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THE WORLD TOST AT TENNIS
The First Quarto
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THE WITCH: HERETIC AND ANARCHIST 9
whit the less guilty of sorcery and devil-worship, for this
was their hearts’ intention and desire. Nor do I think that
the man who personated Satan at their assemblies was so
much an unscrupulous and designing knave as himself a
demonist, believing intensely in the reality of his own dark
powers, wholly and horribly dedicated and doomed to the
service of evil.
We have seen that the witches were upon occasion wont
to array themselves in skins and ritual masks and there is
complete evidence that the hicrophant at the Sabbat, when
a human being played that réle, generally wore a corre-
sponsive, if somewhat more elaborate, disguise. Nay more,
as regards the British Isles at least—and it seems clear that
in other countries the habit was very similar—we possess a
pictorial representation of ‘‘ the Devil’ as he appeared to
the witches. During the famous Fian trials Agnes Sampson
confessed: “* The deuell wes cled in ane blak goun with ane
blak hat vpon his head. . . . His faice was terrible, his noise
lyk the bek of ane egle, greet bournyng eyn; his handis and
leggis wer herry, with clawes vpon his handis, and feit lyk
the griffon.”!6 In the pamphlet Newes from Scotland,
Declaring the Damnable life and death of Doctor Fian!7 we
have a rough woodcut, repeated twice, which shows “the
Devil” preaching from the North Berwick pulpit to the
whole coven of witches, and allowing for the crudity
of the draughtsman and a few unimportant differences of
detail—the black gown and hat are not portrayed—the
demon in the picture is exactly like the description Agnes
Sampson gave. It must be remembered, too, that at the
Sabbat she was obviously in a state of morbid excitation,
in part due to deep cups of heady wine, the time was mid-
night, the place a haunted old church, the only light a few
flickering candles that burned with a ghastly blue flame.
Now “the Devil’ as he is shown in the Newes from
Scotland illustration is precisely the Devil who appears upon
the title-page of Middleton and Rowley’s Masque, The World
tost at Tennis, 4to, 1620. This woodcut presents an episode
towards the end of the masque, and here the Devil in tradi-
tional disguise, a grim black hairy shape with huge beaked
nose, monstrous claws, and the cloven hoofs of a eriffin, in
every particular fits the details so closely observed by Agnes
10 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
Sampson. I have no doubt that the drawing for the masque
was actually made in the theatre, for although this kind of
costly and decorative entertainment was almost always
designed for court or some great nobleman’s house we know
that The World tost at Tennis was produced with consider-
able success on the public stage “‘ By the Prince his Seruants.”
The dress, then, of ‘“‘the Devil’? at the Sabbats seems
frequently to have been an elaborate theatrical costume,
such as might have been found in the stock wardrobe of a
rich playhouse at London, but which would have had no
such associations for provincial folk and even simpler
rustics. |
From time to time the sceptics have pointed to the many
cases upon record of a victim’s sickness or death following
the witch’s curse, and have incredulously inquired if it be
possible that a malediction should have such consequences.
Whilst candidly remarking that personally I believe there
is power for evil and even for destruction in such a bane,
that a deadly anathema launched with concentrated hate
and all the energy of volition may bring unhappiness and
fatality in its train, I would—since they will not allow this—
answer their objections upon other lines. When some person
who had in any way annoyed the witch was to be harmed
or killed, it was obviously convenient, when practicable, to
follow up the symbolism of the solemn imprecation, or it
might be of the melted wax image riddled with pins, by
a dose of subtly administered poison, which would bring
about the desired result, whether sickness or death; and
from the evidence concerning the witches’ victims, who so
frequently pined owing to a wasting disease, it seems more
than probable that lethal drugs were continually employed,
for as Professor A. J. Clark records “‘ the society of witches
had a very creditable knowledge of the art of poisoning,’’?®
and they are known to have freely used aconite, deadly
nightshade (belladonna), and hemlock.
So far then from the confessions of the witches being mere
hysteria and hallucination they are proved, even upon the
most material interpretation, to be in the main hideous and
horrible fact.
In choosing examples to demonstrate this I have as yet
referred almost entirely to the witchcraft which raged from
THE WITCH: HERETIC AND ANARCHIST 11.
the middle of the thirteenth to the beginning of the eighteenth
century, inasmuch as that was the period when the diabolic
cult reached its height, when it spread as a blight and a
scourge throughout Europe and flaunted its most terrific
proportions. But it must not for a moment be supposed,
as has often been superficially believed, that Witchcraft was
a product of the Middle Ages, and that only then did authority
adopt measures of repression and legislate against the
warlock and the sorceress. If attention has been concentrated
upon that period it is because during those and the succeed-
ing centuries Witchcraft blazed forth with unexampled
virulence and ferocity, that it threatened the peace, nay in
some degree, the salvation of mankind. But even pagan
emperors had issued edicts absolutely forbidding goetic
theurgy, confiscating grimoires (fatidici libri), and visiting
necromancers with death. In 4.v.c. 721 during the trium-
virate of Octavius, Antony, and Lepidus, all astrologers and
charmers were banished.1® Maecenas called upon Augustus
to punish sorcerers, and plainly stated that those who devote
themselves to magic are despisers of the gods.2° More than
two thousand popular books of spells, both in Greek and
Latin, were discovered in Rome and publicly burned.?! In
the reign of Tiberius a decree of the Senate exiled all
traffickers in occult arts; Lucius Pituanius, a notorious
wizard, they threw from the Tarpeian rock, and another,
Publius Martius, was executed more prisco outside the
Ksquiline gate.??
Under Claudius the Senate reiterated the sentence of
banishment: ‘‘De mathematicis Italia pellendis factum
Senatus consultum, atrox et irritum,” says Tacitus.?* During
the few months he was emperor Vitellius proceeded with
implacable severity against all soothsayers and diviners ;
many of whom, when accused, he ordered for instant execu-
tion, not even affording them the tritest formality of a
trial.24 Vespasian, again, his successor, refused to permit
seryers and enchanters to set foot in Italy, strictly enforcing
the existent statutes.25 It is clear from all these stringent
laws, and the list of examples might be greatly extended,
that although under the Czsars omens were respected,
oracles were consulted, the augurs honoured, and haruspices
revered, the dark influences and foul criminality of the
12 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
reverse of that dangerous science were recognized and its
professors punished with the full force of repeated legislation.
M. de Cauzons has expressed himself somewhat vigorously
when speaking of writers who trace the origins of Witchcraft
to the Middle Ages: ‘‘ C’est une mauvaise plaisanterie,”’ he
remarks,2* ‘‘ou une contrevérité flagrante, d’affirmer que
la sorcellerie naquit au Moyen-Age, et d’attribuer son
existence 4 l’influence ou aux croyances de l’Eglise.” (It
is either a silly jest or inept irony to pretend that Witchcraft
arose in the Middle Ages, to attribute its existence to the
influence or the beliefs of the Catholic Church.)
An even more erroneous assertion is the charge which has
been not infrequently but over-emphatically brought forward
by partial ill-documented historians to the effect that the
European crusade against witches, the stern and searching
prosecutions with the ultimate penalty of death at the stake,
are entirely due to the Bull Summis desiderantes affectibus,
5 December, 1484, of Pope Innocent VIII; or that at any
rate this famous document, if it did not actually initiate the
campaign, blew to blasts of flame and fury the smouldering
and half-cold embers. This is most preposterously affirmed
by Mackay, who does not hesitate to write??: ‘“ There
happened at that time to be a pontiff at the head of the
Church who had given much of his attention to the subject
of Witchcraft, and who, with the intention of rooting out the
supposed crime, did more to increase it than any other man
that ever lived. John Baptist Cibo, elected to the papacy
in 1485,28 under the designation of Innocent VIII, was
sincerely alarmed at the number of witches, and launched
forth his terrible manifesto against them. In his celebrated
bull of 1488, he called the nations of Europe to the rescue
of the Church of Christ upon earth, ‘imperilled by the arts
of Satan’’’ which last sentence seems to be a very fair state-
ment of fact. Lecky notes the Bull of Innocent which, he
extravagantly declares, “gave a fearful impetus to the
persecution.’ Dr. Davidson, in a brief but slanderous
account of this great pontiff, gives angry prominence to his
severity ‘“‘ against sorcerers, magicians, and witches.’’°° It
is useless to cite more of these superficial and crooked
judgements ; but since even authorities of weight and value
have been deluded and fallen into the snare it is worth while
THE WITCH: HERETIC AND ANARCHIST 13
labouring the point a little and stressing the fact that the
Bull of Innocent VIII was only one of a long series of Papal
ordinances dealing with the suppression of a monstrous and
almost universal evil.*4
The first Papal Bull directly launched against the black
art and its professors was that of Alexander IV, 13 December,
1258, addressed to the Franciscan inquisitors. And it is
worth while here to examine precisely what was the earlier
connotation of the terms ‘‘ inquisitor”’ and ‘‘ inquisition,” so
often misunderstood, as our research, though brief, will
throw a flood of light upon the subject of Witchcraft, and,
moreover, incidentally will serve to explain how that those
writers who assign the beginnings of Witchcraft to the
Middle Ages, although most certainly and even demonstrably
in error, have at any rate been very subtilely and easily led
wrong, since sorcery in the Middle Ages was violently
unmasked and the whole horrid craft then first authori-
tatively exposed in its darkest colours and most abominable
manifestations, as had indeed existed from the first, but had
been carefully hidden and scrupulously concealed.
By the term Inquisition (inquirere = to look into) is now
generally understood a special ecclesiastical institution for
combating or suppressing heresy, and the Inquisitors are the
officials attached to the said institution, more particularly
judges who are appointed to investigate the charges of heresy
and to try the persons brought before them on those charges.
During the first twelve centuries the Church was loath to
deal with heretics save by argument and _ persuasion ;
obstinate and avowed heretics were, of course, excluded from
her communion, a defection which in the ages of faith,
naturally involved them in many and great difficulties.
S. Augustine,*? S. John Chrysostom,*’ S. Isidore of Seville?4
in the seventh century, and a number of other Doctors and
Fathers held that for no cause whatsoever should the Church
shed blood; but, on the other hand, the imperial successors
of Constantine justly considered that they were obliged to
have a care for the material welfare of the Church here on
earth, and that heresy is always inevitably and inextricably
entangled with attempts on the social order, always anar-
chical, always political. Even the pagan persecutor Diocletian
recognized this fact, which heretics, until they obtain the
14 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
upper hand, have throughout the ages consistently denied
and endeavoured to disguise. For in 287, less than two
years after his accession, he sent to the stake the leaders
of the Manichees; the majority of their followers were
beheaded, and a few less culpable sent to perpetual forced
labour in the government mines. Again in 296 he orders
their extermination (stirpitus amputart) as a sordid, vile, and
impure sect. So the Christian Cesars, persuaded that the
protection of orthodoxy was their sacred duty, began to
issue edicts for the suppression of heretics as being traitors
and anti-social revolutionaries.?5 But the Church protested,
and when Priscillian, Bishop of Avila, being found guilty
of heresy and sorcery,2® was condemned to death by
Maximus at Trier in 384, S. Martin of Tours addressed the
Emperor in such plain terms that it was solemnly promised
the sentence should not be carried into effect. However,
the pledge was broken, and S. Martin’s indignation was
such that for a long while he refused to hold communion
with those who had been in any way responsible for the
execution, which §S. Ambrose roundly stigmatized as a
heinous crime.??. Even more crushing were the words of
Pope S. Siricius, before whom Maximus was fain to humble
himself in lowliest penitence, and the supreme pontiff
actually excommunicated Bishop Felix of Trier for his part
in the deed.
From time to time heretics were put to death under the
civil law to which they were amenable, as in 556 when a
band of Manichees were executed at Ravenna. Pope
Pelagius I, who was consecrated that very year, when
Paulinus of Fossombrone, rejecting his authority, openly
stirred up schism and revolt, merely relegated the recalcitrant
bishop to a monastery. Saint Cesarius of Arles, who died
in 547, speaking®® of the punishment to be meted out to
those who obstinately persevere in overt paganism, recom-
mends that they should first be remonstrated with and
reprimanded, that they should if possible be thus persuaded
of their errors ; but if they persist certain corporal chastise-
ment is to be given; and in extreme cases a course of
domestic discipline, the cutting of the hair close as a mark
of indignity and confinement within doors under restraint,
may be adopted. There is no hint of anything more than
THE WITCH: HERETIC AND ANARCHIST 15
private measures, no calling in of any ecclesiastical authority,
far less an appeal to any punitive tribunal.
In the days of Charlemagne the aged Elipandus, Arch-
bishop of Toledo, taught an offshoot of the Nestorian heresy,
Adoptionism, a crafty but deadly error, to which he won the
slippery dialectician Felix of Urgel. Felix, as a Frankish
prelate, was summoned to Aix-la-Chapelle. A synod con-
demned his doctrine and he recanted, only to retract his
words and to reiterate his blasphemies. He was again
condemned, and again he recanted. But he proved shifty
and tricksome to the last. For after his death Agobar of
Lyons found amongst his papers a scroll asserting that of
this heresy he was fully persuaded, in spite of any contra-
dictions to which he might hypocritically subscribe. Yet
Felix only suffered a short detention at Rome, whilst no
measures. seem to have been taken against Elipandus, who
died in his errors. It was presumably considered that
orthodoxy could be sufficiently served and vindicated by the
zeal of such great names as Beatus, Abbot of Libana;
Etherius, Bishop of Osma; 8S. Benedict of Aniane; and the
glorious Alcuin.®°
Some forty years later, about the middle of the ninth
century, Gothescalch, a monk of Fulda, caused great scandal
by obstinately and impudently maintaining that Christ had
not died for all mankind, a foretaste of the Calvinistic heresy.
He was condemned at the Synods of Mainz in 848, and of
Kiersey-sur-Oise in 849, being sentenced to flogging and
imprisonment, punishments then common in monasteries for
various infractions of the rule. In this case, as particularly
flagrant, it was Hinemar, Archbishop of Rheims, a prelate
notorious for his severity, who sentenced the culprit to
incarceration. But Gothescalch had by his pernicious
doctrines been the cause of serious disturbances; and his
inflammatory harangues had excited tumults, sedition, and
unrest, bringing odium upon the sacred habit. The sentence
of the Kiersey Synod ran: ‘‘ Frater Goteschale .. . quia
et ecclesiastica et ciuilia negotia contra propositum et nomen
monachi conturbare iura ecclesiastica presumpsisti, duris-
simis uerberibus te cagistari et secundum ecclesiasticas
regulas ergastulo retrudi, auctoritate episcopali decernimus.”’
(Brother Gothescalch, . . . because thou hast dared—con-
16 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
trary to thy monastic calling and vows—to concern thyself
in worldly as well as spiritual businesses and hast violated all
ecclesiastical law and order, by our episcopal authority we
condemn thee to be severely scourged and according to the
provision of the Church to be closely imprisoned.)
From these instances it will be seen that the Church
throughout all those centuries of violence, rapine, invasion,
and war, when often primitive savagery reigned supreme and
the most hideous cruelty was the general order of the day,
dealt very gently with the rebel and the heretic, whom she
might have executed wholesale with the greatest ease; no
voice would have been raised in protest save that of her
own pontiffs, doctors, and Saints ; nay, rather, such repres-
sion would have been universally applauded as eminently
proper and just. But it was the civil power who arraigned
the anarch and the misbeliever, who sentenced him to
death.
About the year 1000, however, the venom of Manicheism
obtained a new footing in the West, where it had died out
early in the sixth century. Between 1030-40 an important
Manichean community was discovered at the Castle of
Monteforte, near Asti, in Piedmont. Some of the members
were arrested by the Bishop of Asti and a number of noble-
men in the neighbourhood, and upon their refusal to retract
the civil arm burned them. Others, by order of the Arch-
bishop of Milan, Ariberto, were brought to that city since
he hoped to convert them. They answered his efforts by
attempts to make proselytes; whereupon Lanzano, a
prominent noble and leader of the popular party, caused the |
magistrates to intervene and when they had been taken
into the custody of the State they were executed without
further respite. For the next two hundred years Manicheism
spread its infernal teaching in secret until, towards the
year 1200, the plague had infected all Italy and Southern
Europe, had reached northwards to Germany, where it was
completely organized, and was not unknown in England,
since as early as 1159 thirty foreign Manichees had privily
settled here. They were discovered in 1166, and handed over
to the secular authorities by the Bishops of the Council of
Oxford. In high wrath Henry II ordered them to be
scourged, branded in the forehead, and cast adrift in the cold
THE WITCH: HERETIC AND ANARCHIST 17
of winter, straightly forbidding any to succour such vile
criminals, so all perished from cold and exposure. Mani-
cheism furthermore split up into an almost infinite number
of sects and systems, prominent amongst which were the
Cathari, the Aldonistz and Speronistz, the Concorrezenses
of Lombardy, the Bagnolenses, the Albigenses, Pauliciani,
Patarini, Bogomiles, the Waldenses, Tartarins, Beghards,
Pauvres de Lyon.
It must be clearly borne in mind that these heretical
bodies with their endless ramifications were not merely
exponents of erroneous religious and intellectual beliefs by:
which they morally corrupted all who came under their
influence, but they were the avowed enemies of law and
order, red-hot anarchists who would stop at nothing to gain
their ends. Terrorism and secret murder were their most
frequent weapons. In 1199 the Patarini followers of Ermanno
of Parma and Gottardo of Marsi, two firebrands of revolt,
foully assassinated S. Peter Parenzo, the governor of Orvieto.
On 6 April, 1252, whilst returning from Como to Milan, as
he passed through a lonely wood 8S. Peter of Verona was
struck down by the axe of a certain Carino, a Manichean
bravo, who had been hired to the deed.*® By such acts they
sought to intimidate whole districts, and to compel men’s
allegiance with blood and violence. The Manichzan system
was in truth a simultaneous attack upon the Church and the
State, a desperate but well-planned organization to destroy
the whole fabric of society, to reduce civilization to chaos.
In the first instance, as the Popes began to perceive the
momentousness of the struggle they engaged the bishops to
stem the tide. At the Council of Tours, 1168, Alexander III
called upon the bishops of Gascony to take active measures
for the suppression of these revolutionaries, but at the
Lateran Council of 1179 it was found these disturbers of public
order had sown such sedition in Languedoc that an appeal
was made to the secular power to check the evil. In 1184
Lucius III issued from Verona his Bull Ad Abolendam which
expressly mentions many of the heretics by name, Cathari,
Patarini, Humiliati, Pauvres de Lyon, Pasagians, Josephins,
Aldoniste. The situation had fast developed and become
serious. Heretics were to be sought out and suitably
punished; by which, however, capital punishment is not
*
18 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
intended. Innocent III, although adding nothing essential
to these regulations yet gave them fuller scope and clearer
definition. In his Decretals he precisely speaks of accusation,
denunciation, and inquisition, and it is obvious that these
measures were necessary in the face of a great secret society
aiming at nothing less than the destruction of the established
order, for all the sectaries were engaged upon the most
zealous propaganda, and their adherents had spread like
a network over the greater part of Europe. The members
bore the title of ‘‘ brother’ and “ sister,’? and had words
and signs by which the initiate could recognize one another
without betraying themselves to others. Ivan de Narbonne,
who was converted from this heresy, in a letter to Giraldus,
Archbishop of Bordeaux, as quoted by Matthew of Paris,
says that in every city where he travelled he was always
able to make himself known by signs.”
It was necessary that the diocesan bishops should be
assisted in their heavy task of tracking down heretics, and
accordingly the Holy See had resource to legates who
were furnished with extraordinary powers to cope with so
perplexing a situation. In 1177 as legate of Alexander It,
Peter, Cardinal of San Crisogono, at the particular request
of Count Raymond V, visited the Toulouse district to check
the rising tide of Catharist doctrine.** In 1181, Henry,
Abbot of Clairvaux, who had been in his suite, now Cardinal
of Albano, as legate of the same Pope, received the sub-
mission of various heretical leaders, and, so extensive were
his powers, solemnly deposed the Archbishops of Lyons and
Narbonne. In 1203 Peter of Castelnau and Raoul were
acting at Toulouse on behalf of Innocent III, seemingly with
plenipotentiary authority. The next year Arnauld Amaury,
Abbot of Citeaux, was joined to them to form a triple tribunal
with absolute power to judge heretics in the provinces of
Aix, Arles, Narbonne, and the adjoining dioceses. At the
death of Innocent III (1216) there existed an organization
to search out heretics; episcopal tribunals at which often
sat an assessor (the future inquisitor) to watch the conduct
of the case; and above all the legate to whom he might
make a report. The legate, from his position, was naturally
a prelate occupied with a vast number of urgent affairs—
Arnauld Amaury, for example, was absent for a considerable
THE WITCH: HERETIC AND ANARCHIST 19
time to take part in the General Chapter at Cluny—and
gradually more and more authority was delegated to the
assessor, who insensibly developed into the Inquisitor, a
special but permanent judge acting in the name of the Pope,
by whom he was invested with the right and the duty to
deal legally with offences against the Faith. And as just at
this time there came into being two new Orders, the Domini-
cans and Franciscans, whose members by their theological
training and the very nature of their vows seemed eminently
fitted to perform the inquisitorial task with complete success,
absolutely uninfluenced by any worldly motive, it is natural
that the new officials should have been selected from these
Orders, and, owing to the importance attached by the
Dominicans to the study of divinity, especially from their
learned ranks.
It is very obvious why the Holy Sce so sagaciously pre-
ferred to assign the prosecution of heretics, a matter of the
first importance, to an extraordinary tribunal rather than
leave the trials in the hands of the bishops. Without taking
into consideration the fact that these new duties would have
seriously encroached upon, if not wholly absorbed, the time
and activities of a bishop, the prelates who ruled most
dioceses were the subject of some monarch with whom they
might have come in conflict on many a delicate point which
could easily be conceived to arise, and the result of such
disagreement would have been fraught with endless political
difficulties and internal embarrassments. A court of religious,
responsible to the Pope alone, would act more fairly, more
freely, without fear or favour. The profligate Philip I of
France, for example, during his long, worthless, and dis-
honoured reign (1060-1108), by his evil courses drew upon
himself the censure of the Church, whereupon he banished
the Bishop of Beauvais and revoked the decisions of the
episcopal courts.44 In a letter*® to William, Count of
Poitiers, Pope 8. Gregory VII energetically declares that if
the King does not cease from molesting the bishops and
interfering with their judicature a sentence of excommunica-
tion will be launched. In another letter the same pontiff
complains of the disrespect shown to the ecclesiastical
tribunals, and addressing the French bishops he cries:
‘Your king, who sooth to say should be termed not a king
20 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
but a cruel tyrant, inspired by Satan, is the head and cause
of these evils. For he has notoriously passed all his days in
foulest crimes, in seeking to do wickedness and to ensue it.’’*®
The conflict of the bishops of a realm with an unworthy and
evil monarch is a commonplace of history. These troubles
could scarcely arise in the case of courts forane.
The words ‘inquisition’? and ‘“‘inquisitors”’ began
definitely to acquire their accepted signification in the earlier
half of the thirteenth century. Thus in 1235 Gregory IX
writes to the Archbishop of Sens: ‘*‘ Know then that we
have charged the Provincial of the Order of Preachers in
this same realm to nominate certain of his brethren, who are
best fitted for so weighty a business, as Inquisitors that they
may proceed against all notorious evildoers in the aforesaid
realm . . . and we also charge thee, dear Brother, that thou
shouldest be instant and zealous in this matter of establishing
an Inquisition by the appointment of those who seem to be
best fitted for such a work, and let thy loins be girded,
Brother, to fight boldly the battles of the Lord.’ *” In 1246
Innocent IV wrote to the Superiors of the Franciscans giving
them leave to recall at will: ‘‘ those brethren who have
been sent abroad to preach the Mystery of the Cross of Christ,
or to seek out and take measure against the plague sore
of heresy.”’ #8
All the heresies, and the Secret Societies of heretics, which
infested Europe during the Middle Ages were Gnostic, and
even more narrowly, Manichzan in character. The Gnostics
arose almost with the advent of Christianity as a School
or Schools who explained the teachings of Christ by blending
them with the doctrines of pagan fantasts, and thus they
claimed to have a Higher and a Wider Knowledge, the
Tyecrs, the first exponent of which was unquestionably
Simon Magus. ‘“‘ Two problems borrowed from heathen
philosophy,”’ says Mansel,*® ‘‘ were intruded by Gnosticism
on the Christian revelation, the problem of absolute existence,
and the problem of the Origin of Evil.”’ The Gnostics denied
the existence of Free-will, and therefore Evil was not the
result of Man’s voluntary transgression, but must in some
way have emanated from the Creator Himself. Arguing on
these lines the majority asserted that the Creator must have
been a malignant power, Lord of the Kingdom of Darkness,
THE WITCH: HERETIC AND ANARCHIST 21
opposed to the Supreme and Ineffable God. This doctrine
was taught by the Gnostic sects of Persia, which became
deeply imbued with the religion of Zoroaster, who assumed
the existence of two original and independent Powers of Good
and of Evil. Each of these Powers is of equal strength, and
supreme in his own dominions, whilst constant war is waged
between the two. This doctrine was particularly held by the
Syrian Gnostics, the Ophites, the Naasseni, the Perate, the
Sethians, amongst whom the serpent was the principal |
symbol. As the Creator of the world was evil, the Tempter,
the Serpent, was the benefactor of man. In fact, in some
creeds he was identified with the Logos. The Cainites carried
out the Ophite doctrines to their fullest logical conclusion.
Since the Creator, the God of the Old Testament, is evil all
that is commended by the Scripture must be evil, and
conversely all that is condemned therein is good. Cain,
Korah, the rebels, are to be imitated and admired. The one
true Apostle was Judas Iscariot. This cult is very plainly
marked in the Middle Ages among the Luciferians; and
Cainite ceremonies have their place in the witches’ Sabbat.>°
All this Gnostic teaching was summed up in the gospel
of the Persian Mani, who, when but a young man of
twenty-six, seems first to have proclaimed in the streets
and bazaars of Seleucia-Ctesiphon his supposed message on
Sunday, 20 March, 242, the coronation festival of Shapur I.
He did not meet with immediate success in his own country,
but here and there his ideas took deep root. In 276-277,
however, he was seized and crucified by the grandson of
Shapur, Bahram I, his disciples being relentlessly pursued.
Whenever Manichees were discovered they were brought to
swift justice, executed, held up to universal hatred and
contempt. They were considered by Moslems as not merely
Unbelievers, the followers of a false impostor, but unnatural
and unsocial, a menace to the State. It was for no light
cause that the Manichee was loathed and abhorred both by
faithful Christian and by those who proclaimed Mohammed
as the true prophet of Allah. But later Manicheism spread
in every direction to an extraordinary degree, which may
perhaps be accounted for by the fact that it is in some sense
a synthesis of the Gnostic philosophies, the theory of two
eternal principles, good and evil, being especially emphasized,
22 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
Moreover, the historical Jesus, ‘‘ the Jewish Messias, whom
the Jews crucified,” was ‘‘ a devil, who was justly punished
for interfering in the work of the Avon Jesus,” who was
neither born nor suffered death. As time went on, the
elaborate cosmogony of Mani disappeared, but the idea that
the Christ must be repudiated remained. And logically, then,
worship is due to the enemy of Christ, and a sub-sect, the
Messalians or Euchites, taught that divine honours must be
paid to Satan, who is further to be propitiated by means of
every possible outrage done to Christ. This, of course, is
plain and simple Satanism openly avowed. Carpocrates even
went so far as to aggravate the teaching of the Cainites, for
he made the performance of every species of sin forbidden
in the Old Testament a solemn duty, since this was the
completest mode of showing defiance to the Evil Creator and
Ruler of the World. This doctrine was wholly that of
medieval witches, and is flaunted by modern Satanists.
Although the Manichees affected the greatest purity, it is
quite certain that not unchastity but the act of generation
alone was opposed to their views, secretly they practised the
most hideous obscenities.°1 The Messalians in particular,
vaunted a treatise Asceticus, which was condemned by the
Third General Council of Ephesus (431) as “‘ that filthy book
of this heresy,’ and in Armenia, in the fifth century, special
edicts were passed to restrain their immoralities, so that
their very name became the equivalent for ‘‘ lewdness.”’ The
Messalians survived unto the Middle Ages as Bogomiles.
Attention has already been drawn to the striking fact that
even Diocletian legislated with no small vigour against the
Manichees, and when we find Valentinian I and his son
Gratian, although tolerant of other bodies, passing laws of
equal severity in this regard (372), we feel that such inter-
diction is especially significant. Theodosius I, by a statute
of 381, declared Manichees to be without civil rights, and
incapable of inheriting ; in the following year he condemned
them to death, and in 389 he sternly directed the rigorous
enforcement to the letter of these penalties.
Valentinian IT confiscated their goods, annulled their wills,
and sent them into exile. Honorius in 399 renewed the
draconian measures of his predecessors; in 405 he heavily
fined all governors of provinces or civil magistrates who were
THE WITCH: HERETIC AND ANARCHIST 238
slack in carrying out his orders; in 407 he pronounced the
sect outlaws and public criminals having no legal status
whatsoever, and in 408 he reiterated the former enactments
in meticulous detail to afford no loophole of escape.
