Note 23 — Front matter

It was about 1350 when the inquisitors fortified themselves by taking the advice of the most eminent jurist of the day, the Italian professor Bartolo, as to the punishment to be inflicted on the witches. His opinion is still extant (in Ziletti, “Consilia selecta,” 1577, i., 8). On the strength of the words of Jesus, “If a man abide not in me [i.e., said Bartolo and the inquisitors, in the Church], he is cast forth as a branch, ... and men gather them and cast them into the fire, and they are burned;” he approved their burning alive. (See Janus, i.e., Döllinger and Huber, “The Pope and the Council,” London, 1869, pp. 254, 255.)