Note 14 — Chapter II · Witchcraft and Sorcery.
Reading edition
Dr. Sprenger, in his “Life of Mohammed,” computes the entire number of persons who were burned as witches, during the Christian epoch, as about nine million.
Tasso attributed the belief in magic and witchcraft to the Crusaders, but M. Michaud, in his “History of the Crusades,” denies that the Crusaders believed in witches. However, the edicts of Charlemagne demonstrate quite conclusively that Tasso was right, for the Crusaders, in common with the millions of their contemporaries who were votaries of the delusion of witchcraft and sorcery, attributed the misunderstood facts in the natural world about them, to supernatural powers of magic.