Three Sorts of Witches--Various Modes of Witchcraft--Manner
of Witch-Travelling--The Sabbaths--Anathemas of the Popes
against the Crime--Bull of Adrian VI.--Cotemporary Testimony
to the Severity of the Persecutions--Necessary Triumph of
the Orthodox Party--Germany most subject to the
Superstition--Acts of Parliament of Henry against
Witchcraft--Elizabeth Barton--The Act of 1562--Executions
under Queen Elizabeth's Government--Case of Witchcraft
narrated by Reginald Scot.
The ceremonies of the compact by which a woman became a witch
have been already referred to. It was almost an essential
condition in the vulgar creed that she should be, as Gaule
('Select Cases of Conscience touching Witches,' &c., 1646)
represents, an old woman with a wrinkled face, a furred brow, a
hairy lip, a gobber tooth, a squint eye, a squeaking voice, a
scolding tongue, having a ragged coat on her back, a skull-cap on
her head, a spindle in her hand, a dog or cat by her side. There
are three sorts of the devil's agents on earth--the black, the
gray, and the white witches. The first are omnipotent for evil,
but powerless for good. The white have the power to help, but not
to hurt.[91] As for the third species (a mixture of white and
black), they are equally effective for good or evil.
[91] A writer at the beginning of the seventeenth century
(Cotta, _Tryall of Witchcraft_) says, 'This kind is not
obscure at this day, swarming in this kingdom, whereof no
man can be ignorant who lusteth to observe the uncontrouled
liberty and licence of open and ordinary resort in all
places unto _wise_ men and _wise_ women, so vulgarly termed
for their reputed knowledge concerning such diseased persons
as are supposed to be bewitched.' And (_Short Discoverie of
Unobserved Dangers, 1612_) 'the mention of witchecraft doth
now occasion the remembrance in the next place of a sort of
practitioners whom our custom and country doth call wise men
and wise women, reputed a kind of good and honest harmless
witches or wizards, who, by good words, by hallowed herbs
and salves, and other superstitious ceremonies, promise to
allay and calm devils, practices of other witches, and the
forces of many diseases.' Another writer of the same date
considers 'it were a thousand times better for the land if
all witches, but specially the _blessing witch_, might
suffer death. Men do commonly hate and spit at the
_damnifying_ sorcerer as unworthy to live among them,
whereas they fly unto the other in necessity; they depend
upon him as their God, and by this means thousands are
carried away, to their final confusion. Death, therefore, is
the just and deserved portion of the _good_
witch.'--_Observations on the Popular Antiquities of Great
Britain_, by Brand, ed. by Sir H. Ellis.
Equally various and contradictory are the motives and acts
assigned to witches. Nothing is too great or too mean for their
practice: they engage with equal pleasure in the overthrow of a
kingdom or a religion, and in inflicting the most ordinary evils
and mischiefs in life. Their mode of bewitching is various: by
fascination or casting an evil eye ('Nescio,' says the Virgilian
shepherd, 'quis teneros oculus mihi fascinat agnos'); by making
representations of the person to be acted upon in wax or clay,
roasting them before a fire; by mixing magical ointments or
other compositions and ingredients revealed to us in the
witch-songs of Shakspeare, Jonson, Middleton, Shadwell, and
others; sometimes merely by muttering an imprecation.
They ride in sieves on the sea, on brooms, spits magically
prepared; and by these modes of conveyance are borne, without
trouble or loss of time, to their destination. By these means
they attend the periodical sabbaths, the great meetings of the
witch-tribe, where they assemble at stated times to do homage, to
recount their services, and to receive the commands of their
lord. They are held on the night between Friday and Saturday; and
every year a grand sabbath is ordered for celebration on the
Blocksberg mountains, for the night before the first day of May.
