sexes, many of whom, like the human race, traced their lineage up to Adam,
who after the fall was led astray by devils, assuming the forms of
beautiful women to deceive him. These demons "increased and multiplied"
among themselves with the most extraordinary rapidity. Their bodies were
of the thin air, and they could pass through the hardest substances with
the greatest ease. They had no fixed residence or abiding place, but were
tossed to and fro in the immensity of space. When thrown together in great
multitudes, they excited whirlwinds in the air and tempests in the waters,
and took delight in destroying the beauty of nature and the monuments of
the industry of man. Although they increased among themselves like
ordinary creatures, their numbers were daily augmented by the souls of
wicked men, of children still-born, of women who died in childbed, and of
persons killed in duels. The whole air was supposed to be full of them,
and many unfortunate men and women drew them by thousands into their
mouths and nostrils at every inspiration; and the demons, lodging in their
bowels or other parts of their bodies, tormented them with pains and
diseases of every kind, and sent them frightful dreams. St. Gregory of
Nice relates a story of a nun who forgot to say her _benedicite_ and make
the sign of the cross before she sat down to supper, and who in
consequence swallowed a demon concealed among the leaves of a lettuce.
Most persons said the number of these demons was so great that they could
not be counted, but Wierus asserted that they amounted to no more than
seven millions four hundred and five thousand nine hundred and twenty-six;
and that they were divided into seventy-two companies or battalions, to
each of which there was a prince or captain. They could assume any shape
they pleased. When they were male, they were called incubi; and when
female, succubi. They sometimes made themselves hideous; and at other
times they assumed shapes of such transcendent loveliness, that mortal
eyes never saw beauty to compete with theirs.
Although the devil and his legions could appear to mankind at any time, it
was generally understood that he preferred the night between Friday and
Saturday. If Satan himself appeared in human shape, he was never perfectly
and in all respects like a man. He was either too black or too white, too
large or too small, or some of his limbs were out of proportion to the
rest of his body. Most commonly his feet were deformed, and he was obliged
to curl up and conceal his tail in some part of his habiliments; for, take
what shape he would, he could not get rid of that encumbrance. He
sometimes changed himself into a tree or a river; and upon one occasion he
transformed himself into a barrister, as we learn from Wierus, book iv.
chapter 9. In the reign of Philippe le Bel, he appeared to a monk in the
shape of a dark man riding a tall black horse, then as a friar, afterwards
as an ass and finally as a coach-wheel. Instances are not rare in which
both he and his inferior demons have taken the form of handsome young men,
and, successfully concealing their tails, have married beautiful young
women, who have had children by them. Such children were easily
recognisable by their continual shrieking, by their requiring five nurses
to suckle them, and by their never growing fat.
All these demons were at the command of any individual who would give up
his immortal soul to the prince of evil for the privilege of enjoying
their services for a stated period. The wizard or witch could send them to
execute the most difficult missions: whatever the witch commanded was
performed, except it was a good action, in which case the order was
disobeyed, and evil worked upon herself instead.
At intervals, according to the pleasure of Satan, there was a general
meeting of the demons and all the witches. This meeting was called the
Sabbath, from its taking place on the Saturday, or immediately after
midnight on Fridays. These sabbaths were sometimes held for one district,
sometimes for another, and once at least every year it was held on the
Brocken, or among other high mountains, as a general sabbath of the fiends
for the whole of Christendom.
The devil generally chose a place where four roads met as the scene of
this assembly, or if that was not convenient, the neighbourhood of a lake.
Upon this spot nothing would ever afterwards grow, as the hot feet of the
demons and witches burnt the principle of fecundity from the earth, and
rendered it barren for ever. When orders had been once 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, as a
punishment for their inattention or want of punctuality.
In France and England the witches were supposed to ride uniformly upon
broomsticks; 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
keyhole, and of egress by the chimney, up which they flew, broom and all,
with the greatest ease. To prevent the absence of the witches from 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 of the sabbath 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 wizards and 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 nicknames 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 these words,
"Alegremos, Alegremos!
Que gente va tenemos!"
In the course of an hour or two they generally became wearied of this
violent exercise, and then they all sat down and recounted the evil deeds
they had done since their 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
till 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 to reward them with the flesh of unbaptised babes
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, preparation was 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, "_In nomine Patricâ, Aragueaco Petrica,
agora! agora! Valentia, jouando goure gaits goustia!_" which meant, "In
the name of Patrick, Petrick of Aragon, now, now, all our ills are over!"
