WHAT the judge must do is easy to explain. As common justice 210 A demands, the denounced woman is sentenced to the penalty of blood only if convicted by her own confession. On the other hand, she is considered to be manifestly caught in heretical depravity on the basis of the other two criteria (the evidence or the indication of the deed, 216 and the lawful production of witnesses), as was mentioned above in Question Seven. This second kind of denounced woman is the present topic of discussion, and in this case, she clearly will be exposed to questioning under torture to make her confess her crimes. In order to make this question clear, let us set down a situation that took place in Speyer and came to the notice of many people.

When a certain respectable man passed by a certain woman and was unwilling to gratify her wish in the sale of a certain item for sale, she was outraged and shouted at his back, “Soon you would wish that you had agreed.” (Sorceresses have a customary practice of speaking in this way or with a similar meaning when they wish to inflict sorcery with prior notification.) The man was then outraged and not unreasonably turned his face around to see in what spirit she had uttered these words. All of a sudden, he was stricken with sorcery, his mouth being pulled sideways as far as his ears in a horrible disfigurement. He could not pull it back, and this disfigurement persisted for a long time. At this point the evident deed was laid out before a judge.

Now that we have set down this situation, the question is raised as to whether she should be considered to be manifestly caught in the Heresy of Sorceresses. On the basis of Bernard's words in the Ordinary Gloss on Chapter “Ad abolendam,” as is discussed above in the question already cited, the response should be that she is, because, as is mentioned in that passage, there are three methods by which someone is judged to be caught in this way.