TRANSLATIONS FROM CONTINENTAL JOURNALS. 115 
and were called “ Ignis sacer assura, clades seu pestis igni- 
aria.” In the twelfth century this nomenclature had increased 
to “ Ignis sancti Antonii, sancti martialis, Beatse Yirginis ignis 
invisibilis, seu infernalis.” All these expressions only serve 
to designate one and the same malady, which is nothing more 
or less than ergotism. The learned historian of the sacred fire 
of the middle ages, Professor Fuchs, Das heilige feuer im 
mittelalter/ Berlin, 1834,) fixes the first invasion in the 
year 857. The following explicit passage leaves no doubt 
in this respect: “Plaga magna vesicarum turgentium grassatur 
in populo et detestabili eos putredini consumsit, ita ut mem¬ 
bra ante mortem deciderunt” (Perzt, 11, 230). The epidemic 
of 590 (Greg. Tur. x. 30), which some authors have repre¬ 
sented as the ignis sacer, does not appear to have presented 
the characteristics of it. Its progress was of extraordinary 
rapidity. It began with a slight headache which was the 
forerunner of death (. . . . ita et modico quisquis segrotus 
capitis dolore pulsatus animam funderet). This morbid form 
can no more be proved to be ergotism than those vague as¬ 
sertions that near Limoges several people had been consumed 
by the fire of heaven (Feu Celeste), which had also burnt 
some in Touraine (nonnulli ab hoc igne sunt adusti). At 
the same time there prevailed an epizootic so destructive 
that it did not spare even the wild animals. A great drought, 
which had destroyed all the forage for cattle, was followed by 
heavy rains and inundations, which were favorable to the de¬ 
velopment of the carbon. One fact in support of the passage 
quoted from this chronicle and the opinion of Fuchs, is that 
rye, being an Asiatic plant, was only introduced into Europe 
in the middle ages (Links). Admitting, as is supposed, that 
we are indebted for its introduction to the Huns, we must never¬ 
theless take into account the state of civilisation of that part 
of the world in order to arrive at the supposition that at the 
end of the sixth century it should have become so general in 
Gallia as to become the object of a regular agricultural rotation. 
All the epidemics of the ignis sacer correspond with years 
characterised by severe cold winters, to which have succeeded 
wet summers, causing failure of crops, scarcity, and famine. 
These epidemics made their appearance in September or 
October, and terminated in the spring; unless the condition 
of the atmosphere was unfavorable for the succeeding crops. 
There is no mention made of these general epidemics in those 
years which were noted for their great fertility and abun¬ 
dant crops, sporadic epidemics were however met with, but 
these were confined to localities where ergotism prevails up to 
the present time, viz., Sologne, Dauphine, Lyons, Lorraine, 
