I command you, Devil, and all your imps, that even as I now blow out these torches, you do immediately extinguish the light from his eyes.

So be it--so be it.Amen.

Amen." So speaking, the curser was wont to blow out two waxen torches which he held in his hands, and, with this practical illustration, the anathema was complete.
Such insane ravings, even in the mouth of some impotent beldame, were enough to excite a shudder, but in that dreary epoch, these curses from the lips of clergymen were deemed sufficient to draw down celestial lightning upon the head, not of the blasphemer, but of his victim.

Men, who trembled neither at sword nor fire, cowered like slaves before such horrid imprecations, uttered by tongues gifted, as it seemed, with superhuman power.

Their fellow-men shrank from the wretches thus blasted, and refused communication with them as unclean and abhorred.
By the end of the thirteenth century, however, the clerical power was already beginning to decline.