are liable comes from their failure to perceive that the immediate
responsibility for actual prosecution rests frequently, if not in
the majority of instances, on the rank and file of the community or
neighborhood. This remark is not made in exculpation of prosecutors
and judges,--for my purpose in this discussion is not to extenuate
anybody’s offences or to shift the blame from one man’s shoulders to
another. What is intended is simply to remind the reader of a patent
and well-attested fact which is too often overlooked in the natural
tendency of historians to find some notable personage to whom their
propositions, commendatory or damaging, may be attached. A prosecution
for witchcraft presupposes a general belief among the common people in
the reality of the crime. But this is not all. It presupposes likewise
the existence of a body of testimony, consisting of the talk of the
neighborhood, usually extending back over a considerable stretch of
years, with regard to certain persons who have the reputation of being
witches, cunning men, and so on. It also presupposes the belief of
the neighborhood that various strange occurrences,--such as storms,
bad crops, plagues of grass-hoppers and caterpillars, loss of pigs or
cattle, cases of lunacy or hysteria or chorea or wasting sickness,--are
due to the malice of those particular suspects and their unknown
confederates. These strange occurrences, be it remembered, are not
the fictions of a superstitious or distempered imagination, they
are--most of them--things that have really taken place; they are the
_res gestae_ of the prosecution, without which it could never have
come about, or, having begun, could never have continued. And further,
in very many instances of prosecution for witchcraft, there have been
among the accused, persons who believed themselves to be witches,--or
who had, at any rate, pretended to extraordinary powers and--in many
instances--had either used their uncanny reputation to scare their
enemies or to get money by treating diseases of men and cattle. And
finally, the habit of railing and brawling, of uttering idle but
malignant threats, and, on the other hand, the habit of applying vile
epithets--including that of “witch,”--to one’s neighbors in the heat
of anger--customs far more prevalent in former times than now--also
resulted in the accumulation of a mass of latent or potential testimony
which lay stored up in people’s memories ready to become kinetic
whenever the machinery of the law should once begin to move.[121]
Nobody will ask for evidence that railing and brawling went on in
colonial New England, that our forefathers sometimes called each other
bad names, or that slander was a common offence.[122] That suspicion
of witchcraft was rife in various neighborhoods years before the Salem
outbreak, is proved, not only by the records of sporadic cases that
came before the courts,[123] but by some of the evidence in the Salem
prosecution itself.
That the initial responsibility for prosecution usually rested with
the neighborhood or community might further be shown by many specific
pieces of testimony. The terrible prosecution in Trier toward the close
of the sixteenth century is a case in point. “Since it was commonly
believed,” writes Linden, an eyewitness, “that the continued failure
of the crops for many years was caused by witches and wizards through
diabolical malice, the whole country rose up for the annihilation of
the witches.”[124] To like purpose are the words of the admirable
Jesuit, Friedrich Spee, in the closing chapter of the most powerful
and convincing protest against witch trials ever written--that
chapter which the author begged every magistrate in Germany to mark
and weigh, whether he read the rest of the book or not:--“Incredible
are the superstition, the envy, the slanders and backbitings, the
whisperings and gossip of the common people in Germany, which are
neither punished by magistrates nor reproved by preachers. These
are the causes that first rouse suspicion of witchcraft. All the
punishments of divine justice with which God has threatened men in the
Holy Scriptures are held to come from witches. God and nature no longer
do anything,--witches, everything. Hence it is that all demand, with
violent outcry, that the magistracy shall proceed against the witches,
whom only their own tongues have made so numerous.”[125]
As for England, the annals of witchcraft are full of instances which
show where the initial responsibility rests in particular prosecutions.
Two examples will serve as well as many.
Roger North, the distinguished lawyer, who was at Exeter in 1682,
when a famous witch trial occurred,[126] gives a vivid account of
the popular excitement:--[127] “The women were very old, decrepit,
and impotent, and were brought to the assizes with as much noise and
fury of the rabble against them as could be shewed on any occasion.
