32 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Additional examples of tins kind might be cited, but those 

 already given suffice to show that after the conversion of the Ba- 

 varians and other German tribes to Christianity in the eighth cen- 

 tury, the belief in witchcraft was regarded by the clergy in general 

 as a remnant of paganism, which it was their duty to eradicate by 

 catechetical instruction or by the imposition of ecclesiastical pen- 

 ance, but not to punish as a crime. Indeed, the annals of Bavaria 

 during the middle ages, so far as they have been preserved, do not 

 furnish a single well-authenticated instance of the institution of 

 judicial proceedings against wizards or witches either by tlie 

 Church or the State. Even in the above-mentioned case of mob 

 violence at Freising in 1090, the women, who suffered death, were 

 objects of compassion to the clergy, who looked upon them as the 

 unfortunate victims of popular frenzy, innocently slain by a sud- 

 den outburst and aberration of the repressed forces of ancestral 

 superstition; and this view of witchcraft seems to have been the 

 prevailing one in the metropolitan and diocesan synods of Bavaria 

 as late as the sixteenth century. From this standpoint it was per- 

 fectly natural for the Synod of Regensburg in 1512 to treat of 

 heresy and sortilege in the same decree, and to condemn, together 

 with schismatics, all vain superstitions, soothsayings, sorceries, 

 and evil arts of witches,* " who address infamous prayers to the 

 altars of idols and, deluded by Satan, imagine that they can thereby 

 attain good things and ward off evil." In order to extirpate " this 

 pestilential brood " it was enjoined that every one addicted to such 

 practices, whether cleric or layman, should be sent to the bishop 

 or his vicar to make confession and receive absolution; but if the 

 said person did not, within nine days, heed the admonitions of his 

 spiritual guardian and renounce his errors, he should be excom- 

 municated. Similar measures were taken by the provincial synod 

 of Salzburg in 1569, with an additional injunction calling upon 

 all who had any knowledge of " familiarities, conventions, pacts, 

 or confederations with the devil " to report them to the bishop or 

 his official. The informers were also assured that they would have 

 nothing to fear, inasmuch as their names would be kept secret. 

 Here we have the beginning of that system of espionage, anonymous 

 denunciation, and private inquisition which played so prominent 

 a part in the subsequent history of witchcraft by making every man 



* Artesque mahficas Phitonissarum ; evidently a slip for Pithonissanim, or more cor- 

 rectly Pythonissarum. Another queer corruption is the allusion of tortured witches in their 

 confessions to Filius Zabres — i. e., Virgilius Zauberer, Virpii the magician. In the middle 

 ages the author of the .Eneid acquired a popular reputation as a wizard which wholly 

 eclipsed his fame as a poet. The first mention of him in this character is by John of Salis- 

 bury in the Policratius in 1159 ; but many tales and traditions of his power as a sorcerer 

 were current, especially in Naples, long before the twelfth century. 



