CHAPTER IX.

WITCHCRAFT.

The culmination of sorcery was witchcraft and yet it was not the same.

In it there is no longer talk of pact with the demon, express or tacit,

to obtain certain results, with the expectation of washing out the sin

in the confessional and thus cheating the devil. The witch has abandoned

Christianity, has renounced her baptism, has worshipped Satan as her

God, has surrendered herself to him, body and soul, and exists only to

be his instrument in working the evil to her fellow-creatures, which he

cannot accomplish without a human agent. That such a being should excite

universal detestation was inevitable, and that no effort should be

spared for her extermination was the plainest duty of legislator and

judge. There are no pages of European history more filled with horror

than those which record the witch-madness of three centuries, from the

fifteenth to the eighteenth. No land was more exposed to the contagion

of this insanity than Spain where, for more than a hundred years, it was

constantly threatening to break forth. That it was repressed and

rendered comparatively harmless was due to the wisdom and firmness of

the Inquisition.

[Sidenote: _THE SABBAT_]

This witch-madness was essentially a disease of the imagination, created

and stimulated by the persecution of witchcraft. Whereever the

inquisitor or civil magistrate went to destroy it by fire, a harvest of

witches sprang up around his footsteps. If some old crone repaid

ill-treatment with a curse, and the cow of the offender chanced to die

or his child to fall sick, she was marked as a witch; the judge had no

difficulty in compelling such confession as he desired and in obtaining

a goodly list of accomplices; everyone who had met with ill-luck hurried

forward with his suspicions and accusations. Every prosecution widened

the circle, until nearly the whole population might become involved, to

be followed by executions numbered, not by the score but by the hundred,

in blind obedience to the scriptural injunction "Thou shalt not suffer a

witch to live." All destructive elemental disturbances--droughts or

flood, tempests or hail-storms, famine or pestilence--were ascribed to

witchcraft, and victims were sought, as though to offer propitiatory

holocausts to the infernal gods or expiatory sacrifices to the Creator.

Belief in witchcraft was of comparatively recent origin, dating from the

middle of the fourteenth century. Malignant sorcery had been known

before, but the distinctive feature of the Sabbat first makes its

appearance at this period--the midnight gathering to which the devotees

of Satan were carried through the air, where they renounced Christ and

worshipped their master, in the shape usually of a goat, but sometimes

in that of a handsome or hideous man; where they feasted and danced and

indulged in promiscuous intercourse, accommodating demons serving as

incubi or succubi, and were conveyed back home, where other demons,

assuming their shape, had protected their absence from observation.[460]

The development of this myth would seem ascribable to the increasing

rigor of persecution towards the end of the fourteenth century, when, as

we have seen, the University of Paris formulated the theory that pact

with Satan was inherent in all magic, leading judges, in their eager

exploration of cases brought before them, to connect this assumed pact

with an old belief of night-riders through the air, who swept along in

gathering hosts. With the methods in use, the judge or the inquisitor

would have little difficulty in finding what he sought. When once such a

belief was disseminated by trials and executions, the accused would seek

to escape endless torture by framing confessions in accordance with

leading questions and thus a tolerably coherent, though sometimes

discordant, formula was developed, to which witches in every land were

expected to conform. That this was a new development is shown by the

demonologists of the fifteenth century--Nider and Jaquerius, Sprenger

and Bernardo da Como--treating witches as a new sect, unknown before

that age, and to this Innocent VIII impliedly gave the sanction of the

Holy See in his well-known bull, _Summis desiderantes_, in 1484. This

rapidly growing belief in the power of witchcraft and the duty of its

extermination were stimulated by nearly every pope for almost a hundred

years--by Eugenius IV in 1437 and 1445, by Calixtus III in 1457, by Pius

II in 1459, and, after the special utterance of Innocent VIII, by

Alexander VI in 1494, by Julius II, by Leo X in 1521, by Adrian VI, in

1523 and by Clement VII in 1524.[461]

While, for the most part, the so-called confessions of witches under

trial were the result of the torture so unsparingly employed, there can

be little doubt that at least a portion were truthful accounts of

illusions really entertained. Even as the trances and visions of the

mystics, such as Santa Teresa and the Venerable María de Agreda, are

attributable to auto-hypnotism and auto-suggestion so, when the details

of the Sabbat were thoroughly established and became as much a part of

popular belief as the glories seen in mystic ecstasy, it is easy to

understand how certain temperaments, seeking escape from the sordid

miseries of laborious poverty, might acquire the power of inducing

trances in which the transport to the meeting-place, the devil-worship

and the sensual delights that followed, were impressed upon the

imagination as realities. The demonographers give us ample accounts of

experiments in which the suspected witch was thrown into a trance by the

inunction of her ointment and, on awaking, gave a detailed account of

her attendance on the Sabbat and of what she did and saw there. This

should be borne in mind when following the long debate between those who

upheld the reality of the Sabbat and those who argued that it was

generally or always a delusion.

[Sidenote: _THE SABBAT_]

To appreciate the attitude of the Spanish Inquisition in this debate the

origin of the myth must be understood. The flying by night of female

sorcerers to places of assemblage was an ancient belief, entertained by

Hindus, Jews and the classical nations. This was handed down through the

middle ages, but was regarded by the Church as a relic of paganism to be

suppressed. There was an utterance, not later than the ninth century,

which denounced as an error, induced by the devil, the popular belief

that wicked women ride through the air at night under the leadership of

Diana and Herodias, wherefore priests everywhere were commanded to

disabuse the faithful and to teach that those who professed to take part

in these nocturnal excursions were deluded by dreams inspired by the

demon, so that he who believed in their reality entertained the faith of

the devil and not that of God. This utterance was ascribed to an

otherwise unknown Council of Anquira; it passed through all the

collections of canons--Regino, Burchard and Ivo--found a place finally

in the authoritative Decretum of Gratian, where it became known to

canonists as the _canon Episcopi_.[462]

When, therefore, in the fifteenth century, there was formulated the

perfected theory of the witches' Sabbat, it had to struggle for

existence. No theologian stood higher than St. Antonino, Archbishop of

Florence, yet in his instructions to confessors, he requires them to

ascertain from penitents whether they believe that women can be

transformed into cats, can fly by night and suck the blood of children,

all of which he says is impossible, and to believe it is folly. Nor was

he alone in this, for similar instructions are given by Angelo da

Chivasso and Bartolommeo de Chaimis in their authoritative manuals.[463]

The new school could only meet the definitions of the can. Episcopi by

asserting that witchcraft was the product of a new sect, more pernicious

than all former inventions of the demon. This brought on a warm

discussion between lawyers like Ponzinibio on the one side and papal

theologians on the other, such as Silvester Prierias, Master of the

Sacred Palace and his successor Bartolommeo Spina, and the authority of

the Holy See triumphed over scepticism.

Spain, in the fifteenth century, lay somewhat out of the currents of

European thought, and the new doctrine as to the Sabbat found only

gradual acceptance there. Alfonso Tostado, Bishop of Avila, the most

learned Spanish theologian of the time, in 1436, treats the Sabbat as a

delusion caused by the inunction of drugs, but subsequently he argues

away the can. Episcopi and says that the truth is proved by innumerable

cases and by the judicial penalties inflicted.[464] Even so bigoted and

credulous a writer as Alonso de Espina treats it as a delusion wrought

by the demon to whom the witch has given herself and so does Cardinal

Torquemada, in his Commentary on the Decretum.[465] Martin de Arles,

Canon of Pampeluna, speaks of the _Broxæ_ who flourished principally in

the Basque provinces, north of the Pyrenees; the belief in them he

treats as a false opinion and quotes the can. Episcopi as

authoritatively proving it to be a delusion. At the same time he admits

that sorcerers can ligature married folk, can injure men and devastate

their fields and harvests, which are works of the demon operating

through them.[466] Bernardo Basin, of Saragossa, who had studied in

Paris, took a middle ground; the Council of Anquira is not

authoritative, in some cases there may be illusions sent by the demon,

in others the Sabbat is a reality.[467] In 1494, the Repertorium

Inquisitorum recognizes the existence of witches, who were popularly

known as _Xorguinas_; it quotes the essential portion of the can.

Episcopi in answer to the question whether they are justiciable by the

Inquisition, adding that such a belief is an illusion wrought by the

demon but, although it is folly, it is infidelity worse than paganism,

and can be prosecuted as heresy.[468] The Inquisition itself could have

no doubt as to its powers; if the Sabbat was true, the witch was an

apostate; if a delusion, she was a heretic and in either case subject to

its jurisdiction.

[Sidenote: _DOUBT AND INQUIRY_]

This reference to Xorguinas shows that witches were already well known

in Spain, and we can assume from subsequent developments that their

principal seat was in the mountainous districts along the Pyrenees,

penetrating perhaps from France and favored by the ignorance of the

population, its sparseness and poverty.[469] The earliest case, however,

that I have met of prosecution by the Inquisition was in 1498, when

Gracia la Valle was burnt in Saragossa. This was followed in 1499 by the

burning of María, wife of García Biesa and, in January 1500, by that of

three women, Nanavina, Estefabrita and Marieta, wife of Aznar Pérez.

There was an interval then until 1512, when there were two victims,

Martina Gen and María de Arbués. There was no other in Saragossa until

1522, when Sancha de Arbués suffered, and the last one in the record is

Catalina de Joan Díez, in 1535.[470] Persecution would seem to be more

active in Biscay, for Llorente quotes from a contemporary MS. a

statement that in 1507 there were burnt there more than thirty witches,

leading Martin de Arles y Andosilla to write a learned treatise on the

subject, printed in Paris in 1517.[471] It would seem that, in 1517,

there was a persecution on foot in Catalonia, for the Barcelona

inquisitors were ordered to visit the mountainous districts, especially

in the diocese of Urgel, to publish edicts against the witches and to

prosecute them with all rigor.[472] Doubtless there were other

developments of which no trace has reached us, and there was every

prospect that Spain would be the seat of an epidemic of witchcraft

which, if fostered by persecution, would rival the devastation

commencing throughout the rest of Europe.

