The
Malleus Maleficarum by Kramer and Sprenger, 1489, Excerpts
In the diocese of Constance, twenty-eight German miles from the town of
Ratisbon in the direction of Salzburg, a violent hailstorm destroyed all the
fruit, crops and vineyards in a belt one mile wide, so that the vines hardly
bore fruit for three years. This was brought to the notice of the Inquisition,
since the people clamoured for an inquiry to be held; many beside all the
townsmen being of the opinion that it was caused by witchcraft.
On the following day the bath-woman was very gently questioned in the
presence of a notary by the chief magistrate, a justice named Gelre very
zealous for the Faith, and by the other magistrates with him; and although she
was undoubtedly well provided with that evil gift of silence which is the
constant bane of judges, and at the first trial affirmed that she was innocent
of any crime against man or woman; yet, in the Divine mercy that so great a
crime should not pass unpunished, suddenly, when she had been freed from her
chains, although it was in the torture chamber, she fully laid bare all the
crimes which she had committed.
After she had confessed to the harm which she had caused to animals and
men, she acknowledged also all that she was asked concerning the abjuration of
the Faith, and copulation committed with an Incubus devil; saying that for more
than eighteen years she had given her body to an Incubus devil, with a complete
abnegation of the Faith
But (and this is remarkable) when on the next day the other witch had at
first been exposed to the very gentlest questions, being suspended hardly clear
of the ground by her thumbs, after she had been set quite free, she disclosed
the whole matter without the slightest discrepancy from what the other had
told.
Accordingly, on the third day they were burned.
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