In the seventh century, a Lombard code embodied a similar effort.

In the eighth century, one of Charlemagne's capitularies seems to have had a like purpose.

In the ninth century, that great churchman and statesman, Agobard, Archbishop of Lyons, superior to his time in this as in so many other things, tried to make right reason prevail in this field; and, near the beginning of the tenth century, Regino, Abbot of Prum, in the diocese of Treves, insisted on treating possession as disease.

But all in vain; the current streaming most directly from sundry texts in the Christian sacred books, and swollen by theology, had become overwhelming.( 347) (347) For a very thorough and interesting statement on the general subject, see Kirchhoff, Beziehungen des Damonen- und Hexenwesens zur deutschen Irrenpflege in the Allgemeine Zeitschrift fur Psychiatrie, Berlin, 1888, Bd.

xliv, Heft 25.