The time had scarce come for a change of policy, but there is a

manifestation of a spirit of doubt and inquiry, very different from the

unreasoning ferocity prevalent elsewhere. Arnaldo Albertino tells that,

in 1521, at Saragossa, by command of Cardinal Adrian, he was called in

consultation by the Suprema, over two cases, when he pronounced the

Sabbat to be a delusion.[473] Possibly one of these cases may have been

the woman who, we have seen, was burnt at Saragossa in 1522, but the

effect of such a discussion is visible, in this same year 1522, in an

Edict of Grace addressed to the witches of Jaca and Ribagorza, granting

them six months in which to come forward and confess their

offences.[474] Considering that, about this time, Leo X and Adrian VI

were vigorously promoting the massacre by wholesale of witches in the

Lombardo-Venitian valleys, and resenting any interference with the

operation of the inquisitors, such action on the part of the Suprema is

of marked significance.

It evidently felt the matter to be one requiring the most careful

consideration and, on the outbreak of a witch-craze in Navarre,

stimulated by the secular authorities, it assembled, in 1526, a

"congregation" in Granada, laid the papers before it and asked its

examination of the whole subject, which was condensed into six

questions, going to the root of the matter: 1. Whether witches really

commit the crimes confessed, or whether they are deluded. 2. Whether, if

these crimes are really committed, the culprits are to be reconciled and

imprisoned, or to be delivered to the secular arm. 3. Whether, if they

deceive and do not commit these things, they are to be similarly

punished, or otherwise. 4. Whether the cognizance of these crimes

pertains to the Inquisition and if so, whether this is fitting. 5.

Whether the accused are to be judged on their confessions without

further evidence and to be condemned to the ordinary punishment. 6. What

will be a wholesome remedy to extirpate the pest of these witches.[475]

The mere submission to rational discussion of such a series of questions

shows a desire to reach a just method of treatment, wholly at variance

with practice elsewhere, when legislators and judges were solely

occupied with devising schemes to fight the devil with his own weapons

and to convict, _per fas et nefas_, the unfortunates who chanced to

incur suspicion.[476]

[Sidenote: _DOUBT AND INQUIRY_]

The ten members of the congregation were all men of consideration and

included the Licentiate Valdés, in whom we may recognize the future

inquisitor-general. On the first question, as to reality or delusion,

the vote stood six to four in favor of reality, Valdés being one of the

minority and explaining that he regarded the proofs of the accusations

as insufficient, and desired inquisitors to be instructed to make

greater efforts at verification. The second question was of the highest

importance. For ordinary heresy, confession and repentance ensured

exemption from the stake but, in the eagerness to punish witchcraft,

when a witch confessed it was customary to abandon her, either formally

or informally, to be punished by the secular authorities for the crimes

assumed to be proved against her--usually sucking the blood of children

or encompassing the death of adults. Obedience to the Scriptural

injunction of not suffering a witch to live was general.[477] On this

point there was wide variety of opinion, but the majority decided that,

when culprits were admitted to reconciliation, they were not to be

remitted to the secular judges, to be punished for homicides, for such

homicides might be illusory, and there was no proof beyond their

confessions; after they had completed the penance assigned to them, if

the secular judges chose to try them for homicide, the Inquisition could

not interfere. This decision was adopted in practice and, some years

later, was cited in justification of protecting convicted witches from

the secular courts.

[Sidenote: _ACTIVE PERSECUTION_]

On the third question, votes were too much divided for any definite

result. On the fourth there was substantial affirmative agreement. On

the fifth, five voted that confession sufficed, but Valdés limited its

sufficiency to the minor inflictions of exile, vergüenza and scourging.

With regard to the final question, as to remedial measures, it is worthy

of remark that only three suggested greater activity and severity of the

Inquisition; nearly all favored sending preachers to instruct and

enlighten the ignorant population; two proposed reforming the regular

clergy, and one the secular beneficed clergy; several thought well of

building churches or monasteries on the spots where the Sabbats were

held; one recommended an edict promising release from confiscation for

those who would come forward within a specified time, and two voted that

the Inquisition should give material aid to the poorer suspects, in

order to relieve them from temptation. Valdés further presented detailed

instructions for inquisitors, the most important of which were that the

statements of witches implicating other parties were not to be accepted

as satisfactory evidence, and that, when accused to the Inquisition, it

should be ascertained whether they had already been tortured by the

secular judges.[478] Halting as these deliberations may seem, they

manifest gleams of wholesome scepticism and an honest desire to reach

the truth, when elsewhere throughout Christendom such questions were

regarded as beyond discussion. Yet for awhile the Suprema was not

prepared to allow these opinions to influence action. In 1527 there was

an outbreak of witchcraft in Navarre, the treatment of which by

Inquisitor Avellaneda he reports in a letter written, in response to an

inquiry from Iñigo de Velasco, Constable of Castile. Witchcraft, he

declared, was the worst evil of the time; he had written to the king and

twice to the Suprema urging a remedy, but neither at court nor on the

spot was there any one who understood its cure. For six months he had

been laboring in the mountains, where, by the help of God, he had

discovered many witches. In a raid on the valley of Salazar he had

captured a number and brought them to Pampeluna where, with the regent

and members of the Royal Council and other doctors and lawyers, the

whole subject was discussed; it was agreed that witches could be carried

through the air to the Sabbat, and that they committed the crimes

ascribed to them--principally, it would seem, on the strength of an

experiment which he had tried with one of his prisoners. On a Friday at

midnight he allowed her to anoint herself with the magic unguent which

they used; she opened a window overhanging a precipice, where a cat

would be dashed to pieces, and invoked the demon who came and deposited

her safely on the ground--to be recaptured on Monday with seven others,

three leagues away. These were all executed, after which he prosecuted

his researches and discovered three places of assemblage--one in the

valley of Salazar, with two hundred and fifty members, of whom he had

captured sixty, another with eighty members in another valley and a

third near Roncesvalles with over two hundred. Fifty had been executed

and he hoped, with the favor of God to despatch twenty more. He had

discovered that which, if proper assistance were given to him, would

redound to the great service of God and benefit to the Republic for,

without God's mercy, the evil would grow and the life of no one would be

safe. To gratify the curiosity of the constable, Avellaneda proceeded to

give a detailed account of the wonders and wickedness of the Sabbat and

the evils wrought by witches. In spite of all his efforts the demon

urged them on to still greater crimes by showing them phantoms of those

who had been executed, pretending that he had resuscitated them and

would resuscitate all who might be put to death. This evil, he

concludes, is general throughout the world. If the constable wishes to

ascertain whether there are witches in his district, he has only to

observe whether the grain is withered while in bloom, or the acorns fail

in the mountains, or there are children smothered, for wherever these

things occur, there are witches.[479] Altogether, Avellaneda affords a

typical illustration of the manner in which witchcraft was created and

spread by the witch-finders.

There is no reason to suppose that Avellaneda was reproved for the

exuberance of his zeal, for his policy was continued in 1528, when the

witch epidemic was extending to Biscay, and the civil authorities were

arresting and trying offenders. More eager to assert the jurisdiction of

the Inquisition than to adopt the conclusions of the congregation, on

February 22, 1528, Inquisitor-general Manrique ordered Sancho de

Carranza de Miranda, Inquisitor of Calahorra, to go thither with full

powers to investigate, try and sentence, even to relaxation, the witches

who are reported to have abandoned the faith, offered themselves to the

devil and wrought much evil in killing infants and ruining the harvests.

He is to demand from the civil authorities all who have been arrested

and the papers concerning their cases, for this is a matter pertaining

to the Inquisition. A thorough inquest is to be made in all infected

places, and edicts are to be published summoning within a given time and

under such penalties as he sees fit, all culprits to come forward and

all cognizant of such offences to denounce them.[480] There is in this

no injunction of prudence and caution, no requirement that the cases are

to be submitted for confirmation to the Calahorra tribunal; Carranza is

provided with a fiscal and a notary, so that he can execute speedy

justice and the Edict of Grace is replaced by an Edict of Faith.

It is not until 1530 that we find evidence that the discussion of 1526

was producing a change in the view taken of witchcraft and of the

methods of its repression. A carta acordada, addressed to all the

tribunals, enjoined special caution in all witchcraft cases, as it was a

very delicate matter to handle, and this was followed by another

manifesting a healthy scepticism and desire to repress popular

superstition, for it stated that the _ensalmadores_, who cured diseases

by charms, asserted that all sickness was caused by witches, wherefore

they were to be asked what they meant and why they said so.[481]

[Sidenote: _ZEAL RESTRAINED_]

