After a painting by H. Steinheil.
]
“Sometimes, when I read and think about these frightful things, it seems
to me that I have suffered all these horrors myself. It seems sometimes,
as though I had stood upon the shore of exile and gazed with tearful
eyes toward home and native land; as though my nails had been torn from
my hands, and into the bleeding quick needles had been thrust; as though
my feet had been crushed in iron boots; as though I had been chained in
the cell of the Inquisition and listened with dying ears for the coming
footsteps of release; as though I had stood upon the scaffold and had
seen the glittering axe fall upon me; as though I had been upon the rack
and had seen, bending above me, the white faces of hypocrite priests; as
though I had been taken from my fireside, from my wife and children,
taken to the public square, chained, as though fagots had been piled
about me; as though the flames had climbed around my limbs and scorched
my eyes to blindness, and as though my ashes had been scattered to the
four winds, by all the countless hands of hate.”
From the records of trials for witchcraft still preserved in the
archives of many European cities, it appears that the majority of
victims were aged women; very frequently they had reared families and
spent their youth and beauty in this self-denying work. But there are
also many cases of the torturing of mere children; in several such cases
little girls of seven and nine years gave affirmative answers to
questions, as to whether they had held sexual intercourse with the
devil. They even admitted to have given birth to children in consequence
of such intercourse. A record covering the years 1627, 1628 and January,
1629, states that during this period in Wurzburg, Bavaria, one hundred
and sixty-three persons were tortured, and burnt at the stake. Among
them were seventy-two women, and twenty-six children under fourteen
years. Among the latter were little girls of nine years or less, and one
was a little blind girl.
On March 7, 1679, in Heimfels, Tyrol, a poor woman, Emerencia Pichler,
was brought before the inquisitors. In spite of her solemn pledges by
God and the Virgin that she knew nothing about witchcraft she was
submitted to torture. On the third day of her sufferings the inquisitors
wrung from the unfortunate creature a confession, that Satan had visited
her one day, wearing a blue jacket, a white vest and red socks. In his
company she made a flight to a high mountain, both riding on the same
oven-shovel. Here they took part in the witches-sabbath, during which
several infants were killed and eaten. The remains were used in
concocting all kinds of ointments and powders, to be used in the
producing of thunderstorms and plagues. The most horrible part of these
confessions was that the woman, when questioned about accomplices, in
her agonies named twenty-four persons, among them her own four children.
Of course the poor woman withdrew her confessions, when the tortures
were interrupted. Nevertheless she was found guilty. On her way to the
place of execution she was twitched with red-hot pincers and afterwards
burnt at the stake.
Her two oldest children, a boy of fourteen and a girl of twelve, were
beheaded and their bodies burnt to ashes on July 29, 1679. Their little
brother Sebastian, nine years old, and his sister Maria, six years old,
were terribly flogged and forced to attend the execution of their mother
and playmates.
Of all the other “accomplices,” named by the woman, not one escaped the
clutches of the inquisitors and death at the stake.
There are on record thousands and thousands of similar cases, many of
them horrible beyond belief and defying description. No country in
Europe escaped the visitation of such inquisitors, many of whom
journeyed from place to place in search of victims. In numerous cities
the arrival of these fiends was regarded with greater fear than famine
or pestilence, especially by women, against whom their malice was
chiefly directed. That there was cause for such fear, is proven by the
fact that in Treves seven thousand women lost their lives. In Geneva
five thousand were executed in a single month. And in Toulouse, France,
four hundred witches were burnt in one day, dying the horrible death by
fire for a crime which never existed save in the imagination of their
benighted persecutors.—
Among the countless women burnt as witches was also Jeanette d’Arc, who
to-day is glorified by the French nation as =Jeanne d’Arc=, the Maid of
Orleans, and who has been lately canonized. Born about 1411 at Dom-Remy,
a small village in the Champagne, she witnessed the conquest of Northern
France by the English. While brooding over this mishap, it became fixed
in her mind that she was destined to deliver France from these invaders.
