 Less than one hundred years after it was written, the Council of the Inquisitor General in Spain discounted the credibility of the Malleus since it contained numerous errors.Persecution continued through the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century, and the Protestants and Catholics both continued witch trials with varying numbers of executions from one period to the next.The "Caroline Code", the basic law code of the Holy Roman Empire (1532) imposed heavy penalties on witchcraft.