[1514] De Potter, Vie de Scipion de’Ricci, T. I. pp. 87 sqq. 258 sqq.
[1515] Michelet, La Sorcière, Ch. IX.
[1516] Llorente, Chap. XXVIII. Art. i. No. 14.
[1517] The dangerous suggestiveness of the questions asked in the confessional was recognized, and confessors were sometimes warned to be careful.—Synod. Diœces. Mechlin. II. ann. 1609 Tit. v. cap. i.
[1518] See, for instance, Concil. Toletan. ann. 1582, Decret. XXVIII., XXIX. (Aguirre, VI. 11).—Synod. Oriolan. ann. 1600 cap. xix. (Ib. p. 450).—Synod. Beneventan. ann. 1693 Tit. LIV. c. iii. (Collect. Lacens. I. 94).—Synod. Neapol. ann. 1699 Tit. XI. c. i. No. 11 (Ib. p. 232). Also a curious list of twenty abuses of the confessional in a letter from the Bishop of Antwerp to the Archbishop of Mechlin in 1624 (Synodicon Mechliniense, T. I. p. 474).
[1519] Instructions for a Parish Priest, p. 27 (Early Eng. Text Soc. 1868).
[1520] As specimens of this, I may refer to Cardinal Cozza’s “Dubia Selecta emergentia circa Sollicitationem in Confessione Sacramentali juxta Apostolicas Constitutiones” Lovanii, 1750—and the similar works by à Cunha and de Sousa, quoted above.
[1521] Cozza, op. cit. Dub. XVII. No. 112.
[1522] Mag. Bull. Roman. Tom. VI. App. p. 1.
[1523] Occasional references to this practice may be found in earlier times. See, for instance, Concil. Monasteriens. ann. 1279 c. xv. (Hartzheim III. 649)—Suppression of Monasteries, No. XVII. (Camden Soc.).—Synod. Tornacens. ann. 1520 c. vii. (Hartzheim VI. 156).