Sorcery in Southern Europe--Cause of the Retention of the
Demonological Creed among the Protestant Sects--Calvinists
the most Fanatical of the Reformed Churches--Witch-Creed
sanctioned in the Authorised Version of the Sacred
Scriptures--The Witch-Act of 1604--James VI.'s
'Demonologie'--Lycanthropy and Executions in France--The
French Provincial Parliaments active in passing Laws against
the various Witch-practices--Witchcraft in the
Pyrenees--Commission of Inquiry appointed--Its
Results--Demonology in Spain.
In the annals of black magic, the silent tribunals of the
Inquisition in Southern Europe which has consigned so many
thousands of heretics to the torture room and to the flames, do
not reveal so many trials for the simple crime of witchcraft as
the tribunals of the more northern peoples: there all dissent
from Catholic and priestly dogma was believed to be inspired by
the powers of hell, deserving a common punishment, whether in the
form of denial of transubstantiation, infallibility, of skill in
magic, or of the vulgar practice of sorcery. Throughout Europe
penalties and prosecutions were being continually enacted. The
popes in Italy fulminated abroad their decrees, and the
parliaments of France were almost daily engaged in pronouncing
sentence.
Where the papal yoke had been thrown off in Northern Germany, in
Scotland, and in England, the belief and the persecution remained
in full force, indeed greatly increased; and it is obvious to
inquire the cause of the retention, with many additions, of the
doctrine of witchcraft by those who had at last finally rejected
with scorn most of the grosser religious dogmas of the old
Church, who were so loud in their just denunciation of Catholic
tyranny and superstition. A general answer might be given that
the Reformation of the sixteenth century, while it swept away in
those countries in which it was effected the most injurious
principles of ecclesiasticism, the principles of infallibility
and authority in matters of faith, for the destruction of which
gratitude is due to the independent minds of Luther, Zuinglius,
and others, was yet far from complete in its negations. The
leaders of that great revolution, with all their genius and
boldness, could only partially free themselves from the
prejudices of education and of the age. To develope the important
principles they established, the rights of private judgment and
religious freedom, was the legacy and duty of their successors; a
duty which they failed to perform, to the incalculable misfortune
of succeeding generations. The Sacred Scriptures, the common
and only authority on faith among the different sections
of Protestantism, unfortunately seemed to inculcate the dread
power of the devil and his malicious purposes, and both the
Jewish and Christian Scriptures apparently taught the reality
of witchcraft. Theologians of all parties would have as easily
dared to question the existence of God himself as to doubt the
actual power of that other deity, and the unbelievers in his
universal interference were not illogically stigmatised as
atheists. With the Protestants some adventitious circumstances
might make a particular church more fanatical and furious than
another, and the Calvinists have deserved the palm for the
bitterest persecution of witchcraft. But neither the Lutheran nor
the Anglican section is exempt from the odious imputation.[114]
[114] Lord Peter, and his humbler brothers Martin and Jack,
in different degrees, are all of them obnoxious to the
accusation; and Bossuet (_Variations des Eglises
Protestantes_, xi. 201), who is assured that St. Paul
predicted the 'doctrines of devils' to be characteristic of
Manichaean and Albigensian heresy, might have more safely
interpreted the prophecy as applicable to the universal
Christian Church (at least of Western Europe) of the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
The followers of Calvin were most deeply imbued with hatred and
horror of Catholic practices, and, adopting the old prejudice or
policy of their antagonists, they were willing to confound the
superstitious rites of Catholicism with those of demonolatry. The
Anglican Church party, whose principles were not so entirely
opposite to the old religion, had far less antipathy: until the
revolution of 1688 it was for the most part engaged in contending
against liberty rather than against despotism of conscience;
against Calvinism than against Catholicism. Yet the Church of
England is exposed to the reproach of having sanctioned the
common opinions in the most authoritative manner. In the
authorised version of the Sacred Scriptures, in the translation
of which into the English language forty-seven selected divines,
eminent for position and learning, could concur in consecrating
a vulgar superstition, the most imposing sanction was given.