The practical position assumed by this time may be gathered from a

letter of December 11, 1530, from the Suprema to the Royal Council of

Navarre, when a fresh outbreak of the witch-craze had, as usual, brought

dissension between the tribunal and the secular courts, for the latter

refused to acknowledge the exclusive jurisdiction of the Inquisition,

and complained of its delays and the leniency of its sentences, in

comparison with the speedy and unsparing action demanded by popular

clamor. The Suprema now, in reply to the complaints of the Royal Council

against the Calahorra tribunal, replied that this matter of the witches

was not new; on a previous occasion there had been the same altercation;

some of the cases which had caused the most complaint had been brought

to the court and had, by order of the emperor, been examined by learned

men when, after much debate, it was ordered that the prisoners should be

delivered to the inquisitors who, after examining them, should try those

pertaining to their jurisdiction and surrender the others. There was

much doubt felt as to the verification of the crimes alleged, and the

Suprema deplored the executions by the secular courts, for the cases

were not so clear as had been supposed. In view of all this, inquisitors

were enjoined to use caution and moderation, for there is so much

ambiguity in these cases that it seems impossible for human reason to

reach the truth. When the same questions had arisen elsewhere, the

Suprema had ordered the inquisitors to act with the greatest

circumspection, for these matters were most delicate and perilous, and

some inexperienced judges had been deceived in treating them. The

Suprema therefore deprecated a competencia; it entreated the Royal

Council to hand all cases over to the tribunal, which would return those

not subject to its jurisdiction, and the inquisitors would be ordered to

remove the censures and fines--which shows that the quarrel had been

pushed to extremes.[482] There was equal determination in resisting the

claims of the episcopal courts to jurisdiction. In 1531 the Saragossa

tribunal complains of the intrusion of the Bishop of San Angelo, who had

refused to surrender a prisoner and had invited the tribunal to join him

in prosecuting witches in places under his jurisdiction. To him the

Suprema accordingly wrote, asserting the exclusive cognizance of the

Inquisition and requiring him to deliver to the tribunal any prisoners

whom he had arrested.[483]

The cautious and sceptical attitude assumed by the Suprema was all the

more creditable because the leading authorities of the period were firm

in their conviction of the reality of witchcraft. Arnaldo Albertino,

himself an inquisitor who, in 1521, had deemed the Sabbat an illusion,

writing about 1535, says that since then, on mature consideration, he

had reached the opposite opinion; he now accepts all the horrors and

crimes ascribed to witches and argues away the can. Episcopi. Alfonso de

Castro, another writer of the highest distinction at this time, gives

full credence to the most extravagant stories of the Sabbat, and he

disposes of the can. Episcopi by asserting that it referred to an

entirely different sect.[484]

Notwithstanding all this, the Suprema pursued its course in restraining

the cruel zeal of the tribunals. The craze was spreading in Catalonia,

where it required the Barcelona tribunal to submit to it for

confirmation all sentences in these cases. In 1537, it returned, July

11th, a number of sentences, with its decisions as to each, and

instructions as to the future. The tribunal was chafing under the

unaccustomed restriction, and the fiscal was scandalized at the

solicitude displayed for the friendless wretches who, everywhere but in

Spain, were deprived of the most ordinary safeguards against injustice,

but the imperturbable Suprema maintained its temperate wisdom. The

utmost care, it said, was to be exercised to verify all testimony and to

avoid conviction when this was insufficient. Arrests had been made on

the mere reputation of being witches, for which the inquisitors were

reproved and told that they must arrest no one on such grounds, nor on

the testimony of accomplices, nor must those who denied their guilt be

condemned as _negativos_. When any one confessed to being present at the

killing of children or damage to harvests, verification must be sought

as to the death of the children at that time, and of what disease, and

whether the crops had been injured. When such verification was made,

arrests could follow and, if the character of the case and of the

accused required it, torture could be employed.[485] It will be noted

how much more scrupulous was the care enjoined in these cases than in

those of Moriscos and Judaizers, and the limitation on the use of

torture is especially observable, as that was the universal resort in

witchcraft throughout Europe.

[Sidenote: _ZEAL RESTRAINED_]

It was difficult to enforce these rules in Barcelona. The result of the

visitation of Francisco Vaca was a long series of rebukes, in 1550,

largely concerning the procedure in witch cases and eventually leading

to the dismissal of Inquisitor Sarmiento, although his offences were

simply what was regarded, everywhere but in Spain, as the plain duty of

those engaged in a direct contest with Satan, represented by his

instrument the witch. Sarmiento is told that he made arrests without

sufficient proofs and accepted the evidence taken by secular officials

without verifying it, as required by the practice of the Inquisition,

and, whereas the Suprema ordered certain precautions taken before

concluding cases, he concluded them without doing so, and subjected

parties to reconciliation and scourging that were not included in the

sentence. Although the Suprema had ordered all sentences of relaxation

to be submitted to it, he had relaxed seven persons as witches, in

disregard of this, and when repeatedly commanded to present himself, he

had never done so. Then the fiscal was taken to task because he had been

present at the examination of witches, conducting the interrogation

himself, putting leading questions, telling them what to confess and

assuring them that this was not like a secular court, where those who

confessed were executed. In the case of Juana, daughter of Benedita de

Burgosera, he told her that she was a witch, that her mother had made

her a witch and had taken her to the Bach de Viterna, and he detailed

to her the murders committed by her mother. In witch cases he caused

arrests without presenting _clamosas_ or submitting evidence, but when

he learned that a visitor was coming he fabricated and inserted them in

the papers. In this the notary del secreto was his accomplice besides

taking part in the examinations, bullying the accused and making them

confess what was wanted by threats and suggestions. The alcaide of the

prison had allowed one of the prisoners, who endeavored to save himself

by accusing others, to enter the cells and persuade the prisoners to

confess and not to revoke; the alcaide had also urged the women to

confess, telling them that they were guilty and promising them release

if they would confess and, when taking back to his cell a man who had

revoked his confession, he so threatened the poor wretch that he

returned and withdrew his revocation.[486] Elsewhere than in Spain such

methods of securing confession were the veriest commonplaces in witch

trials.

Meanwhile the chronic witchcraft troubles in Navarre had called forth,

in 1538, a series of enlightened instructions to Inquisitor Valdeolitas,

who was sent with a special commission. He was told to pay no attention

to the popular demand that all witches should be burnt, but to exercise

the utmost discretion, for it was a most delicate matter, in which

deception was easy. He was not to confiscate but could impose fines to

pay salaries. He was to explain to the more intelligent of the people

that the destruction of harvests was due to the weather or to a

visitation of God, for it happened where there were no witches, while

the accusations of homicide required the most careful verification. The

_Malleus Maleficarum_--that Bible of the witch-finder--was not to be

believed in everything, for the writer was liable to be deceived like

every one else. The demands of the corregidores for the surrender of

penitents, to be subsequently punished for their crimes, were not to be

granted, under the decision of the congregation of 1526. Then, a year

later, October 27, 1539, the Calahorra tribunal was notified that the

Royal Council of Navarre had agreed to surrender thirty-four prisoners;

one of the inquisitors was to go to Pampeluna to examine the cases;

those pertaining to the Inquisition were to be tried in strict

conformity with the instructions and the rest were to be left with the

civil authorities.[487]

In the instructions to Valdeolitas there is a phrase of peculiar

interest, prescribing special caution with regard to the dreams of the

witches when they sally forth to the Sabbat, as these are very

deceitful. This, so far as I have observed, is the earliest official

admission of the view taken in the can. Episcopi that the midnight

flights were illusions. We have seen how this was denied by Albertino

and de Castro. Ciruelo admits that there are two ways in which the

Xorguina attends the Sabbat, one by personally flying, and the other by

anointing herself and falling into a stupor, when she is spiritually

conveyed, but both are the work of the demon and he admits of no

distinction in the punishment.[488] Bishop Simancas, also an inquisitor,

has no doubt as to the bodily transportation of the witch to the Sabbat;

he admits that most jurists hold to the theory of illusion, as expressed

in the can. Episcopi, but theologians, he says, are unanimous in

maintaining the reality; he argues that the can. Episcopi does not refer

to witches, and that stupor with illusions is much more difficult to

comprehend than the truth of the Sabbat.[489]

[Sidenote: _ZEAL RESTRAINED_]

With such a consensus of opinion as to the truth of the Sabbat, or

_Aquelarre_ as it came to be called (from a Biscayan word signifying

"field of the goat") it is not surprising that the Suprema advanced

slowly in designating it as an illusion, although practically its

instructions assumed that no reliance was to be placed on the

multitudinous testimony of its existence, of the foul horrors enacted

there and of the presence there of other votaries of Satan. A curious

case, occurring at a somewhat later period, may be alluded to here as

showing the conclusion reached on the subject, and as throwing light on

the auto-suggestion and hypnotic state which lay at the bottom of the

Sabbat, although its connection is merely with the carnal indulgence

that formed a prominent feature of the nocturnal assemblies. In 1584

Anastasia Soriana, aged 28, wife of a peasant, denounced herself to the

Murcia tribunal for having long maintained carnal relations with a

demon. The tribunal wisely regarded the matter as an illusion and

dismissed the case without action. Twelve years later, in 1596, she

presented herself to the tribunal of Toledo, with the same

self-accusation and again, after due deliberation, she was discharged,

although in any other land it would have gone hard with her.[490]

Meanwhile the Suprema continued the good work of protecting so-called

witches from the cruelty of the secular courts and of restraining the

intemperate zeal of its own tribunals. The craze, in 1551, had extended

to Galicia, where at the time there was no Inquisition. Many arrests had

been made and trials were in progress by the magistrates, when a cédula

of August 27th, evidently drawn up by the Suprema for the signature of

Prince Philip, addressed to all officials, informed them that the matter

of witchcraft was a very delicate one in which many judges had been

deceived, wherefore, by the advice of the inquisitor-general, he ordered

that all the testimony should be sent to the Suprema for its action,

pending which the accused were to be kept under guard without proceeding

further with their cases or with others of the same nature.[491] Then,

in September, 1555, the Suprema forwarded to the Logroño tribunal two

memorials from some towns in Guipúzcoa, with an expression of its sorrow

that so many persons should have been so suddenly arrested, for, from

the testimony at hand and former experience, it thought that there was

little basis for such action, and that wrong might be inflicted on many

innocent persons. The evidence must be rigidly examined and, if it

proved false, the prisoners must be discharged and the witnesses

punished; if there was ground for prosecution, the trials might proceed,

but the sentences must be submitted for confirmation and no more arrests

be made without forwarding the testimony and awaiting orders. Six months

later, in March, 1556, the Suprema concluded that the cases had not been

substantiated; more careful preliminary investigations were essential

for, in so doubtful a matter, greater caution was needed than in other

cases.[492]

The secular authorities were restive under the deprivation of their

jurisdiction over the crimes imputed to the witches; they continued to

assert their claims, and the question came up for formal decision in

1575. The high court of Navarre had caused the arrest of a number of

women and was trying them, when the Logroño tribunal, in the customary

dictatorial fashion with threats of penalties, issued a summons to

deliver all the prisoners and papers. This was duly read, November 24th,

to the alcaldes, while sitting in court, to which they replied that the

parties had been arrested under information that they had killed

children and infants, that the women had had carnal intercourse with

goats, and had killed cattle and injured harvests and vineyards with

poisons and powders, and had carried off many children at night from

their beds, while stupefying the adults with powders, of all of which as

alcaldes they were the lawful judges. Therefore they appealed to the

inquisitor-general against the penalties threatened and promised that,

if the prisoners had committed heresy, they would be remitted to the

inquisitors after undergoing punishment according to law. Finally they

complained of the disrespect shown them and asked for a competencia.

