So There

Before there were copyright laws, there were book curses:
For him that stealeth, or borroweth and returneth not, this book from its owner, let it change into a serpent in his hand and rend him. Let him be struck with palsy, and all his members blasted. Let him languish in pain crying out for mercy, & let there be no surcease to his agony till he sing in dissolution. Let bookworms gnaw his entrails … when at last he goeth to his final punishment, let the flames of Hell consume him forever.
That's from a volume in the monastery of San Pedro in Barcelona, but similar curses were used widely throughout the medieval period.