Had they possessed either common sense or courage, these Anglican
divines might have expressed their disbelief or doubt of
its truth by a more rational, and possibly more proper,
interpretation of the Hebrew and Greek expressions; or if that
was not possible, by an accompanying unequivocal protest. But the
subservience as well as superstition of the English Church under
the last of the Tudors and under the Stuarts is equally a matter
of fact and of reprobation.
It was in the first year of the first King of Great Britain that
the English Parliament passed the Act which remained in force, or
at least on the Statute Book, until towards the middle of last
century.[115] After due consideration the bill passed both
Houses; and by it, it was enacted that 'If any person shall use
any invocation or conjuration of any evil or wicked spirit, or
shall consult, covenant with, entertain, employ, feed, or reward
any evil or cursed spirit to or for any intent or purpose, or
take up any dead man, woman, or child out of the grave--or the
skin, bone, or any part of the dead person, to be employed or
used in any manner of witchcraft, sorcery, charm, or enchantment;
or shall use, exercise, or practice any sort of witchcraft, &c.,
whereby any person shall be destroyed, killed, wasted, consumed,
pined or lamed in any part of the body; that every such person
being convicted shall suffer death.' Twelve bishops sat in the
Committee of the Upper House.[116]
[115] The 'Witch Act' of James I. was passed in the year
1604. The new translation, or the present authorised
version, of the Bible, was executed in 1607. The inference
seems plain. An ecclesiastical canon passed at the same
period, which prohibits the inferior clergy from exorcising
without episcopal licence, proves at the same time the
prevalence of 'possession' and the prevalence of exorcism in
the beginning of the seventeenth century.
[116] The parliament of James I. would have done wisely to
have embraced the philosophic sentiment of a Hungarian prince
(1095-1114) who is said to have dismissed the absurd
superstition with laconic brevity: 'De strigis vero, quae non
sunt, nulla quaestio fiat.'
The Scottish Parliament, during Queen Mary's reign, anathematised
the _papistical_ practices; and from that time the annals of
Scottish judicature are filled with records of trials and
convictions. James was educated among the stern adherents of
Calvin. In whatever matters of ecclesiastical faith and rule the
countryman of Knox may have deviated from the teaching of his
preceptors, he maintained with constant zeal his faith in the
devil's omnipotence; and we may be disposed to concede the
title of 'Defender of the Faith' (so confidently prefixed to
successive editions of the Authorised Version) to his activity in
the extermination of witches, rather than to his hatred of
priestcraft. While monarch only of the Northern kingdom, he
published a denunciation of the damnable infidelity of the 'Witch
Advocates,' and his own unhesitating belief. James VI. and his
clerical advisers were persuaded, or affected to be persuaded,
that the devil, with all his hellish crew, was conspiring to
frustrate the beneficial intentions of a pious Protestant prince.
Infernal despair and rage reached the climax when the marriage
with the Danish princess was to be effected. But, far from being
terrified by so formidable a conspiracy, he gloried in the
persuasion that he was the devil's greatest enemy; and the man
who shuddered at the sight of a drawn sword was not afraid to
enter the lists against the _invisible_ spiritual enemy.
The 'Demonologie' was published at Edinburgh in 1597. The author
introduces his book with these words: 'The fearful abounding at
this time in this country of these detestable slaves of the
devil, the witches or enchanters, hath moved me (beloved reader)
to despatch in post this following treatise of mine, not in any
wise (as I protest) to serve for a show of my learning and
ingine, but only moved of conscience to press thereby so far as I
can to resolve the doubting hearts of many; both that such
assaults of Sathan are most certainly practised, and that the
instruments thereof merits most severely to be punished: against
the damnable opinions of two principally in our age, whereof the
one called Scot, an Englishman, is not ashamed in public print to
deny that there can be such a thing as witchcraft, and so
maintains the old error of the Sadducees in denying of spirits.
