What was the inquisition’s attitude towards witch trials?
It would be a mistake to lay the blame for witch trials at the feet of Protestants. The pope Innocent VIII started the ball rolling with his bull Summis desiderantes affectibus that linked witchcraft to heresy and the German Dominican inquisitors used it as the basis for their Malleus Maleficarum. Catholic France and Cologne were every bit as active in witch hunts as Protestant Germany and Scotland. It is ironic therefore that witch hunts were rare in Italy and Spain where the inquisition was most largely responsible for carrying them out. This was in part because the inquisition was always more lenient than secular authorities and less likely to impose the death penalty. To common people this rather lessened the attraction of reporting neighbours for vindictive reasons. Also, the inquisition had higher standards of evidence which tended to disregard the confessions of witches incriminating each other and inquisitors were markedly sceptical about some of the more fantastic stories of b