Theodosius II (423), again, repeated this legislation, whilst
Valentinian III passed fresh laws in 425 and 445. Anastasius
once more decreed the penalty of death, which was even
extended by Justin and Justinian to converts from Mani-,
cheism who did not at once denounce their former co-
religionists to the authorities. This catena of laws which aims
at nothing less than extermination is of singular moment.
About 660 arose the Paulicians, a Manichean sect, who
rejected the Old Testament, the Sacraments, and the Priest-
hood. In 885 it was realized that the government of this
body was political and aimed at revolution and red anarchy.
In 970 John Zimisces fixed their headquarters in Thrace.
In 1115 Alexis Comnenus established himself during the
winter at Philippopolis, and avowed his intention of convert-
ing them, the only result being that the heretics were driven
westward and spread rapidly in France and Italy.
The Bogomiles were also Manichees. They openly wor-
shipped Satan, repudiating Holy Mass and the Passion,
rejecting Holy Baptism for some foul ceremony of their own,
and possessing a peculiar version of the Gospel of S. John.
As Cathari these wretches had their centre for France at
Toulouse ; for Germany at Cologne; whilst in Italy, Milan,
Florence, Orvieto, and Viterbo were their rallying-points.
Their meetings were often held in the open air, on mountains,
or in the depths of some lone valley; the ritual was very
secret, but we know that at night they celebrated their
Eucharist or Consolamentum, when all stood in a circle round
a table covered with a white cloth and numerous torches
were kindled, the service being closed by the reading of the
first seventeen verses of their transfigured gospel. Bread was
broken, but there is a tradition that the words of consecration
were not pronounced according to the Christian formula ;
in some instances they were altogether omitted.
During the eleventh century, then, there began to spread
throughout Europe a number of mysterious organizations
whose adherents, in a secrecy that was all but absolute,
practised obscure rites embodying their beliefs, the central
24. THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
feature of which was the adoration of the evil principle, the
demon. But what is this save Satanism, or in other words
Witchcraft ? It is true that when these heresies came into
sharp conflict with the Catholic Church they developed on
lines which lost various non-essential accretions and Eastern
subtleties of extravagant thought, but the motive of the
Manichean doctrines and of Witchcraft is one and the same,
and the punishment of Manichees and of witches was the
same death at the stake. The fact that these heretics were
recognized as sorcerers will explain, as nothing else can, the
severity of the statutes against them, evidence of no ordinary
depravity, and early in the eleventh century Manichee and
warlock are recognized as synonymous.
The sorcery of the Middle Ages, says Carl Haas, a learned
and impartial authority, was born from the heresies of earlier
epochs, and just as Christian authority had dealt with heresy,
so did it deal with the spawn witchcraft. Both alike are the
result of doubts, of faithlessness, a disordered imagination,
pride and presumption, intellectual arrogance ; sick phantasy
both, they grow and flourish apace in shadow and sin, until
right reasoning, and sometimes salutary force, are definitely
opposed to them. The authors of the Malleus Maleficarum
clearly identify heresy and Witchcraft. When the Prince
Bishop of Bamberg, John George II Fuchs von Dornheim,
(1623-33), built a strong prison especially for sorcerers, the
Drudenhaus, he set over the great door a figure of Justice,
and inscribed above Vergil’s words: Discite iustitiam moniti
et non temnere Diuos (Aineid, VI, 620),
(Behold, and learn to practise right,
Nor do the blessed Gods despite).
To the right and the left were engraved upon two panels,
the one Latin, the other German, two verses from the Bible,
3 Kings ix. 8, 9; which are Englished as follows: ‘ This
house shall be made an example of: every one that shall
pass by it shall be astonished, and shall hiss, and say : Why
hath the Lord done thus to this land, and to this house ?
And they shall answer: Because they forsook the Lord their
God, who brought their fathers out of the land of Egypt,
and followed strange gods, and adored them, and worshipped
them: therefore hath the Lord brought upon them all this
evil.” This is a concise summary of the basic reason for the
THE WITCH: HERETIC AND ANARCHIST 25
prosecution of witches, the standpoint of Christian authority,
whose professors justly and logically regarded sorcery as
being in essence heresy, to be suppressed by the same
measures, to be punished with the same penalties.
In connexion with the close correlation between Witch-
craft and heresy there is a very remarkable fact, the signifi-
cance of which has—so far as I am aware—never been noted.
The full fury of prosecution burst over England during the
first half of the seventeenth century, that is to say, shortly
after the era of a great religious upheaval, when the work
of rehabilitation and recovery so nobly initiated by Queen
Mary I had been wrecked owing to the pride, lust, and
baseness of her sister. In Scotland, envenomed to the core
with the poison of Calvin and Knox, fire and cord were seldom
at rest. It. is clear that heresy had brought Witchcraft
swiftly in its train. Ireland has ever been singularly free
from Witchcraft prosecutions, and with the rarest exceptions
—chiefly, if not solely, the famous Dame Alice Kyteler case
of 1324—the few trials recorded are of the seventeenth
century and engineered by the Protestant party. The reason
for this exemption is plain. Until the stranger forced his
way into Ireland, heresy had no foothold there. That the
Irish firmly believed in witches, we know, but the Devil’s
claws were finely clipped.
In 1022 a number of Manichees were burned alive by order
of Robert I. They had been condemned by a Synod at
Orleans and refused to recant their errors.* A contemporary
document clearly identifies them with witches, worshippers
of the Demon, who appeared to them under the form of an
animal. Other abominable rites are fully set forth, com-
parable to the pages of Sprenger, Bodin, Boguet, De Lancre,
Guazzo, andthe rest. The account runs as follows: ‘* Before
we proceed to other details I will at some length inform
those who are as yet ignorant of these matters, how that
food which they call Food from Heaven is made and provided.
On certain nights of the year they all meet together in an
appointed house, each one of them carrying a lantern in his
hand. They then begin to sing the names of various demons,
as though they were chanting a litany, until suddenly they
perceive that the Devil has appeared in the midst of them in
the shape of some animal or other. As he wouldseem to be
26 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
visible to them all in some mysterious way they immediately
extinguish the lights, and each one of them as quickly as he
can seizes upon the woman, who chances to be nearest at
hand. . . . When a child happens to be born. . . on the
eighth day they all meet together and light a large fire in
their midst, and then the child is passed through the fire,
ceremonially, according to the sacrifices of the old heathen,
and finally is burnt in the flames. The ashes are collected
and reserved, with the same veneration as Christians are
wont to reserve the Blessed Sacrament, and they give those
who are on the point of death a portion of these ashes as
if it were the Viaticum. There appears to be such power
infused by the Devil into the said ashes that a man who belongs
to these heretics and happens to have tasted even the
smallest quantity of these ashes can scarcely ever be per-
suaded to abandon his heresies and to turn his thoughts
towards the true path. It must suffice to give only these
details, as a warning to all Christians to take no part in
these abominations, and God forbid that curiosity should
lead anybody to explore them,”’’58
At Forfar, in 1661, Helen Guthrie and four other witches
exhumed the body of an unbaptised infant, which was buried
in the churchyard near the south-east door of the church,
‘and took severall peices thereof, as the feet, hands, a pairt
of the head, and a pairt of the buttock, and they made a py
thereof, that they might eat of it, that by this meanes they
might never make a confession (as they thought) of their
witchcraftis.’’>¢
The belief of 1022 and 1661 is the same, because it is the
same organization. The very name of the Vaudois, stout
heretics, survives in Voodoo worship, which is, in effect,
African fetishism or Witchcraft transplanted to America
soil.
In 1028 Count Alduin burned a number of Manichees at
Angouléme, and the chronicle runs: ‘‘ Interea iussu Alduini
flammis exuste sunt mulieres malefice extra urbem.’’55
(About this time certain evil women, heretics, were burned
without the city by the command of Alduin.) The Templars,
whose Order was suppressed and the members thereof
executed on account of their sorceries, were clearly a
Society of Gnostic heretics, active propagandists, closely
a
THE WITCH: HERETIC AND ANARCHIST 27
connected with the Bogomiles and the Mandsans or
Johannites.®°
It is true that in his recent study The Religion of the
Manichees,®’ Dr. F. G. Buskitt, with a wealth of interesting
detail and research, has endeavoured to show that the
Bogomiles, the Cathari, the Albigenses, and other unclean
bodies only derived fragments of their teaching from Mani-
cheean sources, and he definitely states ‘‘ I think it misleading
to call these sects, even the Albigensians, by the name of
Manichees.”? But in spite of his adroit special pleading the
historical fact remains ; although we may concede that the
abominable beliefs of these various Gnostics were perhaps
a deduction from, or a development of, the actual teaching
of Mani. Yet none the less their evil was contained in his
heresy and a logical consequence of it.
In the early years of this century important discoveries
of Manichean MSS. have been made. Three or four scientific
expeditions to Chinese Turkestan brought back some thou-
sands of fragments, especially from the neighbourhood of a
town called Turfan. Many of these screeds are written in
the peculiar script of the Manichees, some of which can be
deciphered, although unfortunately the newly found docu-
ments are mere scraps, bits of torn books and rolls, and
written in languages as yet imperfectly known. Much of the
new doctrine is of the wildest and most fantastic theosophy,
and the initiate were, as we know, sufficiently cunning not
to commit the esoteric and true teachings to writing, but
preferred that there should be an oral tradition. One
important piece, the Khuastuanift, i.e. “‘ Confession,” has
been recovered almost in its entirety. It is in the old
Turkestan Turkish language, and seems full of the most
astounding contradictions or paradoxes, a consensus of
double meanings and subtleties.
The question is asked whether we ought to consider Mani-
cheism as an independent religion or a Christian heresy ?
Eznih of Kolb, the Armenian writer of the fifth century,
when attacking Zoroastrianism, obviously treats Manicheism
as a variety of Persian religion. The orthodox documents,
however, from Mark the Deacon onwards treat Manicheism
as in the main a Christian heresy and this is assuredly the
correct view. There is in existence a polemical fragment, a
28 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
single ill-preserved pair of leaves, in which the Manichean
writer pours forth horrid blasphemies and vilely attacks those
who call Mary’s Son (Bar Maryam) the Son of Adonay.
It may be worth while here to say just a word correcting
a curious old-fashioned misapprehension which once pre-
vailed in certain quarters concerning the Albigenses, an
error of which we occasionally yet catch the echoes, as when
Mrs. Grenside wrote that the Albigenses were ‘‘a sect of
the 14th century which, owing to their secret doctrine,
endured much ecclesiastical persecution.’’>8 The impression
left, and it is one which was not altogether uncommon some
seventy years ago, is that the Albigensian was a stern old
Protestant father, Bible and sword in hand, who defended
his hearth and home against the lawless brigands spurred on
to attack him by priestly machinations. Nothing, of course,
could be further from the truth. The Albigensian was a
Satanist, a worshipper of the powers of evil, and he would
have found short shrift indeed, fire and the stake, in Puritan
England under Cromwell, or in Calvinistic Scotland had his
practices been even dimly guessed at by the Kirk. As
Dr. Arendzen well says®®: ‘ Albigensianism was not really
a heresy against Christianity and the Catholic Church, it
was a revolt against nature, a pestilential perversion of
human instinct.”’
Towards the end of the nineteenth century a Neo-Gnostic
Church was formed by Fabre des Essarts, but that great
pontiff Leo XIII promptly condemned it with fitting severity
as a recrudescence of the old Albigensian heresy, complicated
by the addition of new false and impious doctrines. It is
said still to have a number of unhappy adherents. These
Neo-Gnostics believe that the world is created by Satan,
who is a powerful rival to the omnipotence of God. They
also preach a dangerous communism, speciously masqued
under some such titles as the ‘‘ Brotherhood of Man” or the
‘* Brotherhood of Nations.”
In 1900, after a letter from Joanny Bricaud,®° the patriarch
of universal Gnosticism at Lyons, where, in 1913, he was
residing at 8, rue Bugeaud, the Neo-Gnostics joined with the
Valentinians, a union approved by their pseudo-Council
of Toulouse in 1908. But some years later Dr. Fugairon of
Lyons, who adopted the name of Sophronius, amalgamated
EE OE LL
THE WITCH: HERETIC AND ANARCHIST 29
all the branches,with the exception of the Valentinians,under
the name of the Gnostic Church of Lyons. These, however,
although excluded, continued to follow their own way of
salvation, and in 1906 formally addressed a legal declaration
to the Republican Government defending their religious
rights of association. Truly might Huysmans tell us that
Satanism flourished at Lyons, ‘“‘ ott toutes les hérésies sur-
vivent,”’ “‘ where every heresy pullulates and is green.”
These Gnostic assemblies are composed of “* perfected ones,”’
male and female. The modern Valentinians, it is said, have
a form of spiritual marriage, bestowing the name of Helen
upon the mystic bride. The original founder of this sect,
Valentinus, was, according to 8S. Epiphanius (Hwresis XX XI)
born in Egypt, and educated at Alexandria. His errors led
to excommunication and he died in Cyprus, about A.D. 160-—
161. His heresy is a fantastic medley of Greek and Oriental
speculation, tinged with some vague colouring of Chris-
tianity. The Christology of Valentinus is especially confused.
He seems to have supposed the existence of three redeemers,
but Christ, the Son of Mary, did not have a real body and
did not suffer. Even his more prominent disciples, Heracleon,
Ptolemy, Marcos, and Bardesanes, widely differed from their
master, as from one another. Many of the writings of these
Gnostics, and a large number of excerpts from Valentinus’s
own works yet survive.
One or two writers of the nineteenth century remarked
that there seemed to be some connexion between certain
points of the Sabbat ceremonial and the rites of various
pagan deities, which is, of course, a perfectly correct observa-
tion. For we have seen that Witchcraft as it existed in
Kurope from the eleventh century was mainly the spawn
of Gnostic heresy, and heresy by its very nature embraced
and absorbed much of heathendom. In some sense Witchcraft
was a descendant of the old pre-Christian magic, but it soon
assumed a slightly different form, or rather at the advent
of Christianity it was exposed and shown in its real foul
essence as the worship of the Evil Principle, the Enemy of
Mankind, Satan.
It may freely be acknowledged that there are certain
symbols common to Christianity itself and to ancient
religions. It would in truth be very surprising if, when
30 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
seeking to propagate her doctrines in the midst of Greeco-
Roman civilization, the Church had adopted for her inter-
course with the people a wholly unknown language, and had
systematically repudiated everything that until then had
served to give expression to religious feeling.
Within the limits imposed by the conventions of race and
culture, the method of interpreting the emotions of the heart
cannot be indefinitely varied, and it was natural that the
new religion should appropriate and incorporate all that
was good in a ritual much of which only required to be
rightly interpreted and directed to become the language of
the Christian soul aspiring to the one True God. Certain
attitudes of prayer and reverence, the use of incense and of
lamps burning day and night in the sanctuary, the offering
of ex-votos as a testimony to benefits received, all these are
man’s natural expressions of piety and gratitude towards a
divine power, and it would be strange indeed if their equiva-
lents were not met with in all religions.
Cicero tells us that at Agrigentum there was a much-
venerated statue of Hercules, of which the mouth and chin
were worn away by the many worshippers who pressed their
lips to it.6! The bronze foot of the statue of the first Pope,
S. Peter, in Rome has not withstood any better the pious
kisses of the faithful. Yet he were a very fool who imagined
that modern Christians have learned anything from the
Sicilian contemporaries of Verres. What is true is that the
same thought in analogous circumstances has found natural
expression after an interval of centuries in identical actions
and attitudes.
Among the Greeks, heroes, reputed to be the mortal sons
of some divinity, were specially honoured in the city with
which they were connected by birth and through the benefits
they had conferred upon it. After death they became the
patrons and protectors of these towns. Every country, nay,
almost every village, had such local divinities to whom
monuments were raised and whom the people invoked in
their prayers. The centre of devotion was generally the
hero’s tomb, which was often erected in the middle of the
agora, the nave of public life. In most cases it was sheltered
by a building, a sort of chapel known as ypeov. The
celebrated temples, too, were not infrequently adorned with
THE WITCH: HERETIC AND ANARCHIST 31
a great number of cenotaphs of heroes, just as the shrines
of Saints are honoured in Christian churches.®* More, the
translations of the bones or ashes of heroes were common
in Greece. Thus in the archonship of Apsephion, 469 B.c.,
the remains of Theseus were brought from Scyros to Athens,
and carried into the city amid sacrifices and every demon-
stration of triumphal joy.®* Thebes recovered from Ilion
the bones of Hector, and presented to Athens those of
CEdipus, to Lebadea those of Arcesilaus, and to Megara those
of Aigialeus.*4
The analogy between these ancient practices and Chris-
tianity may be pushed further yet. Just as, in our own
churches, objects that have belonged to the Saints are
exposed for the veneration of the faithful, so in the old
temples visitors were shown divers curiosities whose connexion
with a god or a hero would command their respect. At
Minihi Tréguier we may reverence a fragment of the Breviary
of S. Yves, at Sens the stole of S. Thomas of Canterbury, at
Bayeux the chasuble of S. Regnobert, in S. Maria Maggiore
the cincture and veil of S. Scholastica ; so in various localities
of Greece were exhibited the cittara of Paris, the lyre of
Orpheus, portions of the ships of Agamemnon and A‘neas.
Can anything further be needed to prove that the veneration
of Holy Relics is merely a pagan survival ?
Superficially the theory seems plausible enough, and yet
it will not stand a moment before the judgement of history.
The cultus of the Saints and their Relics is not an outcome
of ancient hero-worship, but of reverence for the Martyrs,
and this can be demonstrated without any possibility of
question. So here we have two very striking parallels, each
of which has an analogous starting-point, two cults which
naturally develop upon logical and similar lines, but without
any interdependence whatsoever. Needless to say, the
unbalanced folklorist, who is in general far too insufficiently
equipped for any such inquiry, has rushed in with his theories
—to his own utter undoing. And so, with regard to Witch-
craft, there appear in the rites of the Sabbat and other hellish
superstitions to. be ceremonies which are directly derived
from heathendom, but this, as a matter of fact, is far
from the case. Accordingly we recognize that the thesis of
Miss M. A. Murray in her anthropological study The Witch-
32 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
Cult in Western Europe,®> although worked out with nice
ingenuity and no little documentation, is radically and wholly
erroneous. Miss Murray actually postulates that ‘* under-
lying the Christian religion was a cult practised by many
classes of the community ” which “‘ can be traced back to
pre-Christian times, and appears to be the ancient religion
of Western Europe.” We are given a full account of the
chief festivals of this imaginary cult, of its hierarchy, its
organization, and many other details. The feasts and dances
—the obscene horrors of the Sabbat—‘“‘ show that it was
a joyous religion’?! It is impossible to conceive a more
amazing assertion. Miss Murray continues to say that “‘ as
such it must have been quite incomprehensible to the gloomy
Inquisitors and Reformers who suppressed it.” The Re-
formers, for all their dour severity, perfectly well appreciated
with what they were dealing, and the Inquisitors, the sons
of S. Dominic who was boundless in his charity and of
S. Francis, whose very name breathes Christ-like love to all
creation, were men of the profoundest knowledge and deepest
sympathies, whose first duty it was to stamp out the infection
lest the whole of Society be corrupted and damned. Miss
Murray does not seem to suspect that Witchcraft was in
truth a foul and noisome heresy, the poison of the Manichees.
Her “ Dianic cult,” which name she gives to this “‘ ancient
religion”? supposed to have survived until the Middle Ages
and even later and to have been a formidable rival to
Christianity, is none other than black heresy and the worship
of Satan, no primitive belief with pre-agricultural rites, in
latter days persecuted, misinterpreted, and misunderstood.
It is true that in the Middle Ages Christianity had—not a
rival but a foe, the eternal enemy of the Church Militant
against whom she yet contends to-day, the dark Lord of
that city which is set contrariwise to the City of God, the
Terrible Shadow of destruction and despair.
Miss Murray with tireless industry has accumulated a vast
number of details by the help of which she seeks to build up
and support her imaginative thesis. Even those that show
the appropriation by the cult of evil of the more hideous
heathen practices, both of lust and cruelty, which prevailed
among savage or decadent peoples, afford no evidence what-
soever of any continuity of an earlier religion, whilst by far
THE WITCH: HERETIC AND ANARCHIST 38
the greater number of the facts she quotes are deflected,
although no doubt unconsciously, and sharply wrested so as
to be patent of the signification it is endeavoured to read
into them. Miss Murray speaks, for example, of witches
“Who, like the early Christian martyrs, rushed headlong on
their fate, determined to die for their faith and their God.’’®®
And later, discussing the ‘‘ Sacrifice of the God,” a theme
which it is interesting and by no means impertinent to note,
folklorists have elaborated in the most fanciful manner,
basing upon the scantiest and quite contradictory evidence
an abundant sheaf of wildly extravagant theories and fables,
she tells us that the burning of witches at the hands of the
public executioner was a “‘ sacrifice of the incarnate deity.” ®?
One might almost suppose that the condemned went cheer-
fully and voluntarily to the cruellest and most torturing
punishment, for the phrase ‘‘ Self-devotion to death”’ is
used in this connexion. On the contrary, we continually
find in the witch-trials that the guilty, as was natural, sought
to escape from their doom by any and every means; by
flight, as in the case of Gilles de Sillé and Roger de Bricque-
ville, companions of Gilles de Rais ; by long and protracted
defences, such as was that of Agnes Fynnie, executed in
Edinburgh in 1644; by threats and blackmail of influential
patrons owing to which old Bettie Laing of Pittenween
escaped scot-free in 1718 ;_ by pleading pregnancy at the trial
as did Mother Samuel, the Warbois witch, who perished on the
gallows 7 April, 1598; by suicide as the notorious warlock
John Reid, who hanged himself in prison at Paisley, in 1697.
Of the theoretical ‘‘ Sacrifice of the incarnate deity ”’
Miss Murray writes: ‘‘ This explanation accounts for the
fact that the bodies of witches, male or female, were always
burnt and the ashes scattered; for the strong prejudice
which existed, as late as the eighteenth century, against any
other mode of disposing of their bodies ; and for some of the
otherwise inexplicable occurrences in connexion with the
deaths of certain of the victims.’’®’ Three instances are
cited to prove these three statements, but it will be seen
upon examination that not one of these affords the slightest
evidence in support of the triple contention. In the first
place we are informed that ‘‘ in the light of this theory much
of the mystery which surrounds the fate of Joan of Arc is
D
34 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
explained.” How is not divulged, but this is capped by the
astounding and indecorous assertion that S. Joan of Are
‘“‘ belonged to the ancient religion, not to the Christian.”’
It is superfluous to say that there is not a tittle of
evidence for such an amazing hypothesis in reference to the
Saint.
Gilles de Rais, whose execution is next quoted by Miss
Murray in support of her postulate, proves a singularly
unfortunate example. We are told that “like Joan he was
willing to be tried for his faith,’ by which is meant the
imaginary ‘“‘Dianiccult.”’ This is a purely gratuitous assertion,
not borne out in any way by his behaviour at his trial, nor
by the details of any authoritative account or report of the
proceedings. Gilles de Rais was hanged on a gibbet above
a pyre, but when the heat had burned through the rope the
body was quickly taken up from the blazing wood, and
afterwards buried in the neighbouring Carmelite church.
One may compare the execution of Savonarola and his two
fellow friars on 25 May, 1498. They were strangled at the
gallows, their bodies committed to the flames, and their
ashes carefully gathered and thrown into the Arno. Gilles
de Rais was condemned by three distinct courts; by the
Holy Inquisition, the presidents being Jean de Malestroit,
Bishop of Nantes, and Jean Blouyn, vice-inquisitor, O.P.,
S.T.M., on charges of heresy and sorcery ; by the episcopal
court on charges of sacrilege and the violation of ecclesiastical
rights ; by the civil court of John V, Duke of Brittany, on
multiplied charges of murder.
The third case quoted by Miss Murray is that of Major
Weir, who “ offered himself up and was executed as a witch
in Edinburgh.” Thomas Weir, who was a hypocritical
Puritan,.a leader “‘ among the Presbyterian strict sect,’ and
regarded as a Saint throughout Edinburgh, had all the while
secretly led a life of hideous debauchery and was stained
with the most odious and unnatural crimes. In 1670, which
was the seventieth year of his age, he appears to have been
stricken with terrible fits of remorse and despair; the pangs
of his guilty conscience drove him to the verge of madness
and his agony could only be eased by a full, ample, and
public confession of his misdeeds. For a few months his
party, in order to avoid the scandal and disgrace, contrived
THE WITCH: HERETIC AND ANARCHIST 385
6
to stifle the matter, but a minister ‘‘ whom they esteemed
more forward than wise’ revealed the secret to the Lord
Provost of the city, and an inquiry was instituted. The
wretched old man, insistently declaring that ‘‘ the terrors
of God which were upon his soul urged him to confess and
accuse himself,’’ was arrested, together with his crazy sister
Jean, who was implicated in his abominations. ‘‘ All the
while he was in prison he lay under violent apprehension
of the heavy wrath of God, which put him into that which
is properly called despair,’’ and to various ministers who
visited him he declared, ‘‘ I know my sentence of damnation
is already sealed in Heaven . . . for I find nothing within
me but blackness, darkness, Brimstone, and burning to the
bottom of Hell.”®? The whole account gives a complete and
perfectly comprehensible psychological study. So sudden
a revulsion of feeling, the loathing of foul acts accompanied
by the sheer inability to repent of them, is quite under-
standable in a septuagenarian, worn out in body by years
of excess and enfeebled in mind owing to the heavy strain
of hourly acting an artificial and difficult réle. The intense
emotionalism of the degenerate has not infrequently been
observed eventually to give way to a state of frenzied
anguish, for which the alienist Magnan coined the name
** Anxiomania,” a species of mental derangement that soon
drives the patient to hysterical confession and boundless
despair. ‘I am convinced,” says one writer with regard
to Major Weir, ‘‘ of the prisoner having been delirious at the
time of his trial.’’”° His sister frantically accused her brother
of Witchcraft, but it is remarkable that in his case this
charge was not taken up and examined. I do not say that
Weir was not supposed to be a warlock ; as a matter of fact
he was notoriously reputed such, and strange stories were
told of his magic staff and other enchantments, but Witch-
craft was not the main accusation brought against him in
the official courts. He was found guilty of adultery, forni-
cation, incest, and bestiality, and on these several counts
sentenced to be strangled at a stake betwixt Edinburgh and
Leith, on Monday, 11 April, 1670, and his body to be burned
to ashes. Jean Weir was condemned for incest and Witch-
craft and hanged on 12 April in the Grassmarket at Edin-
burgh. To the last this miserable lunatic placed “a great
36 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
deal of confidence in her constant adherence to the Covenant,
which she called the cause and interest of Christ.”
It will be seen that Miss Murray’s citation is incorrect ang
therefore impertinent. Major Weir was not executed ‘
a witch.”? Moreover, both he and Gilles de Rais were ene
strangled, and such examples must entirely fail to account
‘for the fact that the bodies of witches, male or female,
were always burnt and the ashes scattered,” especially since
in the latter case, as we have noticed, the body was honour-
ably buried in the church of the Whitefriars. In fine, to
endeavour to connect, however ingeniously, the fate of
S. Joan of Arc, the execution of Gilles de Rais and Major
Weir, with the folklorists’ theory of ‘‘ the sacrifice of the
incarnate deity ”’ is merest fantasy.
The gist of the whole matter lies elsewhere. Death at
the stake was the punishment reserved for heretics. As we
have already noticed, Diocletian ruthlessly burned the
Manichees : ‘‘ We order then that the professors and teachers
be punished with the utmost penalties, which is to say they
are to be burned with fire together with all their execrable
books and writings.”7? The Visigoth code condemned pagans
or heretics who had committed sacrilege to the flames, and
together with them it grouped all Manichees: “‘ It is known
that many Proconsuls have thrown blasphemers to the beasts,
ray, have even burned some alive.’’’? The Visigoth code
of Rekeswinth (652-672) punishes Judaizers with death, *“ aut
lapide puniatur, aut igne cremetur.’”’ (Let them be stoned
or burned with fire.) But it was actually in the eleventh
century that the civil power first generally ordained the
penalty of the stake for the heretics, who were, it must always
be remembered, mad anarchists endeavouring to destroy
all social order, authority, and decency. ‘“‘In Italy even
many adherents of this pestilential belief were found, and
these wretches were slain with the sword or burned at the
stake,’’’4 writes Adhémar de Chabannes, a monk of Angou-
léme, about the middle of the eleventh century. In a letter
of Wazon, Bishop of Liege, there is an allusion to similar
punishments which were being inflicted in Flanders.
A striking example of the heretical anarchists who troubled
Kurope about the beginning of the twelfth century may be
seen in Tanchelin?® and his followers. This fanatic, who
THE WITCH: HERETIC AND ANARCHIST 37
was originally a native of Zealand, journeyed throughout
Flanders preaching his monstrous doctrines everywhere he
could find listeners and especially concentrating upon the
city of Antwerp. In 1108 and 1109 he appeared at Arras
and Cambrai, persuading many evil and ignorant persons to
accept his abominable tenets. The tares were thickly sown,
and it is terribly significant that some three centuries later,
about 1469, there was a fearful epidemic of sorcery throughout
the whole district of the Artois, in reference to which the
anonymous author—probably an Inquisitor—of a contem-
porary work entitled Erreurs des Gazariens ou de ceux que
Von prouve chevaucher sur un balai ou un baton expressly
identified such heretics as the Gazariens, who are Cathari,
and the Vaudois (Poor Lombards) with warlocks and sorcerers.
