528 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1294-1517.
the 15th century was John Nider, d. 1438, in his Formicarius or Ant-IndJJst^]^ He was a member of the Dominican order, professor of theology in Vienna and attend(3d the Council of BaseL Writers like Jacquier were not satisfied with sending forth a single treatise.^ Writers like Sylvester Prierias, d. 1523, known in the history of Luther, and Bartholomew Spina, d. 1546, occupied important positions at the papal court.^ These two men expounded Innocent VIII. 's bull, and quote the Witches Hammer. Geiler of Strassburg repeated from the pulpit the vilest charges against witches. Pico della Mirandola, the biographer of Savonarola, filled a book with material of the same sort, and declared that one might as well call in question the discovery of America as the existence of witches. ^
The prosecution of witches assumed large proportions first in Switzerland and Northern Italy and then, in France and Germany^. In Rome, the first reported burning was in 1424.* In the diocese of Como, Northern Italy, 41 were burnt the year after the promulgation of Innocent VIII.'s bull. Between 1500-1525 the yearly number of women tried in that district was 1000 and the executions averaged 100. In 1521, Prierias declared that the Apennine regions were so full of witches that they were expected soon to outnumber the faithful.
^ Flagellum hcereticorum fascinariorum, The Heretics' Flail. Extracts in Hansen, 133-144. Tract, de calcinatione doemonum sen malignurum spirituum, still in MS. in Brussels.
2 De strigmagarum dcemonumqw mirandis, Rome, 1521, and Destrigibus et lamiis, Venice, 1535. Hansen, pp. 317-339.
2 Strix sive de ludificatione doemoiucin, 1523. See Burckhardt-Geiger : Renaissance, Excursus, II. 359-362. The official papal view at the close of the loth century was set forth by the canonist, Francis Pegna, d. in Rome 1612. He held an appointment on the papal commission for the revision of Gratian's Decretals, and asserts that the aerial flights and cohabitation of witches could be proved beyond all possible doubt. See extracts from his Com. on Eymericus Directorium. Hansen : Quellen, p. 358 sq.
* Infe-ssura, Tommasini's ed., p. 25. For another burning in Rome, 1442, Burckhardt-Geiger, II. 359. For witchcraft in Italy, see this author, II. 256- 264. Also the extensive lists of trials, 1245-1540, noted down in Hansen's Quellen; the ecclesiastical trials, pp. 445-616 ; the civil, pp. 517-616. In 1623 Gregory XV. renewed the penalty of lifelong imprisonment for making pacts with the devil.
§ 59. WITCHCRAFT AND ITS PUNISHMENT. 529
In France, one of the chief victims, the Carmelite William Adeline, was professor in Paris and had taken part in the Council of Basel. Arraigned by the Inquisition, 1453, he confessed to being a Vaudois, and having habitually attended their synagogues and done homage to the devil. In spite of his abjurations, he was kept in prison till he died.i In Brian- 9on, 1428-1447, 110 women and 57 men were executed for witchcraft in the flames or by drowning.
In Germany, Heidelberg, Pforzheim, Niirnberg, Wlirzburg, Bamberg, Vienna, Cologne, Metz and other cities were centres of the craze and witnessed many executions. It was during the five years preceding 1486 that Heinrich Institoris and Sprenger sent 48 to the stake. The Heidelberg courtpreacher, Matthias Widman, of Kemnat, pronounced the "Cathari or heretical witches" the most damnable of the sects, one which should be subjected to "abundance of fire and without mercy." He reports that witches rode on broomsticks, spoons, cats, goats and other objects, and that he had seen many of them burnt in Heidelberg. In 1540, six years before Luther's death, four witches and sorcerers were burnt in Protestant Wittenberg. And in 1545, 34 women were burnt or quartered in Geneva. InEngland the law for^the burning of heretics, 1401, was gjyplied to thesa naioillinate people, not a few of whom were committed_to_the flarn^s. But flEepersecution in the mediaeval period never took on the proportions on English soil it reached on the Continent ; and there, it was not the Church but the state that dealt with the crime of sorcery.
According to the estimate of Louis ofParanip, himself a distinguished inquisitor of Sicily who had condemned many to the flames, there had been during the 150 vears before 1597^ the date of his treatise on the Origin frx^ Praqrp.H^ nf th^ Inquisition^ 30,000 executions foj^witehcraii-.^
1 Hansen : Quellen, pp. 467-472. For the notorious case of Gilles de Rais, the reputed original Bluebeard, see Lea : Inq., III. 468-487.
2 For other figures, see Hansen: Zaubericahn, p. 532 sqq., Hoensbroech, I. 500 sqq., and Lecky, I. 29 sqq. Seven thousand are said to have been burnt at Treves. In 1670, 70 persons were arraigned in Sweden and a large number of them burnt.
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