In north Germany Protestantism was just as conscientiously
cruel. It based its theory and practice toward witches directly
upon the Bible, and above all on the great text which has cost
the lives of so many myriads of innocent men, women, and
children, "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." Naturally the
Protestant authorities strove to show that Protestantism was no
less orthodox in this respect than Catholicism; and such
theological jurists as Carpzov, Damhouder, and Calov did their
work thoroughly. An eminent authority on this subject estimates
the number of victims thus sacrificed during that century in
Germany alone at over a hundred thousand.
Among the methods of this witch activity especially credited
in central and southern Europe was the anointing of city walls
and pavements with a diabolical unguent causing pestilence. In
1530 Michael Caddo was executed with fearful tortures for thus
besmearing the pavements of Geneva. But far more dreadful was the
torturing to death of a large body of people at Milan, in the
following century, for producing the plague by anointing the
walls; and a little later similar punishments for the same crime
were administered in Toulouse and other cities.
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