[Sidenote: _MODERATION_]

The alcaldes further sent a memorial to the king, setting forth their

claims to jurisdiction for crimes other than heresy, protesting against

the assumption of the inquisitors to be sole judges of what pertained to

them, to inhibit proceedings in the interim, and to interfere with the

death-penalty which the alcaldes might decree. The royal court also

petitioned the king in the same sense, adding that the prisoners spoke

a dialect unintelligible to the inquisitors and that, if the cases were

transferred, the king would lose the confiscations, which promised to be

large. All this proved vain. A letter of the Suprema to the tribunal, in

1576, informs it that the alcaldes had been ordered to surrender all the

prisoners and the papers in the cases.[493] While this matter was in

progress, a similar controversy arose about numerous witches in

Santander, for a letter of January 10, 1576, instructs the Logroño

tribunal that it can proceed against them for anything savoring of

heresy, requiring the secular judges meanwhile to suspend proceedings;

the facts are to be carefully verified and everything is to be submitted

to the Suprema.[494]

The use made by the tribunals of the jurisdiction thus secured for them,

under the cautions so sedulously inculcated, may be gathered from a case

in the Toledo tribunal, in 1591, which further shows that witchcraft was

not wholly confined to the mountainous districts of the east and north.

The vicar of Alcalá had arrested three women of Cazar, Catalina Matheo,

Joana Izquierda, and Olalla Sobrina. During the previous four years

there had been four or five deaths of children; among the villagers, the

three women had the reputation of witches, and sixteen witnesses

testified to that effect. The vicar tortured them and obtained from

Catalina a confession that, some four or five years before, Olalla asked

her whether she would like to become a witch and have carnal intercourse

with the demon. Then Joana one night invited her to her house where she

found Olalla; the demon came in the shape of a goat, they danced

together and after some details unnecessary to repeat, Olalla anointed

the joints of her fingers and toes, they stripped themselves and flew

through the air to a house which they entered by a window; placing

somniferous herbs under the pillows of the parents, they choked to death

a female infant, burning its back and breaking its arms. The noise

aroused the parents and they flew with the goat back to Olalla's house.

All this she ratified after due interval and repeated when confronted

with Olalla, who had been tortured without confessing and who denied

Catalina's story. As for Joana, she had likewise overcome the torture,

but she had told the wife of the gaoler that one night some fifteen

witches, male and female, had forcibly anointed her and carried her to a

field where they danced, Catalina being one of the leaders and Olalla a

follower. This she repeated to the vicar, adding stories of being

present when the children were killed, but taking no part in it, after

which she duly ratified the whole. At this stage the vicar transferred

his prisoners to the tribunal. Catalina, at her first audience, begged

mercy for the false witness which, through torture, she had borne

against herself and the others. Sixteen witnesses testified to the

deaths of the children, and she was sentenced to torture, when, before

being stripped, her resolution gave way and she repeated and ratified

the confession made to the vicar. Joana asserted that her confession to

the vicar had been made through fear of torture and she overcame torture

without confessing, as likewise did Olalla. The outcome was that

Catalina was sentenced to appear in an auto with the insignia of a

witch, to abjure _de levi_, to be scourged with two hundred lashes, and

to be recluded at the discretion of the tribunal. The other two were

merely to appear in the auto and to abjure _de levi_, without further

penance. This was not strictly logical, but anywhere else than in Spain,

all three would have been tortured until they satisfied their judges,

and would then have been burnt after denouncing numerous accomplices and

starting a witchcraft panic. As it was, the Toledo tribunal had no more

witchcraft cases up to the end of the record in 1610.[495]

[Sidenote: _THE LOGROÑO AUTO OF 1610_]

The tribunal of Barcelona was more rational in 1597. In a report to the

Suprema of a visitation made by Inquisitor Diego Fernández de Heredia,

there occur the entries of Ana Ferrera, widow and Gilaberta, widow, both

of Villafranca, accused by many witnesses of being reputed as witches

and of killing many animals and infants, in revenge for little

annoyances. Also, Francisco Cicar, of Bellney, near Villafranca,

numerously accused as a wizard using incantations, telling where lost

animals could be found, enchanting them so that wolves could not harm

them, and killing the cattle of those who offended him. Here was the

nucleus of a whole aquelarre for Villafranca, but all these cases are

marked on the margin of the report as suspended, and nothing came of

them.[496] The Logroño tribunal also showed its good sense, in 1602,

when a young woman of 25, named Francisca Buytran, of Alegria, accused

herself in much detail, before Don Juan Ramírez, of witchcraft,

including attendance at the aquelarre. She was brought before the

tribunal, which dropped the whole matter as being destitute of truth;

again the magistrates sent it back, asking that it be revived and

prosecuted and, when this was refused, they scourged her in Alegria as

an impostor who defamed her neighbors.[497]

Yet it was reserved for this same tribunal to give occasion to an

agitation resulting in a clearer understanding than had hitherto been

reached of the nature of the witch-craze, and rendering it impossible

for the future that Spain should be disgraced by the judicial murders,

or rather massacres, which elsewhere blacken the annals of the

seventeenth century. One of the customary panics arose in Navarre. The

secular authorities were prompt and zealous; they made many arrests,

they extorted confessions and hastily executed their victims, apparently

to forestall the Inquisition. The tribunal reported to the Suprema,

which ordered one of the inquisitors to make a visitation of the

infected district. Juan Valle de Alvarado accordingly spent several

months in Cigarramundi and its vicinity, where he gathered evidence

inculpating more than two hundred and eighty persons of having

apostatized to the demon, besides multitudes of children, who were

becoming witches, but who were yet too young for prosecution. The

leaders and those who had wrought the most evil, to the number of forty,

were seized and brought before the tribunal. By June 8, 1610, it was

ready to hold the consulta de fe, consisting of the three inquisitors,

Alonso Becerra, Juan Valle de Alvarado and Alonso de Salazar Frias, with

the episcopal Ordinary and four consultors. In his vote, Salazar

analyzed the testimony and showed its flimsy and inconclusive character;

he seems to have had no scruples as to the reality of witchcraft, but he

desired more competent proof, while his colleagues apparently had no

misgivings.[498]

This was not the only retrograde step. For seventy-five years the

Suprema had consistently repressed the ardor of persecution and had

favored, without absolutely asserting, the theory of illusion, but its

membership was constantly changing and it now seems to have had a

majority of blind believers. On August 3d it presented to Philip III a

consulta relating, with profound grief, the conditions in the mountains

of Navarre and the steps already taken. Since then further reports

showed that the demon was busier than ever in misleading these poor

ignorant folk, and the evil had increased so that there now were more

than twenty aquelarres to which they gather, and the evil was still

spreading; the people were greatly afflicted with the damages endured,

and parents who saw their children misled were so desperate that they

wanted to put them to death. An Edict of Grace was published, but the

demon so blinded them that few took advantage of it, and these speedily

relapsed. The progress of the infection was such that the powerful hand

of the king was absolutely required for its rigorous repression, and the

popular ignorance was so dense that orders should be issued to the

Archbishop of Burgos and the Bishops of Calahorra, Pampeluna and

Tarazona, whose dioceses were concerned, and to the Provincials of the

Religious Orders, to send pious and learned men to instruct the people,

while the vigilance would not be lacking of the inquisitors, who would

shrink from no labor.[499] The Suprema evidently regarded the emergency

as most serious, calling for united effort to withstand the victorious

onslaught of the demon. It had wholly forgotten the wholesome caution

which it had inculcated so sedulously since 1530 and there was imminent

danger that Spain would be swept into the European current of

witch-extermination.

Whether the pleasure-loving king organized the projected preaching

crusade we do not know, but he was sufficiently impressed to promise

that he would honor with his presence the coming auto de fe, which was

fixed for November 7th. Something distracted his attention and, at the

last moment, it was announced that important affairs would prevent his

attendence. The disappointed inquisitors, on November 1st, wrote to the

Suprema expressing their regret and reporting that there would be

thirty-one persons in the auto, besides a large number of prisoners

whose trials were under way.

