great cruelty exercised in the torture of suspected persons, and
convinced at the same time that no righteous judge would consider a
confession extorted by pain, and contradictory in itself, as sufficient
evidence to justify the execution of any accused person. It is related
of the Duke of Brunswick that he invited two learned Jesuits to his
house, who were known to entertain strong opinions upon the subject of
witchcraft, with a view of showing them the cruelty and absurdity of
such practises. A woman lay in the dungeon of the city accused of
witchcraft, and the Duke, having given previous instructions to the
officiating torturers, went with the two Jesuits to hear her
confession. By a series of artful leading questions, the poor creature,
in the extremity of her anguish, was induced to confess that she had
often attended the sabbath of the fiends upon the Brocken--that she had
seen two Jesuits there, who had made themselves notorious, even among
witches, for their abominations--that she had seen them assume the form
of goats, wolves, and other animals; and that many noted witches had
borne them five, six, and seven children at a birth, who had heads like
toads and legs like spiders. Being asked if the Jesuits were far from
her, she replied that they were in the room beside her. The Duke of
Brunswick led his astounded friends away, and explained the stratagem.
This was convincing proof to both of them that thousands of persons had
suffered unjustly; they knew their own innocence, and shuddered to
think what their fate might have been, if an enemy, instead of a
friend, had put such a confession into the mouth of a criminal. One of
these Jesuits was Frederick Spee, the author of the "Cautio
Criminalis," published in 1631. This work, exposing the horrors of the
witch trials, had a most salutary effect in Germany: Schonbrunn,
Archbishop and Elector of Menz, abolished the torture entirely within
his dominions, and his example was imitated by the Duke of Brunswick
and other potentates. The number of supposed witches immediately
diminished, and the violence of the mania began to subside. The Elector
of Brandenburg issued a rescript, in 1654, with respect to the case of
Anna of Ellerbrock, a supposed witch, forbidding the use of torture,
and stigmatizing the swimming of witches as an unjust, cruel, and
deceitful test.
This was the beginning of the dawn after the long-protracted darkness.
The tribunals no longer condemned witches to execution by hundreds in a
year. Wurzburg, the grand theatre of the burnings, burned but one,
where, forty years previously, it had burned three score. From 1660 to
1670, the electoral chambers in all parts of Germany constantly
commuted the sentence of death passed by the provincial tribunals into
imprisonment for life, or burning on the cheek.
A truer philosophy had gradually disabused the public mind. Learned
men freed themselves from the trammels of a debasing superstition, and
governments, both civil and ecclesiastical, repressed the popular
delusion they had so long encouraged. The Parliament of Normandy
condemned a number of women to death, in the year 1670, on the old
charge of riding on broomsticks to the Domdaniel; but Louis XIV.
commuted the sentence into banishment for life. The Parliament
remonstrated, and sent the King the following remarkable request. The
reader will, perhaps, be glad to see this document at length. It is of
importance, as the last effort of a legislative assembly to uphold this
great error; and the arguments they used, and the instances they
quoted, are in the highest degree curious. It reflects honour upon the
memory of Louis XIV. that he was not swayed by it.
"REQUEST OF THE PARLIAMENT OF ROUEN TO THE KING, IN 1670.
"SIRE,
"EMBOLDENED by the authority which your Majesty has committed into our
hands in the province of Normandy, to try and punish offences, and more
particularly those offences of the nature of witchcraft, which tend to
the destruction of religion and the ruin of nations, we, your
Parliament, remonstrate humbly with your Majesty upon certain cases of
this kind which have been lately brought before us. We cannot permit
the letter addressed by your Majesty's command to the Attorney-General
of this district, for the reprieve of certain persons condemned to
death for witchcraft, and for the staying of proceedings in several
other cases, to remain unnoticed, and without remarking upon the
consequences which may ensue. There is also a letter from your
Secretary of State, declaring your Majesty's intention to commute the
punishment of these criminals into one of perpetual banishment, and to
submit to the opinion of the Procureur-General, and of the most learned
members of the Parliament of Paris, whether, in the matter of
witchcraft, the jurisprudence of the Parliament of Rouen is to be
followed in preference to that of the Parliament of Paris, and of the
other parliaments of the kingdom which judge differently.