In 1112 Tanchelin, who had actually visited Rome itself, was
upon his return arrested and thrown into prison at Cologne,
whence, however, he managed to escape, and accompanied
by an apostate priest Everwacher and a Jew Manasses, who
had formerly been a blacksmith, at the head of a formidable
band of three thousand ruffians, outlaws, cast gamesters,
brigands, murderers, beggars and thieves, the parbreak of
every slum and stew, he terrorized the whole countryside,
the people being afraid, the bishops and secular princes
seemingly unable to resist him.
The teaching of Tanchelin was, as might be expected,
largely incoherent and illogical, the ravings of a frantic brain,
but none the less dangerous and wholly abominable. The
Church was, of course, directly attacked and blasphemed.
With abuse and foul language, extraordinarily like the
language of the so-called Reformers in the sixteenth century,
the hierarchy and all ecclesiastical order were repudiated
and contemned, priests and religious in particular were to
be persecuted and exterminated since the priesthood was a
fiction and asnare; the Sacrifice of Holy Mass was a mockery,
all Sacraments were void and empty forms, useless for
salvation?®; the churches themselves were to be accounted
as brothels and markets of shame. ‘‘ This very spawn of
Satan and black angel of woe declared that the churches,
dedicated to God’s worship, were bawdy-houses. That, at
Holy Mass there was no Sacrifice at the hands of the priest ;
the Service of the Altar was filth, not a Sacrament.’’”’
38 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
Tanchelin declared himself to be the Messiah, God, the Son
of God, the Perfect Man, the sum of all the divine emanations
in one system, upon whom had descended and in whom abode
the pleroma of the Holy Spirit. ‘‘ This miserable wretch
advanced from evil to evil and at length proceeded to such
an extremity of unheard-of wickedness that he gave himself
out to be God, asserting that if Christ be God because the
Holy Ghost dwelt in Him, he himself was not less than and
of the same nature as God, seeing that he enjoyed the
plenitude of the Holy Ghost.”?® Here the Gnostic character
of his teaching is very apparent. He even caused a temple
to be erected in his honour where he was worshipped with
sacrifice and hymns. His followers, indeed, regarded this
lunatic wretch with such an excess of veneration that the
dirty water from his bath was actually collected in phials
and solemnly distributed among them, whereof they partook
as of a sacrament.
It must be borne in mind that Tanchelin’s programme did
not solely comprise a negation of Christian dogma; this we
find in most of the innovators at the time of the so-called
Reformation, but his ultimate aim was to effect a social
revolution, to overturn the existing order of things and
produce communistic chaos with himself as overlord and
dictator. The way for anarchy could only have been paved
by the destruction of the Church, the supreme representa-
tive of authority and order throughout the world, and it was
accordingly against the Church that this superman launched
his fiercest diatribes. To further his ends he encouraged,
nay, commanded, the open practice of the foulest vices ;
incest, adultery, fornication were declared to be works of
spiritual efficacy; unmentionable abominations flaunted
themselves in the face of day; virtue became an offence;
men were driven to vice and crime, and anon they gradually
sank in a stupor of infamy and sheer boneless degradation.
The unfortunate town of Antwerp came directly under
Tanchelin’s influence. Here he reigned as king, surrounded
by vile and obsequious satellites who ground the miserable
citizens to the dust and filled each street and corner with
orgies of lust and blood. There is a strange and striking
parallel between the details of his foul career and the Russian
tyranny to-day. Little wonder that in 1116 a priest,
THE WITCH: HERETIC AND ANARCHIST 39
maddened by the outrages and profanities of this hellish crew,
scattered the heretic’s brains upon the deck of his royal barge
as one afternoon he was sailing in pompous state down the
river Schelde: ‘‘ After a life of infamy, bloodshed, and heresy,
whilst he was sailing on the river he was struck on the head
by a certain priest and falling down died there.”?® All un-
fortunately, however, the pernicious errors of Tanchelin did
not expire with their author. Antwerp remained plunged in
dissipation and riot, and although strenuous efforts were
made to restore decency and order, at first these seemed to
be entirely nugatory and fruitless. Burchard, the Bishop
of Cambrai, at once sent twelve of his most revered and
learned canons under the conduct of Hidolphe, a priest of
acknowledged sagacity and experience, to endeavour to
reform the town by word and example, but it seemed as
though their efforts were doomed to failure and ill-success.
At length,- almost in despair, the good prelate begged
S. Norbert,8® who some three years before had founded his
Order at Prémontré, to essay the thankless and wellnigh
impossible task. Without demur or hesitation the Saint
cheerfully undertook so difficult a mission and accompanied
only by S. Evermonde, *! and Blessed Waltman, together with
a few more of his most fervent followers he arrived at Antwerp
without delay to begin his work there towards the end of
1128. Success at once crowned his efforts ; in an incredibly
short space of time the people confessed their errors, abuses
were reformed, the leprous town cleansed of its foulness,
public safety, order, and decorum once again established,
and, what is extremely striking to notice, the old chroniclers
draw attention to the fact that a large number both of men
and women in deepest penitence brought to S. Norbert
quantities of consecrated Hosts which they had purloined
from the tabernacles and kept concealed in boxes and other
hiding-places to utilize for charms and evil invocations, to
profane in devil-worship and at the Sabbat. So marvellous
was the change from darkness to light that year by year the
Premonstratensian Order upon the Saturday® after the
Octave of Corpus Christi solemnly observes a fitting memorial
thereof in the glad Feast of the Triumph of Holy Father
Norbert.
In this incident of the stolen Hosts the connexion between
40 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
Gnostic heresy and Satanism is clearly seen. It was in such
soil as the antinomianism of Tanchelin that the poisoned
weeds of sorcery would thrive apace. The authorities recog-
nized that drastic measures must be employed, and at Bonn
a company of impure fanatics who attempted to disseminate
his ideas were incontinently sent to the stake.
The other arguments brought forward by Miss Murray to
support her thesis of the continuity of a primitive religion
are mainly “the persistence of the number thirteen in the
Covens, the narrow geographical range of the domestic
familiar, the avoidance of certain forms in the animal trans-
formations, the limited number of personal names among the
women-witches, and the survival of the names of some of
the early gods.’”’®8 Even if these details could be proved up
to the hilt and shown to be pertinent the evidence were not_
convincing ; it would at best point to some odd survivals,
such as are familiar in an hundred ways to every student of
hagiography, history, myths and legends, old religions,
geography, iconography, topography, etymology, anthro-
pology, and antiquarian lore in a myriad branches. If
we examine the matter broadly we shall find that these
circumstances are for the most part local, not general, that
in many instances they cannot be clearly substantiated, for
the evidence is conflicting and obscure.
‘* The ‘ fixed number ’ among the witches of Great Britain,”
Miss Murray notes, ‘‘ seems to have been thirteen,’’84 and
certainly in many cases amongst the English trials the coven
appears to have consisted of thirteen members, although it
may be borne in mind that very probably there were often
other associates who were not traced and involved and so
escaped justice. Yet Miss Murray does not explain why the
number thirteen should form any link with an earlier ritual
and worship. On the other hand, the demonologists are never
tired of insisting that Satan is the ape of God in all things,
and that the worshippers of evil delight to parody every
divine ordinance and institution. The explanation is simple.
The number thirteen was adopted by the witches for their
covens in mockery of Our Lord and His Apostles.
‘’ The narrow geographical range of the domestic familiar ”
is not at all apparent, and {t were futile to base any pre-
sumption upon so slender a line of argument. ‘‘ The avoidance
THE WITCH: HERETIC AND ANARCHIST 41
of certain forms in the animal transformation”’ is upon a
general view of Witchcraft found to be nothing other than
the non-occurrence of the lamb and the dove, and these two
were abhorred by sorcerers, seeing that Christ is the Lamb
of God, Agnus Dei, whilst the Dove is the manifestation of
the Holy Ghost.85 There is one instance, the trail of Agnes
Wobster at Aberdeen in 1597, when the Devil is said to have
appeared to the witch “‘ in the liknes of a lamb, quhom thou
eallis thy God, and bletit on the, and thaireftir spak to
the.”8& But this rare exception must be understood to be a
black and deformed lamb, not the snow-white Agnus Dei.
In pictures of the Doctors of the Church, particularly perhaps
S. Gregory the Great and S. Alphonsus de Liguori, the Dove
is seen breathing divine inspiration into the ear of the Saint
who writes the heavenly message, thus directly given by
God the Holy Ghost. So in a Franco-German miniature of
the eleventh century in the Hortus Deliciarum we see a black
hideous bird breathing into the ear of a magician thoughts
evil and dark. This cloudy and sombre spirit, violent in its
attitude and lean in body stretches its meagre throat towards
the ear of the wicked man, who, seated at a desk, transcribes
upon a parchment the malevolent and baleful charms which
it dictates. It is in fact the Devil.®’
With reference to the argument based upon “‘ the limited
number of personal names among the women-witches ”’ this
simply resolves itself into the fact that in the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries there were in general use (particularly
amongst the peasantry) far fewer personal names than have
been employed of more recent years. To assert “that the
name Christian clearly indicates the presence of another
religion ’?®* is simple nonsense. It may be noticed, too, how
many of the names which Miss Murray has catalogued in
such conscientious and alas! impertinent detail are those
of well-known Saints whose cult was universal throughout
‘Europe: Agnes, Alice, Anne, Barbara, Christopher, Collette,
Elizabeth, Giles, Isabel, James, John, Katherine, Lawrence,
Margaret, Mary, Michael, Patrick, Thomas, Ursula—and the
list might be almost indefinitely prolonged.
‘The survival of the names of some of the early gods ”’
is also asserted. In connexion with Witchcraft, however, very
few examples of this can be traced even by the most careful
42 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
research. An old charm or two, a nonsense rhyme, may now
and again repeat some forgotten meaningless word or refrain.
Thus in a spell used by the witches of the Basses-Pyrénées,
cited by De Lancre (1609), we find mention of the old Basque
deity Janicot: ‘“‘In nomine patrica, Aragueaco Petrica,
Gastellaco Ianicot, Equide ipordian pot.” Bodin gives a
dance-jingle, “‘ Har, har, diable, diable, saute icy, saute 1a,
iolie icy, ioiie la,’ to which the chorus was “‘ sabath sabath.”’
Miss Murray tells us that the Guernsey version ‘“‘ which is
currently reported to be used at the present day,” runs:
** Har, har, Hon, Hon, danse ici.’’8® Hon was an old Breton
god, and there are still remote districts whose local names
recall and may be compounded with that of this ancient deity.
It is significant that in one case we have a Basque deity, in
the other a Breton; for Basque and Breton are nearly, if
obscurely, correlated. Such traces are interesting enough,
but by no means unique, hardly singular indeed, since they
can be so widely paralleled, and it were idle to base any
elaborate argument concerning the continuity of a fully
organized cult upon slight and unrelated survivals in dialect
place-names and the mere doggerel lilt of a peasant-song.
There is in particular one statement advanced by Miss
Murray which goes far to show how in complete unconscious-
ness she is fitting her material to her theory. She writes:
‘There is at present nothing to show how much of the
Witches’ Mass (in which the bread, the wine, and the candles
were black) derived from the Christian ritual and how much
belonged to the Dianic cult [the name given to this hypo-
thetical but universal ancient religion]; it is, however,
possible that the witches’ service was the earlier form and
influenced the Christian.’’°® This last sentence is in truth
an amazing assertion. A more flagrant case of hysteron-
proteron is hardly imaginable. So self-evident is the absurdity
that it refutes itself, and one can only suppose that the words
were allowed to remain owing to their having been over-
looked in the revision of a long and difficult study, a venial
negligence. Every prayer and every gesture of Holy Mass,
since the first Mass was celebrated upon the first Maundy
Thursday, has been studied in minutest detail by generations
of liturgiologists and ceremonialists, whose library is almost
infinite in its vastness and extent from the humblest
THE WITCH: HERETIC AND ANARCHIST 43
pamphlets to the hugest folios. We can trace each inspired
development, when such an early phrase was added, when
such a hallowed sign was first made at such words in such
an orison. The witches’ service is a hideous burlesque of
Holy Mass, and, briefly, what Miss Murray suggests is that
the parody may have existed before the thing parodied.
It is true that some topsy-turvy writers have actually pro-
claimed that magic preceded religion, but this view is generally
discredited by the authorities of allschools. Sir James Frazer,
Sir A. L. Lyall, and Mr.-F. B. Jevons, for example, recognize
‘‘» fundamental distinction and even opposition of principle
between magic and religion.”’*}
In fine, upon a candid examination of this theory of the
continuity of some primitive religion, which existed as an
underlying organization manifested in Witchcraft and sorcery,
a serious rival feared and hated by the Church, we find that
_ nothing of the sort ever survived, that there was no connexion
between sorcery and an imaginary “‘ Dianic cult.” To write
that “in the fifteenth century open war was declared against
the last remains of heathenism in the famous Bull of
Innocent VIII ’’°? is to ignore history. As has been empha-
sized above, the Bull Swmmis desiderantes affectibus of 1484
was only one of a long series of Papal ordinances directed
against an intolerable evil not heathenism indeed, but heresy.
For heresy, sorcery, and anarchy were almost interchangeable
words, and the first Bull launched directly against the black
art was that of Alexander IV, 1258, two hundred and twenty-
six years before.
That here and there lingered various old harmless customs
and festivities which had come down from pre-Christian times
and which the Church had allowed, nay, had even sanctified
by directing them to their right source, the Maypole dances,
for example, and the Midsummer fires which now honour
S. John Baptist, is a matter of common knowledge. But this
is no continuance of a pagan cult.
From the first centuries of the Christian era, throughout
the Middle Ages, and continuously to the present day there
has invariably been an open avowal of intentional evil-doing
on the part of the devotees of the witch-cult, and the more
mischief they did the more they pleased their lord and master.
Their revels were loathly, lecherous, and abominable, a Sabbat
4A, THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
where every circumstance of horror and iniquity found ex-
pression. This in itself is an argument against Miss
Murray’s theory, as none of the earlier religions existed for
the express purpose of perpetrating evil for evil’s sake. We
have but to read the eloquent and exquisite description of
the Eleusinian Mysteries by that accomplished Greek scholar
Father Cyril Martindale, S.J.,9% to catch no mean nor
mistaken glimpse of the ineffable yearning for beauty, for
purity, for holiness, which filled the hearts of the worshippers
of the goddess Persephoneia, whose stately and impressive
ritual prescribing fasts, bathing in the waters of the sea,
self-discipline, self-denial, self-restraint, culminated in the
Hall of Initiation, hallowed by the Earth-Mother, Demeter,
where the symbolic drama of life, death, and resurrection was
shown by the Hierophant to those who had wrestled, and
endured, and were adjudged worthy. How fair a shadow
was this, albeit always and ever a shadow, of the imperishable
and eternal realities to come! How different these Mysteries
from the foul orgies of witches, the Sabbat, the black mass,
the adoration of hell.
In truth it was not against heathenism that Innocent VIII
sounded the note of war, but against heresy. There was a
clandestine organization hated by the Church, and this was
not sorcery nor any cult of witches renewing and keeping
green some ancient rites and pagan creed, but a witch-cult
that identified itself with and was continually manifested
in closest connexion with Gnosticism in its most degraded
and vilest shapes.
There is a curious little piece of symbolism, as it may be,
which has passed into the patois of the Pyrenees. Wizards
are commonly known as poudoués and witches poudouéros,
both words being derived from putere, which signifies to have
an evil smell. The demonologists report, and it was com-
monly believed, that sorcerers could often be detected by
their foul and fetid odour. Hagiographers tell that S. Philip
Neri could distinguish heretics by their smell, and often he
was obliged to turn away his head when meeting them in
the street. The same is recorded of many other Saints, and
this tradition is interesting as it serves to show the close
connexion there was held to be between magic and heresy.%4
Saint Pachomius, the cenobite, could distinguish heretics by
THE WITCH: HERETIC AND ANARCHIST 45
their insupportable stench; the abbot Eugendis could tell
the virtues and vices of those whom he met by the perfume
or the stink. Saint Hilarion, as S. Jerome relates, could even
distinguish a man’s sins by the smell of a warm garment or
cloak. Blessed Dominica of Paradise, passing a soldier in the
street, knew by the foul smell that he had abandoned the
faith, to which, however, her fervid exhortations and prayers
eventually restored him. Saint Bridget of Sweden was
wellnigh suffocated by the fetor of a notorious sinner who
addressed her. Saint Catherine of Siena experienced the
same sensations ; whilst Saint Lutgarde, a Cistercian nun, on
meeting a vicious reprobate perceived a decaying smell of
leprosy and disease.
On the other hand, the Saints themselves have diffused
sweetest fragrances, and actually ‘‘ the odour of sanctity ”’
is more than a mere phrase. One day in 1566, when he had
entered the church at Somascha, a secluded hamlet between
Milan and Bergamo, S. Charles Borromeo exclaimed: “I
know by the heavenly fragrance in this sanctuary that a
great Servant of God lies buried here !”’? The church, in fact,
contained the body of S. Jerome Emiliani, who died in 1587.
S. Herman Joseph could be traced through the corridors of
Steinfeld by the rare perfumes he scattered as he walked.
The same was the case with that marvellous mystic S. Joseph
of Cupertino. S. Thomas Aquinas smelt of male frankincense.
I myself have known a priest of fervent faith who at times
diffused the odour of incense. Maria-Vittoria of Genoa, Ida
of Louvain, S. Colette, S. Humiliana, were fragrant as sweet
flowers. S. Francis of Paul and Venturini of Bergamo
scattered heavenly aromas when they offered the Holy
Sacrifice. The pus of S. John of the Cross gave forth a strong
scent of lilies.
Miss Murray has worked out her thesis with no inconsider-
able ingenuity, but when details are considered, historically
examined, and set in their due proportions, it must be
concluded that the theory of the continuity of an ancient
religion is baseless. Her book is called A Study in Anthro-
pology, and here we can, I think, at once put our finger upon
the fundamental mistake. Anthropology alone offers no
explanation of Witchcraft. Only the trained theologian can
adequately treat the subject. An amount of interesting
46 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
material has been collected, but the key to the dark mystery
could not be found.
Yet, as our investigations have shown, it was not so far
to seek. In the succinct phrase of that profound and prolific
scholar Thomas Stapleton®®: Crescit cum magia heresis,
cum heeresi magia.’’ (The weed heresy grows alongside the
weed witchcraft, the weed witchcraft alongside the weed
heresy.)
NOTES TO CHAPTER I.
1 Paris. Jacques du Puys. 4to. 1580. The preface, addressed to De Thou,
is signed: ‘‘ De Laon, ce xx iour de Decembre, M.D.LXXIX.’’ There were
nine editions before 1604. The most complete is Paris, 4to. 1587. In addition
to the text it contains ten extra pages only found here giving the trial of a
sorcerer, Abel de la Rue, executed in 1582.
2 The first Papal bull dealing with sorcery was issued by Alexander IV,
13 December, 1258. The last Papal Constitution concerned with this crime
is that of Urban VIII, Inscrutabilis iudiciorum Dei altitudo, 1 April, 1631.
The last regular English trial seems to have been that of an old woman and her
son, acquitted at Leicester in 1717. In 1722 the last execution of a Scottish
witch took place at Loth; both English and Scottish statutes were repealed
in 1735. The Irish Statute was not repealed until 1821. At Kempten in
Bavaria, a mad heretic, a woman, was executed for sorcery in 1775. In the
Swiss canton of Glaris, a wench named Anna Goeldi, was hanged as a witch,
17 June, 1782. Two hags were burned in Poland on the same charge as late
as 1793.
3 Roland Brévannes. Les Messes Noires, Iiet tableau, scéne vit.
4 I have actually heard it categorically laid down by a speaker in a
Shakespearean debate, a litterateur of professed culture, that the Elizabethans
could not, of course, really have believed in witchcraft.
5 In the Exhibition of this artist’s work at the Leicester Galleries, London,
in March, 1925.
6... quelle, & sa mére montoient sur vne ramasse, & que sortans le
contremont de la cheminée elles alloient par l’air en ceste fagon au Sabbat.
Boguet, Discours, p. 104.
7 Glanvill, Part IT. p. 194.
§ Julius Wellhausen. Reste arabischen Heidenthums, p. 159. Berlin, 1897.
® Apud Miss Murray’s The Witch-Cult. (1921). Appendix V. pp. 279-80.
10 Boguet, Discours. XVI. 4.
11 Benjamin Thorpe, Monumenta Ecclesiastica, II. p. 34. London, 1840.
The Liber Poenitentialis was first published complete by Wasserschleben
in 1851; a convenient edition is Migne, P.L. XCIX.
12 Calendar of State Papers. Domestic, 1584.
13 Sir Walter Scott, Demonology and Witchcraft, Letter V, gives the narrative
of this case, but in the light of later research his version must be slightly
corrected.
14 Pitcairn. I. pt. ii. p. 162.
15 Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, New Series, vol. X.
Edinburgh.
16 Sir James Melville, Memoirs. Bannatyne Club, Edinburgh. pp. 395-6.
17 London. ‘for William Wright.” N.D. [1591]. The woodcut is on the
title-page verso, and signature [c.ij.] verso. The pages are not numbered.
18 Flying Ointments. Apud Miss Murray’s Witch-Cult in Western Europe,
p. 279. It may be noted that the scandals of the Black Mass under Louis XIV
were closely concerned with wholesale accusations of poisoning. La Voisin
was a notorious vendor of toxic philtres. The possibility of poisoning the
King, the Dauphin, Colbert and others was frequently debated.
THE WITCH: HERETIC AND ANARCHIST 47
19 Dio Cassius. XLIX. 43. p. 756. ed. Sturz.
20 Idem. LII. 36. p. 149.
21 Suetonius. Augustus. 31.
*2 Tacitus. Annales. II.32. More prisco. ‘‘ Uteum infelici arbori alligatum
uirgis cedi, et postremo securi percuti iuberent.’’ Muret.
ne EAGLE
24 Suetonius. Vitellius. 14.
25 Dio Cassius. LXVI. 10.
26 La Magie et la Sorcellerie. Paris. (1912.) I. p. 33.
27 Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions, It. p. 117.
28 The dates are as inaccurate as the statements. Giovanni Battista Cibd
was elected Pope 29 August, 1484; and the Bull was issued in the December
of that year, not in 1488.
29 Rise and Influence of Rationalism in Europe, ce. 1.
30 Dictionary of Universal Biography. VIII. (1890).
31 A more detailed treatment will be found in the present writer’s The
Geography of Witchcraft, where the Bull is given in extenso.
32 Epist., cn. 1.
33 Hom., XLVI. c. 1.
34 Sententianum, III. iv. nn. 4-6.
35 Theodosius II. Nouwelle, tit. III. a.p. 438.
36 Uanissimus [Priscillianus] et plus iusto inflatior profanarum rerum
scientia : quin et magicas artes ab adolescentia cum exercuisse creditum est.
Sulpicius Severus. II. 47.
37 H. C. Lea in his History of the Inquisition in the Middle Ages, (1888)
1. 215, asserts that Leo I justified the act, and that successive edicts against
heresy were_.due to ecclesiastical influence. This is the exact opposite of
historical truth, and the writer has not hesitated to transfer words of the
Emperor to the Pope.
38 In asermon published in 1896 by Dom Morin Revue benédictine, c. xiii.
p. 205.
89 Hpistola Elipandi ad Alcuinum, Migne. Pat. Lat. CXCVI. p. 872.
Alcuin. Opera Omnia. Migne Pat. Lat. C-CI., especially Liber Albini contra
heresim Felicis ; Inbri VII aduersus Felicem ; Aduersus Elipandum Libri lV.
Florez, Espana sagrada. V. p. 562. Menendez y Pelayo, Historia de los
heterodoxos espanoles, Madrid, 1880, I. p. 274.
40 The martyrdom of S. Peter is a well-known subject in art. Titian’s
masterpiece in the Dominican church of 8S. Giovannie Paolo at Venice was
destroyed by a fire on 16 August, 1867. But there are exquisite paintings
of the scene by Lorenzo Lotto and Bellini. §S. Peter, whose shrine is in
San Eustorgio, Milan, was canonized 25 March, 1253, by Innocent IV.
Major Feast, 29 April.
41 Muratori. Antiquitates ttalicee medii wut, Milan, 1738-42.
42 Gabriel Rossetti, Disquisitions, vol. I. p. 27.
43 Gervasius Dorobernensis, Chronicon.
44 Vita S. Romane. n. 10; Acta SS. die, 3 Oct. p. 188. 8. Gregori VII.
Lib. I. Epistola 75, ad Philippum.
45 Labbe. Sacrosancta concilia. 18 vols. folio. 1671. Vol. X. col. 84.
46 Quarum rerum rex uester, qui non rex sed tyrannus dicendus est,
suadente diabolo, caput et causa est, qui omnem aetatem suam flagitiis
et facinoribus polluit. Idem, vol. X. col. 72.
47 Sane ... prouinciali ordinis predicatorum in eodem regno dedimus
in mandatis, ut aliquibus fratribus suis aptis ad hoc, inquisitionem contra
illos committeret in regno prefato ... fraternitati tue ... mandamus
quatenus . . . peralios quiad hoc idonei uidebuntur, festines . . . procedere
in inquisitionis negotio et ad dominicum certamen accingi. Ripollet Brémond,
Bullarium ordinis S. Dominici, I. p. 80. (8 vols. Rome. 1737, sqq.).
48 Fratres ... qui ad predicandum crucem uel inquirendum contra
prauitatem hereticam ... sunt deputati. Wadding. Annales Minorum.
ed. secunda, 24 vols. Rome, 1732, sgq. III. 144.
49 Gnostic Heresies.
50 Jules Bois. Le Satanisme et la Magie, c. 6.
48 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
51 Tt is true that S. Augustine does not bring a charge of depravity against
the Manichxans, but they veiled their vices with the greatest caution, and
S. Augustine was simply a catechumen, one of the Auditors, who would have
known nothing of these esoteric abominations.
52 Extra ciuitatis educti muros in quodam tuguriolo copioso igne accenso
... cremati sunt. Gesta synodi Aurelianensis. Arnould. L’ Inquisition.
(Paris, 1869). VI. p. 46.
53 Sed antequam ad conflictum ueniamus, de cibo illo, qui ceelestis ab illis
dicebatur, quali arte conficiebatur, nescientibus demonstrare curabo. Con-
gregabantur si quidem certis noctibus in domo denominata, singuli lucernas
tenentes in manibus, ad instar letanie demonum nomina declamabant,
donec subito Demonem in similitudine cuiuslibet bestiole inter eos uiderent
descendere. Qui statim, ut uisibilis ille uidebatur uisio, omnibus extinctis
luminaribus, quamprimum quisque poterat, mulierem, que ad manum sibi
ueniebat, ad abutendum arripiebat, sine peccati respectu, et utrum mater,
aut soror, aut monacha haberetur, pro sanctitate et religione eius concubitus
ab-illis estimabatur ; ex quo spurcissimo concubitu infans generatus, octaua
die in medio eorum copioso igne accenso probabatur per ignem more anti-
quorum Paganorum ; et sicin ignecremabatur. Cuius cinis tanta ueneratione
colligebatur atque custodiebatur, ut Christiana religiositas Corpus Christi
custodire solet, egris dandum de hoc seculo exituris ad uiaticum. Inerat
enim tanta uis diabolice fraudis in ipso cinere ut quicumque de prefata
heeresi imbutus fuisset, et de eodem cinere quamuis sumendo parum preli-
bauisset, uix unquam postea de eadem heresi gressum mentis ad uiam ueritatis
dirigere ualeret. De qua re parum dixisse sufficiat, ut Christicole caueant
se ab hoc nefario opere, non ut studeant sectando imitari. Schmidt. Histoire
et doctrine des Cathares ou Albigeois. Paris. 1849. I.p. 31.
54 G. R. Kinloch. Reliquic Antique Scotice. Edinburgh, 1848.
55 Adhémar de Chabannes. (A monk of Angouléme.) Chronicon, Recueil
des historicus, vol. X. p. 163.
56 Fabré Palaprat. Recherches Historiques sur les Templiers, Paris. 1835.
57 Cambridge University Press, 1925.
°8 The Philosopher, July—August, 1924.
59 The Philosopher, January-March, 1925. The Albigenses, pp. 20-25.
The whole article, which is written with extuaordinary restraint, should be
read.
60 He is the author of Hléments d@’ Astrologie ; Un disciple de Cl. de Saint-
Martin, Dutoit-Membrini ; Premiers Eléments d’Occultisme ; La petite Eglise
anticoncordataire, son histoire, son état actuel ; J. K. Huysmans et le Satanisme ;
Huysmans, Occultiste et Magicien.
