In a treatise written by Abogard, Bishop of Lyons, in 833, composed to undeceive a world of people, who were persuaded that there were enchanters who could command thunder, and hail, and tempest, to destroy the fruits of the earth; and that they drove a great trade by this mystery with the people of a certain country called Magonia, who came once a year, sailing in large fleets through the air, to freight with the blighted corn, for which they paid down ready money to the enchanters. So little was this matter doubted, that one day the bishop had enough to do to save three men and a woman from being stoned to death, the people insisting they had just fallen overboard from one of these aërial ships. We do not here examine whether, in those days, the people literally were more superstitious and credulous than in the days of paganism. It is enough to say, that they were of very easy belief; and hence men began to write their histories in the style of romance, mixing up a thousand fables with the deeds of great men, such as Roland, nephew to Charlemagne; which so suited the taste of the age, that no book would afterwards go down in any other style--witness, for instance, the Manual of Devotions by James de Voragine, archbishop of Genoa, composed towards the latter end of the thirteenth century; and in which Melchior Canus, a learned Spanish bishop, is so scandalized in his eleventh book of Common Places. Another doctor of divinity,[129] speaking of the depraved state of the times, says, "It was the error, or rather folly, of some of the ancients, to think, that in writing the actions of illustrious men, the style must sink, unless they mixed up with it the ornaments, for so they called them, of poetical fiction, or something of this sort; and, consequently, thus blended truth with fable." This being the prevailing fashion of the times, we are inclined to believe, that in the histories of the crusades, many apocryphal subjects are introduced, which ought, consequently, to be read _cum grano salis_. This is decidedly the opinion of Pere Maimbourg,[130] who, after the relation of the battle of Iconium, won by Frederick of Barbarossa, 1190, says, "What was chiefly wonderful after this battle, was the conqueror's sustaining little or no loss, which most people ascribed to the particular protection of St. Victor and St. George, names oftenest invoked in the Christian army, which many of them said they saw engaging at the head of the squadrons. Whether in reality there might be something in it extraordinary, which has often happened, as the Scriptures inform us; or whether, by often hearing of celestial squadrons appearing at the battle of Antioch in the first crusade, warm imaginations possessed with the belief, and penetrated with these ideas, formed new apparitions of their own, but sure it is, that one Louie Helfenstein, a gentleman of reputation, and far from a visionary, affirmed to the emperor, on his oath, and on the