[Sidenote: _THE LOGROÑO AUTO OF 1610_]

Thus far twenty-two aquelarres had been discovered, and the accused were

so numerous that the special favor of heaven would be necessary to

overcome the evil. Accompanying this was a letter to the king, enclosing

two of the sentences con méritos, to enlighten him as to the ravages of

the devil among his subjects. This sect of witches, they said, was of

old date in the Pyrenees, and had of late spread over the whole region;

the inquisitors were devoting their lives to its suppression; they were

fighting the devil at close quarters, and they hoped to excite the royal

zeal to lend the Inquisition efficient support. These letters bore the

signature of Salazar as well as those of his colleagues.[500]

Great preparations had been made to render the auto impressive. Crowds

assembled from a distance, and it was reckoned that in the processions

there were a thousand familiars and officials. Two days were required

for the solemnities and on the second day, to finish the work between

dawn and sunset, many of the sentences had to be curtailed for, as

usual, they were con meritos, with full details of the abominations of

the aquelarres and the crimes of the culprits. All the grotesque

obscenities, which the foul imaginations of the accused could invent to

satisfy their prosecutors, were given at length, and doubtless impressed

the gaping multitudes with the horror and detestation desired. One

novelty in the sensual delights of the aquelarre was that the feast was

usually composed of decaying corpses, which the witches dug up and

conveyed there--especially those of their kindred, so that the father

sometimes ate the son and the son the father--and it was stated that

male flesh had a higher flavor than female. There were also the usual

stories of the destruction of harvests by means of powders, of sucking

the blood of infants, of bringing sickness and death by poisons so

subtile that a single touch, in a pretended caress, would work its end.

When the demon reproached them with slackness in evil-doing, two

sisters, María Presona and María Joanto, agreed to kill the son and the

daughter of the other, aged 8 and 9, and they did so with the powders.

It was natural that a population, placing full credence in the existence

of malignity armed with these powers, should be merciless in the resolve

for its extermination. Yet the auto, in its absolute outcome, could

scarce be classed with the murderous exhibitions to which the Spaniard

had grown accustomed. In all there were fifty-three culprits, of whom

but twenty-nine were witches of either sex. Of these there were eleven

relaxed--five, who had died in prison, in effigy with their bones, and

five _negativos_ who had not been induced to confess. There was but one

relaxation of a buen confitente, María Zozaya, whose terrible

confession overshot the mark, as it showed her to be a dogmatizer. Even

under this excitement the Inquisition maintained its rule not to execute

those who confessed and repented; under any other jurisdiction the

eighteen who were reconciled would have been burnt, and of these

apparently only five were scourged.[501]

Merciful as was this, the effect of the auto was to cause a revulsion of

feeling among the more intelligent. When the local magistrates were

proceeding as usual to arrest suspects, the alcaldes of the Royal Court

of Navarre, early in 1611, interposed by arresting them in turn for

exceeding their powers and prosecuted them to punishment. This incensed

the Logroño tribunal which, on May 17th, addressed an energetic protest

to the viceroy; the action of the local authorities had been of the

utmost service, not only in sending culprits to the Inquisition, but in

leading to many spontaneous self-accusations; this had now all ceased,

and those who had confessed were beginning to retract; the tribunal had

relied upon the court for aid in exterminating this accursed race and

now it was protecting them. Possibly the tribunal may also have invoked

the authority of the Suprema but, if so, it can have found no sympathy,

for there also had there been a change of heart and a return to the old

policy. On March 26th it had ordered the publication of an Edict of

Grace, which Salazar was deputed to carry with him on a visitation to

the infected districts and, after some delay, he started with it, May

22d, on a mission destined to open his eyes and put a permanent end to

the danger of witchcraft epidemics in Spain.[502]

[Sidenote: PEDRO DE VALENCIA]

To this a contribution of some weight, though by no means so influential

as has been reckoned, was made by Pedro de Valencia, a disciple of Arias

Montano, and one of the most learned men of his time. At the request of

Inquisitor-general Sandoval y Rojas, he composed an elaborate

"discourse" on witchcraft, addressed to Sandoval under date of April

20th. In this, after premising the great grief and compassion with which

he had read the relations of the auto of the previous November, he

proceeds to discuss three hypotheses. The first is rationalistic; there

is no demon, the aquelarres are assemblages for sensual indulgence, to

which the members go on foot, and the presiding demon is a man

disguised. The second is illusion, produced by a pact with the demon,

who gives to the witch an ointment throwing her into a stupor during

which she imagines all that is related of the aquelarres, whence it

follows that the evidence of the witch as to those whom she has seen

there is not to be accepted. The destruction of cattle and harvests is

the work of the demon, or may be accomplished by poisons. The third

supposition, believed by the vulgar, in conformity with the evidence and

confessions, is the most prodigious and horrible of all, and against

this he brings his strongest arguments in full detail. Pedro does not

express any positive conclusion of his own, but his reasoning all tends

to support the second hypothesis--of stupor and illusion produced by the

demonic ointment, and from this he deduces the result that witches are

by no means innocent. They delight in the crimes which they believe

themselves to commit, and desire to persevere in their apostasy from God

and their servitude to the devil. Men sometimes become heretics through

ignorance and mistaken zeal, but these seek the devil in all his

hideousness for the purpose of partaking in foul and unhallowed

pleasures. They merit any punishment that can be inflicted on them, for

such rotten limbs should be lopped off, and the cancer be extirpated

with fire and blood. Their conspiracies to kill and the crimes which

they commit and the injuries inflicted on their neighbors, before and

after these dreams deserve all this and greater rigor.

This virtual equalization of criminality in illusive and actual

witchcraft was not likely to be of benefit to so-called witches, but

there was wisdom in the caution which Pedro urged on judges, to assure

themselves of the reality of alleged crimes and not, through

preconceived views, to so direct their interrogatories as to lead

ignorant, foolish, crazy or demoniac persons, like the witnesses and

the accused in these cases, to testify or to confess to extravagances,

because they see that it is expected and hope to gain the favor of those

holding the power of life or death. Similar stories were told of the

early Christians and, in view of all this, and the utter legal

insufficiency of the witnesses, the whole tissue of evidence and

confessions vanishes into smoke. Amid all these deceits, the prudence of

the judge should seek the true and the probable, rather than monstrous

fictions for, if he desires to find the latter, he will be fully

satisfied by the miserable lying women before him--disciples, by their

own confession, of the father of lies.[503]

The inconsistencies in this discourse suggest that probably Pedro had

stronger convictions than he deemed it wise to express. It is possible

that Inquisitor Salazar may have read the paper and have been somewhat

influenced by it, when he started in May on the visitation which proved

to be the turning-point in the history of Spanish witchcraft, but we

have seen that, in the consulta de fe of the previous June 10th, his

attention had already been aroused by the contradictions and

unsatisfactory character of the evidence on which the tribunal was

accustomed to act and, when once his mind was directed to investigating

the problems thus suggested, the close acquaintance with facts afforded

by the visitation enabled him to reach conclusions vastly more definite

than any which his predecessors ventured to form.

[Sidenote: _ALONSO DE SALAZAR FRIAS_]

He started, as we have seen, on May 22, 1611, with the Edict of Grace;

his work was thoroughly conscientious and he did not return until

January 10, 1612, after which he employed himself, until March 24th, in

drawing up his report to the Suprema, which was accompanied with the

original papers, amounting to more than five thousand folios. It will be

remembered that an Edict of Grace was published in 1610 with little or

no result. In contrast with this, showing the effect of a different

spirit in its administration, Salazar received eighteen hundred and two

applicants, of whom thirteen hundred and eighty-four were children of

from twelve to fourteen years of age and, besides these, there were

eighty-one who revoked confessions previously made. All applicants for

reconciliation made full confessions of misdeeds, after kindly warning

of the obligation to tell the truth and the danger of committing

perjury, and were promised secrecy to relieve them of fear. The enormous

mass of evidence thus collected Salazar carefully analyzed and presented

under four heads--I, the manner in which witches go to the aquelarre,

remain and return; II, the things they do and endure; III, the external

proofs of these things; IV, the evidence resulting for the punishment of

the guilty. The first two of these present a curious medley of marvels,

such as holding aquelarres in the sea without being wet, and the

testimony of three women that, after intercourse with the demon, in a

few hours they gave birth to large toads; but we need not dwell on these

feats of imaginative invention. The importance of the report lies in the

last two sections.

Many instances are given to prove the illusory character of cases in

which the penitent truthfully believed what she confessed. María de

Echaverria, aged 80, one of the relapsed, made copious confessions, with

abundant tears and heart-felt grief, seeking to save her soul through

the Inquisition. Without her consent, she said, she was every

night--even the preceding one--carried to the aquelarre, awaking during

the transit and returning awake. No one saw her in going and coming,

even her daughter, a witch of the same aquelarre, sleeping in the same

bed. All the frailes present at her confession had a long discussion

with her and the conviction was unanimous that what this good woman said

of her witchcraft was a dream. Catalina de Sastrearena declared that,

while she was waiting to be reconciled, she was suddenly carried to the

aquelarre, but her companions said that they were talking to her during

the time when she claimed to be absent. The mother of María de Tamborin

testified to the girl telling her of going to the aquelarre, so she

maintained close watch on her and kept a hand on her but was unaware of

her absence. Physical examination, in several instances, showed that

girls were virgins who had confessed to intercourse with demons. Many

boys testified that, when Salazar went to San Esteban, there was a great

aquelarre held, but his two secretaries happened that night to be on the

spot indicated and they saw nothing. Thirty-six persons were examined as

to the localities of nine aquelarres, but some said they did not know

and others contradicted what they had confessed, so that none of the

nine could be identified. As for the broths and unguents and powders so

often described as used for flying to the aquelarres and working evil,

nothing whatever could be learned. Twenty _ollas_ had been brought

forward during the visitation, but investigation showed them all to be

frauds, for physicians and apothecaries used the materials on animals

without producing the slightest injury. From all this Salazar concludes

that the matters confessed were delusions of the demon, and the

accusations against accomplices were likewise induced by the demon. No

testimony could be had from those not accomplices and he holds it a

great marvel that, in a thing reputed to be of so wide an extent, there

should be no external evidence accessible.[504]

Equally destructive to credibility, he says, were the threats and

violence employed to extort confessions. One stated that he was burned

with blazing coals and it inspires horror even to imagine how they were

thus forced to pervert the truth. Sometimes the father or husband or

brother would combine with the magistrate or the commissioner of the

Inquisition. Thus all were forced to confess and to bear witness against

their neighbors, so that it seems marvellous that any one escaped. The

groundlessness of the whole was further exemplified by the fact that

many who applied importunately to be admitted as witches to

reconciliation were unable to confess anything requiring it. The belief

was general that no one was safe who did not come forward and take the

benefit of the edict, so that some invented confessions, while others

admitted that they had nothing to confess, but all wanted certificates,

for one of the violences committed had been to deny the sacraments to

all reputed to be witches or testified against, and when they applied to

Salazar their greatest anxiety was to obtain certificates entitling them

to the sacraments.

