(Ottone Colonna);[1] each put forth one Bull on the subject. To Eugenius IV (Gabriello Condulmaro)[2] we owe four Bulls which fulminate against sorcery and black magic. The first of these, 24 February, 1434, is addressed from Florence to the Franciscan Inquisitor, Pontius Fougeyron. On 1 August, 1451, the Dominican Inquisitor Hugo Niger received a Bull from Nicholas V (Tommaso Parentucelli).[3] Callistus III (Alfonso de Borja)[4] and Pius II (Enea Silvio de’ Piccolomini)[5] each issued one Bull denouncing the necromantic crew.
On 9 August, 1471, the Franciscan friar, Francesco della Rovere, ascended the throne of Peter as Sixtus IV. His Pontificate has been severely criticized by those who forget that the Pope was a temporal Prince and in justice bound to defend his territory against the continual aggression of the Italian despots. His private life was blameless, and the stories which were circulated by such writers as Stefano Infessura in his Diarium[6] are entirely without foundation. Sixtus was an eminent theologian, he is the author of an admirable treatise on the Immaculate Conception, and it is significant that he took strong measures to curb the judicial severities of Tomàs de Torquemada, whom he had appointed Grand Inquisitor of Castile, 11 February, 1482. During his reign he published three Bulls directly attacking sorcery, which he clearly identified with heresy, an opinion of the deepest weight when pronounced by one who had so penetrating a knowledge of the political currents of the day. There can be no doubt that he saw the society of witches to be nothing else than a vast international of anti-social revolutionaries. The first Bull is dated 17 June, 1473; the second 1 April, 1478; and the last 21 October, 1483.
It has been necessary thus briefly to review this important series of Papal documents to show that the famous Bull Summis desiderantes affectibus, 9 December, 1484, which Innocent VIII addressed to the authors of the Malleus Maleficarum, is no isolated and extraordinary document, but merely one in the long and important record of Papal utterances, although at the same time it is of the greatest importance and supremely authoritative. It has, however, been very frequently asserted, not only by prejudiced and unscrupulous chroniclers, but also by scholars of standing and repute, that this Bull of Innocent VIII, if not, as many appear to suppose, actually the prime cause and origin of the crusade against witches, at any rate gave the prosecution an energizing power and an authority which hitherto they had not, and which save for this Bull they could not ever have, commanded and possessed.
It will not be impertinent then here very briefly to inquire what authority Papal Bulls may be considered to enjoy in general, and what weight was, and is, carried by this particular document of 9 December, 1484.
To enter into a history of Bulls and Briefs would require a long and elaborate monograph, so we must be content to remind ourselves that the term bulla, which in classical Latin meant a water-bubble, a bubble[7] then came to mean a boss of metal, such as the knob upon a door.[8] (By transference it also implied a certain kind of amulet, generally made of gold, which was worn upon the neck, especially by noble youths.) Hence in course of time the word bulla indicated the leaden seals by which Papal (and even royal) documents were authenticated, and by an easy transition we recognize that towards the end of the twelfth century a Bull is the document itself. Naturally very many kinds of edicts are issued from the Cancellaria, but a Bull is an instrument of especial
- ↑ 11 November, 1417–20 February, 1431.
- ↑ 3 March, 1431–23 February, 1447.
- ↑ 6 March, 1447–24 March, 1455.
- ↑ 8 April, 1455–6 August, 1458.
- ↑ 19 August, 1458–15 August, 1464.
- ↑ Stefano Infessura was born at Rome circa 1435 and died there circa 1500. This turbulent spirit was entangled in the conspiracy of Stefano Porcaro against Nicholas V (1453), which aimed at overturning the Papal government and making Rome a republic. His violent bias wakes his “Diarium urbis Romae,” a chronicle from 1294 to 1434 (written partly in Latin and partly in Italian), of little value, as he did not hesitate to reproduce any idle scandal, and even to invent notorious calumnies, concerning such Pontiffs as Sixtus IV and Innocent VIII.
- ↑ Cf. Ovid, “Metamorphoseon,” x, 734–35:
ut pluuio per lucida caelo
Surgere bulla solet. - ↑ Cf. Cicero, “In Uerrem,” II, iv, 56: “Bullas aureas omnes ex his ualuis, quae erant et multae, et graues, non dubitauit auferre.”