The stories of their acts were in everyone’s mouth, and they were
not content to belie them in the country, but even in the city where
they were to be tried miracles were fathered upon them, as that the
judges’ coach was fixed upon the castle bridge, and the like. All
which the country believed, and accordingly persecuted the wretched
old creatures. A less zeal in a city or kingdom hath been the overture
of defection and revolution, and if these women had been acquitted,
it was thought that the country people would have committed some
disorder.”[128]
Our second example is a very notable case, which occurred in
1712,--that of Jane Wenham, the last witch condemned to death in
England. Jane Wenham had a dispute with a neighboring farmer, who
called her a witch. She complained to the local magistrate, Sir Henry
Chauncy. He referred the dispute to the parson of the parish, who,
after hearing both sides, admonished the wranglers to live at peace
and sentenced the farmer to pay Jane a shilling. The old crone was not
pleased. Shortly after, one of the clergyman’s servants, a young woman,
was strangely afflicted. Jane was brought to trial. Every effort seems
to have been made by the court to put a stop to the affair, but the
local feeling was so strong, and the witnesses and complainants were
so many (including the clergymen of two parishes) that nothing could
be done. The official who drew up the indictment endeavored to make
the whole affair ridiculous by refusing to use any other phraseology
in describing the alleged crime than “conversing with the devil in the
form of a cat.” But the well-meant device only intensified the feeling
against the witch. Mr. Justice Powell, who presided, did what he could
to induce the jury to acquit, but in vain. They brought in a verdict of
guilty, and he was obliged to pass sentence of death. He suspended the
execution of the sentence, however, and secured the royal pardon,--to
the intense indignation of the neighborhood. Here we have a jury of the
vicinage, accurately reflecting the local sentiment, and insisting on
carrying out its belief in witchcraft to the bitter end, despite all
that the judge could do.[129] It is well to note that the clergymen
involved in the prosecution were not New England Puritans, and that
the whole affair took place just ten years after the last execution
of a witch in Massachusetts. Of itself, this incident might suffice
to silence those who ascribe the Salem outbreak to the influence of
certain distinguished men, as well as those who maintain that the New
Englanders were more superstitious than their fellow-citizens at home,
that their Puritanism was somehow to blame for it, and that witchcraft
was practically dead in the Mother Country when the Salem outbreak took
place.[130]
Yet Thomas Wright--never to be mentioned without honor--speaks of the
New England troubles as “exemplifying the horrors and the absurdities
of the witchcraft persecutions more than anything that had occurred
in the old world,”[131] and Dr. G. H. Moore,--in an important article
on The Bibliography of Witchcraft in Massachusetts--declares that
the Salem outbreak “was the _epitome_ of witchcraft! whose ghastly
records may be challenged to produce any parallel for it in the world’s
history!”[132] In further refutation of such reckless statements I
need add but a single instance. In 1596 there was an outbreak of some
pestilence or other in Aberdeen. The populace ascribed the disease to
the machinations of a family long suspected of witchcraft. A special
commission was appointed by the Privy Council, “and before April 1597,
twenty-three women and one man had been burnt, one woman had died under
the torture, one had hanged herself in prison, and four others who were
acquitted on the capital charge, were yet branded on the cheek and
banished from the sheriffdom.”[133]
There was a very special reason why troubles with the powers of
darkness were to be expected in New England--a reason which does
not hold good for Great Britain or, indeed, for any part of Western
Europe. I refer, of course, to the presence of a considerable heathen
population--the Indians. These were universally supposed to be
devil-worshippers--not only by the Colonists but by all the rest of
the world--for paganism was held to be nothing but Satanism.[134]
Cotton Mather and the Jesuit fathers of Canada were at one on this
point.[135] The religious ceremonies of the Indians were, as we know,
in large part an invocation of spirits, and their powwows, or medicine
men, supposed themselves to be wizards,--_were_ wizards, indeed, so
far as sorcery is possible.[136] The Colonial government showed itself
singularly moderate, however, in its attitude toward Indian practices
of a magical character. Powwowing was, of course, forbidden wherever
the jurisdiction of the white men held sway, but it was punishable
by fine only, nor was there any idea of inflicting the extreme
penalty[137]--although the offence undoubtedly came under the Mosaic
law, so often quoted on the title-pages of books on witchcraft, “Thou
shalt not suffer a witch to live.”