[Sidenote: _ALONSO DE SALAZAR FRIAS_]

As for the eighty-one who revoked their confessions, Salazar is sure

that they did so to relieve their consciences. At first he refused to

receive their revocations in compliance with the views of his

colleagues, but he had subsequently orders from the Suprema to admit

them. There would have been many more had it been generally understood

that they could do so with safety; it was individual action on the part

of each, for every care was taken not to let it be known who revoked,

and some of them said that they must revoke if they had to burn for it,

as they had wrongfully accused others. One especially distressing case

was that of Marquita de Jaurri, an old woman who had been reconciled at

Logroño. She returned home with her conscience heavily burthened about

those whom she had unjustly inculpated and, at her daughter's instance,

she applied to her confessor. He ordered her to revoke her confession

before Phelipe Díaz, the commissioner of Maeztu, but he rejected her

with insult, telling her that she would have to be burnt for maliciously

revoking what she had truthfully confessed, whereupon in a few days she

drowned herself. It will be remembered (Vol. II, p. 582) that revocation

of confession was held to prove impenitence, punishable by relaxation.

Salazar adds that the value of the evidence was still further diminished

by the command of the demon to accuse the innocent and exonerate the

guilty, and by the fact that bribes were given in order to have enemies

prosecuted. In Vera, each of several boys accused about two hundred

accomplices and, in Fuenterrabia a beggar boy of 12 accused a hundred

and forty-seven. Besides those who revoked there were many who asked to

have stricken out the names of those whom they had falsely accused so

that, in all, there were sixteen hundred and seventy-two persons known

as having had false witness borne against them, so that, when there were

this many acknowledged perjuries, there could be little faith placed in

the other accusations. The cause of the wide-extended and profound

popular belief in the reality of witchcraft he ascribes solely to the

auto de fe of Logroño, the Edict of Faith and the sending of an

inquisitor through the district, which had caused such apprehension that

there was no fainting-fit, no death and no accident that was not

attributed to witchcraft. Fray Domingo de Velasco of San Sebastian,

after preaching the Edict, told Salazar that for four months there had

not been a natural tempest or hailstorm, but all had been the work of

witches, yet when questioned he had no evidence save the gossip of the

streets. Sailors exaggerated these reports and they were fomented by the

knaves known as _santigueadores_, who professed to know the witches and

sold charms and spells to counteract them.

In summing up the results of his experience Salazar declares that

"Considering the above with all the Christian attention in my power, I

have not found even indications from which to infer that a single act of

witchcraft has really occurred, whether as to going to aquelarres, being

present at them, inflicting injuries, or other of the asserted facts.

This enlightenment has greatly strengthened my former suspicions that

the evidence of accomplices, without external proof from other parties,

is insufficient to justify even arrest. Moreover, my experience leads to

the conviction that, of those availing themselves of the Edict of Grace,

three-quarters and more have accused themselves and their accomplices

falsely. I further believe that they would freely come to the

Inquisition to revoke their confessions, if they thought that they would

be received kindly without punishment, for I fear that my efforts to

induce this have not been properly made known, and I further fear that,

in my absence, the commissioners whom, by your command, I have ordered

to do the same, do not act with due fidelity, but, with increasing zeal

are discovering every hour more witches and aquelarres, in the same way

as before.

"I also feel certain that, under present conditions, there is no need of

fresh edicts or the prolongation of those existing, but rather that, in

the diseased state of the public mind, every agitation of the matter is

harmful and increases the evil. I deduce the importance of silence and

reserve from the experience that there were neither witches nor

bewitched until they were talked and written about. This impressed me

recently at Olague, near Pampeluna, where those who confessed stated

that the matter started there after Fray Domingo de Sardo came there to

preach about these things. So, when I went to Valderro, near

Roncesvalles, to reconcile some who had confessed, when about to return

the alcaldes begged me to go to the Valle de Ahescoa, two leagues

distant, not that any witchcraft had been discovered there, but only

that it might be honored equally with the other. I only sent there the

Edict of Grace and, eight days after its publication, I learned that

already there were boys confessing. After receiving the report of a

commissioner whom I deputed, I sent from Azpeitia to the Prior of San

Sebastian of Urdax to absolve them with Secretary Peralta. This quieted

them but, since my return to Logroño the tribunal has been asked to

remedy the affliction of new evils and witchcrafts, all originating from

the above."

[Sidenote: _HUMANE INSTRUCTIONS_]

Salazar's colleagues did not agree with him and attempted to answer his

reasoning, but the Suprema was convinced. It followed his advice in

imposing silence on the past, while the Court of Navarre continued to

prosecute and punish the local officials whose superserviceable zeal had

occasioned so much misery. A second visitation was made in 1613 and we

find Salazar urging a third one to cover the remaining portion of the

infected region, and pointing out the peace which reigned in the

district that he had visited. His next step was to draw up a series of

suggestions covering the policy of the Inquisition with regard to

witchcraft, covering both amends for the past and future action. It

would scarce seem that he would venture to do this without orders, but

the paper purports to be volunteered in view of the urgent necessity of

the matter. Be this as it may, the suggestions were the basis of an

elaborate instruction, issued by the Suprema August 31, 1614, which

remained the permanent policy of the Inquisition. It adopted nearly

every suggestion of Salazar's, often in his very words, and is an

enduring monument to his calm good sense, which saved his country from

the devastation of the witch-madness then ravaging the rest of Europe.

These instructions consist of thirty-two articles and commence by

stating that the Suprema, after careful consideration of all the

documents, fully recognized the grave wrong committed in obscuring the

truth in a matter so difficult of proof, and it sent the following

articles, both for the verification of future cases and in reparation of

the past.

This is followed by a series of regulations pointing out in detail the

external evidence which must be sought in every case, both as to

attendance on the aquelarres and the murder of children, the killing of

cattle, and the damage of harvests, and no one was to be arrested

without strict observance of these precautions. There is careful

abstention from denial of the powers attributed to witches, but the

whole tenor is that of scepticism, and preachers were ordered to make

the people understand that the destruction of harvests is sent for our

sins, or is caused by the weather, and that it is a grievous error to

imagine that such things and sickness, which are customary throughout

the world, are caused by witches. The powers of commissioners were

strictly limited to taking depositions and ascertaining whether these

could be verified by external evidence. When witnesses or accused came

to make revocations, whether before or after sentence, they were to be

kindly received and permitted to discharge their consciences, free from

the fear so commonly entertained, that they would be punished for

revoking [as we have seen was the case in other crimes], and this was to

be communicated to the commissioners, who were to forward all

revocations received. Those who spontaneously denounced themselves were

to be asked whether, in the day-time, they had persevered in the

renunciation of God and adoration of the demon; if they admitted having

done so, they were to be reconciled but, in view of the doubt and deceit

surrounding the matter, this reconciliation was not to entail

confiscation or liability to the penalties of relapse, the latter being

discretional with the tribunal after consulting the Suprema, and further

the Suprema was to be consulted before action taken against those

confessing to relapse. Those who denied perseverance in apostasy were to

be absolved _ad cautelam_ and reconciled by commissioners, in the same

way as foreign heretics applying for conversion. In view of the doubts

and difficulties concerning witchcraft, no action was to be taken save

by unanimous vote of all the inquisitors, followed by consultation with

the Suprema. All pending cases were to be suspended, without

disqualification for office. On all evidence, the violence or torture

used in procuring it was to be noted, so that its credibility could be

estimated; when a vote was taken, unless it was for suspension, the case

was to be submitted to the Suprema. All cases were to be dropped of

those dying during their pendency, without disability of their

descendants. As regarded the auto de fe of 1610, the sanbenitos of those

relaxed or reconciled were never to be hung in the churches, their

property was not to be confiscated; an itemized statement of it and of

the fines levied, with an account of the expenses, was to be submitted

to the Suprema, and this was to be noted in the records of their cases,

so that they should not be liable in case of relapse, nor should their

descendants be disabled for office, nor should those be disqualified who

had since then been penanced with abjuration.

[Sidenote: _DELUSION RECOGNIZED_]

Having thus provided reparation for the past and caution for the future,

the Suprema sought to protect reputed witches from the inordinate zeal

of the local authorities and to vindicate its exclusive jurisdiction.

The commissioners were to be summoned, one by one, and made to

understand the grief and just resentment of the Holy Office at the

violence of the alcaldes and others towards those reported to be

witches. They were to publish this and let it be known that, as the High

Court of Navarre had undertaken to punish these intermeddlers, it would

be permitted to do so, but that in future the Inquisition would adopt

rigorous measures to chastise all who intruded on its jurisdiction, as

perturbers and impeders of the Holy Office. Confessors were instructed

to require all who were guilty of defaming others to denounce

themselves to the tribunal, for the discharge of their conscience and

the restoration to honor of the injured, and priests were notified not

to refuse the sacraments to those reputed as witches, while

commissioners were warned to confine themselves to their instructions

and to act with all moderation.[505]

In this admirable paper we cannot help applauding especially the moral

courage evinced in making reparation for the Logroño auto, which must

have had the sanction of the Suprema. The whole witch epidemic of

Navarre and the Provinces of Biscay was evidently regarded as a delusion

but, in view of the attitude of the Church for the last two centuries,

this could not be openly proclaimed and the wisest course was adopted to

repress, as far as possible, popular fanaticism, and to protect its

victims for the future. The superstition was too inveterate to be easily

eradicated, but the effort to protect its victims was not abandoned.

