[476] For the inhuman methods employed to secure confession and conviction, on the flimsiest evidence, see the very instructive essay “The Fate of Dietrich Flade” by Professor George Burr (New York, 1891), reprinted from the Transactions of the American Historical Association.
[477] Mallei Malificar, P. I, Q. xiv; P. II, Q. i, C. 3, 16.—Prieriat. de Strigimagarum Lib. III, cap. 3.
The rule that the heretic or apostate who confessed and recanted was to be admitted to reconciliation was at the bottom of the anxiety of the secular magistrates to maintain their jurisdiction over witchcraft, and the relations between them and the Inquisition were the subject of much debate. Arn. Albertino argues that the Inquisition can make no distinction between witches who have and who have not committed murder; they must all be reconciled, but can again be accused of homicide before a competent judge; yet the inquisitor, to escape irregularity, must not transmit to the secular court the confessions and evidence, nor must he, in the sentences, mention these crimes, as that would be setting the judge on the track.—De agnosc. Assertionibus, Q. XXIV, n. 28, 66, 67, 68, 70, 72, 75.
[478] MSS. of Bodleian Library, Arch Seld. 130.—Archivo de Simancas, Inq., Lib. 78, fol. 216.
[479] Bibl. national, MSS., II, 88.—MSS. of Bodleian Library, Arch Seld. 130.
This document may safely be assumed as the source from which Prudencio de Sandoval, himself Bishop of Pampeluna and historiographer of Charles V, drew his account of the persecution of 1527 (Hist. del Emp. Carlos V, Lib. XVI, § 15) copied by Llorente (Hist. crít., cap. XV, art. 1, n. 6-9).
[480] Archivo de Simancas, Inq., Lib. 76, fol. 51, 53.
There seems to have been a somewhat earlier persecution of the witches of Biscay by Fray Juan de Zumarraga, a native of Durango. At the suggestion of Charles V, who greatly admired him, he was sent there for that purpose as commissioner of the Inquisition, being specially qualified by his knowledge of the language. After discharging this duty with much ability, Charles, in 1528, sent him to Mexico as its first bishop. He took with him Fray Andrés de Olmos, who had been his assistant in Biscay. In 1548, at the age of 80 he died in the odor of sanctity and his death was miraculously known the same day over all Mexico.—Mendieta, Hist. ecles. Indiana, pp. 629, 636, 644 (Mexico, 1870)
[481] Archivo de Simancas, Inq., Lib. 939, fol. 108.
[482] Archivo de Simancas, Inq., Lib. 76, fol. 369.