The existence of all these devil-worshipping neighbors was a constant
reminder of the possibility of danger from witchcraft. One is
surprised, therefore, to find that there was no real outbreak until so
late in the century. It argues an uncommon degree of steadiness and
common sense among our forefathers that they held off the explosion so
long. Yet even this delay has been made to count against them, as if,
by 1692, they ought to have known better, even if they might have been
excusable some years before. In point of fact, the New Englanders, as
we have seen, made an end of trying witches nearly ten years earlier
than their English fellow-citizens. But we shall come back to this
question of dates presently.
Much has been written of the stupendous and criminal foolishness of
our ancestors in admitting “spectral evidence” at the Salem trials.
Nothing, of course, can be said in defence of such evidence in itself;
but a great deal might be said in defence of our ancestors on this
score. The fact is,--and it should never be lost sight of,--there was
nothing strange in their admitting such evidence. It was a matter of
course that they should admit it. To do so indeed, was one of the best
established of all legal principles. Spectral evidence was admitted,
for example, in England, either in examinations or in actual trials,
in 1593,[138] 1612,[139] 1616,[140] 1621,[141] 1633,[142] 1645,[143]
1650,[144] 1653,[145] 1654,[146] 1658,[147] 1660,[148] 1661,[149]
1663,[150] 1664,[151] 1665,[152] 1667,[153] 1670,[154] 1672,[155]
1673,[156] 1680,[157] 1683.[158] Even Chief Justice Holt, whose
honorable record in procuring the acquittal of every witch he tried
is well-known,[159] did not exclude spectral evidence: it was offered
and admitted in at least two of his cases--in 1695 and 1696[160]--both
later than the last witch trial in Massachusetts. In the 1697 edition
of that very popular manual, Michael Dalton’s Country Justice, spectral
evidence (“Their Apparition to the Sick Party in his Fits”) is
expressly mentioned as one of the proofs of witchcraft.[161] What may
fairly be called spectral evidence was admitted by Mr. Justice Powell,
anxious as he was to have the defendant acquitted, in the trial of Jane
Wenham in 1712.[162] The question, then, was not whether such evidence
might be heard, but what weight was to be attached to it. Thus, in Sir
Matthew Hale’s case, Mr. Serjeant Keeling was “much unsatisfied” with
such testimony, affirming that, if it were allowed to pass for proof,
“no person whatsoever can be in safety.”[163] He did not aver that it
should not have been admitted, but only protested against regarding it
as decisive, and in the end he seems to have become convinced of the
guilt of the defendants.[164] It is, therefore, nothing against our
ancestors that they heard such evidence, for they were simply following
the invariable practice of the English courts. On the other hand, it
is much to their credit that they soon began to suspect it, and that,
having taken advice, they decided, in 1693, to allow it no further
weight. We may emphasize the folly of spectral evidence as much as we
like.[165] Only let us remember that in so doing we are attacking, not
New England in 1692, but Old England from 1593 to 1712. When, on the
other hand, we distribute compliments to those who refused to allow
such evidence to constitute full proof, let us not forget that with
the name of Chief Justice Holt we must associate those of certain
Massachusetts worthies whom I need not specify. It is not permissible
to blame our ancestors for an error of judgment that they shared with
everybody, and then to refuse them commendation for a virtue which they
shared with a very few wise heads in England. That would be to proceed
on the principle of “heads I win, tails you lose,”--a method much
followed by Matthew Hopkins and his kind, but of doubtful propriety in
a candid investigation of the past. We shall never keep our minds clear
on the question of witchcraft in general, and of the Salem witchcraft
in particular, until we stop attacking and defending individual persons.
