centuries which marked the climax of the mania, some of the most
authoritative and influential works in giving strength to its evil
purpose and the modes of accusation, trial, and punishment.

Modern scholarship holds that witchcraft, with the Devil as the arch
enemy of mankind for its cornerstone, was first exploited by the
Dominicans of the Inquisition. They blazed the tortuous way for the
scholastic theology which in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries
gave new recognition to Satan and his satellites as the sworn enemies of
God and his church, and the Holy Inquisition with its massive enginery,
open and secret, turned its attention to the exposure and extirpation of
the heretics and sinners who were enlisted in the Devil's service.

Take for adequate illustration these standard authorities in the early
periods of the widespread and virulent epidemic:

Those of the Inquisitor General, Eymeric, in 1359, entitled _Tractatus
contra dæmonum_; the Formicarius or Ant Hill of the German Dominican
Nider, 1337; the _De calcatione dæmonum_, 1452; the _Flagellum
hæreticorum fascinariorum_ of the French Inquisitor Jaquier in 1458; and
the _Fortalitium fidei_ of the Spanish Franciscan Alonso de Spina, in
1459; the famous and infamous manual of arguments and rules of procedure
for the detection and punishment of witches, compiled by the German
Inquisitors Krämer and Sprenger (Institor) in 1489, buttressed on the
bull of Pope Innocent VIII; (this was the celebrated _Witch Hammer_,
bearing on its title page the significant legend, "_Not to believe in
witchcraft is the greatest of heresies_"); the Canon Episcopi; the bulls
of Popes John XXII, 1330, Innocent VIII, 1484, Alexander VI, 1494, Leo
X, 1521, and Adrian VI, 1522; the Decretals of the canon law; the
exorcisms of the Roman and Greek churches, all hinged on scriptural