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 which prevailed for many centuries nearly
all over Europe, and which is far from eradicated even at this day. It was
varied in some respects in several countries, but the main points were the
same in France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Spain, and the far North of
Europe.
The early annals of France abound with stories of supposed sorcery, but it
was not until the time of Charlemagne that the crime acquired any great
importance. "This monarch," says M. Jules Garinet,[24] "had several times
given orders that all necromancers, astrologers, and witches should be
driven from his states; but as the number of criminals augmented daily, he
found it necessary at last to resort to severer measures. In consequence,
he published several edicts, which may be found at length in the
_Capitulaire de Baluse_. By these, every sort of magic, enchantment, and
witchcraft was forbidden; and the punishment of death decreed against
those who in any way evoked the devil, compounded love-philters, afflicted
either man or woman with barrenness, troubled the atmosphere, excited
tempests, destroyed the fruits of the earth, dried up the milk of cows, or
tormented their fellow-creatures with sores and diseases. All persons
found guilty of exercising these execrable arts were to be executed
immediately upon conviction, that the earth might be rid of the burden and
curse of their presence; and those even who consulted them might also be
punished with death."[25]
[24] _Histoire de la Magie en France_. Rois de la seconde race,
p. 29.
[25] M. Michaud, in his _History of the Crusades_, M. Guinguené,
in his _Literary History of Italy_, and some other critics,
have objected to Tasso's poem, that he has attributed to the
Crusaders a belief in magic, which did not exist at that
time. If these critics had referred to the edicts of
Charlemagne, they would have seen that Tasso was right, and
that a disposition too eager to spy out imperfections in a
great work was leading themselves into error.
After this time, prosecutions for witchcraft are continually mentioned,
especially by the French historians. It was a crime imputed
with so much ease, and repelled with so much difficulty, that the
powerful, whenever they wanted to ruin the weak, and could fix no
other imputation upon them, had only to accuse them of witchcraft
to ensure their destruction. Instances in which this crime was made
the pretext for the most violent persecution, both of individuals and
of communities, whose real offences were purely political or religious,
must be familiar to every reader. The extermination of the Stedinger
in 1234, of the Templars from 1307 to 1313, the execution of Joan
of Arc in 1429, and the unhappy scenes of Arras in 1459, are the
most prominent. The first of these is perhaps the least known, but
is not among the least remarkable. The following account, from Dr.
Kortüm's interesting history[26] of the republican confederacies of the
middle ages, will shew the horrible convenience of imputations of
witchcraft when royal or priestly wolves wanted a pretext for a quarrel
with the sheep.
[26] _Entstehungsgeschichte der freistädlischen Bünde im
Mittelalter_, von Dr. F. Kortüm. 1827.
The Frieslanders, inhabiting the district from the Weser to the Zuydersee,
had long been celebrated for their attachment to freedom, and their
successful struggles in its defence. As early as the eleventh century they
had formed a general confederacy against the encroachments of the Normans
and the Saxons, which was divided into seven _seelands_, holding annually
a diet under a large oak-tree at Aurich, near the Upstalboom. Here they
managed their own affairs, without the control of the clergy and ambitious
nobles who surrounded them, to the great scandal of the latter. They
already had true notions of a representative government. The deputies of
the people levied the necessary taxes, deliberated on the affairs of the
community, and performed, in their simple and patriarchal manner, nearly
all the functions of the representative assemblies of the present day.
Finally, the Archbishop of Bremen, together with the Count of Oldenburg
and other neighbouring potentates, formed a league against that section of
the Frieslanders known by the name of the Stedinger, and succeeded, after
harassing them and sowing dissensions among them for many years, in
bringing them under the yoke. But the Stedinger, devotedly attached to
their ancient laws, by which they had attained a degree of civil and
religious liberty very uncommon in that age, did not submit without a
violent struggle. They arose in insurrection in the year 1204, in defence
of the ancient customs of their country, refused to pay taxes to the
feudal chiefs or tithes to the clergy--who had forced themselves into
their peaceful retreats--and drove out many of their oppressors. For a
period of eight-and-twenty years the brave Stedinger continued the
struggle single-handed against the forces of the Archbishops of Bremen and
the Counts of Oldenburg, and destroyed, in the year 1232, the strong
castle of Slutterberg, near Delmenhorst, built by the latter nobleman as a
position from which he could send out his marauders to plunder and destroy
the possessions of the peasantry.
The invincible courage of these poor people proving too strong for their
oppressors to cope with by the ordinary means of warfare, the Archbishop
of Bremen applied to Pope Gregory IX. for his spiritual aid against them.