This impression was strengthened by a number of visions, in which she
believed to see St. Michael, the archangel of judgments and of battles,
who commanded her to take up arms and hurry to the assistance of the
king. In February, 1429, she set out on her perilous journey to the
court of the Dauphin at Chinon. Here she succeeded in convincing the
king of the divinity of her mission, so that she was permitted to start
with an army of 5000 men for the relief of Orleans. Clothed like a man
in a coat of mail, and carrying a white standard of her own design,
embroidered with lilies and the image of God, she inspired her followers
with a religious enthusiasm. Favored by good luck she entered the
besieged city on the 29th of April, 1429, and by incessant attacks so
discouraged the enemy that they withdrew on the 8th of May. However, in
several other enterprises her luck failed, and on the 24th of May, after
an unsuccessful sortie, she was taken prisoner through treachery,
because, being pursued by the enemy, some Frenchmen shut the gates of
the fortress into which she should have escaped.
With her capture the halo of supernatural power that had surrounded her,
vanished. Accused of being a heretic and a witch, she was turned over to
the Inquisition for trial. Her examination lasted six days. Among other
insidious and indelicate questions on the subject of her visions she was
asked whether, when St. Michael appeared to her, he was naked, and if
she had entertained sexual intercourse with the devil. But no point
seemed graver to the judges than the sin of having assumed male attire.
The judges told her that according to the canons, those who thus change
the habit of their sex, are abominable in the sight of God.
The decision to which the inquisitors finally came, was that the girl
was wholly the devil’s; was impious in regard to her parents; had
thirsted for Christian blood, adhered to a king who was a heretic and
schismatic, and was herself a heretic, apostate and idolator. For all
these crimes she was sentenced to death, and burnt alive on the market
place of Rouen, May 30th, 1431.—
As has been stated already persecutions for witchcraft were not confined
to European countries, but were also carried on by Christian priests and
judges in all colonies established by Europeans on other continents. In
the British colonies of North America the most sensational trial for
witchcraft was that in Salem, Massachusetts, about which J. M. Buckley
in an article written for the Century Magazine (Vol. XLIII, pp. 408–422)
speaks as follows:
“The first settlers of New England brought across the Atlantic the
sentiments which had been formed in their minds in Great Britain and on
the Continent, as well as the tendencies which were the common heritage
of such an ancestry. They were a very religious, and also a credulous
people; having few books, no papers, little news, and virtually no
science; removed by thousands of miles and months of time from Old-World
civilization; living in the midst of an untamed wilderness, surrounded
by Indians whom they believed to be under the control of the devil, and
whose medicine-men they accounted wizards. Such a mental and moral soil
was adapted to the growth of witchcraft, and to create an invincible
determination to inflict the punishments pronounced against it in the
Old Testament; but the co-operation of various exciting causes was
necessary to a general agitation and a real epidemic.
[Illustration:
WOMEN, CONDEMNED FOR WITCHCRAFT, BURNT AT THE STAKE.
]
“Salem witchcraft thus arose: The Reverend Mr. Parris, minister of the
church in Salem village, had formerly lived in the West Indies, and
brought some negro slaves back with him. These slaves talked with the
children of the neighborhood, some of whom could not read, while the
others had but little to read. In the winter of 1691–92 they formed a
kind of circle which met at Mr. Parris’ house, probably unknown to him,
to practice palmistry and fortune-telling, and learn what they could of
magic and necromancy.
“Before the winter was over some of them fully believed that they were
under the influence of spirits. Epidemic hysteria arose; physicians
could not explain their state; the cry was raised that they were
bewitched; and some began to make charges against those whom they
disliked of having bewitched them. In the end those of a stronger mind
among them became managers and plotters directing the rest at their
will. By the time public attention was attracted Mr. Parris had come to
the conclusion that they were bewitched and, having a theory to
maintain, encouraged and flattered them, and by his questions made even
those who had not believed themselves bewitched think that they were.
“From March, 1692, to May, 1693, about two hundred persons were
imprisoned. Of these some escaped by the help of friends, some by
bribing their jailors; a number died in prison, and one hundred and
fifty were set free at the close of the excitement by the proclamation
of the Governor. Nineteen were executed, among them George Burroughs, a
minister of the Gospel.
“When it is remembered that a number of these persons were among the
most pious and amiable of the people of Salem; that they were related by
blood, marriage, friendship, and Christian fellowship to many who cried
out against them, both as accusers and supporters of the prosecutions,
the transaction must be classed among the darkest in human history.”
Several historians have made attempts to ascertain the number of men,
women and children, who lost their lives through this abominable
superstition. O. Waechter, who published a book about this subject,
calculates that the number of victims must have been at least three
millions! Imagine, what a terrible amount of sighs, tears, and physical
and mental agonies this number represents!
Women in Modern Times.
[Illustration:
DISPOSING OF EXHAUSTED CAPTIVES.
]