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On 25 August 1538 there was much discussion about witches and sorceresses who poisoned chicken eggs in the nests, or poisoned milk and butter. Doctor Luther said: "One should show no mercy to these [women]; I would burn them myself, for we read in the Law that the priests were the ones to begin the stoning of criminals." [13]
[1] Canon 3 of the ecumenical Fourth Council of the Lateran, 1215 required secular authorities to "exterminate in the territories subject to their jurisdiction all heretics" pointed out by the Catholic Church, [2] resulting in the inquisitor executing certain people accused of heresy. Some laws allowed the civil government to employ punishment.
The Malleus Maleficarum, [a] usually translated as the Hammer of Witches, [3] [b] is the best known treatise about witchcraft. [6] [7] It was written by the German Catholic clergyman Heinrich Kramer (under his Latinized name Henricus Institor) and first published in the German city of Speyer in 1486.
Think of a coven as sort of a church congregation: People who share the same beliefs and regularly gather together in the spirit of prayer and community, minus the church or mosque. "They are ...
The book burning at Ephesus is an event recorded in the Acts of the Apostles, where Christian converts at Ephesus, influenced by Paul the Apostle, burned their books of magic. Acts 19 provides an account of the event: Also many of those who were now believers came, confessing and divulging their practices.
The Catholic Church had technically banned the practice of selling indulgences as long ago as 1567. As the Times points out, a monetary donation wouldn't go amiss toward earning an indulgence.
Common methods of execution for convicted witches were hanging, drowning and burning. Burning was often favored, particularly in Europe, as it was considered a more painful way to die. [5] Prosecutors in the American colonies generally preferred hanging in cases of witchcraft. [5]
The witch trials of the Catholic Prince Bishops of South West Germany were arguably the biggest in the world. Witch trials did occur in Protestant Germany as well, but were fewer and less extensive in comparison with Catholic Germany. The witch trials of Catholic Austria and Protestant Switzerland were both severe.