improbable, the church was not inclined to look with such aversion upon the class of criminals accused of dabbling in the black arts. Astrology and necromancy were looked upon with considerable admiration by the most powerful of the church and laity and even Bishops and Popes tempted the powers of evil, by little harmless excursions into the great realm of the supernatural. This temporizing by the church continued until about the beginning of the thirteenth century, when heresy had become so common that the interests of the church were threatened and when the church began, in various parts of the world, a most stringent prosecution of witches and sorcerers and the crowned-heads of Europe, in humble submission to the demands of the Pope, used the power of the kingdom in an attempt to rid the church of this threatened evil.[11]