The other, called Wierus, a German physician, sets out a public
apology for all these crafts-folks, whereby procuring for their
impunity, he plainly bewrays himself to have been one of that
profession. And for to make this treatise the more pleasant and
facile, I have put it in form of a dialogue, which I have divided
into three books: the first speaking of magic in general, and
necromancy in special; the second, of sorcery and witchcraft; and
the third contains a discourse of all those kinds of spirits and
spectres that appears and troubles persons, together with a
conclusion of the whole work. My intention in this labour is
only to prove two things, as I have already said: the one, that
such devilish arts have been and are; the other, what exact trial
and severe punishment they merit; and therefore reason I what
kind of things are possible to be performed in these arts, and
by what natural causes they may be. Not that I touch every
particular thing of the devil's power, for that were infinite;
but only, to speak scholasticly (since this cannot be spoken in
our language), I reason upon _genus_, leaving _species_ and
_differentia_ to be comprehended therein.'[117]
[117] Speculating on the manner of witches' aerial travels,
he thinks, 'Another way is somewhat more strange, and yet it
is possible to be true: which is, by being carried by the
force of their spirit, which is their conductor, either
above the earth or above the sea swiftly to the place where
they are to meet: which I am persuaded to be likewise
possible, in respect that as Habakkuk was carried by the
angel in that form to the den where Daniel lay, so think I
the devil will be ready to imitate God as well in that as in
other things, which is much more possible to him to do,
being a spirit, than to a mighty wind, being but a natural
meteor to transport from one place to another a solid body,
as is commonly and daily seen in practice. But in this
violent form they cannot be carried but a short bounds,
agreeing with the space that they may retain their breath;
for if it were longer their breath could not remain
unextinguished, their body being carried in such a violent
and forcible manner.... And in this transporting they say
themselves that they are invisible to any other, except
amongst themselves. For if the devil may form what kind of
impressions he pleases in the air, as I have said before,
speaking of magic, why may he not far easier thicken and
obscure so the air that is next about them, by contracting
it straight together that the beams of any other man's eyes
cannot pierce through the same to see them?'
&c.--_Cyclopaedia of English Literature_, edited by Robert
Chambers.
The following injunction is characteristic of all persecuting
maxims, and is worthy of the disciple of Bodin: 'Witches ought to
be put to death according to the law of God, the civil and the
imperial law, and the municipal law of all Christian nations.
Yea, to spare the life and not to strike whom God bids strike,
and so severely in so odious a treason against God, is not only
unlawful but doubtless as great a sin in the magistrate as was
Saul's sparing Agag.' It is insisted upon by this _sagacious_
author (echoing the rules laid down in the 'Malleus'), that any
and every evidence is good against an exceptional crime: that the
testimony of the youngest children, and of persons of the most
infamous character, not only may, but ought to be, received.
