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When Druids and Mystics Ruled Harshly Over the Superstitious Peasants Aquinas College

Undergraduate Seminar Witchcraft Papers

Fall 2007

Contributing Authors:

Stacey Dearing, Will Eberle, Rachel Koval,

Doug Seites, Brandon Sexton, Tim Weed and Theresa Woodbridge

Edited by

Stacey Dearing and Will Eberle 2

This project is the culmination of the work of the Fall 2007 Aquinas College HY 401

Witchcraft Seminar class. The students were expected to research and write an original piece of scholarship on witchcraft, a field of history that has exploded in scholarly interest in recent years. The papers were peer-reviewed, professor reviewed, and finally edited by Stacey Dearing and Will Eberle as part of an independent study project on scholarly editing. The papers represent the capstone work of

Aquinas history majors and are meant to be a step toward producing graduate level research. The issues covered range from individual biographies, to the function of the Roman law in witchcraft trials, to the role that gender and church relations played in the trials. The editors would like to thank

Dr. Charles D. Gunnoe for his help throughout the editing process and for a great semester.

The title of our collection is borrowed from a line in the “documentary” Witches Curse

from the Channel 4/ PBS series Secrets of the Dead. The class found the pseudo-scientific claims of this production to be so ridiculously overstated and historically implausible that it provided backhanded inspiration for class discussions and research.

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Table of Contents

Torture in the Witch Trials: The Roman-Canon Law of Proof Stacey Dearing………………………………………………………………………4

Convent Possession Cases: Study in the Paradoxes of the Early Modern Witchcraft Paradigm Will Eberle…………………………………………………………………………27

Fairies of Early Modern England and Scotland: Familiar Spirits or Ghosts? Rachel Koval……………………………………………………………………….48

Witchcraft and the Spanish Inquisition Doug Seites………………………………………………………………………....65

The Role of Women as Portrayed in the Malleus Maleficarum Brandon Anthony Sexton……………………………………………………………83

James I and Demonology Tim Weed……………………………………………………………………....….105

Courtiser les sorcières en France, mid 1500s-early 1600s Theresa Woodbridge…………………………………..……………………………126

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Torture in the Witch Trials: The Roman-Canon Law of Proof

Stacey Dearing

Stacey Dearing is a Junior from Clarkston, Michigan. She will graduate with a major in History and a minor in English.

Known for her ability to divine the location of lost items and to provide healing

for her neighbors, Anna Roleffes, or Temple Anneke as the citizens of her home town of

Harxbüttel referred to her, satisfied many of the stereotypes of a witch in early modern

Europe. Anneke was old—in her mid-sixties, widowed, and economically dependent on

her family.1 In 1663 she assisted a neighbor, Hans Thiemann, in recovering items that

had been stolen from him.2 Shortly thereafter she was arrested, tortured and executed for

committing the crime of witchcraft.

Such witchcraft trials were rampant in Europe in the early modern period. Few

lands were completely free of witch trials, but the vast majority of trials occurred in the

German territories belonging to the Holy Roman Empire. It has been posited that nearly half the executions of witches, approximately 45,000, took place in the Holy Roman

Empire.3 In addition to the political institutions, the legal institutions of the Holy Roman

Empire facilitated and fueled the witch craze. The development of the inquisitorial

method of law and the Roman-canon law of proof, with its emphasis on torture, made the

wildest periods of the witch trials possible.

In order to understand how torture served as a vital part of eliciting confessions

and further inciting hunts during the witch craze, it is vital that the development of the

Roman-canon law of proof be understood.

1Peter Morton, ed., The Trial of Temple Anneke (Orchard Park, NY: Broadview Press, 2006), xiii-xiv. 2Ibid., xiii. 3Brian Levack, The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe (New York: Pearson Longman, 2006.), 21. 5

The Accusatorial Method to the Inquisitorial Method

The method of law used before the inquisitorial model provides insights into how and why the new system developed in early modern Europe. This earlier model is known as the accusatorial method. In this system, charges were initiated by a private citizen, meaning a person who was not employed as a part of the legal system.4 It was then the

responsibility of the accuser to prepare and enact the prosecution of the defendant. This system was not highly conducive to the effective prosecution of crimes because the average citizen was not a competent lawyer. Furthermore, crimes such as witchcraft, for which there was very little or no tangible evidence or witnesses, were extremely difficult to prosecute.

In order to prove the guilt or innocence of the defendant in such a trial, a system known as the ordeals was used. The ordeals were tests that the accused had to pass in order to prove their innocence.5 The premise was that the accused would be put through

the ordeal and if they were innocent, God would ensure that the result was in their favor.

An example is the commonly referenced trial by water. In this ordeal the defendant is

plunged into deep water. If they sink, they are innocent. If not, they are guilty.6 Another

common ordeal was that by fire. In this case a part of the body, such as the hand, was

burned. If, after a few days, the wound miraculously healed, the accused was declared innocent. The healing was interpreted as a sign of God’s favor and therefore of the innocence of the defendant.7

4Levack, 75. 5Ibid. 6Ibid., 76. 7Ibid. 6

This system of ordeals appears, to the modern reader, to be irrational.8 Such tests

could hardly have been accurate indications of guilt or innocence. Furthermore, it was not

an efficient method of handling criminal prosecutions. Thus, the ordeals were largely

abolished in 1215 by the Fourth Lateran Council.9 With this abandonment of a key

portion of the legal process, the development of a new system became vital.

One of the main challenges in attempting to devise such a system was that the

citizens were unlikely to accept a legal code that took the power of judgment out of the

hands of God and put it into the hands of mortals.10 The ordeals may have been highly

inaccurate but it was God who was passing judgment, which legitimized them. John

Langbein writes, “The problem that confronted the legal systems of the church and of the

secular governments…was to make this fundamental change acceptable in the tradition-

conscious and religiously devout societies of the day.”11 With the ordeals, even if evidence that exculpated the accused came to light after the execution it would be assumed that God had a reason for allowing that person to die, not that it was mistake.

Humans could make mistakes in their judgments, God, by definition, could not.

The easiest way to solve this dilemma and create a legal code that was acceptable to the populace was to establish a set of legal proofs that would need to be met by the prosecution in order for a guilty verdict to be rendered in capital cases.12 Such a system

of statutory proofs would ensure that mistakes could not be made. In order to have such a

8John H. Langbein, Torture and the Law of Proof: Europe and England in the Ancient Regime (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977), 6. 9Ibid. 10Ibid., 7. 11Ibid., 6. 12Ibid. 7 mistake-proof legal code, rules had to be put in place that clearly defined what evidence was legitimate and acceptable and how much was then required for conviction.

Between the thirteenth and the sixteenth centuries, a variety of legal codes were put in place throughout Europe that attempted to establish a system that would be accepted by the populous. Not only were kings and princes devising various legal strategies, but the Popes, too, were trying to stomp out witchcraft.13 To this end, Pope

John XXII excommunicated “anyone who made a pact with the Devil” in his Super illius

specula of 1326.14

Over the next three centuries this system of legal codes would be solidified into

one definitive work. The final product can be found in the Constitutio Criminalis

Carolina of 1532. This legal code, devised in the Holy Roman Empire under the reign of

Emperor Charles V, laid out requirements for sufficient proof.15 This was the

institutionalization of the Roman-canon law of proof.

The Carolina

The Carolina laid out the guidelines and principles to be applied to all criminal

trials in the Holy Roman Empire, not just those cases relating to witchcraft. It began by

listing the expectations and rules that court personnel were expected to adhere to. After

handling several other preliminary issues, such as how to deal with undisputed cases, the issue of how to deal with cases in which there is doubt as to the guilt of the accused is

13The efforts of the kings were varied, with some pursuing witchcraft cases avidly, and others refusing to even prosecute the crime because they did not believe it existed. See Marina Montesano, “Laws on Witchcraft (Medieval),” Encyclopedia of Witchcraft: The Western Tradition, ed. Richard M. Golden (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2006). 14Ibid. 15John H. Langbein, Prosecuting crime in the Renaissance: England, Germany, France (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1974) 272 (See the appendix for the Carolina). 8 discussed. These are cases in which a “legally sufficient indication of crime” needs to be established.16 Such an indication of the crime would not then lead to conviction, but

rather to the torture of the accused.

In order to prevent mistakes in judgment there were only two ways that a

defendant could be convicted under this system: 1) two witnesses testified against them or 2) the accused confessed.17 Article 22 of the Carolina further states that:

It is further to be noticed that no one shall be definitely sentenced to penal

sanction on the basis of any indication of a suspicious sign or upon suspicion,

rather on that basis there nay only be examination under torture; when the

indications are sufficient…then the person shall be finally condemned to penal

sanction; however that must take place upon the basis of his own confession or a

witness proof procedure…and not on the basis of presumption or indication.18

The standards of proof required for conviction were higher than those that were required for interrogation under torture. The amount of proof needed for conviction, the above mentioned confession or two witnesses, was known as a full proof. If there was a significant amount of circumstantial evidence and/or one witness, these factors could be added up to make a half proof. With a half proof the accused could not be convicted, but torture could be ordered.

The reason torture was necessary was because the Roman-canon law of proof made prosecuting covert crimes, or crimes in which there were no witnesses, extremely difficult. If two witnesses could not be found, it was unlikely that a defendant would confess voluntarily as there was a good chance of being acquitted. Torture was the main

16Langbein, Prosecuting crime in the Renaissance: England, Germany, France, 273. 17Ibid. 18Ibid. 9 method of coercing confessions in such a case. “The Roman-canon law of proof was unworkable standing alone,” writes Langbein, “no society will long tolerate a legal system in which this is no prospect of convicting unrepentant persons who commit clandestine crimes.”19 Torture, then, was the logical next step. In order to receive

permission to begin interrogation with torture only a half proof was required. This meant that only one witness was required, or a sufficient amount of circumstantial evidence that would equate to one good witness.

The Carolina spends a great deal of time discussing what satisfies a half proof and therefore permits the use of torture. Articles 29-31 in particular deal with this issue.

Article 29 deals with the issue of circumstantial evidence: “When someone in the committing of the crime loses something or lets it fall or be left behind, so that it can afterwards be found and determined to have belonged to the criminal, examination under

torture is appropriate.”20 It is important to remember that though circumstantial evidence

could be used as a justification for the use of torture, it was never sufficient evidence for

conviction.21 In addition to a single witness and an appropriate amount of circumstantial

evidence, if an accomplice to the crime confesses and provides information for the

prosecution, this can serve as a half proof.22

In addition to these blanket criteria for the use of torture, the Carolina describes

several different crimes and explains what sort of proof would constitute enough to

examine a defendant while using torture. The criteria that needed to be met in order for

torture to be applied to a case of witchcraft or sorcery are described in article 44:

19Langbein, Torture and the Law of Proof, 7. 20Langbein, Prosecuting crime in the Renaissance: England, Germany, France, 275. 21Langbein, Torture and the Law of Proof, 8. 22Langbein, Prosecuting crime in the Renaissance: England, Germany, France, 275. 10

When someone offers to impart sorcery to other people, or threatens to bewitch

someone and such befalls the threatened person, and the aforesaid person

otherwise has associated with men or women sorcerers, or has employed

suspicious things, gestures, words, and signs such as characterize sorcery, and

when, further, the said person has a bad reputation of similar sort, then that

constitutes a legally sufficient indication of sorcery and is adequate basis upon

which to examine under torture.23

In many ways this is a vague and broad definition—it spans the gamut from gossip to

confirmed acts of witchcraft that were committed. It is from this definition that the courts

claimed the ability to use the testimony of accused witches against others. This is because

of the clause that states that if “the aforesaid person otherwise has associated with men or

women sorcerers,” then their testimony was considered valid.24 If someone confesses to

witchcraft under torture and accuses another, this person can be assumed to have spent

time around other witches. There were safeguards set in place, however, that were meant

to protect the innocent from facing charges in such situations.

Torture in Interrogations

Once the required burden of proof had been met, a further set of rules were

applied before torture was implemented. These rules were created so that the use of

torture would not be abused. It is important to remember that, as Lyndal Roper points out

in her book Witch Craze, those who used torture in order to elicit confessions did not

view the practice the way a modern reader would. They were not cynical about the

23Ibid., 279. 24Ibid. 11 veracity of the confessions.25 Interrogators used torture based on the assumption that the pain would lead the accused to tell the truth; they were not yet fully cognizant of the fact that people will often tell elaborate and convincing lies in order to end torture.26

There was, however, an awareness that torture should be limited lest it get out of control. With that in mind certain regulations were placed on its use. The first of these was that torture was to be “restricted to cases of capital crime.”27 It was understood that torture was a rather extreme means of obtaining confessions, and to maintain some rationality in the system it was limited to the most serious—or capital—cases.

Furthermore, before torture could be used the judges were required to complete the inquisition generalis, or an investigation to confirm that a crime had, in fact, taken place.28 Sadly, in cases of alleged witchcraft this step was often overlooked. By its very

nature, acts of witchcraft could not be witnessed. It was very difficult for a judge to

confirm that an intentionally harmful act of magic or a pact with the devil, which also

needed to be confessed to or witnessed for a witchcraft conviction, had actually taken

place. If this requirement had been “enforced, the European witch craze could not have

claimed its countless victims,” observes Langbein, but “an exception developed that gutted the corpus delicti requirement for those ‘occult’ crimes…whose ‘traces vanished with the act’.”29 Rather than interpreting this lack of evidence as a sign of innocence, this

step was abridged or skipped completely

25Lyndal Roper, Witch Craze: Terror and Fantasy in Baroque Germany (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2004), 45. 26Levack, 81. 27Langbein, Torture and the Law of Proof, 13 28Ibid. 29Langbein, Torture and the Law of Proof, 14. Corpus delicti is the basic fact that the crime exists. In this case it functions in essentially the same manner as the inquisition generalis. 12

The fact that witchcraft was seen as an “excepted” crime had a significant impact on how the trials were handled. Excepted crimes were “a category of criminal offenses that were so serious and often so difficult to prove that they justif[ied] both irregular legal procedure—often summary—and also deserve neither Christian charity nor imperial clementia (clemency) in the matter of sentencing.”30 Pardons would not be granted for

these heinous crimes, which included treason, murder, adultery, rape and during the Early

Modern period, witchcraft.31 Thus, because of the difficulty of proving the existence of

witchcraft and its status as an excepted crime, a lower standard of proof was permitted.

In addition to these regulations, the Carolina made it clear that torture was to be saved until there were no other options left with which the facts of the crime could be established. Furthermore, before torture was actually implemented the accused was to be threatened with its use.32 In addition to verbal warnings, it was common practice for the

accused to be shown instruments of torture and to have their uses explained during an

interrogation.33 If these steps failed to elicit a confession, torture was commenced.34

Once the torture began another set of rules was applied. This layer of regulations was meant to ensure that, if torture was deemed necessary, it did not end up getting completely out of hand. Perhaps the most important caveat was that torture was not to be used as a punishment but as a tool for eliciting confessions. Thus, the accused was not to be killed as a result of the torture methods implemented during interrogation.35

30Edward Peters, “Crimen Exceptum,” The Encyclopedia of Witchcraft, The Western Tradition, ed. Richard M. Golden (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2006). 31Ibid. 32Langbein, Prosecuting crime in the Renaissance: England, Germany, France, 279-280. 33Langbein, Torture and the Law of Proof, 15. 34I will not explain methods of torture here. For information on tools and techniques see The Trial of Temple Anneke Folio 28 (as well as other, subsequent Folios), Levack 82-85, Roper 44-66, etc. See works cited list for more sources on the subject. 35Levack, 82. 13

Furthermore, in most cases torture was not to be repeated more than once, though this rule, like many others, was routinely broken; torture sessions were often repeated two or three times or “until [the accused witch’s] resistance collapsed.”36

In theory it was forbidden to ask leading questions of the accused during torture.

This was because the point of interrogations was not to supply evidence that was already

believed to be true, but to gather new evidence.37 The records of the trial of Temple

Anneke, our accused witch discussed earlier, provide examples of how this regulation

was blatantly ignored in witchcraft trials. During her first examination under torture

(Folio 28), Temple Anneke is asked “whether she didn’t conjure an injury into the thigh of Hans Harves of Harxbüttel, because one day he didn’t want to have beer sent to her,” a

question which provides details of what she allegedly did and why.38 Another leading

question inquired, “Whether she didn’t learn from the Evil Enemy that one is supposed to

burn sheep to powder and to give that to the sheep to prevent them from dying?”39 These

are two questions that provide testimony, rather than allowing the accused to explain the

facts of the case.

Once the details of the case were established, whether through leading questions

or “facts” revealed by the accused, it was required that the judges investigate and attempt

to confirm the information obtained during the interrogations. This is much like the initial

establishment of the inquisitio generalis discussed above. The Carolina describes in

article 52 what is to be done once the examined individual confesses to sorcery:

36Ibid, 84; Langbein, 15; Roper, 47. 37Langbein, 15. 38The Trial of Temple Anneke, 99. 39Ibid., 102. 14

He shall be questioned about the causes and circumstances…and moreover, with

what, how and when the sorcery occurred—with what words or deeds…the

person shall also be asked from whom he learned such sorcery, and how it came

about; whether he also employed such sorcery against more people, and against

whom, and what damage thus occurred.40

This information, once obtained, was to be confirmed by the judges. Once again,

however, the nature of the crime of witchcraft/sorcery made it difficult for any such facts

to be confirmed. This second verification process and the lack of tangible evidence was

often skipped or ignored, rather than interpreted as a sign of innocence.

Finally, once a confession was obtained it was mandated that the confession be

voluntarily repeated within a day. This formal recitation and recording of the confession

without torture was known as the urgicht in German.41 An odd quirk of the system, this

was required because it both made the confession appear to have been voluntary rather

than coerced, and augmented the perceived veracity of the confession.42 One of the most

obvious flaws in this second, post-torture confession, is that whereas it did have to be

made without torture there was still the understanding that if the defendant recanted the torture would resume. Thus, the lack of torture at this point did not automatically render

the confessions legitimate.

Now that the implementation of torture in interrogations has been explained, the

secondary purposes of confessions can be explored. On the surface, confessions were

necessary to satisfy the required burden of proof for a conviction, but they also served as a tool for the interrogators to expand their understanding of the crime of witchcraft.

40Langbein, Prosecuting crime in the Renaissance: England, Germany, France, 281. 41The Trial of Temple Anneke, xxxiii 42Langbein, Torture and the Law of Proof, 15. 15

When the accused confessed to witchcraft they were required to provide a detailed account of their encounters with the devil, the demonic pact, all acts of maleficia, activities that occurred at Sabbaths, or gatherings of witches, and all other related activity. Such confessions were deemed necessary—and such detailed notes of these confessions were taken—so that those whose job it was to find and prosecute witches would have a better idea of what to look for.43 Without any other way to learn what witches were up to, these confessions became an indispensable part of later trials. Roper observes that:

Though [the interrogators] had a rough idea of what witches normally did, they

relied on the accused witches to furnish the story of their experiences with the

Devil. Witchcraft confessions do not report historical events. They do, however,

tell us what their hearers believed that witches did.44

It is important to understand what the interrogators believed witches did because, as we

have already seen by the leading questions often used, these beliefs shaped future confessions.

Thus, no matter how complete a confession seemed to be, there were always gaps, or “small inconsistencies, slips and contradictions.”45 These missing pieces, instead of

discouraging judges, served to spur them on to learn more about the devil and his

activities on Earth. Despite the fact that confessions were common knowledge and that the accused could easily learn what had been confessed by “witches” before in order to bolster their own false tales, the judges consistently failed to see any flaws, instead focusing on how much more was left to be learned about the devil and witchcraft. If

43Levack, 87 44Roper, 45 45Ibid., 51 16 information was missing it was because the witch had managed to hold some details back, not that she was innocent and making it up as she went along.

Another aspect of the confessions that influenced how trials played out—and in fact aided and abetted the onset of the most frantic and out-of-control hunts—was the denunciation of others. Levack argues that this nature of the trials was the most important outcome of the use of torture in European witch hunts.46 Once one person was arrested

and tortured, a plethora of names could be gleaned from her. These people would in turn

be arrested and questioned which would result in another list of names—this process

continued until more and more people were arrested and executed. At some point the

frenzy of executions would end, too late for the dozens of people who may have already

been killed.47 In total it is estimated that some 45,000 people died in the witch hunts of

early modern Europe and, as previously stated, it has been suggested that as many as half

of the executions took place in the German territories of the Holy Roman Empire.48

Contemporary Theories: Kramer and Spee

It is easy to assume that all of the witch-hunters of the early modern period believed in the necessity of torture and in the veracity of the confessions obtained from its use. This, however, would be an incorrect assumption. There is evidence that some of the judges and witch-hunters “struggled with the demons of doubt.” These doubts were the beginning of the process of becoming cognizant of the fact that humans will lie under

torture. Some men, such as Friedrich Spee believed that some of the accused witches

46Levack, 88 47Trials varied in size. Some, such as the case of Temple Anneke, remained small while others could consume dozens to (allegedly) hundreds of people before ending. (The Trial of Temple Anneke; Levack 21) 48Levack, 23; Also see introduction 17 might actually have been innocent. Spee, in suggesting the potential innocence of witch trial victims in his Cautio Criminalis, took a very different stance than did the renowned witch-hunter Heinrich Kramer, author of the Malleus Maleficarum. Kramer believed that not only were the confessions of witches real, accurate and dependable, but that not enough was being done about the witchcraft problem. These two men viewed the witchcraft trials, and the use of torture in them, in very different ways.

First, let us look at how Heinrich Kramer thought torture fit into witchcraft trials.

Kramer was a very serious witch-hunter. He agreed that witchcraft was rarely witnessed and, therefore, believed that confessions were the only way to ensure the conviction of a witch.49 It is important to note that he is highly biased in his text, and that even while

discussing how to go about questioning an accused witch, his recommendations assume

the accused to be guilty. In part three of the Malleus he writes “what we consider now is

what action the Judge should take, and how he should proceed to question the accused

with a view to extorting the truth from her so that sentence of death may finally be passed

upon her.”50 It is with the goal of executing all those accused as witches that Kramer is

writing this text. It is not difficult to see how, if many shared this attitude, the use of

torture and the trials got out of control.

Kramer continues to give advice to judges detailing how he believed it was best to

go about interrogating a suspect and, more specifically, how to overcome the silence of

witches during questioning. First, he cautions that interrogations and specifically torture

should not commence too quickly, because the witch will only confess if God or one of

his emissaries has compelled her to, otherwise “she will be so insensible to the pains of

49Heinrich Kramer O.P., Malleus Maleficarum, trans. Montague Summers. 11. 50Ibid. 18 torture that she will sooner be torn limb from limb than confess any of the truth.”51

Again, his bias is blatant in this passage. Even if the defendant refuses to confess she is

not exonerated but is still assumed by him to be guilty. It is encouraging, though, that

Kramer did not support a quick escalation of torture—at least initially. This is a sign that he hoped to keep some sense of order and rationality in the process.

In addition to the use of torture to elicit a confession, Kramer provides several other alternatives that may be used by Judges in part three question fourteen. Here

Kramer suggests that if a judge does not wish to subject the accused to torture he can,

instead, have her be imprisoned and left in a “state of suspense” without knowing when

the next interrogation will be.52 While she is imprisoned he recommends that her family

and friends be sent to her in order to encourage her to confess. When these relatives and

friends come he encourages them to lie to the accused, to say that her life will be spared

if she confesses.53

This willingness to lie in order to obtain confessions is reiterated later when he

says that the judges may also promise the witch her life. He adds, though, that this

promise should not imply that she will retain her liberty, for the judges should plan on

holding her in prison and “that the promise to spare her life should be kept for a time, but

that after a certain period she should be burned”.54 Such deceit was allowable because of

the greater good that would result. In his mind, false promises were the carrot on the stick

that was to be used to obtain confessions. After these attempts, if the accused chose to

51Kramer. 52Ibid., 12 53Ibid. 54Ibid., 13. 19 maintain her silence, or profess her innocence, she was to be tortured.55 Again, it is a

point in his favor that he encouraged the postponement of torture. The carrot offered by

Kramer and those influenced by him, though, likely resulted in many false confessions of those who hoped to be spared. There is no information at this time that details how often these methods were used.

Kramer’s desire to keep the increase in the severity of torture at a gradual pace is reconfirmed when he moves on to discuss how torture should commence. At each step in the process the accused is to be “questioned about each several point” and is to “be often and frequently exposed to torture beginning with the more gentle [sic] of them; for the judge should not be too hasty to proceed to the graver kind.”56 Though he encourages

those involved to ensure that the process of torture is slow and controlled it is implied

that the torture should continue until a confession is reached; No matter how severe the

torture must become. In fact, he says that if the witch does not confess she should be

shown more devices for torture, and these should be gradually applied.57

Once a confession is obtained, the official regulations are to be acknowledged once again, though Kramer did not seem concerned with the rules about repetition of torture. He writes that any confession under torture must be repeated outside of the torture chamber and that the accused must be “questioned anew, so that she does not confess only under the stress of torture.”58 It is highly likely, based on his writing, that if

the accused recants at this time, he would support the resumption of torture. This

evidence all combines to show that Kramer’s insistence on torture being slow and

55Kramer, 13. 56Ibid. 57Ibid. 58Ibid. 20 deliberate was not out of concern for the accused or in order to confirm that their statements were true, but rather to ensure that each and every person accused confessed.

Friedrich Spee, writing about 145 years later, held very different views on the subjects of witchcraft and torture. In his Cautio Criminalis Spee encourages judges to abandon the use of torture as a means of obtaining confessions because of the high risk of accidentally convicting the innocent.

