THE OCCULT SCIKXCKS. 2O5 



the suspicions of the Inquisition, was accused of being in communication with 

 the devil, and burnt at the stake in Rome in 1327. 



The occult sciences had spread very rapidly at the epoch when the thirst 

 for knowledge gave an impetus to all the intellectual forces of the Middle 

 Ages. This was the period of the great encyclopedias, which were compili <l 

 simultaneously in all countries where the Renaissance of letters was ushered 

 in with more enthusiasm than discretion. These encyclopaedias comprised, 

 amidst the vast mass of divine and human sciences, hermetic philosophy, 

 judicial astrology, theurgy, and the other branches of magic ; but, notwith- 

 standing this, the occult sciences were not taught ct rnflii'th-u ; that is to say, 

 from the chairs of the Universities, over which the religious authorities always 

 exercised an unlimited power of control and suppression. The invention of 

 printing, in the middle of the fifteenth century, all at once conferred upon 

 teaching from books a degree pf^ liberty which oral instruction had never 

 possessed. The occult sciences profited thereby, and, without taking into 

 account the prohibitions and condemnations of the Church, printing brought 

 into full light the doctrines and experimental knowledge belonging to each 

 kind of magic, which had hitherto remained hidden. In most cases these 

 publications did not render the authors or printers liable to any danger, for 

 the Catholic Church was at this period more engaged in pulling down the 

 militant heresies which attacked the dogma and the very essence of religion. 

 Cardan, Paracelsus, Cornelius Agrippa, Jean Reuchlin, and many other psycho- 

 logists, though they were more or less astrologers, demonologists, and magi- 

 cians, were not interfered with for their writings, which, going through several 

 editions, were very widely circulated ; but in the beginning of the sixteenth 

 century, certain inquisitors, amongst others Henry Institor and Springer in 

 their "Malleus Maleficorum," denounced the formidable invasion of sorcery, 

 and invoked against its adepts the penal laws decreed by the ecclesiastical 

 authorities. It was only about the middle of this century that the civil 

 power began to proceed against the sorcerers ; and it was encouraged, seconded, 

 and urged by the jurisconsults, who seemed fully agreed to punish the insti- 

 gators and proselytes of an illusory science, reputed criminal because it 

 participated in the works of the demons. One of these stern magistrates, 

 Pierre de Lancre, President of the Bordeaux Parliament, boasted in his 

 "Treatise on the Inconstancy of Evil Spirits and Demons" (1610), th;it 

 he had been more severe on the sorcerers than the Inquisition itself ; and his 



