NEW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 439 



afflict humanity, and the Scripture on which the action recom- 

 mended against witches in this papal bull, as well as in so many 

 sermons and treatises for centuries afterward, was based, was the 

 famous text, " Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." This idea 

 persisted long ; and the evolution of it is among the most fearful 

 things in human history.* 



In Germany this development was especially terrible. From 

 the middle of the sixteenth century to the middle of the seven- 

 teenth, Catholic and Protestant theologians and ecclesiastics vied 

 with each other in detecting witches guilty of producing sickness 

 or bad weather ; women were sent to torture and death by thou- 

 sands, and with them, from time to time, men and children. On 

 the Catholic side sufficient warrant for this work was found in 

 the bull of Pope Innocent VIII, and the bishops' palaces of south 

 Germany became shambles the lordly prelates of Salzburg, 

 Wurzburg, and Bamberg taking the lead in this butchery. 



In north Germany Protestantism was just as conscientiously 

 cruel. It based its theory and practice toward witches directly 

 upon the Bible, and above all on the great text which has cost 

 the lives of so many myriads of innocent men, women, and 

 children : " Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." Naturally 

 the Protestant authorities strove to show that Protestantism was 



* On the plagues generally, see Hecker, Epidemics of the Middle Ages, passim ; but 

 especially Ilaeser, as above III. Band, s., pp. 1-202 ; also, Sprengel, Baas, Isensee, et al. 

 For brief statement showing the enormous loss of life in these plagues, see Littre, Mede- 

 cine et Medecins, Paris, 1875, p. 3 et seq. For a summary of the effects of the Black 

 Plague throughout England, see Green's History of the English People, chap. v. For the 

 mortality in the Paris hospitals, see Desmazcs, Supplices, Prisons et Graces en France, 

 Paris, 1866. For striking descriptions of plague-stricken cities, see the well-known pass- 

 ages in Thucydides, Bocaccio, De Foe, and above all, Manzoni's Promessi Sposi. For 

 examples of averting the plagues by processions, see Leopold Delisle, Etudes sur la Con- 

 dition de la Classe Agricole, etc., en Normandie au Moyen Age, p. 630 ; also Fort, chap, 

 xxiii. For the anger of St. Sebastian as a cause of the Plague at Rome, and its cessation 

 when a monument had been erected to him, see Paulus Diaconus, cited in Gregorovius, 

 vol. ii, p. 165. For the sacrifice of an ox in the Colosseum to the ancient gods as a means 

 of averting the plague of 1522, at Rome, see Gregorovius, vol. viii, p. 390. As to massacres 

 of the Jews in order to averting the wrath of God in pestilence, see L'l^cole et la Science, 

 Paris, 1887, p. 178 ; also Hecker, and especially Hoeniger, Gang und Verbreitung des 

 Schwarzen Todes in Deutschland, Berlin, 1880. As to absolute want of sanitary precau- 

 tions, see Hecker, p. 292. As to condemnation by strong religionists of medical means in 

 the plague, see Fort, p. 130. For a detailed account of the action of Popes Eugene IV 

 and Innocent VIII against witchcraft, ascribing to It storms and diseases, and for the 

 bull " Summis Desiderantes," see the chapter on Meteorology in this series. The text 

 of the bull is given in the Malleus Maleficarum, in Binsfeld, and in Roskoff, Geschichte 

 des Teufels, Leipzig, 1869, vol. i, pp. 222-225, and a good summary and analysis of it in 

 Soldan, Geschichte der Hexenprocesse. For a concise and admirable statement of the con- 

 tents and effects of the bull, see Lea, History of the Inquisition, vol. iii, pp. 40 et seq. ; and 

 for the best statement known to me of the general subject, Prof. George L. Burr's paper 

 on witchcraft, read before the American Historical Association at Washington. 



