On this date in 1484, the notorious “Witches Bull” (Bull Summis desiderantes) was issued by Pope Innocent VIII. It was issued to respond to a request by a Dominican inquisitor seeking explicit authority to prosecute witchcraft in Germany after he was refused assistance by local ecclesiastical authorities. A papal bull is an official document named for the leaden seal (bulla) attached to it for authentication.
The bull synthesized the purported spiritual and secular crimes of witchcraft that were often viewed as opening the door for the witchhunts of the early modern period. It enacted nothing new but ratified powers that inquisitors already had. Some scholars view the bull as clearly political and motivated by jurisdictional disputes between German Catholic priests and clerics from the Office of the Inquisition who answered more directly to the pope.
