Monday, June 1, 2009

Cautio Criminalis

The German Jesuit Friedrich Spee von Lagenfeld,
a confessor to tortured and convicted “witches,” became an outspoken opponent of torture. In 1631, Spee denounced the violence inflicted upon “countless innocents daily.”
Anyone could be made to confess; torture had been “all powerful” in the witch hunts.

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