In those famous mountains the obedient vassals congregate from
all parts of Christendom--from Italy, Spain, Germany, France,
England, and Scotland. A place where four roads meet, a rugged
mountain range, or perhaps the neighbourhood of a secluded lake
or some dark forest, is usually the spot selected for the
meeting.[92]
[92] 'When orders had once been issued for the meeting of
the sabbath, all the wizards and witches who failed to
attend it were lashed by demons with a rod made of serpents
or scorpions. In France and England the witches were
supposed to ride uniformly upon broom-sticks; but in Italy
and Spain, the devil himself, in the shape of a goat, used
to transport them on his back, which lengthened or shortened
according to the number of witches he was desirous of
accommodating. No witch, when proceeding to the sabbath,
could get out by a door or window were she to try ever so
much. Their general mode of ingress was by the key-hole, and
of egress by the chimney, up which they flew, broom and all,
with the greatest ease. To prevent the absence of the
witches being noticed by their neighbours, some inferior
demon was commanded to assume their shapes, and lie in their
beds, feigning illness, until the sabbath was over. When all
the wizards and witches had arrived at the place of
rendezvous, the infernal ceremonies began. Satan having
assumed his favourite shape of a large he-goat, with a face
in front and another in his haunches, took his seat upon a
throne; and all present in succession paid their respects to
him and kissed him in his face behind. This done, he
appointed a master of the ceremonies, in company with whom
he made a personal examination of all the witches, to see
whether they had the secret mark about them by which they
were stamped as the devil's own. This mark was always
insensible to pain. Those who had not yet been marked
received the mark from the master of the ceremonies, the
devil at the same time bestowing nick-names upon them. This
done, they all began to sing and dance in the most furious
manner until some one arrived who was anxious to be admitted
into their society. They were then silent for a while until
the new comer had denied his salvation, kissed the devil,
spat upon the Bible, and sworn obedience to him in all
things. They then began dancing again with all their might
and singing.... In the course of an hour or two they
generally became wearied of this violent exercise, and then
they all sat down and recounted their evil deeds since last
meeting. Those who had not been malicious and mischievous
enough towards their fellow-creatures received personal
chastisement from Satan himself, who flogged them with
thorns or scorpions until they were covered with blood and
unable to sit or stand. When this ceremony was concluded,
they were all amused by a dance of toads. Thousands of these
creatures sprang out of the earth, and standing on their
hind-legs, danced while the devil played the bagpipes or the
trumpet. These toads were all endowed with the faculty of
speech, and entreated the witches there to reward them with
the flesh of unbaptized infants for their exertions to give
them pleasure. The witches promised compliance. The devil
bade them remember to keep their word; and then stamping his
foot, caused all the toads to sink into the earth in an
instant. The place being thus cleared, preparations were
made for the banquet, where all manner of disgusting things
were served up and greedily devoured by the demons and
witches, although the latter were sometimes regaled with
choice meats and expensive wines, from golden plates and
crystal goblets; but they were never thus favoured unless
they had done an extraordinary number of evil deeds since
the last period of meeting. After the feast, they began
dancing again; but such as had no relish for any more
exercise in that way, amused themselves by mocking the holy
sacrament of baptism. For this purpose the toads were again
called up, and sprinkled with filthy water, the devil making
the sign of the cross, and all the witches calling
out--[some gibberish]. When the devil wished to be
particularly amused, he made the witches strip off their
clothes and dance before him, each with a cat tied round her
neck, and another dangling from her body in form of a tail.
When the cock crew they all disappeared, and the sabbath was
ended. This is a summary of the belief that prevailed for
many centuries nearly all over Europe, and which is far from
eradicated even at this day.'--_Memoirs of Extraordinary
Popular Delusions_, by C. Mackay.
A mock sermon often concludes the night's proceedings, the
ordinary salutation of the _osculum in tergo_ being first given.
But these circumstances are innocent compared with the obscene
practices when the lights are put out; indiscriminate debauchery
being then the order of the night. A new rite of baptism
initiated the neophyte into his new service: the candidate being
signed with the sign of the devil on that part of the body least
observable, and submitting at the same time to the first act of
criminal compliance, to be often repeated. On these occasions the
demon presents himself in the form of either sex, according to
that of his slaves. It was elicited from a witch examined at a
trial that, from the period of her servitude, the devil had had
intercourse with her _ut viri cum f[oe]minis solent_, excepting
only in one remarkable particular.
