Take for adequate illustration these standard authorities in the early
periods of the widespread and virulent epidemic:
Those of the Inquisitor General, Eymeric, in 1359, entitled _Tractatus
contra daemonum_; the Formicarius or Ant Hill of the German Dominican
Nider, 1337; the _De calcatione daemonum_, 1452; the _Flagellum
haereticorum fascinariorum_ of the French Inquisitor Jaquier in 1458; and
the _Fortalitium fidei_ of the Spanish Franciscan Alonso de Spina, in
1459; the famous and infamous manual of arguments and rules of procedure
for the detection and punishment of witches, compiled by the German
Inquisitors Kraemer and Sprenger (Institor) in 1489, buttressed on the
bull of Pope Innocent VIII; (this was the celebrated _Witch Hammer_,
bearing on its title page the significant legend, "_Not to believe in
witchcraft is the greatest of heresies_"); the Canon Episcopi; the bulls
of Popes John XXII, 1330, Innocent VIII, 1484, Alexander VI, 1494, Leo
X, 1521, and Adrian VI, 1522; the Decretals of the canon law; the
exorcisms of the Roman and Greek churches, all hinged on scriptural
precedents; the Roman law, the Twelve Tables, and the Justinian Code,
the last three imposing upon the crimes of conjuring, exorcising,
magical arts, offering sacrifices to the injury of one's neighbors,
sorcery, and witchcraft, the penalties of death by torture, fire, or
crucifixion.
Add to these classics some of the later authorities: the _Daemonologie_
of the royal inquisitor James I of England and Scotland, 1597; Mores'
_Antidote to Atheism_; Fuller's _Holy and Profane State_; Granvil's
_Sadducismus Triumphatus_, 1681; _Tryal of Witches at the Assizes for
the County of Suffolk before Sir Matthew Hale, March, 1664_ (London,
1682); Baxter's _Certainty of the World of Spirits_, 1691; Cotton
Mather's _A Discourse on Witchcraft_, 1689, his _Late Memorable
Providences Relating to Witchcrafts and Possessions_, 1684, and his
_Wonders of the Invisible World_, 1692; and enough references have been
made to this literature of delusion, to the precedents that seared the
consciences of courts and juries in their sentences of men, women, and
children to death by the rack, the wheel, the stake, and the gallows.
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