, or in which we do not return to our homes discountenanced and
terrified at the horrible contents of the confessions which it has been
our duty to hear. And the devil is accounted so good a master that we
cannot commit so great a number of his slaves to the flames but what
there shall arise from their ashes a number sufficient to supply their
place."[48]

[Footnote 48: Florimond, "Concerning the Antichrist," cap. 7, n. 5,
quoted by Delrio, "De Magia," p. 820.]

This last statement, by which it appears that the most active and
unsparing inquisition was taking place, corresponds with the historical
notices of repeated persecutions upon this dreadful charge of sorcery. A
bull of Pope Innocent VIII. rang the tocsin against this formidable
crime, and set forth in the most dismal colours the guilt, while it
stimulated the inquisitors to the unsparing discharge of their duty in
searching out and punishing the guilty. "It is come to our ears," says
the bull, "that numbers of both sexes do not avoid to have intercourse
with the infernal fiends, and that by their sorceries they afflict both
man and beast; that they blight the marriage-bed, destroy the births of
women, and the increase of cattle; they blast the corn on the ground,
the grapes of the vineyard, the fruits of the trees, the grass and herbs
of the field." For which reasons the inquisitors were armed with the
apostolic power, and called upon to "convict, imprison, and punish," and
so forth.

Dreadful were the consequences of this bull all over the Continent,
especially in Italy, Germany, and France,[49] About 1485 Cumanus burnt
as witches forty-one poor women in one year in the county of Burlia. In
the ensuing years he continued the prosecution with such unremitting
zeal that many fled from the country.

[Footnote 49: Dr. Hutchinson quotes "H. Institor," 105, 161.]

Alciatus states that an inquisitor, about the same period, burnt an
hundred sorcerers in Piedmont, and persevered in his inquiries till
human patience was exhausted, and the people arose and drove him out of
the country, after which the jurisdiction was deferred to the
archbishop. That prelate consulted Alciatus himself, who had just then
obtained his doctor's degree in civil law, to which he was afterwards an
honour. A number of unfortunate wretches were brought for judgment,
fitter, according to the civilian's opinion, for a course of hellebore
than for the stake. Some were accused of having dishonou