He begins his text by admitting that he does believe that witches do exist, but that he does not think that all those convicted in witchcraft trials are guilty.59 He does admit

that witchcraft is an excepted crime, but declares that this alone does not excuse the blatant abuses committed by the justice system in its pursuit of witches60. He points out

that because witchcraft is considered to be an excepted crime, accused witches are not

given lawyers, though it is exactly in such cases that lawyers are most needed. He argues that “when the crime is not fully and clearly established, the prisoner must be permitted a defense and granted a lawyer,” for the accused should always be allowed to “defend

[themselves] if [their] guilt has not yet been proven.”61 He claims that this circumstance,

among others, inevitably leads to some false convictions. Such a situation is not

acceptable.

In Question XX of his text, Spee declares that torture puts innocent people in

danger62. In his introduction to the text, translator Marcus Hellyer writes that:

59Friedrich Spee, Criminalis, or a Book on Witch Trials, trans. Marcus Hellyer (Charlottesville; London: University of Virginia Press, 2003), 15. 60Excepted crimes, or Crimen exceptum are certain crimes, in the prosecution of which, judges agreed that some of the general rules did not apply, ex. the rules that dealt with witness qualification (Levack, 84). 61Spee, 59. 62Ibid, 72. 21

Spee acknowledges that Germany’s princes have a divinely mandated duty to

wield the sword of justice and protect their people against Satan and his servants,

But how best to do that—by recklessly persecuting and burning witches or by

strictly supervising trials and eliminating every chance that innocent people could

be harmed? Spee was already convinced of the latter path.63

In order to convince others to see the situation in this way he undertook the task of convincing the German princes and people that the justice system needed to be reformed and that regulations needed to be enforced.64

Spee continues to show how the regulations in place at the time were being

broken. The first regulation he defended was that which determined that torture should

not be repeated. He wrote that, while he agreed that if true witches could simply

withdraw their confessions after torture without fear of further interrogation there would

be very few executions indeed, but that the number of torture sessions should be strictly

limited to two.65 This clause would allow judges to re-examine defendants who recanted,

but would ensure that the amount of torture would not become so excessive that no

innocent person stood a chance of being acquitted.

Spee also examines the types of evidence that are admitted in witchcraft trials

compared to that which would be admissible in any other trial. He observes that many

judges are willing to accept lower standards of proof before signing off on torture in

witchcraft cases because it is a difficult crime to prove66. He continues to argue that this

is unacceptable. Especially considering the severity of the punishment—death—it is vital

63Spee., xxiii. 64Ibid. 65Ibid., 89. 66Ibid., 144. 22 that the judges hold all evidence to the accepted standards of proof that no innocent persons are killed. He says “if it is difficult to prove, then there is need for stronger, not weaker, proofs so that it can be fully or almost-fully proven.”67 This is a valid point that

encourages caution, so that the innocent will not be wrongly convicted.

Another point that Spee makes which speaks against Kramer’s ideas is that those who manage to confess nothing under torture should not be condemned. Under Kramer’s

system almost no one would be able to escape without confessing because torture would

simply continue until they confessed. Spee, on the other hand, says that if a defendant

manages to withstand the torture without confessing they should be acquitted if there is

no other proof that merits conviction. He observes that if the point of torture is to prove

guilt or innocence, by condemning all who are accused whether they confess or not, there

is no way to prove innocence.68 The system is then flawed from the start.

Because of these and many other flaws in the witchcraft trials, Spee declares that

torture is not the most suitable method for revealing truth.69 He felt that because of the

abuses of those involved in the prosecution of witches, and the flagrant breaking of the

regulations on the use of torture, innocent people were in danger.70

Kramer and Spee both encouraged judges and interrogators to be cautious when

implementing torture in witchcraft trials—though for completely different reasons. Their

conflicting opinions on the veracity of coerced confessions and how torture was to be

used in trials provide insights into what the judges of the early modern period may have

been thinking. It must be noted, however, that modern historians have begun to question

67Spee, 145. 68Ibid., 150. 69Ibid., 104. 70We now know that virtually all of those executed for the crime of witchcraft were, in fact, innocent. 23 how influential the writings of Kramer were. Many believe that works such as the

Malleus Maleficarum were less influential in their time than they became in the twentieth century when historians began researching the witch hunt. The Cautio Criminalis, too, though there is high praise of its resulting in the ceasing of witch trials all over the

German territories in the introduction to the second edition, was probably not as influential as its author and later publishers would like readers to believe.71 The claims of

its success were more likely a ploy to convince people to read the book than it was an

accurate reflection of the texts’ influence.

Though it is unclear how influential these two texts were in the Early Modern

Period, they continue to gain in importance today as modern historians research the witch

craze. The opposing views expressed by the authors show extreme views which can be

used as a basis for understanding how the trials could, in some places, lose control and

consume hundreds of lives, while remaining small and isolated in others.

Conclusion

The witch craze in Europe was a time of blatant abuse of the judicial system and

violation of the regulations that had been put in place in order to protect the innocent.

Ultimately, though, it was the implementation of the Roman-canon law of proof that

allowed these abuses to occur. By requiring a confession for all crimes that were unseen

by any witnesses, the use of torture was guaranteed—as Langbein said, no judicial

system will remain in effect long if there is no way to convict any perpetrators of unseen

71Spee, 3.

24 crimes.72 It was not until the inquisitorial method was phased out to be replaced by what

modern readers would consider more “modern” and “humane” legal codes that the use of

torture began to cease. It wasn’t until the seventeenth century, when the ability of judges

to pass verdicts based on circumstantial evidence became acceptable, that torture began

to be officially abolished throughout Europe.73

The example of Great Britain in the early modern period further supports the idea

that the Roman-canon law of proof was the main cause of the worst excesses of the witch

craze. This standard of proof was never adopted in Great Britain and thus, even at its

worst, the witch trials were not nearly as excessive as those on the continent. The

witchcraft trials could not have occurred the way they did without the Roman-canon law

of proof. And, as Langbein observed, “there could be torture without the Roman-canon

system, but the reverse was not true.”74 The Roman-canon system could not exist without

torture, so the witchcraft trials could not exist without the Roman-canon system and its

dependency on torture to ensure convictions.

The flaws of this system were not ignored during the Early Modern Period. Men

such as Friedrich Spee, and others, spoke out against the policy of judicial torture. By the

eighteenth century a variety of famous men added their voices to the argument for the

abolition of torture. Two examples of these torture-abolitionists are Beccaria and

Voltaire, who used their writings and publications to point out the problems with the use

of torture.75 It is likely that these men had very little influence on the abolition of torture

72See above, p. 5 73Langbein, Torture and the Law of Proof, 47. 74Ibid., 8. 75Ibid., 10. 25 because they were not saying anything new. By this point everyone knew the problems that torture presented.

The realization that people will lie when tortured came gradually to Europe, but by the end of the eighteenth century most countries on the continent had ended the practice of Judicial torture. “Prussia all but terminated judicial torture in 1740…in 1770

Saxony abolished torture; in 1776 Poland and Austria-Bohemia; in 1780 France; in 1786

Tuscany; in 1787 the Austrian Netherlands…in 1789 Sicily.”76 While the laws of judicial

torture were being struck down, new legal codes, such as the Cautio Criminalis

Theresiana of 1769 in Austria, and the Colbert’s procedure code of 1670 in France.77

It is clear that the use of torture was a necessary part of the Roman Canon Law of

Proof, which was merely one step in legal evolution in Europe. The flaws of the system

were obvious long before the use of torture was ended. Langbein observes, “The law of

torture survived into the eighteenth century not because its defects had been concealed, but rather in spite of their having been revealed.”78 The burden of proof that was

developed in the Early Modern Period to make the judgment of humans in criminal trials

acceptable was not perfect, but there were no alternatives. This was the case in some parts of Europe until the eighteenth century, by which time the witch trials had ceased and new alternatives were finally available.

76Langbein, Torture and the Law of Proof, 10. 77Ibid. 50-51. 78Ibid. 9. 26

Works Cited

Kramer, Heinrich, O.P.; Sprenger, Jakob, O.P. Malleus Maleficarum. Translated by

Montague Summers. Speyer, 1486.

Langbein, John H. Prosecuting crime in the Renaissance: England, Germany, France.

Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1974.

Langbein, John H. Torture and the Law of Proof: Europe and England in the Ancient

Regime. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977.

Levack, Brian P. The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe. Harlow, England; New York:

Pearson Longman, 2006.

Montesano, Marina. “Laws on Witchcraft (Medieval),” The Encyclopedia of Witchcraft,

http://ebooks.abc-clio.com/ebooks/9781851095124/pg_640.asp#ENWITE.733

Morton, Peter A, ed. The Trial of Temple Anneke: Records of a Witchcraft Trial in

Brunswick, Germany. Translated by Barbara Dähms. Orchard Park, NY: Broadview

Press LTD, 2006.

Peters, Edward. “Crimen Exceptum,” The Encyclopedia of Witchcraft, http://ebooks.abc-

clio.com/ebooks/9781851095124/pg_232.asp#ENWITE.264.

Roper, Lyndal. Witchcraze: Terror and Fantasy in Baroque Germany. New Haven,

Conn.: Yale University Press, 2004.

Spree, Friedrich. Cautio Criminalis, or a Book on Witch Trials. Translated by Marcus

Hellyer. Charlottesville; London: University of Virginia Press, 2003.

27

Convent Possession Cases:

A Study in the Paradoxes of the Early Modern Witchcraft Paradigm

Will Eberle

Will Eberle is a junior from East Grand Rapids, Michigan. He will graduate with majors in Political Science, English, and History.

The development of witchcraft in the Early Modern period presents historians

with an interesting and unique problem. Not only is there no way to prove the existence

of witchcraft, there are also numerous contradictions and paradoxes that exist within the

stories of witchcraft from the time. While there is a general unified theory of witchcraft,

individual cases present challenges to that theory. One of the most contradictory of these

challenges comes in the form of the possession of convents by demons. This paper will

attempt to discover how and why convent possession cases developed within the Early

Modern witchcraft paradigm despite the inherent contradictions between the two. It will

begin by developing the theory of the Early Modern witchcraft paradigm and its

correlating possession paradigm, then move on to look at three specific cases in detail,

and finally posit that convent possession cases were the result of unique blend of the witchcraft paradigm with religious, gender, and local political dynamics

The Early Modern Witchcraft Paradigm

The development of the Early Modern witchcraft paradigm has been influenced much by the work of Brian Levack, who argues that a recognizable pattern of details emerged surrounding witches and witchcraft. As these details codified in the minds of

Early Modern people, they became a mold for witchcraft accusations. This assumption and development of the witchcraft paradigm has now become almost universally 28 accepted by scholars. Within the witchcraft paradigm, Levack indentifies four major pieces; the Devil, the demonic pact, the witch’s sabbath, and witches’ ability to fly.1

The Devil as understood in the Early Modern period was an amalgamation of

Christian and pagan beliefs rendered into a single entity. The popular concept of the

Devil included “his depiction as black…[with] wings…[ a] goatee…cloven feet…horns…wrinkled skin…naked…and [a] semi-animal form.”2 By associating the

Devil, the incarnation of evil, with elements of commonly recognized pagan gods,

Christians attempted to convert pagans and de-legitimize their religion. In addition to his

largely pagan-inspired appearance, the Devil was also known to possess powers in the

temporal world. These included the ability to “influence the human imagination and

insinuate himself in human affairs.”3 The Devil and his lesser demons were also known to be able to possess one’s body.

The second element of the witchcraft paradigm is the demonic pact. The pact was said to have been concluded between a witch and the Devil or a lesser demon. Through this agreement, the witch received his or her powers in exchange for fealty to the Devil and rejection of Christianity. The pact also served as a legal basis for prosecuting the crime of witchcraft, as theologians and judges argued that by entering the pact the witch

“had given to the Devil something that was due to God alone. The magician was therefore a heretic, in that he was…denying God the exclusive position in the universe that Catholic doctrine claimed.”4

1Brain P. Levack, The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe (London: Pearson Education, 2006): 32-50. 2Ibid., 33. 3Ibid, 63. 4Ibid, 39. 29

The demonic pact was often concluded at a witches’ sabbath, the demonic opposite to the Christian Sabbath. The witches’ sabbath often included “naked dancing and cannibalistic infanticide…ritual intercourse with the Devil and… promiscuous heterosexual and homosexual activity.”5 In the sabbath, witches from all parts of the

country came together to worship the Devil and ensure the continuance of their powers.

Because of the communal nature of the sabbath, during trial witches were expected to name other witches who had been present and participated in the demonic rights. This served to worsen the witch craze of the Early Modern period and helped large-scale witch-hunts develop. The final element of the witchcraft paradigm, that grew largely out of the belief in the sabbath, is the belief in the ability of witches to fly. To attend sabbaths that were far from their homes, witches would have required a mode of

transportation and to explain this, belief in flight was developed.

A lesser element of the witchcraft paradigm, but one that is most important for

this essay, is the belief in counter-magic and the power of Holy objects or scripture to

protect the bearer from witchcraft. Lyndal Roper writes that “the Chuch had an arsenal

of sacred objects, blessings and pious practices which were efficacious against

witchcraft.”6 Some of these objects included carrying Holy Scripture, consecrated

communion wafers, vials of Holy water, relics of saints, and performing the sign of the

cross. The protective properties of Holy objects and scripture play a large part in the paradox that develops in attempting to understand convent cases within the Early Modern witchcraft paradigm.

5Levack, 41. 6Lyndal Roper, Witch Craze (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2004: 39. 30

The Possession Paradigm

In addition to the witchcraft paradigm some scholars have argued for the development of a possession paradigm based on the belief in demonic possession.

Demonic possession was understood to be brought about in several ways in the Early

Modern period. Giving a brief history of demonic possession, Levack writes that “The belief that demonic spirits can actually inhabit the body of a human being and control its motions and behavior is present in all societies.”7 This widespread archetypal belief in

demonic possession, Levack argues, predisposed people to believe they were possessed

and made it easier to spread belief in possession. Levack continues, delineating two

methods of demonic possession. He writes, “during the early modern period theologians

claimed that there were two methods of possession. The first and most common was that

the Devil could inhabit the person’s body by his [the Devil’s] own power…with God’s

permission. The second was that the Devil did so at the command of a witch.”8 Sarah

Ferber adds a third method of possession: “when demons attack human beings of their own accord to spread their malice.”9 These three types of demonic possession were

commonly recognized in the Early Modern period and were believed to occur often. In

response to the common belief in possession, a recognized set of symptoms developed,

forming what modern scholars have argued is a possession paradigm.

Modeling the development of the witchcraft paradigm in the Early-Modern

Period, several scholars have argued for a similar possession paradigm10. James Sharpe

7Levack, 11. 8Ibid., 12. 9Sarah Ferber, “Possession, Demonic,” in Encyclopedia of Witchcraft: The Western Tradition, ed. Richard M. Golden (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2006), 921. 10Moshe Sluhovsky, “A Divine Apparition of Demonic Possession? Female Agency and Church Authority in Demonic Possession in Sixteenth-Century France,” Sixteenth Century Journal 27, no. 4 (1996): passim; 31 writes that “the behavior of the possessed followed set patterns; it was known about, people knew how possessed people ought to behave, and it was this that allowed…many…to put on convincing displays of being afflicted.”11 Moshe Sluhovsky

adds to this, arguing that in order to be declared possessed, people’s symptoms had to fit

into well established parameters. These included “the ability to understand foreign

languages, to manifest unnatural physical strength, to react with horror to sacred objects,

and to suffer from involuntary convulsions, gestures, seizures, vomiting, fits, faintings, and paralysis”12. Like the commonly held beliefs in witchcraft that developed, the

possession paradigm was widely disseminated and helped determine the authenticity of,

as well as model action for the possessed; as stories of new possession cases reached

different areas they were absorbed into the local dynamic, reinforcing and expanding the

possession paradigm. Levack goes on to add that “supposed victims of possession also

fitted a widely recognized pattern…it was overwhelmingly children or young people who

suffered.”13 This pattern of female victimization can be seen clearly in convent cases,

where the entire afflicted population was female. While this argument does not explicitly

address convent cases, it can be inferred that a similar, if not more powerful, reaction to

possession stories was to be found within convents.

To extend the possession paradigm to convents, Guido Dall’Olio outlines a basic

four-step process that became, he argues, the norm for Early Modern convent possession

cases. In this process, “one or more nuns began to experience a kind of ‘psychosomatic’

malaise (sometimes…bec[oming] a true ‘epidemic’ spreading throughout the convent);

Guido Dall’Olio, “Convent Cases,” in Encyclopedia of Witchcraft: The Western Tradition, ed. Richard M. Golden (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2006): 215. 11James Sharpe, The Bewitching of Anne Gunter (New York: Routledge, 2001): 153. 12Sluhovsky, 1043-44. 13Levack, 153. 32 second, the disease was perceived as a demonic possession, which immediately involved an exorcist; third, during their exorcisms, the possessed nuns accused of witchcraft the persons whom they believed responsible for their possession; and, fourth using this evidence, both lay and ecclesiastical courts…arrested and tried the presumed criminals.”14 This “‘psychosomatic’ malaise” that Dall’Olio outlines fits well with

Sharpe’s and Sluhovsky’s possession paradigm, the nuns experiencing some or all of the

symptoms recognized in the paradigm.

While the convent cases examined below fit into the possession paradigm, there

are elements in them that do not fit the Early Modern witchcraft paradigm, creating a

contradiction within Early Modern thought.

Convent Cases

Because of the development of the Early Modern possession paradigm, convent cases became a rampant affliction during the 16th century, continuing through the mid-

17th century. The majority of early cases of possessed clergy were isolated, individual

cases. Indeed, as early as the 7th century, Gregory the Great recorded a case of a

possessed friar, with additional cases of possessed nuns and friars being mentioned by

Hincmar of Reims in the 9th century and Caesarius of Heisterback in the 13th century.15

In these early cases it was not unlikely for a male member of the clergy to become possessed, however there has never been a recorded case of the possession of a monastery, suggesting that only individual men could be possessed. It is also important to mention that in these early cases there was no claim of witchcraft, rather the Devil was thought to have acted on his own will and entered the body of the possessed.

14Dall’Olio, 215. 15Ibid. 33

Prior to the 16th century, there is only one recorded case of a possessed convent,

occurring near Cambrai, France in 1491. It is not entirely clear when the transition from

individual possession cases, which continued through the 18th century, to mass possession

cases happened, however one can point to this early case as a tentative date. The

majority of convent possession cases occurred in the late 16th century and early 17th century, with only one case occurring after 1650. Given the limited time frame (roughly

150 years) convent possessions occurred in, one must wonder why there were no cases before 1491 and why convent possessions began so late in the development of witchcraft.

The list of cases is substantial, but also thought to be largely incomplete. Guido

Dall’Olio, an expert on convent cases, writes “we do not know exactly how many cases

of this kind occurred; the impression that they were numerous might be due to the echo

and to the public debates which such episodes caused.”16 Convent possessions were

known to have happened in Italy in Bologna (1562-63), Reggio Emilia (1625), Piacenza

(1625), Carpi (1636-39); in Spain at Madrid (1628); in France at Cambrai (1491), Aix-

en-Provence (1609-11), Loudun (1632-1638), Louviers (1642-47), Auxonne(1658-63);

and, as reported by Johann Weyer, in the Holy Roman Empire in Xanten (1550-1556),

Wertet Convent (1551), Kentorp (1552), and finally in Cologne (1560-64).17 The

majority of these cases occurred within one hundred years, with a large number in the

1550s and 1560s and again in the 1620s and 1630s, suggesting growing turmoil during

those decades. In an attempt to discover why and how convent cases happened both

through and despite the Early Modern witchcraft paradigm, I will now examine three

famous cases in detail.

16Dall’Olio, 215. 17Ibid.; Johann Weyer, De Praestigiis Daemonum, ed. Benjamin G. Kohl and H.C. Erik Midlefort (Asheville, NC: Pegasus Press, 1998): 163. 34

The Aix-en-Provence Case

The first French case of convent possession in the 17th century occurred in an

Ursuline convent in Aix-en-Provence province. The progression of the possession occurred almost exactly as Dall’Olio’s model predicts. The first nun that exhibited symptoms was Madeleine Demandols de la Palud, a young noblewoman from a nearby

family. Madeleine had been known to show severe signs of depression prior to and during her early years at the convent. This is not surprising given the socio-economic norms at the time that relegated unmarried noble daughters to life in the convents.

Madeleine began showing symptoms of possession as early as 1609, but was not declared possessed until 1610. Shortly after her diagnosis as possessed, other nuns began experiencing symptoms of possession.

During an attempted exorcism, Madeleine, along with fellow nun Louise Capeau, accused local parish priest, Louis Gaufridy, of their bewitchment as well as engaging in sexual activity with Madeleine. The exorcisms attempted at the convent had no effect on

Madeleine and she was taken to Avignon and publicly exorcised, in direct opposition to

Church doctrine that required exorcisms to be done in private. Following Madeleine’s continued accusations, Gaufridy was arrested in 1611 on suspicion of witchcraft and sexual licentiousness. During his time in prison, Gaufridy was tortured and examined by witchcraft experts for signs of the Devil’s mark; the local university doctor, Jacques

Fontaine, claimed to have found several Devil’s marks on Gaufridy during his

examination. While there is no remaining record of his testimony or the examination

methods, it must be assumed that Gaufridy confessed to witchcraft during torture. 35

Gaufridy was eventually found guilty of witchcraft, blasphemy, and sexual misconduct by the Parlement of Provence and was executed on April 11, 1611.18

Several elements of this case stand out as important. First is the widespread

notoriety that the case gained. The details of the case were widely disseminated by

Sebastien Michaelis, the Grand Inquisitor of Avignon who had conducted the exorcism of

Madeleine, in a pamphlet titled Admirable History in which he described Madeleine’s exorcism and the role of Father Gaufridy. The case, because of its dissemination and its largely unprecedented nature, soon became very famous and it has been argued that it served as a model for the later case at Loudun, helping to reinforce the possession paradigm.

A second important detail is the role of Father Gaufridy and how it played into later cases. Gaufridy was an ordained priest and, therefore, would have been highly unlikely to perform witchcraft. Indeed, it would have been impossible, according to contemporary thought, for Gaufridy to administer the Eucharist after sealing a demonic pact. The fact that a member of the clergy was accused of witchcraft and executed for it appears to be contradictory; however, there seems to be an explanation that circumvents this problem. Gaufridy was a friend of Madeleine’s family, and as the local parish priest likely served as confessor for the convent, meaning that he was one of the only outside presences the nuns would have been exposed to. Because he was previously known to

Madeleine and had regular contact with the convent, Gaufridy offered an easy target for

Madeleine’s and Louise’s accusations. This model of a priest who was closely associated

with a convent would be repeated in the most famous possession case, Loudun.

18Jonathan L. Pearl, “Aix-en-Provence Nuns,” in Encyclopedia of Witchcraft: The Western Tradition, Ed. Richard M. Golden (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2006): 25-6. 36

The Loudun Case

The Loudun case is by far the most famous case of bewitchment in Early Modern

France. The case was also strikingly similar to the Aix-en-Provence case in both its details and its outcome. The Loudun case began, like the Aix-en-Provence case, in the local Ursuline convent. The first event in Loudun occurred in September, 1632, when a nun had a vision of a recently dead local priest who asked her and the convent to pray for his soul.19 The nun reported the event to the Mother Superior of the convent, Jeanne des

Agnes. Jeanne was significantly older than the other nuns and supposedly had a

predisposition for “severe nervous problems” when under stress, problems which she was

treated for several times by local doctors.20 While the nuns began to pray for the priest, he visited several more times in night visions, but was soon replaced by visions of Urbain

Grandier, a local priest who the nuns had supposedly never met or seen before the visions began.

Grandier’s displacement of the dead priest in the night visions reportedly led to

the visions becoming extremely erotic, des Agnes reporting that the “demons had fully

aroused in us the passion of love for this man, [and] he did not fail to come at night into

our house and into our chambers to solicit us to sin.”21 Following Grandier’s appearance

in their dreams, the nuns began reporting “extraordinary convulsions, uncontrolled

laughter, running, swearing, screaming, and blaspheming. They lost all self-possession.

They spoke in strange voices.”22 These symptoms, with the exception of the visions of

19Robert Rapley, “Loudun Nuns,” in Encyclopedia of Witchcraft: The Western Tradition, ed. Richard M. Golden (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2006): 670. 20Ibid. 21Ibid. 22Ibid. 37

Grandier, fit perfectly with the symptoms of possession as was understood at the time, leading the nuns and townspeople to believe that possession was responsible.

During the exorcisms that began almost immediately, des Agnes accused

Grandier of bewitching her and causing the possession. These first exorcisms were private, as was required by Church doctrine, but soon became open to the public and as many as 2,000 spectators were reported during a single exorcism. The exorcisms soon became spectacles that served as public entertainment, with one especially memorable episode featuring des Agnes “vomit[ing] up a piece of paper, allegedly a pact that

Grandier had made with the Devil and signed with his blood.”23 These allegations

against Grandier were somewhat suspicious, however, given the close connections

between the exorcist and a family that Grandier had previously been friends with.

When Grandier had first come to Loudun in 1617, he befriended Louis Trincant, a

local nobleman who had family ties with royal advisor Cardinal Richelieu, but several

years later successfully seduced Trincant’s daughter Philippe. Trincant and his family

then turned on Grandier and, though no charges were ever brought, the story was almost

certainly passed into the Loudun convent. In addition, the chief exorcist charged with exorcising Jeanne des Agnes, who ultimately made the accusation against Grandier, was

Trincant’s nephew, suggesting that the charges may have been brought as a form of familial revenge against Grandier. This nephew also compared the Loudun case to the

earlier case in Aix-en-Provence, suggesting that Grandier had acted like Gaufridy had

some twenty years earlier.