61 In Uerrem. IV. 43.
62 H. Th. Pyl, Die griechischen Rundbauten, 1861, pp. 67, sqq.
63 Plutarch, Theseus 36; Cimon 8.
64 Pausanias is the chief authority on this point. See Rohde Psyche, I.
p. 161.
65 Clarendon Press, 1921.
66 The Witch-Cult in Western Europe, p. 16. It is true that the Brethren
of the Free Spirit, anarchists, who vaunted the Adamite heresy, in the
Thirteenth century, went to the stake with peans of joy. But they were
probably drugged. J. L. Mosheim, Hcclesiastical History. London. 1819.
III. p. 278. sqq. The Adamites were a licentious sect who called their church
Paradise and worshipped in a state of stark nudity. They were Gnostics
and claimed complete emancipation from the moral law. They lived in
shameful communism. Bohemian Adamites existed as late as 1849. In
Russia the teleschi, a branch of the sect known as the ‘‘ Divine Men,”’ per-
formed their religious rites in a state of nature, following the example, as
they asserted, of Adam and Eve in Paradise. These assemblies were wont
to end in promiscuous debauchery.
67 Idem. p. 161.
68 Witch-Cult in Western Europe, p. 161.
69 Additional Notices of Major Weir and his Sister; Sinclar’s Satan’
Invisible World. (Reprint. 1875).
THE WITCH: HERETIC AND ANARCHIST 49
70 Criminal Trials, 1536-1784 ; Hugo Arnot, 4to, 1785.
71 Ravillac Rediwius, Dr. George Hickes, 4to, 1678.
72 Tubemus namque, auctores quidem et principes, una cum abominandis
scripturis eorum seueriori pcene subiici, ita ut flammeis ignibus exurantur.
Baronius, 287, 4.
73 Scio multos [Proconsufesl et ad bestias damnasse sacrilegos, nonnullos
eee uiuos exussisse. Lex Romana Visigothorum nouella, XLVIII. tit. xiii.
c. 6—7.
74 Plures etiam per Italiam tunc huius pestiferi dogmatis sunt reperti,
qui aut gladiis, aut incendiis perierunt.
75 Tanchelinus, Tandemus, Tanchelmus. The history of this important
revolutionary movement has been carefully studied. The following authorise
tative books are a few from many of great value and learning. Corpus
documentorum Inquisitionis heretice prauitatis neerlandice, ed. Dr. Paul
Frédéricq, vol. I, p. 15 et sqgq. Ghent. 1889; Tanchelijn by Janssen in
the Annales de V’académie Royale @archéologie de Belgique, vol. XXIII, p. 448
et sqq. 1867; Foppens, Historia Episcopatus Antuerpiensis, p. 8 and p. 146,
Brussells, 1717; Dierxsens, Antuerpia Christo nascens et crescens, vol. I, p. 88,
Antwerp, 1773; Poncelet, Saint Norbert et Tanchelin in the Analecta bollan-
diniana, vol. XIII, p. 441, 1893; Schools, Saint Norbert et Tanchelin a Anvers
in the Bibliothéque norbertine, vol. II, p. 97, 1900; De Schapper, Réponse
a& la question: Faites connattre Vhérésiarque Tanchelin et les erreurs qual
répandit au commencement du XIII¢ siécle [an error for XIJ¢ siécle] in the
Collationes Brugenses, vol. XVII, p. 107, 1912. L. Vander Essen, De Katter
van Tanchelm in de XII¢ eeuw in Ons Geloof, vol. II, p. 354, 1912; Antwerpen
en de H. Norbertus in the Bode van Onze Lieve Vrouw van het H. Hert van
Averbode, Nos. 18 and 19, pp. 207-211 and 217-220, 1914.
76 “That most vile and abandoned scoundrel had become so open and
utterly depraved an enemy to the Christian faith and all religious observance
that he denied any respect was due to Bishops and priests; moreover, he
affirmed that the reception of the most holy Body and Blood of Our Lord
availed nothing to eternal life and man’s salvation.” ‘‘ Erat quidem ille
sceleratissimus et christians fidui et totius religionis inimicus in tantum ut
obsequium episcoporum et sacerdotum nihil esse diceret, et sacrosancti
corporiset sanguinis Domini J. C. perceptionem ad salutem perpetuam
prodesse denegeret.” Vita Noberti archiepiscopi Magdeburgensis, Vita A.
Monument. Germ. Scriptores, vol. XII. p. 690, ed. G. A. Pertz, Hanover,
Berlin.
17 “*Tmmo uere ipse angelus Sathane declamabat eccelsias Dei lupinaria
esse reputanda. Nihil esse, quod sacerdotum officio in mensa dominica
conficeretur ; pollutiones, non sacramenta nominanda.” Lettre des chanoines
d’ Utrecht au nom de leur diocese & Frédéric, archevéque de Cologne. Apud
Frédéricq, vol. I. n. 11. eta:
78 Talibus nequitize successibus miscro homini tanta sceleris accessit
audacia, ut etiam se Deum diceret, asserens, quia, si Christus ideo Deus est,
quia Spiritum Sanctum habuisset, se non inferius nec dissimilius Deum, quia
plenitudinem Spiritus Sancti accepisset. Idem.
79 Qui tandem post multos errores et cedes, dum nauigaret, a quodam
presbytero percussus in cerebro occubuit. Sigiberti continuatio. Apud
Monument. Germ. Scriptores, vol. VI, p. 449. See also, Johannes Trithemius,
Annales Hirsaugienses, vol. 1, p. 387, Saint-Gall, 1690; Du Plessis d’Argentré,
Collectio iudiciorum, vol. I, p. 11 sqq. Paris, 1728; Schmidt, Histoire et
doctrine des Cathares ou Albigeois, vol. I, p. 49, Paris, 1849.
80 There is a contemporary Uita Norberti of which two recensions have
been published: Uita A. by R. Wilmans in the Mon. Germ. Hag., SS.,
vol. XIII, pp. 663-706, Hanover, 1853; Uvia B. by Surius, De probatis
Sanctorum historiis, vol. III, pp. 517-547, Cologne, 1572. Other authoritative
works are: J. Van der Sterse, Uita S. Norbertt, Antwerp, 1622; Du Pré,
La Vic du bienhereux saint Norbert, Paris, 1627; Ch. Hugo, La Vie de
St. Norbert, Luxembourg, 1704; G. Madelaine, Histoire de St. Norbert, Lille,
1886; B. Wazasek, Der Hl. Norbert, Vienna, 1914. An excellent brief but
E
50 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
scholarly account is The Life of S. Norbert, London, 1886, by my late revered
friend Abbot Geudens, O.R.P.
81 Feast, 17 February.
82 Formerly kept upon the Sunday.
83 Op. cit., pp. 16, 17.
84 Op. cit., p. 191.
85 For a full and detailed statement see Didron’s great work, Iconographie
chrétienne, Paris, 1843.
86 Spalding Club Miscellany, I, p. 129. Aberdeen, 1841.
8? At their black mass the witches of the Basses-Pyrénées (1609) when
the host was elevated said ‘‘ Corbeau noir, corbeau noir.’’ De Lancre, T'ableau
de l’ Inconstance des mauvais Anges, Paris, 1613.
88 Op. ctt., p. 255.
89 Op. cit., p. 165. It is not at all evident that ‘‘ the word diable is clearly
Bodin’s own interpellation for the name of the god,” indeed this assumption
is purely gratuitous to support the argument, and cannot be admitted.
90 Op. cit., pp. 14, 15. I would not dwell upon the offensiveness of this
suggestion, since it is, I am sure, unintentional.
1 Golden Bough, Part I. vol. I. p. xx. Third Edition. 1911.
82° On. ctt., p- 19.
3 The Goddess of Ghosts, pp. 137-158.
94 Cassiodorus, Hist. Eccl., VII, 11. fin. speaks of the fetidissimus fons
of heresy.
95 1535-1598. His works were collected in four folio volumes, Paris, 1620,
prefaced by Henry Holland’s Uita Thome Stapletoni. An original portrait
is preserved at Douai Abbey, Woolhampton.
©
CHAPTER II
Tue WorsHIP OF THE WITCH
In order clearly to understand and fully to realize the
shuddering horror and heart-sick dismay any sort of commerce
between human beings and evil spirits, which is the very
core and kernel of Witchcraft, excited throughout the whole
of Christendom, to appreciate why tome after tome was
written upon the subject by the most learned pens of Europe,
why holiest pontiffs and wisest judges, grave philosopher
and discreet scholar, king and peasant, careless noble and
earnest divine, all alike were of one mind in the prosecution
of sorcery ; why in Catholic Spain and in Puritan Scotland,
in cold Geneva and at genial Rome, unhesitatingly and
perseveringly man sought to stamp out the plague with the
most terrible of all penalties, the cautery of fire; in order
that by the misreading of history we should not superficially
and foolishly think monk and magistrate, layman and lawyer
were mere tigers, mad fanatics—for as such have they, too,
often been presented and traduced,—it will be not wholly
impertinent briefly to recapitulate the orthodox doctrine of
the Powers of Darkness, facts nowadays too often forgotten
or ignored, but which to the acute medieval mind were ever
fearfully and prominently in view.
And here, as in so many other beliefs, we shall find a little
dogma; certain things that can hardly be denied without
the note of temerity ; and much concerning which nothing
definite can be known, upon which assuredly no pronounce-
ment will be made.
In the first place, the name Devil is commonly given to
the fallen angels, who are also called Demons. The exact
technical distinction between the two terms in ecclesiastical
usage may be seen in the phrase used in the decree of the
Fourth Lateran Council! : ‘‘ Diabolus enim et alii daemones.”’
(The devil and the other demons), i.e. all are demons, and
51
52 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
the chief of the demons is called the Devil. This distinction
is preserved in in the Vulgate New Testament, where diabolus
represents the Greek d:a8oXos, and in almost every instance
refers to Satan himself, whilst his subordinate angels are
described, in accordance with the Greek, as damones or
demonia. But save in some highly specialized context when
the most meticulous accuracy is required, we now use the
words ‘“‘ devil,” ‘‘ demon” indifferently, and employ the
definite article to denote Lucifer (Satan), chief of the devils,
The Devil. So in S. Matthew xxy. 41, is written ‘the
devil and his angels.”” The Greek word é:a8o0A0s means a
slanderer, an accuser, and in this sense is it applied to him
of whom it is said ‘“‘the accuser [0 kxatyyopos] of our
brethren is cast forth, who accused them before our God
day and night” (Apocalypse xii. 10). Thus it answers to
the Hebrew name Satan, which signifies an adversary, an
accuser.
Mention is made of the Devil in many passages both of
the Old and New Testaments, but much is left in obscurity,
and the full Scriptural teaching on the legions of evil can
best be ascertained by combining the scattered notices and |
reading them in the light of patristic and theological tradi-
tion. The authoritative teaching of the Church is declared
in the Decrees of the Fourth Lateran Church (cap. 1. Firmiter
credimus), wherein, after setting forth that God in the begin-
ning had created two creatures, the spiritual and corporeal ;
that is to say, the angelic and the earthly, and lastly man,
who was made of both earth and body; the Council con-
tinues: “‘ For the Devil and the other demons were created
by God naturally good; but they themselves of themselves
became evil.”? The dogma is here clearly laid down that
the Devil and the other demons are spiritual or angelic
creatures created by God in a state of innocence, and that
they became evil by their own free act. It is added that
man sinned by suggestion of the Devil, and that in the next
world the reprobate and impenitent will suffer punishment
with him. This then is the actual dogma, the dry bones of
the doctrine, so to speak. But later theologians have added
a great deal to this,—the authoritative Doctor Eximius,
Francisco Suarez, S.J.,3 De Angelis, VII, is especially valuable
—and much of what they deduce cannot be disputed without
THE WORSHIP OF THE WITCH 53
such rejection incurring the grave censure technically known
as ‘‘ Krroneous.’’#
It is remarkable that for an account of the Fall of the
angels, which happened before the creation of the world,
we must turn to the last book in the Bible, the Apocalypse
of S. John. For although the picture of the past be blended
with prophecies of what shall be in the future, thus must we
undoubtedly regard the vision of Patmos. ‘‘ And there was
a great battle in heaven, Michael and-his angels fought with
the dragon, and the dragon fought and his angels: and they
prevailed not, neither was their place found any more in
heaven. And that great dragon was cast out, that old
serpent, who is called the Devil, and Satan, who seduceth
the whole world; and he was cast down unto the earth,
and his angels were thrown down with him ”’ (Apocalypse
xii. 7-9). To this may be added the words of 8S. Jude:
‘“* And the angels who kept not their principality, but forsook
their own habitation, he hath reserved under darkness in
everlasting chains, unto the judgement of the great day.”
To these references should be added a striking passage from
the prophet Isaiah: ‘‘ How art thou fallen from heaven,
O Lucifer, who didst rise in the morning ! how art thou fallen
to the earth, that didst wound the nations! And thou saidst
in thy heart: I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my
throne above the stars of God, I will sit in the mountain
of the covenant, in the sides of the north. I will ascend
above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the most High.
But yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, into the depth
of the pit’ (Isaiah xiv. 12-15). The words of the prophet
may in one sense, perhaps primarily, be directed against
Merodach-baladan, King of Babylon, but all the early Fathers
and later commentators are agreed in understanding the
passage as applying with deeper significance to the fall of
the rebel angel. This interpretation is confirmed by the
words of Our Lord to His disciples: ‘‘ I saw Satan like
lightning falling from heaven.’? (Uidebam Satanam sicut
fulgur de ccelo cadentem.) S. Luke x. 18.
An obvious question which next arises and which has been
amply discussed by the theologians is : What was the nature
of the sin of the rebel angels? This point presents some
difficulty, for theology has logically formed the highest
54 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
estimate of the perfection of the angelic nature, the powers
and possibilities of the angelic knowledge. Sins of the flesh
are certainly impossible to angels, and from many sins which
are purely spiritual and intellectual they would seem to be
equally debarred. The great offence of Lucifer appears to
have been the desire of independence of God and equality
with God.
It is theologically certain that Lucifer held a very high
rank in the celestial hierarchy, and it is evident that he
maintains some kind of sovereignty over those who followed
him in his rebellion: ‘“‘Si autem,’’ says Our Lord, “ et
Satanas in seipsum diuisus est quomodo stabit regnum eius ? ”’
(If Satan also be divided against himself, how shall his
kingdom stand?) And S. Paul speaks of ‘“ Principem
potestatis eris huius, qui nunc operatur in filios diffidentiz.”’
(The Prince of the power of this air, who now worketh in
the sons of disobedience) Ephesians ii. 2. It may seem
strange that those rebellious spirits who rose against their
Maker should be subordinate to and obey one of their
fellows who led them to destruction, but this in itself is a
proof that Lucifer is a superior intelligence, and the know-
ledge of the angels would show them that they can effect
more mischief and evil by co-operation and organization,
although their unifying principle is the bond of hate, than
by anarchy and division. There can be little doubt that
among their ranks are many mean and petty spirits>—to
speak comparatively—but even these can influence and
betray foolish and arrogant men. We shall be on safe ground
if we follow the opinion of Suarez, who would allow Lucifer
to have been the highest of all angels negatively, i.e. that
no one was higher, although many (and among these the
three great Archangels, 8. Michael, S. Gabriel, S. Raphael)
may have been his equals.
It has been argued that the highest of the angels, by reason
of their greater intellectual illumination, must have entirely
realized the utter impossibility of attaining to equality with
God. So 8S. Anselm, De Casu Diaboli (IV), says: ‘‘ Non
enim ita obtuse mentis [diabolus] erat, ut nihil aliud simile
Deo cogitari posse nesciret ?’’ (The devil was surely not
so dull of understanding as to be ignorant of the incon-
ceivability of any other entity like to God ?) And S. Thomas
THE WORSHIP OF THE WITCH 55
writes, in answer to the question, whether the Devil desired
to be ‘‘as God,” “if by this we mean equality with God,
then the Devil would not desire it, since he knew this to
be impossible.”? But as the Venerable Duns Scotus, Doctor
subtilis, admirably points out, we must distinguish between
efficacious volition and the volition of complaisance, and by
the latter act an angel could desire that which is impossible.
In the same way he shows that, though a creature cannot
directly will its own destruction, it may do this consequenter,
i.e. it can will something from which this would inevitably
follow.
And although man must realize that he cannot be God,
yet there have been men who have caused themselves to be
saluted as God and even worshipped as God. Such was
Herod Agrippa I, who on a festival day at Cesarea, had
himself robed in a garment made wholly of silver, and came
into the crowded theatre early in the morning, so that his
vesture shone out in the rays of the sun with dazzling light,
and the superstitious multitude, taught by his flatterers,
cried out that he was a god, and prayed to him as
divine, saying: ‘‘ Be thou merciful unto us, for although
we have hitherto reverenced thee only as a man yet hence-
forth we own thee to be god.’’® Caligula, also, arrogated to
himself divinity. ‘‘ Templum etiam numini suo proprium,
et sacerdotes et excogitatissimas hostias instituit.”’? (He also
built a temple in honour of his own godhead, and consecrated
priests to offer him most splendid sacrifices.) This emperor,
moreover, set up his statue in the Temple at Jerusalem, and
ordered victims to be sacrificed to him. Domitian, with
something more than literary compliment, is addressed by
Martial as ‘‘ Dominus Deusque noster’’§ (Our Lord and
our God), and he lived up to his title. Heliogabalus identified
himself in some mystic way with the deity of Edessa, and
ordered no god save himself to be worshipped at Rome, nay,
throughout the wide world: ‘‘ Taking measures that at Rome
no god should be honoured save Heliogabalus alone... .
Nor did he wish to stamp out only the various Roman cults,
but his desire was that all the whole wide world through,
only one god, Heliogabalus, should everywhere be wor-
shipped.’’® To cite further examples, and they are numerous,
from Roman history were superfluous.1° Perhaps the most
56 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
astounding case of all was that of the Persian king, Khosroes
(IXhusrau) II, who in the seventh century sacked Jerusalem
and carried off the True Cross to his capital. Intoxicated
with success he announced by solemn proclamation that he
was Almighty God. He built an extraordinary palace or
tower, in which there were vast halls whose ceilings were
painted with luminous suns, moons, and stars to resemble
the firmament. Here he sat upon a lofty throne of gold,
a tiara upon his head, his cope so sewn with diamonds that
the stuff could not be seen, sceptre and orb in his hands,
upon one side the Cross, upon the other a jewelled dove, and
here he bade his subjects adore him as God the Father,
offering incense and praying him “‘ Through the Son.” This
insane blasphemy was ended when the Persians were van-
quished by the Emperor Heraclius, and in the spring of 629
the Cross was restored to Jerusalem.1!
Montanus, the Phrygian heretic of the second century,
who had originally, as S. Jerome tells us, been a priest of
Cybele, actually claimed to be the Trinity. “I am the
Father, the Word, and the Paraclete,”’!? he said, and again,
‘“*T am the Lord God omnipotent who have descended into
aman... neither an angel, nor an ambassador, but I, the
Lord, the Father, am come.’’!8 Elipandus of Toledo in the
eighth century spoke of Christ as ‘‘a God among gods,”
inferring that there were many others who had been divine.
One may compare the incarnate gods adored in China and
Tibet to-day. A Bohemian woman named Wilhelmina, who
died in Milan, 1281, declared herself to be an incarnation
of the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity, and was actually
worshipped by crowds of fanatics, who caused great scandal
and disorder. The Khlysti in Russia have not only prophets
but “* Christs ”? and ‘‘ Redeemers,’’ and they pray to one
another. About 1830 there appeared in one of the American
states bordering upon Kentucky an impostor who declared
himself to be Christ. He threatened the world with immediate
judgement, and a number of ill-balanced and _ hysterical
subjects were much affected by his denunciations. One day,
when he was addressing a large gathering in his usual strain,
a German standing up humbly asked him if he would repeat
his warnings in German for the benefit of those present who
only knew that tongue. The speaker answered that he had
THE WORSHIP OF THE WITCH 57
never been able to learn that language, a reply which seemed
so ludicrous in one claiming divinity that many of the
auditors were convulsed with laughter and so profane a
eharlatan soon lost all credit. Monsignor Flaget, Bishop of
Bardstoun, wrote an account of this extraordinary imposture
in a letter dated 4 May, 1833,!4 where he says the scene took
place some three years before. About 1880 at Patiala in the
Punjaub, a fanatic of filthy appearance named Hakim Singh
gave himself out to be Christ, and in a short time had a
following of more than four thousand persons, but within a
few months they melted away.15 Many “false Christs ”’
have organized Russian sects. In 1840 a man drained the
peasants of Simboisk and Saratov of their money by declaring
himself to be the Saviour; about 1880 the founder of the
bojki, an illiterate fanatic named Sava proclaimed that he
was the Father, and his kinsman, Samouil, God the Son.
Ivan Grigorieff, founder of the ‘‘ Russian Mormons,” taught
that he was divine; and other frenzied creatures, Philipoff,
Loupkin, Israil of Selengisk, have all claimed to be the
Messiah and God.
It is apparent then, that although rationally it should be
inconceivable that any sentient creature could claim divinity,
actually the contrary is the case. The sin of Satan would
appear to have been an attempt to usurp the sovereignty
of God. This is further borne out by the fact that during
the Temptation of our Lord the Devil, showing Him “‘ omnia
regna mundi, et gloriam eorum”’ (all the kingdoms of the
world and the glory of them), said, ‘‘ Hzc omnia tibi dabo,
si cadens adoraueris me.”’ (All these will I give Thee, if
Thou wilt fall down and worship me.) And he is rebuked:
‘“ Uade Satana: Scriptum est enim: Dominum Deum tuum
adorabis, et illi soli seruies.”” (Begone, Satan: for it is
written : The Lord thy God shalt thou adore, and Him only
shalt thou serve.) It should be remarked that Lucifer was
telling a lie. The kingdoms of this world are not his to offer,
but only its sins and follies, disappointment and death. But
here the Devil is demanding that divine honours should be
paid him. And this claim is perpetuated throughout the
witch trials. The witches believed that their master, Satan,
Lucifer, the fiend, the principle of evil, was God, and as
such they worshipped him with latria, they adored him, they
58 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
offered him homage, they addressed prayer to him, they
sacrificed. So Lambert Danéau, Dialogue of Witches (trans.
1575), asserts: ‘‘The Diuell comaundeth them that they
shall acknowledge him for their god, cal vpo him, pray to
him, and trust in him.—Then doe they all repeate the othe
which they haue geuen vnto him; in acknowledging him
to be their God.” Cannaert records that the accusation
against Elisabeth Vlamynex of Alost, 1595, was ‘‘ You were
not even ashamed to kneel before Belzebuth, whom you
worshipped.”!® De Lancre, in his Tableau de l’Inconstance des
mauvais Anges (1618), informs us that when the witches
presented a young child they fell on their knees before the
demon and said: ‘‘ Grand Seigneur, lequel i’adore.”’ (Great
Lord, whom I worship.) The novice joining the witches
made profession in this phrase: “I abandon myself wholly
to thy power and I put myself in thy hands, acknowledging
no other god; and this since there art my god.’’?” The
words of Silvain Nevillon, tried at Orleans in 1614, are even
plainer: ‘‘ We say to the Devil that we acknowledge him as
our master, our god, our creator.’!® In America?’ in 1692,
Mary Osgood confessed that ‘‘ the devil told her he was her
God, and that she should serve and worship him.”
There are numberless instances of prayer offered to the
Devil by his servants. Henri Boguet, in his Discours des
Sorciers (Lyons, 1608), relates that Antide Colas, 1598,
avowed that “‘ Satan bade her pray to him night and morning,
before she set about any other business.’?® Elizabeth
Sawyer, the notorious witch of Edmonton (1621), was taught
certain invocations by her familiar. In her confession to the
Rev. Henry Goodcole, who visited her in Newgate, upon his
asking ‘‘ Did the Diuell at any time find you praying when
he came unto you, and did not the Diuell forbid you to pray
to Iesus Christ, but to him alone? and did he not bid you
to pray to him, the Diuell as he taught you?” She replied :
‘‘He asked of me to whom I prayed, and I answered him
to Iesus Christ, and he charged me then to pray no more to
Iesus Christ, but to him the Diuell, and he the Diuell taught
me this prayer, Sanctibecetur nomen tuum, Amen.’*! So
as Stearne reports in Confirmation and Discovery of Witch-
craft (1648), of the Suffolk witches: ‘‘ Hilen, the wife
of Nicholas Greenleife of Barton in Suffolke, confessed,
THE WORSHIP OF THE WITCH 59
that when she prayed she prayed to the Devill and not
to God.”
In imitation of God, moreover, the Devil will have his
miracles, although these are Oavuara, mere delusive wonders
which neither profit nor convince. Such was the feat of
Jannes and Mambres, the Egyptian sorcerers, who in
emulation of Moses changed their rods to serpents. To this
source we can confidently refer many tricks of Oriental
jugglers. ‘I am satisfied,” wrote an English officer of rank
and family, ‘‘ that the performances of the native ‘ wise-
men’ are done by the aid of familiar spirits. The visible
growth of a mango tree out of an empty vessel into which
a little earth is placed, a growth which spectators witness,
and the secret of which has never been discovered, may not
be unreasonably referred to the same occult powers which
enabled the Egyptian magicians of old to imitate the
miraculous acts which Moses, by God’s command, openly
wrought in the face of Pharaoh and his people.’’22. In the
basket-trick, which is performed without preparation in any
place or spot—a greensward, a paved yard, a messroom—a
boy is placed under a large wicker basket of conical shape,
which may be examined and handled by all, and this is then
stabbed through and through by the fakir with a long sword
that pierces from side to side. Screams of pain follow each
thrust, and the weapon is discerned to be covered with fresh
blood. The cries grow fainter and at length cease altogether.
Then the juggler uttering cries and incantations dances round
the basket, which he suddenly removes, and no sign of the
child is to be seen, no rent in the wicker-work, no stain on
the steel. But in a few seconds the boy, unharmed and
laughing, appears running forward from some distant spot.
In this connexion we may well recall the words of Suarez :
‘“‘[The Devil] can deceive and trick the senses so that a
head may appear to be cut off and blood to flow, when in
truth no such thing is taking place.’’8
The wizards of Tartary and Tibet, bokte, upon certain
special days will with great ceremony appear in the temples,
which are always thronged on these occasions, and whilst
their disciples howl and shriek out invocations, they suddenly
throw aside their robes and with a sharp knife seem to rip
open their stomachs from top to bottom, whilst blood pours
60 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
from the gaping wound. The worshippers, lashed to frenzy,
fall prostrate before them and grovel frantically upon the
floor. The wizard appears to scatter his blood over them,
and after some five minutes he passes his hands rapidly
over the wound, which instantly disappears, not leaving
even the trace of a scar. The operator is noticed to be over-
come with intense weariness, but otherwise all is well. Those
who have seen this hideous spectacle assure us that it cannot
be explained by any hallucination or legerdemain, and the
only solution which remains is to attribute it to the glamour
cast over the deluded crowd by the power of discarnate evil
intelligences.?4 7
The portentous growth of Spiritism,?5 which within a
generation passed beyond the limits of a popular and
mountebank movement and challenged the serious attention
and expert inquiry of the whole scientific and philosophical
world, furnishes us with examples of many extraordinary
phenomena, both physical and psychical, and these, in spite
of the most meticulous and accurate investigation, are simply
inexplicable by any natural and normal means, Such
phenomena have been classified by Sir William Crookes, in
his Researches in the Phenomena of Spiritualism. They include
the movement of heavy bodies without contact, or with
contact altogether insufficient to explain the movement; the
alteration of weight of bodies ; the rising of tables and chairs
off the ground without contact with any human person ;
the levitation of human beings; “‘ apports,’’ objects such as
flowers, coins, pieces of stone conveyed into a hermetically
closed room without any visible agency to carry them;
luminous appearances ; more or less distinct phantom faces
and forms. In spite of continual and most deliberate
trickery, repeated and most humiliating exposure, and this
not only in the case of cheap charlatans but also of famous
mediums such as William Eglinton, there occur and have
always occurred phenomena which are vouched for upon the
evidence of names whose authority cannot be gainsaid. Do
such manifestations proceed from the spirits of the departed
or from intelligences which have never been in human form ?
Kven avowed believers in a beneficent Spiritism, anxious to
establish communication with dead friends, are forced to
admit the frequent and irresponsible action of non-human
THE WORSHIP OF THE WITCH 61
intelligences. This conclusion is based upon lengthy and
detailed evidence which it is only possible very briefly to
summarize. It proves almost impossible satisfactorily to
establish spirit identity, to ascertain whether the com-
municator is actually the individual he or it purports to be;
the information imparted is not such as would naturally be
expected from those who have passed beyond this life but
trivial and idle to a degree ; the statements which the spirits
make concerning their own condition are most contradictory
and confused; the moral tone which pervades these mes-
sages, at first vague and unsatisfactory, generally becomes
repulsive and even criminally obscene. All these particulars
unmistakably point to demoniac intervention and deceit.2¢
The Second Plenary Council of Baltimore (1866) whilst
making due allowance for fraudulent practice and subtle
sleights in Spiritism declares that some at least of the
manifestations are to be ascribed to Satanic intervention,
for in no other manner can they be explained. (Decreta,
33-41.) A decree of the Holy Office, 80 March, 1898, con-
demns Spiritistic practices, even though intercourse with
evil spirits be excluded and intercourse sought only with
good angels.
