Approved at Cologne by the Doctors of the Theological Faculty,
the University of
Cologne, 9 May 1487.
Ayoung man and his wife, both witches, were imprisoned in Berne; and the man, shut up by himself apart from her in a separate tower, said : �If I could obtain pardon for my sins, I would willingly declare all that I know about witchcraft; for I see that I ought to die.� And when he was told by the learned clerks who were there that he could obtain complete pardon if he truly repented, he joyfully resigned himself to death, and laid bare the method by which he had first been infected with his heresy. �The following,� he said, �is the manner in which I was seduced. It is first necessary that, on a Sunday before the consecration of Holy Water, the novice should enter the church with the masters, and there in their presence deny Christ, his Father, baptism, and the whole church. And then he must pay homage to the devil . . . and immediately feels within himself a knowledge of all our arts and an understanding of our rites and ceremonies. And in this manner was I seduced. But I believe my wife to be so obstinate that she would rather go straight to the fire than confess the smallest part of the truth; but, alas! we are both guilty.� And . . . the wife, though convicted by witnesses, would not confess any of the truth, either under torture or in death itself . . . and so was burned.
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