§ 117.4. =Prosecution of Witches.=--Down to the beginning of the 13th century many churchmen had spoken against the popular superstition regarding sorcery, witchcraft, and compacts with the devil, and a whole series of provincial councils had pronounced such belief to be heathenish, sinful, and heretical. Even in Gratian’s decretal (§ 99, 5) there was a canon which required the clergy to teach the people that witchcraft was a delusion, and belief in it incompatible with the Christian faith. But upon the establishment of the Inquisition in the beginning of the 13th century witchcraft came more and more to occupy the attention of the ecclesiastical authorities. Heresy and sorcery were now regarded as correlates, like two agencies resting on and serviceable to the demoniacal powers, and were therefore treated in the same way as offences to be punished with torture and the stake. The Dominicans, as administrators of the Inquisition, were the most zealous defenders of the belief in witchcraft, whereas the Franciscans generally spoke of it simply as foolish, heathenish, and heretical. Thomas Aquinas included it in his theological system, and Eymerich in his _Directorium Inquisitorium_ (§ 109, 2). Yet witch prosecutions were only occasional incidents during the 14th and 15th centuries, especially in Germany, where clergy and people were adverse to them. But it was quite otherwise after Innocent VIII., on 3rd December, 1484, by his bull _Summis desiderantes affectibus_, complaining of previous laxity, called attention to the spread of witchcraft in the country, and appointed two inquisitors, Sprenger and Institor, to secure its extermination. These administered their office with such zeal and success, that in A.D. 1489 at Cologne they were able, as the result of their experiences, to publish under the title _Malleus maleficarum_ a complete code for witch prosecutions. From the confessions wrung from their victims by torture and suggestive questions, they obtained a full, dogmatic system of compacts and intrigues with the devil, of _Succubis_ and _Incubis_, of witch ointment, broomsticks, and ovenforks, of witches’ sabbaths, Walpurgis nights, and flights up chimneys. Soon this illusion spread like an epidemic, and thousands throughout Germany and all other Catholic countries, mostly old women, but also some young maidens, were subjected to the most horrible tortures, and after confession had been extorted, to death by fire. The _Malleus_ accounted for the fact that women and very rarely men were found engaged in such proceedings, by this statement: _Dicitur enim femina a feret minus, quia semper minorem habet et servat fidem, et hoc ex natura._--The Reformation of the 16th century made no change in these horrible proceedings, which rather rose to a height during the 17th century. Theologians of all confessions