As a result of the growing belief in the existence of witches and – less often – sorcerers as those who acted against people and used the help of the Devil, many witch trials took place in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe. The cases focused on two spheres of witches’ activity: the religious one (heresy through apostasy and acting for the Devil) and the secular one (acting against people, the so-called maleficia). As such, they were prosecuted by both church and secular authorities in both Catholic and Protestant countries. The courts in such cases were using the rules of the Roman Inquisition, seeking the truth through questions addressed to the defendant, where admitting the charges was a sufficient evidence of guilt. Because of the gravity of the threat posed by the witches, the courts were commonly using torture against the accused ones, believing that without them nobody would admit having committed such a serious crime (and no other evidence was available). The procedure was sanctioned for example by the legislation of Karol V Habsburg (Charles V) known as the Constitutio Criminalis Carolina and agreed in 1532. Making pacts with the Devil and sorcery were considered crimes in the Republic of Poland as well, but just as in other countries of the Western Europe, the Enlightenment shattered the faith in the possibility of making pacts with the Devil and using them to harm others. As a result of those trends, the Warsaw Sejm passed a constitution (an act) in 1776 that abolished both the use of torture during interrogations (in all cases) and the death penalty itself in witch trials. The change was a part of a greater reform meant to improve the Polish-Lithuanian judicial system.