Not only with miracles but also in prophecies does Lucifer
seek to emulate that God Whose Throne he covets. This
point is dealt with by Bishop Pierre Binsfeld, who in his
De Maleficis (1589) writes : ‘‘ Nunc uidendum est an demones
prescientiam habeant futurorum et secretorum, ita ut
ex eorum reuelatione possit homo prognosticare2’ et occulta
cognoscere ? .. . Prima conclusio: Futura, si in Selpsis
considerentur, anullo preterquam a solo Deo cognosci
possunt.” (Next we will inquire whether devils can have
any foreknowledge of future events or of hidden things so
that a man might from their revelations to him foretell the
future and discover the unknown? . .. First conclusion :
The future, precisely considered, can be known to none save
to God alone.) But it must be borne in mind that the
intelligence of angels, though fallen, is of the acutest order,
as Simon Maiolo in his Dies caniculares explains: “‘ Astutia,
sapientia, acumine longe superant homines, et longius pro-
grediuntur ratiocinando.” (In shrewdness, knowledge, per-
spicuity, they far excel mankind, and they can look much
62 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
further into the future by logical deduction.) And it is
in this way that a demon will often rightly divine what is
going to happen, although more often the response will either
be a lie or wrapped up in meaningless and ambiguous phrase,
such as were the pagan oracles. A notable example of false
prophets may be found in the Camisards (probably from
camise, a black blouse worn as a uniform), a sect of evil
fanatics who terrorized Dauphiné, Vivarais, and chiefly the
Cévennes at the beginning of the eighteenth century. Their
origin was largely due to the Albigensian spirit, which had
never been wholly stamped out in that district, and which
was fanned to flame by the anarchical preaching and dis-
ordered pamphlets of the French Calvinists, such as Jurieu’s
Accomplissement des prophéties. Pope Clement XI styles the
Camisards ‘‘ that execrable race of ancient Albigenses.”
De Serre, a rank old Calvinist of Dieulefit in Dauphine,
became suddenly inspired and a wave of foul hysteria spread
far and wide. In 1702 the saintly abbé de Chaila was
treacherously murdered by these wretches, who seized arms
and formed themselves into offensive bands under such
ruffians as Séguier, Laporte, Castanet, Ravenal, and Cavalier.
Louis XIV sent troops to subdue them, but the Catholic
leaders at first do not seem to have appreciated the serious-
ness of the position, and a desultory guerilla warfare dragged
on for some years. Cavalier escaped to England,?* whence he
returned in 1709, and attempted to kindle a revolt in Vivarais.
On 8 March, 1715, by a proclamation and medals, Louis XIV
announced that these demoniacs were entirely extinct.
A number of these prophets fled to England, where they
created great disturbances, and Voltaire, Siécle de Louis XIV,
XXXVI, tells us that one of the leading refugees, a notorious
rebel, Elie Marion, became so obnoxious on account of his
avertissements prophétiques and false miracles, that he was
expelled the country as a common nuisance.?°
The existence of evil discarnate intelligences having been
orthodoxly established, a realm which owns one chief, and
it is reasonable to suppose, many hierarchies, a kingdom
that is at continual warfare with all that is good, ever striving
to do evil and bring man into bondage; it is obvious that if
he be so determined man will be able in some way or another
to get into touch with this dark shadow world, and however
THE WORSHIP OF THE WITCH 63
rare such a connexion may be it is, at least, possible. It
is this connexion with its consequences, conditions, and
attendant circumstances, that is known as Witchcraft.
The erudite Sprenger in the Malleus Maleficarum expressly
declares that in his opinion a denial of the possibility of
Witchcraft is heresy. ‘‘ After God Himself hath spoken of
magicians and sorcerers, what infidel dare doubt that they
exist ?”’ writes Pierre de Lancre in his L’Incredulité et
Mescreance du Sortilége (Paris, 1622). That eminent lawyer
Blackstone, in his Commentaries (1765), IV, 4, asserts: ‘‘ To
deny the possibility, nay, actual existence of Witchcraft
and Sorcery, is at once flatly to contradict the revealed Word
of God in various passages both of the Old and New Testa-
ment ; and the thing itself is a truth to which every Nation
in the World hath in its turn borne testimony, either by
examples seemingly well attested, or by prohibitory laws,
which at least suppose the possibility of commerce with evil
spirits.’’ Even the ultra-cautious—I had almost said sceptical
—Father Thurston acknowledges: ‘‘In the face of Holy
Scripture and the teaching of the Fathers and theologians
the abstract possibility of a pact with the Devil and of a
diabolical interference in human affairs can hardly be
denied.”” Imposture, trickery, self-deception, hypnotism, a
morbid imagination have, no doubt, all played an important
part in legends of this kind. It is not enough quite sincerely
to claim magical powers to possess them in reality. Plainly,
a man who not only firmly believes in a Power of evil but
also that this Power can and does meddle with and mar
human affections and human destinies, may invoke and
devote himself to this Power, may give up his will thereunto,
may ask this Power to accomplish his wishes and ends, and
so succeed in persuading himself that he has entered into a
mysterious contract with evil whose slave and servant he
is become.31_ Moreover, as we should expect, the records
teem with instances of common charlatanry, of cunning
villainies and crime masquerading under the cloak of super-
stition, of clever fraud, of what was clearly play acting and
mumming to impress the ignorant and vulgar, of diseased
vanity, sick for notoriety, that craved the name and reputa-
tion of witch, of quackery and cozening that proved lucrative
and comfortable enough.
64 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
But when every allowance has been made, as we examine
in detail the long and bloody history of Witchcraft, as we
recognize the fearful fanaticism and atrocious extravagances
of the witch mania, as we are enabled to account for in the
light of ampler knowledge, both psychological and physical,
details and accidents which would have inevitably led to
the stake without respite or mercy, as we can elucidate case
after case—one an hysterical subject, a cataleptic, an
epileptic, a sufferer from some obscure nervous disorder even
to-day not exactly diagnosed; another, denounced by the
malice of private enemies, perhaps on political grounds; a
third, some doting beldame the victim of idlest superstition
or mere malignity ; a fourth, accused for the sake of gain
by a disappointed blackmailer or thief; others, silly bodies,
eccentrics, and half-crazed cranks; and the even greater
number of victims who were incriminated by poor wretches
raving in the agonies of the rack and boots ;—none the less
after having thus frankly discounted every possible cir-
cumstance, after having completely realized the world-wide
frenzy of persecution that swept through those centuries of
terror, we cannot but recognize that there remain innumer-
able and important cases which are not to be covered by any
ordinary explanation, which fall within no normal category.
As a most unprejudiced writer has well said: ‘* The under-
lying and provocative phenomena had really been present
in a huge number of cases.’°?, And there is no other way of
accounting for these save by acknowledging the reality of
Witchcraft and diabolic contracts. It must be steadily
remembered that the most brilliant minds, the keenest
intelligences, the most learned scholars, the noblest names,
men who had heard the evidence at first hand, all firmly
believed in Witchcraft. Amongst them are such supreme
authorities as S. Augustine, ‘‘ a philosophical and theological
genius of the first order, dominating, like a pyramid, antiquity
and the succeeding ages ’’*3; Blessed Albertus Magnus, the
‘* Universal Doctor” of encyclopedic knowledge ; S. Thomas
Aguinas, Doctor Angelicus, one of the profoundest intellects
the world has ever seen; the Seraphic S. Bonaventura, most
loving of mystics ; Popes not a few, Alexander IV, the friend
of the Franciscans, prudent, kindly, deeply religious, “‘ assi-
duous in prayer and strict in abstinence’’3*; John XXII,
THE WORSHIP OF THE WITCH 65
‘‘a man of serious character, of austere and simple habits,
broadly cultivated ’’>; Benedict XII, a pious Cistercian
monk, most learned in theology; Innocent VIII, a magni-
ficent prelate, scholar and diplomatist; Gregory XV, an
expert in canon and civil law, most just and merciful of
pontiffs, brilliantly talented. We have the names of learned
men, such as Gerson, Chancellor of Notre-Dame and of the
University of Paris, ‘“‘ justly regarded as one of the master
intellects of his age ’’°*; James Sprenger, O.P., who for all
his etymological errors was a scholar of vast attainments ;
Jean Bodin, “ one of the chief founders of political philosophy
and political history °°; Erasmus; Bishop Jewell, of
Salisbury, ‘“‘one of the ablest and most authoritative ex-
pounders of the true genius and teaching of the reformed
Church of England ’’?’; the gallant Raleigh ; Lord Bacon ;
Sir Edward Coke; Cardinal Mazarin ; the illustrious Boyle ;
Cudworth, ‘“‘ perhaps the most profound of all the great
scholars who have adorned the English Church ’’3*; Selden ;
Henry More; Sir Thomas Browne; Joseph Glanvill, who
‘has been surpassed in genius by few of his successors ’’?® ;
Meric Casaubon, the learned Prebendary of Canterbury ; Sir
Matthew Hale; Sir George Mackenzie ; William Blackstone ;
and many another divine, lawyer, scholar, of lesser note. It
is inconceivable that all these, mistaken as they might be
in some details, should have been wholly deluded and
beguiled. The learned Sinistrari in his De Demonialitate,?®
upon the authoritative sentence of Francesco-Maria Guazzo,
an Ambrosian, (Compendium Maleficarum, Liber I. 7), writes :
‘** Primo, ineunt pactum expressum cum Demone aut alio
Mago seu Malefico uicem Demonis gerente, et testibus
preesentibus de seruitio diabolico suscipiendo: Demon uero
uice uersa honores, diuitias, et carnales delectationes illis
pollicetur.”’ (Firstly, the Novices have to conclude with the
Demon, or some other Wizard or Magician acting in the
Demon’s place, an express compact by which, in the presence
of witnesses, they enlist in the Demon’s service, he giving
them in exchange his pledge for honours, riches, and carnal
pleasures.) .
It is said that the formal pact was sometimes verbal,
sometimes a signed document. In every case it was voluntary,
and as Gorres points out, the usual initiation into these foul
F
66 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
mysteries was through some secret society at an asseblym
of which the neophyte bound himself with terrific oathsnd a
blasphemy to the service of evil. But there are cases which
can only be explained by the materialization of a dark
intelligence who actually received a bond from the worshipper.
These are, of course, extremely rare; but occasionally the
judges were able to examine such parchments and deeds.
In 1453 Guillaume Edelin, Prior of S. Germain-en-Laye,
signed a compact with the Devil, and this was afterwards
found upon his person. Pierre de Lancre relates that the
witch Stevenote de Audebert, who was burned in January,
1619, showed him ‘‘le pacte & conuention qu’elle auoit
faict auec le Diable, escrite en sang de menstrues, & si horrible
qu’on auoit horreur de la regarder.”’®® In the library at Upsala
is preserved the contract by which Daniel Salthenius, in later
life Professor of Hebrew at Koningsberg, sold himself to Satan.
In the archives of the Sacred Office is preserved a picture
of the Crucifixion of which the following account is given:
A young man of notoriously wicked life and extreme impiety
having squandered his fortune, and being in desperate need,
resolved to sell himself body and soul to Lucifer on condition
that he should be supplied with money enough to enable
him to indulge in all the luxuries and lusts he desired. It is
said the demon assumed a visible form, and required him
to write down an act of self-donation to hell. This the youth
consented to do on one proviso. He asked the demon if he
had been present on Calvary, and when he was answered in
the affirmative he insisted that Lucifer should trace him an
exact representation of the Crucifixion, upon which he would
hand over the completed document. The fiend after much
hesitation consented, and shortly produced a picture. But
at the sight of the racked and bleeding Body stretched on
the Cross the youth was seized with such contrition that
falling upon his knees he invoked the help of God. His
companion disappeared, leaving the fatal contract and picture.
The penitent, in order to gain absolution for so heinous guilt,
was obliged to have recourse to the Cardinal Penitentiary,
and the picture was taken in charge by the Holy Office.
Prince Barberini afterwards obtained permission to have
any exact copy made of it, and this eventually he presented
to the Capuchins at S. Maria della Concezione.
THE WORSHIP OF THE WITCH 67
A contract with Satan was said always to be signed in the
blood of the executor. ‘‘ The signature is almost invariably
subscribed with the writer’s own blood. ... Thus at
Augsburg Joseph Egmund Schultz declared that on the
15 May, 1671, towards midnight, when it was betwixt eleven
and twelve of the clock, he threw down, where three cross-
roads met, an illuminated parchment, written throughout in
his own blood and wrapped up in a fair kerchief, and thus
he sealed the compact . . . Widmann also tells us how that
unhappy wretch Faust slightly cut his thumb and with the
drops of blood which trickled thence devoted himself in
writing body and soul to the Devil, utterly repudiating God’s
part in him.” 4° From the earliest times and in many nations
we find human blood used inviolably to ratify the pledged
word.*! Rochholz, I, 52, relates that it is a custom of
German University freshmen (Burschen) for the parties to
write “ mutually with their own blood leaves in each other’s
albums.” The parchment is still said to be in existence on
which with his own blood Maximilian, the great and devout
Bavarian elector, religiously dedicated himself to the Most
Holy Mother of God. Blood was the most sacred and
irrevocable of seals, as may be seen in the custom of blood-
brotherhood when friendship was sworn and alliances con-
cluded. Hither the blood itself was drunk or wine mixed
with blood. Herodotus (IV, 70) tells us that the Scythians
were wont to conclude agreements by pouring wine into an
earthen vessel, into which the contracting parties having cut
their arms with a knife let their blood flow and mingle.
Whereupon both they and the most distinguished of their
following drank of it. Pomponius Mela, De Situ Orbis, II, 1,
records the same custom as still existing among them in his
day: ‘ Not even their alliances are made without shedding
of blood: the partners in the compact wound themselves,
and when the blood gushes out they mingle the stream and
taste of it when it is mixed. This they consider to be the
most assured pledge of eternal loyalty and trust.’’42 Gyraldus,
Topographia Hibernorum, XXII, p. 748, says : ‘‘ When the
Ireni conclude treaties the one drinks the blood of the other,
which is shed voluntarily for this purpose.” In July, 1891,
a band of brigands which had existed for three years was
discovered and broken up in South Italy. It was reported
68 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
that in the ritual of these outlaws, who were allied to the
‘“Mala Vita’ of Bari, ‘‘ the neophytes drank blood-brother-
hood with the captain of the band by sucking out and
drinking the blood from a scratch wound, which he had
himself made in the region of his heart.”
In several grimoires and books of magic, such as The Book
of Black Magic and of Pacts, The Key of Solomon the King, —
Sanctum Regnum, may be found goetic rituals as well as
invocations, and if these, fortunately for the operators, are
occasionally bootless, it can only be said that Divine Power
holds in check the evil intelligences. But, as Suarez justly
observes, even if no response be obtained from the demon
‘‘ either because God does not allow it, or for some other
reason we may not know,’’*’ the guilt of the experimenter
in this dark art and his sin are in no wise lightened.** ‘To-
wards the end of the eighteenth century a certain Juan Perez,
being reduced to the utmost misery, vowed himself body and
soul to Satan if he were revenged upon those whom he
suspected of injuring him. He consulted more than one
magician and witch, he essayed more than one theurgic
ceremonial, but all in vain. Hell was deaf to his appeal.
Whereupon he openly proclaimed his disbelief in the super-
natural, in the reality of devils, and mocked at Holy Scripture
as a fairy tale, a nursery fable. Naturally this conduct
brought him before the Tribunal of the Holy Office, to whom
at his first interrogation he avowed the whole story, declaring
himself ready to submit to any penance they might seem fit
to inflict.
Any such pact which may be entered into with the demon
is not in the slightest degree binding. Such is the authori-
tative opinion of S. Alphonsus, who lays down that a necro-
mancer or person who has had intercourse with evil spirits
now wishing to give up his sorceries is bound: “ 1. Absolutely
to abjure and to renounce any formal contract or any sort
of commerce whatsoever he may have entered into with
demonic intelligences ; 2. To burn all such books, writings,
amulets, talismans, and other instruments as appertain to
the black art (i.e. crystals, planchettes, ouija-boards, pagan.
periapts, and the like); 8. To burn the written contract if
it be in his possession, but if it be believed that it is held by
the demon, there is no need to demand its restoration since
THE WORSHIP OF THE WITCH 69
it is wholly annulled by penitence; 4. To repair any harm
he has done and make good any loss.”45 It may be remarked
that these rules have been found exceedingly useful and
entirely practical in dealing with mediums and others who
forsake spiritism, its abominations and fearful dangers.
There are examples in history, even in hagiography, of
sorcerers who have been converted. One of the most famous
of these is S. Theophilus the Penitent ;46 and even yet more
renowned is 8S. Cyprian of Antioch who, with S. Justina,
suffered martyrdom during the persecution of Diocletian at
Nicomedia, 26 September, 304.47 Blessed Gil of Santarem,
a Portuguese Dominican, in his youth excelled in philosophy
and medicine. Whilst on his way from Coimbra to the
University of Paris he fell into company with a courteous
stranger who offered to teach him the black art at Toledo.
As payment the stranger required that Gil should make over
his soul to the Devil and sign the contract with his blood.
After complying with the conditions he devoted seven years
to magical studies, and then proceeding to Paris easily
obtained the degree of doctor of medicine. Gil, however,
repented, burned his books of spells, and returned to Portugal,
where he took the habit of S. Dominic. After a long life of
penitence and prayer he died at Santarem, 14 May, 1205,
and here his body is still venerated.*® His cult was ratified
by Benedict XIV, 9 March, 1748. His feast is observed
14 May.
The contract made by the witch was usually for the term
of her life, but sometimes it was only for a number of years,
at the end of which period the Devil was supposed to kill
his votary. Reginald Scot remarks: ‘‘ Sometimes their
homage with their oth and bargaine is receiued for a certeine
terme of yeares; sometimes for ever.’’49 Magdalena de la
Cruz, a Franciscan nun, born at Aquilar in 1487, entered the
convent of Santa Isabel at Cordova in 1504. She acquired
an extraordinary reputation for sanctity, and was elected
abbess in 1533, 1536, and 1539. Scarcely five years later
she was a prisoner of the Inquisition, with charges of Witch-
craft proven against her. She confessed that in 1499 a spirit
who called himself by the grotesque name Balbar, with a
companion Pithon, appeared to her at the tender age of
twelve, and she made a contract with him for the space of
70 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
forty-one years. In 1543 she was seized with a serious illness,
during which she confessed her impostures and demonic
commerce. She was confined for the rest of her life as a
penitent in a house of the utmost austerity. Joan Williford,
a witch of Faversham, acknowledged ‘“‘that the Devil
promised to be her servant about twenty yeeres, and that
the time is now almost expired.’’5° In 1646 Elizabeth Weed,
a witch of Great Catworth in Huntingdonshire, confessed that
“the Devill then offer’d her that hee would doe what mis-
chiefe she should require him; and said she must covenant
with him that he must have her soule at the end of one and
twenty years which she granted.’’®! In 1664, a Somerset
sorceress, Elizabeth Style, avowed that the Devil ‘‘ promised
her Mony, and that she should live gallantly, and have the
pleasure of the World for Twelve years, if she would with
her Blood sign his Paper, which was to give her Soul to
toma 53 | |
Satan promises to give his votaries all they desire; know-
ledge, wealth, honours, pleasure, vengeance upon their
enemies ; and all that he can give is disappointment, poverty,
misery, hate, the power to hurt and destroy. He is ever
holding before their eyes elusive hopes, and so besotted are
they that they trust him and confide in him until all is lost.
Sometimes in the case of those who are young the pact is
for a short while, but he always renews it. So at Lille in 1661
Antoinette Bourignon’s pupils confessed : ‘‘ The Devil gives
them a Mark, which Marks they renew as often as those
Persons have any desire to quit him. The Devil reproves
them the more severely, and obligeth them to new Promises,
making them also new Marks for assurance or Pledge, that
those Persons should continue faithful to him.’
The Devil’s Mark to which allusion is here made, or the
Witches’ Mark, as it is sometimes called, was regarded as
perhaps the most important point in the identification of a
witch, it was the very sign and seal of Satan upon the actual
flesh of his servant, and any person who bore such a mark
was considered to have been convicted and proven beyond
all manner of doubt of being in league with and devoted to |
the service of the fiend. This mark was said to be entirely
insensible to pain, and when pricked, however deeply, it
did not bleed. So Mr. John Bell, minister at Gladsmuir, in
THE WORSHIP OF THE WITCH 71
his tract The Trial of Witchcraft; or Witchcraft Arraigned
and Condemned, published early in the eighteenth century,
explains: ‘‘ The witch mark is sometimes like a blew spot,
or a little tate, or reid spots, like flea biting ; sometimes also
the flesh is sunk in, and hollow, and this is put in secret
places, as among the hair of the head, or eye-brows, within
the lips, under the arm-pits,,and in the most secret parts
of the body.” Robert Hink, minister at Aberfoill, in his
Secret Commonwealth (1691), writes: ‘‘A spot that I have
seen, as a small mole, horny, and brown-coloured; throw
which mark, when a large pin was thrust (both in buttock,
nose, and rooff of the mouth), till it bowed and became
crooked, the witches both men and women, nather felt a
pain nor did bleed, nor knew the precise time when this was
doing to them, (their eyes only being covered).”” This mark
was sometimes the complete figure of a toad or a bat; or,
as Delrio says, the slot of a hare, the foot of a frog, a spider,
a deformed whelp, a mouse.®4 The same great authority
informs us on what part of the body it was usually impressed :
‘““In men it may often be seen under the eyelids, under the
lips, under the armpits, on the shoulders, on the fundament ;
in women, moreover, on the breast or on the pudenda.’’*®
In his profound treatise De Demonialitate that most erudite
Franciscan Ludovico Maria Sinistrari writes: “ [Sage seu
Malefici] sigillantur a Dzmone aliquo charactere, maxime
ii, de quorum constantia dubitat. Character uero non est
semper eiusdem forme, aut figure: aliquando enim est
simile lepori, aliquando pedi bufonis, aliquando aranez, uel
catello, uel gliri; imprimitur autem in locis corporis magis
occultis: uiris quidem aliquando sub palpebris, aliquando
sub axillis, aut labiis, aut humeris, aut sede ima, aut alibi:
mulieribus autem plerumque in mammis, seu locis mulie-
bribus. Porro sigillum, quo talia signa imprimuntur, est
unguis Diaboli.’’ (The Demon imprints upon [the Witches
or Wizards] some mark, especially on those whose constancy
he suspects. That mark, moreover, is not always of the
same shape or figure: sometimes it is the image of a hare,
sometimes a toad’s leg, sometimes a spider, a puppy, a
dormouse. It is imprinted on the most hidden parts of the
body: with men, under the eye-lids, or the armpits, or the
lips, on the shoulder, the fundament, or somewhere else :
72 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
with women it is usually on the breasts or the privy parts.
Now, the stamp which imprints these marks is none other
but the Devil’s claw.)
This Mark was made by the Devil, or by the Devil’s
vicegerent at the Sabbats upon the admission of a new
witch. ‘‘ The Diuell giveth to euerie nouice a marke, either
with his teeth or his clawes,’’ says Reginald Scot, Discoverie
of Witchcraft, 1584. The young witches of Lille in 1661
confessed that ‘‘ the Devil branded them with an iron awl
upon some part of the body.”’®* In Scotland, Geillis Duncane,
maid-servant to the deputy bailiff of Tranent, one David
Seaton, a wench who was concerned in the celebrated trial
of Doctor Fian, Agnes Sampson, Euphemia McCalyan,
Barbara Napier, and their associates, would not confess even
under torture, ‘‘ whereuppon they suspecting that she had
been marked by the devill (as commonly witches are) made
diligent search about her, and found the enemies mark to
be in her fore crag, or fore part of her throate ; which being
found, shee confessed that all her doings was done by the
wicked allurements and entisements of the devil, and that
she did them by witchcraft.”5’ In 1630 Catharine Oswald
of Niddrie was found guilty of sorcery, “‘ the advocate for
the instruction of the assyze producing the declaration of
two witnesses, that being in the tolbuith, saw Mr. John Aird,
minister, put a pin in the pannell’s shoulder, (where she
carries the devill’s mark) up to the heid, and no bluid
followed theiron, nor she shrinking thereat; which was
againe done in the justice-depute his own presence.” In
1643 Janet Barker at Edinburgh confessed to commerce with
the demon, and stated that he had marked her between the
shoulders. The mark was found “and a pin being thrust
therein, it remained for an hour unperceived by the pannell.’’*8
On 10 March, 1611, Louis Gaufridi, a priest of Accoules
in the diocese of Marseilles, was visited in prison, where he
lay under repeated charges of foulest sorcery, by two
physicians and two surgeons who were appointed to search
for the Devil’s mark. Their joint report ran as follows:
‘* We, the undersigned doctors and surgeons, in obedience to
the directions given us by Messire Anthoine de Thoron,
sieur de Thoron, Councillor to the King in his Court of
Parliament, have visited Messire L. Gaufridy, upon whose
THE WORSHIP OF THE WITCH 73
body we observed three little marks, not very different in
colour from the natural skin. The first is upon his right
thigh, about the middle towards the lower part. When we
pierced this with a needle to the depth of two fingers breadth
he felt no pain, nor did any blood or other humour exude
from the incision.
‘“The second is in the region of the loins, towards the
right, about an inch from the spine and some four fingers
breadth above the femoral muscles. Herein we drove the
needle for three fingers breath, leaving it fixed in this spot
for some time, as we had already done in the first instance,
and yet all the while the said Gaufridy felt no pain, nor was
there any effluxion of blood or other humour of any kind.
‘‘The third mark is about the region of the heart. At
first the needle was introduced without any sensation being
felt, as in the previous instances. But when the place was
probed with some force, he said he felt pain, but yet no
moisture distilled from this laceration. Early the next
morning we again visited him, but we found that the parts
which had been probed were neither swollen nor red. In our
judgement such callous marks which emit no moisture when
pierced, cannot be due to any ancient affection of the skin,
and in accordance with this opinion we submit our report
on this tenth day of March, 1611.
Fontaine, Grassy, Doctors ;
Meérindol, Bontemps, Surgeons.’’®®
On 26 April, 1634, during the famous Loudun trials, Urbain
Grandier, the accused was examined in order to discover the
witch-mark. He was stripped naked, blindfolded, and in the
presence of the officials, René Mannoury, one of the leading
physicians of the town, conducted the search. Two marks
were discovered, one upon the shoulder-blade and the other
upon the thigh, both of which proved insensible even when
pierced with a sharp silver pin.
Inasmuch as the discovery of the devil-mark was regarded
as one of the most convincing indications—if not, indeed,
an infallible proof—that the accused was guilty since he
bore indelibly branded upon his flesh Satan’s own sign-
manual, it is easy to see how the searching for, the recognition
and the probing of, such marks actually grew to bea profession
74 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
in which not a few ingenious persons came to be recognized
as experts and practical authorities. In Scotland, especially,
the ‘“‘ prickers,’’ as they were called, formed a regular gild.
They received a good fee for every witch they discovered,
and, as might be expected, they did not fail to reap a golden
harvest. At the trial of Janet Peaston, in 1646, the magis-
trates of Dalkeith ‘‘ caused John Kincaid of Tranent, the
common pricker, to exercise his craft upon her. He found
two marks of the Devil’s making ; for she could not feel the
pin when it was put into either of the said marks, nor did
the marks bleed when the pin was taken out again. When
she was asked where she thought the pins were put into her,
she pointed to a part of her body distant from the real place.
They were pins of three inches in length.’’®® Another
notorious pricker was John Bain, upon whose unsupported
evidence a large number of unfortunate wretches were
sentenced to death. About 1634 John Balfour of Corhouse
was feared over all the countryside for his exploits; whilst
twenty years later one John Dick proved a rival to Kincaid
himself. The regular trade of these ‘‘common prickers ”’
came to be a serious nuisance, and confessedly opened the
door to all sorts of roguery. The following extraordinary
incident shows how dangerous and villainous in mountebank
hands the examinations could become, which, if conducted
at all, ought at least to be safeguarded by every precaution
and only entrusted to skilled physicians, who should report
the result to grave and learned divines. ‘‘ There came then
to Inverness one Mr. Paterson, who had run over the kingdom
for triall off witches, and was ordinarily called the Pricker,
because his way of triall was with a long brass pin. Stripping
them naked, he alledged that the spell spot was seen and
discovered. After rubbing over the whole body with his
palms he slips in the pin, and, it seemes, with shame and fear
being dasht, they felt it not, but he left it in the flesh, deep
to the head, and desired them to find and take it out. It is
sure some witches were discovered but many honest men and
women were blotted and break by this trick. In Elgin there
were two killed; in Forres two; and one Margret Duff, a
rank witch, burned in Inverness. This Paterson came up to
the Church of Wardlaw, and within the church pricked 14
women and one man brought thither by the Chisholm of
THE WORSHIP OF THE WITCH 75
Commer, and 4 brought by Andrew Fraser, chamerlan of
Ferrintosh. He first polled all their heads and amassed the
heap of haire together, hid in the stone dich, and so proceeded
to pricking.*! Severall of these dyed in prison never brought
to confession. This villan gaind a great deale off mony,
haveing two servants; at last he was discovered to be a
woman disguished in mans cloathes. Such cruelty and
rigure was sustained by a vile varlet imposture.’’®? No doubt
in very many, in the majority of instances, these witch-marks
were natural malformations of the skin, thickened tissue,
birthmarks—I myself have known a subject who was by
prenatal accident stamped upon the upper part of the arm
with the complete figure of a rat—moles, callous warts, or
spots of some kind. But this explanation will not cover
all the cases, and even the sceptical Miss Murray who writes :
** Local anesthesia is vouched for in much of the evidence,
which suggests that there is a substratum of truth in the
statements,’ is bound candidly to confess, ‘“‘ but I can at
present offer no solution of this problem.’’®? Moreover, as
before noticed, this mark was not infrequently branded upon
the novice at admission, often by the Witch-Master, who
presided over the rout, sometimes—it must be admitted—
by non-human agency.