Sir John Holt, Chief Justice of the King’s Bench from 1682 to 1710, has
a highly honorable name in the annals of English witchcraft. A dozen
or twenty cases came before him, and in every instance the result was
an acquittal.[166] Chief Justice Holt deserves all the credit he has
received; but it must be carefully noted that his example cannot be
cited to the shame and confusion of our ancestors in Massachusetts, for
most of his cases,--all but one, so far as I can ascertain,--occurred
after the release of the New England prisoners and the abandonment of
the prosecution here. As to that single case of acquittal, we must not
forget that there were also acquittals in New England,--in 1674 and
1676, for example.[167] As to acquittals in England _after_ 1693, let
it be remembered that there were _no trials at all for witchcraft_ in
New England subsequent to that year. If Chief Justice Holt is to be
commended for procuring the acquittal of a dozen witches between 1693
and 1702, what is to be ascribed to our forefathers for bringing no
cases to trial during that period?
The most remarkable things about the New England prosecution were the
rapid return of the community to its habitually sensible frame of mind
and the frank public confession of error made by many of those who
had been implicated. These two features, and especially the latter,
are without a parallel in the history of witchcraft. It seems to be
assumed by most writers that recantation and an appeal to heaven for
pardon were the least that could have been expected of judge and jury.
In fact, as I have just ventured to suggest, no action like Samuel
Sewall’s on the part of a judge and no document like that issued by the
repentant Massachusetts jurymen have yet been discovered in the witch
records of the world.[168]
But it is not for the sake of lauding their penitential exercises that
I lay stress upon the unexampled character of our forefathers’ action.
There is another aspect from which the outcome of the Salem trials
ought to be regarded. They fell at a critical moment, when witchcraft
was, for whatever reason, soon to become a crime unknown to the English
courts. They attracted attention instantly in the Mother Country.[169]
Can there be any question that the sensational recovery of the Province
from its attack of prosecuting zeal, accompanied as that recovery was
by retraction and by utterances of deep contrition, had a profound
effect in England? The mere dropping of the prosecution would not have
had this effect. In 1597, James I., alarmed at the extent to which
witch trials were going in Scotland, revoked all the existing special
commissions that were engaged in holding trials for this offence.[170]
But the evil was soon worse than ever. What was efficacious in the
New England instance was the unheard-of action of judge and jury in
recanting. This made the Salem troubles the best argument conceivable
in the hands of those reformers who, soon after 1700, began to make
actual headway in their opposition to the witch dogma.
I am not reasoning _a priori_. By common consent one of the most
effective arraignments of the superstition that we are discussing is
the Historical Essay on Witchcraft of Dr. Francis Hutchinson, which
appeared in 1718.[171] Now Hutchinson, who gives much space to the New
England trials, refers to Sewall’s action, and prints the recantation
of the jurors in full. Nor does he leave in us doubt as to the purpose
for which he adduces these testimonies. “And those Towns,” he writes,
“having regained their Quiet; and this Case being of that Nature, that
Facts and Experience are of more weight than meer rational Arguments;
it will be worth our while to observe some Passages that happened after
this Storm, when they had Time to look back on what had passed.”[172]
Whatever may be thought of these considerations, one fact cannot be
assailed. In prosecuting witches, our forefathers acted like other men
in the seventeenth century. In repenting and making public confession,
they acted like themselves. Their fault was the fault of their time;
their merit is their own.
We must not leave this subject without looking into the question of
numbers and dates. The history of the Salem Witchcraft is, to all
intents and purposes, the sum total of witchcraft history in the whole
of Massachusetts for a century. From the settlement of the country, of
course, our fathers believed in witchcraft, and cases came before the
courts from time to time, but, outside of the Salem outbreak, not more
than half-a-dozen executions can be shown to have occurred. It is not
strange that there should have been witch trials. It is inconceivable
that the Colony should have passed through its first century without
some special outbreak of prosecution--inconceivable, that is to say,
to one who knows what went on in England and the rest of Europe during
that time. The wonderful thing is, not that an outbreak of prosecution
occurred, but that it did not come sooner and last longer.