This mischievous production is a curious collection of
demonological learning and experience, exhibiting the reputed
practices and ceremonies of witches, the mode of detecting them,
&c.; but is useless even for the purpose of showing the popular
Scottish or English notions, being chiefly a medley of classical
or foreign ideas, inserted apparently (spite of the royal
author's assurance to the contrary) to parade an array of
abstruse and pedantic learning. That some of the excessive terror
said to have been exhibited was simulated to promote his
pretensions to the especial hostility of Satan, is probable: but
that also he was impressed, in some degree, with a real and
lively fear scarcely admits of doubt. The modern Solomon might
well have blushed at the superior common sense of a barbaric
chief; and the 'judges of the seventeenth century might have been
instructed and confounded at the superior wisdom of Rotharis
[a Lombardic prince], who derides the absurd superstition and
protects the wretched victims of popular or judicial cruelty.'[118]
[118] _Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_, xlv. It would
have been well for his subjects if he could have
congratulated himself, like Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (the
model of philosophic princes, and a more practically
virtuous, if not wiser, philosopher than the proverbial
Solomon, and of whom Niebuhr, _History of Rome_, v.,
asserts, 'If there is any sublime human virtue, it is his'),
that he had learnt from his instructors to laugh at the
bugbears of witches and demons.--[Greek: Ta eis
heauton.]--_The Meditations of M. A. Antoninus._
Previously to the 'Witch Act,' the charge of sorcery was, in most
cases, a subordinate and subsidiary one, attached to various
political or other indictments. Henceforward the practice of the
peculiar offence might be entirely independent of any more
substantial accusation. In England, compared with the other
countries of Europe, folly more than ferocity, perhaps, generally
characterises the proceedings of the tribunals. During the
pre-Reformation ages, France, even more than her island
neighbour, suffered from the crime. The fates of the Templars, of
Jeanne d'Arc, of Arras, of those suspected of causing the mad
king's, Charles VI., derangement (when many of the _white_
witches, or wizards, 'mischievously good,' suffered for failing,
by a pretended skill, to effect his promised cure) are some of
the more conspicuous examples. But in France, as in the rest of
Europe, it was in the post-feudal period that prosecutions became
of almost daily occurrence.
A prevalent kind of sorcery was that of lycanthropy, as it was
called, a prejudice derived, it seems, in part from the
Pythagorean metempsychosis. A few cases will illustrate the
nature of this stupendous transformation. That it is mostly
found to take place in France and in the southern districts, the
country of wolves, that still make their ravages there, is a fact
easily intelligible; and if the devil can enter into swine, he
can also, in the opinion of the demonologists, as easily enter
into wolves. At Dole, in 1573, a loup-garou, or wehr-wolf
(man-wolf), was accused of devastating the country and devouring
little children. The indictment was read by Henri Camus, doctor
of laws and counsellor of the king, to the effect that the
accused, Gilles Garnier, had killed a girl twelve years of age,
having torn her to pieces, partly with his teeth, and partly with
his wolf's paws; that having dragged the body into the forest, he
there devoured the larger portion, reserving the remainder for
his wife; also that, by reason of injuries inflicted in a similar
way on another young girl, the loup-garou had occasioned her
death; also that he had devoured a boy of thirteen, tearing him
limb by limb; that he displayed the same unnatural propensities
even in his own proper shape. Fifty persons were found to bear
witness; and he was put to the rack, which elicited an unreserved
confession. He was then brought back into court, when Dr. Camus,
in the name of the Parliament of Dole, pronounced the following
sentence: 'Seeing that Gilles Garnier has, by the testimony of
credible witnesses and by his own spontaneous confession, been
proved guilty of the abominable crimes of lycanthropy and
witchcraft, this court condemns him, the said Grilles, to be
this day taken in a cart from this spot to the place of
execution, accompanied by the executioner, where he, by the said
executioner, shall be tied to a stake and burned alive, and that
his ashes be then scattered to the winds. The court further
condemns him, the said Gilles, to the costs of this prosecution.
Given at Dole this 18th day of January, 1573.' Five years later a
man named Jacques Rollet was burned alive in the Place de Greve
for the same crime, having been tried and condemned by the
Parliament of Paris.[119]
[119] A still more sensational case happened at a village in
the mountains of Auvergne. A gentleman while hunting was
suddenly attacked by a savage wolf of monstrous size.
