ON THE APPARITIONS OF SPIRITS WHO IMPRINT THEIR HANDS ON CLOTHES OR ON
WOOD.
Within a short time, a work composed by a Father Premontre, of the
Abbey of Toussaints, in the Black Forest, has been communicated to me.
His work is in manuscript, and entitled, "Umbra Humberti, hoc est
historia memorabilis D. Humberti Birkii, mira post mortem apparitione,
per A. G. N."
This Humbert Birck was a burgess of note, in the town of Oppenheim,
and master of a country house called Berenbach; he died in the month
of November, 1620, a few days before the feast of St. Martin. On the
Saturday which followed his funeral, they began to hear certain noises
in the house where he had lived with his first wife; for at the time
of his death he had married again.
The master of this house, suspecting that it was his brother-in-law
who haunted it, said to him, "If you are Humbert, my brother-in-law,
strike three times against the wall." At the same time, they heard
three strokes only, for ordinarily he struck several times. Sometimes,
also, he was heard at the fountain where they went for water, and he
frightened all the neighborhood; he did not always utter articulate
sounds, but he would knock repeatedly, make a noise, or a groan, or a
shrill whistle, or sounds as a person in lamentation; all this lasted
for six months, and then it suddenly ceased. At the end of a year he
made himself heard more loudly than ever. The master of the house, and
his domestics, the boldest amongst them, at last asked him what he
wished for, and in what they could help him? He replied, but in a
hoarse, low tone, "Let the cure come here next Saturday with my
children." The cure being indisposed, could not go thither on the
appointed day; but he went on the Monday following, accompanied by a
good many people.
Humbert received notice of this, and he answered in a very
intelligible manner. They asked him if he required any masses to be
said? He asked for three. Then they wished to know if alms should be
given in his name? He said, "I wish them to give eight measures of
corn to the poor, and that my widow may give something to all my
children." He afterwards ordered that what had been badly distributed
in his succession, which amounted to about twenty florins, should be
set aside. They asked why he infested that house rather than another?
He answered that he was forced to it by conjuration and maledictions.
Had he received the sacraments of the Church? "I received them from
the cure, your predecessor." He was made to say the _Pater_ and the
_Ave_; he recited them with difficulty, saying that he was prevented
by an evil spirit, who would not let him tell the cure many other
things.
The cure, who was named Premontre, of the abbey of Toussaints, came to
the monastery on Tuesday the 12th of January, 1621, in order to take
the opinion of the Superior on this singular affair; they let him have
three monks to help him with their counsels. They all repaired to the
house wherein Humbert continued his importunity; for nothing that he
had requested had as yet been executed. A great number of those who
lived near were assembled in the house. The master of it told Humbert
to rap against the wall; he knocked very gently: then the master
desired him to go and fetch a stone and knock louder; he deferred a
little, as if he had been to pick up a stone, and gave a stronger blow
upon the wall: the master whispered in his neighbor's ear as softly as
he could that he should rap seven times, and directly he rapped seven
times. He always showed great respect to the priests, and did not
reply to them so boldly as to the laity; and when he was asked
why--"It is," said he, "because they have with them the Holy
Sacrament." However, they had it no otherwise than because they had
said mass that day. The next day the three masses which he had
required were said, and all was disposed for a pilgrimage, which he
had specified in the last conversation they had with him; and they
promised to give alms for him the first day possible. From that time
Humbert haunted them no more.
The same monk, Premontre, relates that on the 9th of September, 1625,
a man named John Steinlin died at a place called Altheim, in the
diocese of Constance. Steinlin was a man in easy circumstances, and a
common-councilman of his town. Some days after his death he appeared
during the night to a tailor, named Simon Bauh, in the form of a man
surrounded by a sombre flame, like that of lighted sulphur, going and
coming in his own house, but without speaking. Bauh, who was
disquieted by this sight, resolved to ask him what he could do to
serve him. He found an opportunity to do so the 17th of November in
the same year, 1625; for, as he was reposing at night near his stove,
a little after eleven o'clock, he beheld this spectre environed by
fire like sulphur, who came into his room, going and coming, shutting
and opening the windows. The tailor asked him what he desired. He
replied, in a hoarse, interrupted voice, that he could help very much,
if he would; "but," added he, "do not promise me to do so, if you are
not resolved to execute your promises." "I will execute them, if they
are not beyond my power," replied he.
