ard are in vol. civ
of Migne's Patrol. Lat.

All in vain; the tide of superstition continued to roll on; great
theologians developed it and ecclesiastics favoured it; until as we near
the end of the medieval period the infallible voice of Rome is heard
accepting it, and clinching this belief into the mind of Christianity.
For, in 1437, Pope Eugene IV, by virtue of the teaching power conferred
on him by the Almighty, and under the divine guarantee against any
possible error in the exercise of it, issued a bull exhorting the
inquisitors of heresy and witchcraft to use greater diligence against
the human agents of the Prince of Darkness, and especially against those
who have the power to produce bad weather. In 1445 Pope Eugene returned
again to the charge, and again issued instructions and commands
infallibly committing the Church to the doctrine. But a greater than
Eugene followed, and stamped the idea yet more deeply into the mind of
the Church. On the 7th of December, 1484, Pope Innocent VIII sent forth
his bull Summis Desiderantes. Of all documents ever issued from Rome,
imperial or papal, this has doubtless, first and last, cost the greatest
shedding of innocent blood. Yet no document was ever more clearly
dictated by conscience. Inspired by the scriptural command, "Thou
shalt not suffer a witch to live," Pope Innocent exhorted the clergy of
Germany to leave no means untried to detect sorcerers, and especially
those who by evil weather destroy vineyards, gardens, meadows,
and growing crops. These precepts were based upon various texts of
Scripture, especially upon the famous statement in the book of Job; and,
to carry them out, witch-finding inquisitors were authorized by the Pope
to scour Europe, especially Germany, and a manual was prepared for their
use--the Witch-Hammer, Malleus Maleficarum. In this manual, which was
revered for centuries, both in Catholic and Protestant countries, as
almost divinely inspired, the doctrine of Satanic agency in atmospheric
phenomena was further developed, and various means of detecting and
punishing it were dwelt upon.(250)

(250) For the bull of Pope Eugene, see Raynaldus, Annales Eccl., pp.
1437, 1445. The Latin text of the bull Summis Desiderantes may now be
found in the Malleus Maleficarum, in Binsfeld's De Confessionibus cited
below, or in Roskoff's Geschichte des Teufles (Leipsic, 1869), vol.
i, pp. 222-225. There is, so far as I know, no good analysis, in any
Eng