Before this tribunal, acting it would seem as a court of justice, a suit was regularly instituted, with the Rector of the University of Paris and the Dean and Faculty of Physic of the same as pursuers, on the one part, and Michael Villanovanus as defendant, on the other. For the University and Faculty, it was alleged that judicial astrology, otherwise to be styled divination, is forbidden by various statutes, as well canonical and divine as civil, the penalty for practising the same being death by fire, and that the defendant, a man of learning, and so incapacitated from pleading ignorance of these statutes, had notoriously lectured both in public and private on certain books of divination, among others, on the works entitled ‘De Aleabiticis’ and ‘De Divificationibus,’ both of which are full of divination. It was alleged further, that he had been known to make forecasts for various persons in respect of their fortunes from their nativities, on the assumption that according to the day and the hour of a man’s birth, and the aspect of the heavens at the time, would fortune of a favourable or adverse kind befal him; all of which by the Faculty of Theology is held highly reprehensible. That for his lectures and lessons, moreover, he takes money and attracts numerous auditors, who, seduced by the pleasantness of the poison he sells, have been debauched and led to forsake the true philosophy of Pico de Mirandola, who declares divination to be the most pestilent of frauds, degrading philosophy, invalidating religion, strengthening superstition, corrupting morals, and making men miserable slaves instead of free men. Not stopping short at such public and private misdeeds, continue the pursuers, he has written and had printed a certain apology or defence of divination,[47] with his name attached, which is of a highly objectionable character in every respect; the Theological Faculty declaring in addition that the concluding sentence of this apology has an extremely suspicious appearance, couched as it is in these words: ‘On the following night Mars is eclipsed by the moon, near the star called the King, in the constellation of Leo; whence I predict that in the course of this year the hearts of the Lions, i.e. the princes, will be greatly moved; that with Mars in the ascendant war will prevail, and much havoc be done by fire and sword; that the Church will suffer tribulation, several princes die, and pestilence and other evils abound. To languish, to mourn, to die--all of good or ill that comes to man proceeds from heaven.’