During the pontificate of Julius II.--the first decade of the
sixteenth century--a set of sorceresses was discovered in large
numbers: a dispute between the civil and ecclesiastical
authorities averted their otherwise certain destruction. The
successors of Innocent VIII. repeated his anathemas. Alexander
VI., Leo X., and Adrian VI. appointed special commissioners for
hunting up sorcerers and heretics. In 1523, Adrian issued a bull
against _Haeresis Strigiatus_ with power to excommunicate all who
opposed those engaged in the inquisition. He characterises the
obnoxious class as a sect deviating from the Catholic faith,
denying their baptism, showing contempt for the sacraments, in
particular for that of the Eucharist, treading crosses under
foot, and taking the devil as their lord.[93] How many suffered
for the crime during the thirty or forty years following upon the
bull of 1484, it is difficult exactly to ascertain: that some
thousands perished is certain, on the testimony of the judges
themselves. The often-quoted words of Florimond, author of a work
'On Antichrist,' as given by Del Rio the Jesuit ('De Magia'), are
not hyperbolical. 'All those,' says he, 'who have afforded us
some signs of the approach of antichrist agree that the increase
of sorcery and witchcraft is to distinguish the melancholy period
of his advent; and was ever age so afflicted with them as ours?
The seats destined for criminals before our judicatories are
blackened with persons accused of this guilt. There are not
judges enough to try enough. Our dungeons are gorged with them.
No day passes that we do not render our tribunals bloody by the
dooms we pronounce, or in which we do not return to our homes
discountenanced and terrified at the horrible contents of the
confessions which it has been our duty to hear. And the devil is
accounted so good a master that we cannot commit so great a
number of his slaves to the flames but what there shall arise
from their ashes a number sufficient to supply their place.'
[93] Francis Hutchison's _Historical Essay concerning
Witchcraft_, chap. xiv.; the author quotes Barthol. de
Spina, _de Strigibus_.
It is within neither the design nor the limits of these pages to
repeat all the witch-cases, which might fill several volumes; it
is sufficient for the purpose to sketch a few of the most
notorious and prominent, and to notice the most remarkable
characteristics of the creed.
Maximilian I., Emperor of Germany, protected the inquisitorial
executioners from the indignant vengeance of the inhabitants of
the districts of Southern Germany, which would have been soon
almost depopulated by an unsparing massacre and a ferocious zeal:
while Sigismund, Prince of the Tyrol, is said to have been
inclined to soften the severity of a persecution he was totally
unable, if he had been disposed, to prevent. Ulric Molitor,
under the auspices of this prince, however, published a treatise
in Switzerland ('De Pythonicis Mulieribus') in the form of a
dialogue, in which Sigismund, Molitor, and a citizen of Constance
are the interlocutors. They argue as to the practice of
witchcraft; and the argument is to establish that, although the
practicers of the crime are worthy of death, much of the vulgar
opinion on the subject is false. Even in the middle of the
fifteenth century, and in Spain, could be found an assertor, in
some degree, of common sense, whose sentiments might scandalise
some Protestant divines. Alphonse de Spina was a native of
Castile, of the order of St. Francis: his book was written
against heretics and unbelievers, but there is a chapter in which
some acts attributed to sorcerers, as transportation through the
air, transformations, &c., are rejected as unreal.