The “little Teat or Pap,’’ so often found on the body of
the wizard or witch, and said to secrete milk which nourished
the familiar, must be carefully distinguished from the
insensible devil-mark. This phenomenon, for no explainable
reason, seems to occur only in the records of England and
New England, where, however, it is of exceedingly frequent
occurrence. Jt is worth remarking that in the last act of
Shadwell’s play, The Lancashire Witches (1681), the witches
are searched by a woman, who reports “‘ they have all great
Biggs and Teats in many Parts, except Mother Madge, and
hers are but small ones.’? Shadwell, who in his voluminous
notes has citations from nearly fifty authors, on this point
writes: “‘ The having of Biggs and Teats all modern Witch-
mongers in England affirm.’** In 1597 at the trial of a
beldame, Elizabeth Wright, of Stapenhill, near Burton-on-
Trent: “‘ The old woman they stript, and found behind her
right sholder a thing much like the vdder of an ewe that
giueth sucke with two teates, like vnto two great wartes,
76 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
the one behinde vnder her armehole, the other a hand off
towardes the top of her shoulder. Being demanded how long
she had those teates, she answered she was borne so.’’®
In the case of the Witch of Edmonton, Elizabeth Sawyer,
who was in spite of her resistance searched upon the express
order of the Bench, it was found by Margaret Weaver, a
widow of an honest reputation, and two other grave matrons,
who performed this duty that there was upon her body “a
thing like a Teate the bignesse of the little finger, and the
length of half a finger, which was branched at the top like
a teate, and seemed as though one had suckt it.’’®* John
Palmer of St. Albans (1649) confessed that ‘‘ upon his com-
pact with the Divel, hee received a flesh brand, or mark,
upon his side, which gave suck to two familiars.’’®’ The
Kentish witch, Mary Read of Lenham (1652), ‘“‘ had a visible
Teat, under her Tongue, and did show it to many.’’®§ At
St. Albans about 1660 there was a wizard who “had like
a Breast on his side.’’®® In the same year at Kidderminster,
a widow, her two daughters, and a man were accused; ‘“‘ the
man had five teats, the mother three, and the eldest daughter,
one.”’’° In 1692 Bridget Bishop, one of the Salem witches,
was brought to trial: ‘“‘ A Jury of Women found a preter-
natural Teat upon her Body: But upon a second search,
within 3 or 4 hours, there was no such thing to be seen.’’?!
There is similar evidence adduced in the accounts of Rose
Cullender and Amy Duny, two Suffolk witches, executed
in 1664; Elizabeth Horner, a Devon witch (1696); Widow
Coman, an Essex witch, who died in her bed (1699); and,
indeed, innumerable other examples might be quoted afford-
ing a whole catena of pertinent illustrations. No doubt many
of these are explicable by the cases of polymastia (mamme
erratice) and polythelia (supernumerary nipples) of which
there are continual records in recent medical works. It
must be freely admitted that these anatomical divagations
are commoner than is generally supposed; frequently they
are so slight that they may pass almost unnoticed ; doubtless
there is exaggeration in many of the inexactly observed
seventeenth-century narratives. However, it has to be said,
as before, that when every most generous allowance is made,
the facts which remain, and the details are very ample,
cannot be covered by physical peculiarities and malformations.
THE WORSHIP OF THE WITCH 717
There is far more truth in the records of the old theologians
and witch finders than many nowadays are disposed to allow.
NOTES TO CHAPTER II.
1 Under Innocent ITT, 1215.
2 Diabolus enim et alii demones a Deo quidem natura creati sunt boni,
sed ipsi per se facti sunt mali.
3 Bossuet says that the writings of Suarez contain the whole of Scholastic
Philosophy.
4 Since it contradicts a definite (certa) theological conclusion or truth clearly
consequent upon two premises, of which one is an article of faith (de fide),
the other naturally certain. :
5 Which explains much of the trifling and silliness in Spiritism ; the idle
answers given through the mediums of the influences at work.
6 Josephus, Antiquities, XIX. 8. 2.
7 Suetonius, Caligula, XXII. Here ample details of Caligula’s worship
may be read.
8 Epigrammatum, V. 8.1. See also IX, 4, et scepius.
9. ..id agens ne quis Rome deus nisi Heliogabalus coleretur....
Nec Romanas tantum extinguere uoluit religiones, sed per orbem terre unum
studens ut Heliogabalus deus unus ubique coleretur. Ailius Lampridius,
Antoninus Heliogabalus, 3; 6.
10 BHyen the Christian (Arian) Constantius II suffered himself to be addressed
as ‘‘ Nostra AXternitas.”’
11 Now commemorated on 14 September, the Feast of the Exaltation
of Holy Cross. Shortly after the Restoration of the Cross to Jerusalem, the
wood was cut up (perhaps for greater safety) into small fragments which
were distributed throughout the Christian world.
12 Didymus, De Trinitate, III. xh.
13 Epiphanius, Her., xlviii. 11.
14 Annales de la Propogation de la Foi, VII (1834), p. 84.
15 DP. C. J. Ibbetson, Outlines of Punjaub Ethnography, Calcutta. 1883.
a P+ B
R 16 | . , vousn’avez pas eu honte de vous agenouiller devant votre Belzebuth,
que vous avez adoré. J. B. Cannaert, Olim procés des Sorciéres en Belgique,
Gand, 1847.
17 Te me remets de tout poinct en ton pouuoir & entre tes mains, ne
recognois autre Dieu: si bien que tu es mon Dieu.
18 On dit au Diable nous vous recognoissons pour nostre maistre, nostre
Dieu, nostre Createur.
19 John Hutchinson, History of the Province of Massachusett’s Bay, 1828,
pes.
20 Satan luy commada de le prier soir & matin, auant qu’elle s’addonat
a faire autre ceuure.
21 Wonderful Discoverie of Elizabeth Sawyer, London, 1621.
22 Rev. F. G. Lee, More Glimpses of the World Unseen, 1878, p. 12.
23 Potest [diabolus] eludere sensus et facere ut appareat caput abcisum,
De Religione, |. 2, c. 16, n. 13, t. 13, p. 578.
24 Huc. Voyage dans la Tartarie, le Thibet et la Chine, I, ix, p. 308. The
author remarks: Ces cérémonies horribles se renouvellent assez souvent dans
les grandes lamaseries de la Tartarie et du Thibet. Nous ne pensons nulle-
ment qu’on puisse mettre toujours sur le compte de la superchérie des faits
de ce genre: car d’aprés tout ce que nous avons vu et entendu parmi les
nations idoldtres, nous sommes persuadé que le démon y joue un grand role.
(These horrible ceremonies frequently occur in the larger lamaseries of Tartary
and Tibet. I am very certain that we cannot always ascribe happenings of
this sort to mere juggling or trickery; for, after all that I have seen and
heard among heathen people, I am confident that the powers of evil are
very largely concerned therein.)
78 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
25 T use this term rather than the more popular ‘‘ Spiritualism.’’ Spiritism
obtains in Italy, France and Germany. ‘“‘ Spiritualism” is correctly a
technical name for the doctrine which denies that the contents of the universe
are limited to matter and the properties and operations of matter.
26 For fuller, and, indeed, conclusive details see Godfrey Raupert’s Modern
Spiritism, London, 1904; and Monsignor Benson’s Spiritualism, Dublin
Review, October, 1909, and reprinted by the Catholic Truth Society.
2” Prognosticare is a late word. Strictly to prognosticate is to deduce from
actual signs, to prophesy is to foretell the future without any such sign or
token.
#8 The Camisards were agreeably satirized by D’Urfey in his comedy
The Modern Prophets ; or, New Wit for a Husband, produced at Drury Lane,
5 May, 1709, (Tatler, 11), and printed quarto, 1709, (no date). One of the
principal characters is ‘‘ Marrogn, A Knavish French Camizar and Priest,”’
created by Bowen. This is a portrait of Elie Marion. In his preface D’Urfey
speaks of ‘‘ the abominable Impostures of those craz’d Enthusiasts ’’ whom
he lashes. The play had been composed in 1708, but production was post-
poned owing to the death of the Prince Consort, 28 October of that year.
Swift, Predictions for the Year 1708, has: ‘‘ June. This month will be
distinguished at home, by the utter dispersing of those ridiculous deluded
enthusiasts, commonly called the prophets ; occasioned chiefly by seeing the
time come, when many of their prophecies should be fulfilled, and then
finding themselves deceived by contrary events.”
29 See also Fléchier’s Récit fidéle in Lettres choisies, Lyons, 1715; and
Brueys’ Histoire du fanatisme de notre temps, Montpellier, 1713.
8° Aprés que Dieu a parlé de sa propre bouche des magiciens et sorciers,
qui est l’incredule qui on peut justement douter ?
81 In the fourteenth century bas-reliefs on cathedrals frequently represent
men kneeling down before the Devil, worshipping him, and devoting them-
selves to him as his servants. Martonne, Piété aw Moyen Age, p. 137.
82 George Ives, A History of Penal Methods, p. 75. His admirable and
documented chapter IT, ‘‘ The Witch Trials,’ should be carefully read.
33 Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church.
34 Matthew Paris, Chronica Maiora.
hath Wi as EEO Te
86 All these quotations are from W. H. Lecky, History of Rationalism in
Europe. c.1
37 Rev. Peter Lorimer, D.p.
°8 First published by Isidore Liseux, 1875. p. 21. XIII. Ludovico Maria
Sinistrari, Minorite, was born at Ameno (Novara) 26 February, 1622. He was
Consultor to the Supreme Tribunal of the Holy Office; Vicar-general of the
Archbishop of Avignon, and Theologian Advisory to the Archbishop of Milan.
He is described as ‘‘ omnium scientiarum uir.’”? He died 6 March, 1701.
39 L’Incredulité et Mescreance du Sortilege, Paris, 1622, p- 38.
*° Subscriptio autem sepissime peragitur proprio sanguine... . Sic
Auguste referebat Joseph Egmund Schultz, se anno 1671. d. 15. Maji sanguine
proprio tinctum manuscriptum, in membrana, nomine picto, obuolutoque
muccinio, in media nocte, cum hora undecima & duodecima agebatur, in
compitum iecisse, atque pactum sic corroborasse . . . Sic de infausto illo
Fausto Widmannus refert, proprio sanguine ex leuiter uulnerato pollice
emisso illum se totum diabolo adscripsisse, Deoque repudium misisse. De
Sagis, Christian Stridtheckh, Lipsiw, 1691. (XXII).
“1 See Gotz, De subscriptionibus sanguine humano firmatis, Liibeck, 1724.
Also Scheible, Die Sage vom Faust. Stuttgart, 1847. Sofar as 1am aware
this point has been neglected by writers on Witchcraft.
* Ne fcedora quidem incruenta sunt: sauciant se, qui paciscuntur,
exemtumque sanguinem, ubi permiscuere, degustant. Id putant mansure
fidei pignus certissimum.
4°... uel quia Deus non permittit, uel propter alias rationes nobis
occultas. De Superstitione, VIII. i. 13.
** Tune autem propria culpa diuinationis iam commissa est ab homine,
THE WORSHIP OF THE WITCH 79
etiamsi effectus desideratus non fuerit subsecutus. (For the sin of divination
is actually committed by the sinner and that willingly, although he obtain
not the desired effect of his action.) Idem.
4° Theologia moralis, 1. iii. n. 28. Monendi sunt se teneri 1. Pactum
expressum, si quod habent cum demone, aut commercium abiurare et
dissoluere; 2. Libros suos, schedas, ligaturas, aliaque instrumenta artis
comburere; 3. Comburere chirographum, si habeat: si iuro solus damon
id habeat, non necessario cogendus est ut reddat, quia pactum sufficienter
soluitur per pcenitentiam ; 4. Damna illata resarcire.
46 Bollandists, 4 February.
47 Breuiarium Romanum, Paris Autumnalis, 26 September, lectio iii. of
Matins. Upon this history Calderon has founded his great drama El Magico
Prodigioso.
48 Bollandists, 14 May. Breuiarium iuata S. Ordinis Preedicatorum.
50 Hzamination of Joane Williford, London, 1643.
5t John Davenport, Witches of Huntingdon, London, 1646.
52 Glanvill, Sadducismus Triumphatus.
°3 Antoinette Bourignon, La Vie exterieure, Amsterdam, 1683.
54 Delrio. Disquisitiones magice, |. v. sect. 4. t. 2. Non eadem est forma
Signi; aliquando est simile leporis uestigio, aliquando bufonis pedi, aliquando
aranex, uel catello, uel gliri.
°° Idem. In uirorum enim corpore sepe uisitur sub palpebris, sub labiis,
sub axillis, in humeris, in sede ima: feminis etiam, in mammis uel mulie-
bribus locis.
56. . . le Diable leur fait quelque marque comme avec une aleine de fer
en quelque partie du corps.
57 Newes from Scotland, London. (1592.) Roxburgh Club reprint, 1816.
58 Abbreviate of the Justiciary Record.
5° Nous, medecins et chirurgiens soussignés, suivant le commandement
a nous fait par messire Anthoine de Thoron, sieur de Thoron, conseiller du roy
en sa cour de parlement, avons visité messire L. Gaufridy au corps duquel
avons remarqué trois petites marques peu differentes en couleur du reste du
cuir. L’une en sa cuisse sénestre sur le milieu et en la partie inferieure, en
laquelle ayant enforcé une aiguille environ deux travers de doigts n’a
senti aucune douleur, ni de la place n’est sorti point de sang ni autre
humidité.
La seconde est en la region des lombes en la partie droite, un poulce prés de
l’épine du dos et quatre doigts au-dessus les muscles de la fesse, en laquelle
nous avons enfoncé l’aiguille trois travers de doigts, la laissons comme avions
fait a la premiére plantée en cette partie quelque espace de temps, sans toute-
fois que le dit Gaufridy ait senti aucune douleur et que sang ni humeur
quelconque en soit sorti.
La troisi¢me est vers la région du ceur. Laquelle, au commencement
qu’on mit laiguille parut comme les autres sans sentiment; mais 4 mesure
que l’on enfongait fort avant, il dit sentir quelque douleur; ne sortant
toutefois aucune humidité, et ayant visité le lendemain au matin, n’avons
reconnu aux parties piquées ni tumeur, ni rougeur. A cause de quoi nous
disons telles marques insensibles en rendant point d’humidité étant piquées,
ne pouvoir arriver par aucune maladie du cuir précédante, et tel faisons
notre rapport ce 10 mars, 1611. Fontaine, Grassy, médecins; Mérindol,
Bontemps, chirurgiens.
So great was the importance attached to the discovery of a witch-mark
upon the body of the accused that when the above medico-legal report was
read in court, Father Sebastian Michaelis, a learned Dominican, who was
acting as consultor in the case, horror-struck, involuntarily exclaimed :
** Good sooth, were we at Avignon this man would be executed to-morrow ! ”’
Gaufridi confessed: ‘‘J’advoue que les dites marques sont faites pour
protestation qu’on sera toujours bon et fidéle serviteur du diable toute la
80 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
vie.”’ (I confess that these marks were made as a sign that I shall be a good
and faithful servant to the Devil all my life long.)
60 Pitcairn, Records of Justiciary. In 1663 Kincaid was thrown into jail,
where he lay nine weeks for ‘‘ pricking’ without a magistrate’s warrant.
He was only released owing to his great age and on condition that he would
‘‘ prick ’’ no more.
61 This shaving of the head and body was the usual procedure before the
search for the devil-mark. We find it recorded in nearly every case. Generally
a barber was called in to perform the operation: e.g. the trials of Gaufridi
and Grandier, where the details are very ample.
62 The Wardlaw Manuscript, p. 446. Scottish History Society publication,
Edinburgh.
68 The Witch-Cult in Western Hurope, p. 86.
64 Angelica in Love for Love (1695), II, mocking her superstitious old uncle,
Foresight, and the Nurse, cries: ‘‘ Look to it, Nurse; I can bring Witness
that you have a great unnatural Teat under your Left Arm, and he another ;
and that you Suckle a young Devil in the shape of a Tabby-Cat by turns,
I can.”
65 The most wonderfull ... storieofa... Witch named Alse Gooderidge.
London. 1597.
66 Goodcole’s Wonderfull Discoverie of Elizabeth Sawyer, London, 1621.
There is an allusion in Ford and Dekker’s drama, IV :
Sawyer. My dear Tom-boy, welcome...
Comfort me: thou shalt haue the teat anon.
Dog. Bow, wow! I'll haue it now.
67 W.B. Gerish. The Devil’s Delusions, Bishops Stortford, 1914.
68 Prodigious and Tragicall Histories, London, 1652.
69 W. B. Gerish, Relation of Mary Hall of Gadsden, 1912
70 'T. B. Howell, State Trials, London, 1816.
71 Cotton Mather, Wonders of the Invisible World.
CHAPTER III
DEMONS AND FAMILIARS
ONE of the most authoritative of the older writers upon
Witchcraft, Francesco-Maria Guazzo, a member of the
Congregation of S. Ambrose ad Nemus,? in his encyclopedic
Compendium Maleficarum, first published at Milan, 1608,
has drawn up under eleven heads those articles in which a
solemn and complete profession of Witchcraft was then held
to consist :
First: The candidates have to conclude with the Devil,
or some other Wizard or Magician acting in the Devil’s stead,
.an express compact by which, in the presence of witnesses
they devote themselves to the service of evil, he giving them
in exchange his pledge for riches, luxury, and such things as
they desire.
Secondly : They abjure the Catholic Faith, explicitly with-
- draw from their obedience to God, renounce Christ and in a
particular manner the Patronage and Protection of Our Lady,
curse all Saints, and forswear the Sacraments. In Guernsey,
in 1617, Isabel Becquet went to Rocquaine Castle, ‘the
usual place where the Devil kept his Sabbath: no sooner
had she arrived there than the Devil came to her in the form
of a dog, with two great horns sticking up: and with one
of his paws (which seemed to her like hands) took her by the
hand: and calling her by her name told her that she was
welcome: then immediately the Devil made her kneel down :
while he himself stood up on his hind legs; he then made
her express detestation of the Eternal in these words: I
renounce God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost ;
and then caused her to worship and invoke himself.’
De Lancre tells us that Jeannette d’Abadie, a lass of sixteen,
confessed that she was made to “renounce & deny her
Creator, the Holy Virgin, the Saints, Baptism, father, mother,
relations, Heaven, earth, & all that the world contains.’’?
G 81
82 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
In a very full confession made by Louis Gaufridi on the
second of April, 1611, to two Capuchins, Father Ange and
Father Antoine, he revealed the formula of his abjuration
of the Catholic faith. It ran thus: ‘‘I, Louis Gaufridi,
renounce all good, both spiritual as well as temporal, which
may be bestowed upon me by God, the Blessed Virgin Mary,
all the Saints of Heaven, particularly my Patron S. John-
Baptist, as also S. Peter, S. Paul, and S. Francis, and I give
myself body and soul to Lucifer, before whom I stand,
together with every good that I may ever possess (save
always the benefit of the sacraments touching those who
receive them). And according to the tenour of these terms
have I signed and sealed.” Madeleine de la Palud, one of
his victims, used a longer and more detailed declaration in
which the following hideous blasphemies occurred: “ With
all my heart and most unfeignedly and with all my will most
deliberately do I wholly renounce God, Father, Son, and
Holy Ghost ; the most Holy Mother of God; all the Angels
and especially my Guardian Angel, the Passion of Our Lord
Jesus Christ, His Precious Blood and the merits thereof, my
lot in Paradise, all the good inspirations which God may
give me in the future, all prayers which are made or may be
made for me.’’®
Thirdly: They cast away with contempt the most Holy
Rosary, delivered by Our Lady to S. Dominic ;* the Cord
of S. Francis; the cincture of S. Augustine; the Carmelite
scapular bestowed upon S. Simon Stock; they cast upon
the ground and trample under their feet in the mire the Cross,
Holy Medals, Agnus Dei,’ should they possess such or carry
them upon their persons. S. Francis girded himself with a
rough rope in memory of the bonds wherewith Christ was
bound during His Passion, and a white girdle with three
knots has since formed part of the Franciscan habit.
Sixtus IV, by his Bull Exsuperne: dispositionis, erected the
Archconfraternity of the Cord of S. Francis in the basilica
of the Sacro Convento at Assisi, enriching it with many
Indulgences, favours which have been confirmed by pontiff
after pontiff. Archconfraternities are erected not only in-
Franciscan but in many other churches and aggregated to
the centre at Assisi. The Archconfraternity of Our Lady of
Consolation, or of the Black Leathern Belt of S. Monica,
PLATE III
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( face p, 82
DEMONS AND FAMILIARS 83
S. Augustine and S. Nicolas of Tolentino, took its rise from
a vision of S. Monica, who received a black leathern belt
from Our Lady. S. Augustine, S. Ambrose, and S. Simplici-
anus all wore such a girdle, which forms a distinctive
feature of the dress of Augustinian Eremites. After the
canonization of S. Nicolas of Tolentino it came into general
use as an article of devotion, and Eugenius IV in 1489 erected
the above Archconfraternity. A Bull of Gregory XIII Ad ea
(15 July, 1575) confirmed this and added various privileges
and Indulgences. The Archconfraternity is erected in
Augustinian sanctuaries, from the General of which Order
leave must be obtained for its extension to other churches.
Fourthly ; All witches vow obedience and subjection into
the hands of the Devil; they pay him homage and vassalage
(often by obscene ceremonies), and lay their hands upon a
large black book which is presented to them. They bind
themselves by blasphemous oaths never to return to the true
faith, to observe no divine precept, to do no good work, but
to obey the Demon only and to attend without fail the
nightly conventicles. They pledge themselves to frequent
the midnight assemblies. These conventicles or covens?®
(from conuentus) were bands or companies of witches,
composed of men and women, apparently under the discipline
of an officer, all of whom for convenience’sake belonged to
the same district. Those who belonged to a coven were,
it seems from the evidence at trials, bound to attend the
weekly Esbat. The arrest of one member of a coven generally
led to the implication of the rest. Cotton Mather remarks,
** The witches are organized like Congregational Churches.”’
Fifithly: The witches promise to strive with all their
power and to use every inducement and endeavour to draw
other men and women to their detestable practices and the
worship of Satan.
The witches were imbued with the missionary spirit, which
made them doubly damnable in the eyes of the divines and
doubly guilty in the eyes of the law. So in the case of
Janet Breadheid of Auldearne, we find that her husband
“enticed her into that craft.”!° A girl named Bellot, of
Madame Bourignon’s academy, confessed that her mother
had taken her to the Sabbat when she was quite a child.
Another girl alleged that all worshippers of the Devil ‘‘ are
84 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
constrained to offer him their Children.” Elizabeth Francis
of Chelmsford, a witch tried in 1566, was only about twelve
years old when her grandmother first taught her the art
of sorcery.11 The famous Pendle beldame, Elizabeth Dem-
dike ‘‘ brought vp her owne Children, instructed her Graund-
children, and tooke great care and paines to bring them to
be Witches.’’!2, At Salem, George Burroughs, a minister, was
accused by a large number of women as “‘ the person who
had Seduc’d and Compell’d them into the snares of Witch-
eralicy
Siathly: The Devil administers to witches a kind of
sacrilegious baptism, and after abjuring their Godfathers and
Godmothers of Christian Baptism and Confirmation they
have assigned to them new sponsors—as it were—whose
charge it is to instruct them in sorcery: they drop their
former name and exchange it for another, generally a
scurrilous and grotesque nickname.
In 1609 Jeanette d’Abadie, a witch of the Basses-Pyrénées,
confessed ‘‘that she often saw children baptized at the
Sabbat, and these she informed us were the offspring of
sorcerers and not of other persons, but of witches who are
accustomed to have their sons and daughters baptized at
the Sabbat rather than at the Font.’®= June 20, 1614, at
Orleans, Silvain Nevillon amongst other crimes acknowledged
that he had frequented assemblies of witches, and “ that
they baptize babies at the Sabbat with Chrism. ... Then
they anoint the child’s head therewith muttering certain
Latin phrases.’’!4 Gentien le Clerc, who was tried at the
same time, ‘‘ said that his mother, as he had been told,
presented him at the Sabbat when he was but three years
old, to a monstrous goat, whom they called ’Aspic. He said
that he was baptized at the Sabbat, at Carrior d’Olivet, with
fourteen or fifteen other children. . . .”’15
Among the confessions made by Louis Gaufridi at Aix in
March, 1611, were: ‘‘ I confess that baptism is administered
at the Sabbat, and that every sorcerer, devoting himself to
the Devil, binds himself by a particular vow that he will
have all his children baptized at the Sabbat, if this may by
any possible means be effected. Every child who is thus
baptized at the Sabbat receives a name, wholly differing
from his own name. I confess that at this baptism water,
DEMONS AND FAMILIARS 85
sulphur, and salt are employed: the sulphur renders the
recipient the Devil’s slave whilst salt confirms his baptism
in the Devil’s service. I confess that the form and intention
are to baptize in the name of Lucifer, Belzebuth and other
demons making the sign of the cross beginning backwards
and then tracing from the feet and ending at the head.’’!®
A number of Swedish witches (1669) were baptized : ‘‘ they
added, that he caused them to be baptized too by such
Priests as he had there, and made them confirm their Baptism
with dreadful Oaths and Imprecations.’’!”
The giving of a new name seems to have been very general.
Thus in May, 1569, at S. Andrews “‘ a notabill sorceres callit
Nicniven was condemnit to the death and burnt.” Her
Christian name is not given merely her witch’s name bestowed
by the demon. In the famous Fian case it was stated that
when at the meeting in North Berwick kirk Robert Grierson
was named great confusion ensued for the witches and war-
locks “‘all ran hirdie-girdie, and were angry, for it was
promised that he should be called Robert the Comptroller,
for the expriming of his name.”!8 Euphemia McCalyan of
the same coven was called Cane, and Barbara Napier Naip.
Isabel Goudie of Auldearne (1662) stated that many witches
known to her had been baptized in their own blood by such
names as “ Able-and-Stout,” ‘* Over-the-dike-with-it,”’
‘* Raise-the-wind,” ‘‘ Pickle-nearest-the-wind,”’ ‘‘ Batter-
them-down-Maggy,”’ “‘ Blow-Kate,”’ and similar japeries.
Seventhly: The witches cut off a piece of their own
garments, and as a token of homage tender it to the Devil,
who takes it away and keeps it.
Eighthly: The Devil draws on the ground a circle wherein
stand the Novices, Wizards, and Witches, and there they
confirm by oath all their aforesaid promises. This has a
mystical signification. ‘* They take this oath to the Demon
standing in a circle described upon the ground, perchance
because a circle is the Symbol of Divinity, & the earth God’s
footstool and thus he assuredly wishes them to believe that
he is the lord of Heaven and earth.’’!®
Ninthly: The sorcerers request the Devil to strike them
out of the book of Christ, and to inscribe them in his own.
Then is solemnly brought forward a large black book, the
same as that on which they laid their hands when they did
86 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
their first homage, and they are inscribed in this by the
Devil’s claw.
These books or rolls were kept with great secrecy by the
chief officer of the coven or even the Grand Master of a
district. They would have been guarded as something as
precious as life itself, seeing that they contained the dam-
ning evidence of a full list of the witches of a province or
county, and in addition thereto seems to have been added a
number of magic formule, spells, charms, and probably,
from time to time, a record of the doings of the various
witches. The signing of such a book is continually referred
to in the New England trials. So when Deliverance Hobbs
had made a clean breast of her sorceries, ‘‘ She now testifi’d,
that this Bishop [Bridget Bishop, condemned and executed as
a long-continued witch] tempted her to sign the Book again,
and to deny what she had confess’d.”’ The enemies of the
notorious Matthew Hopkins made great capital out of the
story that by some sleight of sorcery he had got hold of one
of these Devil’s memorandum-books, whence he copied a list
of witches, and this it was that enabled him to be so infallible
in his scent. The Witch-Finder General was hard put to it
to defend himself from the accusation, and becomes quite
pitiful in his whining asseverations of innocence. There is a
somewhat vague story, no dates being given, that a Devil’s
book was carried off by Mr. Williamson of Cardrona (Peebles),
who filched it from the witches whilst they were dancing on
Minchmoor. But the whole coven at once gave chase, and
he was glad to abandon it and escape alive. |
Sometimes the catalogue of witches was inscribed on a
separate parchment, and the book only used to write down
charms and spells. Such a volume was the Red Book of
Appin known to have actually been in existence a hundred
years ago. Tradition said it was stolen from the Devil by a
trick. It was in manuscript, and contained a large number
of magic runes and incantations for the cure of cattle diseases,
the increase of flocks, the fertility of fields. This document, »
which must be of immense importance and interest, when
last heard of was (I believe) in the possession of the now-
extinct Stewarts of Invernahyle. This strange volume, so
the story ran, conferred dark powers on the owner, who knew
what inquiry would be made ere the question was poised ;
DEMONS AND FAMILIARS 87
and the tome was so confected with occult arts that he who
read it must wear a circlet of iron around his brow as he
turned those mystic pages.