Impenetrable by his shot, the beast made a spring upon the
helpless huntsman, who in the struggle luckily, or unluckily
for the unfortunate lady, contrived to cut off one of its
fore-paws. This trophy he placed in his pocket, and made the
best of his way homewards in safety. On the road he met a
friend to whom he exhibited a bleeding paw, or rather a
woman's hand (so it was produced from the hunter's pocket)
upon which was a wedding ring. His wife's ring was at once
recognised by the other. His suspicions aroused, he
immediately went in search of his wife, who was found
sitting by the fire in the kitchen, her arm hidden beneath
her apron: when the husband seizing her by the arm found his
terrible suspicions verified. The bleeding stump was there,
evidently just fresh from the wound. She was given into
custody, and in the event was burned at Riom in presence of
thousands of spectators. Among some of the races of India,
among the Khonds of the mountains of Orissa, a superstition
obtains like that of the _loup-garou_ of France. In India
the tiger takes the place of the wolf, and the metamorphosed
witch is there known as the _Pulta-bag_.
A kindred prejudice, Vampirism, has still many adherents in
Eastern Europe. The vampire is a human being who in his tomb
maintains a posthumous existence by ascending in the night
and sucking the bodies of the living. His punishment was
necessarily less tremendous than that of the witch: the
_dead_ body only being burned to ashes. An official document,
quoted by Horst, narrates the particulars of the examination
and burning of a disinterred vampire.
Several witches were burned in successive years throughout the
kingdom. In 1564, three witches and a wizard were executed at
Poictiers: on the rack they declared that they had destroyed
numbers of sheep by magical preparations, attended the Sabbaths,
&c. Trois Echelles, a celebrated sorcerer, examined in the
presence of Charles IX. and his court, acknowledged his
obligation to the devil, to whom he had sold himself, recounting
the debaucheries of the Sabbath, the methods of bewitching, and
the compositions of the unguents for blighting cattle. The
astounding fact was also revealed that some twelve hundred
accomplices were at large in different parts of the land. The
provincial parliaments in the end of this and the greater part of
the next century are unremittingly engaged in passing decrees and
making provisions against the increasing offences.[120] 'The
Parliament of Rouen decreed that the possession of a _grimoire_
or book of spells was sufficient evidence of witchcraft; and that
all persons on whom such books were found should be _burned
alive_. Three councils were held in different parts of France in
1583, all in relation to the same subject. The Parliament of
Bordeaux issued strict injunctions to all curates and clergy
whatever to use redoubled efforts to root out the crime of
witchcraft. The Parliament of Tours was equally peremptory, and
feared the judgments of an offended God if all these dealers with
the devil were not swept from the face of the land. The
Parliament of Rheims was particularly severe against the _noueurs
d'aiguillettes_ or 'tiers of the knot'--people of both sexes who
took pleasure in preventing the consummation of marriage that
they might counteract the command of God to our first parents to
increase and multiply. This parliament held it to be sinful to
wear amulets to preserve from witchcraft; and that this practice
might not be continued within its jurisdiction, drew up a form of
exorcism 'which could more effectually defeat the agents of the
devil and put them to flight.'[121]
[120] Montaigne, one of the few Frenchmen at this time who
seemed to discredit the universal creed, in one of his
essays ventures to think 'it is very probable that the
principal credit of visions, of enchantments, and of such
extraordinary effects, proceeds from the power of the
imagination acting principally upon the more impressible
minds of the vulgar.' He is inclined to assign the prevalent
'liaisons' (nouements d'aiguillettes) to the apprehensions
of a fear with which in his age the French world was so
perplexed (si entrave). _Essais_, liv. i. 20.
[121] _Extraordinary Popular Delusions_, by Mackay, whose
authorities are Tablier, Boguet (_Discours sur les
Sorciers_), and M. Jules Garinet (_Histoire de la Magie_).
