Page:The history of Witchcraft and demonology.djvu/31

 reverse of that dangerous science were recognized and its professors punished with the full force of repeated legislation.

M. de Cauzons has expressed himself somewhat vigorously when speaking of writers who trace the origins of Witchcraft to the Middle Ages: “C’est une mauvaise plaisanterie,” he remarks, “ou une contrevérité flagrante, d’affirmer que la sorcellerie naquit au Moyen-Age, et d’attribuer son existence à l’influence ou aux croyances de l’Eglise.” (It is either a silly jest or inept irony to pretend that Witchcraft arose in the Middle Ages, to attribute its existence to the influence or the beliefs of the Catholic Church.)

An even more erroneous assertion is the charge which has been not infrequently but over-emphatically brought forward by partial ill-documented historians to the effect that the European crusade against witches, the stern and searching prosecutions with the ultimate penalty of death at the stake, as are entirely due to the Bull Summis desiderantes affectibus, 5 December, 1484, of Pope Innocent VIII; or that at any rate this famous document, if it did not actually initiate the campaign, blew to blasts of flame and fury the smouldering and half-cold embers. This is most preposterously affirmed by Mackay, who does not hesitate to write: “There happened at that time to be a pontiff at the head of the Church who had given much of his attention to the subject of Witchcraft, and who, with the intention of rooting out the supposed crime, did more to increase it than any other man that ever lived. John Baptist Cibo, elected to the papacy in 1485, under the designation of Innocent VIII, was sincerely alarmed at the number of witches, and launched forth his terrible manifesto against them. In his celebrated bull of 1488, he called the nations of Europe to the rescue of the Church of Christ upon earth, ‘imperilled by the arts of Satan’ ” which last sentence seems to be a very fair statement of fact. Lecky notes the Bull of Innocent which, he extravagantly declares, “gave a fearful impetus to the Persecution.” Dr. Davidson, in a brief but slanderous account of this great pontiff, gives angry prominence to his severity “against sorcerers, magicians, and witches.” It is useless to cite more of these superficial and crooked judgements; but since even authorities of weight and value have been deluded and fallen into the snare it is worth while