"Although by the ordinances of the Kings your predecessors, Parliaments
have been forbidden to pay any attention to lettres de cachet; we,
nevertheless, from the knowledge which we have, in common with the
whole kingdom, of the care bestowed by your Majesty for the good of
your subjects, and from the submission and obedience to your
commandments which we have always manifested, have stayed all
proceedings, in conformity to your orders; hoping that your Majesty,
considering the importance of the crime of witchcraft, and the
consequences likely to ensue from its impunity, will be graciously
pleased to grant us once more your permission to continue the trials,
and execute judgment upon those found guilty. And as, since we received
the letter of your Secretary of State, we have also been made
acquainted with the determination of your Majesty, not only to commute
the sentence of death passed upon these witches into one of perpetual
banishment from the province, but to re-establish them in the
possession of their goods and chattels, and of their good fame and
character, your Parliament have thought it their duty, on occasion of
these crimes, the greatest which men can commit, to make you acquainted
with the general and uniform feelings of the people of this province
with regard to them; it being, moreover, a question in which are
concerned the glory of God and the relief of your suffering subjects,
who groan under their fears from the threats and menaces of this sort
of persons, and who feel the effects of them every day in the mortal
and extraordinary maladies which attack them, and the surprising damage
and loss of their possessions.
"Your Majesty knows well that there is no crime so opposed to the
commands of God as witchcraft, which destroys the very foundation of
religion, and draws strange abominations after it. It is for this
reason, Sire, that the Scriptures pronounce the punishment of death
against offenders, and that the church and the holy fathers have
fulminated their anathemas, and that canonical decisions have one and
all decreed the most severe punishments, to deter from this crime; and
that the Church of France, animated by the piety of the Kings your
predecessors, has expressed so great a horror at it, that, not judging
the punishment of perpetual imprisonment, the highest it has the power
to inflict, sufficiently severe, it has left such criminals to be dealt
with by the secular power.
"It has been the general feeling of all nations that such criminals
ought to be condemned to death, and all the ancients were of the same
opinion. The law of the "Twelve Tables," which was the principal of the
Roman laws, ordains the same punishment. All jurisconsults agreed in
it, as well as the constitutions of the Emperors, and more especially
those of Constantine and Theodosius, who, enlightened by the Gospel,
not only renewed the same punishment, but also deprived, expressly, all
persons found guilty of witchcraft of the right of appeal, and declared
them to be unworthy of a prince's mercy. And Charles VIII, Sire,
inspired by the same sentiments, passed that beautiful and severe
ordinance (cette belle et severe ordonnance), which enjoined the judges
to punish witches according to the exigencies of the case, under a
penalty of being themselves fined or imprisoned, or dismissed from
their office; and decreed, at the same time, that all persons who
refused to denounce a witch, should be punished as accomplices; and
that all, on the contrary, who gave evidence against one, should be
rewarded.
"From these considerations, Sire, and in the execution of so holy an
ordinance, your parliaments, by their decrees, proportion their
punishments to the guilt of the offenders: and your Parliament of
Normandy has never, until the present time, found that its practice was
different from that of other courts; for all the books which treat upon
this matter cite an infinite number of decrees condemning witches to be
burnt, or broken on the wheel, or to other punishments. The following
are examples:--In the time of Chilperic, as may be seen in Gregory of
Tours, b. vi, c. 35 of his History of France: all the decrees of the
Parliament of Paris passed according to, and in conformity with, this
ancient jurisprudence of the kingdom, cited by Imbert, in his "Judicial
Practice;" all those cited by Monstrelet, in 1459, against the witches
of Artois; the decrees of the same Parliament, of the 13th of October
1573, against Mary Le Fief, native of Saumur; of the 21st of October
1596, against the Sieur de Beaumont, who pleaded, in his defence, that
he had only sought the aid of the devil for the purpose of unbewitching
the afflicted and of curing diseases; of the 4th of July 1606, against
Francis du Bose; of the 20th of July 1582, against Abel de la Rue,
native of Coulommiers; of the 2nd of October 1593, against Rousseau and
his daughter; of 1608, against another Rousseau and one Peley, for
witchcraft and adoration of the devil at the Sabbath, under the figure
of a he-goat, as confessed by them; the decree of 4th of February 1615,
against Leclerc, who appealed from the sentence of the Parliament of