In France, and still more in Italy, there is reason for believing
that many of the convicts were not without the real guilt of
toxicological practices; and they might sometimes properly
deserve the opprobrium of the old _venefici_. The formal trial
and sentence to death of La Marechale de l'Ancre in 1617 was
perhaps more political than superstitious, but witchcraft was
introduced as one of the gravest accusations. Her preponderance
in the councils of Marie de Medici and of Louis XIII. originated
in the natural _fascination_ of royal but inferior minds. Two
years afterwards occurred a bona fide prosecution on a large
scale. A commission was appointed by the Parliament of Bordeaux
to inquire into the causes and circumstances of the prevalence of
witchcraft in the Pyrenean districts. Espaignol, president of the
local parliament, with the better known councillor, Pierre de
l'Ancre, who has left a record ('Tableau de l'Inconstance des
Mauvais Anges et Demons, ou il est amplement traite des Sorciers
et Demons: Paris'), was placed at the head of the commission. How
the district of Labourt was so infested with the tribe, that of
thirty thousand inhabitants hardly a family existed but was
infected with sorcery, is explained by the barren, sterile,
mountainous aspect of the neighbourhood of that part of the
Pyrenees: the men were engaged in the business of fishermen, and
the women left alone were exposed to the tempter. The priests too
were as ignorant and wicked as the people; their relations with
the lonely wives and daughters being more intimate than proper.
Young and handsome women, some mere girls, form the greater
proportion of the accused. As many as forty a day appeared at the
bar of the commissioners, and at least two hundred were hanged or
burned.
Evidence of the appearance of the devil was various and
contradictory. Some at the _Domdaniel_, the place of assemblage,
had a vision of a hideous wild he-goat upon a large gilded
throne; others of a man twisted and disfigured by Tartarean
torture; of a gentleman in black with a sword, booted and
spurred; to others he seemed as some shapeless indistinct object,
as that of the trunk of a tree, or some huge rock or stone. They
proceeded to their meetings riding on spits, pitchforks,
broom-sticks: being entertained on their arrival in the approved
style, and indulging in the usual licence. Deputies from witchdom
attended from all parts, even from Scotland. When reproached by
some of his slaves for failing to come to the rescue in the
torture-chamber or at the stake, their lord replied by causing
illusory fires to be lit, bidding the doubters walk through the
harmless flames, promising not more inconvenience in the bonfires
of their persecutors. Lycanthropic criminals were also brought up
who had prowled about and devastated the sheepfolds. Espaignol
and De l'Ancre were provided with two professional Matthew
Hopkinses: one a surgeon for examining the 'marks' (generally
here discovered in the left eye, like a frog's foot) in the men
and older women; the other a girl of seventeen, for the younger
of her sex. Many of the priests were executed; several made their
escape from the country. Besides the work before mentioned, De
l'Ancre published a treatise under the title of 'L'Incredulite et
Mescreance du Sortilege pleinement convaincue,' 1622. The
expiration of the term of the Bordeaux commission brought the
proceedings to a close, and fortunately saved a number of the
condemned.
In Spain, the land of Torquemada and Ximenes, which had long ago
fanatically expelled the Jews and recently its old Moorish
conquerors from its soil, the unceasing activity of the
Inquisition during 140 years must have extorted innumerable
confessions and proofs of diabolic conspiracies and heresy.
Antonio Llorente, the historian of the Inquisition, to whose rare
opportunities of obtaining information we are indebted for some
instructive revelations, has exposed a large number of the
previously silent and dark transactions of the Holy Office. But
the demonological ideas of the Southern Church and people are
profusely displayed in the copious dramatic literature of the
Spaniards, whose theatre was at one time nearly as popular, if
not as influential, as the Church.
The dramas of the celebrated Lope de Vega and of Calderon in
particular, are filled with demons as well as angels[122]--a
sort of religious compensation to the Church for the moral
deficiencies of a licentious stage, or rather licentious public.
[122] In the _Nacimiento de Christo_ of Lope de Vega the
devil appears in his popular figure of the dragon.
Calderon's _Wonder-Working Magician_, relating the
adventures of St. Cyprian and the various temptations and
seductions of the Evil Spirit, like Goethe's Faust,
introduces the devil in the disguise of a fashionable and
gallant gentleman.--Ticknor's _History of Spanish
Literature_.