[1] "The Inquisition of Valencia condemned one hundred and twelve _conversos_ in 1538 (of whom fourteen were sent to the stake); at the _auto-da-fé_ of Seville, September 24, 1559, three were burned, and eight were reconciled and sentenced to life imprisonment; on June 6, 1585, the Inquisitors of Saragossa in their account to Philip II speak of having reconciled sixty-three, and of having sent five to the stake." Langlois, op. cit., p. 106.
[2] Cf. Bléda, _Defensio fidei in causa neophytorum sive Moriscorum regni Valentini totiusque Hispaniæ,_, Valencia, 1610.
The witchcraft fever which spread over Europe in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries stimulated to an extraordinary degree the zeal of the Inquisitors. The bull of Innocent VIII, _Summis Desiderantes_, December 5, 1484, made matters worse. The Pope admitted that men and women could have immoral relations with demon, and that sorcerers by their magical incantations could injure the harvests, the vineyards, the orchards and the fields.[1]
[1] _Bullarium_, vol. v, p. 296 and seq., and Pegna's _Bullarium_ in Eymeric, _Directorium Inquisit_., p. 83.
He also complained of the folly of those ecclesiastics and laymen who opposed the Inquisition in its prosecution of heretical sorcerers, and concluded by conferring additional powers upon the Dominican Inquisitors, Institoris and Sprenger, the author of the famous _Malleus Maleficarum_.
Innocent VIII assuredly had no intention of committing the Church to a belief in the phenomena he mentioned in his bull, but his personal opinion did leave an influence upon the canonists and Inquisitors of his day; this is clear from the trials for witchcraft held during this period.[1] It is impossible to estimate the number of sorcerers condemned. Louis of Paramo triumphantly declared that in a century and a half the Holy Office sent to the stake over thirty thousand.[2] Of course we must take such round numbers with a grain of salt, as they always are greatly exaggerated. But the fact remains that the condemnations for sorcery were so numerous as to stagger belief. The Papacy itself recognized the injustice of its agents. For in 1637 instructions were issued stigmatizing the conduct of the Inquisitors on account of their arbitrary and unjust prosecution of sorcerers; they were accused of extorting from them by cruel tortures confessions that were valueless, and of abandoning them to the secular arm without sufficient cause.[1]