Adding to the already suspect validity of the accusations, the exorcists claimed

that “the Devil could be forced to tell the truth under exorcism- a proposition opposed by

23Rapley, 670. 38 leading Catholic theologians of the time.”24 Given the fact that the chief exorcist, the one

responsible for the initial accuser, was a member of the Trincant family that held a

personal grudge against Grandier, and that the exorcists were acting against conventional

Catholic dogma, the accusations must be viewed as suspect. Indeed, there is evidence

that people at the time recognized this, as some within the community were beginning to

support Grandier. At this point, Louis Trincant used his family connections and brought

the case to the attention of Cardinal Richelieu and the king. The king “ordered an

inquiry, with the explicit purpose of finding Grandier guilty as a sorcerer and punishing

him.”25 Trincant’s influence is evident in that it was not until the king intervened in the

case that Grandier was arrested and brought to trial. In a speedy trial on August 18, 1634,

seventy-two witnesses testified that Grandier was a sorcerer, resulting in his execution

the same day.

Following Grandier’s execution, common belief held that the possessions should

have stopped, given the death of the witch responsible, however they continuedanother

four years until des Agnes “miraculously” recovered. The fact that the possessions did

not stop, along with the suspicious nature surrounding the trial, forces one to question

whether or not the nuns were actually possessed and if Grandier had actually been

innocent. There are several possible explanations for the outcome of the trial. First, the

local political dynamic in Loudun was extremely tenuous, with the city divided between

Catholics and Huguenots.26 In this climate, some scholars have argued, the Catholics would have needed to execute somebody to prove that their belief in exorcism was true.

Second, the family connection and intimate relationship between Trincant and Grandier,

24Rapley, 670. 25Ibid., 671. 26Ibid., 670. 39 and Trincant’s influential family ties most likely influenced the trial. Trincant had a longstanding grudge against Grandier, and his nephew had been responsible for the exorcism that led to Grandier’s accusation, giving the Trincant family a unique opportunity to affect what they perceived as the justice that had not been brought against

Grandier years earlier. The involvement of Cardinal Richelieu and the king also suggests that Trincant’s significant family influence doomed Grandier; it was not until the king’s inquiry and trial, which was largely a formality, that Grandier was found guilty and executed.

In the Loudun case, clear echoes of the Aix-en-Provence case and the possession paradigm can be seen. In both cases largely insulated groups of Ursuline nuns were bewitched by a local parish priest who was accused of sexual liberties with the nuns during their bewitchment and was then found guilty and executed. Both cases fit

Dall’Olio’s pattern for convent possessions, suggesting that much like the Early Modern witchcraft paradigm that circulated through Europe and was developed through numerous cases, the possession paradigm had already been well established by this time. While these two cases represent later instances of convent possessions, a third, earlier case that also fits the paradigm was recorded by Protestant doctor Johann Weyer at the convent of

Kentorp in the Holy Roman Empire.

The Kentorp Case

Like the first two cases, the Kentorp case followed the basic pattern of possession as outlined by Dall’Olio. Weyer, a noted critic of witchcraft persecutions recorded the case in his De Praestigiis Daemonum in an attempt to disprove witchcraft and discredit 40 accusations of witchcraft. Despite his criticism of witchcraft as nonexistent, his text is very thorough in its discussion of convent cases.

Weyer first describes how the nuns at Kentorp, a convent near Hamm in the Holy

Roman Empire, were possessed, writing that “they emitted a foul breath…[and] convulsed… when one suffered an attack, all the others, even in separate cells, were attacked, and at the mere sound of one of their number being harassed, they were beset in the same wretched manner.”27 In addition to convulsions and foul breath, the nun’s symptoms included being forced to “bite and thrash one another…[being] rais[ed]…up

and cast…down again without any bodily harm…they felt no pain…it was as though

[they] were stupid and lacking in sense, discretion, and judgment.”28 During the ensuing

exorcisms, the nuns were “observed to pour forth an incredible amount of blood from

[their] mouth[s], while feeling no pain at the time…the demon often spoke out at length

from within the younger and less disciplined nuns.”29

Unlike the other cases, where the nuns accused their tormentors during exorcism, several unaffected nuns in this case went to a “soothsayer,” who told them that “they had all been injured by the witchcraft of Elsa von Kamen, their cook.”30 In response to this

accusation, Elsa was arrested and confessed to causing the sickness through use of a

poison. In response to this confession, Elsa and her mother (Weyer does not go into

detail on the mother’s role) were found guilty and set to be executed. Prior to execution,

Elsa changed her confession and claimed instead that she had caused the possession of

27Weyer, 166. 28Ibid., 167. 29Ibid. 30Ibid. 41 the nuns through “her mind and an evil curse.”31 While Weyer does not mention torture

in this case, one must assume that it was used because Elsa’s confession to witchcraft

essentially amounted to self-damnation, something it is doubtful she would have done

without being tortured. Following Elsa’s execution, the possession did not stop, rather it

spread into the surrounding villages.

The Kentorp case, like the two French cases, fits into Dall’Olio’s model for

convent possession, with the exception of one difference. Rather than the exorcisms

leading to the accusation of witchcraft, as Dall’Olio’s model suggested they should, a

“soothsayer” was consulted which led to the trial and death of Elsa and her mother.

Given these three cases as evidence, strong conclusions can be drawn about the nature of

convent possession cases in the Early Modern period and how they developed despite the

contradictions they offered to the Early Modern witchcraft paradigm.

Contradictions

The Early Modern witchcraft paradigm presents many contradictions to the

development of convent possession cases. Many elements of the convent possessions

seem to be in direct opposition to commonly held beliefs at the time, creating a paradox

within Early Modern thought. The most striking factors that seem to be in conflict are

the fact that members of Holy orders were possessed and that those found guilty of their

bewitchment were priests.

In convent cases, the possessed victims were members of Holy orders, ordained

members of the Catholic Church who would recite prayers and read scripture daily. They

would also regularly have communion and were surrounded by Holy objects. One would

logically assume, then, that those in convents would be essentially immune from

31Weyer., 168. 42 witchcraft because of the commonly accepted power of Holy objects in preventing possession. If one assumes, and one must, that the Early Modern witchcraft paradigm was widely accepted, convent possessions should not have happened.

A second paradox in two of the three cases is the fact that a priest was accused, found guilty of witchcraft and burned. This is contradictory to the witchcraft paradigm since a priest who regularly handles consecrated hosts and provides other religious services, should not be able to do so after signing a pact with the Devil. In addition, the priest would not have been able to say Mass after concluding a demonic pact as he would have had to agree to reject Christianity. Yet again, despite the commonly accepted witchcraft paradigm, people believed that entire convents had been bewitched by these men.

Conclusions

To attempt to explain how the convents could have become possessed, Johann

Weyer rejects the idea of witchcraft in these cases, and instead argues that the Devil was acting through the permission of God to test the faith of the nuns and those around them.

He writes in De Praestigiis Daemonum, “it cannot be doubted that in fact Satan had possessed these maidens…God allowed him in this power of causing great distress in order that the nuns might be tempted or chastised.”32 Weyer, as a skeptic of witchcraft, would have found it more reasonable to conclude that God had allowed the Devil to test the nun’s faith than to believe that witchcraft had been involved. He argues that because the Kentorp nuns had accused Elsa of causing their torment that “they were clearly shown to be of wavering faith, because they referred the causes of their torments not to the will

32Weyer, 164. 43 of God but to women.”33 The nuns therefore failed their test of faith for believing that

such a powerful possession could have been caused by a mere mortal. Weyer continues

to argue against the use of witchcraft in this case, writing that because of the accusation

of Elsa and her subsequent execution, “Satan attacked not a few citizens of the

neighboring town with various sorts of torture…some women were consequently

consigned to chains, and many more were accused, as usually happens in diabolical

business of this sort.”34 Here, Weyer claims that the Devil uses charges of witchcraft to

deceive authorities into executing innocent people and corrupting their faith.

Though Weyer’s argument seems to circumvent the problems posed through the application of the witchcraft paradigm, it does not adequately explain the issue; to simply

say that the possessions were the work of the Devil ignores other contemporary issues

that are more likely to have caused the increase in convent cases. Principle among these

issues present in the cases I have examined were the Reformation and Counter-

Reformation religious struggle, the diverging roles of women within that struggle, and

local political discourse.

Perhaps most tellingly in the argument that the Reformation greatly influenced the

development of convent possession cases is the fact that prior to the Reformation there

was only one recorded case of convent possession, while after the Reformation there

were at least thirteen. It is highly unlikely that these correlations are coincidental. In

addition, the three cases above occurred in areas with mixed Catholic and Protestant

populations, suggesting some type of correlation. This explanation gains additional

relevance when looking at the Loudun case because of the involvement of Cardinal

33Weyer, 164. 34Ibid., 168-9. 44

Richelieu, one of the most stringent anti-Protestant voices in French history. Richelieu’s involvement in bringing the case to the king suggests that he was attempting to use the case to the advantage of Catholicism in the region. Indeed, Loudun had been split almost down the middle between Catholics and Huguenots at the time of the trial, likely giving

Richelieu an incentive to act to prevent the Huguenots from gaining more power

Another element that points to the cases being brought about by the religious dynamic is the fact that the exorcisms in all three cases were made public, despite Church doctrine that required private exorcisms. By making the exorcisms public, the Church may have hoped to prove its power against the Devil and bring Protestants back into the fold. The exorcisms, with their incredible imagery and power of ceremony, were seen as a form of entertainment, allowing the Church to use this spectacle to draw dissenters back. This would also support the idea that Richelieu intervened in the Loudun case to prevent further division within the Church; having the country’s most powerful religious authority involved in a local case would surely have some clout with the Protestant dissenters.

The deaths of Urbain Grandier and Louis Gaufridy can also be seen as attempts by the Church to bring Protestants back into the fold. Because a large part of the

Protestant argument for division had been based on the moral degradation of the clergy, a public exhibition of self-purging by the Catholic Church would potentially serve to quiet those claims. This also fits well with Counter-Reformation thought, since a large part of the movement was to attempt to reduce moral decay within the Church. While the majority of convent possession cases did not end with the deaths of priests, the potential 45 religious ramifications of the Aix-en-Provence and Loudun executions cannot be overlooked in attempting to determine the causal factors for witchcraft.

The role of women during the Early Modern period also likely contributed to the development of convent possession cases. At the time, the majority of the literature on witchcraft was “demeaning, if not blatantly hostile, to women.”35 The early witchcraft

treaties suggested that women, who “generally had none of men’s physical or political

power, were believed to be able to use sorcery as an instrument of protection and

revenge.”36 While most women were accused of being witches, demonic possession of

both men and women was equally likely to occur. In the early stories of clergy

possession, the Church mentions both male and female clergy as possessed and common belief held that individual possessions of both male and female laypeople continued well

throughout the period of convent possession cases. Despite these factors, no mass

possession of male clergy was ever reported. This, along with the general misogynistic

attitude of the time, noted by scholars37, likely helped the development of convent

possession cases.

In addition to the religious and gender dynamics at work in convent cases, one

can also point to local political interactions as a causal factor. In both the Aix-en-

Provence and Loudun cases, the priest who would be accused and executed had close relationships with the convent, Gaufridy serving as confessor to his family friend

Madeleine, and Grandier having angered the local nobleman whose nephew served as

chief exorcist. The intimate relationship between the priests and the nuns suggests that

their accusation may have been more an act of convenience than fact. While there is

35Levack, 145. 36Levack, 145-9; Roper, 148. 37Roper, 121-22. 46 limited data on the other convent cases, one can assume from the two models of Aix-en-

Provence and Loudun that some amount of local political discourse helped to catalyze the situation and develop the preponderance of convent possession cases that appear after

1550.

In the confluence of Reformation tensions, women’s roles, local political struggles, and the witchcraft paradigm, one can find the cause of convent possession cases. The combination of these factors served to develop a landscape ripe for convent cases to emerge. Tensions in the Church, questions about the role of women and their value in society, and local politics converged on convents in the Early Modern period and led to the development of convent possessions, a unique expression of the values of the witchcraft paradigm and society as a whole.

47

Works Cited

Dall’Olio, Guido. “Convent Cases.” Encyclopedia of Witchcraft: The Western

Tradition. Edited by Richard M. Golden. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2006.

pp.215-216.

Ferber, Sarah. “Possession, Demonic.” Encyclopedia of Witchcraft: The Western

Tradition. Edited by Richard M. Golden. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2006.

pp.920-925.

Levack, Brian P. The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe. London: Pearson Education,

2006.

Pearl, Jonathan L. “Aix-en-Provence Nuns.” Encyclopedia of Witchcraft: The Western

Tradition. Edited by Richard M. Golden. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2006.

pp.25-26.

Rapley, Robert. “Loudun Nuns.” Encyclopedia of Witchcraft: The Western Tradition.

Edited by Richard M. Golden. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2006. pp.669-672.

Roper, Lyndal. Witch Craze. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2004.

Sharpe, James. The Bewitching of Anne Gunter. New York: Routledge, 2001.

Sluhovsky, Moshe. “A Divine Apparition of Demonic Possession? Female Agency and

Church Authority in Demonic Possession in Sixteenth-Century France.”

Sixteenth Century Journal 27, no. 4 (Winter, 1996).

Weyer, Johann. De Praestigiis Daemonum. Edited by Benjamin G. Kohl and H.C. Erik

Midlefort. Asheville, NC: Pegasus Press, 1998.

48

Fairies of Early Modern England and Scotland: Familiar Spirits or Ghosts?

Rachel Koval

Rachel Koval is a junior from Bridgeport, Michigan. She will be graduating with degrees in English and History.

The influence and use of familiar spirits was often considered proof of diabolical

activity in witchcraft trials. The “witch craze” of the early modern period as we know it is

preceded by diverse legends of fairies and other sprite-like beings. All we know of fairies today is what the Brothers Grimm and Walt Disney have offered, which is based off of the 19th century ideal of good fairies; jolly, angelic beings that exist to assist mankind.

This is vastly different from the historical tradition of fairies, especially in early modern

England and Scotland. In these two countries, the involvement of fairies is linked to that

of familiars and even the walking dead or ghosts. Popular belief this period suggests that

fairies were wholly separate beings, not belonging under the jurisdiction of either Heaven

or Hell but rather being the anthropomorphized form of Nature’s inherent power, using

that power for good or evil as they wished. This made them a complicated subject for the

consideration of the Church. Fairies in Scotland were not seen as demonic and therefore

did not fall as heavily under the eye of James I. English fairies had conflicting purposes

for good and evil which made them difficult to classify in relation to witchcraft and the

witch’s familiar.

The fairy mythologies of England and Scotland during this period are comprised

of multiple figures. There are dozens of different beings and creatures that became

indoctrinated into the folklore. The conjecture can be made that this became a problem

for individuals tried for witchcraft. Records from trials in Scotland reference fairies

included in the condemnable magical practices of the time such as Sabbaths and other 49 diabolical gatherings.1 Familiar spirits are often mentioned in conjunction with fairies in

these cases. The images of the walking dead, as presented in instances across Europe,

also seem to have their root in ancient pagan accounts of the dead returning as vindictive

sprites.2 It is important to note that fairies as they originated were not the charming

creatures formed out of the Victorian imagination: The supernatural powers of fairies

made them as fearsome to unsuspecting villagers as the witch’s familiars were during the

time of the witch trials. The similarities between all of these images results in some

confusion between familiars and fairies that has since been obliterated by the

incorporation of fairy myth into popular culture.

Fairies, Familiars and the Walking Dead: Correlations

These three categories of beings all share similar qualities in behavior and

capabilities. All of these beings were accepted to have supernatural abilities which could

be called upon for assistance if the appropriate procedures were followed.3 They are

culturally associated with agricultural, familial and economical success or failure. Many

of the acts and abilities associated with witch’s familiars were also attributed in folklore

to fairies. Prognostication, the discovery of lost possessions, and the blessings or curses

of neighbors were linked to fairy involvement as well as that of familiars.4 Fairies hold a

complicated place in the minds of witchcraft historians. Until the inclusion of fairies in

the study of witchcraft and their relation to familiars, the concept of the witch’s familiar

was seen as “an elite demonological concept.”5 It was thought that images of animals or

1Emma Wilby, “The Witch’s Familiar in Early Modern England and Scotland,” Folklore 111, no. 2 (2000): 284. 2Diane Purkiss, At the Bottom of the Garden: a Dark History of Fairies, Hobgoblins and Other Troublesome Things (New York: New York University Press, 2000), 102-103. 3Wilby, 285. 4Ibid., 286. 5Wilby, 285. 50 other small beings doing the bidding of witches were sensationalized and painted as more threatening by the officials in charge of the witch hunts and trials. More recent studies of folklore of these regions in Britain argue, rather, that a long tradition of fairies is to blame for the sensational nature of the witch’s familiar in 16th and 17th century trials. We cannot

generalize the occurrences of fairies in England and Scotland as similar; they contain

many distinct differences, which will be explored.

The idea of fairies being ghosts or other supernatural beings is largely derived

from their appearance and behavior. Scotland has one such case in its history; that of

Elspeth Roech in 1616. She was accused of being a witch when she claimed that she was

approached by two fairies that appeared to be ghosts, dressed in dark clothing.6 Outside

of the British Isles there are other instances of ghostly beings interacting with individuals.

The “people of the night” described by Chonrad Stoeckhlin of Germany are also referred

to as fairies or fairy-people.7 It was believed that they were phantoms; spirits of the dead which possessed an “elf or fairy nature.”8 These references to fairies being “phantoms of the night” do not occur as frequently in history as the overlap between fairies and familiars. There is a popular belief in many regions of Europe as well as Britain that fairies are ghostly in nature. Diane Purkiss writes was a widely accepted idea in Europe

as a whole that fairies belong to a specified class of dead persons, usually people taken

“before their time”, such as infants, soldiers or murder victims.9

Descriptions of Fairies in England and Scotland

6Purkiss, At the Bottom of the Garden, 90. 7Wolfgang Behringer, Shaman of Obertsdorf: Chonrad Stoeckhlin and the Phantoms of the Night (Charlottesville, VA: University Press of Virginia, 1994), 45-46. 8Behringer, 46. 9Diane Purkiss, "Fairies" in Encyclopedia of Witchcraft: the Western Tradition, ed. Richard Golden (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2006), 345-347. 51

The appearances of fairies are not uniform, and most cultures have different types of fairies that serve specific purposes or have their own legends. Familiar spirits tend to follow a stereotypical pattern, usually demonic. Often, they are black-bodied with cloven hooves or take on the appearance of an animal hybrid. Some fairies were described as obviously superhuman in appearance, either incredibly tall or short with a light or dark

“air” about them.10 Several witchcraft cases in Scotland illustrate the common confusion

between familiars and fairies. A parishioner in Scotland in 1601 described a fairy as a small-bodied and bearded old man. This corresponds to a 1597 description of the Devil

by a witch of Aberdeenshire, Scotland, who also describes a small, bearded man.11 These

are surprisingly similar descriptions, but two very different entities.

The two countries in question have very different images associated with their

interpretations of fairies. According to scholar Lewis Spence, English fairies are more

pleasant in their appearance and are more willing to collaborate with humans while

Scottish fairies are weird spirits which tend to be more frightening.12 The earliest recorded appearance of fairies in England is during the reign of King Stephen, from

1135-1154. William of Newbridge records the appearance of two “children” with greenish skin who also spoke a foreign language unrecognizable by the local people. The children were baptized but only one survived; she later married and lived a normal life, losing her greenish skin tone. The instance was not perceived to be the work of witches or even the Devil. The children claimed that the name of their land was “St. Martin’s

Land” and they practiced Christianity under the saint’s watchful eye.13 While this account

10Wilby, 286. 11Ibid., 287. 12Lewis Spence, The Fairy Tradition in Britain (London: Rider & Co., 1948), 13. 13Spence, 14-15. 52 cannot be proven necessarily, it allows for a comparison for later images of fairies. Later descriptions of fairies, during the period of the witch craze in Europe, were commonly male figures of normal height but thin and dressed in monochromatic dark or green clothing. 14 Smaller fairies in the traditions of the British Isles were much more peculiar

in appearance than their taller relatives. Small fairies such as Yallery Brown, an English

fairy are usually associated with much more mischievous behavior.15

An idea that was particularly embraced during the periods of the Scottish witch trials was the notion of fairies’ femininity. This goes back to the pagan roots of the

British Isles and their personification of nature as female. There are recorded instances of fairies being obviously female and of either normal or subnormal height, as well as feminine elf-like beings.16 This idea was seized and associated with the witch’s familiar

and used in conjunction with the Malleus Maleficarum in Scottish cases, as well as James

VI’s Daemonologie.17 The idea of a female fairy was an admirable quality in the Middle

Ages, however. Peasants and villagers believed the help of a matronly fairy was

necessary in conception and childbirth.18

The Fairy Tradition in England

As mentioned, the fairy tradition of England can be traced back to its pagan

beginnings prior to the Roman occupation. Belief in the Saxon gods only went so far; the

local fairy population was believed to have great power that was necessary for survival.

The account of William of Newbridge is a written legend following the line of oral

tradition of English fairies. Fairies were seen as fearsome but helpful enough if certain

14Jeremiah Curtin, Tales of the Fairies and of the Ghost World (New York: Benjamin Blom, Inc., 1895) 15Purkiss, “Fairies” 41. 16Ibid., 346. 17Ibid., 89. 18Ibid., 87. 53 boundaries were respected. This is true in a narrative by Gervase of Tillbury from the 13th

century. According to Gervase, an obliging fairy resided in a forest of Gloucestershire

and would provide a magical draught to any parched hunters. All one had to do was voice

that he was thirsty and the fairy would appear with a cup.19

Traditionally, English fairies can be divided into different groups or types. The

earliest type mentioned in British lore are the fairies known as “portunes.” These fairies

are tied to domestic activity, typically haunting farmhouses or barns and carrying out task during the night. These spirits were described as wrinkled old men, no more than one half

inch tall.20 This extremely diminutive height is contradicted by other descriptions, which

suggest six inches to be more accurate.

The most famous specifically named fairies in English lore are Puck and Robin

Goodfellow. It is contested as to whether or not they are the same person. The name

“Puck”, according to Spence, signifies him as more of an elf or sprite. Other authors and

scholars take the name and apply it to the devil or other imps. Puck can, according to folk

legend, take the shape of a horse, leading others astray. He can also assist humans in

various predicaments, but prefers to cause trouble. Spence argues that this description

matches the accounts of Robin Goodfellow. While Puck and Robin have been separated

in various accounts, they bear too many similarities to be ignored. 21 The appearance and

behavior of Robin Goodfellow is described in detail in an anonymous text from 1639.

The author’s folkloric knowledge of the fairy suggests similar behavior to that of Puck; changing into animal forms and causing mischief. He also tells of Robin’s benevolence to

19Spence, 14. 20Ibid.,16. 21Ibid., 17-20. 54 travelers when it suits him.22 Both figures have gained considerable literary fame, but are

rooted in the fairy tradition as hobgoblins or hobthrusts.

The “hobthrust” is another common fairy in the minds of the English people through the Middle Ages and into the 17th century. It is defined as a goblin spirit which

engages in secret, nightly domestic labor but will vanish under special circumstances. In

the case of a small Northumberland town, a new hat being placed outside would cause the

fairy to disappear.23 This fairy is closely associated with Puck and Goodfellow, possibly being the link between the two as well as the “brownie.” Brownies are dwarf-like in stature but powerfully built and can be found on the moors or with a particular family.24

These beings are also common in Scottish fairy-lore.

The “boggart” is a more terrifying spirit in English fairy tradition. It equates more with a ghost than the other types of fairies mentioned. They were more like poltergeists, in that they would not make themselves known visibly. Various folkloric accounts insist that they would move furniture and spook horses and cattle along with leaving messages behind in homes and barns.25 Boggarts are more specifically associated with the dead and

follow the notion of “unfinished business” which has been popularized throughout

western culture and in today’s concepts of the dead.

Pixies are another popularized fairy type that has survived several centuries. They

served as moral observers for the community; housewives feared the watchful eye of the

pixie king if their houses were unkempt.26 A valuable account of pixies is left behind in

22Robin Good-fellow, his mad prankes and merry iests full of honest mirth (London: Thomas Cotes, 1639), 10-12. 23Ibid., 21. 24Ibid., 22. 25Spence, 22-23. 26Ibid., 25-26. 55 letters between a Mrs. Bray and Robert Southey. Mrs. Bray describes the pixies as handsome despite their height and helpful despite their harsh changes in temper. Pixies troubled households by engaging in many of the activities of ghost, boggarts and poltergeists in addition to the more troublesome habit of stealing children. Pixies can be easily confused with another English fairy, known as the “spriggan.” The difference lies in their origin; while pixies were always beings of small size, spriggans were the ghosts of giants. Spriggans did not associate themselves with households as much as pixies or other fairies; they were purportedly guardians of buried treasure.27 Pixies and spriggans

were however, more easily generalized by peasants. Many of the types of fairies were

mixed inside the cultural mind as a whole but this seems to have been acceptable for the

most part. There was one type of fairy, the “knocker”, whose identity was never

confused. Knockers were ghosts of Jews who had been slaves for the Romans on the

British Isles.28 The knockers are miners specifically, but they can be found associated

with any forms of hard labor.