From that time two parties were in existence, one of which
advocated the entire reality of all the acts commonly imputed to
witches; while the other maintained that many of their supposed
crimes were mere delusions suggested by the Great Enemy. The
former, as the orthodox party, were, from the nature of the case,
most successful in the argument--a seeming paradox explained by
the nature and course of the controversy. Only the _received_
method of demoniacal possession was questioned by the adverse
side, accepting without doubt the possibility--and, indeed, the
actual existence--of the phenomenon. Thus the liberals, or
pseudo-liberals, in that important controversy were placed in an
illogical position. For (as their opponents might triumphantly
argue) if the devil's power and possession could be manifested in
one way, why not by any other method. Nor was it for them to
determine the appointed methods of his schemes, as permitted by
Providence, for the injury and ruin of mankind. The diabolic
economy, as evidently set forth in the work of man's destruction,
might require certain modes of acting quite above our reason and
understanding. To the sceptics (or to the _atheists_, as they
were termed) the orthodox could allege, 'Will you not believe
in witches? The Scriptures aver their existence: to the
jurisconsults will you dispute the existence of a crime against
which our statute-book and the code of almost all civilised
countries have attested by laws upon which hundreds and thousands
have been convicted; many, or even most, of whom have, by their
judicial confessions, acknowledged their guilt and the justice of
their punishment? It is a strange scepticism, they might add,
that rejects the evidence of Scripture, of human legislature, and
of the accused persons themselves.'[94] Reason was hopelessly
oppressed by faith. In the presence of universal superstition, in
the absence of the modern philosophy, escape seemed all but
impossible.
[94] Sir W. Scott's _Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft_,
chap. vi.
If preeminence in this particular prejudice can be assigned to
any single region or people, perhaps Germany more than any other
land was subject to the demonological fever. A fact to be
explained as well by its being the great theatre for more than a
hundred years of the grand religious struggle between the
opposing Catholics and Protestants, as by its natural fitness.
The gloomy mountain ranges--the Hartz mountains are especially
famous in the national legend--and forests with which it abounds
rendered the imaginative minds of its peoples peculiarly
susceptible to impressions of supernaturalism.[95] France
takes the next place in the fury of the persecution. Danaeus
('Dialogue') speaks of an innumerable number of witches. England,
Scotland, Spain, Italy perhaps come next in order.
[95] How greatly the imagination of the Germans was
attracted by the supernatural and the marvellous is plainly
seen both in the old national poems and in the great work of
the national mythologist, Jacob Grimm (_Deutsche
Mythologie_).
Spain, the dominion of the Arabs for seven centuries, was
naturally the land of magic. During the government of Ferdinand
I., or of Isabella, the inquisition was firmly established. That
numbers were sent from the dungeons and torture-chambers to the
stake, with the added stigma of dealing in the 'black art,' is
certain; but in that priest-dominated, servilely orthodox
southern land, the Church was not perhaps so much interested in
confounding the crimes of heresy and sorcery. The first was
simply sufficient for provoking horror and hatred of the
condemned. The South of France is famous for being the very nest
of sorcery: the witch-sabbaths were frequently held there. It was
the country of the Albigenses, which had been devastated by De
Montfort, the executioner of Catholic vengeance, in the twelfth
century, and was, with something of the same sort of savageness,
ravaged by De Lanere in the seventeenth century. Scotland, before
the religious revolution, exhibits a few remarkable cases of
witch-persecution, as that of the Earl of Mar, brother of James
III. He had been suspected of calling in the aid of sorcery to
ascertain the term of the king's life: the earl was bled to death
without trial, and his death was followed by the burning of
twelve witches, and four wizards, at Edinburgh. Lady Glammis,
sister of the Earl of Angus, of the family of Douglas, accused of
conspiring the king's death in a similar way, was put to death in
1537. As in England, in the cases of the Duchess of Gloucester
and others, the crime appears to be rather an adjunct than the
principal charge itself; more political than popular. Protestant
Scotland it is that has earned the reputation of being one of the
most superstitious countries in Europe.
