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 dishonoured the crucifix and denied their salvation; others of having absconded to keep the Devil’s Sabbath, in spite of bolts and bars; others of having merely joined in the choral dances around the witches’ tree of rendezvous.  Several of their husbands and relatives swore that they were in bed and asleep during these pretended excursions.  Alciatus recommended gentle and temperate measures; and the minds of the country became at length composed.[50]

[Footnote 50:  Alciat.  “Parerg.  Juris,” lib. viii. chap. 22.]

In 1488, the country four leagues around Constance was laid waste by lightning and tempest, and two women being, by fair means or foul, made to confess themselves guilty as the cause of the devastation, suffered death.