English fairies interact with mortals when it suits them or when they see mortals

as “worthy.” Some are predominantly harmless, such as the portunes, but others have

been given a terrifying reputation, such as the boggarts. The British tradition also harbors

the belief in the King and Queen of Fairies. The title of “Fairy Queen” was given to

Elizabeth I in a gesture of goodwill by the English people; they believed she had the

supernatural ability to bring prosperity to their nation.29 The identity of these regal figures

is not set in stone. An anonymous English author records that a man and wife attempted

27Spence, 26. 28Ibid., 26-28. 29Ibid., 24. 56 to pose as the King and Queen of Fairies in 1613.30 John and Alice West posed as the

King and Queen of Fairies and used the superstition of the locals as a method of income:

The account states that they obtained food and gold from innocent people.31 They were

tried not as witches but as thieves and placed in the stocks in London. In this case, the

threat of a mischievous fairy’s intervention was a tool for extortion, but the belief

continues in England even today.

The Fairy Tradition in Scotland

Distinctions between English and Scottish fairies are few and difficult to find but

significant nonetheless. Fairies in Scotland, according to Spence, dwell primarily along

the boundary between the Lowland and Highland regions. Unlike English fairies, those of

Scotland have gone through stages of development. Their earlier forms are left behind as

they evolve into a more efficient state of existence. Fairy types such as the pecht and

pixie are difficult to dissociate. It is suggested that their differences come from a

sociological wedge that is driven between the two cultures. There are notable differences

between the fairy populations of Lowland and Highland Scotland as well. Lowland

fairies are more standard; they follow a set pattern of behavior and appearance that is

followed throughout the British Isles, Whereas the Highland fairy population contains a

mix of these standard fairies with unique fairies tied to specific areas. 32

Scottish fairies have a more obvious tie to their country’s history. It has been

posited that Scottish fairies are the embodiment of the nation’s cultural memories; for

example the “pechts.” Pechts are fairies of the Lowland region and their existence is

30The seuerall notorious and levvd cousnages of Iohn VVest, and Alice VVest, falsely called the King and Queene of Fayries Practised very lately both in this citie, and many places neere adioyning (London: William Stansby, 1613). http://0-eebo.chadwyck.com.woodhous.aquinas.edu/. 31Ibid.,, 5-6. 32Spence, 29-31. 57 acknowledged by most Scots, according to Spence. Whereas the country’s aboriginal people the Picts are barely acknowledged by the average Scottish villager.33 Pechts are a

dwarf-like class of beings that roam the lowlands causing any general mischief. They can

be identified as a “standard” fairy in the eyes of Scottish believers.

Brownies, as mentioned earlier in reference to English fairies, are vitally

important to the folklore of the Scottish people. They are middle height beings, which

tend to amuse themselves by hurling stones at homes and engaging in other ghostly

behavior. Most instances refer to brownies as brown in complexion and attire. They

appear to be human in most aspects except the face, having large brown eyes and large

ears. Brownies possess superhuman strength and, in most stories, the ability to predict the

future. The accounts recorded by Spence in The Fairy Tradition in Britain vary only

slightly in reference to brownies of Scotland; they are otherwise unanimous in their

descriptions.34 Spence recounts several instances of a brownie attaching itself to a family

and making its presence known through the secret completion of household tasks.

Brownies sometimes built relationships with specific people, as matchmakers to young

ladies or rescuers to men awaiting the gallows.35 As the centuries wore on and the witch

trials of Scotland began to occur, paranoia arose regarding fairies and brownies in

particular. Priests exorcised them from locations across Scotland, only to have them lash

back through curses. An anonymous writer of the 17th century claims that a brownie

which had once been a value to the community was expelled through exorcism only to

33Lewis Spence, British Fairy Origins (London: Watts & Co, 1946), 128-129. 34Lewis Spence, The Fairy Tradition in Britain, 35-41. 35Ibid., 35-36. A man was rescued from the gallows by a man in brown garments who had magically appeared moments before. 58 return, inflicting curses on the residents of the village.36 The origins of the brownie

follow that of the larger European fairy tradition, tying them to domestic tasks. Although

troublemaking, their presence is a sign of good fortune and their withdrawal is an omen

for something worse to come.37

Another famous Scottish fairy type is the “banshee.” While the term itself only

denotes “fairy woman” it is a highly specialized fairy associated with prophetic skill. The banshee usually delivers its message through a high keening or wailing while it haunts a specific location. Their appearance varies, which lends to the idea of shape-shifting; banshees can appear as old crones or beautiful maidens in fine clothes.38 The locations

they haunt are usually rivers or other water sources. The banshee is viewed by scholars as

the ancestress of later fairy beings, such as the “caointeach.” A caointeach is a ghostly

fairy similar to banshee in its wailing, yet it is almost always depicted as a small child or

abnormally small woman. This fairy blends the idea of the brownie with the banshee.

Caointeach are associated with domestic life but are not as beneficial as brownies. They

cry loudly when a family member is about to die; warning them that death is approaching

fast.39

The caointeach is also related closely to the Southern Highland image of the

“glaistig.” These beings were former wives and mothers who had died before their time.

They act similarly to banshees in their verbalizations, but are seen as blessing to those they choose to communicate with. They appear as women of various ages and assign themselves to assist families they see as deserving of their help. The MacDougall family

36Spence, The Fairy Tradition in Britain, 36-37. 37Ibid., 44-45. 38Ibid., 46-47. 39Ibid., 48-49. 59 of Dunollie would leave their laundry outside at night, to find it done by their obliging glaistig. One of these fairies also tended the cattle of the Balieceolan family of Lismore, using her voice to keep the animals from straying.40 While kind when they choose to be, the glaistig could be ruthless on ill-mannered or cruel individuals. Physical contact from a glaistig was deadly to most; three hunters were found drained of blood and with their throats cut.41 The glaistig, banshee and caointeach are all known for their deadly temper.

These female fairies all exhibit a perversion of traditional domestic tasks, typically releasing their anger on ignorant men who doubt their power.

Help is never free: the Cost of Fairy Assistance and Exorcism

The fairies of the British Isles seem to not exist solely to assist or plague mankind.

They have their limits and their price, like any mortal does when it comes to success,

protection, etc. When the relationship between a domestic fairy and its human counterpart

went awry, cunningmen or other village figures had answers for the afflicted party.

Spence records in both of his texts that often objects associated with the fairies’ tasks are

the very thing that will drive them away or, in some cases, anger them. In most recorded

cases objects such as hats and cloaks are all that is required to remove hobthrusts,

caointeach, spriggans and portunes. Manmade objects in general seem to be enough to

ward off fairies of varying types. Iron products are used across the board in England and

Scotland.

Fairies do not always need to be removed, at least according to Spence’s

observations of the tradition in Britain. While some fairies attach themselves to specific

domestic activities, others traverse the countryside providing assistance at a cost. In most

40Spence, The Fairy Tradition in Britain, 50-51. 41Ibid., 52. 60 cases this is a monetary cost, but sometimes a reciprocal service is asked of the human.42

Fairies are commonly associated with luck as well. This stems from the earlier references to domestic relationships. A farmer that has a fairy assisting him in tending his cattle, as in the Balieceolan family, was considered to have good luck by his fellow villagers.

The Evolution of Fairies: Possible Sociological and Historical Origins

` Scholar Keith Thomas places fairies in the category of a declining cultural and religious belief. The trivialization of their influence on daily life seems to have forced them to cease interacting with humans. He divides fairies into four categories based on their activity and appearance. The “trooping” fairies which travel in groups tend to spend their time engaging in revelry and nothing more. Water spirits such as banshees and mermaids are divided from hobgoblins and other domestically oriented spirits, with giants and other monstrous beings in the fourth category. Thomas does not believe that all of these divisions can be made due to their “obvious” dependence on the oral tradition of Britain as a whole.43 A strong argument is made for the development of fairies from

pagan religious roots. This seems logical, excepting the fact that fairies have held a

constant supernatural status outside that of gods or demons. More references are made to

fairies in literature during the 16th and 17th century, but this only proves a return to

popular roots in literature, not necessarily a rise in fairy activity.44 While Spence

postulates a progression in thought and belief, Thomas suggests changes in belief as

necessity due to sociological advancement.

Diane Purkiss takes a feminist stance on the evolution of the fairy tradition in

England and Scotland. Purkiss suggests that the longevity and endurance of the fairy

42Spence, The Fairy Tradition in Britain, 190. 43Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic (New York: Scribner, 1971), 606-607. 44Ibid., 608. 61 myth is due to the dominance of a matriarchy in oral tradition. Household fairies are beneficial to women, who will in turn spread the legend to their children. This attributes to the label of “fairy queen” granted to Elizabeth I, a strong matriarch to a powerful

England. 45 This matriarchal nature of fairy mythology is what Purkiss believes led to the

strong relationship between female witches and familiars. In the paranoid world of 16th

and 17th century Britain, supernaturally powerful female figures became dangerous, and associating with them a veritable death warrant.46

The Presence of Fairies in Witchcraft Proceedings

Diane Purkiss’ recounting of several Scottish witchcraft trials illustrates the level

of permeating influence maintained by the fairy tradition. For the most part, the fairy

mythology was allowed to continue in Scottish society but outside Christian belief. The

confusion between the witch’s familiar and the fairy was a continuous problem and

contributed to the outbursts of witchcraft accusations in the 16th and 17th centuries.

Scottish trials were more frequent and more brutal, utilizing torture more frequently than

their English counterparts.47 There were two particularly bloody outbreaks of witch trials

in Scottish history; one in the years 1591-97 and in 1628-30.

Purkiss, however, references two disturbing cases which took place outside these

brackets of time. Bessie Dunlop and Elspeth Roech were tried in 1576 and 1616. These

two women were known magic users and cunning women in their respective villages and

were an accepted part of the community until questions of their Christian beliefs arose.

When both of these women were first interrogated they specifically referenced an interaction with a fairy and both women were forced into agreements of renunciation

45Purkiss, “Fairies.” 46Purkiss, At the Bottom of the Garden, 85. 47Ibid. 86-87. 62 and/or sexual intercourse.48 In Elspeth’s case, she accepted a “fairy-man’s” offer of

unlimited knowledge only to be forced into a sexual relationship with him two years later.49 The accusation that is made immediately assumes that this man was the Devil and

she became a witch by making a pact with him. Elspeth fiercely denies this accusation for

much of the trial. She insists that he is a fairy by using the nature of their meeting as

proof; the man was dressed in green and offered blessings, they were near water and he

did not force her to renounce her belief in Christ.50 After Elspeth has endured torture she

changes her story, admitting her denial of the Church.

Bessie Dunlop’s case was strikingly similar. She encountered a man dressed in

plaid while she was walking around a duck pond. The man’s appearance immediately

caused Bessie to assume his identity as a fairy, since others in her village had

encountered fairies in this area.51 In her case, she visits the fairy’s hillside dwelling. Her case, like Elspeth’s, was altered once torture was introduced into the trial process.

Both of these women engaged in ritualistic activity related to birth and death. Any activity they engaged in or knowledge they acquired through the tutelage of their fairy guides related to births or recent deaths in their villages.52 Birth and death are essential processes in nature and were revered in Britain’s early pagan belief system. The involvement of fairies was an accepted part of this process for centuries until the introduction of the Church and later, the witch craze. The idea of an obedient witch’s familiar made the suspicion of fairies rise in the social climate of the 16th and 17th

centuries.

48Purkiss, At the Bottom of the Garden, 87. 49Ibid., 90-91. 50Purkiss “Fairies” 92-93. 51Ibid., 111. 52Purkiss, At the Bottom of the Garden, 112-113. 63

Conclusion

The identity of fairies is still not set in stone for any witchcraft scholars. The social and cultural links to ghosts, spirits and witch’s familiars make it impossible to distinguish them as separate beings when they contain so many characteristics of the rest.

There are enough differences, however, to keep the question open for further research into trial records and other accounts of the Early Modern period. The demonic, hybrid nature of the witch’s familiar as popularized during the witch trials of Europe does not fit the benevolent aspects of the caolinteach or spriggan for example. While all accounts of fairies contain elements of blatant cruelty, the important distinction is that they act independently of any supreme being.

Keith Thomas’ suggestion of fairies being a social construct built to serve as the personification of a culture’s fears and urges is a plausible one. The violence and sexualized nature of the fairies described in the cases of Elspeth Reoch and Bessie

Dunlop suggest a fascination that is not easily shaken by the Church; rather, it adds to it.

Unlike the witch’s familiar, the ideal fairy has transformed and found a way to survive throughout the ages through literature and art. The question of fairies being ghosts of

Britain’s cultural ancestors also holds weight; what better way to carry on a culture’s legacy than in the minds and words of its storytellers?

64

Bibliography

Behringer, Wolfgang. Shaman of Obertsdorf: Chonrad Stoeckhlin and the Phantoms of

the Night. Charlottesville: UP of Virginia, 1994.

Curtin, Jeremiah. Tales of the Fairies and of the Ghost World. New York: Benjamin

Blom, Inc, 1895.

Purkiss, Diane. At the Bottom of the Garden: A Dark History of Fairies, Hobgoblins and

other Troublesome Things. New York: New York UP, 2000

---. "Fairies." Vol. 2. In Encyclopedia of Witchcraft: the Western Tradition, edited by

Richard Golden. Santa Barbara, Ala.: ABC-CLIO, 2006.

Robin Good-fellow, his mad prankes and merry iests full of honest mirth. London:

Thomas Cotes, 1639. http://0-eebo.chadwyck.com.woodhous.aquinas.edu/.

The seuerall notorious and levvd cousnages of Iohn VVest, and Alice VVest, falsely called

the King and Queene of Fayries Practised very lately both in this citie, and many

places neere adioyning. London: William Stansby, 1613. http://0-

eebo.chadwyck.com.woodhous.aquinas.edu/.

Spence, Lewis. British Fairy Origins. London: Watts & Co, 1946.

---. The Fairy Tradition in Britain. London: Rider and Co, 1948.

Thomas, Keith. Religion and the Decline of Magic. New York: Scribner, 1971

Wilby, Emma. "The Witch's Familiar and the Fairy in Early Modern England and

Scotland." Folklore 111, no. 2 (2000): 283-305.

65

Witchcraft and the Spanish Inquisition

Doug Seites

Doug Seites is a junior from Kent City, Michigan. He will graduate with a major in History and a minor in Biology.

The witch-craze in Europe has become one of the most misunderstood events in history. This is especially true for how it unfolded in the country of Spain during the time of the Spanish Inquisition. Preconceived notions based on stories about the actions of the

Spanish Inquisition would lead many to believe that Spain was very harsh in the prosecution and punishment of accused witches, but actually the opposite was true. In comparison to other European nations, such as Germany and France, Spain was very lenient in the number of supposed witches that were brought to trial, and the amount of these witches that were convicted and punished. Surprisingly, this was a result of the

Spanish Inquisition, an organization that to many conjures up stories of torture and unfair trial procedure. The position of Spain on witches and the witch-craze was indeed due to the actions of the Inquisition, as Henry Charles Lea remarks in his extensive History of the Inquisition of Spain.

There are no pages of European History {sic} filled with horror than those which

record the witch madness of three centuries, from the fifteenth to the eighteenth.

No land was more exposed to the contagion of this insanity than Spain…That it

was repressed and rendered comparatively harmless was due to the wisdom and

firmness of the Inquisition.1

1Henry Charles Lea, A History of the Inquisition of Spain (New York: AMS Press, 1966), 206. 66

The Spanish Inquisition did not fall under the direct jurisdiction of Rome, and had its own Inquisitor General that appointed other inquisitors. The task of the Inquisition was to guard and purify the Catholic faith in all the lands of Spain and the Spanish

Empire. The Inquisition was a self-supporting entity, with its greatest strength being the power of secrecy. Before the 16th century the Holy Office was not responsible to any

temporal authority for its actions regarding matters of faith. Not even the King could

demand to know any more than what the Inquisition wanted. All this secrecy tended to

have a negative effect in giving the Inquisition a bad name, but it was warranted.2 All

records of activities were kept secret and hidden; the Inquisition may not have revealed

that it was holding a suspect in a secret prison. It would not have been known how long

they had been there, or even if they were alive or dead. An accused person would have

basically ‘disappeared’ for the duration of the accusation and the trial.3 Despite all the

negativity that surrounded the Inquisition, it did show tremendous self-control. La

Suprema vigilantly held by the laws and regulations of the Inquisition. Although some of

their actions may have been vague and sometimes frightening, it was greatly important that everything was done correctly.

The witch craze was not as rampant in Spain as in the rest of Europe. However, it is unfair to say that it was of little concern to Spanish authorities. In just 70 years between

1580 and 1650, more than 3,500 persons were tried for various types of magic and witchcraft.4 Practitioners of these crimes were to be prosecuted in order to correct their

2Gustav Henningsen, The Witches Advocate: Basque Witchcraft and the Spanish Inquisition 1609-14 (Reno: University of Nevada Press, 1980), 38. 3Ibid., 39. 4Brian Levack, The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe (Harlow: Pearson Education LTD.,2006), 237. 67 errors and to maintain the purity of the faith.5 Spanish authorities were reluctant to put

these people to death, a fact that is explained by the way the inquisitors viewed the

‘crime,’ the procedures they had to follow, and the supervision of central authorities such as La Suprema. Frequently, non-capital sentences were administered in the style of non- ecclesiastical justice. In fact, secular courts, not the various tribunals across Spain,

ordered most executions of those accused of magic or witchcraft.6 What happened in

Spain during the witch-craze is very different from what transpired in much of Europe. In

truth, no single large witch-craze came about, only scattered witch-hunts and scares.

The popularized concept of the witch never caught on in Spain, and the actions

(or inactions) of the Spanish Inquisition and its officials were able to subdue the

witchcraft fever. Certain conditions and procedures allowed Spain to withstand the witch-

craze more effectively than other areas. Its seclusion from the rest of Europe allowed

Spaniards to hold on to their own beliefs about witchcraft, not what became popularized

and spread across the land. Central control by the Spanish Inquisition took power out of

the suggestible secular authorities and put it in the hands of skeptical inquisitors who

attempted to find a reason for the delusion and tried those accused in a proper fashion.

Most surprisingly, the lack of the use of torture allowed for deductive reasoning by the

inquisitors and stopped the spread of witchcraft ideas by word of mouth. The truth about

the Spanish Inquisition in its dealings with witchcraft was that it was able to handle the

chaotic events in an effective and rational way, more so than other nearby areas of

Europe. This fact is in contrast to how many people would assume the Spanish

5Levack, 239. 6Ibid. 68

Inquisition handled witch affairs, but is due to three major conditions that helped suppress the craze.

Spanish Belief of Witchcraft

Spain lay outside of the flow of European thought and because of this, the new idea of the witch going to the witches Sabbath found little, if no acceptance.7 In Spain

there was a belief in a classical form of witchcraft. The Spanish witch was viewed not as

the witch who engaged in intercourse with the devil, or flew on a broom to the Sabbath.

In 1521 one theologian declared that the Sabbath “was a delusion and could not have

occurred.”8 The Spanish witch was instead viewed like the well-known sorceress

Celestina that was depicted in the play Tragicomedy of Calisto and Melibea, written in

1499 by Fernando de Rojas. Witches like Celestina practiced love magic, fortune telling,

and divinations.9 Henry Kaman comments,

As elsewhere in Europe, Spanish popular culture, especially in rural areas, sought

unorthodox cures for daily afflictions. Spanish villages had their wise men or

women (curanderos) who offered medicinal ointments, found lost objects, healed

wounded animals, or, like La Celestina (a procuress and enchantress, protagonist

of a famous Spanish novel), helped lovers win the affections of the ones they

loved. Cures might take the form of potions, charms, spells, or simply advice.10

Kaman also says that this subculture did not try to undermine official Catholicism, and in fact coexisted with it. Even in some rural areas, clergymen incorporated folk practices

7Lea, 29. 8Henry Kaman, The Spanish Inquisition: A Historical Revision (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997), 270. 9Levack, 238. 10Henry Kaman, “Spain,” in Encyclopedia of Witchcraft: The Western Tradition ed. Richard M. Golden (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2006), 1069. 69 into their liturgy. 11 The well meaning Celestina-style witch was well known throughout

Spain, especially in urban areas where many women could be seen ‘practicing’ their spells and potions on the streets. Many times the demonic aspect of witchcraft is seldom

mentioned. Instead these female magicians were brought to court merely for claiming

powers to effect cures or to discover secrets.12 The places in Spain where the cumulative concept of the witch was known and prosecuted were rural and found near Germany and

France. The stereotypical view of witchcraft that is commonly known today and was prevalent in Europe at the time never caught on in Spain. Very few Spanish writers supported this new definition of witchcraft like de Rojas did to the historical Spanish view of the sorceress, and was never able to establish itself firmly.13 Witchcraft in Spain

was described as ritual magic. It was considered a form of heresy due to the gaining of

powers from a pact with the Devil, yet had nothing to do with the Sabbath, or even

Maleficium.14 Spanish authorities at the time viewed the crime in a way that excluded

many of these elements that had been created or added in by the cumulative concept of

witchcraft that had been created by word of mouth and literature such as Heinrich

Kramer’s Malleus Maleficarum.

Spanish inquisitors approached the topic of witchcraft with an air of caution and a

great deal of skepticism. The tone was set as early as 1530, by a treatise from Pedro

Ciruelo that sought natural explanations for the extraordinary tales of witchcraft. Ciruelo

did accept some magical practices as supernatural and involving a pact with the devil.

However, he urged magistrates to treat popular superstition such as the concept of

11Kaman, 1069. 12Joseph Perez, The Spanish Inquisition: A History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005), 83. 13Levack, 238. 14Ibid., 239. 70 witchcraft with care and indulgence.15 La Suprema maintained an attitude of caution and

skepticism, pointing out to tribunals the difficulty presented by the stories of witchcraft,

and was adamant about the need to verify evidence. Inquisitors were reminded not to take

the Malleus Maleficarum as gospel like so many other inquisitors in different countries

were doing.16 As Edward Peters wrote, “Inquisitors were trained to examine the mind and

the soul, and they appeared to have understood their victims far better than their

counterparts in secular courts.”17 Instead, emphasis was put on the necessity of sifting

through evidence and the need for preachers to explain to the people that people die and

crops fail, and witches are not the cause, there are natural things at work.18 One inquisitor

in Navarre was instructed not to accept the confessions of witches as truth, and to “speak to the principal people and explain to them that the loss of harvests and other ills are either sent by God for our sins or are a result of bad weather, and that witches should not be suspected.”19 The belief in witchcraft and the attempting of witch accusations by

Spanish people was just written off by Inquisition authorities as a lack of religious

knowledge. They felt that it was necessary to educate the people and wipe out pagan

beliefs, rather than to blame these unfortunate people who did not know any better. There

was more of a sense of pity towards those who fell victim to the witch-craze epidemic

than blame towards them. Restraint showed by theologians and inquisitors in Spain that

had not been showed by secular authorities or even inquisitors from different countries prevented countless unnecessary deaths of accused witches and magicians. Henry Kaman states that

15Perez, 79. 16Arthur Stanely Turberville, The Spanish Inquisition (New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1932), 175. 17Edward Peters, Inquisition (New York: Free Press, 1988), 86. 18Turberville, 177. 19Kaman, 272. 71

“In Europe as a whole the witch-craze gained momentum, but there were always

an important number of theologians and bishops in both Italy and Spain who

considered that talk of flying through the air and copulation with the devil was a

delusion to be pitied rather than punished.”

La Suprema never completely denied the possibility of women possessed as a result of a pact with the devil, and kept an open mind, yet they insisted that objective evidence was vital and necessary to discourage mere superstition.20 Skeptical attitudes towards the

character of evidence at trial led to tremendous decrease in the prosecutions and

executions of the crime of witchcraft.

The Inquisition and theologians felt prevention was better than attempting to cure

the problem, and continuously sent preachers to enlighten the population that was

ignorant towards witchcraft. The Granada meeting led by Inquisitor General Manrique in

1526 was concerned with the education of so-called witches and felt it was more

important for the people to learn than to be chastised. The bishop of Mondeno suggested

“sending preachers to those parts, to tell people of the errors of the witches and how they

have been deceived by the devil; the inquisitors and secular judges should proceed with

caution; the monasteries of that region should be reformed.”21 The resolution of the

meeting was to take great care in preaching in native languages, especially Basque, and to

re-hristianize areas of Spain like Navarre, Vizcaya, and Galacia, where the word of God

has rarely been preached. They felt that these places were home to many pagan

superstitions and rites, mainly because of a lack of preachers.22

20Turberville, 177. 21Kaman, 271. 22Ibid. 72

One of the reasons Spain and the Inquisition were able to withstand the witch- craze was that it viewed witchcraft differently from the rest of Europe. The only places that held similar beliefs to other European nations were rural towns near the northern border. Spanish witchcraft was thought of as well intentioned pagan rituals that were a result of a lack of correct teaching of Christianity in some regions. The Sabbath was believed to be a delusion, and inquisitors were instructed to handle these cases with great care. Witchcraft accounts were not taken as fact, and were used as proof that the Spanish people needed to be re-christianized and re-educated, not persecuted and executed.

Skepticism reigned supreme, and because of this, there was no massive spread of witchcraft ideas and cumulative concepts, allowing the inquisition to easily handle witchcraft cases.

Central Control

The Spanish Inquisition was able to gain central control over the matters of witchcraft, sorcery, and magic. By doing so, it was able to take power from easily influenced and often zealous secular courts and mob rules. By having one main authority figure decide what to do with the question of witchcraft and those accused of it, Spain was able to prevent the forms of “vigilante justice” that were prevalent in other European lands. The Inquisition was much more lenient than many of the secular courts were, and once it took over the matter of witchcraft many people were saved from almost certain death. The Suprema provided protection to the so-called witches from the cruelty of the secular courts, and was able to restrain the religious zeal of its own tribunals.