In 1541 two Acts of Parliament were passed in England--the first
interference of Parliament in this kingdom--against false
prophecies, conjurations, witchcraft, sorcery, pulling down
crosses; crimes made felony without benefit of clergy. Both the
last article in the list and the period (a few years after the
separation from the Catholic world) appear to indicate the causes
in operation. Lord Hungerford had recently been beheaded by the
suspicious tyranny of Henry VIII., for consulting his death by
conjuration. The preamble to the statute has these words: 'The
persons that had done these things, had dug up and pulled down an
infinite number of crosses.'[96] The new head of the English
Church, if he found his interest in assuming himself the
spiritual supremacy, was, like a true despot, averse to any
further revolution than was necessary to his purposes. Some
superstitious regrets too for the old establishment which, by a
fortunate caprice, he abandoned and afterwards plundered, may
have urged the tyrant, who persecuted the Catholics for
questioning his supremacy, to burn the enemies of
transubstantiation. Shortly before this enactment, eight persons
had been hanged at Tyburn, not so much for sorcery as for a
disagreeable prophecy. Elizabeth Barton, the principal, had been
instigated to pronounce as revelation, that if the king went on
in the divorce and married another wife, he should not be king a
month longer, and in the estimation of Almighty God not one hour
longer, but should die a villain's death. The Maid of Kent, with
her accomplices--Richard Martin, parson of the parish of
Aldington; Dr. Bocking, canon of Christ Church, Canterbury;
Deering; Henry Gold, a parson in London; Hugh Rich, a friar, and
others--was brought before the Star Chamber, and adjudged to
stand in St. Paul's during sermon-time; the majority being
afterwards executed. In Cranmer's 'Articles of Visitation,' 1549,
an injunction is addressed to his clergy, that 'you shall inquire
whether you know of any that use charms, sorcery, enchantments,
witchcrafts, soothsaying, or any like craft, invented by the
devil.'
[96] Hutchison's _Historical Essay concerning Witchcraft_.
The author, chaplain in ordinary to George I., published his
book in 1718. It is worth while to note the colder
scepticism of the Hanoverian chaplain as compared with the
undoubting faith of his predecessor, Dr. Glanvil.
During the brief reigns of Edward VI. and Mary I. in England, no
conspicuous trials occur. As for the latter monarch, the queen
and her bishops were too absorbed in the pressing business of
burning for the real offence of heresy to be much concerned in
discovering the concomitant crimes of devil-worship.[97] An
impartial judgment may decide that superstition, whether engaged
in vindicating the dogmas of Catholicism or those of witchcraft,
is alike contemptible and pernicious.
[97] Agreeably to that common prejudice which selects
certain historical personages for popular and peculiar
esteem or execration, and attributes to them, as if they
were eccentricities rather than examples of the age, every
exceptional virtue or vice, the 'Bloody Queen' has been
stigmatised, and is still regarded, as an _extraordinary_
monster, capable of every inhuman crime--a prejudice more
popular than philosophical, since experience has taught that
despots, unchecked by fear, by reason, or conscience, are
but examples, in an eminent degree, of the character, and
personifications of the worst vices (if not of the best
virtues) of their time. Considered in this view, Mary I.
will but appear the example and personification of the
religious intolerance of Catholicism and of the age, just as
Cromwell was of the patriotic and Puritanic sentiment of the
first half, or Charles II. of the unblushing licentiousness
of the last half, of the seventeenth century.
In the year of Elizabeth's accession, 1558, Strype ('Annals of
the Reformation,' i. 8, and ii. 545) tells that Bishop Jewell,
preaching before the queen, animadverted upon the dangerous and
direful results of witchcraft. 'It may please your Grace,'
proclaims publicly the courtly Anglican prelate, 'to understand
that witches and sorcerers, within these last few years, are
marvellously increased within your Grace's realm. Your Grace's
subjects pine away even to the death, their colour fadeth, their
flesh rotteth, their speech is benumbed, their senses are bereft.
I pray God they never practise further than upon the subject.'
For himself, the bishop declares, 'these eyes have seen most
evident and manifest marks of their wickedness.' The annalist
adds that this, no doubt, was the occasion of bringing in a bill
the next Parliament, for making enchantments and witchcraft
felony; and, under year 1578, we are informed that, whether it
were the effect of magic, or proceeded from some natural cause,
the queen was in some part of this year under excessive anguish
_by pains of her teeth_, insomuch that she took no rest for
divers nights, and endured very great torment night and day. The
statute of 1562 includes 'fond and fantastic prophecies' (a very
common sort of political offences in that age) in the category of
forbidden arts. With unaccustomed lenity it punished a first
conviction with the pillory only.
