Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 3.djvu/522

 506 WITCHCRAFT. moreover, torture and prolonged imprisonment in the foulest of dungeons doubtless produced partial derangement, leading to be- lief that he had committed the acts so persistently imputed to him. In either case, desire to obtain the last sacrament, which was essential to salvation and which was only administered to contrite and repentant sinners, would induce him to maintain to the last the truth of his confession. Xo proof more unquestiona- ble than this could be had of any of the events of life, and belief in the figments of witchcraft was therefore unhesitating. To doubt, moreover, if not heresy, was cause for vehement suspicion. The Church lent its overpowering authority to enforce belief on the souls of men. The malignant powers of the witch were repeatedly set forth in the bulls of successive popes for the implicit credence of the faithful, and the University of Cologne, in 14S7, when ex- pressing its approval of the M aliens Mcdejiccvrum of Sprenger, warned every one that to argue against the reality of witchcraft was to incur the guilt of impeding the Inquisition.* What rendered the powers of the witch peculiarly dreadful was the deplorable fact that the Church had no remedy for the evils which she so recklessly wrought. It is true that the sign of the cross, and holy water, and blessed oil, and palms, and candles, and wax and salt, and the strict observance of religious rites were in some sense a safeguard and a preventive. A witch confessed that she had been employed to kill a certain man, but when she invoked the devil for the purpose he replied that he could not do it, as the intended victim kept himself protected by the sign of the cross, and that the utmost injury that could be inflicted on him was the destruction of one eleventh of his harvests ; and another one stated that on their nocturnal rounds to destroy children they were unable to enter houses in which were kept palms and blessed bread or crosses of palms or olive, or to injure those who habitu- ally protected themselves with the sign of the cross. But it was acknowledged that, when once the spell had been cast, the victim "pricking' 1 or thrusting long needles in every part of the victim's body in search of the insensible spot which was a characteristic of the witch. probat. Univ. Coloniens. in Mall. Malef. For an official selection of papal bulls on the subject see Lib. Sept. Decret Lib. v. Tit. xii.
 * Ripoll III. 193.— Pegnee Append, ad Eymeric. pp. 83, 84, 85, 99, 105.— Ap-