WITCHCRAFT.
Universality of the belief in witchcraft--Persecution of witches
in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries--Attitude of the
Puritans--Origin of the witch--First use of the term--Enactments
against witchcraft--The Essex persecutions--The last judicial
execution.
There is one aspect of women’s relation to the Church in the period
under review which cannot be passed over without some brief notice,
although any detailed examination of the subject would be impossible
in a book of this scope and purpose. The subject of witchcraft, which
has filled so many hundreds of volumes, is, after all, only a branch
of a still larger subject--superstition. The beliefs of one age are
the superstitions of the next, but it is sometimes difficult to say
where the dividing-line should be drawn, for while a belief is not
necessarily a superstition, a superstition has frequently the force and
reality of a belief. The belief in witchcraft was very slow in passing
into the phase of a superstition. Both the Catholic and the Protestant
Church for many centuries denounced witchcraft as one of the greatest
forms of evil, to be withstood by every possible means. To doubt its
reality was to doubt one of the articles of faith. At certain periods
in history, the persecution of witches broke forth like one of the
great physical plagues that from time to time scourged Europe. The
belief in witchcraft was a moral pestilence, insidious, far-reaching,
and deadly in its effects.
Magic and sorcery have been believed in from the earliest times of
recorded history. But although, in the first centuries of the Christian
Church and throughout the Middle Ages, there was a dread of the black
art, and those who practised it were liable to numerous punishments,
and to death itself, there was, curiously enough, far less persecution
than prevailed in later and more enlightened periods. The twelfth and
thirteenth centuries were worse than the sixth, and the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries were far more persecuting periods than the
twelfth and thirteenth. Michelet, writing generally of the fourteenth
century, says the witch saw before her--
“a horrible career of torments lighted up for three or four
hundred years by the stake. After 1300, her medical knowledge
is condemned as baleful, her remedies are proscribed as if they
were poisons.”
With the uprising of the Protestant Church in the sixteenth century
came a great wave of superstition. In the reign of Elizabeth, Bishop
Jewell, preaching before the queen (1568), said--
“It may please your Grace to understand that witches and
sorcerers within these few last years are marvellously
increased within your Grace’s realm. Your Grace’s subjects pine
away even unto the death, their colour fadeth, their flesh
rotteth, their speech is benumbed, their knees are bereft. I
pray God they never practise _further than upon the subjects_.”
There was no doubt about the sincerity of the bishop’s belief. “These
eyes,” he said, “have seen most evident and manifest marks of their
wickedness.” The reformers were the strongest believers in and the
bitterest persecutors of witchcraft. Not even Innocent VIII., who, in
1484, promulgated a Bull against witchcraft and heresy, and thereby
gave a great impetus to the persecution on the Continent, was more
virulent against witches than Luther. “I should have no compassion on
these witches,” said Luther, in a discussion on witchcraft. “I would
burn all of them.” And he adds, “Witchcraft is the devil’s own proper
work.”
In Scotland, where the Reformed Church exercised great sway, the
persecution was much keener than in England.
“When a woman had fallen under suspicion, the minister from the
pulpit denounced her by name, exhorted his parishioners to give
evidence against her, and prohibited any one from sheltering
her.”
In the seventeenth century the belief in witchcraft was much fostered
by the Puritan party, who were the bitterest of persecutors. The
Puritans were diligent students of the Old Testament, and doubtless
considered that they had full warrant for their action from certain
much-quoted passages in Scripture. The Puritans, like the Fathers in
the Early Christian Church, had a very real belief in and horror of the
power of supernatural evil; and, like the Fathers, they too believed
that women were more inherently wicked than men--that they were more
liable to assaults of Satan, and more easily drawn into communion with
evil spirits.
Numerous as were the punishments inflicted upon sorcerers and
magicians, the persecution of witches was far greater. King James
I., in his “Demonology,” asks, “What can be the cause that there are
twentie women given to that craft where there is only one man?” And
he gives as his reason that women are frailer than men, quoting the
fall of Eve as the beginning of Satan’s sovereignty over womankind.
There was, however, a more obvious reason for the fact that women
were so much more frequently denounced than men for practising the
black art. The chief doctors and surgeons in former times were women.
