From the PREFACE.
The purpose of this dissertation is to present in concise form and from the Catholic point of view a history of the development of witchcraft and the attitude of the Church with regard to this vexed and curious question during the first seventeen centuries. The treating of the subject is purely historical, hence all mention of controversy and of controversial discussion has been avoided: All reference to secular legislation has been omitted except in a few instances where the civil code provided for certain privileges to be accorded to the Church and the ecclesiastical tribunals.
The author hopes that this essay will not be a useless one inasmuch as there has not come under her observation any Catholic work in English on this particular aspect of the subject, while of the non-Catholic and anti-Catholic works the number is legion. Many of the monumental productions in English, French and German are written in a spirit of hostile criticism, while the Church documents and original sources which have been largely used in the present work, and which form the other side of the question, are available to few students and readers of history.
The array of references open to research, however, is a formidable one and in a dissertation of limited scope some principle of selection was indispensable. Hence only the opinions and testimony of representative ecclesiastical writers and eminent canonists in each age have been cited. Of the. numerous lay writers most were barred because Of the nature of the subject which aims at emphasizing the position of the Church, but use has been made of the jurists Tengler, Pegna, and Remigius who wrote from the theological view-point.
