Note 153 — Chapter VIII · THE TRIAL
Reading edition
Praxis procedendi, cap. 15, n. 1 (Archivo hist. nacional, Inquisicion de Valencia).
When, in 1601, Maximilian I of Bavaria consulted the legal faculty of Padua concerning witchcraft trials, one of his questions was whether a copy of the evidence should be given to the accused, or whether it should be stated to him by the judge and he be required to answer on the spot, as thus the truth might be better discovered. To this the answer was emphatic. All authorities unanimously required the accused to be furnished with a copy and to be allowed a competent time to answer. Nowhere in the law was to be found an exception to this, even in the most atrocious crimes; the right of defence was a natural right of which the accused could not be deprived. The force of this, however, was somewhat weakened by an admission that it was in the power of a monarch to limit the defence.—Marc. Anton. Peregrini Consilium de Sagis, n. 144-50 (Diversi Tractatus, Colon. Agripp. 1629).