Note 199 — Chapter VI · - THE MAGIC ARTS

Ordinarily inquisitorial trials were secret. Another abnormal feature in this case was the presence of a prosecutor; the third was that the court was really a joint one, being in part the bishop and inquisitors sitting together as a tribunal of the Holy Office to hear the charge of heresy, in part the bishop sitting as president of the ordinary episcopal court, the inquisitors not included, to hear the charge of unnatural lust with which the Inquisition was not competent to deal.