That prelate entered cordially into the cause, and launching forth his
anathema against the Stedinger as heretics and witches, encouraged all
true believers to assist in their extermination. A large body of thieves
and fanatics broke into their country in the year 1233, killing and
burning wherever they went, and not sparing either women or children, the
sick or the aged, in their rage. The Stedinger, however, rallied in great
force, routed their invaders, and killed in battle their leader, Count
Burckhardt of Oldenburg, with many inferior chieftains.
Again the pope was applied to, and a crusade against the Stedinger was
preached in all that part of Germany. The pope wrote to all the bishops
and leaders of the faithful an exhortation to arm, to root out from the
land those abominable witches and wizards. "The Stedinger," said his
holiness, "seduced by the devil, have abjured all the laws of God and man,
slandered the Church, insulted the holy sacraments, consulted witches to
raise evil spirits, shed blood like water, taken the lives of priests, and
concocted an infernal scheme to propagate the worship of the devil, whom
they adore under the name of Asmodi. The devil appears to them in
different shapes,--sometimes as a goose or a duck, and at others in the
figure of a pale black-eyed youth, with a melancholy aspect, whose embrace
fills their hearts with eternal hatred against the holy Church of Christ.
This devil presides at their sabbaths, when they all kiss him and dance
around him. He then envelopes them in total darkness, and they all, male
and female, give themselves up to the grossest and most disgusting
debauchery."
In consequence of these letters of the pope, the emperor of Germany,
Frederic II., also pronounced his ban against them. The Bishops of
Ratzebourg, Lubeck, Osnabrück, Munster, and Minden took up arms to
exterminate them, aided by the Duke of Brabant, the Counts of Holland, of
Clêves, of the Mark, of Oldenburg, of Egmond, of Diest, and many other
powerful nobles. An army of forty thousand men was soon collected, which
marched, under the command of the Duke of Brabant, into the country of the
Stedinger. The latter mustered vigorously in defence of their lives and
liberties, but could raise no greater force, including every man capable
of bearing arms, than eleven thousand men to cope against the overwhelming
numbers of their foe. They fought with the energy of despair, but all in
vain. Eight thousand of them were slain on the field of battle; the whole
race was exterminated; and the enraged conquerors scoured the country in
all directions, slew the women and children and old men, drove away the
cattle, fired the woods and cottages, and made a total waste of the land.
[Illustration: PHILIP IV.]
Just as absurd and effectual was the charge brought against the Templars
in 1307, when they had rendered themselves obnoxious to the potentates and
prelacy of Christendom. Their wealth, their power, their pride, and their
insolence had raised up enemies on every side; and every sort of
accusation was made against them, but failed to work their overthrow,
until the terrible cry of witchcraft was let loose upon them. This
effected its object, and the Templars were extirpated. They were accused
of having sold their souls to the devil, and of celebrating all the
infernal mysteries of the witches' sabbath. It was pretended that, when
they admitted a novice into their order, they forced him to renounce his
salvation and curse Jesus Christ; that they then made him submit to many
unholy and disgusting ceremonies, and forced him to kiss the superior on
the cheek, the navel, and the breech, and spit three times upon a
crucifix; that all the members were forbidden to have connexion with
women, but might give themselves up without restraint to every species of
unmentionable debauchery; that when by any mischance a Templar infringed
this order, and a child was born, the whole order met, and tossed it about
like a shuttlecock from one to the other until it expired; that they then
roasted it by a slow fire, and with the fat which trickled from it
anointed the hair and beard of a large image of the devil. It was also
said that when one of the knights died, his body was burnt into a powder,
and then mixed with wine and drunk by every member of the order. Philip
IV., who, to exercise his own implacable hatred, invented, in all
probability, the greater part of these charges, issued orders for the
immediate arrest of all the Templars in his dominions. The pope afterwards
took up the cause with almost as much fervour as the king of France; and
in every part of Europe the Templars were thrown into prison, and their
goods and estates confiscated. Hundreds of them, when put to the rack,
confessed even the most preposterous of the charges against them, and by
so doing increased the popular clamour and the hopes of their enemies. It
is true that, when removed from the rack, they denied all they had
previously confessed; but this circumstance only increased the outcry, and
was numbered as an additional crime against them. They were considered in
a worse light than before, and condemned forthwith to the flames as
relapsed heretics. Fifty-nine of these unfortunate victims were all burned
together by a slow fire in a field in the suburbs of Paris, protesting to
the very last moment of their lives their innocence of the crimes imputed
to them, and refusing to accept of pardon upon condition of acknowledging
themselves guilty. Similar scenes were enacted in the provinces; and for
four years hardly a month passed without witnessing the execution of one
or more of these unhappy men. Finally, in 1313, the last scene of this
tragedy closed by the burning of the Grand-Master, Jacques de Molay, and
his companion Guy, the commander of Normandy. Any thing more atrocious it
is impossible to conceive,--disgraceful alike to the monarch who
originated, the pope who supported, and the age which tolerated the
monstrous iniquity. That the malice of a few could invent such a charge is
a humiliating thought for the lover of his species; but that millions of
mankind should credit it is still more so.