There is the formula of an edict, dated 162-(the year left blank to be

filled in) issued by Salazar, now senior inquisitor, and his colleagues,

reciting that the prosecutions for many years had given them ample

experience of the grave evils and obscuration of the truth, resulting

from the threats and violence offered to those who confessed or were

suspected of witchcraft, as many persons, under pretext of kinship to

the suspect, or to the persons said to be injured, endeavor to force

them to confess publicly as to themselves and others, wherefore all

persons were ordered to abstain from threats or inducements, so that

every one might have free access to the tribunal and its commissioners,

under penalty of rigorous punishment according to the circumstances of

the offence.[506] It is inferable from this, that the people,

distrusting the leniency of the Inquisition, discouraged application to

it, and sought rather to obtain satisfaction extra-judicially.

[Sidenote: _PERSISTENT DELUSION_]

The virtual supervision assumed by the Suprema over all cases of

witchcraft was exercised with a moderation which must have been greatly

discouraging to believers. Under this impulsion, the tribunals became

exceedingly lenient, frequently exercising the power left to them of

suspending cases. One that is exceedingly significant occurred at

Valladolid, in 1622. At the instance of her confessor, Casilda de

Pabanes, a girl of 19, from Villamiel, near Burgos, presented herself

and confessed that, at Christmas 1615 (when she was 12 or 13 years old)

she was sick in bed with a fever, and her parents had gone to mass,

leaving the house locked up. Suddenly a neighbor, a widow named Marina

Vela, appeared at her bed-side and, with threats of killing her, forced

her to rise and dress and accompany her to a hermitage in the vicinage,

where they found a tall, naked man, dark and with horns like a bull, who

welcomed them and made them strip to their shifts, with an exchange of

indecent kisses. Then they dressed and returned; although the house

doors were locked they entered, and she was again in bed before her

parents came back. Then followed long details of other similar

adventures, in which the presiding demon usually wore the form of a

goat. He made her renounce God and wrote with her blood her name on a

paper; she was provided with an incubus demon whom she could summon by

breaking a stick; with Marina she entered houses at night, killing

children with powders or by sucking their fingers. There is no allusion

to the aquelarre, but all other features of witchcraft are minutely

detailed. By Marina's advice, she pretended to be possessed, and was

taken to San Toribio de Liebara to be exorcised by Fray Gonzalo de San

Millan, to whom she confessed. The inquisitors examined and

cross-examined her closely, without her varying in her story; they

sought, without success, for evidence of illusion or fantasy, but, on

investigation it was found that she was really sick of a fever at

Christmas, 1615, and that subsequently she seemed to tremble and be as

one possessed. Confirmatory statements were procured from the frailes,

and evidently in accordance with the instructions, all means were

exhausted of testing her confession. In any other land this victim of

hysteric auto-suggestion would have been, if not burnt, at least made an

exhibition that would have spread the craze, but the tribunal, after

carrying the case through the preliminary stages, voted to suspend it

without rendering sentence and to reconcile and absolve her in the

audience chamber without confiscation.[507] The same policy was followed

in the few other cases brought before the tribunal. María de Melgar of

Osorno, who died during trial, was given Christian burial in 1637; in

1640, it suspended the case of María Sanz of Trigueros, against whom

there was testimony of witchcraft and, in 1641, it discharged with a

reprimand María Alfonsa de la Torre, accused of killing cattle, although

a witness swore to seeing her at midnight riding on a stick over a

rye-field, with a noise as though accompanied by a multitude of

demons.[508]

When we compare these cases with the penalties inflicted at the period

on vulgar sorceresses and poor old curanderas, for implied pact, it is

evident that the Inquisition had reached the conclusion that witchcraft

was virtually a delusion, or that incriminating testimony was perjured.

This could not be openly published; the belief was of too long standing

and too firmly asserted by the Church to be pronounced false; witchcraft

was still a crime to be punished when proved but, under the regulations,

proof was becoming impossible and confessions were regarded as

illusions.

It was difficult for the conservatives to abandon their cherished

beliefs, and the can. Episcopi remained a bone of contention.

Torreblanca has no inklings of doubt; to him the aquelarre and all its

obscene horrors are a reality; the witch is to be burnt, not for

illusions but for acts, as the Church has decreed in so many

constitutions.[509] His book was duly licensed by the Council of Castile

in 1613, but some censor presented a learned criticism of it, calling

especial attention to this point, citing the can. Episcopi and the

experience of the Inquisition, and arguing that the feats attributed to

witches transcended the powers of the demon. This was so effective that

the licence was withdrawn. Then Torreblanca produced a verbose and

discursive "Defensa," in which he argued that the can. Episcopi was

apocryphal; he showed that the Church had always punished such

malefactors with death, so that either his critic or the Church must

err, and the Church cannot, for it is illuminated by God.[510] This was

successful, his licence was restored in 1615 and his work saw the light

in 1618. Jofreu in his notes on Ciruelo's "Reprovacion," defends the

can. Episcopi, but finds in it three kinds of witches--those who

renounce God and seek the aid of the devil, those who are superstitious

and know that their illusions are the work of the evil spirit, and those

who are deceived by them--and the witches of today are the same, whence

he argues in favor of caution and a policy of clemency.[511] Alberghini,

about 1640, admits that the aquelarre is a phantasm, but he holds that

none the less are witches apostates from God and devil-worshippers, and

he seems to think it still an open question whether those who kill by

sorcery are to be relaxed, even if they truly repent and are

converted.[512] About the same time, all that an old inquisitor will

grant is that, even if there is illusion in the aquelarre, the witch

ratifies all that is done there, when awake, dwelling on it with

pleasure and anointing herself for the purpose, but he concedes that the

deceits of the devil render necessary stronger evidence than in other

crimes and that, as he represents in the aquelarre phantoms of innocent

persons, the testimony of accomplices must be fortified with other

proofs.[513] Nearly the same ground was taken, in 1650, by Padre Diego

Tello, S. J., as calificador in the case of an unlucky monomaniac on

trial by the Granada tribunal, whom he sought to prove responsible by

showing that the witches who fly with Diana and Herodias, as in the can.

Episcopi, had free-will, rendering them culpable for their commerce with

the demon.[514] Even as late as towards the close of the seventeenth

century, a systematic writer holds it as certain that witches renounce

the faith, adore the demon and enter into a pact with him and, if this

can be proved by confession or witnesses, they are to be punished as

heretics with the regular penalties.[515]

[Sidenote: _VIRTUAL DISAPPEARANCE_]

Yet the Inquisition imperturbably pursued its way. It did not deny the

existence of witchcraft, or modify the penalties of the crime but, as we

have seen, it practically rendered proof impossible, thus discouraging

formal accusations, while its prohibition of preliminary proceedings by

its commissioners and by the local officials, secular and

ecclesiastical, was effectual in preventing the outbreak of witchcraft

epidemics. So far as the records before me show, cases became very few

after the Logroño experience of 1610. Scattering ones occur

occasionally, such as those alluded to above but, in the Valladolid

record from which they are derived, embracing in all six hundred and

sixty-seven cases between 1622 and 1662, there are but five of

witchcraft, of which the latest is in 1641.[516] In Toledo, from 1648 to

1794, there is not a single one, nor is there one among the nine hundred

and sixty-two cases in the sixty-four autos celebrated by all the

tribunals of Spain between 1721 and 1727.[517] It was not that popular

belief was eradicated, for this is ineradicable and still exists among

all nations, but its deadly effects were prevented. Some fragmentary

papers show that, from 1728 to 1735, there was a tolerably active

investigation, in Valencia and Castellon de la Plana, into cases of

mingled sorcery and witchcraft. There was evidence as to the use of

ointments by which persons could transport themselves through the air

and pass through walls, and as to people being bewitched and rendered

sick, showing that the superstition had as firm a hold as ever on the

lower classes.[518] In 1765, at Callosa de Ensarria (Alicante) when some

young children disappeared, it was attributed to Angela Piera who had

the reputation of a witch, able to fly to Tortosa and back, and who was

supposed to have killed them for her incantations.[519] These scattering

cases become rarer with time. In a record of all the operations of the

Spanish tribunals, from 1780 to 1820, there are but four. In 1781,

Isabel Cascar of Malpica was accused as a witch to the tribunal of

Saragossa. In 1791, at Barcelona, María Vidal y Decardó of Tamarit, a

widow aged 45, accused herself of express pact with the demon, of carnal

intercourse with him, of presence four times a week at the aquelarres,

where she adored him as a God, and of having trampled on a consecrated

host and flung it on a dung-hill--a case which forcibly recalls that of

Casilda de Pabanes, in 1622, as an illustration of the hypnotic

illusions which aided so greatly in the dissemination of the belief. The

latest cases are two, occurring in 1815, of which details are lacking

except that they were not brought to trial.[520]

Thus the belief, so persistently affirmed by the Church, continued to

exist among theologians. Even one so learned as Fray Maestro Alvarado,

in 1813, when defending the Inquisition against the Córtes of Cádiz,

told the deputies that Cervantes was better authority in favor of the

belief than they were against it, and he instanced a recent case in

Llerena, where two women in a church, and in sight of all the people,

were carried through the air by demons.[521] Still, so long as the

belief was academical and did not lead to the stake, it was

comparatively harmless, and the Inquisition deserves full credit for

depriving it of its power for evil.

