In the thirteenth century, Roger Bacon was charged with witchcraft on account of his discoveries in optics, chemistry, and astronomy; and, although he did what he could to circulate and explain his own acquirements, he could not escape a papal denunciation, and two long and painful imprisonments.  In 1305, Arnold de Villa Nova, a learned physician and philosopher, was burned at Padua, by order of inquisitors, on the charge of witchcraft.  He was eighty years of age.  Ten years afterwards, Peter Apon, also of Padua, who had made extraordinary progress in knowledge, was accused of the same crime, and condemned to death, but expired previous to the time appointed for his execution.

I will now present a brief sketch of the most noticeable facts relating to the subject in Europe and Great Britain previous to the close of the seventeenth century.  Some writers have computed that thirty thousand persons were executed for this supposed crime, within one hundred and fifty years.  It will of course be in my power to mention only a few instances.

In 1484, Pope Innocent the Eighth issued a bull encouraging and requiring the arrest and punishment of persons suspected of witchcraft.  From this moment, the prosecutions became frequent and the victims numerous in every country.  The very next year, forty-one aged females were consigned to the flames in one nation; and, not long after, a hundred were burned by one inquisition in the devoted valleys of Piedmont; forty-eight were burned in Ravensburg in five years; and, in the year 1515, five hundred were burned at Geneva in three months!  One writer declares that “almost an infinite number” were burned for witchcraft in France,—­a thousand in a single diocese!  These sanguinary and horrible transactions were promoted and sanctioned by theological hatred and rancor.  It was soon perceived that there was no kind of difficulty in clearing the Church of heretics by hanging or burning them all as witches!  The imputation of witchcraft could be fixed upon any one with the greatest facility.  In the earlier part of the fifteenth century, the Earl of Bedford, having taken the celebrated Joan of Arc prisoner, put her to death on this charge.  She had been almost adored by the people rescued by her romantic valor, and was universally known among them by the venerable title of “Holy Maid of God;” but no difficulty was experienced in procuring evidence enough to lead her to the stake as a servant and confederate of Satan!  Luther was just beginning his attack upon the papal power, and he was instantly accused of being in confederacy with the Devil.