In 1370 and 1387, laws were set declaring that sorcery was a crime involving heresy, for which laymen would be punished by the state and clergy punished by the 73 church. For a long time matters involving sorcery and witchcraft remained under the jurisdiction of the secular courts. The medieval inquisition decided that investigations into sorcery were to be put into the hands of corrigidores (local administrators) and civil courts, and questions regarding witchcraft were left in secular hands so that no change of policy was needed.23 This thought process began to change around the turn of the 16th century. The Holy Office began enquires into the heresy of witchcraft, although the task of repressing it was still in secular hands. Investigators were apprehensive and reluctant to interfere, on the basis of doubt that any heresy was truly taking place. This belief goes

back to Spanish view of witchcraft and sorcery that was at times not well defined and to popular superstitions that many learned men and clergymen took part of. 24 Inquisitors

were able to acquire jurisdiction on the grounds that witchcraft was a form of heresy, but

in northern Europe the treatment of witches remained in secular or diocesan law, and this

provided Spain a way to differentiate itself in the treatment of witches.

In the year 1537, La Suprema issued precise instructions to regional courts. They

were told that before bringing charges of witchcraft, they must ascertain that the facts

were well established. They were instructed to ask questions such as “Had their been

disappearances or deaths?” “Had harvests been destroyed?” If this was the case, then they

should investigate the causes of these problems.25 Inquisitor Martin de Castanega told

inquisitors to,

Regard as extraordinary only facts for which no natural explanation can be

found; mistrust denunciations and pay no heed to any confessions made by those

presumed guilty (for weak women could be made to say anything); avoid sending

23Kaman, 269. 24Ibid. 25Perez, 81. 74

simple-minded people to prison; and if, despite such precautions, it was still

thought necessary to bring charges, at least show the greatest indulgence; when

the facts seemed to justify a death sentence, send the whole file to the Suprema,

which would decide the matter.26

The statement to disregard any confessions made by those already presumed guilty was

completely the opposite of how other inquisitions and trials operated. Here, the

inquisitors are assuming that any statement made by someone in this position could be

false or manifested, instead of an ultimate display of guilt. In Spain witchcraft appeared

to stem from imposture, they could be made to say anything. The Inquisition continued to purvey its thinking that witch beliefs were only an illusion provoked by the devil. It was insisted that witches should be tried by the Inquisition because of their erroneous beliefs, which were now considered worse than paganism and were to be considered heresy.27

More and more power and control was gained by the Inquisition, which told secular

courts that, “it would be good if, after starting some trials, you sent us some of them so that we could see better and understand the situation.” 28

A new national Inquisition had been established with the Supreme council at

Madrid as the main organ. It held strict control over the twenty-one regional tribunals of

Spain. Early on, some tribunals had been able to exercise local autonomy, but by the middle of the 16th century after years of pressure, the supreme council was able to finally

establish central control over all the local tribunals. The supreme council was able to

assert its control over witchcraft in Spain by ending witch-hunts in the 1530s’ in

26Perez, 81. 27William Monter, Frontiers of Heresy: The Spanish Inquisition from the Basque lands to Sicily (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 257. 28Ibid., 260. 75

Barcelona by establishing its right to confirm all final sentences. Even in the secular witchcraft prosecutions that still took place, the council managed to modify or change the severity of sentences or in some instances absolve them from any wrongdoing.29 The

council was also able to end the famous Basque witch-hunt of 1609-1611, when it issued

a strict set of procedural rules for the prosecution of witches throughout Spain, on the

recommendation of inquisitor Salazar.30 The Inquisition became concerned with the

treatment of the accused witches and how they were handled. Inquisitor Sarmiento of

Barcelona was dismissed for sentencing six accused to death without enough proof. La

Suprema ruled that they were condemned with insufficient proof and revoked the verdict of Sarmiento.31

The policy that the Inquisition took arose from the meeting at Granada in 1526.

As a result of witch persecutions by secular authorities in Navarre, Inquisitor General

Manrique delegated a committee of ten, including future Inquisitor General Valdes, to

decide if there were such things as witches going to Sabbath.32 The discussion offered

that a “majority of jurists in this realm agree that witches do not exist,” because of the

impossibility of their acts.33 The assembly examined the whole subject of witchcraft, and

posed six questions about how witchcraft trials should take place and if witchcraft was of true concern. These questions included:

Whether witches really commit the crimes confessed, or whether they are

deluded; Whether, if they deceive and do not commit these things, they are to be

similarly punished, or otherwise; Whether the accused are to be judged on their

29Levack, 241. 30Ibid. 31Perez, 81. 32Kaman, 271. 33Lea, 212. 76

confessions without further evidence and to be condemned to the ordinary

punishment; What will be a wholesome remedy to extirpate the pest of these

witches.34

The meeting also declared that since the homicides that the witches confessed to might

just be illusionary, that the Inquisition should hold the trials and not civil authorities. If

the authorities have proof then they could act on their own account, but if not, they

should not try to interfere.35

Finally, the committee ruled on the issue of witches’ maleficia. The Junta laid down ten specific guidelines for the tribunals to follow in judging witchcraft accusations.

These guidelines were:

1) No one who confesses voluntarily, or shows sings of genuine repentance,

shall have her property confiscated;

2) Anyone who shows contempt for the sacraments of the church must be

punished more severely;

3) The Inquisitors and their advisers must decide the length of time such

people must wear special penitential garments and the type of abjuration

they must perform;

4) No one shall be arrested or condemned solely through the confessions of

other witches;

5) The Inquisitors must learn if the people they arrest have already been

tortured by secular justice;

34Lea, 212. 35Kaman, 271. 77

6) They must consult with the Suprema before passing sentence on anyone

convicted of witchcraft a second time;

7) They must also consult the Suprema before sentencing any prisoners who

refuse to confess their faults;

8) Given the doubts and difficulties of witchcraft cases, they must be decided

by both Inquisitors jointly, accompanied by an ecclesiastical judge,

lawyers, and theologians;

9) Some new edicts about witchcraft should be considered; and

10) Careful examination is needed to verify whether people who attend

Sabbats {sic} or gatherings of witches do so really, of if they stay in their

beds.36

With these guidelines, the Suprema was able to gain central control and give specific,

common instructions as to how witchcraft and witchcraft trials should be handled. By

establishing one system, Spain was able to prevent the ideas of many over-zealous persons from becoming rampant and destructive.

The Spanish Inquisition was not perfect in repressing the witch-craze, but it

would be hard to that expect that, after all, it was a witch “craze.” The most significant

relapse occurred in Navarre. Nearby in France, in Pays de Labourd, the Bordeaux judge

Pierre De Lancre executed 80 witches. This sent a shockwave throughout the Navarre

valleys and created a witch scare.37 The location of this witch craze was similar to where

most witch crazes in Spain took place: near the northern border, where ideas from

Germany, France, and Switzerland could easily pass through the countryside away from

36Monter, 261. 37Kaman, 273. 78 the eyes of the Inquisition. A great auto de fe was held in November of 1610. Here, twenty-nine witches were accused and six of them were burned. Upon hearing this, the

Suprema sent inquisitor Alonso de Salazar Frias to visit the next spring.38 After closely

inspecting the confessions and evidence about the supposed murders, witch Sabbaths and

intercourse with demons, inquisitor Salazar concluded:

I have not found slightest evidence from which to infer that a single act of

witchcraft has really occurred. Indeed, my previous suspicions have been

strengthened by new evidence from the visitation: that the evidence of the accused

alone, without external proof, is insufficient to justify arrest; and that three-

quarters and more have accused themselves and their accomplices…I deduce the

importance of silence and reserve from the experience that there were neither

witches nor bewitched until they were talked and written about.39

Salazar’s words were a victory for rationalism and the laws of evidence. They were

accepted by the Suprema, which had turned against the traditional death sentence for

witches, and had become skeptical over the reality of witchcraft. The skepticism of the

Inquisition was brought to the public eye through officials like Salazar, who himself

asked, “are we to believe that witchcraft has occurred in a case simply because the

witches say so?”40 In 1614, the Suprema issued instructions that reaffirmed the

procedures from 1526 and remained the principal guide to the policy of Spain regarding

witchcraft. Drawn into thirty-two articles, the instructions adopted Salazar’s skepticism

towards witchcraft claims and told the tribunals to use caution and leniency in all

38Kaman, 273. 39Ibid., 274. 40Ibid. 79 investigations.41 Even though the Inquisition still followed the European opinion that

witchcraft was considered a crime, all testimony to such crimes was rejected as delusion.

Because of this, Spain was saved from popular witch hysterias and burnings despite the

fact that this was happening all over Europe at the time. As a result, the Inquisition never

executed witches again.42

Torture

What may be the most surprising fact about how the Spanish Inquisition handled

the witch-craze was the lack of torture used. Many would believe that the Inquisition

would be harsh towards accused witches, but this was not the case. According to

information given about the Inquisition from textbooks and popular culture, torture should be prevalent. In the Middle Ages, the Inquisition became notorious for the unrestrained use of torture and prejudices in case accusations. Yet by the time of the

European witch-craze, inquisitors had produced a large amount of cautionary literature

and they demonstrated exceptional concern for procedure. The relative tameness of the

prosecutions was due to the Inquisition’s adherence to its strict procedural rules.43

Torture, in fact, was rarely used. It was only used when there was strong

circumstantial evidence, but no proof at the end of a trial just before judgment, and this was extremely uncommon.44 Even in the famous Basque witch-hunt of 1609-1611, only two suspected witches were tortured out of thousands of suspects. Since torture allowed their sentences to be commuted from death to banishment, one could make the argument that this was actually an act of mercy. Whatever pressure to torture there was came from

41Ibid. 42Kaman, 1069. 43Levack, 239. 44Ibid., 240. 80 local mobs and secular leaders, the very persons whose “extra-legal” tactics the

Inquisition tried to restrain. Because of this restraint in the use of torture, not as many convictions or executions occurred as the larger witch-hunts of Germany and

Switzerland.45

The reluctance of the Inquisition to use torture helped prevent the development of

extreme beliefs that often came about from torture.46 Often with torture, accused witches

made their confessions and information entered the collective witchcraft conscious that

otherwise would not have existed. Since torture was rarely used, there was no way for

this extraordinary information to get passed on, and it helped prevent the spread of

witchcraft panic. Brian Levack comments “without torture the potential for transforming

acts of superstitions into crimes of diabolical conspiracy was limited, since tortured

confessions allowed diabolical beliefs to gain widespread legitimacy that was necessary

to sustain witch hunting.”47 Levack also states that without the torture, the learned and

popular view of witchcraft in Spain would stay an individual transgression, not a large-

scale attack on Christianity.48

Torture, or more specifically the lack thereof, gave the Inquisition a psychological

way to influence the Spaniards’ way of thinking towards witchcraft through the action of

inaction. By not doing what other countries were, and acting rationally, Spain was able to

effectively keep witchcraft under wraps. By not torturing accused individuals, the

Inquisition was not to prevent the witch hunt per se, but instead was showing that by

using rationale and science instead of jumping to conclusions and falling victim to the

45Levack, 240. 46Ibid. 47Ibid. 48Ibid. 81 will of the overzealous masses, a reasonable explanation could be reached where no one was unnecessarily harmed.

The Spanish Inquisition handled witchcraft very differently from other inquisitions and authorities in Europe during the time of the witch-craze. Witchcraft cases were handled with care and leniency due to a differing Spanish view towards witchcraft; what it was, how it came about, and the dangers it posed. This was also a result of

Spain’s position in Europe and the ineffectiveness of the popular witchcraft stories to

“catch on”. Skepticism and rationality reigned supreme thanks to the centralization of power in the Inquisition, an act that took the power to persecute away from secular courts and predisposed thinkers. Instead of thinking it necessary to blame the accused, Spain tried to teach the uneducated about Christianity in a way that did not involve threats and death sentences. By creating and following strict guidelines that tribunals and inquisitors were forced to follow, it codified Spain in its attempt to stop witch-hunts and the witch- craze. Influential thinkers such as Salazar helped present the ideas of the Inquisition to the masses and made it even easier for the Inquisition to relay its message of leniency and its attempt to understand the situation. Also, the lack of torture, which would not be expected from the infamous Spanish Inquisition, prevented the spread of the hysteria and again allowed officials to study the phenomenon in a way that was not affected by fear.

All of these circumstances allowed Spain to handle witchcraft in a much different way than the rest of Europe.

82

Bibliography

Henningsen, Gustav. The Witches’ Advocate: Basque Witchcraft and the Spanish Inquisition (1609-1614). Reno: University of Nevada Press, 1980.

Kaman, Henry. “Spain”. Encyclopedia of Witchcraft. Http://ebooks.abc- clio.com/ebooks/9781851095124/pg_1069.asp#ENWITE.1245

Kaman, Henry. The Spanish Inquisition: A Historical Revision. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997.

Lea, Henry Charles. A History of the Inquisition of Spain, vol IV. New York: AMS Press, 1966

Levack, Brian P. The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe. Harlow: Pearson Education Limited, 2006.

Monter, William. Frontiers of Heresy: The Spanish Inquisition from the Basque Lands to Sicily. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.

Perez, Joseph. The Spanish Inquisition: A History. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005.

Peters, Edward. Inquisition. New York: The Free Press, 1988.

Turberville, Arthur Stanley. The Spanish Inquisition. New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1932.

83

The Role of Women as Portrayed in the Malleus Maleficarum:

Building upon Earlier Writings

Brandon Anthony Sexton

Brandon Anthony Sexton is a junior from Kent City, Michigan. He will graduate with majors in History and Political Science.

Witchcraft itself has many connotations; today some of those are witches, brooms, magic, and the occult. In the 15th century the term was associated with the

brooms and magic as well, but also with the end of the world and the coming of Christ, the battle between good and evil. These feelings prompted people to reach for salvation of their souls and to seek those who might be in league with the Satan and his devils. The moral people had to hunt out the suspects of this heinous crime. To help them identify the followers of Lucifer, Heinrich Kramer wrote the “Malleus Maleficarum,” and it was

“written to give teeth to the papal bull by Pope Innocent VIII.”1 Where did he get his

ideas for witchcraft? From what sources did he draw? Kramer relied on Aristotle,

Augustine, Abelard, and Aquinas for most of his information on women. The roll of

women had been a discussion dominated by men, as they tried to explain the place of

women in the world. Kramer took his negative views of women in regards to their roles

in witchcraft to a new level compared to his historical brothers, and these views helped to

fuel the witchcraze.

Kramer sought the help of Pope Innocent VIII to fight the works of witches, by

adding papal authority to his trials. Prior to Innocent’s Bull, there is strong evidence that

Kramer’s trials from 1482 to 1484 were “not received well by the authorities.”2 The

1Heinrich Kramer, Malleus Maleficarum (London: The Folio Society, 1968), 18. 2Wolfgang Behringer, Malleus Maleficarum (Witchcraft Sourcebook, 2007), 2. 84 people who welcomed him at first would grow tired of “his persecutory zeal”3 and cast

him out. Due to this resistance Kramer came before the new pope and asked for a Bull to

support his ideas. The idea of a Bull on witchcraft was nothing new, as popes had issued

them before. Pope Innocent VIII wrote his Summis Desiderantes to give Kramer explicit

authority to prosecute witchcraft in Germany. It recognized the existence of witches and

authorized Kramer to take whatever steps he had to stamp out those in league with the devil. “Heedless of their own salvation and forsaking the catholic faith , give themselves over to devils male and female, and by their incantations, charms, and conjurings, and by other abominable superstitions and sortileges, offences, crimes, and misdeeds, ruin and cause to perish the offspring of women”. 4 However, what Kramer did with the Bull was a

new scene in an old play.

The Malleus targeted women in their actions with the devil and for their role in

witchcraft. It was the “weakness of women” that lead them to look towards Satan. To

make a pact with the devil they could do so in both public and private depending on the

location and time. The first one was almost “a solemn ceremony, like a solemn vow”5 which usually took place at a Sabbat. The devil appeared to witches in the body of a man to better tempt their carnal lusts, and would “urge them to keep faith with him.”6 The devil promised that in return for the vow, he would grant them wealth and a long life; starting first with small acts of witchcraft then gradually getting bigger. After having gained their trust, he would ask “whether she” will forsake God and the Virgin Mary.7

Also, they must take the cross underfoot and deny the entire Christian religion. Homage

3Behringer, 2. 4Pope Innocent 5Kramer, 55. 6Ibid. 7Ibid. 85 had to be paid by the witch to the devil, and she must also give herself “body and soul to him, for ever,”8 while at the same time trying to increase the membership of those against

God. To build credibility for his book, Kramer relied on quotes from some of the church

fathers, about why women were more likely to be lead astray.

What did some of the early writers believe about women, though? Aristotle

believed that females were passive, while males were more active.9 This passiveness in

women was one of the ideals that were drawn from in the Malleus to explain the roles of women with the demons. When both the active and passive are brought together the male provides the “principle of movement” with the woman being acted upon. 10 One way that

women were acted upon was though birth, and it was at this point that Aristotle put forth

his belief that women lacked souls. When a child was conceived the woman gave the

body to the child, while the man gave the soul.11 This was quite an interesting view that

seemed to take root with Kramer in his Malleus Maleficarum about the roles of women.

Why women were considered to be the weaker sex in the Malleus was partially

based on Aristotle’s belief on the female body as well, women were cold in their nature

thus making them an imperfect man.12 Women were the weaker sex, a natural deformity noted Aristotle; for they mature sooner and reach old age before men, for this “occurs in the ordinary course of nature.”13 In his writings, Aristotle also stated that when a child

was born from a woman, the only way the child would be perfect was if a boy was born

and he resembled his father. If it was a girl, or the boy resembled his mother the child

8Kramer, 55. 9Sr. Prudence Allen, The Concept of Women: The Aristotelian Revolution (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co, 1997), 91. 10Ibid., 93. 11Ibid., 99. 12Ibid., 97. 13Ibid., 98. 86 was a departure from the norm. So while women contributed the body to the child, if the masculine soul did not dominate the female body while the child was inside the mother it would be a failure and the man was disgraced.14

To take a step forward, we now will look at St. Augustine. Augustine believed that “some animals are capable of giving or receiving instruction,” and in humans the females were the ones that would receive the instructions from the males.15 This

happened because they were softer in nature and easier to tame.16 Being easier to tame,

they were also more likely to be tempted to evil by the instruction of male demons.

Women are “more false of speech” and were more likely to cause fights; being the more

querulous sex.17 Augustine wrote at length about the imperfections of women, and it is

easy to see how they made it into the Malleus; as women are “more jealous…more apt to

scold or strike” and cause harm in both their family and with the larger community as a

whole.18 When the male did not rule over the female, as Aristotle wrote in Politics, chaos

can result. This was seen in the Malleus when Kramer writes that a woman without a

husband to command and watch over her might very well turn to the devil for guidance

and protection.19

Building upon the beliefs and writings of Augustine were the works of St.

Thomas Aquinas. This was one of the more recent writers to be used for the Malleus and has more weight to Kramer. Aquinas believed that women and men were both in the image of God, whereas Augustine believed this only when talking about the female

14Allen, 105. 15Ibid., 118. 16Ibid. 17Ibid., 119. 5Ibid. 19Ibid. 87 intellect, and Aquinas believed women reflected God in her body as well; however not to the same degree of perfection that was seen in man, and imperfect in relation to man; as noted in the Summa Theologie a “female is a misbegotten male.”20 Man was the

“beginning and end of woman,” being that they were drawn from the image of man, notes

Aquinas. 21 This relation of nature and of God’s will has caused woman to be fragile and

weaker than man, and since man rules of woman God made this order to maintain order

of humanity.22 When woman has no man to watch over her, she will get into trouble and

cause ruin according to Aquinas. Aquinas believed in the need for a strong male figure to

keep order, and to keep women from the temptation of Satan.

It was harmful magic, magic that “mattered the most…that belonged to women,”

according to part 1, chapter 6 in the Malleus.23 This is the one chapter that has

“monopolized the attention of twentieth century readers” as it contains every bit of

Kramer’s historical, Biblical, and literal evidence for the evils of women.24 The sixth

chapter compiled all of the evidence into one section for the medieval world. The fact that the text was written in Latin may have something to do with its slanted view. At this

point in time, very few people could read and a majority of them were men in various

religious orders. “If you didn’t read Latin, you didn’t read the Malleus” is quite true in

these regards, making it a book of and by the learned males expressing their views on

20Allen, 385; 391 2Ibid., 389. 3Ibid., 391. 23Han P. Broedel The Malleus Maleficarum and the Construction of Witchcraft (New York: Manchester University Press, 2003), 175. 24Walter Stephens, Demon Lovers: Witchcraft, Sex, and the Crisis of Belief (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002), 33. 88 women. One can assume one of the most striking intents of the Malleus is to justify the hatred of women, and that witches did indeed copulate with the devils.25

The Malleus aimed to make demons real on this earth to people from the middle ages To do so, Kramer had to allow them corporal interaction with humans to prove they existed, by “[removing] any doubt that demons prove their reality by copulating with witches,” and that they only got pleasure from being ravished by a male force.26 One of

the main points in the Malleus was to demonstrate that demons were real; Kramer played

off the weakness of women that was presented in Aquinas’ and other earlier church

writers’ works about “women’s evil.”27 After building on the evils of women, Kramer

decided to make demonic copulation as real as possible; this was made possible by a

“discussion of women’s evil.”28

Kramer took his misogyny to a new level in the medieval world, in comparison to

the views expressed before him. In his book Kramer would pin most of the problems and

ways of witchcraft on the female sex, and only one chapter would specifically mention

men as the cause of witchcraft. If something was to happen inside the home, with chores,

the children, or anything included in women’s normal medieval roles it was the woman’s

fault with no questions asked. Men did less cooking and food preparation in this time

period, so women with their knowledge of plants were more likely to concoct potions.

Men were involved with witchcraft only in a few ways, hunting or attending the Sabbat.

Kramer built on the teachings that men were superior to women that were found in

Aristotle, as well as their responsibility in the fall of man from grace through original sin

25Stephens, 34. 26Ibid., 36-42. 27Ibid., 37. 28Ibid., 40. 89 supported by Aquinas. After the fall women were to be under the power of men, as their nature is of “lower capacity and quality than man.”29

From the onset, however, witch hunts were not exclusively after females, the

Summis desiderantes stated that “many persons of both sexes, unmindful of their own

salvation” have gone to Satan.30 In the famous Bull by Pope Innocent VIII, Summis

Desiderantes, he sought to “give jurisdictional authority to two inquisitors” so that they

could hunt out the witches.31 This bull refers to witches giving themselves to male and

female devils, and the “impeding of fertility.”32 For most of the Bull it does not exclusively single out one gender over the other; Pope Innocent VIII just said that both sexes were equally guilty of the crime of witchcraft. It is mentioned that witchcraft would

“ruin and cause to perish the offspring of women, the foal of animals, the products of the earth…as well as men and women, cattle and flocks;” thus striking fear into medieval society that witchcraft would destroy their very way of life.33 The Bull was issued to

Kramer to give him papal authority behind his actions. Also, it removed “all impediments

by which in any way the said inquisitors were hindered in the exercise of their office”

more or less giving them a carte blanc.34 It was because of this that Kramer was able to

persecute witches in his effort to save the world from temptation by demons and Satan

himself.

The carte blanc was used by Kramer when he penned what some considered the

official workbook for witch hunts in the early modern period, the Malleus Maleficarum.

29Allen, 403. 30Kramer, 18. 31Pope Innocent VIII, “Summis Desiderantes,” in The Witchcraft Sourcebook, edited by Brian Levack, (New York: Routledge, 2004), 119. Numerous historians now believe it was written only by Heinrich Kramer. 32Ibid., 119. 33Ibid., 120. 34Ibid., 121. 90

Kramer took Exodus to a new level, and “suffered no witches to live.”35 The book was

used to counter the war against God, led by the devil and fought by witches.36 The result

of this war was the death of thousands of witches over the next few centuries; the

extermination of the witches had to be ruthless so that no one else would consider joining

in league with the devil. Kramer sought to root out those who worshiped the devil and to

halt his influences on earth. The Malleus was written as the tides of Islam were finally

being driven away from the shores of Europe. Once this happened, the church could turn

its forces to focus on stopping paganism.37

In the early medieval period, the hold of the church on the lay people was rather

weak.38 This resulted in a tolerance of the pagan practices, especially when they could be

brought to focus on saints or church practices. This was especially true in the first

centuries of Christendom when a “nominal conversion” would do for church purposes.39

In numerous towns and villages the old practices of wise men and women would continue with the worship of pagan deities, as well as the worship of the Christian God. Following the Reconquista in Spain, the threat of Islam decreased sharply and the church focused on internal heresy. “It seemed the whole fabric of the Church was threatened” and action had to be taken against the heretics.40 These internal focuses lead to the punishment of witches, and they became an imminent danger to the church.

This mindset allowed Kramer to publish his Malleus, because to him and his

contemporaries “[witchcraft] was an accepted fact.”41 To Kramer some of the people

35Holy Bible: New American Bible (New York: Zondervan Publishing Company, 2007), 233. 36Kramer, 11. 37Ibid., 15. 38Ibid., 14. 39Stephens, 36. 40Kramer, 15. 41Ibid. 91 most likely to be witches were those who still worshiped the old gods, or those of the old religions. In these old religions women held a place of prominence under the goddess

Diana, as well as the “matriarchal stream in this cult tradition.”42 Fearing an attack by

these groups in league with the devil, the Malleus codified witchcraft, and how it could

be suppressed. He did this through various questions, such as “Why is it that Women are

chiefly addicted to Evil Superstitions.”43 Kramer decided it was because women were the

more fragile sex, and they sought to make the world a level playing field for them. This

became the “favorite of monkish objurgation”, the obsession of the weaker sex.44 Women used sorcery as “an instrument of protection and revenge.”45 In an affront to the old

beliefs that it could be used for good, Augustine wrote in his “City of God” that those

“tampering with the unseen world, of any art they call magic, by the abominable title necromancy, or the more honorable designation theory…are addicted to illicit arts and condemned.”46 It was from the Bible that Kramer drew to support his claim that women

could were more likely to engage in witchcraft as an attack on the church and the

medieval way of life.