Orleans, and who was condemned for having attended the Sabbath, and
confessed, as well as two of his accomplices, who died in prison, that
he had adored the devil, renounced his baptism and his faith in God,
danced the witches' dance, and offered up unholy sacrifices; the
decrees of the 6th of May 1616, against a man named Leger, on a similar
accusation; the pardon granted by Charles IX to Trois Echelles, upon
condition of revealing his accomplices, but afterwards revoked for
renewed sorcery on his part; the decree of the Parliament of Paris,
cited by Mornac in 1595; the judgments passed in consequence of the
commission given by Henry IV to the Sieur de Lancre, councillor of the
Parliament of Bourdeaux; of the 20th of March 1619, against Etienne
Audibert; those passed by the Chamber of Nerac, on the 26th of June
1620, against several witches; those passed by the Parliament of
Toulouse in 1577, as cited by Gregory Tolosanus, against four hundred
persons accused of this crime, and who were all marked with the sign of
the devil. Besides all these, we might recall to your Majesty's
recollection the various decrees of the Parliament of Provence,
especially in the case of Gaufredy in 1611; the decrees of the
Parliament of Dijon, and those of the Parliament of Rennes, following
the example of the condemnation of the Marshal de Rays, who was burned
in 1441, for the crime of witchcraft, in presence of the Duke of
Brittany;--all these examples, Sire, prove that the accusation of
witchcraft has always been punished with death by the Parliaments of
your kingdom, and justify the uniformity of their practice.
"These, Sire, are the motives upon which your Parliament of Normandy
has acted in decreeing the punishment of death against the persons
lately brought before it for this crime. If it has happened that, on
any occasion, these parliaments, and the Parliament of Normandy among
the rest, have condemned the guilty to a less punishment than that of
death, it was for the reason that their guilt was not of the deepest
dye; your Majesty, and the Kings your predecessors, having left full
liberty to the various tribunals to whom they delegated the
administration of justice, to decree such punishment as was warranted
by the evidence brought before them.
"After so many authorities, and punishments ordained by human and
divine laws, we humbly supplicate your Majesty to reflect once more
upon the extraordinary results which proceed from the malevolence of
this sort of people--on the deaths from unknown diseases, which are
often the consequences of their menaces--on the loss of the goods and
chattels of your subjects--on the proofs of guilt continually afforded
by the insensibility of the marks upon the accused--on the sudden
transportation of bodies from one place to another--on the sacrifices
and nocturnal assemblies, and other facts, corroborated by the
testimony of ancient and modern authors, and verified by so many
eye-witnesses, composed partly of accomplices, and partly of people who
had no interest in the trials beyond the love of truth, and confirmed,
moreover, by the confessions of the accused parties themselves; and
that, Sire, with so much agreement and conformity between the different
cases, that the most ignorant persons convicted of this crime have
spoken to the same circumstances, and in nearly the same words, as the
most celebrated authors who have written about it, all of which may be
easily proved to your Majesty's satisfaction by the records of various
trials before your parliaments.
"These, Sire, are truths so intimately bound up with the principles of
our religion, that, extraordinary although they be, no person has been
able to this time to call them in question. If some have cited, in
opposition to these truths, the pretended canon of the Council of
Ancyre, and a passage from St. Augustin, in a treatise upon the 'Spirit
and the Soul', it has been without foundation; and it would be easy to
convince your Majesty that neither the one nor the other ought to be
accounted of any authority; and, besides that, the canon, in this
sense, would be contrary to the opinion of all succeeding councils of
the church, Cardinal Baronius, and all learned commentators, agree that
it is not to be found in any old edition. In effect, in those editions
wherein it is found, it is in another language, and is in direct
contradiction to the twenty-third canon of the same council, which
condemns sorcery, according to all preceding constitutions. Even
supposing that this canon was really promulgated by the Council of
Ancyre, we must observe that it was issued in the second century, when
the principal attention of the Church was directed to the destruction
of paganism. For this reason, it condemns that class of women who said
they could pass through the air, and over immense regions, with Diana
and Herodias, and enjoins all preachers to teach the falsehood of such
an opinion, in order to deter people from the worship of these false
divinities; but it does not question the power of the devil over the
human body, which is, in fact, proved by the Holy Gospel of Jesus
Christ himself. And with regard, Sire, to the pretended passage of St.
