Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 3.djvu/528

 512 WITCHCRAFT. IV., in 1437, stimulated the inquisitors everywhere to greater activity against it, and these instructions were repeated in 1415. In 1151 Nicholas V. even enlarged the powers of Hugues le Xoir, Inquisitor of France, by granting him jurisdiction over divination, even when it did not savor of heresy. There was occasional clash- ing, of course, between the episcopal officials and the inquisitors, but the rule seems to have been generally observed that either could proceed separately, while the Clementine regulation should be observed which prescribed their co-operation in the use of tort- ure and punitive imprisonment and when rendering final sentence. The bishops, moreover, assumed that their assent was necessary to the action of the secular courts. In the case of Guillaume Edeline, condemned to perpetual imprisonment at Evreux in 1153, when the sentence was read by the episcopal official the bishop added u We retain our power of pardon," but the inquisitor at once entered a formal protest that the prisoner should not be re- leased without the consent of the Inquisition.* Yet in France at this period the royal jurisdiction, as embodied in the Parlement, was, as we have seen in a former chapter, suc- cessfully exerting its superiority over both bishops and inquisitors. A curious case occurring in 1-160 illustrates both this and the superstitions current at the time. A priest of the diocese of Sois- sons named Yves Favins brought a suit for tithes against a hus- bandman named Jean Eogier, who held of the Hospitallers. These, like the Templars, were exempt from tithes ; Favins lost his case, was condemned in the expenses, which were heavy, and was eager for revenge. A poor woman of the village who had come from ]Ierville in Hainault, had quarrelled with the wife of Eogier over the price of some spinning, and to her Yves had recourse. She gave him a great toad which she kept in a pot, and told him to baptize it and feed it on a consecrated wafer, which he did, giving it the name of John. The woman then killed it and made of it a " sorceron" which her daughter took to Eogiers house under pre- tence of demanding the money in dispute, and cast it under the table at which Eogier, his wife, and his son were dining. They 301.— Prieriat. Lib. m. c. 1.— Mall. Maleficar. P. n. Q. i. c. 16 ; P. in. Q. i.— Anon. Carthus. de Relig. Orig. c. xxvi. (Martene Ampl. Coll. VI. 59).
 * Raynald. ami. 1374, No. 13; ann. 1437, No. 27.— Ripoll II. 566-7 : III. 193,