In the first part of his book Kramer uses multiple quotes from the Bible on the

inferiority of women and how they are capable of such evil. In Ecclesiastes 25 on the

wickedness of women, it states “there is no wrath above the wrath of a woman.”47 By

using lines from the Bible, Kramer was able to explain his work to the general public—

who usually had little education—and have them understand the point he was making

42Kramer, 17. 43Ibid., 27. 44Stephen, 34. 45Brian P. Levack, The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe. 3rd ed. (London: Pearson Longman, 2006), 148. 46St. Augustine of Hippo, Demonic Power in Early Christianity In The Witchcraft Sourcebook, edited by Brian Levack, (New York: Routledge, 2004), 28. 47Levack, 28. 92 through this book. He then quotes St John Chrysostom about how woman is a “foe to friendship, an unescapable punishment, and a necessary evil…an evil nature, painted with fair colours.”48 The examples in these pages are many, and he says “all witchcraft comes

from carnal lust, which is in women insatiable.”49 This idea comes up later in his book

when he addresses the causes of witchcraft and why he felt women were more likely to

engage in wickedness with the devil. Kramer believed that men were more likely to be

spared from the great crime of witchcraft, and believed it was better “called the heresy of

witchcraft than of wizards.”50

The first part of Chapter 6 mentioned the carnal lust of women, while the second

part goes into greater detail of the crimes involved and how they were accomplished; as

well as why women were more likely to work for the devil. Women seemed to exist to

tempt men into sin and away from a life of devotion. St. Thomas Aquinas told a story

about how his brothers were upset over him entering the Dominican order, and to tempt

him away from it they used a woman. After she was presented to him, he ran off and

begged God to protect him from temptation. While he was praying an angel came to him

and said “behold, at the bidding of God we gird you with a girdle of chastity,” showing

that those who pray to God and wish for salvation from temptation and sin will be

rewarded. 51 In addition, this showed yet another example of what could lead a man to

sin, and that “wise and brave women are rarely found.”52 One of Kramer’s

contemporaries, Ulrich Molitor, also assumed witches were female and would “devote

48Levack,28. 49Ibid. 50Ibid. 51Ibid., 45. 52Allen, 402. 93 themselves to the devil [because] of temptations sent by the devil.”53 After laying the

groundwork for women being at the base of temptation, Kramer shows how woman can

lead men to sin and into the arms of the devil.

In Chapter 1 “Of the Several Methods by which devils through witches entice and

allure the innocent to the increase of that horrid craft and company”.54 This was one of

the best ways to explain the workings of witches, so the judges could explain it to the

common people and to those being tried. The art of witchcraft was used in many ways in

the medieval sense: In order to lead people to the craft it offered protection from harms

and malice of one’s neighbors. It is noted that when a man lost all of his horses through witchcraft, his wife consulted with witches for help. The man did not act on such things, but the wife had no qualms in asking for and receiving help from the witches over their plight. Also if harm came to the animals under their care the women called upon witches to remove the curse, so their milk would return to them.55

In the next chapter on the feminine carnal desires, Kramer tells how the devil is

more likely to tempt “young girls” as he stated that they would more likely give in to

“bodily lusts and pleasures.”56 Through this weakness girls would end up turning to Satan

and rejecting their faith. By doing so they would be rewarded through “pleasures of the flesh.”57 Through tempting the young and foolish the devil was able to draw more

innocent to the demonic calling. Kramer believed that young girls especially were more

likely to follow Satan. One of the ways through which the devil would try to seduce the

young maidens was by having an older woman ask if they would like to meet young men,

53Broedel,175. 54Kramer, 48. 55Ibid., 49. 56Ibid. 57Ibid. 94 and the woman would ask the young girl to “take care not to make the sign of the cross.”58 Before she arrived the girl secretly crossed herself against the women’s wishes.

When the young lady arrived in the room where the men should be, they would not be in

the room. The result was the old woman cursing the young women and accusing her of

crossing herself.59 The devils were unable to show themselves to that girl. It was through these actions in which Kramer noted that the devil played off the carnal desires of women, and that God was able to protect the fragile female from harm through his work and mercy.

Satan existed to tempt the faithful away from God and into eternal damnation. In order to enter into a pack with the devil the witches had to promise to be faithful to him alone and “adjure the Faith, and forsake the holy Christian religion.”60 Through these acts

the witches came to the power of Satan. The time and place for this ceremony was the

Sabbat, which was held a scheduled day where the devil appeared to them and asked for

their loyalty. After swearing loyalty to the devil, they must promise to bring many more to his power, and away from God. Old women would draw on “many people, especially

young girls” that would be easily seduced.61 One way they could draw more women into

their sect was through the use of unguents and potions; usually made from the bones of

babies that were killed by witches. Walpurgis, a witch in Ratisbon, taught other women

how to achieve the unguent by cooking their sons in the oven.62 These unguents allowed

58Kramer, 50. 59Ibid. 60Ibid., 55. 61Ibid., 79. 62Ibid., 61. 95 the witches to fulfill her wishes with the help of Satan.63 While this seems unreal today,

Kramer believed it could happen and needed to be stopped to end the attack on souls.

One use for the unguent was to transport the witch from their house or town to

their Sabbat. The unguent is applied to a household item that the witch would ride, and would be carried up into the air immediately.64 This was because Satan could achieve the

same transvection, without its use; he could easily transport the witches on the backs of

animals. The witches would then fly off to the Sabbat to practice lewd acts with Satan

and to swear loyalty to him. However if the witch did not want to be transported to the

Sabbat but only wanted to know what was happening she was to lay on her left side and

with the power of the devils a blue vapor would come from her mouth and she would be

transported in imagination to the gathering while her body stayed in place.65 The unguent

not only flight but to deprived children the grace of God granted at Baptism.

Of how the men like Kramer believed women were more likely to practice

witchcraft. This one takes place on the Rhine River, in the town of Oberweiler. This story

was used by Kramer to show that even those who do not believe in witchcraft can be

affected and cursed by it and while it wasn’t real it played on the medieval superstition; it

was meant to counter those questioning Satan through proof of his existence. The victim

in this case was a parish priest who believed witchcraft did not exist in the world. One

day while crossing a bridge, he bumped into an old woman and she was pushed into the

mud.66 She cursed him for that under her breath, and he became afflicted to the point

were he could not use his body below his waist. A few years later she was on her death

63Ibid., 56. 64Kramer, 68. 65Ibid., 70. 66Ibid., 61. 96 bed and the priest visited her wishing to ask if she was a servant of the devil. While she never admitted to that, she did say that a few days after her death he would be healed of his affliction.67 That came to pass and the priest was healed. It is interesting in this tale

how the antagonist was an old woman, who in the medieval sense would be past her usefulness. Kramer attacked the old women in this story who could no longer give birth and were resentful at the world for being left behind. This story helped to fuel the unease with the older women in towns and villages; it could be said that this story helped to promote the image of the older woman being the witch, on the verge of society, in the town willing to cause harm to members of society.

One more question that Kramer raises is “the way whereby witches copulate with those devils” granting the devils bodily mass.68 As noted earlier in his text, Kramer

believed and wrote that the carnal lust was insatiable in women. He believed that the

devil knew this, and was able to use lewd activities to draw more to his fold. Women

were, by Kramer’s logic, drawn to devils for this reason; to practice “diabolic filthiness”

with them, as Kramer noted took place with over forty-one witches with “especial

reference to the behaviour of women, who always delight in vain things.”69 Kramer

concluded this argument by stating that witches were the product of copulation with

devils; for it was common for them to practice copulation with devils.70 It was common

knowledge in this period that one way witches came about, apart from being lured to

Satan, was being born of a witch. “These foul practices”, as Kramer notes, lead to more witches and for this he blamed women’s lust and the seduction of the devil. Women were

67Kramer, 61. 68Ibid., 73. 69Ibid.,76- 77. 70Ibid., 55. 97 chosen because they had the will and spirit to be the best witches, and Kramer targeted them in this story for their relation to the devil and attacked the feminine sex through their perceived frailty of nature.71

Another story used by Kramer attacked the role of women in the church and their frailty of nature. After communion a woman lowered her head “as is the detestable habit of women,” hid her face with her clothing, and took the Eucharist for her own uses.72 Not only was this an attack against women and their faith but it also was meant to show the lack of belief in God that women had. The woman took the host out of her mouth and put it into the ground with a toad so she could make her dust to cause injuries to men and women. The host made noises like that of a child when it was buried and that’s what leads to it being discovered. Not only did the detestable habit attack Christ, but also was used to show that women would attack children as well. The Malleus states that utmost care must be taken when dealing with women for this reason, to make sure “the mouth shall be well open and the tongue thrust well out, and their garments be kept quite clear” because they are tricky and this is one way that a witch could be identified.73

To attack the very lifeblood of society witches could destroy the crops and fields

with rain and hail as well as the attack on the spiritual center of the town. This was

conjecture by Kramer to attack the role of women in society. There is no mention in this

part of the Malleus of this act being done by a man, while Kramer refers to the woman as

an infidel for being in league with the devil.74 According to Kramer, the witch was to

sprinkle water into the sky, and knowingly summon the devil to bring rain upon the

71Allen, 404. 72Kramer, 85. 73Ibid., 86. 74Ibid., 117. 98 ground. The rain is brought about when the woman made a pact with the devil so that this action can be performed. If it was not for the woman taking part in this demonic act God would not allow it, nor “would the devil on his own account try” to cause harm.75 So the devil must have the helping hand of a witch, in this case a female witch, to bring harm to the countryside. Kramer sought to direct how witches could harm people and their crops, and in this example no man was mentioned, just the evil of the woman and her spite.

Women were also jealous, wrote Kramer, of the men they had in their lives, or wished to have in their lives. When a man had a mistress, she believed they would be

together one day as man and wife. However, when the man fell for another woman and

married her, the former mistress acted out against the new marriage both publicly and

privately. These women would try and seduce a married man and attack the honest wife;

according to Kramer. This was, Kramer states, done to draw the man back to his former

mistress for “if the wife should die, the husband would return.”76 To do this the woman would try to curse the wife in public, leading to her death. Kramer used this as yet another example of how women are vile creatures, acting out of lust for men and are willing to defile anything and even kill in the name of their passions.

Jealousy runs rampant in women, as was noted in the town of Waldshut by

Kramer in another story in the Malleus. There was a wedding in the town in which nearly the entire population was invited except for one witch.77 To ruin the wedding celebrations

the witch summoned a devil and “telling her the cause of her vexation” asked him to raise winds and rain to drive the people from their celebrations.78 She did this by digging a

75Kramer, 118. 76Ibid., 125. 77Ibid., 69. 78Ibid. 99 trench on a hill within view of the gathering below, and filled it with her own urine. The devil saw this and rose up the water into the sky bringing down a storm onto the people below. All the while there were shepherds standing nearby that saw the actions of the witch, and when she returned to town they reported to the villagers of her actions and she was burned.79

There is one more example from which Kramer drew to attack the place of

women in society. This time, his reach extended to the midwives and how they aimed to

“kill children or offer them to devils” in the name of Satan.80 They do this either once the

child is born and sleeping, making it look as if it died of natural causes; or they can kill

the child while it is still in the mother was a belief held by Kramer. The fear of children dying was very real at this point in history, and the men who wrote this book needed to

find a scapegoat for why God allowed these deaths. The result was feelings of unease

towards midwives, with some having been rumored to have killed “more than forty

children”, or another having killed “more children that she could count.”81 Most of the

women accused were women who took care of other women’s children.82 The women in

this role would be the older women who could no longer have children of their own. The

midwives were likely to be accused by the mother of “having deprived the baby of nourishment or of having killed it.”83 Witches were seen as the anti-mother, who instead of caring for the child and mother would use their knowledge of potions to cause harm.

The result was that since childcare was a female occupation, if anyone was accused of

witchcraft it would be the midwife being accused by the mother seeking a scapegoat. By

79Kramer, 69. 80Ibid., 127. 81Ibid., 128. 82Levack, 148. 83Ibid. 100 attacking an old woman the families were able to relieve stress, and counteract the powerful female power that had placed their family in danger.

The Malleus was used to attack all of the main jobs and tasks of women in the medieval world. The book attacked the feminine role of childrearing and birthing one more way. Midwives were to “kill or offer to devils as many children as possible” for their own uses and to deliver the souls of the children to Satan. 84 After the children were

delivered to Satan the witches took the bodies and boiled them in water until the flesh had

cooked off the bones leaving a soup behind. This soup was then poured into a skin and

offered to those who wished to become witches, and having drunk the liquid the person

then becomes filled with all the knowledge needed to become a witch.85 It was through

this rite that a wife was able to seduce her husband into the dark arts using the unguents.

After the husband and wife were caught by the officials the husband related the story of

the witchcraft to the officials, but the woman refused and was burned for her crimes. As

Kramer notes woman was responsible for the fall from grace and now is turning to Satan for salvation and trying to bring man with her as happened in the Garden of Eden.

Before the Malleus was printed, most scholars point out that men were just as likely to be accused of witchcraft as women in “learned treatises” giving strength to the post-Malleus shift against women.86 The centuries of witch hunting that followed resulted

in an attack on women; in most hunts 70-80% of the victims in central and south Europe

were women.87 The Malleus was based on the traditional roles of women, Broedel noted that many modern scholars agree that the Malleus was “prescriptive in nature” of their

84Kramer, 56. 85Ibid. 86Ibid., 168. 87Broedel, 167. 101 roll in society.88 The views expressed in the Malleus followed the medieval church and the roles of women within the family as cause for being witches more so than their male counterparts. Kramer believed they were taking an accurate description of reality and

saw nothing wrong with their views.89 There were endless “stories… [of] the village wise

woman, along with shrewish wives” told at mass, combined with the occult beliefs of the

old women in league with Satan that led Kramer to accuse women on witchcraft.

Borrowing from Jacques le Vitry, a source for Kramer, old women were seen as “the

enemies of Christ, ministers of the devil, and the foes of chastity.”90

Another of the main contributors to Kramer’s ideas on women was J. Nider, and

his three reasons why women were more likely to take part in superstitious behavior.

They were more credulous than man, more “vulnerable to diabolic assaults because their

impressionable nature made them more apt than men to influences of spiritual beings” and because of their “slippery tongues…to seek revenge through maleficium.”91 This

linked women to superstition, and therefore they were more prone to practice witchcraft.

These views portrayed the world as Kramer and his contemporaries saw it, and the

stereotypical characters gave an example everyone could relate to.

Kramer moved about the country trying to attack the crime of witchcraft. When

he exhausted one area, he would move on to the next. This made him unpopular in the

regions he visited, eventually causing some popular discontent with him.92 In October

88Broedel, 167. 89Ibid. 90Ibid., 170. 91Ibid., 171. 92Behringer, 3. 102

1491 Kramer boasted of having killed over 200 witches, which may have lead to his downfall.93

Recent research shows that the effect of the Malleus may have been not as wide

spread as previously thought. In fact Behringer believes that Jacob Sprenger, Kramer’s

own superior, may have silenced him to keep his unpopular ideas from spreading, in fact

he might have “tried to suppress Kramer’s activities in every possible way.”94 This

follows through to the modern ideals of witchcraft were Kramer “successfully deceived”

society with his lies about witchcraft, especially when it came to women.95 It is clear that

it was assembled hastily by Kramer, “within 9 months,” as such it was hard to follow and

the internal organization was lacking.96 These facts cut into the credibility of the Malleus

as it circulated around Europe. His roles of women might have been influenced by his

contemporaries; however the effects of the Malleus have been questioned by modern scholars

and to what extent the role of women in witchcraft was based on the Malleus.97

Kramer’s ideas of women were blatantly misogynistic in his Malleus

Maleficarum; while he did borrow from the writings of the church fathers for his book it

reached to a whole different level. The Malleus used the “carnal lust” of women that

Kramer believed in to build belief in the devil and the reality of evil in this world. The

evils that Kramer wanted to prove that witchcraft, the flight of the witches, and the harm

they would bring to their neighbors was real. By doing so it fueled the witchcraze and the

attacks on women. For their knowledge of herbs and their healing properties as well as

their role in the household, especially with childbirth, they were targets of the craze. In

93Behringer, 3. 94Ibid., 4. 95Ibid. 96Ibid., 6. 97Ibid., 4. 103 many persecutions the women accused were in their twilight years of life, and since they had lived past most of their usefulness it was easier to attack them than their younger compatriots. Of course, the Malleus was meant as a stop all for the witch hunt, to answer any questions raised and guide the inquisitors through the trial by giving proof of what was possible by witchcraft. Due to this book the attacks increased, the hunt began in an attack on the older pagan religions and women were the main target of hunts. The result seems to be that Kramer’s mass hysteria imagined in the Malleus took root and spread throughout Europe bringing with it a wave of death and destruction.

104

Bibliography

Broedel, Han P. The Malleus Maleficarum and the Construction of Witchcraft. New

York: Manchester University Press, 2003.

Heinrich, Kramer , and Jacobus Sprenger. Malleus Maleficarum. London: The Folio

Society, 1968.

Holy Bible: New American Bible. New York: Zondervan Publishing Company, 2007

Johannes, Nider. "An Early Description of the Witch's Sabbath." In The Witchcraft

Sourcebook, edited by Brian Levack. New York: Routledge, 2004.

Karlsen, Carol F. The Devil in the Shape of Woman: Witchcraft in Colonial New

England. 3rd ed. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1998.

Levack, Brian P. The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe. 3rd ed. London: Pearson

Longman, 2006.

Pope Innocent VIII. "Summis Desiderantes." In The Witchcraft Sourcebook, edited by

Brian Levack. New York: Routledge, 2004.

St. Augustine of Hippo. "Demonic Power in Early Christianity." In The Witchcraft

Sourcebook, edited by Brian Levack. New York: Routledge, 2004

Stephens, Walter . Demon Lovers: Witchcraft, Sex, and the Crisis of Belief. Chicago:

University of Chicago Press, 2002.

105

James I and Demonology

Tim Weed

Timothy Weed is a Senior from Grand Rapids, Michigan. He will be graduating with degrees in Geography and History.

The Divine Right of Kings was often the guiding force in a monarchy during the end of the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period. Kings ruled over their people because God had placed them in that position, and to oppose their will was to oppose the will of God. The kings of Early Modern Europe, such as the Bourbon dynasty in France, held a power of a special sort. For the most part they were unopposed in their power to act as they saw fit in their particular kingdoms. Many had their crowns granted to them by the Pope, which was seen by the faithful as the divine act of God crowning the king.

The mystical aura that seemed to emanate from the monarch contrasted sharply with another power that seemed to lurk in the shadows of civilization. If God had the power to crown monarchs then surely the power of Satan was enough to disrupt that monarch’s reign. The belief in witches as minions of Satan and as willing puppets in his scheme to enslave the human race while turning them from God was very much a real and disturbing threat in the minds of Early Modern thinkers. Fear of witchcraft and sorcery ran from the every day villagers up through the classes and could be found in some of the royal courts.

Rulers encountered witchcraft in their lands, but few came in contact with it as powerfully in their reign as James I of England did. James was the son of Mary of

Scotland and the nephew of Elizabeth I. When Elizabeth died in 1603 James, then King 106

James VI of Scotland, took over the English throne as James I.1 By this time he had

already dealt with one major witch hunt as King of Scotland and was widely considered something of an expert in demonology. Therefore in 1603 he published in the form of a dialogue his own thoughts on witchcraft and the evils of Satan in Daemonologie. Over the course of the text he debates the existence of witchcraft, its powers, and forms in which diabolical magic could manifest itself.

Daemonologie was a culmination of witchcraft legislation and thought that had occurred over the last half century in the British Isles. Britain experienced the witch hunt in a vastly different way from the Continent proper, and dealt with the problem in a decidedly English manner. To understand the differences one must first examine a crucial piece of legislation.

Witchcraft Legislation in Scotland

In 1560 Scotland was in a time of religious turmoil. The Reformation Parliament of 1560 had passed laws outlawing Catholicism, while strengthening the position of the

Protestant Churches. However as three years passed before Parliament met again in 1563 they had to deal with the new Queen of Scotland, Mary, who was a Catholic.2 This led to

the repeal of some of the laws, and in turn gave Mary minimal leverage in her country.

The Parliament of 1563 is one of the most important Parliaments to ever have met in Scotland. It was responsible for many new religious and secular laws concerning the morality of the Scottish citizen. For instance, along with the Witchcraft Act, acts were passed concerning adultery, reparation of the glebes, and oblivion. These all dealt with a certain amount of religiosity and were hotly contested by the various factions making up

1Kenneth O. Morgan, The Oxford Illustrated History of Britain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984), 286. 2Julian Goodare, "The Scottish Witchcraft Act." Church History, no. 74 (2005): 40. 107

Parliament. Mary adopted a laze faire approach to the Parliament, allowing herself to maintain some sense of neutrality. In doing so she was awarded with some pro-Catholic legislation which came under intense criticism of the other factions.3

The Witchcraft Act itself was most likely an imitation of the Witchcraft Act that

England had passed in January of 1563.4 While not explicitly anti-Catholic, it did serve

in later years as a platform for Protestants to restrict Catholic privileges. The act

concerned itself mostly with witchcraft, leaving magic and necromancy as sub-headings.

James later styled his Daemonologie in the same manner. The act of witchcraft was of primary concern; while magic and necromancy were passed off not necessarily as lesser evils, but definitely lower than the crimes of witchcraft.

Most witches prosecuted in Scotland under the new laws were known as charmers. Charmers were healers who used magical practices to promote the welfare of their neighbors. However sometimes the charmer could cross the line and be accused of causing harm instead of healing. In this instance they could be prosecuted by one of the kirks or local presbyteries.5

The formulation of the Witchcraft Acts must have left a striking mark on young

James, and may have led to the route he took when dealing with the North Berwick

witches in 1590-1591. The North Berwick witches are noted as the first major witchcraft

trials in Scotland and represent landmarks in Scottish theological thought about diabolism

and witches.6 The trials arose from an instance where James and his wife, Anne of

Denmark were at sea and the witches were accused of attempting to raise storms to sink

3Goodare, 41. 4Ibid., 53. 5Ibid., 55. 6James Sharpe, The Bewitching of Anne Gunter (New York: Routledge, 1999), 177. 108 their ship. Following James’ coronation as King of England, Parliament passed a strict statute that reinforced and added to previous witchcraft legislation.

James may have prosecuted the North Berwick witches so quickly because they had attacked him as the King. A noted believer in the divine right of kings, James felt that such an attack must surely have been an attack on God’s appointed ruler.7 It would

also be seen as a direct assault by Satan on God’s power and had to be dealt with

expediently.

James and Witchcraft in England

James’s reputation as a prosecutor of witches no doubt helped him secure the

throne of England after the death of Elizabeth I. The Stuart dynasty, begun by James in

England, is one of the most infamous dynasties in history. It certainly holds a special

place in English history as one of the shortest lived and troubled.

Beginning in 1603 with James I and running through 1688 when James II

abandoned his throne to avoid execution, the Stuart dynasty worked as a disjointed form

of government that was interrupted by civil war and the Protectorate under Oliver

Cromwell. The arrival of James as King was an uncertain event as his mother had been

Catholic and Elizabeth had moved toward the middle of the road on religious affairs.8

Puritans and other conservative elements of the Anglican Church definitely felt that

James could be a potential threat.

The kingdom that James inherited from Elizabeth was unstable and rampant with corruption in the government. In his Illustrated History of Britain Kenneth Morgan

7Sharpe, 177. 8Morgan, 275. Elizabeth’s choice walked a tight line between Protestantism and Catholicism. She condemned the Puritans, but she did not favor Catholics either. Instead she followed what she believed her father Henry VIII had intended as guidelines. 109 claims that, “Elizabeth…permitted central government to become permeated by corruption in face of (her) inability to supply sufficient patronage from (her) resources.”9

Furthermore, Morgan points out that Elizabeth’s inability to work out the religious differences and her refusal to acknowledge the Puritans left the realm in an unsteady and financially dire strait. The war with Spain, which culminated in the fortunate defeat of the Spanish Armada, had cost the government almost all of its resources. Elizabeth had essentially bled the government dry of any funds or land with which it could pay off its war debt.

This was the situation into which James I was thrust as the new ruler of England.

Fortunately he had shown some administrative skill as King in Scotland and did manage to hold the English realm together during his reign. Another item that tilted in his favor was the fact that James, unlike his mother, did not cling to Catholicism. He had been raised in a Calvinist tradition, which may have led to some of his beliefs and convictions on witchcraft.

The Calvinists were hard on witchcraft for a number of reasons. They saw it as the remnants of Catholic superstition in England and were determined to snuff it out, for they saw it as a threat to the establishment of God’s reign on Earth. Some were also just plain scared by the notion of witches running around in their society. In his article,

“Witchcraft and Calvinism in Elizabethan England”, John Teall asserts that the reason that the English under James I came down so hard on witchcraft was because of the

Calvinist influence.10

9Morgan, 273. 10John Teall, “Witchcraft and Calvinism in Elizabethan England: Divine Power and Human Agency,” Journal of the History of Ideas 23 (1962): 21. 110

The influence from Calvinism arrives in James’ life at an early age when he was tutored by a Calvinist from Geneva, home of John Calvin. Therefore the Calvinist desire to drive witches from this world was always part of James’ thought process.11 His ordeal

with the North Berwick witches had only served to strengthen his resolve, and in 1603 he

published his great treatise on witchcraft.