"I wish, then," replied the spirit, "that you would cause a mass to be
said in the chapel of the Virgin at Rotembourg; I made a vow to that
intent during my life, and I have not acquitted myself of it.
Moreover, you must have two masses said at Altheim, the one of the
Defunct and the other of the Virgin; and as I did not always pay my
servants exactly, I wish that a quarter of corn should be distributed
to the poor." Simon promised to satisfy him on all these points. The
spectre held out his hand, as if to ensure his promise; but Simon,
fearing that some harm might happen to himself, tendered him the board
which come to hand, and the spectre having touched it, left the print
of his hand with the four fingers and thumb, as if fire had been
there, and had left a pretty deep impression. After that, he vanished
with so much noise that it was heard three houses off.
I related in the first edition of this dissertation on the return of
spirits, an adventure which happened at Fontenoy on the Moselle, where
it was affirmed that a spirit had in the same manner made the
impression of its hand on a handkerchief, and had left the impress of
the hand and of the palm well marked. The handkerchief is in the hands
of one Casmar, a constable living at Toul, who received it from his
uncle, the cure of Fontenoy; but, on a careful investigation of the
thing, it was found that a young blacksmith, who courted a young girl
to whom the handkerchief belonged, had forged an iron hand to print it
on the handkerchief, and persuade people of the reality of the
apparition.
At St. Avold, a town of German Lorraine, in the house of the cure,
named M. Royer de Monelos, there was something very similar which
appears to have been performed by a servant girl, sixteen years of
age, who heard and saw, as she said, a woman who made a great noise in
the house; but she was the only person who saw and heard her, although
others heard also the noise which was made in the house. They saw also
the young servant, as it were, pushed, dragged, and struck by the
spirit, but never saw it, nor yet heard his voice. This contrivance
began on the night of the 31st of January, 1694, and finished about
the end of February the same year. The cure conjured the spirit in
German and French. He made no reply to the exorcisms in French but
sighs; and as they terminated the German exorcism, saying, "Let every
spirit praise the Lord," the girl said that the spirit had said, "And
me also;" but she alone heard it.
Some monks of the abbey were requested to come also and exorcise the
spirit. They came, and with them some burgesses of note of St. Avold;
and neither before nor after the exorcisms did they see or hear
anything, except that the servant girl seemed to be pushed violently,
and the doors were roughly knocked at. By dint of exorcisms they
forced the spirit, or rather the servant who alone heard and saw it,
to declare that she was neither maid nor wife; that she was called
Claire Margaret Henri; that a hundred and fifty years ago she had died
at the age of twenty, after having lived servant at the cure of St.
Avold's first of all for eight years, and that she had died at
Guenviller of grief and regret for having killed her own child. At
last, the servant maintaining that she was not a good spirit, she said
to her, "Give me hold of your petticoat (or skirt)." She would do no
such thing; at the same time the spirit said to her, "Look at your
petticoat; my mark is upon it." She looked and saw upon her skirt the
five fingers of the hand so distinctly that it did not appear possible
for any living creature to have marked them better. This affair lasted
about two months; and at this day, at St. Avold, as in all the
country, they talk of the spirit of St. Avold as of a game played by
that girl, in concert, doubtless, with some persons who wished to
divert themselves by puzzling the good cure with his sisters, and all
those who fell into the trap. They printed at Cusson's, at Nancy, in
1718, a relation of this event, which at first gained credence with a
number of people, but who were quite undeceived in the end.