From the first pranks of the afflicted children in Mr. Parris’s house
(in February, 1692) to the collapse of the prosecution in January,
1693, was less than a year. During the interval twenty persons had
suffered death, and two are known to have died in jail.[173] If to
these we add the six sporadic cases that occurred in Massachusetts
before 1692, there is a total of twenty-eight; but this is the whole
reckoning, not merely for a year or two but for a complete century.
The concentration of the trouble in Massachusetts within the limits of
a single year has given a wrong turn to the thoughts of many writers.
This concentration makes the case more conspicuous, but it does not
make it worse. On the contrary, it makes it better. It is astonishing
that there should have been only half-a-dozen executions for witchcraft
in Massachusetts before 1692, and equally astonishing that the
delusion, when it became acute, should have raged for but a year, and
that but twenty-two persons should have lost their lives. The facts are
distinctly creditable to our ancestors,--to their moderation and to
the rapidity with which their good sense could reassert itself after a
brief eclipse.[174]
Let us compare figures a little. For Massachusetts the account is
simple--twenty-eight victims in a century. No one has ever made an
accurate count of the executions in England during the seventeenth
century, but they must have mounted into the hundreds.[175] Matthew
Hopkins, the Witch-finder General, brought at least two hundred to the
gallows from 1645 to 1647.[176] In Scotland the number of victims
was much larger. The most conscientiously moderate estimate makes out
a total of at least 3,400 between the years 1580 and 1680, and the
computer declares that future discoveries in the way of records may
force us to increase this figure very much.[177] On the Continent many
thousands suffered death in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
Mannhardt reckons the victims from the fourteenth to the seventeenth
century at millions,[178] and half a million is thought to be a
moderate estimate. In Alsace, a hundred and thirty-four witches and
wizards were burned in 1582 on one occasion, the execution taking
place on the 15th, 19th, 24th, and 28th of October.[179] Nicholas Remy
(Remigius) of Lorraine gathered the materials for his work on the
Worship of Demons,[180] published in 1595, from the trials of some 900
persons whom he had sentenced to death in the fifteen years preceding.
In 1609, de Lancre and his associate are said to have condemned 700
in the Basque country in four months.[181] The efforts of the Bishop
of Bamberg from 1622 to 1633 resulted in six hundred executions;
the Bishop of Würzburg, in about the same period, put nine hundred
persons to death.[182] These figures, which might be multiplied almost
indefinitely,[183] help us to look at the Salem Witchcraft in its true
proportions,--as a very small incident in the history of a terrible
superstition.
These figures may perhaps be attacked as involving a fallacious
comparison, inasmuch as we have not attempted to make the relative
population of New England and the several districts referred to a
factor in the equation. Such an objection, if anybody should see fit
to make it, is easily answered by other figures. The total number of
victims in Massachusetts from the first settlement to the end of the
seventeenth century was, as we have seen, twenty-eight,--or thirty-four
for the whole of New England. Compare the following figures, taken from
the annals of Great Britain and Scotland alone. In 1612, ten witches
were executed belonging to a single district of Lancashire.[184] In
1645 twenty-nine witches were condemned at once in a single Hundred in
Essex,[185] eighteen were hanged at once at Bury in Suffolk[186] “and a
hundred and twenty more were to have been tried, but a sudden movement
of the king’s troops in that direction obliged the judges to adjourn
the session.”[187] Under date of July 26, 1645, Whitelocke records that
“20 Witches in Norfolk were executed”,[188] and again, under April
15, 1650, that “at a little Village within two Miles [of Berwick] two
Men and three Women were burnt for Witches, and nine more were to be
burnt, the Village consisting of but fourteen Families, and there were
as many witches” and further that “twenty more were to be burnt within
six Miles of that place.”[189] If we pass over to the Continent, the
numbers are appalling. Whether, then, we take the computation in gross
or in detail, New England emerges from the test with credit.