There was also a strict break in the thought of Calvinism on the reason why

witchcraft was undesirable. Satan’s powers were indeed far beyond anything that man

could hope to desire. His power led souls away from God, but could not work true

miracles as God’s almighty power did.12 Instead Satan hoped to induce mistrust and

deceit into society and disrupt the work that the pious Calvinists were attempting to do

for God.

Based on this line of thought there is little to reason to ever believe that James

would show compassion and mercy to someone who had become involved in a witch

trial. However, later in his reign as King he did come across a fairly significant case that

reeked of revenge and diabolism.

The case of Anne Gunter is chronicled in The Bewitching of Anne Gunter by

James Sharpe. Sharpe tells the extraordinary tale of a young woman forced to do her father’s bidding to ensnare other women in the village, and have them accused of witchcraft. Anne’s misfortune of playing the part of a possessed woman landed her before a witchcraft court and then found her case sent before King James.

The case that Anne’s father presented to the King did not convince James.

Instead he suspected something foul was afoot, and soon, after Anne confessed that the

11Teall, 21. 12Ibid., 23. 111 entire situation was a hoax, freed Anne from her father’s charge. Anne’s fate is ultimately unknown, but Sharpe does seem to believe that Anne married and lived a quiet life away from the antagonisms that her father had put her through.

The James that is presented by Sharpe starkly contrasts with the James that can be found in most historical records. According to Sharpe, James played roles in unmasking fraudulent witchcraft claims as well as persecuting those that seemed real. Apparently

James favored himself as “an English Solomon”, based on King Solomon from the Old

Testament who was widely known for his wisdom.13 James’ teeth were sharpest against

witchcraft it seemed when the royal family was threatened; otherwise he took accusations

in stride.

The Theology of James

Because of the influence of Calvinism in his upbringing, James held certain

beliefs about witches. Most of these are well known in modern society as the common

witch. The Devil often presented himself to an old woman, who was captivated by his

presence and eventually sold her soul to him. The diabolical pact was of extreme

importance at the time as it held the ultimate proof that the witch had indeed rejected God

and the salvation offered by Him. Instead witches were granted certain powers by Satan,

which included an impressive arsenal such as weather change, causing disease or illness,

metamorphosis, causing infertility or the death of a child, and flying.14 These powers were often subject to change and often were altered to fit the situation as needed.

When a witch was caught and condemned execution was the order of the day.

Witchcraft, because of the pact with the Devil, was seen as treason against God. God’s

13Sharpe, 177. 14Teall, 24. 112 law was the law that ruled the world, and therefore it must be dealt with in the same manner that the secular world dealt with it.

One careful distinction must be made along theological lines. Calvinists drew a fine distinction between “possession” and “bewitchment”. Possession was the direct work of Satan or one of his familiars.15 There was no go-between witch involved.

Bewitchment however did involve a witch. If it was determined that a person was

possessed then in all likelihood there would be no indictment for witchcraft. This would

have been an important item for James to consider in the case of Anne Gunter had she not

confessed. His court would have had to decide if she was possessed or bewitched.

The traditional notion of a witch is always that of an old woman who is shunned

from the village because she has no husband or children left to care for her interests. One

reason that women were so often accused of witchcraft was that they were seen as

socially and spiritually inferior to men.16 This left them open to the power of Satan to

influence their lives.

All of the major cases overseen by James during his reign as King of Scotland and

England were those concerning women. In fact, throughout his Daemonologie, the witch is almost always portrayed as an older woman. James was no different than the other great minds of his day. To him a witch was an older woman, even though he never seemed to dismiss the idea in his text that a man could be a witch. It just seemed to his

Calvinist mindset that women were much more susceptible to the Devil’s influence.

15David Harley, "Explaining Salem: Calvinist Psychology and the Diagnosis of Possession." The American Historical Review 101 (1996): 309. 16Alan Anderson and Raymond Gordon, “Women and Witchcraft- The Case of England,” The British Journal of Sociology 29 (1978): 174. 113

Daemonologie: Preface

“Daemonologie, in form of a dialogue. Divided into three books. Written by the high and mighty Prince James by the grace of God King of England, Scotland, France, and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, etc…”17

This excerpt is taken from the cover of James’ treatise on witchcraft and its form in English society. The work covers three separate books which deal with different aspects of witchcraft and magic in general. James’ writes it in the form of a dialogue, which is often used in ancient texts and other philosophical works. In this form the author uses different individuals to discuss the different points that he has to make. The work is basically a long running conversation, usually between two to three people. It

was a favorite form of writing for Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, and other ancient Greek and

Roman philosophers.

James would have favored the style of the dialogue because of the connection this

would have given him to the ancients, who were revered throughout history for their

thoughts. The style lends a certain sense of wisdom to the author’s words, which should

have appealed to James. After all he has been dubbed “the wisest fool in all of

Christendom”18 because of his interest in matters both theological and philosophical.

He begins his dialogue with a preface to the reader. The preface covers the first

few pages of the Daemonologie, and it lays out the subjects that James intends to cover

over the discourse between his two voices. His main intent is to convince the reader that

witchcraft is in fact real beyond a reasonable doubt and presents a clear and present

17James Stuart, Daemonologie (London: 1603). It should be noted that in most instances I have corrected the old English spellings for modern times to make it easier to read. Exceptions being some major names and spellings of some locations (i.e. Daemonologie instead of Demonology). 18Sharpe, 175. 114 danger to English society, “…to resolve the doubting hearts of many; both that such assaults of Satan are most certainly practiced, and that the instruments thereof, merits most severely to be punished.”19 This particular line on the first page demonstrates

James own opinion of witchcraft. There is no doubt in his mind to the existence of the

Devil’s minions, and those that are caught should be dealt with quickly in a severe manner. James later elaborates on the sorts of punishments that a person convicted of

witchcraft should be forced to endure. His emphasis on punishment is highlighted in

1604 when he extended legislation concerning witchcraft and the death penalty.20

He then goes on to lay out how the dialogue will be broken down. As mentioned previously there are three main sections to the dialogue. The first book discusses “Magic in general and Necromancy in special”21 while the second book addresses Sorcery and witchcraft. The third book “contains a discourse of all the kinds of spirits and Spectres that that appear and trouble persons: together with a whole conclusion of the work.”22

Daemonologie: Book One

In the first book the reader is introduced to the two protagonists of James’ dialogue. He does not give a description of these two men, but it is usual that the writer picks real people to champion particular points of view. James’ two characters are

Philomathes and Epistemon. Philomathes is concerned with the matter of witchcraft and early in the first book expresses his doubts as to the existence of witches and witchcraft in general. He begins a discussion with his friend Epistemon, who certainly represents

James’ thoughts in the dialogue.

19Stuart, 2. 20Anderson, 176. 21Stuart, 3. 22Ibid. 115

Epistemon therefore patiently answers the doubts of Philomathes with reasoned responses, clarifying certain positions and peeling away the doubt that Philomathes has concerning witches. They begin with a study of Biblical text, specifically the instance in which King Saul summoned the spirit of Samuel by using a charmer instead of relying on the power of God.

Philomathes doubts the entire story believing that may only have been a charade played on the King, but Epistemon refutes this. “It is said in the text that Saul knew this to be Samuel,” he says. But Epistemon claims Saul was deceived, but not in the

Philomathes describes, “The Devil is permitted at sometimes to put himself in the likeness of the Saints. It is plain in the Scriptures…Satan can transform himself into an

Angel of Light.”23

For James this may have been a key argument. The Bible clearly shows here that

Satan could present himself as something good. By doing Satan would lure women and

men into his service. The Biblical emphasis on witchcraft may have arisen from James’

Calvinist roots in Scotland.24 Calvin’s followers often emphasized the role that God

placed on witchcraft in the Bible, and the first example that James offers in his text is

from Scripture.

One item to note about James as he writes about witchcraft; there is no explicit

mention that a witch must be female. Throughout the history of witchcraft over 75 percent of the people accused were women25, even while the further north a traveler went

the more likely a man would be accused along with women. In his text, James maintains

23Stuart, 4. 24Teall, 178. 25Brian P. Levack, The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe (New York: Pearson Longman, 2006) 141. 116 a careful neutrality about the sex of witches. He describes them as “the witch” or “the sinner”. It is unclear however as to whether this was intentional on James’ part or not.

An explanation for the de-emphasis placed on women in English witch hunts as compared to their continental counterparts might be the amount of social liberty that

English women enjoyed. Elizabethan England had undergone some reforms in the way that women were viewed and the nature of the relationship between men and women was viewed more as reciprocal than dominant.26 Women were able to own property and run households even though most laws were still restrictive in any modern sense.

A further emphasis that James places at the beginning of his treatise is the central placement of the Devil in witchcraft. English witchcraft was mostly bereft of a direct diabolical nature, and most accusations seemed to place an emphasis on charms and use of potions.27 Historians are very much at a loss to explain why England would be so

different in its interpretation of witches from the rest of Europe. Compared to its

neighbor Scotland, England’s execution toll is incredibly small. The lack of concern

about witches in daily society may have been one of the reasons that James undertook the

writing of the Daemonologie. Coming from the hotbed of Scotland, which executed anywhere from between 3,000 to 4,500 people for witchcraft between 1560 and 1707, to

the relatively quiet England must have been quite a shock for James.28 He may have felt the need to emphasize the threat to his new realm.

Book one also tackles an interesting question regarding the notion of witchcraft as a sin. Certainly committing an act of witchcraft creates a large sin against God, but it is the shape that the sin takes in James’ mind that is most interesting. He claims that

26Anderson, 178. 27Ibid., 177. 28Ibid., 176. 117 witchcraft is a twofold sin against the Holy Spirit. The daily effect of the Holy Spirit in life is described as a fundamental part of Calvinism.29 It is the driving force for which

man aspires to be like God.

The two sins that can be committed against the Holy Spirit are described by James

as “The one falling back from the whole service of God, and a refusal of all his precepts.

The other is doing the first with knowledge, knowing that they do wrong against their

own conscience, and the testimony of the Holy Spirit, having once had a taste of the

sweetness of God’s mercies.”30 In the first category of sin James includes all of the

Necromancers, Enchanters, and witches. The second category is deemed the more serious of the two levels of sin, and is reserved for those that turned away from God willingly to join the service of Satan.

James makes a distinction between witches and necromancers, calling the former servants and slaves of the Devil, while Necromancers are his masters and commanders.

By doing so he elevates necromancy to the level of equals with Satan. Necromancers do not rely on Satan for their power, according to James, but instead have learned their own art of Black Magic.31 This separates them from witches who earn their power only from

their obedience to Satan. Without that obedience, signified by the pact that they make

with Satan, witches would be unable to perform the tasks that Satan desires of them.32

This would place witches in the second category of sin against the Holy Spirit since they once knew the power of God, but rejected it for service under Satan.

29Teall, 33. This is from a text written by Reginald Scot, one of the great theological writers near the end of the reign of Elizabeth I. 30Stuart, 7. 31Ibid., 10. 32Ibid. 118

After then having defined his beliefs in how to deal with witches and the types of sin that they commit, James then lays out his ideas on why God allows this to happen.

Philomathes wonders why God “should permit any man-kind…to fall in so gross and filthy a defection”33 when man is created in the image of God. James answers in

Epistemon’s voice by reminding Philomathes of a tenant of Calvinism. The elect will be saved and the rest will be “given over in the hands of the Devil.”34 In James’ mind there

are only certain people that will be saved by God, while the rest will be thrown into Hell.

It is a chilling reminder of the threat that one faces when turning their back on God.

Daemonologie: Book Two

The second book in the Daemonologie spends the bulk of its time discussing

sorcery and witchcraft in actual existence as opposed to the belief that it does not exist.

James builds on his scriptural base, presenting further Biblical proof that there is indeed a

basis for belief in witchcraft. Philomathes has had his concerns about necromancy and

magic laid to rest, and he would like Epistemon to prove the existence of witchcraft and

sorcery. Epistemon, of course, is more than happy to oblige, but before he can proceed

he is stopped by Philomathes.

The Bible, Philomathes says, points out only occasions of necromancy or magic.

There is little to no evidence of the existence of witches in the Holy Scripture.

Epistemon refutes this, claiming that all magicians, necromancers, and witches fall under

the same category because they have turned their backs on God.35 It would appear that in

James’ mind there is no difference among the three since they all wield the power of

Satan.

33Stuart, 6. 34Ibid. 35Ibid., 29. 119

James divides the actions of witches into two parts, as he did previously in Book one with necromancers and magicians. There are two types of actions that a witch can take: actions toward themselves and actions toward others. The first action refers to anything the witch may do to ingratiate their person to Satan, while the second refers to the witch performing the tasks that Satan provides for them.36 Note again the lack of

gender pronouns that James uses again. He constantly uses the term “witch” or

“sorcerer” to denote who he is discussing. He also uses vague terms such as “the people”

or “persons”. There is absolutely no mention of one specific gender in his generic

examples. The only time it occurs is usually in an example from scripture.

The next portion of Book Two deals specifically with one of the more

stereotypical portions of witchcraft: the flight of the witches to the Sabbath. The ability

of witches to fly has often been used as an explanation of how each witch is able to attend

the Sabbath when it may be held in distant lands.37 Varying explanations of witches’

flight have arisen in different areas. Some accounts have the witches mounted backwards

on goats or sheep, while others use brooms. James favors the explanation that they are

conducted to the Sabbath by the Devil’s spirit.38 Belief in the Sabbath without the use of flight was already prevalent in Scotland, and James does seem reluctant at first to accept

the notion.39 He seems to almost persuade himself with his own arguments.

He uses examples where persons in the Bible are carried to areas by angels and

translates that into the idea that Satan can also perform the same service for his own

minions. This seems to follow the line of thought that whatever God can do, He allows

36Stuart, 35. 37Levack, 47. 38Stuart, 38. 39Levack, 48. 120

Satan to counter among his own slaves. James also rejects the notion of the use of beasts of burden for flight, claiming that “I think them deluded: for some of them sayeth that being transformed into the likeness of a little beast or soul…and pierce wherever the air may enter at.”40

Philomathes appears somewhat skeptical of Epistemon’s claims that witches can

fly by bending the air to their will and folding their body in all manners. He says that

such an ability to feel no pain in a solid body lends itself to the “Papist Mass” and its rite

of transubstantiation. He claims that a body cannot contract or change its shape in any

manner.41 It almost seems that by the end of this particular chapter James has changed

his mind on the ability of witches to fly since he does not give Epistemon a response to

Philomathes’ charges.

The final portion of Book Two tackles the subject matter of who is most likely to

fall prey to the Devil’s temptations. Surprisingly James once again refrains from using

direct gender related language. Instead he claims those that are “weak of faith and

spirit”42 are the ones who will fall under Satan’s command. James also deals with a

matter that seems of great importance to him: the matter of a direct assault on the

magistrate. As previously mentioned James believed in the Divine Right of Kings, and

he claims that anyone who attacks a magistrate will be punished according to the “just

law of God…God will not permit their master (Satan) to trouble or hinder so good a

work.”43 He writes that it is not within Satan’s powers to strike down one of God’s

officers, and making such an attempt must be dealt with in a forceful manner.

40Stuart, 39. 41Ibid., 42. 42Ibid., 49. 43Ibid., 50. 121

Daemonologie: Book Three

The third, and final, book of Daemonologie brings James’ argument to a close.

He first describes four kinds of spirits that the Devil can unleash on men. These types of spirits are those that enter homes or other solitary places, spirits that follow people and trouble them, spirits that possess people, and the fourth spirit is the fairy.44 The first three

can be made by witches, and even though James divides them into separate categories he

says that he considers them all the same spirit. “For doubtless they are in effect, but all

one kind of spirit, who for abusing the more of mankind takes on these sundry shapes and

uses diverse forms of our wayward actions, as if some were of nature better than other.”45

In essence then James believes the witches seem to use our own inner turmoil to create these demons that can possess and haunt humans.

James also includes a brief chapter concerning the power that the “Papists” seem to exert over spirits who cause possession. Philomathes openly questions how Catholics, whom he considers heretics, are able to throw out demons. He wonders why this would not be the same as one demon casting out another as it says in scripture.46 Epistemon

replies that he truly doubts the Catholic ability to cast out demons. He doubts that the people are truly relieved of their symptoms.

Epistemon also charges that Catholic priests know some of the cases are false, and that they take steps to invent false cases to prove the validity of their religion.47 This was a common case among many skeptics among both Protestants and Catholics. The literalism with which Calvin and his followers interpreted the Bible created a belief that

44Stuart, 56. 45Ibid. 46Ibid., 69. 47Ibid., 69-70. 122 no matter what happened God would eventually win out.48 Therefore Calvinism

approached the notion of possession a bit warily. However, both Catholics and

Protestants performed exorcisms in an effort to prove the validity of their religion.49

Perhaps the most interesting part of the Third Book is James’ description and

dialogue on fairies. The creation of fairies is described as the Devil lifting the spirits of

dead witches out of their bodies and then sending them to the Queen fairy. She then

gives them instructions to cause havoc at certain times. James comes off as a bit of a skeptic on the entire idea, and neither Epistemon nor Philomathes seems overly convinced by their argument.

Epistemon argues that people have seen fairies only because they have no other excuse to cover up an event that has transpired. He believes that people may encounter the spirit of the Devil in certain circumstances, and that the Devil appears to witches and non-witches alike.50 But he is very hesitant to accept the notion that fairies actually exist

in the way that most people describe them.

The final chapter of Book Three delves even more deeply into the punishment

that should be inflicted on confessed witches. This is a subject that James has touched on in multiple places, but he examines the topic in great detail and with great relish here. In fact the first line that Epistemon speaks in answer to Philomathes’ question of what to do with a confessed witch is, “They ought to be put to death according to the Law of God,

the Civil and Imperial Law, and Municipal Law of all Christian nations.”51

48Levack, 129. 49Ibid., 130. 50Stuart, 67. 51Ibid., 76. 123

Death by fire becomes James preferred means of execution, but he does believe that it is different in every country and should be left to the discretion of the chief magistrate. He also believes that there should be no discrimination among age, gender, nor rank. The crime of witchcraft compares in James’ eyes to that of Idolatry, worshipping the false god of Satan. When Philomathes questions the extent of the punishment, Epistemon is vehement in responding that no one is above the law of God.52

James does counsel caution when condemning a witch however. He emphasizes that it is as much of a sin to execute an innocent person as it is a victory to execute a witch. “To condemn the innocent is to let the guilty escape free.”53 A judge must be patient and certain of guilt before passing judgment.

The dialogue ends with James imploring once more through Epistemon that the

Devil must continue to be fought. Otherwise his servants will rise to consume the world in flame. The ending imagery is a powerful call to arms for his citizens, and it must have struck the reader as an impassioned plea from someone who has had several encounters with the spirit of Satan.

Conclusion

After its publication in 1603, Daemonologie became a popular source of confirmation for scholars and authorities fighting presumed incidents of witchcraft. It also became quite popular with later demonologists who may have found it useful to have the King of England arguing along the same lines as they.54 A criticism concerning the

Daemonologie by Sharpe states that James brings little new material to the old

arguments. His biggest contribution may have come from writing it as a monarch.

52Stuart, 76-77. 53Ibid., 77. 54Sharpe, 177. 124

Sharpe points out that it may relate better if this work is viewed in context with some of the other writings of James I.55

There is little doubt that James believed witchcraft to be a threat. Perhaps the

most important piece of information to take out of the dialogue is the amount of thought

and material that the King must have put into it. Even if it serves as a rehash of some old

arguments something could be said for putting them down in a coherent and thought out

form. James did believe in witches, and he believed that they could serve as a potential

threat to his Right as a Divine Ruler appointed by God.

One criticism of the work that could be offered is that James is not interested in

exploring the possibility that witchcraft may not exist. He offers solid answers for each

point, and while it may not hold up to a modern mind his answers and the text’s

importance should not be overlooked. The Daemonologie serves as an interesting

launching point into the mind of a Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century ruler examining

one of the leading problems of his time.

55For a review of some of James’ work see James E. McGoldrick’s article review in The Sixteenth Century Journal, “Minor Prose Works of James VI and I”. This is a review of the particular collection of works and provides a quick look at some of the other work by James. 125

Bibliography

Anderson, Alan, and Raymond Gordon. "Witchcraft and the Status of Women-The Case

of England." The British Journal of Sociology, no. 29 (1978): 171-184.

Bradshaw, Brendan. "King James VI and I." The Seventeenth Century, no. 22 (2007):

186-188.

Cayley, Jeanette. "Review: The Bewitching of Anne Gunter." British Medical Journal,

(2000): 69-70.

Goodare, Julian. "The Scottish Witchcraft Act." Church History, no. 74 (2005): 39-67.

Harley, David. "Explaining Salem: Calvinist Psychology and the Diagnosis of

Possession." The American Historical Review, no. 101 (1996): 307-330.

Levack, Brian P. The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe. New York: Pearson

Longman, 2006.

Levack, Brian P. "Review: English Witchcraft 1560-1736." Albion: A Quarterly Journal

Concerned with British Studies, no. 36 (2004): 692-697.

McGoldrick, James E. "Review: Minor Prose Works of James VI and I." Sixteenth

Century Journal, no. 16 (1985): 532-533.

Morgan, Kenneth O. The Oxford Illustrated History of Britain. Oxford: Oxford Press,

1984.

Sharpe, James. The Bewitching of Anne Gunter. New York: Routledge, 1999.

Stuart, James I. Daemonologie, In Form of a Dialogue. London: Edenburgh, 1603.

Teall, John L. "Witchcraft and Calvinism in Elizabethan England: Divine Power and

Human Agency." Journal of the History of Ideas, no. 23 (1962): 21-36.

126

Courtiser les sorcières en France, mid 1500s-early 1600s1

Theresa Woodbridge

Theresa Woodbridge is a senior from Saginaw, Michigan. She will graduate with majors in Political Science and International studies and minors in History and French.

The hysteria of witchcraft which dominated Europe during the medieval and early

modern periods affected countries differently. Germany had the largest number of people

affected by witchcraft persecutions, ranging anywhere from 30,000 to 45,000.2

Conversely, some of the smaller persecutions were those of Eastern Europe where the

countries of Bohemia, Hungary, Transylvania and Russia held around 5,000 witch

persecutions combined.3 The number and frequency of witchcraft persecutions was often

spurred on by writings from demonologists including Heinrich Kramer, Henri Boguet, and Jean Bodin.

Although the country of France has a reputation of being harsh on witchcraft owing to the treatises written during this time, in reality the French were some of the most moderate persecutors of witchcraft due to the control on the lower courts and the generally unfavorable experience of a witch trial for anyone. France was responsible for the persecutions of likely no more than 3,000 witches, including both lower and higher level courts.4 This is one of the smaller numbers in all of Europe, mostly because France

at this time did not include Lorraine or Franche-Comte, two areas of high witchcraft

persecution. While the amount of persecutions in France is not as large as other countries,

3,000 persecutions are not insignificant. Since much of the evidence of witchcraft trials

1Translation of the title: Courting the Witches in France, mid 1500s-early 1600s 2Brian Levack, The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe (Great Britain: Pearson Longman, 2006), 21. 3Ibid., 22. 4Ibid. 127 relied on the eye-witness testimonies of others, at least twice this many people were likely also affected by these persecutions. To better understand the decreased number of persecutions in France, an overall explanation of the situation in France is important.

Brief History of France during this Period

France during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was involved in the wars of religion which were being fought all over Europe. Beyond the religious aspects of the wars, France was also experiencing a struggle for power between two powerful factions.

King Henry II died in 1559, leaving his son Francis II on the throne. Francis II was wed to Mary, Queen of Scots, who was a member of the conservative House of Guise. The

House of Guise began to exercise more influence over the court, and was challenged by the House of Bourbon.

In France, the fighting primarily took place from 1562 to 1598 and was mainly between the Catholics and the Huguenots. One of the most infamous confrontations was the massacre of the Huguenots in Paris on St. Bartholomew’s Day in 1572. Around 2,000

Huguenots were murdered by a Catholic mob over six days beginning on August 24th.

From August to October, similar seemingly spontaneous massacres of Huguenots took place throughout France, including in Toulouse, Bordeaux, Lyon, and Rouen. In 1594,

Henry of Navarre of the House of Bourbon became King Henry IV and granted religious freedom to the French through the Edict of Nantes in 1598. The Edict of Nantes granted freedom of conscience to all French, freedom of worship and some degrees of independence in towns where Protestantism had been established.5

5Levack, 123. 128

Henry IV was assassinated in 1610 and the ensuing rule fell to his young son,

Louis XIII, with Marie de Médici as regent. Following this chaotic period, Louis XIII came to full power around 1616, removing most of the government from his mother’s control. Most of the conflict had calmed, but Louis XIII, along with his ally, Cardinal

Richelieu, attempted to re-introduce Catholicism in areas of southwestern France.6 This

prompted sporadic fighting for many years, and the implementation of the Edict would

also vary.

