Fostered chiefly by the proceedings against heresy, the popular dread of witchcraft had been on the increase for several centuries; and numerous executions had taken place in various parts of Europe. At last, Innocent VIII., by his celebrated bull, Sum mis Desiderantes, issued in 1484, gave the full sanction of the church to the prevalent notions regarding sorcery, and charged the inquisitors and others to discover and put to death all practicers of these diabolical arts. Two special inquisitors, appointed for Ger many (to which country the bull was specially directed), Heinrich Institor and Jacob Sprenger, with the aid of a clergyman of Constance, Johannes Gremper, drew up the famous Malieus Maleficarum, or Hammer for Witches; in which the whole doctrine of witchcraft was systematized, a regular form of trio' laid down, and a course of exami nation appointed by which inquisitors everywhere might best discover the guilty. From this we may date the m of the witch-mania proper. The edict of 1484 was sub sequently enforced by abull of Alexander VI. in 1494, of Leo X. in 1521 and of Adrian VI. in 1522—each adding, strength to its predecessor, and the whole serving to increase the agitation of the public mind upon the subject. The results were dreadful. A panic fear of witchcraft took possession c4 ocicty; every one was at the mercy of his neigh bor. If anyone felt an unaccountable .ilness, or a peculiar pain in any part of his body, oc suffered any misfortune in his family or affairs; or if a storm arose, and committed any damage by sea or land, or if any cattle died suddenly, or. in short, if any event, circumstance, or thing occurred out of the ordinary routine of daily experience—the cause of it was witchcraft. To be accused, was to be doomed; for it rarely happened that proof was wanting, or that condemnation was not followed by execution. Armed with the Haiku* lialeficarum, the judge had no difficulty in finding reasons for sending the most innocent to the stake. If the accused did not at once confess, they were ordered to be shaved and closely examined for the discovery of devil's marks, and if any strange mark was discovered, there remained no longer any doubt of the party's guilt. Fading this kind of evidence, torture was applied, and this seldom failed to extort the desired confession from the unhappy victim. A large proportion of the accused witches, in order to avoid these preliminary horrors, confessed the crime in any terms which were dictated to them, and were forthwith led to execution. Other witches o. seemed to con fess voluntarily, !win probably either insane persons, or feeble-minded beings, whose reason had been distorted by brooding over the popular witchcraft code.
In Germany the prosecutions were carried to a frightful extent. In the small bishop ric of Bamberg 600 fell victims to the delusion in the course of about four years; and in Wfirzburg, which is not much larger, 900. In the small district of Lindheim, a twen tieth part of the population were sacrificed in the same space of time. Similar accounts are on record regarding the other countries of Europe. In Geneva, in three months (1515-16). 500 persons were burned. In the district( of Como 1000 were burned in one year (1524), and 100 per annum for several years afterward. In France, about the year 1520, tires for the execution of witches blazed in every town; and throughout the cen tury the provincial parliaments were incessantly occupied with witch-trials and enact ments against them, especially against that form of the,superstition known as lycan thropy (q.v.; see also WERE-WOLF).
In England and Scotland, the witch mania was somewhat later in setting in than on the continent: but when it did so, it was little if at all less virulent—the reformation notwithstanding. The statute of Elizabeth, in 1562, first made witchcraft in itself a
crime of the first magnitude, whether directed to the injury of others or not; and the act of James VI., in the first year of his reign in England, defines the crime still more minutely: " Any one that shall use, practice, or exercise any invocation of any evil or wicked spirit, or consult or covenant with, entertain or employ, feed or reward any evil or wicked spirit, to or for any purpose; or take up any dead man, etc.; such offend ers, duly and lawfully convicted and attainted, shall suffer death." Many years had not elapsed after the passing of the statute, ere the delusion, which had heretofore com mitted but occasional local mischief, became an epidemical frenzy, devastating every corner of England. The poor creatures who usually fell victims are thus described by an able observer: "An old woman with a wrinkled face, a furred brow, a hairy lip, a Bobber tooth, a squint eye, a squeaking voice, or a scolding tongue, having a ragged coat on her back, a spindle in her hand, and a dog by her side—a wretched, infirm, and impotent creature, pelted and persecuted by all the neighborhood because the farmer's cart had stuck in the gateway, or some idle boy had pretended to spit needles and pins for the sake of a holiday from school or work"—sueh were the poor unfortu nates selected to undergo the last tests and tortures sanctioned by the laws, and which tests were of a nature so severe that no one would have dreamed of inflicting them on the vilest of murderers. They were administered by a class of wretches, who, with one Matthew Hopkins at their head, sprung up in England in the middle of the 17th c., and took lie professional name of witch finders. The practices of the monster Hopkins, who, with his assistants, moved from place to place in the regular and authorized pur suit of his trade, will give a full idea of the tests referred to, as well as of the horrible fruits of the witchcraft frenzy in general. From each town which he visited, Hopkins exacted the stated fee of 20s., and in consideration thereof, he cleared the locality of all suspected persons, bringing them to confession and the stake in the following manner: He stripped them naked, shayed them, and thrust pins into their bodies to discover the witch's mark; he wrapped them in sheets, with the great toes and thumbs tied together, and dragged them through ponds or rivers, when, if they sank, it was held as a sign that the baptismal element did not reject them, and they were cleared; but if they floated—as they usually would do for a time—they were then set down as guilty, and doomed. He kept them fasting and awake. and sometimes incessantly walking, for 24 or 48 hours, as an inducement to confession; and, in short, practiced on the accused such abominable cruelties, that they were glad to escape from life by confession. If a witch could not shed tears at command, said the further items of this wretch's creed, or if she hesitated at a single word in repeating the Lord's prayer, she was in league with the evil one. After he had murdered hundreds, and pursued his trade for many years —from 1644 downward—the tide of popular opinion finally turned against Hopkins, and be was subjected, by a party of indignant experimenters, to his own favorite test of swimming. It is said that he escaped with life, but from that time forth he was never heard of again.