Note 2 — Chapter I · The Witch: Heretic and Anarchist

The first Papal bull dealing with sorcery was issued by Alexander IV, 13 December, 1258. The last Papal Constitution concerned with this crime is that of Urban VIII, Inscrutabilis iudiciorum Dei altitudo, 1 April, 1631. The last regular English trial seems to have been that of an old woman and her son, acquitted at Leicester in 1717. In 1722 the last execution of a Scottish witch took place at Loth; both English and Scottish statutes were repealed in 1735. The Irish Statute was not repealed until 1821. At Kempten in Bavaria, a mad heretic, a woman, was executed for sorcery in 1775. In the Swiss canton of Glaris, a wench named Anna Goeldi, was hanged as a witch, 17 June, 1782. Two hags were burned in Poland on the same charge as late as 1793.