There was no formulated science of medicine down to the seventeenth
century, but certain persons, generally women, acquired a large
amount of knowledge of the properties of plants useful for healing,
and methods of distilling and mixing vegetable juices. The healing
art, like nursing, fell into the hands of women, and herbal lore was
transmitted from mother to daughter, just as skill in cookery and in
special kinds of needlework was handed down. Deftness, appreciation of
detail, quick observation, and patience supplied the place of written
knowledge. The conditions of life during the Middle Ages, and even down
to the last century, were such as to afford plenty of scope for the
exercise of practical ability. The women who had the greatest knowledge
of the properties of plants were, naturally, those most dependent on
nature--women of the poorer class, but women endowed with a greater
share of insight, and larger brain power than their companions. The
“wise women,” who usually dwelt alone in some humble dwelling remote
from their neighbours, and “lived on their wits,” were naturally
regarded with a tinge of awe by the ignorant, and were credited with
some supernatural power. Their appearance and their habits--the
result of poverty and loneliness--caused them to be looked upon with
suspicion. To a wrinkled, repulsive visage was frequently united a
temper equally obnoxious, and which was embittered by the gibes and
sneers which were freely cast at the “old hag,” whose weapon of defence
was her tongue. The curses which she poured forth on her tormentors
inspired dread, and if by chance some bodily affliction attacked the
cursed ones, it was invariably attributed to malevolence. All sorts
of ills were ascribed to the spite of these outcasts of society: the
maiming of cattle, the withering of pasture, diseases bodily and
mental, misfortunes of every kind. The witch was never a bringer of
good; she was always thought to be working evil, with or without
motive. Women have been credited, not only by the ignorant multitude,
but by philosophers, with the power, at certain seasons, of turning
milk sour, making dogs savage, and effecting other things, by their
mere presence.
It is not until the twelfth century that there is any definite mention
of witchcraft in England. This seems strange when it is remembered that
in the time of the early Britons what was known as magic or sorcery
was practised by the wives of the Druid doctors. These women were
noted for their skill in herbal medicine, and even credited with the
power of causing evil as well as healing wounds. But the term “witch”
does not seem to have come into use until the period mentioned. The
twelfth century has been described by Mr. Lecky as the turning-point of
European intellect. The first glimmerings of incredulity were showing
forth. The Church became aware of some opposing force, and assumed
the offensive. Circumstances that had hitherto passed unnoticed were
regarded as danger-signals. Any evidences of unusual capacity for
controlling physical forces, such as the “medicine women” showed, were
regarded with hostility. Their power implied converse with Satan,
for by no other means was it supposed that such knowledge and skill
could be obtained. There was at that time a widespread belief in
the supernatural, in the presence of evil spirits who infested the
earth in all sorts of shapes to torment and deceive men. The theory
that the wise woman was an emissary from the Prince of Darkness
accorded with the popular delusions. The witch gradually became a
distinct personality, a figure which troubled every society. Diseased
imagination united to ignorance of physical science caused the belief
in witchcraft to become a terror for centuries.
Witchcraft offered a solution of the problem of evil. How otherwise
to account for the ills which beset humanity? It is difficult for us
to realize the panic which took possession of people’s minds at the
appearance of misfortunes such as plague, famine, drought, floods, and
the like. The terrible pestilence, for which we can now to some extent
account, appeared like a visitation of Providence or the direct work
of Satan to an age which knew nothing of the laws of health, of the
courses of disease, and very little of the structure and functions
of the bodily organs. As time advanced, the belief in the power
and malevolence of the women called witches increased. The Church,
following in the steps of those Fathers who had credited women with
being endowed with special capacity for evil, commenced a virulent
persecution of witches. In the reign of John a woman was tried for
witchcraft, but there was little detailed mention of such trials
until the fourteenth century. In the year 1324 there was a celebrated
case in Ireland, and this, the first trial of which we have any full
account, was not that of some mis-shapen, miserable old woman living
in a hovel, but a woman of good social rank and possessed of wealth,
Lady Alice Kyteler, of Kilkenny. The lady’s troubles arose partly out
of her excessive liking for matrimony. She had four husbands, and the
principal count against her was that she had made away with these
husbands by magic. There was at this period in the Papal chair a pope
who held strong views on the subject of sorcery, Pope John XVII.,
and who issued the first Bull promulgated against it. Through the
instrumentality of one of his Irish bishops, Lady Alice Kyteler and
others were denounced as sorcerers, the Lady Alice being accused of
causing the death of her various husbands, and having converse with
evil spirits. The arbitrary action of the ecclesiastical authorities
excited so much dissatisfaction that even the Lord Chancellor
expostulated with the bishop, but received as reply that the Church
was above all law. The Lady Alice, after being excommunicated, finally
escaped from the priestly meshes, and retired to England, where
she died. During the trial a woman, who declared she had received
instruction in magic arts from Lady Alice, was flogged six times by
order of the bishops.
There were, however, no regular enactments against witchcraft until the
reign of Henry VIII. Up to that time, unless the supposed sorceress was
also accused of the crime of poisoning, she was not condemned to death.
But in 1541, conjuring, sorcery, and witchcraft were all put together
as crimes for which capital punishment could be inflicted. Statutes
against witchcraft were also enacted in the reigns of Elizabeth and
James I.