The geography of France at this time is also important to the geo-political

situation. The Kingdom of France during the medieval and early modern period was

smaller than the borders of the current French Republic. Numerous well-known areas

were not actually part of the French kingdom including Alsace, Franche-Comté, Lorraine

and Navarre.7 However, most of these areas were French-speaking and are thus are often

mistakenly attributed to the Kingdom of France. Due to the unmovable location between

France and the Holy Roman Empire (modern Germany), these Francophone areas would

absorb characteristics from both strong states. Many of these areas were duchies, and so

maintained some sovereignty, even though control of the territory would often switch

hands between different countries. This small degree of sovereignty could allow the

territory to act in ways not sanctioned or implemented by the Kingdom of France, even

though its actions are commonly attributed today to France.

These wars and conflicts were also manifestations of the social change affecting

the Kingdom of France during this time. Debate over what the very nature of “being

French” was, along with the role of the French monarchy to the people, were important

6Levack, 123. 7Robin Briggs, “France,” in Encyclopedia of Witchcraft: The Western Tradition, ed. Richard M. Golden (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2006). 129 questions being asked.8 The size of the role religion should play in politics was being

examined too. The question was also posed of the importance, or lack there of, of

foreigners (or people of other religions) to the overall economy and society of France.

Many of the responses to these questions came in the form of treatises where the authors

tried to persuade readers by using challenging language; pitting the side of true France

and Christianity against all of the works of Satan and his army who were tying to disrupt

the order of the state of France.9

From Accusations to Appeals

Accusations of witchcraft are believed to have come from many sources. The

most widely held impression is of a witch hunter, often with a religious agenda, visiting

small villages and searching out any improper or abnormal rituals or practices. However,

while many religious figures wrote about the process of finding or condemning people

suspected of witchcraft, not all of them roamed about the countryside ridding small

villages of local magicians. Accusations also came from other sources. Robin Briggs, in

the book Witches and Neighbors: The Social and Cultural Context of European

Witchcraft, posits that accusations in continental Europe were more likely to come from

villagers themselves. He states, “People really believed that pain, death and crippling

economic losses resulted from the malevolence of their neighbours; they had the

strongest motives for acting against them, yet displayed marked reluctance to do so.”10

Accusations of witchcraft stemmed from suspicious activities by villagers, but it could be

8Charlotte Wells, “Leeches on the Body Politic: Xenophobia and Witchcraft in Early Modern French Political Thought.” French Historical Studies 22 (1999): 353. 9Ibid. 10Briggs, 273. 130 weeks, months, or even years before they would be presented to any type of local authority. It was also more likely, Briggs adds, that accusations or testimony against one person were not from a single accuser, but were provided by a number of people.11 This

was caused by a fear of magical retaliation from the accused or of the accused possibly

giving prosecutors the names of other villagers.

In early medieval ages, European courts would rely upon the accuser to prosecute the person suspected of witchcraft. The accuser would make a sworn statement formally and publically in front of a judge, and the trial would occur.12 If a confession was given

or evidence provided, the judge would make a decision in the trial. If no proof was

offered and a confession was not forthcoming, an appeal was made to God to show

whether the accused witch was innocent or guilty.13 This system is generally referred to

as accusatorial and differs from the inquisitorial system developed over the thirteenth,

fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in Europe.

The inquisitorial method also began with an accusation being made by a single or

group of individuals. However the accuser was no longer responsible for being the

prosecutor for the trial.14 Also, judges of trials would sometimes include the testimony of

other people from a village as evidence of witchcraft. The entire process of a trial became

more official, with the judges being charged with thoroughly investigating the crime in

addition to providing a verdict. Thus, written records of interrogations and testimonials

were taken from the accused and accuser(s). This type of institutionalized process was

especially prevalent on the continent of Europe.

11Briggs, 273. 12Levack , 75. 13Ibid. 14Ibid., 77. 131

In 1532, the Constitutio Criminalis Carolina was made known. The Carolina is the institutionalization of Roman-canonical law. Within the Carolina, witchcraft is specifically labeled as a severe crime equal to murder, arson, or homosexuality. This document, developed under the reign of Emperor Charles V, listed all of the requirements which had to be met to prove someone guilty of a crime.15 The standards listed in the

Carolina, including the requirement of two witnesses to the crime and/or a confession

from the person accused were to be applied to all trials of any crime, not just witchcraft.16

Torture was also now considered an important part of the process of trials. If there was any probability, such as the testimony of one witness, of a person’s culpability as a witch, interrogation under torture could be engaged to try and evoke a confession.

While the Carolina may have had an impact on the criminal procedures of all of

Europe, it was not considered the most important law in all countries. In France in 1539,

King Francis signed an ordannance royale at Villers-Cotterêts.17 At this time, an

ordannance royale was an order from the king used to reform existing laws or to institute

a new process. The Villers-Cotterêts ordinance contained a number of reforms to existing

governmental and judicial regulations, not the least of which was declaring French as the

language to be used in official documents instead of Latin. This illustrates the primary

purpose of the ordinance: to centralize the country under the authority of the French

monarchy and state instead of outside forces, such as the Catholic Church.18 Although the

laws of France may have started out rooted in Roman-canonical regulations, they evolved

15Levack, 257. 16Ibid., 80. 17John H. Langbein, Prosecuting Crime in the Renaissance: England, Germany, France (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1974), 210. 18Ibid., 211. 132 under the authority of successive monarchs away from the Church.19 Thus, while the

Carolina may have made some impact on the criminal processes and investigations

throughout all of Europe, in France the impact was reduced. This was due to much of the

judicial system being under the control of the French monarchy and government, who

had the ability to direct and oversee the application of criminal laws.20 This centralizing

force may have been a contributing factor to the reduced number of witchcraft

persecutions in the kingdom of France.

While the Carolina may have helped to clarify the process of a trial once an

accusation was made, overall accusations were not rampant in France. Briggs also

examines the gender gap as an element of witchcraft accusations, “If it is correct to

suggest that most informal accusations were made by women against other women, then

they would only have leaked slowly across to the men who controlled the political

structures of local society.”21 The slowness with which an accusation was brought

forward, coupled with the powerful force with which the accusations were made, had an effect on the legal system. However, many times local authorities would not act on an accusation until there was strong support for it. One factor of this reticence in holding a trial was that the overall cost of a trial could be very expensive. If the accused could not

pay for the trial, the entire village would be taxed, making the accuser very unpopular.22

Thus, strong support for a witchcraft accusation would make a tax more explainable to the villagers.

19Langbein, 221. 20Ibid. 21Briggs, 273. 22Ibid., 340. 133

The prosecution of other crimes by courts was also usually a long and involved process. Crimes such as theft or violence or assault against another person would often result in a very long delay for a verdict. This was to encourage the settlement of the crime through means other than the courts, preferably a less formal negotiation resulting in monetary compensation. Witchcraft trials were usually very public events and could not be expected to be slowly delayed or forgotten by the public.23 Vigilante action by

villagers was rare, although a case does exist in Marmande, France in 1453 where a

number of suspected witches were summarily executed.24 Local village witchcraft trials

could result in quick accusations and convictions, although Briggs notes that many of the

most fervent sites of village condemnations, such as Lorraine and Luxembourg, were

done by courts composed of amateur judges.25 Trials at the higher levels which were

presided over by professional judges, who would use the specific codes of the Carolina

and/or the regulations from the French monarchy to conduct the trials, might produce a

sense of alienation or schism due to the long drawn-out nature of the trial. This could be

harmful for villagers and adversely affect the attitude of the village.

Often, however, the conduct of cases at lower levels could become irregular or abnormal. Judges could be unreliable, showing no particular pattern from one judgment to the next.26 Many of these judges were not professional judges, but lay judges and thus

lacked the education and status to make decisions which could hold up over criticism.

Confessions made under torture were also supposed to have been made voluntarily of the

23Briggs, 401. 24Levack, 74. 25Briggs, 401. 26Ibid., 331. 134 person’s free will, but this requirement was routinely ignored. Sensational cases would add to any witchcraft hysteria and exert some influence on similar cases.

One such sensational case was that of Louis Gaufridi. He was a French Roman

Catholic priest who was tried and condemned to be a witch and executed in 1611.27

Gaufridi was the confessor of many of the women in Marseilles, including the women of

the family de Demandolx de la Palud. In particular, the daughter Madeline was suspected of having a dangerous level of intimacy with Gaufridi. Her parents sent her to a convent in Aix-en-Provence where she would confess to Jean-Baptiste Romillon, a man

concerned over the declining morals of the clergy.28 When de Demandolx had

convulsions, Romillon identified them as demonic torments caused by Gaufridi. When

Romillon could not exorcise the demons out of her, he passed her case on to Sebastian

Michaelis, a renowned exorcist, who turned the case into a public spectacle. 29

Although Gaufridi denied all accusations, the case became scandalous because of

the amount and descriptions of the evidence given by Madeline. She testified that

Gaufridi caused her to make a satanic pact, had sex with her, took her to sabbats, baptized

her in the name of Lucifer and gave her a demon named Beezelbub. Under torture, he

confessed and was executed on April 30, 1611. He refused to name Madeline as a witch,

or incriminate her in anyway, so she was spared a trial. Her life, however, did not end

happily as she was expelled from the convent and forced to live out the rest of her life in

poverty. The trial attracted such attention that an account was even published in English.

The account begins,

27William E. Burns, Witch Hunts in Europe and America (London: Greenwood Press, 2003), 106. 28Ibid. 29Ibid. 135

The Life and Death of Louis Gaufridi, a priest of the Church of the Occult

in Marseilles in France (who after he had given himself soul and body to

the Devil) committed many most abominable sorceries, but chiefly upon

two very fair young gentle-women, Mistress Magdalene of the Marish and

Mistress Victoria Corbier, whose horrible life being made manifest, he

was arraigned and condemned by the Court of the Parliament of Aix-en-

Provence, to be burnt alive, which was performed the last day of April,

1611.30

This text was targeted primarily towards English and Protestant audiences to give them

an illustration of the depraved actions of Catholics. This was in contrast to the relatively

moderate actions and stance being taken against witchcraft in France.

Although the idea of a “witch-craze” has become popular in modern views of

history, such a phenomenon was far more infrequent than is imagined, especially in

France.31 The subsequent views of outspoken advocates and critics of witchcraft persecution gained much more attention than the steady regulation of the high courts of

France. Sensational cases, such as that of Louis Gaufridi did occur, but much of France

was preoccupied with other crises and so did not launch a full-scale campaign against

witches.

The Work of Jean Bodin

30The early modern English text reads, “The life and death of Levvis Gaufredy a priest of the Church of the Accoules in Marceilles in France, (who after hee had giuen him selfe soule and bodie to the Diuell) committed many most abhominable sorceries, but chiefly vpon two very faire young gentle-women, Mistris Magdalene of the Marish, and Mistris Victoire Corbier, whose horrible life being made manifest, hee was arraigned and condemned by the Court of Parliament of Aix in Prouince, to be burnt aliue, which was performed the last day of April. 1611.” -The Life and Death of Levvis Gaufredy (London: Printed by Tho. C[reede] for Richard Redmer, 1612). 31Briggs, 401. 136

One of the few French authors to write a treatise on witchcraft was Jean Bodin.

He was a political thinker and provincial magistrate in Toulouse. His work, De la

Démonomanie des Sorciers, was published in 1580.32 Bodin’s work primarily

emphasized witchcraft as the most extreme and evil of crimes because it was treason

against God, a crimen exceptum. He was heavily influenced by Heinrich Kramer’s

Malleus Maleficarum, published in 1486. Bodin’s idea of the witch was the readily

accepted stereotype of the time: a person who engaged in any type of maleficia,

infanticide, created a satanic pact, cannibalism, sex with the Devil, flying, or attending

the sabbat.33 Although writing during a time of religious strife, Bodin felt that the idea of the witch and witchcraft was a universal evil which all religions strived to defeat.

He believed that it was more likely for women to be witches than men, saying

“When we read the books of those who have written about witches, it is to find fifty female witches, or even demoniacs, for every man.”34 Overall, out of Briggs’ estimated

40,000-50,000 executions in Europe, only about twenty-five percent were male.35

However, Bodin was mistaken, at least in the case of his own country. France had nearly

1300 condemned witches appeal to the Parlement of Paris; just over half of the appellates were men.36 However, there exists some credence to Bodin’s generalization: the

percentage of women who were condemned rises to nearly seventy percent. Beyond the

borders of the Kingdom of France, especially in the Francophone areas, the number of

32Translated as “On the Demon-mania of Witches.” Burns, 36. 33Ibid. 34Original text. “Qu'on lise les liures de tous ceux qui ont escrit des Sorciers, il se trouuera cinquante femmes Sorcieres ou Demoniaques pour vn homme, comme i'ay remarqué cy deuant.” Book 4, Chapter 5. Jean Bodin, De la Demonomanie des Sorciers (Paris: Chez Iacqves dv-Pvys, Libraire Iuré, à la Samaritaine. 1587. Avec Privilege dv Roy, 1587). 35Briggs, 260. 36Ibid. 137 women persecuted as witches is much higher than within the proper borders of the kingdom.

One of the main goals of Bodin’s text was to propel the magistrates of France into action. He believed that without punishing witchcraft properly, as was established in divine law, witchcraft would grow and flourish.37 He advocated more zealous action be

taken against witches than the record of the courts showed as having been taken. He

wrote,

Now, it is not within the power of princes to pardon a crime which the law

of God punishes with the penalty of death--such as are the crimes of

witches. Moreover, princes do gravely insult God in pardoning such

horrible crimes committed directly against his majesty, seeing that the

pettiest prince avenges with death insults against himself. Those also who

let the witches escape, or who do not punish them with the utmost rigor,

may rest assured that they will lie abandoned by God to the mercy of the

witches.38

Bodin believed that it was the duty of the government to take all actions possible against

witchcraft and to punish it in the harshest way possible. Anyone who was accused of even the slightest bit of witchcraft should be punished, Bodin advocated, unless there exists absolute proof that they were not a witch.39 He was especially critical of the

37Christopher Baxter, “Jean Bodin’s De La Demonomanie Des Sorciers: The Logic of Persecution”, The Damned Art: Essays in the Literature of Witchcraft, Ed. Sydney Angelo, (London: Routledge, 1977), 81. 38Original text, “Or il n'est pas en la puissance des Princes de pardõner vn crime que la loy de Dieu punist de peine de mort: comme sont les crimes de Sorcelleries. Ioint aussi que les Princes font vne grande iniure à Dieu de pardõner de si horribles meschancetez commises directement contre sa Majesté, vcu que le moindre Prince vãge ses iniures capitalement. Aussi ceux-là qui font euader les Sorciers, ou qui n'en font punition à toute rigueur, se peuuent asseurer, qu'ils seront aban donnez de Dieu, à la mercy des Sorciers.” Bodin, Book 4, Chapter 5. 39Baxter, 101. 138 previous government under Charles IX, who reigned from 1560-1574, and appealed to the new government under Henri III to do better. 40 Bodin believed this treatise, the

Démonomanie, could serve as a guide to any of the secular courts in France who were conducting trials on witchcraft.

When it came to trial procedure, Bodin supported the applications of proof from the Carolina where evidence from eye witnesses and/or confessions were accepted as proof of witchcraft. Bodin believed that there were three types of proof which could be acceptable. First, that tangible evidence was found about the accused (written pacts with the Devil and/or magic powders). Second, a confession given through the free will of accused, without threat or initiation of torture must be recorded. Last, the testimony of other witnesses to an act of magic by the accused.41 He felt that children should be

allowed to testify against their parents and the testimonies of condemned people should

also be admissible. Furthermore, the accused could be lied to in order to gain a true

confession of witchcraft. He argued that because of the extreme nature of the crime of

witchcraft, all courts should be on the watch against “presumptions”.42 A presumption

would be a characteristic of the accused which could signify their adherence or

preponderance for witchcraft. Characteristics could include being unable to cry or having

parents accused as witches. Thus, anyone accused of being a witch who was “presumed”

guilty, but not able to be condemned due to lack of evidence, could be made to pay fines,

thrown in prison, or branded in some way.43

40Burns, 37. 41Alfred Soman, “The Parlement of Paris and the Great Witch Hunt (1565-1640)” Sixteenth Century Journal, (July, 1978): 37. 42Burns, 36. 43Ibid. 139

Much of Bodin’s writings were focused on his expectations of harsh punishments for witches, but that is primarily found in the latter half of the treatise. In the beginning of the Démonomanie, Bodin discusses the Hebraic authority and codes and how witchcraft is seen as either “lawful’ or “unlawful” when judged by these standards.44 One of the

interesting aspects of this work is that although Bodin denounced all witchcraft as evil, he

allowed for the possibility of good magic, such as good daemons. He claims that there is confusion over good and evil spirits, which stems from ancient Greek thought, particularly Plato.45 The idea or notion of trying to outwit or surpass the power and law of

God, was abhorrent to Bodin, who believed that failure to properly temper any evilness

would only beget more evil in the world.

Bodin was a patriot. He dedicated De la Démonomanie des Sorciers to the first

president of the Parlement of Paris, Christophe de Thou.46 Yet, the work of a mere magistrate was not enough to attract the attention of the nobles of the Parlement. The

Parlement of Paris continued to exercise a more lax policy on witchcraft crimes than

Bodin advocated. However, others around Europe were heavily influenced by Bodin’s work, including Martin del Rio and Pierre de Lancre. Still, Reginald Scot and Johann

Weyer refuted most of Bodin’s work and spoke out against it.

The Legal System in France

The crime of witchcraft or even of sorcery is not mentioned in any royal edict in

France until 1682 and there are few, if any, records of the positions of any councilor on

44Baxter, 82. 45Ibid. 46Burns, 37. 140 the subject. It was never defined as a specific crimen exceptum by the law of France.47

Thus, the attitude towards witchcraft in France would often fluctuate depending on the province. Provinces such as Lorraine or Franche-Comte, which were not part of the

French kingdom during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, tended to have much higher rates of accusation and condemnation of witches than the kingdom of

France.48 This is likely caused by their close proximity and inclusion into the areas of

Germany, Luxembourg, and Switzerland. The southern provinces, those closest to Spain,

could also be more aggressive. Pays de Lahourd, in particular, was much more aggressive

in witchcraft persecutions.49

One example of the more aggressive searches in witchcraft was that of Henri

Boguet. He was the magistrate in Franche-Comte, which at this point was not part of the

Kingdom of France, yet maintained a French character. The supreme court was in the

French parlement style, and there were few witch executions until the late 1500s.50 It was then that Henri Boguet became grand judge of the territories and the secular inquisitorial method began to be used to try cases. He worked on cases of demonic possessions in rural areas. Under him thirty-five people were tried, with twenty-eight being put to death and four dying in prison.51 Although this high execution rate contrasted with that of the

Kingdom of France, he was influenced by developments in witchcraft in France.52 In

particular he was influenced by Bodin’s work and authored his own demonological text,

Discourse on Sorcerers, published in 1602. It was reprinted in 1605, 1606, 1607, 1608,

47Soman, 36-37. 48Briggs, 333. 49Levack, 22. 50Ibid., 103. 51Burns, 37. 52Ibid., 103. 141

1610, and 1611.53 It primarily focuses on examples from the Malleus Maleficarum, Jean

Bodin’s and Nicholas Remy’s texts as well as Boguet’s own experiences. However,

Boguet’s activities were tempered and virtually ended when many of his death sentences were reversed by a higher court around 1612.54

While Jean Bodin’s work may have spurred Boguet to greater heights of

persecution, it did not have the same effect on his intended audience. Parlements in

France were a secular political institution which had developed from the council of the

king, known as the Conseil du roi.55 The first Parlement created was the Parlement of

Paris around the mid thirteenth century, which originally held jurisdiction over the entire kingdom. It was located in the royal palace on the Île de la Cité in Paris. Parlements were originally charged with only the powers of deliberation and consultation; however, judicial functions were soon added.56 These judicial functions established the Parlements

as courts of appeal. In 1443, King Charles VII created the second Parlement in a different

region, the Parlement of Toulouse, whose jurisdiction was most of the southern kingdom

of France. Soon, other Parlements were created including the Parlements of Rouen,

Bordeaux, Pau, and Dijon. 57 All of these cities, as well as the many other cities which

would follow, had strong traditions of independence before being integrated into the

kingdom of France, and thus would serve well as administrative capitals.

The Parlements were primarily composed of aristocrats who were known as

Nobles of the Robe or noblesse de robe. These positions were often bought and owned by

53Levack, 38. 54William Monter. “Franche-Comté”. Encyclopedia of Witchcraft: The Western Tradition, ed. Richard M. Golden (Santa Barbara: ABC-Clio, 2006). 55Levack, 254. 56Ibid., 98. 57Briggs, 194-95. 142 the aristocrats and could also be hereditary. 58 The makeup of the Parlements brought them into increasing conflict with the monarchy, especially as absolutism became more prominent. The term absolutism is applied to strong centralized continental monarchies that attempted to make royal power dominant over aristocracies and other regional

authorities. King Louis XIV who reigned in France from 1643 to 1715 was especially

fond of absolutism. The Parlement of Paris, however, was considered to be the highest

legal authority in the land because of the area it supervised and its proximity to royal

power. The area of its jurisdiction during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth

centuries was comprised of the northern two-thirds of France, except for the provinces of

Normandy, Brittany and Burgundy. The population of this area is estimated to have been

from eight million to ten million people.59

Most of the records of the Parlement of Paris are not the trial papers of the judges

themselves. Unfortunately, most of the trial papers have been destroyed over time.

However, the documents of prison ledgers, sentences, and clerk’s notes of interrogations

do exist, which can be used as a base for inferences about the actions of the court.60 The

Parlement’s actions were considered to be lenient by some standards, particularly those of

Jean Bodin, but were more indicative of the skeptical nature of the court. The court would hear trails on a panel, not alone, and so decisions would not be sole responsibility or authority of one person. The majority of people on the Parlement of Paris would have to be skeptical of the evidence presented at trials to regularly deliver a verdict of not guilty.

58Soman, 39. 59Ibid., 32. 60Ibid. 143

Between 1565 and 1640, the Parlement examined 1,123 appeals.61 Most of these

cases are from between 1580 and 1625, when there were about twenty appeals a year.

This is the same amount of appeals the Parlement received at this time from infanticide

convictions. The decisions of the Parlement on appeals of witchcraft cases showed much

leniency, in contrast to Jean Bodin’s wishes. Up to 1600, Parlement only reconfirmed 74

death sentences for convicted witches out of 249 appeals. Fifteen percent of people

appealing death sentences were released completely.62 Comparatively, seventy percent of

the appeals to overturn death sentences for infanticide failed and the accused were

executed. Overturning infanticide convictions was not often performed by the Parlement,

since infanticide was considered a crimen exceptum.63 The appeals for witchcraft slowed

down greatly after the beginning of the seventeenth century; there were only 18 people

killed for being a witch after their appeal. It is important to note that some type of

leniency towards witchcraft was often employed by the court: This was to ensure that

appeals were made to the Parlement.64 These appeals would then be a check on an abuse of power by lower courts.

The court was not unaware of Bodin’s work, just disinclined to follow his

suggestions. Many of the people on the court believed themselves to be part of the

noblesse de robe, and their pride in being part of jurisprudence made them adverse to the

idea of a witch craze.65 Responding to a witch craze in the Champagne and Ardennes

region in the 1580s, the king’s solicitor general, Jacques de La Guesle said, “Y a un mal

en la Champagne: c’est qu’on estime la plupart des habitants sorciers” which translates to

61Levack, 21. 62Soman, 34. 63Ibid., 36. 64Ibid. 65Ibid., 39. 144

“there is a sickness in Champagne province: they think that nearly everyone is a witch.”66

The one positive reaction Parlement did have to Bodin’s text was to re-evaluate the

standards of evidence in trial. They became more suspicious of confessions since they

could not control how these confessions were obtained in the lower courts.

Although the actions of lower courts may have been irregular, the Parlement of

Paris was unusually disapproving of many of the actions taken by the lower courts.67 In

1624, the Parlement of Paris decreed that all witchcraft sentences were automatically put through an appeal trial, something it had been considering since 1588.68 In 1640, the

Parlement even began to punish any judges from lower courts who allowed immediate executions of witches; this lead to the 1641 hanging of three lower court judges for the

murder of a suspect. This show of power led many of the lower courts to drastically reduce their witch hunting activities.

France, as a state, never established a state-wide witch hunt. Moreover, none of the stronger more centralized states during this time ever created a nationally organized witch hunt. Briggs notes that both Spain and England, like France, maintained low rates of persecution.69 This is in terms of overall witch craft-related incidents and in relation to

their respective populations. None of the monarchs of these nations ever expressed any

desire to launch such a campaign on their subjects, preferring instead to examine ways of

consolidating power. Due to the nature of disagreement among juries and clerics of these

66Soman, 37-38. 67Briggs, 333. 68Ibid. 69Ibid., 325. 145 nations about what constituted witch craft, the incidents of hysteria were kept to a minimum by skeptical colleagues.70

Conclusion

While the Kingdom of France during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries

emerged as one of the largest and most powerful states in Western Europe, it is often

characterized as being as severe in its witchcraft persecutions as the Holy Roman Empire.

This false impression is perpetuated by the outspoken and aggressive actions against

witchcraft taken by Francophone speakers in areas around the Kingdom of France,

particularly to the east. However, the actions of most of the French officials during this

time did little to earn that reputation; rather they often were at the front of preventing unnecessary and unusual punishments from taking place. The primary focus of the

Parlement of Paris was not the crime of witchcraft, but the imposition of standards of

jurisprudence upon the local courts that were far from the main city. Maintaining social

order, even in spite of all the religious turmoil, was one of the primary concerns of the

high court. The minor exceptions were the odd sensational case, as well as the writings

and advocacy of demonologists Jean Bodin and Henri Boguet. Overall, France was a

relatively stable place, in terms of witchcraft persecutions, during the sixteenth and

seventeenth centuries.

70Briggs, 325.

146

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