Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 3.djvu/527

 JURISDICTION. 511 had always been able to overcome the enemy. Yet there were exceptions to this, as we have seen in the case of the unlucky in- quisitor and podesta of Como ; and the lenity of some judges was explained by the fact that the witch was sometimes able so to affect their minds that they were unable to convict. This steeled the heart of the conscientious inquisitor, who repressed all senti- ments of compassion in the belief that they were prompted by Satan. The witch was specially able to exert this power over her judge when she looked upon him before he saw her, and it was a wise precaution to make her enter the court backwards, so that the judge had the advantage of the first glance. He and his as- sistants were also advised to be very careful not to let a witch touch them, especially on the wrist or other joint, and to wear around the neck a bag containing salt exorcised on Palm Sunday, with consecrated herbs enclosed in blessed wax, besides constantly protecting themselves with the sign of the cross. It was doubt- less through neglect of these salutary precautions that at a witch- burning in the Black Forest, as the executioner was lifting the convict on the pile she blew in his face, saying, " I will reward you," whereupon a horrible leprosy broke out which spread over his body, and in a few days he was dead. Occasionally, moreover, the familiar demon of the witch, in the shape of a raven, would accompany her to the place of execution and prevent the wood from burning until he was driven off.* To combat an evil so widespread and all-pervading required the combined exertions of Church and State. The secular and episcopal courts both had undoubted jurisdiction over it ; the ac- tion of John XXII., in 1330, may have caused some question as to the Inquisition, but if so it was settled in 1374, when the In- quisitor of France was proceeding against some sorcerers and his competence was disputed, and Gregory XL, to whom the matter was referred, instructed him to prosecute them with the full sever- ity of the laws. Commissions issued in 1409 and 1418 to Pons Feugeyron, Inquisitor of Provence, enumerate sorcerers, conjur- ers, and invokers of demons among those whom he is to suppress. As the growth of witchcraft became more alarming, Eugenius 2.— Jahn, Hexenwesen und Zauberei in Pomraern, Breslau, 1886, p. 8.
 * Mall. Malef. P. n. Q. i.; Q. i. c. 4, 11 ; P. m. Q. xv.— Prieriat. Lib. in. c.