it., p. 106.

[2] Cf. Bleda, _Defensio fidei in causa neophytorum sive Moriscorum
regni Valentini totiusque Hispaniae,_, Valencia, 1610.

The witchcraft fever which spread over Europe in the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries stimulated to an extraordinary degree the zeal of
the Inquisitors. The bull of Innocent VIII, _Summis Desiderantes_,
December 5, 1484, made matters worse. The Pope admitted that men and
women could have immoral relations with demon, and that sorcerers by
their magical incantations could injure the harvests, the vineyards,
the orchards and the fields.[1]

[1] _Bullarium_, vol. v, p. 296 and seq., and Pegna's _Bullarium_ in
Eymeric, _Directorium Inquisit_., p. 83.

He also complained of the folly of those ecclesiastics and laymen who
opposed the Inquisition in its prosecution of heretical sorcerers,
and concluded by conferring additional powers upon the Dominican
Inquisitors, Institoris and Sprenger, the author of the famous
_Malleus Maleficarum_.

Innocent VIII assuredly had no intention of committing the Church to
a belief in the phenomena he mentioned in his bull, but his personal
opinion did leave an influence upon the canonists and Inquisitors of
his day; this is clear from the trials for witchcraft held during
this period.[1] It is impossible to estimate the number of sorcerers
condemned. Louis of Paramo triumphantly declared that in a century
and a half the Holy Office sent to the stake over thirty thousand.[2]
Of course we must take such round numbers with a grain of salt, as
they always are greatly exaggerated. But the fact remains that the
condemnations for sorcery were so numerous as to stagger belief. The
Papacy itself recognized the injustice of its agents. For in 1637
instructions were issued stigmatizing the conduct of the Inquisitors
on account of their arbitrary and unjust prosecution of sorcerers;
they were accused of extorting from them by cruel tortures
confessions that were valueless, and of abandoning them to the
secular arm without sufficient cause.[1]

[1] Pignatelli, _Consultationes novissimae canonicae, Venetiis_, 2 in
fol., vol. i, p. 505, _Consultatio_ 123.

. . . . . . . .

Confiscation, though not so severe a penalty as the stake, bore very
heavily upon the victims of the Inquisition. The Roman laws classed
the crime of heresy with treason, and visited it with a principal
penalty, death, and a secondary penalty, confiscation. They decreed
that all heretics, wit