[Sidenote: _THE ROMAN INQUISITION_]

In this, there is a remarkable coincidence between the Holy Offices of

Spain and of Rome, although the latter was somewhat tardy in the good

work. After the organization of the Congregation, in 1542, by Paul III.,

there was a considerable interval before it asserted exclusive

jurisdiction over witchcraft. It is true that, in 1582, in the papal

city of Avignon, it relaxed to the secular arm eighteen witches in a

single sentence,[522] but the next year, 1583, when the people of the

Val Mesolcina found themselves ruined by the numerous witches among

them, they applied for relief not to the Inquisition but to their

archbishop, San Carlo Borromeo. After a preliminary investigation he

came with a group of learned theologians and so worked on the

consciences of the culprits that he won nearly all to repentance--more

than a hundred and fifty are said to have confessed and abjured at one

time. There were, however, twelve pertinacious ones, including the

Provost of Roveredo; he was degraded from Orders and all were duly

burnt--they of course being negativos who refused to admit their

guilt.[523] The Inquisition, in fact, was willing to share its

jurisdiction with the bishops, but not with the secular courts, with

which, in 1588 and 1589 we find it in controversy. It contended that, as

witchcraft infers apostasy, its cognizance is ecclesiastical, residing

either in the bishop or the Inquisition, and further that, when a civil

court has commenced a prosecution, the inquisitor has the right to

inspect the proceedings and decide as to whether or not the case belongs

to him. Various decisions and instructions from this time until 1603

indicate the line of action. The jurisdiction is only spiritual, for the

heresy and apostasy, and takes no count of alleged murders or other

crimes; the penalty is therefore merely penance, usually scourging, and

inquisitors are told not to exile witches to places where they were not

known, but to settle them where they could be kept under watch. That

this leniency did not satisfy the people was shown at Gubbio, in 1633,

where a woman undergoing the scourge was set upon by the populace and

stoned to death. Nor was the Inquisition itself always consistent for,

in 1641, the tribunal of Milan relaxed Anna María Pamolea to the secular

arm for witchcraft and homicide.[524]

When murders were charged, the rule was that, if a secular court had

commenced prosecution, the culprit was returned to it for due

punishment, after the spiritual offence had been penanced but, if the

Inquisition had been the first to act, it was not to abandon its

penitent to the secular arm, except in case of relapse. The practical

working of this is seen in a case at Padua, in 1629, where three

witches, imprisoned in the public gaol, were handed over to the

tribunal, which made them abjure formally, and then returned them, when

the magistrates burnt them. That there was considerable scepticism as to

the truth of the Sabbat may be assumed from the rule that the evidence

of witches about persons seen in these assemblies was not to be received

to the prejudice of such persons, as it is all held to be an

illusion.[525]

This scepticism increased and there was a desire to train the people to

disbelief, as appears from a highly creditable act in 1631. The

Inquisitor of Novara reported that his vicar in "Vallis Vigelli" had

commenced proceedings for witchcraft against a woman, when she hanged

herself in prison, and he asked instructions whether to continue the

prosecution against the corpse or whether she had been strangled by the

demon or other witches; also whether he should proceed against a girl

and her accomplices who had confessed extra-judicially to have been at

the Sabbat. In reply the Congregation ordered him to send the

proceedings in the case of the suicide and also the deposition of the

girl; meanwhile he was to remove the vicar and replace him with a proper

person and take pains himself, by means of the parish priests, to

instruct the people as to the fallacies of witchcraft. The same spirit

was manifested, in 1641, when an affirmative answer was given to the

Inquisitor of Mantua, who asked whether he should prosecute those who

beat and insulted witches on the pretext of their being witches.[526]

The Congregation, however, did not place on the Index the _Compendium

Maleficarum_ of Fray Francesco María Guaccio (2^{d} Edition, Milan,

1626) which taught all the beliefs concerning witches and was adorned

with wood cuts representing them as riding on demons through the air and

worshipping Satan in the Sabbat.

[Sidenote: _THE ROMAN INQUISITION_]

What renders the leniency of the Congregation especially remarkable is

that it was in contravention of a decree of Gregory XV, in 1623,

sharpening the penalties of those entering into compacts with the demon;

if they caused death by sorcery they were to be relaxed to the secular

arm, even for a first offence, while, for causing impotence, or

infirmity, or injury to harvests or cattle, they were to be imprisoned

for life.[527] Without, of course, venturing formally to mitigate the

harshness of these penalties, the Congregation could at least elude them

practically, by interposing difficulties in the way of conviction, and

this it did, in 1657, in a series of instructions to inquisitors. Full

belief in the reality of witchcraft was assumed, but there was a hideous

enumeration of the abuses through which so many innocent women were

condemned. The mode of procedure prescribed was based largely on the

Spanish instructions of 1614, and special stress was laid upon

moderation in the use of torture, which was never to be employed until

all the papers in the case had been submitted to the Congregation and

its assent had been obtained, while common fame was not to be considered

an indication justifying arrest. The injunction of 1593, which

prohibited accepting testimony as to those seen in the Sabbat, was

renewed for the reason that these assemblages were mostly an illusion

and justice did not demand prosecution of those recognized through

illusion.[528]

While thus there was no concession in principle, in practice the

persecution of witchcraft became much less deadly. A manual, dating

about 1700, states that in these cases the Inquisition is accustomed to

move slowly and with the greatest circumspection, for the indications

are generally indirect and the _corpus delicti_ most difficult to prove.

If the evidence is strong, torture is employed both for the fact and the

intention; if apostasy is confessed, formal abjuration is required; if

it or evil belief is denied, the abjuration is _de vehementi_; the

accomplices are prosecuted, but not those named as seen in the Sabbat,

on account of the illusions of the demon. Relaxation is the penalty for

heretical sorcery causing death, but the difficulty of proving this is

very great.[529]

Thus gradually the worst features of witch persecution disappeared in

Italy, while yet belief in the reality of witchcraft was untouched. As

late as 1743, Benedict XIV manifests complete acceptance of it, when

discussing the nice question whether a witch, terrified by threats and

blows, commits a fresh sin by transferring to an ox the deadly spell

which she has cast upon the son of the man who beat her. He concludes

that she is guilty of a fresh sin, while the father is excusable, for he

presumably does not know that she has to have recourse to the demon to

effect the transfer, and his only object is to save his son. Moreover

Benedict, in his great work on canonization, not only admits the common

opinion as to incubi and succubi, but he does not deny that in some way

such unions may result in offspring.[530] In fact, the supreme authority

of the modern Catholic Church, St. Alphonso Liguori, repeats without

disapproval the common opinion of the doctors, that witches are

transported through the air and that the theory of illusion is very

pernicious to the Church, as it relieves them from the punishment

prescribed for them.[531]

* * * * *

[Sidenote: _PERSISTENT BELIEF_]

Thus the two lands in Christendom, in which the Inquisition was

thoroughly organized, escaped the worst horrors of the witch-craze. The

service rendered, especially by the Spanish Holy Office, in arresting

the development of the epidemics so constantly reappearing, can only be

estimated by considering the ravages in other lands where Protestants,

who had not the excuse of obedience to papal authority, were as ruthless

as Catholics in the deadly work. Did space permit, it would be

interesting to trace the development and decline of the madness

throughout Europe, but it must suffice to allude to Nicholas Remy, a

witch-judge in Lorraine, who boasts that his work on the subject is

based on about nine hundred cases executed within fifteen years,[532]

and to the estimate that the total number in Germany, during the

seventeenth century, was a hundred thousand.[533] In these, burning

alive was often considered an insufficient penalty, and the victims were

torn with hot pincers or roasted over slow fires. France was less a prey

to the delusion than Germany, but, in 1609, Henry IV sent a commission

to cleanse the Pays de Labour of witches, which, in the hurried work of

four months, burnt nearly a hundred, including several priests, and was

obliged to leave its task uncompleted, for the land was full of them;

two thousand children were transported to the aquellares almost every

night and the assemblages consisted of a hundred thousand, though some

of these were phantoms.[534] For Great Britain the total estimate of

victims is thirty thousand, of whom about a fourth may be credited to

Scotland.[535] When, in 1775, Sir William Blackstone could deliberately

write "To deny the possibility, nay, actual existence, of witchcraft and

sorcery is at once flatly to contradict the revealed word of God.... and

the thing itself is a truth to which every nation in the world hath in

its turn borne testimony,"[536] we cannot judge the Inquisition harshly

for maintaining to the last its existence in theory, while refusing to

reduce that theory to practice.

NOTE.--Since this chapter was in type, the indefatigable Don Manuel

Serrano y Sanz has printed in the _Revista de Archivos_ (Nov.-Dic.

de 1906) the second discourse by Pedro de Valencia on the Auto de

fe of Logroño. In this he states that in the previous one he had

only had opportunity for a cursory glance at the proceedings of the

auto, and had taken into consideration exceptional cases which God

may have permitted of old. Now that he had thoroughly examined the

confessions of the culprits he proceeds to give in much detail the

monstrosities which they relate and concludes with a brief

expression of the convictions resulting therefrom. This is that the

aquelarre has nothing supernatural about it, such as flying through

the air and the presidency of the demon in the shape of a goat. It

is merely a nocturnal assemblage on foot of men and women to

gratify disorderly appetites, inflamed perhaps by the instigation

of the devil, and that their confessions are fictions invented to

cover their wickedness. From this he concludes that they should be

held not as confessing but as denying--which, under the

inquisitorial code, would expose them to the fiery death of the

_negativo impenitente_. He is careful, moreover, not to discredit

the poisonings and the inunctions to cause sleep and dreams.

Unfortunately the paper is not dated; it may have been seen by

Salazar Frias, but if so it exercised no influence on him, as

appears from the different conclusion reached in his report.

Señor Serrano y Sanz states that in 1900 he printed the first

discourse of Pedro de Valencia in the _Revista de Extremadura_.