Witch-persecutions (which needed not any legal enactment) sprung
up in different parts of the country; but they were not carried
out with either the frequency or the ferocity of the next age, or
as in Scotland, under the superintendence of James VI. A number
of pamphlets unnecessarily enforced the obligatory duty of
unwearied zeal in the work of discovery and extermination.[98]
Among the executions under Elizabeth's Government are specially
noticed that of a woman hanged at Barking in 1575; of four at
Abingdon; three at Chelmsford; two at Cambridge, 1579; of a
number condemned at St. Osythes; of several in Derbyshire and
Staffordshire. One of the best known is the case at Warboys, in
Huntingdonshire, 1593.
[98] One of these productions, printed in London, bore the
sensational title, 'A very Wonderful and Strange Miracle of
God, shewed upon a Dutchman, of the age of 23 years, who was
possessed of ten devils, and was, by God's Mighty
Providence, dispossessed of them again the 27 January last
past, 1572.' Another, dedicated to Lord Darcy, by W. W.,
1582, sets forth that all those tortures in common use 'are
far too light, and their rigour too mild; and in this
respect he (the pamphleteer) impudently exclaimeth against
our magistrates who suffer them to be but hanged, when
_murtherers and such malefactors be so used, which deserve
not the hundredth part of their punishment_.'
The author of the 'Discoverie' relates a fact that came under his
personal observation: it is a fair example of the trivial origin
and of the facility of this sort of charges. 'At the assizes
holden at Rochester, anno 1581, one Margaret Simons, wife of John
Simons, of Brenchly in Kent, was arraigned for witchcraft, at the
instigation and complaint of divers fond and malicious persons,
and especially by the means of one John Farral, vicar of that
parish, with whom I talked about the matter, and found him both
fondly assotted in the cause and enviously bent towards her: and,
which is worse, as unable to make a good account of his faith as
she whom he accused. That which he laid to the poor woman's
charge was this. His son, being an ungracious boy, and 'prentice
to one Robert Scotchford, clothier, dwelling in that parish of
Brenchly, passed on a day by her house; at whom, by chance, her
little dog barked, which thing the boy taking in evil part, drew
his knife and pursued him therewith even to her door, whom
she rebuked with such words as the boy disdained, and yet
nevertheless would not be persuaded to depart in a long time. At
the last he returned to his master's house, and within five or
six days fell sick. Then was called to mind the fray betwixt the
dog and the boy: insomuch as the vicar (who thought himself so
privileged as he little mistrusted that God would visit his
children with sickness) did so calculate as he found, partly
through his own judgment and partly (as he himself told me) by
the relation of other witches, that his said son was by her
bewitched. Yea, he told me that his son being, as it were, past
all cure, received perfect health at the hands of another witch.'
Not satisfied with this accusation, the vicar 'proceeded yet
further against her, affirming that always in his parish church,
when he desired to read most plainly his voice so failed him that
he could scant be heard at all: which he could impute, he said,
to nothing else but to her enchantment. When I advertised the
poor woman thereof, as being desirous to hear what she could say
for herself, she told me that in very deed his voice did fail
him, specially when he strained himself to speak loudest.
Howbeit, she said, that at all times his voice was hoarse and
low; which thing I perceived to be true. But sir, said she, you
shall understand that this our vicar is diseased with such a kind
of hoarseness as divers of our neighbours in this parish not
long ago doubted ... and in that respect utterly refused to
communicate with him until such time as (being thereunto enjoined
by the ordinary) he had brought from London a certificate under
the hands of two physicians that his hoarseness proceeded from a
disease of the lungs; which certificate he published in the
church, in the presence of the whole congregation: and by this
means he was cured, or rather excused of the shame of the
disease. And this,' certifies the narrator, 'I know to be true,
by the relation of divers honest men of that parish. And truly if
one of the jury had not been wiser than the others, she had been
condemned thereupon, and upon other as ridiculous matters as
this. For the name of witch is so odious, and her power so feared
among the common people, that if the honestest body living
chanced to be arraigned thereupon, she shall hardly escape
condemnation.'