The most severe punishment on the individual was excommunication.[367:3] It could be pronounced by the Pope against a layman, either king or common man, or against a bishop or priest; or by a bishop against a layman or a priest. Its operation was direct and its effects severe. It cut the excommunicate off from the sacraments which alone could insure his salvation and subjected him to temporal punishments. As long as he was under the ban, he was a social outcast, like an outlawed criminal or a dangerous wild beast, debarred from all social greetings, food, shelter, and all intercourse. To kill him was not murder and he was left to die in lonely starvation. By the secular law, too, he lost all civil rights, could be seized and thrown into prison, and forfeited to the state all his property.[367:4] His whole family, likewise, were subject to the same disabilities.[367:5] If a king, his subjects were all released from allegiance to him. He was consigned to everlasting punishment, often with the most terrific curses, which were frequently written down with sacred wine and ink. This terrible fate dangled over the head of every member of the Church, dead as well as alive, but, of course, it followed only after the proof of guilt had been established in a careful, formal trial and after earnest entreaties to repent had been made. The theory, however, was too often abused.[368:1] With sincere repentance the punishment ceased and absolution followed.[368:2] There are examples almost without number of the employment of excommunication, but a few conspicuous examples will suffice to show its operation. Ambrose in 383 excommunicated Maximus for murdering Gratian, the Emperor.[368:3] Gregory the Great excommunicated Archbishop Maximus of Salona and forced him to repentance (600).[368:4] The Archbishop of Sens (seventh century) launched the curse against unknown robbers of his church.[368:5] Pope Benedict VIII. excommunicated the despoiler of the monastery of St. Giles.[368:6] There were very many cases against kings, criminals, heretics, etc., and the punishment was even applied to animals. Thus in 975 the Archbishop of Treves excommunicated the annoying sparrows. Caterpillars which were ravishing the diocese of Laon were put under the ban in 1120 by the bishop. Even St. Bernard, on an occasion which may have been justifiable, pronounced an anathema in 1121 on a swarm of flies which bothered him while he was making a pious speech.[369:1] Not only was this ecclesiastical cudgel used with the most telling effects in enforcing the law of the Church upon the disobedient and unbelieving, but it was not infrequently abused for personal revenge and spite or for other low motives.[369:2]