Augustin, everybody knows that it was not written by him, because the
writer, whoever he was, cites Boetius, who died more than eighty years
after the time of St. Augustin. Besides, there is still more convincing
proof in the fact, that the same father establishes the truth of
witchcraft in all his writings, and more particularly in his 'City of
God;' and in his first volume, question the 25th, wherein he states
that sorcery is a communion between man and the devil, which all good
Christians ought to look upon with horror.
"Taking all these things into consideration, Sire, the officers of your
Parliament hope, from the justice of your Majesty, that you will be
graciously pleased to receive the humble remonstrances they have taken
the liberty to make. They are compelled, for the acquittal of their own
consciences and in discharge of their duty, to make known to your
Majesty, that the decrees they passed against the sorcerers and witches
brought before them, were passed after a mature deliberation on the
part of all the judges present, and that nothing has been done therein
which is not conformable to the universal jurisprudence of the kingdom,
and for the general welfare of your Majesty's subjects, of whom there
is not one who can say that he is secure from the malevolence of such
criminals. We therefore supplicate your Majesty to suffer us to carry
into effect the sentences we passed, and to proceed with the trial of
the other persons accused of the same crime; and that the piety of your
Majesty will not suffer to be introduced during your reign an opinion
contrary to the principles of that holy religion for which you have
always employed so gloriously both your cares and your arms."
Louis, as we have already mentioned, paid no attention to this appeal.
The lives of the old women were spared, and prosecutions for mere
witchcraft, unconnected with other offences, were discontinued
throughout France. In 1680 an act was passed for the punishment, not of
witches, but of pretenders to witchcraft, fortune-tellers,
divineresses, and poisoners.
Thus the light broke in upon Germany, France, England, and Scotland
about the same time, gradually growing clearer and clearer till the
middle of the eighteenth century, when witchcraft was finally reckoned
amongst exploded doctrines, and the belief in it confined to the
uttermost vulgar. Twice, however, did the madness burst forth again as
furious, while it lasted, as ever it had been. The first time in
Sweden, in 1669, and the second in Germany, so late as 1749. Both these
instances merit particular mention. The first is one of the most
extraordinary upon record, and for atrocity and absurdity is
unsurpassed in the annals of any nation.
It having been reported to the King of Sweden that the little village
of Mohra, in the province of Dalecarlia, was troubled exceedingly with
witches, he appointed a commission of clergy and laymen to trace the
rumour to its source, with full powers to punish the guilty. On the
12th of August 1669, the commissioners arrived in the bewitched
village, to the great joy of the credulous inhabitants. On the
following day the whole population, amounting to three thousand
persons, assembled in the church. A sermon was preached, "declaring the
miserable case of those people that suffered themselves to be deluded
by the devil," and fervent prayer was offered up that God would remove
the scourge from among them.
The whole assembly then adjourned to the rector's house, filling all
the street before it, when the King's commission was read, charging
every person who knew anything of the witchery, to come forward and
declare the truth. A passion of tears seized upon the multitude; men,
women, and children began to weep and sob, and all promised to divulge
what they had heard or knew. In this frame of mind they were dismissed
to their homes. On the following day they were again called together,
when the depositions of several persons were taken publicly before them
all. The result was that seventy persons, including fifteen children,
were taken into custody. Numbers also were arrested in the neighbouring
district of Elfdale. Being put to the torture, they all confessed their
guilt. They said they used to go to a gravel-pit that lay hard by the
cross-way, where they put a vest upon their heads, and danced "round
and round and round about." They then went to the cross-way, and called
three times upon the devil; the first time in a low still voice; the
second, somewhat louder; and the third, very loudly, with these words,
"Antecessor, come, and carry us to Blockula!" This invocation never
failed to bring him to their view. He generally appeared as a little
old man, in a grey coat, with red and blue stockings, with exceedingly
long garters. He had besides a very high-crowned hat, with bands of
many-coloured linen enfolded about it, and a long red beard, that hung
down to his middle.