The execution of Joan of Arc is the next most notorious example which
history affords us of the imputation of witchcraft against a political
enemy. Instances of similar persecution, in which this crime was made the
pretext for the gratification of political or religious hatred, might be
multiplied to a great extent. But it is better to proceed at once to the
consideration of the bull of Pope Innocent, the torch that set fire to the
long-laid train, and caused so fearful an explosion over the Christian
world. It will be necessary, however, to go back for some years anterior
to that event, the better to understand the motives that influenced the
Church in the promulgation of that fearful document.
Towards the close of the fourteenth and beginning of the fifteenth
century, many witches were burned in different parts of Europe. As a
natural consequence of the severe persecution, the crime, or the
pretenders to it, increased. Those who found themselves accused and
threatened with the penalties, if they happened to be persons of a bad and
malicious disposition, wished they had the power imputed to them, that
they might be revenged upon their persecutors. Numerous instances are upon
record of half-crazed persons being found muttering the spells which were
supposed to raise the evil one. When religion and law alike recognised the
crime, it is no wonder that the weak in reason and the strong in
imagination, especially when they were of a nervous temperament, fancied
themselves endued with the terrible powers of which all the world was
speaking. The belief of their neighbours did not lag behind their own, and
execution was the speedy consequence.
[Illustration: JOAN OF ARC.]
As the fear of witchcraft increased, the Catholic clergy strove to fix the
imputation of it upon those religious sects, the pioneers of the
Reformation, who began about this time to be formidable to the Church of
Rome. If a charge of heresy could not ensure their destruction, that of
sorcery and witchcraft never failed. In the year 1459, a devoted
congregation of the Waldenses at Arras, who used to repair at night to
worship God in their own manner in solitary places, fell victims to an
accusation of sorcery. It was rumoured in Arras that in the desert places
to which they retired the devil appeared before them in human form, and
read from a large book his laws and ordinances, to which they all promised
obedience; that he then distributed money and food among them, to bind
them to his service, which done, they gave themselves up to every species
of lewdness and debauchery. Upon these rumours several creditable persons
in Arras were seized and imprisoned, together with a number of decrepit
and idiotic old women. The rack, that convenient instrument for making the
accused confess any thing, was of course put in requisition. Monstrelet,
in his chronicle, says that they were tortured until some of them admitted
the truth of the whole accusations, and said, besides, that they had seen
and recognised in their nocturnal assemblies many persons of rank; many
prelates, seigneurs, governors of bailliages, and mayors of cities, being
such names as the examiners had themselves suggested to the victims.
Several who had been thus informed against were thrown into prison, and so
horribly tortured, that reason fled, and in their ravings of pain they
also confessed their midnight meetings with the devil, and the oaths they
had taken to serve him. Upon these confessions judgment was pronounced.
The poor old women, as usual in such cases, were hanged and burned in the
market-place; the more wealthy delinquents were allowed to escape upon
payment of large sums. It was soon after universally recognised that these
trials had been conducted in the most odious manner, and that the judges
had motives of private vengeance against many of the more influential
persons who had been implicated. The parliament of Paris afterwards
declared the sentence illegal, and the judges iniquitous; but its _arrêt_
was too late to be of service even to those who had paid the fine, or to
punish the authorities who had misconducted themselves, for it was not
delivered until thirty-two years after the executions had taken place.
In the mean time, accusations of witchcraft spread rapidly in France,
Italy, and Germany. Strange to say, that although in the first instance
chiefly directed against heretics, the latter were as firm believers in
the crime as even the Catholics themselves. In after times we also find
that the Lutherans and Calvinists became greater witch-burners than ever
the Romanists had been, so deeply was the prejudice rooted. Every other
point of belief was in dispute, but that was considered by every sect to
be as well established as the authenticity of the Scriptures or the
existence of a God.