Another volume, of which mention is made—one that is
often confused?° with, but should be distinguished from, these
two—is what we may term the Devil’s Missal. Probably
this had its origin far back in the midst of the centuries among
the earliest heretics who passed down their evil traditions to
their followers, the Albigenses and the Waldenses or Vaudois.
This is referred to by the erudite De Lancre, who in his
detailed account of the Black Mass as performed in the region
of the Basses-Pyrénées (1609) writes: ‘‘ Some kind of altar
was erected upon the pillars of infernal design, and hereon,
without reciting the Confiteor or Alleluya, turning over the
leaves of a certain book which he held, he began to mumble
certain phrases of Holy Mass.’’?! Silvain Nevillon (Orleans,
1614) confessed that ‘‘ the Sabbat was held in a house. . . .
He saw there a tall dark man opposite to the one who was in
a corner of the ingle, and this man was perusing a book,
whose leaves seemed black & crimson, & he kept muttering
between his teeth although what he said could not be heard,
and presently he elevated a black host and then a chalice of
some cracked pewter, all foul and filthy.’’?? Gentien le Clerc,
who was also accused, acknowledged that at these infernal
assemblies ‘‘ Mass was said, and the Devil was celebrant. He
was vested in a chasuble upon which was a broken cross. He
turned his back to the altar when he was about to elevate
the Host and the Chalice, which were both black. He read
in a mumbling tone from a book, the cover of which was soft
and hairy like a wolf’s skin. Some leaves were white and red,
others black.’’?? Madeleine Bavent, who was the chief figure
in the trials at Louviers (1647), acknowledged: ‘* Mass was
read from the book of blasphemies, which contained the
eanon. This same volume was used in processions. It was
full of the most hideous curses against the Holy Trinity, the
Holy Sacrament of the Altar, the other Sacraments and
ceremonies of the Church. It was written in a language
completely unknown to me.’24 Possibly this blasphemous
‘volume is the same as that which Satanists to-day use when
performing their abominable rites.
Tenthly: The witches promise the Devil sacrifices and
88 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
offerings at stated times; once a fortnight, or at least once
a month, the murder of some child, or some mortal poisoning,
and every week to plague mankind with evils and mischiefs,
hailstorms, tempest, fires, cattle-plagues and the like.
The Liber Penitentialis of S. Theodore, Archbishop of
Canterbury 668-690, the earliest ecclesiastical law of Eng-
land, has clauses condemning those who invoke fiends, and
so cause the weather to change ‘‘si quis emissor tempestatis
fuerit.’? In the Capitaluria of Charlemagne (died at Aachen,
28 January, 814), the punishment of death is declared against
those who by evoking the demon, trouble the atmosphere,
excite tempests, destroy the fruits of the earth, dry up the
milk of cows, and torment their fellow-creatures with diseases
or any other misfortune. All persons found guilty of employ-
ing such arts were to be executed immediately upon con-
viction. Innocent VIII in his celebrated Bull, Summis de-
siderantes affectibus, 5 December, 1484, charges sorcerers in
detail with precisely the same foul practices. The most
celebrated occasion when witches raised a storm was that
which played so important a part in the trial of Dr. Fian
and his coven, 1590-1, when the witches, in order to drown
King James and Queen Anne on their voyage from Denmark,
‘*tooke a Cat and christened it,’ and after they had bound
a dismembered corpse to the animal “‘ in the night following
the said Cat was convayed into the middest of the sea by all
these witches, sayling in their riddles or cives, ... this
doone, then did arise such a tempest in the sea, as a greater
hath not bene seene.”?> The bewitching of cattle is alleged
from the earliest time, and at Dornoch in Sutherland as late
as 1722, an old hag was burned for having cast spells upon
the pigs and sheep of her neighbours, the sentence being
pronounced by the sheriff-depute, Captain David Ross of
Little Dean. This was the last execution of a witch in
Scotland.
With regard to the sacrifice of children there is a catena
of ample evidence. Reginald Scot?® writes in 1584: ‘‘ This
must be an infallible rule, that euerie fortnight, or at the
least euerie month, each witch must kill one child at the
least for hir part.’? When it was dangerous or impossible.
openly to murder an infant the life would be taken by poison,
and in 1645 Mary Johnson, a witch of Wyvenhoe, Essex, was
DEMONS AND FAMILIARS 89
tried for poisoning two children, no doubt as an act of
sorcery.?’ It is unknown how many children Gilles de Rais
devoted to death in his impious orgies. More than two
hundred corpses were found in the latrines of Tiffauges,
Machecoul, Champtocé. It was in 1666 that Louis XIV
was first informed of the abominations which were vermi-
culating his capital “des sacriléges, des profanations, des
messes impies, des sacrifices de jeunes enfants.”’ Night after
night in the rue Beauregard at the house of the mysterious
Catherine la Voisin the abbé Guibourg was wont to kill
young children for his hideous ritual, either by strangulation
or more often by piercing their throats with a sharp dagger
and letting the hot blood stream into the chalice as he cried :
** Astaroth, Asmodée, je vous conjure d’accepter le sacrifice
que je vous présente!’’ (Astaroth! Asmodeus! Receive,
I beseech you, this sacrifice I offer unto you!) A priest
named Tournet also said Satanic Masses at which children
were immolated; in fact the practice was so common that
la Chaufrein, a mistress of Guibourg, would supply § a child
for a crown?’ piece.
Eleventhly : The Demon imprints upon the Witches some
mark. . . . When this has all been performed in accordance
with the instructions of those Masters who have initiated
the Novice, the latter bind themselves by fearful oaths never
to worship the Blessed Sacrament; to heap curses on all
Saints and especially to abjure our Lady Immaculate; to
trample under foot and spit upon all holy images, the Cross
and Relics of Saints; never to use the Sacraments or Sacra-
mentals unless with some magical end in view; never to
make a good confession to the priest, but always to keep
hidden their commerce with hell. In return the Demon
promises that he will at all times afford them prompt assist-
ance ; that he will accomplish all their desires in this world
and make them eternally happy after their death. This
solemn profession having been publicly made each novice
has assigned to him a several demon who is called Magistellus
(a familiar), This familiar can assume either a male or a
female shape; sometimes he appears as a full-grown man,
sometimes as a satyr; and if it is a woman who has been
received as a witch he generally assumes the form of a rank
buck-goat.
90 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
It is obvious that there is no question here of animal
familiars, but rather of evil intelligences who were, it is be-
lieved, able to assume a body of flesh. The whole question
is, perhaps, one of the most dark and difficult connected with
Witchcraft and magic, and the details of these hideous con-
nexions are such—for asthe Saints attain tothe purity of angels,
so, on the other hand, will the bond slaves of Satan defile them-
selves with every kind of lewdness—that many writers have
with an undue diffidence and modesty dismissed the subject
far too summarily for the satisfaction of the serious inquirer.
In the first place, we may freely allow that many of these
lubricities are to be ascribed to hysteria and hallucinations,
to nightmare and the imaginings of disease, but when all
deductions have been made—when we admit that in many
cases the incubus or succubus can but have been a human
being, some agent of the Grand Master of the district,—none
the less enough remains from the records of the trials to
convince an unprejudiced mind that there was a considerable
substratum of fact in the confessions of the accused. As
Canon Ribet has said in his encyclopedic La Mystique Divine,
a work warmly approved by the great intellect of Leo XIIT:
‘‘ After what we have learned from records and _ personal
confessions we can scarcely entertain any more doubts, and
it is our plain duty to oppose, even if it be but by a simple
affirmation on our part, those numerous writers who, either
through presumption or rashness, treat these horrors as idle
talk or mere hallucination.’’2® Bizouard also in his authori-
tative Rapports de Vhomme avec le démon writes of the incubus
and succubus: ‘‘ These relations, far from being untrue, bear
the strongest marks of authenticity which can be given them
by official proceedings regulated and approved with all the
caution and judgement brought to bear upon them by
enlightened and conscientious magistrates who, throughout
all ages, have been in a position to test plain facts.”%°
It seems to me that if unshaken evidence means anything
at all, if the authority of the ablest and acutest intellects
of all ages in all countries is not to count for merest vapourings
and fairy fantasies, the possibility—I do not, thank God,
say the frequency—of these demoniacal connexions is not to
be denied. Of course the mind already resolved that such
things cannot be is inconvincible even by demonstration, and
DEMONS AND FAMILIARS 91
one can only fall back upon the sentence of S. Augustine:
‘’ Hane assidue immunditiam et tentare et efficere, plures
talesque asseuerant, ut hoc negare impudentie uideatur.’’*!
In which place the holy doctor explicitly declares: ‘‘ Seeing
it is so general a report, and so many aver it either from their
own experience or from others, that are of indubitable
honesty and credit, that the sylvans and fawns, commonly
called incubi, have often injured women, desiring and acting
carnally with them: and that certain devils whom the Gauls
call Duses, do continually practise this uncleanness, and
tempt others to it, which is affirmed by such persons, and
with such confidence that it were impudence to deny it.”
The learned William of Paris, confessor of Philip le Bel,
lays down: ‘‘ That there exist such beings as are commonly
called incubi or succubi and that they indulge their burning
lusts, and that children, as it is freely acknowledged, can be
born from them, is attested by the unimpeachable and
unshaken witness of many men and women who have been
filled with foul imaginings by them, and endured their
lecherous assaults and lewdness.’’®?
S. Thomas*? and 8S. Bonaventura,** also, speak quite
plainly on the subject.
Francisco Suarez, the famous Jesuit theologian, writes
with caution but with directness: ‘‘ This is the teaching on
this point of S. Thomas, who is generally followed by all other
theologians. . . . The reason for their opinion is this: Such
an action considered in its entirety by no means exceeds the
natural powers of the demon, whilst the exercise of such
powers is wholly in accordance with the malice of the demon,
and it may well be permitted by God, owing to the sins
of some men. Therefore this teaching cannot be denied
without many reservations and exceptions. Wherefore
S. Augustine has truly said, that inasmuch as this doctrine
of incubi and succubi is established by the opinion of many
who are experienced and learned, it were sheer impudence
to deny it.”°> The Salmanticenses—that is to say, the authors
of the courses of Scholastic philosophy and theology, and of
Moral theology, published by the lecturers of the theological
college of the Discaleed Carmelites at Salamanca—in their
weighty Theologia Moralis** state: ‘‘Some deny this,
believing it impossible that demons should perform the carnal
92 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
act with human beings,”’ but they affirm, ‘‘ None the less the
opposite opinion is most certain and must be followed.’’>’
Charles René Billuart, the celebrated Dominican, in his T'rac-
tatus de Angelis expressly declares: ‘‘ The same evil spirit
may serve as a succubus to a man, and as an incubus to a
woman.’’?8 One of the most learned—if not the most learned
—of the popes, Benedict XIV, in his erudite work De
Seruorum Dei Beatificatione, treats this whole question at
considerable length with amplest detail and solid references,
Liber IV, Pars i. c. 3.89 Commenting upon the passage “‘ The
sons of God went unto the daughters of men ”’ (Genesis vi. 4),
the pontiff writes: ‘‘ This passage has reference to those
Demons who are known as incubi and succubi. . . . It is true
that whilst nearly all authors admit the fact, some writers
deny that there can be offspring. . . . On the other hand,
several writers assert that connexion of this kind is possible
and that children may be born from it, nay, indeed, they
tell us that this has taken place, although it were done in
some new and mysterious way which is ordinarily unknown
to man.’’?°
S. Alphonsus Liguori in his Prawxis confessariorum, VII,
n.111, writes: ‘‘ Some deny that there are evil spirits, incubi
and succubi; but writers of authority for the most part
assert that such is the case.’’™!
In his Theologia Moralis he speaks quite precisely when
defining the technical nature of the sin witches commit in com-
merce with incubi.*? 4% This opinion is also that of Martino
Bonacina,*! and of Vincenzo Filliucci, $.J.4° ‘‘ Busembaum
has excellently observed that carnal sins with an evil spirit
fall under the head of the technical term bestialitas.”’*® This
is also the conclusion of Thomas Tamburini, S.J. (1591-1675) ;
Benjamin Elbel, O.F.M. (1690-1756) ;47 Cardinal Cajetan,
O.P. (1469-1534) “ the lamp of the Church ”’?; Juan Azor, S.J.
(1535-1608); ‘‘in wisdom, in depth of learning and in
gravity of judgement taking deservedly high rank among
theologians ”’ (Gury); and many other authorities.48 What a
penitent should say in confession is considered by Monsignor
Craisson, sometime Rector of the Grand Seminary of Valence
and Vicar-General of the diocese, in his Tractate De Rebus
Uenereis ad usum Confessariorum.*® Jean-Baptiste Bouvier
(1783-1854) the famous bishop of Le Mans, in his Dissertatio
DEMONS AND FAMILIARS 93
in Seatum Decalogi Preceptum®® (p. 78) writes: ‘“‘ All theo-
logians speak of . . . evil spirits who appear in the shape
of a man, a woman, or even some animal. This is either a
real and actual presence, or the effect of imagination. They
decide that this sin . . . incurs particular guilt which must
be specifically confessed, to wit an evil superstition whereof
the essence is a compact with the Devil. In this sin, therefore,
we have two distinct kinds of malice, one an offence against
chastity ; the other against our holy faith.’’®! Dom Dominic
Schram, ®? O.S.B., in his Institutiones Theologie Mystice poses
the following: ‘‘ The inquiry is made whether a demon...
may thus attack a man or woman, whose obsession would
be suffered if the subject were wholly bent upon obtaining
perfection and walking the highest paths of contemplation.
Here we must distinguish the true and the false. It is certain
that—whatever doubters may say—there exist such demons,
incubi and succubi: and S. Augustine asserts (The City of
God, Book XV, chapter 23) that it is most rash to advance
the contrary. . . . S. Thomas, and most other theologians
maintain this too. Wherefore the men or women who suffer
these impudicities are sinners who either invite demons .. .
or who freely consent to demons when the evil spirits tempt
them to commit such abominations. That these and other
abandoned wretches may be violently assaulted by the demon
we cannot doubt ...and I myself have known several
persons who although they were greatly troubled on account
of their crimes, and utterly loathed this foul intercourse with
the demon, were nevertheless compelled sorely against their
will to endure these assaults of Satan.’’°%
It will be seen that great Saints and scholars and all moral
theologians of importance affirm the possibility of commerce
with incarnate evil intelligences. The demonologists also
range themselves in a solid phalanx of assent. Hermann
Thyraus, S.J.,54 in his De Spirituum apparitione says: “‘ It
is so rash and inept to deny these (things) that so to adopt
this attitude you must needs reject and spurn the most
weighty and considered judgements of most holy and
authoritative writers, nay, you must wage war upon man’s
sense and consciousness, whilst at the same time you expose
your ignorance of the power of the Devil and the empery
evil spirits may obtain over man.’5> Delrio, in his Das-
94 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
quisitiones Magice, is even more emphatic: “‘ So many sound
authors and divines have upheld this belief that to differ
from them is mere obstinacy and foolhardiness; for the
Fathers, theologians, and all the wisest writers on philosophy
agree upon this matter, the truth of which is furthermore
proved by the experience of all ages and peoples.”°® The
erudite Sprenger in the Malleus Maleficarum has much the
same.®? John Nider, O.P. (1380-1488) in his Formicarius,
which may be described as a treatise on the theological,
philosophical, and social problems of his day, with no small
acumen remarks: ‘‘ The reason why evil spirits appear as
incubi and succubi would seem to be that . . . they inflict
a double hurt on man, both in his soul and body, and it is
a supreme joy to devils thus to injure humankind.’’®> Paul
Grilland in his De Sortilegio (Lyons, 1538) writes: ‘* A demon
assumes the form of the succubus. . . . This is the explicit
teaching of the theologians.’’°®
‘“It has often been known by most certain and actual
experience that women in spite of their resistance have been
overpowered by demons.”’ Such are the words of the famous
Alfonso de Castro, O.F.M.,®° whose authoritative pronounce-
ments upon Scripture carried such weight at the Council of
Trent, and who was Archbishop-elect of Compostella when
he died. Pierre Binsfeld, De confessione maleficarum, sums
up: ‘* This is a most solemn and undoubted fact not only
proved by actual experience, but also by the opinion of all
the ages, whatever some few doctors and legal writers may
suppose.’ ®1
Gaspar Schott, S.J. (1608-66), physicist, doctor, and divine,
‘* one of the most learned men of his day, his simple life and
deep piety making him an object of veneration to the
Protestants as well as to the Catholics of Augsburg,’’ where
his declining years were spent, lays down: ‘“‘So many
writers of such high authority maintain this opinion, that it
were impossible to reject it.’’®* Bodin, de Lancre, Boguet,
Gorres, Bizouard,*®* Gougenot des Mousseaux,®* insist upon
the same sad facts. And above all sounds the solemn
thunder of the Bull of Innocent VIII announcing in no
ambiguous phrase: ‘‘ It has indeed come to our knowledge
and deeply grieved are we to hear it, that many persons of
both sexes, utterly forgetful of their souls’ salvation and
DEMONS AND FAMILIARS 95
straying far from the Catholic Faith, have (had commerce)
with evil spirits, both incubi and succubi.’’®°
I have quoted many and great names, men of science, men
of learning, men of authority, men to whom the world yet
looks up with admiration, nay, with reverence and love,
inasmuch as to-day it is difficult, wellnigh inconceivable
in most cases, for the modern mind to credit the possibility
of these dark deeds of devilry, these foul lusts of incubi and
succubi.®* ‘They seem to be some sick and loathly fantasy
of dim medizval days shrieked out on the rack by a poor
wretch crazed with agony and fear, and written down in
long-forgotten tomes by fanatics credulous to childishness
and more ignorant than savages. ‘‘ Even if such horrors
ever could have taken place in the dark ages,’”—those vague
Dark Ages!—men say, ‘‘ they would never be permitted
now.” And he who knows, the priest sitting in the grated
confessional, in whose ears are poured for shriving the filth
and folly of the world, sighs to himself, ‘‘ Would God that in
truth it were so!’”’ But the sceptics are happier in their
singleness and their simplicity, happy that they do not, will
not, realize the monstrous things that lie only just beneath
the surface of our cracking civilization.
It may not impertinently be inquired how demons or evil
intelligences, since they are pure spiritual beings, can not
only assume human flesh but perform the peculiarly carnal
act of coition. Sinistrari, following the opinion of Guazzo,
says that either the evil intelligence is able to animate the
corpse of some human being, male or female, as the case may
be, or that, from the mixture of other materials he shapes for
himself a body endowed with motion, by means of which he
is united to the human being: ‘‘ex mixtione aliarum
materiarum effingit sibi corpus, quod mouet, et mediante
quo homini unitur.’’*’ In the first instance, advantage might
be taken, no doubt, of a person in a mediumistic trance or
hypnotic sleep. But the second explanation seems by far
the more probable. Can we not look to the phenomena
observed in connexion with ectoplasm as an adequate
explanation of this? It must fairly be admitted that this
explanation is certainly borne out by the phenomena of the
materializing séance where physical forms which may be
touched and handled are built up and disintegrated again
96 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
in a few moments of time. Miss Scatcherd, in a symposium,
Survival,®* gives certain of her own experiences that go far
to prove the partial re-materialization of the dead by the
utilization of the material substance and ectoplasmic emana-
tions of the living. And if disembodied spirits can upon
occasion, however rare, thus materialize, why not evil
intelligences whose efforts at corporeality are urged and aided
by the longing thoughts and concentrated will power of those
who eagerly seek them ?
This explanation is further rendered the more probable by
the recorded fact that the incubus can assume the shape of
some person whose embraces the witch may desire.®® Brignoh,
in his Alexicacon, relates that when he was at Bergamo
in 1650, a young man, twenty-two years of age, sought him
out and made a long and ample confession. This youth
avowed that some months before, when he was in bed, the
chamber door opened and a maiden, Teresa, whom he loved,
stealthily entered the room. To his surprise she informed
him that she had been driven from home and had taken
refuge with him. Although he more than suspected some
delusion, after a short while he consented to her solicitations
and passed a night of unbounded indulgence in her arms.
Before dawn, however, the visitant revealed the true nature
of the deceit, and the young man realized he had lain with
a succubus. None the less such was his doting folly that
the same debauchery was repeated night after night, until
struck with terror and remorse, he sought the priest to
confess and be delivered from this abomination. ‘“‘ This
monstrous connexion lasted several months; but at last
God delivered him by my humble means, and he was truly
penitent for his sins.’’7°
Not infrequently the Devil or the familiar assigned to the
new witch at the Sabbat when she was admitted must
obviously have been a man, one of the assembly, who either
approached her in some demoniacal disguise or else embraced
her without any attempt at concealment of his individuality,
some lusty varlet who would afterwards hold himself at her
disposition. For we must always bear in mind that through-
out these witch-trials there is often much in the evidence
which may be explained by the agency of human beings ;
not that this essentially meliorates their offences, for they
DEMONS AND FAMILIARS 97
were all bond-slaves of Satan, acting under his direction and
by the inspiration of hell. When the fiend has ministers
devoted to his service there is, perhaps, less need for his
interposition in propria persona. Howbeit, again and again
in these cases we meet with that uncanny quota, by no means
insignificant and unimportant, which seemingly admits of
no solution save by the materialization of evil intelligences
of power. And detailed as is the evidence we possess, it not
unseldom becomes a matter of great difficulty, when we are
considering a particular case, to decide whether it be an
instance of a witch having had actual commerce and com-
munion with the fiend, or whether she was cheated by the
devils, who mocked her, and allowing her to deem herself in
overt union with them, thus led the wretch on to misery and
death, duped as she was by the father of lies, sold for a
delusion and by profitless endeavour in evil. There are, of
course, also many cases which stand on the border-line, half
hallucination, half reality. Sylvine de la Plaine, a witch of
twenty-three, who was condemned by the Parliament of
Paris, 17 May, 1616, was one of these.7! Antoinette Brenichon,
a married woman, aged thirty, made a confession in almost
exactly the same words. Sylvine, her husband Barthélemi
Minguet, and Brenichon were hanged and their bodies
burned.
Henri Boguet, a Judge of the High Court of Burgundy,
in his Discours des Sorciers, devotes chapter xii to ‘‘ The
carnal connexion of the Demons with Witches and Sorcerers.”’
He discusses: 1. The Devil knows all the Witches, & why.
2. He takes a female shape to pleasure the Sorcerers, & why.
3. Other reasons why the Devil (has to do) with warlocks
and witches.’ Francoise Secretain, Clauda Ianprost,
Iaquema Paget, Antoine Tornier, Antoine Gandillon, Clauda
Ianguillaume, Thieuenne Paget, Rolande du Vernois, Ianne
Platet, Clauda Paget, and a number of other witches con-
fessed “‘ their dealings with the Devil.”7? Pierre Gandillon
and his son George also confessed to commerce with the
Demon. Under his third division Boguet lays down explicit
statements on the matter.?4 75
This unnatural physical coldness of the Demon is com-
mented upon again and again by witches at their trials in
every country of Europe throughout the centuries. I have
H
98 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
already suggested that in some cases there was a full
materialization due to ectoplasmic emanations. Now,
ectoplasm is described?® as being to the touch a cold and
viscous mass comparable to contact with a reptile, and this
certainly seems to throw a flood of light upon these details.
It may be that here indeed we have a solution of the whole
mystery. In 1645 the widow Bash, a Suffolk witch, of Barton,
said that the Devil who appeared to her as a dark swarthy
youth ‘was colder than man.”’’?7 Isobel Goudie and Janet
Breadheid, of the Auldearne coven, 1662, both asserted that
the Devil was “‘a meikle, blak, rock man, werie cold; and
I fand his nature als cold, a spring-well-water.”’* Isabel,
who had been rebaptized at a Sabbat held one midnight in
Auldearne parish church, and to whom was assigned a
familiar named the Red Riever, albeit he was always clad
in black, gave further details of the Devil’s person: “ He is
abler for ws that way than any man can be, onlie he ves
heavie lyk a malt-sek; a hudg nature, uerie cold, as yee.’”’”?
In many of the cases of debauchery at Sabbats so freely
and fully confessed by the witches their partners were
undoubtedly the males who were present ; the Grand Master,
Officer, or President of the Assembly, exercising the right to
select first for his own pleasures such women as he chose.
This is clear from a passage in De Lancre: “‘ The Devil at
the Sabbat performs marriages between the warlocks and
witches, and joining their hands, he pronounces aloud
Esta es buena parati
Esta parati lo toma.’’®°
And in many cases it is obvious that use must have been
made of an instrument, an artificial phallus employed.*
The artificial penis was a commonplace among the erotica
of ancient civilizations; there is abundant evidence of its
use in Egypt, Assyria, India, Mexico, all over the world.
It has been found in tombs; frequently was it to be seen as
an ex-voto ; in a slightly modified form it is yet the favourite
mascot of Southern Italy.82 Often enough they do not
trouble to disguise the form. Aristophanes mentions the
object in his Lysistrata (411 B.c.), and one of the most spirited
dialogues (VI) of Herodas (circa 300-250 B.c.) is that where
Koritto and Metro prattle prettily of their BavSwv, whilst
DEMONS AND FAMILIARS 99
(in another mime, VII) the ladies visit Kerdon the leather-
worker who has fashioned this masterpiece. Truly Herodas
is as modern to-day in London or in Paris as he ever was
those centuries ago in the isle of Cos. Fascinum, explains
the Glossarium Eroticum Lingue Latine,® ‘ Penis fictitius
ex corio, aut pannis lineis uel sericis, quibus mulieres uirum
mentiebantur. Antiquissima libido, lesbiis et milesiis feminis
presertim usitatissima. JF ascinis illis abutebantur mere-
trices in tardos ascensores.”’ As one might expect Petronius
has something to say on the subject in a famous passage
where that savage old hag** (nothea fairly frightened
Encolpius with her scortewm fascinum, upon which an erudite
Spanish scholar, Don Antonio Gonzalez de Salas, glosses :
“ Rubrum penem coriaceum ut Suidas exsertim tradit uoce
padror. Confecti & ex uaria materia uarios in usus olim
phalli ex ligno, ficu potissimum qui ficulnei seepius adpellati,
ex ebore, ex auro, ex serico, & ex lineo panno, quibus Lesbize
tribades abutebantur.’’®> And Tibullus, speaking of the
image of Priapus, has :8¢
Placet Priape ? qui sub arboris coma
Soles sacrum reuincte pampino caput
Ruber sedere cum rubente fascino.
The Church, of course, condemned with unhesitating voice
all such practices, whether they were connected (in however
slight a degree) with Witchcraft or not. Arnobius, who
regards all such offences as detestable, in his Aduersus
Nationes, V (circa A.D. 296), relates a curiously obscene
anecdote which seems to point to the use of the fascinum by
the Galli, the priests of Berecynthian Cybele,®? whose orgies
were closely akin to those of Dionysus. And the same story
is related by Clement of Alexandria Lporpertixds pos
"EXAnvas (circa A.D. 190); by Julius Firmicus Maternus,
De Errore profanarum Religionum (A.D. 887-850) ; by Nicetas
(0b. circa A.D. 414) in a commentary on S. Gregory of Nan-
zianzus, oratio XX XIX; and by Theodoret (ob. circa A.D. 457)
Sermo octaua de Martyribus. Obviously some very primitive
rite is in question.