The first question he put to them was, whether they would serve him
soul and body? On their answering in the affirmative, he told them to
make ready for the journey to Blockula. It was necessary to procure, in
the first place, "some scrapings of altars and filings of church
clocks." Antecessor then gave them a horn, with some salve in it,
wherewith they anointed themselves. These preparations ended, he
brought beasts for them to ride upon, horses, asses, goats, and
monkeys; and, giving them a saddle, a hammer, and a nail, uttered the
word of command, and away they went. Nothing stopped them. They flew
over churches, high walls, rocks, and mountains, until they came to the
green meadow where Blockula was situated. Upon these occasions they
carried as many children with them as they could; for the devil, they
said, "did plague and whip them if they did not procure him children,
insomuch that they had no peace or quiet for him."
Many parents corroborated a part of this evidence, stating that their
children had repeatedly told them that they had been carried away in
the night to Blockula, where the devil had beaten them black and blue.
They had seen the marks in the morning, but they soon disappeared. One
little girl was examined, who swore positively that she was carried
through the air by the witches, and when at a great height she uttered
the holy name of Jesus. She immediately fell to the ground, and made a
great hole in her side. "The devil, however, picked her up, healed her
side, and carried her away to Blockula." She added, and her mother
confirmed her statement, that she had till that day "an exceeding great
pain in her side." This was a clencher, and the nail of conviction was
driven home to the hearts of the judges.
The place called Blockula, whither they were carried, was a large
house, with a gate to it, "in a delicate meadow, whereof they could see
no end." There was a very long table in it, at which the witches sat
down; and in other rooms "there were very lovely and delicate beds for
them to sleep upon."
After a number of ceremonies had been performed, by which they bound
themselves, body and soul, to the service of Antecessor, they sat down
to a feast, composed of broth, made of colworts and bacon, oatmeal,
bread and butter, milk and cheese. The devil always took the chair, and
sometimes played to them on the harp or the fiddle, while they were
eating. After dinner they danced in a ring, sometimes naked, and
sometimes in their clothes, cursing and swearing all the time. Some of
the women added particulars too horrible and too obscene for repetition.
Once the devil pretended to be dead, that he might see whether his
people regretted him. They instantly set up a loud wail, and wept three
tears each for him, at which he was so pleased, that he jumped up among
them, and hugged in his arms those who had been most obstreperous in
their sorrow.
Such were the principal details given by the children, and corroborated
by the confessions of the full-grown witches. Anything more absurd was
never before stated in a court of justice. Many of the accused
contradicted themselves most palpably; but the commissioners gave no
heed to discrepancies. One of them, the parson of the district, stated,
in the course of the inquiry, that on a particular night, which he
mentioned, he had been afflicted with a headach so agonizing, that he
could not account for it otherwise than by supposing he was bewitched.
In fact, he thought a score of witches must have been dancing on the
crown of his head. This announcement excited great horror among the
pious dames of the auditory, who loudly expressed their wonder that the
devil should have power to hurt so good a man. One poor witch, who lay
in the very jaws of death, confessed that she knew too well the cause
of the minister's headach. The devil had sent her with a sledge hammer
and a large nail, to drive into the good man's skull. She had hammered
at it for some time, but the skull was so enormously thick, that she
made no impression upon it. Every hand was held up in astonishment. The
pious minister blessed God that his skull was so solid, and he became
renowned for his thick head all the days of his life. Whether the witch
intended a joke does not appear, but she was looked upon as a criminal
more than usually atrocious. Seventy persons were condemned to death on
these so awful yet so ridiculous confessions. Twenty-three of them were
burned together, in one fire, in the village of Mohra, in the presence
of thousands of delighted spectators. On the following day fifteen
children were murdered in the same manner; offered up in sacrifice to
the bloody Moloch of superstition. The remaining thirty-two were
executed at the neighbouring town of Fahluna. Besides these, fifty-six
children were found guilty of witchcraft in a minor degree, and
sentenced to various punishments, such as running the gauntlet,
imprisonment, and public whipping once a week for a twelvemonth.