Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 3.djvu/465

 INFLUENCE OF INQUISITION. 449 When sorcery thus came under the jurisdiction of the Inquisi- tion it came simply as heresy, and the whole theory of its treat- ment was altered. The Inquisition was concerned exclusively with belief ; acts were of interest to it merely as evidence of the beliefs which they inferred, and all heresies were equal in guilt, whether they consisted in affirming the poverty of Christ or led to demon-worship, pacts with Satan, and attempts on human life. The sorcerer might, therefore, well prefer to fall into the hands of the Inquisition rather than to be judged by the secular tribunals, for in the former case he had the benefit of the invariable rules observed in dealings with heresy. By confession and abjuration he could always be admitted to penance and escape the stake, which was the customary secular punishment ; while, having no convictions such as animated the Cathari and Waldenses, it cost his conscience nothing to make the necessary recantation. In the inquisitorial records, in so far as they have reached us, we meet with no cases of hardened and obdurate demon-worshippers. In- quisitorial methods could always secure confession, and the in- quisitorial manuals give us examples of the carefully drawn for- mulas of abjuration administered and forms for the sentences to be pronounced. It may perhaps be questioned whether the fiery torture of the stake were not preferable to the inquisitorial mercy which confined its penitents to imprisonment for life in chains and on bread and water ; but few men have resolution to prefer a speedy termination to their sufferings, and there was always the hope that exemplary conduct in prison might earn a mitigation of the pen- alty. It was probably in consequence of this apparent lenity that Philippe le Bel, in 1303, forbade the Inquisition to take cognizance of usury, sorcery, and other offences of the J ews ; and we shall see hereafter that when it was forced to summon all its energies in the epidemics of witchcraft, it was obliged to abandon the rule and find excuses for delivering its repentant victims to the stake. * About this time Zanghino gives us the current Italian ecclesi- astical view of the subject. In his detailed description of the vari- ous species of magic, vulgar witchcraft finds no place, showing pp. 35,45) mentions the occurrence of similar formulas in the other manuals of the period. III.— 29
 * Bern. Guidon. Pract. P. m. 42, 43; P. v. vii. 12.--Doat, XXVII. 150.