ed the secular
power in more important cases.[54] In such cases the archdeacon usually
acted with the justice of peace in conducting the examination,[55] as in
rendering sentence. Even then, however, the penalty was as a rule
ecclesiastical. But, with the second half of the sixteenth century,
there arose new conditions which resulted in the transfer of this
control to the state. Henry VIII had broken with Rome and established a
Church of England around the king as a centre. The power of the church
belonged to the king, and, if to the king, to his ministers and his
judges. Hence certain crimes that had been under the control of the
church fell under the jurisdiction of the king's courts.[56] In a more
special way the same change came about through the attack of the privy
council upon the conjurers. What had hitherto been a comparatively
insignificant offence now became a crime against the state and was so
dealt with.

The change, of course, was not sudden. It was not accomplished in a
year, nor in a decade. It was going on throughout the first half of
Elizabeth's reign. By the beginning of the eighties the church control
was disappearing. After 1585 the state had practically exclusive
jurisdiction.[57]

We have now finished the attempt to trace the beginning of the definite
movement against witchcraft in England. What witchcraft was, what it
became, how it was to be distinguished from sorcery--these are questions
that we have tried to answer very briefly. We have dealt in a cursory
way with a series of cases extending from Anglo-Saxon days down to the
fifteenth century in order to show how unfixed was the matter of
jurisdiction. We have sought also to explain how Continental opinion was
introduced into England through Jewel and other Marian exiles, to show
what independent forces were operating in England, and to exhibit the
growing influence of the charmers and their relation to the development
of witchcraft; and lastly we have aimed to prove that the special danger
to the queen had no little part in creating the crusade against witches.
These are conclusions of some moment and a caution must be inserted. We
have been treating of a period where facts are few and information
fragmentary. Under such circumstances conclusions can only be tentative.
Perhaps the most that can be said of them is that they are suggestions.

[1] Benjamin Thorpe, _Ancient Laws and Institutes of England_ (London,
1840), I, 41; Liebermann, _D