of the valleys. The Signoria stopped all proceedings, but Leo X ordered the inquisitor to use excommunication and interdict if he was interfered with.[1]
If it be asked what can explain the phenomena of aberration both of thought and feeling which underlay the witch-mania, perhaps the suggestion of Scherr[2] is the best explanation. The German ecclesiastics were won by the increase of power which the delusion offered to the hierarchy. The civil authorities were won by the chance of pecuniary gain, for the fortunes of witches were confiscated. Two-thirds were given to the territorial sovereign, while the other third was divided between judges, magistrates, minor ecclesiastics, spies, delators, and executioners, by a ratio adjusted to their rank. During the Thirty Years' War, when everybody else in Germany underwent impoverishment, witch-judges grew rich. Therefore half the witch-murders may well be accredited to greed for money, while the other half must be charged to fanaticism and credulous simplicity.[3]
"Epidemic witch-persecution never appeared except in the dominions of the Church of Rome. It never broke out in the lands of the Greek Church, although in them also the ancient notions about magic were widely held, and the environment contained the same circumstances and forces." "In Ser'ia and Bulgaria there is not even any legend of witch-burning, which is a proof that the Turks did not allow any such usage to come into existence."[4] Nevertheless, the Balkan peoples had inherited the whole tradition of antiquity and barbarism quite as directly as the peoples of the Romish Church.
The Protestant reformers broke with the Church on
1 Lea, H. C.: l.c., III, 546. 2 L.c., 374. 3 Janssen, J.: l.c., VIII, 539, 633. 4 Krauss, F. S.: Volksglaube und religiöser Brauch der Südslaven, 125.
