CHRISTIANIZED MEGALITHIC MONUMENTS. 669 



antiquity or the st-rengtli of tlie popular attacliment to them seemed 

 dangerous to the early Christians, and in particular against the 

 devotion it had been customary to give to certain stones. A council 

 held at Aries in 452 notified the bishops in districts where this cult 

 prevailed that if they neglected to destroy it they would be guilty 

 of sacrilege. A council at Tours in 567 advised the clergy to ex- 

 clude from the church all who performed before certain stones rites 

 strange to it. A century afterward, in 668, the Council of JSTantes, 

 calling the attention of the bishops and their servitors to venerated 

 stones in retired and woody spots where vows were made and offerings 

 brought, enjoined them to throw the stones where their worshipers 

 would never be able to find them. The Council of Rouen in 689 de- 

 nounced those who made vows at stones as if they were altars, or who 

 offered candles and presents before them as if some power resided 

 within them that could dispense good and harm. Two councils at 

 Toledo, in 681 and 693, threatened " the venerators of stones " with 

 various penalties. The worship of stones figured in a list of supersti- 

 tions still in use at that period drawn up in 743 by a council at Lep- 

 tines, near Mons. These customs were also denounced in royal ordi- 

 nances and episcopal instructions. A decree of Chilperic in the sec- 

 ond half of the sixth century ordered the stone monuments standing 

 in the fields to be destroyed. In the middle of the next century, St. 

 Eloi, Bishop of ISToyon, prohibited Christians from performing vows 

 or diabolical ceremonies around stones. We read in the Capitulary of 

 Charlemagne, which was drawn up at Aix-la-Chapelle in 789, " On 

 the subject of stones to which some foolish people come and give 

 theniselves up to superstitious practices, we order that this abuse so 

 detestable and so execrable to God be abolished and destroyed." 

 Similar measures were adopted in England. A decree of Edgar in 

 967 threatened with terrible punishments those who should perform 

 before certain stones practices savoring of their ancient consecration, 

 or who should omit to destroy them. The decree does not seem, 

 however, to have been of much effect. Canute was obliged to renew 

 it in an edict which characterized such worship of stones as bar- 

 barous. 



The effect of these ordinances and threats was far from complete. 

 The people kept on in their old ways. The church, not succeeding 

 in destroying the reverence in which the megalithic monuments were 

 held, and fearing the wrath of the people if they overthrew them, 

 decided to sanctify them, to put them under the care of the Virgin, 

 and to derive some profit from the worship paid them. It was neces- 

 sary, as Ereminville says, to resort to pious frauds and senseless 

 modifications. 



A considerable number of menhirs have preserved evident traces 