I shall add to this story that which is related by Philip
Melancthon,[366] whose testimony in this matter ought not to be
doubted. He says that his aunt having lost her husband when she was
enceinte and near her time, she saw one day, towards evening, two
persons come into her house; one of them wore the form of her deceased
husband, the other that of a tall Franciscan. At first she was
frightened, but her husband reassured her, and told her that he had
important things to communicate to her; at the same time he begged the
Franciscan to pass into the next room, whilst he imparted his wishes
to his wife. Then he begged of her to have some masses said for the
relief of his soul, and tried to persuade her to give her hand without
fear; as she was unwilling to give it, he assured her she would feel
no pain. She gave him her hand, and her hand felt no pain when she
withdrew it, but was so blackened that it remained discolored all her
life. After that, the husband called in the Franciscan; they went out,
and disappeared. Melancthon believes that these were two spectres; he
adds that he knows several similar instances related by persons worthy
of credit.
If these two men were only spectres, having neither flesh nor bones,
how could one of them imprint a black color on the hand of this widow?
How could he who appeared to the tailor Bauh imprint his hand on the
board which he presented to him? If they were evil genii, why did they
ask for masses and order restitution? Does Satan destroy his own
empire, and does he inspire the living with the idea of doing good
actions and of fearing the pains which the sins of the wicked are
punished by God?
But on looking at the affair in another light, may not the demon in
this kind of apparitions, by which he asks for masses and prayers,
intend to foment superstition, by making the living believe that
masses and prayers made for them after their death would free them
from the pains of hell, even if they died in habitual crime and
impenitence? Several instances are cited of rascals who have appeared
after their death, asking for prayers like the bad rich man, and to
whom prayers and masses can be of no avail from the unhappy state in
which they died. Thus, in all this, Satan seeks to establish his
kingdom, and not to destroy it or diminish it.
We shall speak hereafter, in the Dissertation on Vampires, of
apparitions of dead persons who have been seen, and acted like living
ones in their own bodies.
The same Melancthon relates that a monk came one day and rapped loudly
at the door of Luther's dwelling, asking to speak to him; he entered
and said, "I entertained some popish errors upon which I shall be very
glad to confer with you." "Speak," said Luther. He at first proposed
to him several syllogisms, to which he easily replied; he then
proposed others, that were more difficult. Luther, being annoyed,
answered him hastily, "Go, you embarrass me; I have something else to
do just now besides answering you." However, he rose and replied to
his arguments. At the same time, having remarked that the pretended
monk had hands like the claws of a bird, he said to him, "Art not thou
he of whom it is said, in Genesis, 'He who shall be born of woman
shall break the head of the serpent?'" The demon added, "But _thou_
shalt engulf them all." At these words the confused demon retired
angrily and with much fracas; he left the room infested with a very
bad smell, which was perceptible for some days.
Luther, who assumes so much the _esprit fort_, and inveighs with so
much warmth against private masses wherein they pray for the souls of
the defunct,[367] maintains boldly that all the apparitions of spirits
which we read in the lives of the saints, and who ask for masses for
the repose of their souls, are only illusions of Satan, who appears to
deceive the simple, and inspire them with useless confidence in the
sacrifice of the mass. Whence he concludes that it is better at once
to deny absolutely that there is any purgatory.
He, then, did not deny either apparitions or the operations of the
devil; and he maintained that Ecolampadius died under the blows of the
devil,[368] whose efforts he could not rebut; and, speaking of
himself, he affirms that awaking once with a start in the middle of
the night, the devil appeared, to argue against him, when he was
seized with moral terror. The arguments of the demon were so pressing
that they left him no repose of mind; the sound of his powerful voice,
his overwhelming manner of disputing when the question and the reply
were perceived at once, left him no breathing time. He says again that
the devil can kill and strangle, and without doing all that, press a
man so home by his arguments that it is enough to kill one; "as I,"
says he, "have experienced several times." After such avowals, what
can we think of the doctrine of this chief of the innovators?
Footnotes:
[366] Philipp. Melancth. Theolog. c. i. Oper. fol. 326, 327.
[367] Martin Luther, de Abroganda Missa Privata, part. ii.
[368] Ibid. tom. vii. 226.