The Holy Inquisitions in the late 15th and early 16th centuries were seeking out witches as heretics. In 1484, Pope Innocent VIII issued a decree in which he urged the Inquisitors to actively seek out and condemn witches and he told the Inquisitors they had the right to treat witches as heretics. Pope Innocent also made a point to ask two monks to help him rid Germany of witches. The monks, Henry Kramer and James Sprenger, wrote a book caled Malleus Maleficarum (The Hammer of Witches). Between 1485 and 1489, the book was published and served as a guidebook for judges trying witchcraft cases.
The Malleus was the most popular of this type of book. Its influence was enourmous; it was, more than any other publication, responsible for the cruel and bloody persecution of supposed withches that took place during the next 250 years in Europe, Britain and the American colonies.
The Malleus torture techniques were as follows: the usual techniques of breaking bones or pulling out fingernails, etc; but they also used the "witch chair." This was a chair made of iron and covered with little studs. A fire was lit under the chair and the supposed witch was burned by the hot studs. Subtler methods were, for example, tying a supposed witch in an uncomfortable position on a table for twenty-four hours awake, with no food or water.
Another way to find "proof" was to shave every bit of hair off a person and look for anything that might show a witch's link to the Devil. Another technique was that of asking a "witch" to recite the Lord's Prayer or a psalm. Any mistakes meant that person was a witch.
Perhaps the cruelest trick of all that the Inquisitors used was to pamper the supposed witch even to the point of promising mercy if they named other witches.
The Malleus listed rules for telling when something was a spell and when it was a prayer. If it called on devils, either directly or by intent, it was a spell. If it used names the Inquisitors did not recognize or any signs they did not understand, it was a spell. It was a spell if it consisted of a religious passage said incorrectly. And it was a spell if it said anything untrue, no matter how slightly, or if its purpose was evil doing.
The persecution of witches was called "The Burning Times" in Europe. Some say 1/2 milion died as "witches." The witch-hunting madness led to a new profession--witch finder. Witch finders would travel from town to town looking for witches and sometimes they collected a handsome fee for their service. Witch finders searched the suspected witches for Devil's marks and witch's marks. They also tested suspects by inserting a long pin (called pricking) into the Devil's mark which was supposed to be insensitive to pain and not bleed. These pins were made of a long pin attached to a long hollow tube. When pressed against the skin, the pin would recede into the tube thereby making it seem that the person had a witch's or Devil's mark.Another test for witchcraft was "swimming a witch." If you floated, you were a witch; if you sank, you were innocent.
Most accused witches were put in prison to await questioning and, if guilty, later trial. One infamous prison was the Tower of Lindheim (the "Witch Tower") in Hesse, Germany.
It is hard to say for certain, but it is likely that Germany and France executed more people for witchcraft than other European countries. Spain burned fewer witches than any other European country.
Home