John Wier, a physician of Cleves, wrote a treatise in 1563, in which
he described witches as lunatics labouring under Satanic influence.
All women he considered to be peculiarly subject to delusions created
by malignant agency, and witches he regarded, in fact, as exaggerated
examples of the inherent moral weakness of the female sex.
With the rise of Puritanism in the seventeenth century came a second
great wave of superstition. The stern theology of the men of the
Commonwealth was embittered by the darkest of beliefs. They were
always looking for direct manifestations of the power of evil. It
was their conviction that Satan was embodied in the persons of the
unhappy women who were called witches, and that to hound them to death
was a religious duty. The Puritans held with great firmness that a
curse rested on womanhood. They found it quite easy to believe that
certain women were specially chosen instruments of evil, for the whole
sex they regarded as created for the trial and temptation of men.
Undoubtedly the Puritans did much to enforce respect for women at a
period when licentiousness was rife. They had an honest desire to raise
the standard of public morals, and preserve order and decency. But
they were actuated more by a desire to guard men from evil than by a
reverence for womanhood. Though individually they made good husbands
and fathers, their theology was a relentless creed, which permeated
their lives with hard, unsympathetic views, and condemned sinners
without mercy. The intense vitality of their belief in the omnipresence
of evil clouded their perceptions and blurred their judgment. Hence
their readiness to believe in witchcraft, and the savagery of their
persecution.
Scripture, they said, was on their side. They pointed to the Witch of
Endor, and to the declaration, “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.”
All sorts of gruesome ideas had grown up and been handed down as to the
power of witches, and became more widespread and intensified by the
fanatical zeal of the Puritans. It was not until the second half of the
seventeenth century that the full fury of the persecution blazed forth,
though previously there had been frequent trials and executions. Thus
in the early part of the reign of James I., who was responsible for
much of the persecution, a woman was tried and hanged at King’s Lynn. A
sailor had thrown a stone at her boy, whereupon she cursed the sailor
roundly, and hoped his fingers would rot off, which happened two years
later. Then she got into a quarrel with a neighbour, who was seized
with violent pains, and felt the bed rocking up and down. The woman
was denounced as a witch and condemned to death. Like other innocent
persons accused of crime, she at last got to believe what her enemies
said of her, and actually brought herself to confess that she had
practised unholy arts.
In 1645 there was a great outbreak of persecution in Essex. In 1664
occurred the celebrated trial of witches at Bury St. Edmunds. There
were living at Lowestoft two lone women whose temper and demeanour
caused them to be disliked by the inhabitants of that little fishing
hamlet. From the children they endured much petty persecution, and
were treated as outcasts by the adult population. Nobody would even
sell them fish. The two victims, who were inappropriately named Amy
and Rose, cursed and prophesied evil things. Some children were seized
with fits, during which they declared they saw the two women coming to
torment them. After eight years of accusations, the women were brought
to trial. Sir Matthew Hale presided, expressing his belief that the
Scriptures proved the reality of witchcraft. The women were hung, which
was the common mode of dealing with them. In Scotland they were usually
burnt.
There is no need to multiply instances. During the sittings of the
Long Parliament, as many as three thousand persons are said to have
been executed, exclusive of those who were “done to death” by enraged
mobs. In 1640 a witch is described in a contemporary publication as--
“the devil’s otter-hound living both on land and sea, and doing
mischief in either; she kills more beasts than a licensed
butcher in Lent, yet is nere the fatter; she’s but a dry nurse
in the flesh, yet gives such to the spirit. A witch rides many
times poast on hellish business, yet if a ladder do but stop
her, she will be hanged ere she goes any further.”
The last judicial execution took place in England in 1716, when a
woman and her daughter, aged nine, were put to death at Huntingdon,
accused of selling their souls to the devil. But years after this date
the persecution continued, and women were assailed by the rabble as
witches, frequently dying of the injuries they received. The penal
statutes against witchcraft were repealed in 1751. This, however, did
not do away with the belief which was held by people in various classes
of life. John Wesley was perhaps the last noted person who clung to
what eventually became a mere superstition, which only survived in
obscure places.
After the Restoration came in a different temper and view of life.
On the one side were the gay and frivolous, who mocked at the grim
Puritan with his terrific beliefs; on the other were the philosophers
and the intellectual world, who explained by natural causes the
so-called supernatural appearances. The Anglican Church held a middle
course between the sceptics and the fanatics. There were some, like
Joseph Glanvil, who, in 1681, took up the defence of witchcraft; and
there were bishops who promulgated persecution. The clergy had a strong
leaning to superstition, and inclined to the side of the fanatics; but
they were restrained from the greatest excesses of the Puritans by the
influence of the educational portion, whose learning and enlightenment
reflected credit on the Church at a period when it greatly needed
strengthening.