WITCHCRAFT, supernatural power which persons were formerly supposed to obtain by entering into a compact with the devil. The compact was sometimes express, whether oral or written, when the witch abjured God and Christ, and dedicated herself wholly to the eNil one; or only implied, when she actually en gaged in his service, practised infernal arts. and renounced the Sacraments of the Church The express compact was supposed to be sol emnly confirmed at a general meeting, at whets the devil presided, and sometimes privately made by the witch signing the articles of agree ment with her own blood, or by the devil writ ing her name in his book.' The con tract was sometimes of indefinite duration at other times for a certain number of years. 'The witch was bound to be obedient to the de-0 in e‘erything, while the other party to the pact delivered to the witch.an imp, or familiar spInt. to be reads- at call and to do whatever was directed He further engaged that they should want for nothing, and be able to assume what es er shape they pleased to visit and torment their enemies and accomplish their infernal ends. The belief in witchcraft appears to 'rase existed in various forms among ancient na tiuns, including the Hebrews; it prevails to-das among savage and semi-sasage races, and is nut extinct in civilized countries. It was always condemned by the Church, and in the 14th century the popes believed that they recog eased in sorcery a prevalent and dangerous and began to iscue bulls against it. In the 15th century the inquisition took charge of the work of exterminating witches, and the close of that century, and the beginning of the 16th, wit nessed thousands of executions in Germany, Italy and other countries. France was slow to permit any general persecution of witches, and it was not until about the time of the break with Rome that the first formal enactment, of 1541. declared witchcraft to be a felony in Eng land. From that time on, for more than a century, the burning of witches was kept up in England and Scotland, the statute of 1563 being the first regular enactment against the supposed crime in the latter country.
The Reformation was attended by, or rather coincident with, an increased intensity of the witchcraft superstition, and its resulting hor rors. Theologians of all creeds were equally
believers in the reality of compacts with the devil, and regarded the persons who entered irito such compacts as unfit to live. It is prob. al.le that the religious fervor aroused by con troversy over disputed dogmas may have served to bring more vividly to the minds of clergy arid laity alike their assumed obligation to obey the Scriptural injunction against witch craft, and that, in this way, the Reformation may have promoted this form of persecution. Besides, the tribunals actively engaged in crush ing out disbelief in the accepted creeds of their respective states could readily devote any sur plus energy and zeal to what seemed to them the related crime of witchcraft. From one end of Europe to the other executions of witches were of daily occurrence, and it is estimated that, from the time of the promulgation of the bull of Pope Innocent VIII against sorcery, in 1484, until 1782, when the last judicial victim, a servant girl at Glarus, in German Switzer land, was executed. 300,000 women perished on this often imaginary charge. Some of the vic tims were probably poisoners, but very many of them were undoubtedly innocent of any w rong-doing whatever, Children of tender sears were sometimes among the condemned.
Spanish America witnessed many executions on the charge of witchcraft, and it is stated on credible authority that as late as 20 Aug. 1s77 five alleged witches were burned alive at San Jacobi; Mexico. This appears to have tern more in the nature of a lynching than of an execution of a sentence of a competent court In England and Scotland, as already stated, the 17th century witnessed hideous scenes of witch-torture and extermination. The last vic tims in England were Mrs. Hickes and her daughter, nineyears of age, executed in 1716, and the last hi Scotland suffered in 1722 Prosecution for witchcraft was abolished both in England and in Scotland by George 11 (1736), which made all persons pretending to use the name punishable by imprisonment. By a subsequent act passed in the reign of George IV, they were made punishable as rogues and vagabonds.