THE first question is|what is the appropriate method for initiating proceedings involving the Faith against sorceresses.

Response. The three methods discussed in the Liber Extra (“Accusations”) consist of denunciation and inquisition. The first is when some-one accuses someone else before a judge with a charge of heresy or abetting it, offers to prove this, and writes himself down for the penalty of retribution if he does not prove it. The second method is when someone denounces someone else without offering to prove it or being willing to participate, and instead states that he is making a denunciation through his zeal for the Faith or on account of the sentence of excommunication passed by the ordinary or his official or on account of the temporal penalty that the secular judge imposes on those not making denunciations. The third is the method by inquisition, that is, when there is no accuser or denouncer, but the general rumor in a certain city or place is worked up about there being sorceresses. In that case, the judge has to institute proceedings not at the insistence of some party but by virtue of his office. It should be noted that the judge should not really allow the first method of proceeding,|because this method is not customary in a case involving the Faith or in a case involving sorceresses, who practice their acts of sorcery in secret, because it is quite dangerous for the accuser on account of the penalty of retribution that is imposed when he fails to make good the proof, and because it is quite subject to legal disputation.

Let him begin the proceedings with a general summons, affixing it to the doors of the parish church or government headquarters in the following manner.