126/30–32
if . . .
fayned. Cf. CWM 6/1.241/8–14.
abbayes] ed., albayes 1531,
abbeyes 1573
wold] woulde not 1573
127/7–8
miracles which
witches doo. Witchcraft usually means the employment of occult
means to cause physical harm, even death, to humans and animals. It is
assigned the death penalty by the Hebrew Bible (Exod. 22.18)
and condemned by Paul (Gal. 5.20). In the late Middle Ages the idea
began to emerge that the witch gained her power through a pact with the
devil. Keith Thomas (439) cites the treatise Dives and
Pauper (c1410), Commandment 1, Ch. 39, "What is wychecraft,"
ed. Priscilla Heath Barnum, EETS 275 (Oxford UP, 1976) 167–69; the bull
against witches of Innocent VIII, Summis
desiderantes affectibus (1484); the "summa" (1486) of court
procedures by two Dominican Inquisitors. See The
Malleus Maleficarum of Heinrich Kramer and James Sprenger, tr.
Montague
Summers (1928, 1948; New
York: Dover, 1971). H.A. Kelly
cites sixteen cases brought before the court of the Bishop of London
between 1475 and 1528. See "English Kings and the Fear of
Sorcery," Mediaeval Studies 39 (1977) 206–38,
rpt. in Witchcraft, Magic and Demonology 2, Witchcraft
in the Ancient World and the Middle Ages, ed. Brian P. Levack (New
York: Garland, 1992) 211–12n16.
Early in his career, Erasmus described a case of witchcraft punished by
imprisonment. Cf. Ep. 143, To Antoon van Bergen, Paris, 14 January 1501 (Allen
1.336/68–340/232; CWE 2.5/74–11/255); Ep. 149, To Antoon van Bergen,
[Paris?, 16 March? 1501] (Allen 1.353/
69–76; CWE 2.27/80–89). In 1532, the Constitutio
criminalis Carolina
transferred cases of witchcraft from ecclesiastical to secular
courts and imposed the death penalty for harmful magic. Cf. Christina Larner, Witchcraft
and Religion, ed. Alan Macfarlane
(Oxford : Blackwell, 1984) 59. The next year Erasmus described
two cases of women who were burnt to death for witchcraft. Cf. Ep. 2846,
To Damian a Goes, Freiburg, 25 July 1533 (Allen 10.275/ 124–52; not yet in CWE); Ep. 2880, To Peter Richardot, Freiburg, 19 November 1533 (Allen
10.324/29–36; not yet in CWE). The increased severity in penalty
foreshadows the mass executions of 1560 to 1630. Cf. Brian P. Levack, The Witch-Hunt in Early
Modern Europe, 2d ed. (New York: Longman,
1995) 185–232.
goodwin sandes] ed., goodwin- sandes 1531, Goodwinsandes 1573
127/11–12
And likewise . .
. miracle. Cf. CWM 8/1.251/13.