Lactantius, in his De Falsa Religione (Diuinarwm Institu-
tconum, I, circa A.D. 804), speaks of a phallic superstition,
akin to the fascinum, as favoured by the vestals, and implies
100 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
it was notoriously current in his day." That eminent father,
S. Augustine, De Ciuitate Dei, VII, 21, gives some account
of the fascinum as used in the rites of Bacchus, and when
he is detailing the marriage ceremonies (VI, 9), he writes :
‘* Sed quid hoc dicam, cum tibi sit et Priapus nimius masculus,
super cuius immanissimum et turpissimum fascinum sedere
nona nupta iubeatur, more honestissimo et religiosissimo
matronarum.” The historian, Evagrius Scholasticus (0b.
post A.D. 504), in his Historia Ecclesiastica (XI, 2), says that
the ritual of Priapus was quite open in his day, and the
fascinum widely known. Nicephorus Calixtus, a_ later
Byzantine, who died about the middle of the fourteenth
century but whose Chronicle closed with the death of Leo
Philosophus, A.D. 911, speaks of phallic ceremonies and of the
use of ithy-phalli.*®
Council after council forbade the use of the fascinum, and
their very insistence of prohibition show how deeply these
abominations had taken root. The Second Council of
Chalon-sur-Sadne (818) is quite plain and unequivocal; so
are the synods of de Mano (1247) and Tours (1896). Burchard
of Worms (died 25 Aug., 1025) in his famous Decretum has :
‘“‘ Fecisti quod quedam mulieres facere solent, ut facere
quoddam molimen aut mechinamentum in modum uirilis
membri, ad mensuram tue uoluptatis, et illud loco ueren-
dorum tuorum, aut alterius, cum aliquibus ligaturis colligares,
et fornicationem faceres cum aliis mulierculis, uel aliz eodem
instrumento, siue alio,tecum? Si fecisti, quinque annos per |
legitimas ferias poeniteas.”” And again: “ Fecisti quod
queedam mulieres facere solent, ut iam supra dicto molimine
uel alio aliquo machinamento, tu ipsa in te solam faceres
fornicationem ? Si fecisti, unum annum per legitimas ferias
poeniteas.”’ |
Other old Penitentials have: ‘‘ Mulier qualicumque molli-
mine aut per seipsum aut cum altera fornicans, tres annos
poeniteat ; unum ex his in pane et aqua.”
‘* Cum sanctimoniali per machinam fornicans annos septem
poeniteat ; duos ex his in pane et aqua.”
‘‘Mulia qualicumque molimineautseipsam polluens, aut cum
altera fornicans, quatuor annos. Sanctimonialis femina cum
sanctimoniali per machinamentum polluta, septem annos.”’
It is demonstrable, then, that artificial methods of coition,
DEMONS AND FAMILIARS 101
common in pagan antiquity, have been unblushingly prac-
tised throughout all the ages, as indeed they are at the present
day, and that they have been repeatedly banned and
reprobated by the voice of the Church. This very fact would
recommend them to the favour of the Satanists, and there
can be no doubt that amid the dark debaucheries which
celebrated the Sabbats such practice was wellnigh universal.
Yet when we sift the evidence, detailed and exact, of the
trials, we find there foul and hideous mysteries of lust which
neither human intercourse nor the employ of a mechanical
property can explain. Howbeit, the theologians and the
inquisitors are fully aware what unspeakable horror lurks in
the blackness beyond.
The animal familiar was quite distinct from the familiar
in human shape. In England particularly there is abundance
of evidence concerning them, and even to-day who pictures
a witch with nut-cracker jaws, steeple hat, red cloak, hobbling
along on her crutch, without her big black cat beside her ?
It is worth remark that in other countries the domestic
animal familiar is rare, and Bishop Francis Hutchinson even
says: ‘‘I meet with little mention of Imps in any Country
but ours, where the Law makes the feeding, suckling, or
rewarding of them to be Felony.’’®? Curiously enough this
familiar is most frequently met with in Essex, Suffolk, and
the Eastern counties. We find that animals of all kinds were
regarded as familiars; dogs, cats, ferrets, weasels, toads,
rats, mice, birds, hedgehogs, hares, even wasps, moths, bees,
and flies. It is piteous to think that in many cases some
miserable creature who, shunned and detested by her fellows,
has sought friendship in the love of a cat or a dog, whom she
has fondled and lovingly fed with the best tit-bits she could
give, on the strength of this affection alone was dragged to
the gallows or the stake. But very frequently the witch did
actually keep some small animal which she nourished on a
diet of milk and bread and her own blood in order that she
might divine by its means. The details of this particular
method of augury are by no means clear. Probably the
witch observed the gait of the animals, its action, the tones
of its voice easily interpreted to bear some fanciful meaning,
and no doubt a dog, or such a bird as a raven, a daw, could
be taught tricks to impress the simplicity of inquirers.
102 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
The exceeding importance of blood in life has doubtless
been evident to man from the earliest times. Man experienced
a feeling of weakness after the loss of blood, therefore blood
was strength, life itself, and throughout the ages blood has
been considered to be of the greatest therapeutic, and the
profoundest magical, value. The few drops of blood the
witch gave her familiar were not only a reward, a renewal
of strength, but also they established a closer connexion
between herself and the dog, cat, or bird as the case might
be. Blood formed a psychic copula.
At the trial of Elizabeth Francis, Chelmsford, 1556, the
accused confessed that her familiar, given to her by her
grandmother, a notorious witch, was “in the lykenesse of a
whyte spotted Catte,”’ and her grandmother “taughte her to
feede the sayde Catte with breade and mylke, and she did
so, also she taughte her to cal it by the name of Sattan and
to kepe it in a basket. Item that euery tyme that he did
any thynge for her, she sayde that he required a drop of
bloude, which she gaue him by prycking herselfe, sometime
in one place and then in another.’’®® It is superfluous to
multiply instances ; in the witch-trials of Essex, particularly
whilst Matthew Hopkins and his satellite John Stearne were
hot at work from 1645 to 1647 the animal familiar is men-
tioned again and again in the records. As late as 1694 at
Bury St. Edmunds, when old Mother Munnings of Hartis,
in Suffolk, was haled before Lord Chief Justice Holt, it was
asserted that she had an imp like a polecat. But the judge
pooh-poohed the evidence of a pack of clodpate rustics and
directed the jury to bring a verdict of Not Guilty.°! ‘* Upon
particular Enquiry,” says Hutchinson, “of several in or
near the Town, I find most are satisfied it was a very right
Judgement.” In 1712 the familiar of Jane Wenham, the
witch of Walkerne, in Hertfordshire, was, at her trial, stated
to be a cat.
In Ford and Dekker’s The Witch of Edmonton the familiar
appears upon the stage as a dog. This, of course, is directly
taken from Henry Goodcole’s pamphlet The Wonderfull
Discouerie of Elizabeth Sawyer (London, 4to, 1621), where in
answer to this question the witch confesses that the Devil
came to her in the shape of a dog, and of two colours, some-
times of black and sometimes of white. Some children had
DEMONS AND FAMILIARS 103
informed the Court that they had seen her feeding imps,
two white ferrets, with white bread and milk, but this she
steadfastly denied. In Goethe’s Faust, Part I, Scene 2,
Mephistopheles first appears to Faust outside the city gates
as a black poodle and accompanies him back to his study,
snarling and yelping when In Principio is read. This is
part of the old legend. Manlius (1590), in the report of his
conversation with Melanchthon, quotes the latter as having
said: ‘‘He [Faust] had a dog with him, which was the
devil.” Paolo Jovio relates®? that the famous Cornelius
Agrippa always kept a demon attendant upon him in the
shape of a black dog. But John Weye, in his well-known
work De Prestigiis Demonum,* informs us that he had
lived for years in daily attendance upon Agrippa and that
the black dog, Monsieur, respecting which such strange
stories were spread was a perfectly innocent animal which
he had often led about himself in its leash. Agrippa was
much attached to his dog, which used to eat off the table
with him and of nights lie in his bed. Since he was a profound
scholar and a great recluse he never troubled to contradict
the idle gossip his neighbours clacked at window and door.
It is hardly surprising when one considers the hermetic
works which go under Agrippa’s name that even in his life-
time this great man should have acquired the reputation
of a mighty magician.
Grotesque names were generally given to the familiar :
Lizabet; Verd-Joli; Maitre Persil (parsley); Verdelet ;
Martinet; Abrahel (a succubus); and to animal familiars
in England, Tissy ; Grissell ; Greedigut ; Blackman ; Jezebel
(a succubus); Ilemanzar; Jarmara; Pyewackett.
The familiar in human shape often companied with the witch
and was visible to clairvoyants. Thus in 1824 one of the
accusations brought against Lady Alice Kyteler was that
a demon came to her ‘“‘quandoque in specie cuiusdam
eethiopis cum duobus sociis.”” The society met with at
Sabbats is not so easily shaken off as might be wished.
NOTES TO CHAPTER III.
1 Two local Milanese Orders, the Apostolini of 8. Barnabas and the Congre-
gation of S. Ambrose ad Nemus, were united by a Brief of Sixtus V, 15 August,
1589. 11 January, 1606, Paul V approved the new Constitutions. The
Congregation retaining very few members was dissolved by Innocent X in
1650, The habit was a tunic, broad scapular, and capuche of chestnut brown,
104 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
They were calced, and in the streets a wide cloak of the same colour as the
habit.
2 BH. Goldsmid, Confessions of Witches under Torture, Edinburgh, 1886.
3... renoncer & renier son Createur, la saincte Vierge, les Saincts, le
Baptesme, pere, mere, parens, le ciel, la terre & tout ce qui est au monde.
Tableau de V Inconstance des mauvais Anges, Paris, 1613.
4 Je, Louis Gaufridi, renonce & tous les biens tant spirituels que temporels
qui me pouvraient étre conferés de la part de Dieu, de la Vierge Marie, de
tous les Saints et Saintes du Paradis, particuliérement de mon patron Saint
Jean-Baptiste, Saints Pierre, Paul, et Frangois, et me donne corps et 4me a
vous Lucifer ici présent, avec tous les biens que je posséderai jamais (excepté
la valeur des sacrements pour le regard de ceux qui les recurent). Ainsi j’ai
signé et attesté. Confession faicte par messire Loys Gaufridi, prestre enV église
des Accoules de Marseille, prince des magiciens . . a deux péres capucins du
couvent d’ Aix, la veille de Pasques le onziéme avril mil six cent onze. A Aix,
par Jean Tholozan, MVCXI.
5 Je renonce entiérement de tout mon coeur, de toute'ma force, et de toute
ma puissance a Dieu le Pére, au Fils et au Saint-Esprit, 4 la trés Sainte Mére
de Dieu, a tous les anges et spécialement & mon bon ange, a la passion de
Notre Seigneur Jésus Christ, & Son Sang, a tous les mérites d’icelle, 4 ma part
de Paradis, & toutes les inspirations que Dieu me pourrait donner & l'avenir,
& toutes les priéres qu’on a faites et pourrait faire pour moi.
6 §. Pius V, Bull Consueuerunt, 17 September, 1569: Bl. Francisco de
Possadas, Vida di Santo Domingo, Madrid, 1721.
7 In England at this date it was felony to possess an Agnus Dei.
8 Spyondent quod... ad conuentus nocturnos diligenter accedent.
® Coven, coeven, covine, curving, covey, are among the many spellings of
this word.
10 R, Pitcairn, Criminal Trials, Edinburgh, 1833.
11 Hxramination of Certain Witches, Philobiblion Society, London, 1863-4.
12 Thomas Potts, Discoverie of Witches.
13... qu’elle a veu souuent baptiser des enfans au sabbat, qu’elle nous
expliqua estre des enfans des sorcieres & non autres, lesquelles ont ac-
coutumé faire plustost baptiser leurs enfans au sabbat qu’en l’église. Pierre
de Lancre, Tableau de l’ Inconstance des mauvais Anges, Paris, 1613.
14 |. . qu’on baptise des enfans au Sabbat auec du Cresme, que des femmes
apportent, & frottent la verge de quelque homme, & en font sortir de la
semence qu’elles amassent, and la meslent auec le Cresme, puis mettant cela
sur la teste de l’enfant en pronongant quelques paroles en Latin. Contem-
porary tract, Arrest & procedure faicte par le Lieutenant Criminel d’Orleans
contre Siluain Neuillon.
15. . . dit que sa mére le presenta (dit-on) en laage de trois ans au Sabbat,
& vn bouc, qu’on appelloit ’ Aspic. Dit qu’il fut baptisé au Sabbat, au Carrior
d’Oliuet, auec quatorze ou quinze autres, & que Jeanne Geraut porta du
Chresme qui estoit jaune dans vn pot, & que ledit Neuillon ietta de la
semence dans ledit pot, & vn nommé Semelle, & brouilloient cela auec vne
petite cuilliere de bois, & puis leur en mirent a tous sur la teste.
16 J’advoue comme on baptise au Sabath et comme chacun sorcier fait
vou particulicrement se donnant au diable et faire baptiser tous ses enfants
au Sabath (si faire se peut). Comme aussi l’on impose des noms 4 chacun de
ceux qui sont au Sabath, différents de leur propre nom. J’advoue comme au
baptéme on se sert de l’eau, du soufre et du sel: le soufre rend esclave le
diable et le sel pour confirmer le baptéme au service du diable. J’advoue
comme la forme et l’intention est de baptiser au nom de Lucifer, de Belzebuth
et autres diables faisant le signe de la croix en le commengant par le travers
et puis le poursuivant par les pieds et finissant 4 la téte. Contemporary tract,
Confession faicte par messire Loys Gaufridi, prestre en Véglise des Accoules de
Marseille, prince des magiciens, MVCXI.
17 Anthony Hornech’s appendix to Glanvill’s Sadducismus Triumphatus,
London, 1681.
18 Newes from Scotland, London, W. Wright, 1592.
DEMONS AND FAMILIARS 105
19 Prestant Demoni. . . iuramentum super circulo in terram sculpto
fortasse quia cum circulus sit Symbolum Divinitatis, & terra scabellum Dei
sic certe uellet eos credere se esse Dominum ceeli & terre. Guazzo, Compen-
dium, I. 7, p. 38. I have corrected the text, which runs ‘“‘uellet eos credere
eum esset .. .”
20 Even by so industrious a searcher as Miss M. A. Murray.
21 Dressant quelque forme d’autel sur des colofies infernales, & sur iceluy
sans dire le Confiteor, ny |’ Alleluya, tournant les feuillets d’vn certain liure
qu’il a en main, il commence 4 marmoter quelques mots de la Messe. De
Lancre, Tableau, p. 401.
22, . . que le Sabbat se tenoit dans vne maison ... Vit aussi vn grand
homme noir a l’opposite de celuy de la cheminée, qui regardoit dans vn liure,
dont les feuillets estoient noirs & bleuds, & marmotait entre ses dents
sans entendre ce qu’il disoit, leuoit vne hostie noire, puis vn calice de meschant
estain tout crasseux.
23 On dit la Messe, & que c’est le Diable qui la dit, qu’il a vne Chasuble qui
@ vne croix: mais qu’elle n’a que trois barres: & tourne le dos a4 l’Autel
quand il veut leuer l’Hostie & le Calice, qui sont noirs, & marmote dans vn
liure, duquel le couuerture est toute velue comme d’vne peau de loup, auec
des feuillets blancs & rouges, d’autres noirs.
24 On lisait la messe dans le livre des blasphémes, qui servait de canon et
qu’on employait aussi dans les processions. Il renfermait les plus horribles
malédictions contre la sainte Trinité, le Saint Sacrement de l’autel, les autres
sacrements et les cérémonies de |’Eglise, et il était écrit dans une langue qui
m’était inconnue. Gdérres, La Mystique Divine, trad., Charles Sainte-Foi, V.
p. 230. There is a critical recension of Die christliche Mystik by Boretius
and Krause, Hanover, 1893-7.
25 Newes from Scotland, London, W. Wright (1592).
*6 Book III. p. 42.
27 T, B. Howell, State Trials, London, 1816. IV, 844, 846.
28 §. Caleb, Les Messes Noires, Paris, 8.d,
29 Aprés ce que nous ont appris les livres et les Ames, il ne nous est pas
permis de douter, et notre devoir est de combattre, ne fit-ce que par un simple
affirmation, les nombreux auteurs qui, effrontément ou témérairement,
traitent ces horreurs de fables ou d’hallucinations. La Mystique Divine,
nouvelle édition, Paris, 1902. III, pp. 269, 270.
30 Ces histoires, loin d’étre fabuleuses, ont toute l’authenticité que peut
leur donner une procédure instruite avec tout le zéle et le talent que pouvaient
y apporter des magistrats éclairés et consciencieux, auxquels, 4 toutes les
époques, les faits ne manquaient pas. Libre III.c. 8.
81 De Ciuitate Dei, xv. 23. I quote Healey’s translation, 1610.
32 Esse eorum (qui usualiter incubi uel succubi nominantur) et concupis-
centiam eorum libidinosam, necnon et generationem ab eis esse famosam atque
credibilem fecerunt testimonia uirorum et mulierem qui illusiones ipsorum,
molestiasque et improbitates, necnon et uiolentias libidinis ipsorum, se passos
fuisse testificatisunt et adhuc asserunt. De Universitate, Secunda Pars, III. 25.
88 $i tamen ex coitu demonum aliqui interdum nascuntur, hoc non est per
semen ab eis decisum, aut a corporibus assumptis; sed per semen alicuius
hominis ad hoc acceptum, utpote quod idem demon qui est succubus ad
uirum, fiat incubus ad mulierem. Summa, Pars Prima, questio 1, a 3. at 6.
84 Succumbunt uiris in specie mulieris, et ex eis semen pollutionis susci-
piunt, et quadam sagacitate ipsum in sua uirtute custodiunt, et postmodum,
Deo permittente, fiunt incubi et in uasa mulierum transfundunt. Sententi-
arum, Liber IT, d. viii, Pars Prima, a 3. q. 1.
35 Docet S. Thomas... et consentiunt communiter reliqui theologi. .. .
Ratio huius sententiz est quia tota illa actio non excedit potestatem natur-
alem dzemonis, usus autem talis potestatis est ualde conformis praueze uolun-
tati demonis, et iuste a Deo permitti potest propter aliquorum hominum
peccata. Ergo non potest cum fundamento negari, et ideo non immerito dixit
Augustinus, cum de illo usu multis experientiis et testimoniis constet, non
sine impudentia negari. De Angelis, l.iv.c.38.nn.10,11. /
106 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
86 Begun in 1665 by Fra Francisco de Jésus-Maria (0b. 1677).
37 Negant aliqui, credentes impossible esse quod deemones actum carnalem
cum hominibus exercere ualent. Sed tenenda est ut omnino certa contraria
sententia. Theologia moralis, Tr. xxi. c. 11. p. 10. nn. 180, 181.
38 Tdem demon qui est succubus ad uirum potest fieri incubus ad mulierem.
In his monumental Summa S. Thome hodiernis Academiarum moribus accom-
data, 19 vols. Liege, 1746-51.
89 De Seruonem Dei Beatificatione, Rome, MDCCXC, Cura Aloysii Salvioni.
Tom. VII. pp. 30-33.
40 Que leguntur de Demonibus incubis et succubis. . . . Quamuis enim
predicti concubitus communiter admittantur, sed generatis a nonnullis ex-
cludetur ... alii, tamen, tum concubitum, tum generationem fieri posse, et
factam fuisse existimauerunt, modo quodam nouo et inusitate, et hominibus
incognito. Sancho de Avila, bishop of Murcia, Jaen, and Siguenza, S. Teresa’s
confessor (0b. December, 1625), in a commentary on Exodus discusses the
curious question: An Angeli de se generare possint ?
41 Quidam hos demones incubos uel succubos dari negarunt; sed com-
muniter id affirmant auctores.
42 Ad bestialitatem autem reuocatur peccatum cum dzmone succubo,
uel incubo ; cui peccato superadditur malitia contra religionem ; et preterea
etiam sodomiz, adulterii, uel incestus, si affectu uiri, uel mulieris, sodomitico,
adulterino uelincestuoso cum dzemone coeat. Lib. III, Tract iv.c. 2. Dubium 3.
43 The word bestialitas has theologically a far wider signification than the
word bestiality. In 1222 a deacon, having been tried before Archbishop
Langton, was burned at Oxford on a charge of bestiality. He had embraced
Judaism in order to marry a Jewess. Professor E. P. Evans remarks: “ It
seems rather odd that the Christian lawgivers should have adopted the Jewish
code against sexual intercourse with beasts, and then enlarged it so as to
include the Jews themselves. The question was gravely discussed by jurists
whether cohabitation of a Christian with a Jewess, or vice versa, constitutes
sodomy. Damhouder (Praz. rer. crim. c. 96 n. 48) is of the opinion that it
does, and Nicolaus Boer (Decis., 136, n. 5) cites the case of a certain Johannes
Alardus, or Jean Alard, who kept a Jewess in his house in Paris and had
several children by her: he was convicted of sodomy on account of this rela-
tion and burned, together with his paramour, ‘ since coition with a Jewess is
precisely the same as if a man should copulate with a dog’ (Dopl. Theat. ii,
p. 157). Damhouder includes Turks and Saracens in the same category.”
The Criminal Prosecution and Capital Punishment of Animals, p. 152. London,
1906.
44 An oblate of S. Charles, d. 1631.
45 1566-1622. His Synopsis Theologie Moralis is a posthumous work,
published 1626.
46 Bene ait Busembaum quod congressus cum dzemone reducitur ad pecca-
tum bestialitatis. Hermann Busembaum, 8.J., 1600-1668.
47 Theologia moralis decalogalis et sacramentalis. Venice, 1731.
48 Preter autem crimen bestialitatis accedit scelus superstitionis. An
autem, qui coit cum dzemone apparente in forma conjugate, monialis, aut
consanguiniz, peccet semper affective peccato adulterii, sacrilegil, aut in-
cestus ? Uidetur uniuerse affirmare Busembaum cum aliis ut supra.
49 Paris, 1883.
50 A private manual only delivered to priests.
51 Omnes theologi loguuntur de congressu cum dzemone in forma uiri,
mulieris aut alicuius bestiz apparente, uel ut presente per imaginationem
representato, dicuntque tale peccatum ad genus bestialitatis reuocandum
esse, et specialem habere malitiam in confessione declarandam, scilicet super-
stitionem in pacto cum dzemone consistentem. In hoc igitur scelere duz
necessario reperiuntur malitiz, una contra castitatem, et altera contra uir-
tutem religionis. Si quis ad demonem sub specie uiri apparentem affectu
sodomitico accedat, tertia est species peccati, ut patet. Item si sub specie
consanguinee aut mulieris conjugate fingatur apparere, adest species incestus
uel adulterii; si sub specie bestiz, adest bestialitas,
DEMONS AND FAMILIARS 107
52. 1722-1797. He was a monk of Bans, near Bamberg.
53 Queri potest utrum demon per turpem concubitum possit uiolenter
opprimere marem uel feminam cuius obsessio permissa sit ob finem perfec-
tionis et contemplationis acquirende. Ut autem uera a falsis separemus,
sciendum est quod dzemones (incubi et succubi, quidquid dicant incredul1)
uere dantur: immo hoc iuxta doctrinam Augustini (lib. 15, de Ciwit. Dez,
cap. 23)sine aliqua impudentia negari nequit:... Hocidem asserit D. Thomas,
aliique communiter. Hic uero, qui talia patiuntur, sunt pececatores qui uel
demones ad hos nefandos concubitus inuitant, uel demonibus turpia hee
facinora intentantibus ultro assentiuntur. Quod autem hi aliique praui
homines possint per uiolentiam a demone oppriminon dubitamus: .. . et
ego ipse plures inueni qui quamuis de admissis sceleribus dolerent; et hoc
nefarium diaboli commercium exsecrarentur, tamen illud pati cogebantur
inuiti. D. Schram, Theologia Mystica, I. 233, scholium 3, p.408. Paris, 1848.
54 1532-1591. Provincial of the Jesuit province of the Rhine.
55 Congressus hos demonum cum utriusque sexus hominibus negare, ita
temerarium est, ut necessarium sit simul conuellas et sanctissimorum et
grauissimorum hominum grauissimas sententias, et humanis sensibus bellum
indicas, et te ignorare fatearis quanta sit illorum spirituum in hec corpora uis
utque potestas. C.x.n. 3.
°6 Placuit enim affirmatio axiomatis adeo multis, ut uerendum sit ne per-
tinacie et audacie sit ab eis discedere; communis namque hec est sententia
Patrum, theologorum et philosophorum doctiorum, et omnium fere seculorum
atque nationum experientia comprobata. Liber IT, questio 15.
57 Asserere per incubos et succubos demones homines interdum procreari
in tantum est catholicum, quod eius oppositum asserere est nedum dictis
Sanctorum, sed et traditioni sacre Scripture contrarium. Pars prima,
questio 3.
58 Causa autem quare dzemones se incubos faciunt uel succubos esse
uidetur, ut per luxurie uitium hominis utramque naturam ledant, corporis
uidelicet et anime, qua in lesione precipue delectari uidentur. This divine
was a prominent figure at the Council of Bale. I have used the Douai edition,
5 vols. 1602.
59 Dzmon in forma succubi se transformat, et habet coitum cum uiro...;
accedit ad mulierem in forma scilicet uiri.... Ita firmant communiter Theo-
logi.
60 Certissima experientia sepe cognitum est fcoeminas etiam inuitas a
demonibus fuisse compressas. De justa hereticorum punitione, Lib. I.
ce. xvili. Salamanca, 1547.
61 Hec est indubitata ueritas quam non solum experientia certissima com-
probat, sed etiam antiquitas confirmat, quidquid quidam medici et iurisperiti
opinentur. Conclusio quinta.
62 Affirmatiuam sententiam tam multi et graues tuentur auctores, ut sine
pertinaciz nota ab illa discedi non posse uidatur.
68 Rapports de V-homme avec le démon.
84 Les hauts phenoménes de la magic.
85 Sane ad nostrum, non sine ingenti molestia, peruenit auditum quod...
complures utriusque sexus persone, propriz salutis immemores et a fide
catholica deuiantes, cum dzemonibus incubis et succubis abuti.
66 The Dean of S. Paul’s (Christian Mysticism, 1899, p. 265) urbanely
dismisses the whole subject with a quotation from Lucretius :
Hunc igitur terrorem animi, tenebrasque necessest
Non radii solis, neque lucida tela diei
Discutiant, sed nature species ratioque. (I. 147-49.)
These Fears, that darkness that o’erspreads our Souls,
Day can’t disperse, but those eternal rules
Which from firm Premises true Reason draws,
And a deep insight into Natures laws. (Creech.)
67 De Demonialitate, 24,
108 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
68 Survival, by various authors. Edited by Sir James Marchant, K.B.E.,
LL.D. London and New York.
69 So in Middleton’s The Witch, when the young gallant Almachildes visits
Hecate’s abode, she exclaims :
"Tis Almachildes—the fresh blood stirs in me—
The man that I have lusted to enjoy :
I’ve had him thrice in incubus already.
And in a previous scene Hecate has said :
What young man can we wish to pleasure us,
But we enjoy him in an incubus ?
70 Ce commerce monstreux dura plusiers mois; mais Dieu le délivra enfin
par mon entremise et il fit pénitence de ses péchés.
71 Auoir esté au Sabbat; ne sgait comme elle y fut transportée ... qu’au
Sabbat le Diable cogneust charnellement toutes les femmes qui y estoient, &
elle aussi la marqua en deux endroicts. ... Que le Diable la cogneu vne autre-
fois, & qu’il a le membre faict comme un cheual, en entrant est froid comme
glace, iette la semence fort froide, & en sortant la brusse comme si c’estoit
du feu. Quelle receut tout mescontentement que lors qu’il eut habité auec
elle au Sabbat, vn autre homme.qu’elle ne cognoist fit le semblable en presence
de tous, que son mary s’appercut quand le Diable eut affaire auec elle, & que
le Diable se vint coucher auprez d’elle fort froid, luy mit la main sur le bas
du ventre, dont elle effrayée en ayant aduerty son mary, il luy dict ces mots,
Taiso-toy folle, taise-toy. Que son mary vit quand le Diable la cogneust au
Sabbat, ensemble cet autre qui la cogneust aprés.
72 L’accouplement du Demon avec la Sorciere et le Sorcier....1. Le Demon
cognoit toutes les Sorcieres, & pourquoy. 2. Il se met aussi en femme
pour les Sorciers, & pourquoy. 3. Autres raisons pour lesquelles le Demon
cognoit les Sorciers, & Sorcieres.
73... qui Satan l’auoit cogneue charnellement. . . . Et pource que les
hommes ne cedent guieres aux femmes en lubricité.
74 Tl y a encor deux autres raisons pour lesquelles le Diable s’accouple auec
le Sorcier: La premiere, que l’offense est de tant plus grande: Car si Dieu
a@ en si grande haine l’accouplement du fidelle auec l’infidele (Exodus xxxiv.,
Deuteronomy xxxvii.), & combien plus forte raison detesterait celuy de
homme auec le Diable. La seconde raison est, que parce moyen la semence
naturelle de ’homme se pert, d’oti vient que l’amitié qui est entre l>homme
& la femme, se conuertit le plus souuent en haine, qui est l’vn des plus grands
mal-heurs, qui pourroient arriuer au mariage.
7° In chapter xili Boguet decides: laccouplement de Satan auec le Sorcier
est réel & non imaginaire. .. . Les vns done s’en mocquét ... mais les con-
fessions des Sorciers qui j’ay eu en main, me font croire qu’il en est quelque
chose! dautant quwils ont tout recogneu, qu’ils auoient esté couplez auec le
Diable, & que la semence qu’il iettoit estoit fort froide . . . Iaquema Paget
adioustoit, qu’elle auoit empoigné plusiers fois auec la main le mébre du
Demon, qui la cognoissoit, & que le membre estoit froid comme glace, log
d’vn bon doigt, & moindre en grosseur que celuy d’vn homme: Tieuenne
Paget, & Antoine Tornier adioustoient aussi, que le membre de leurs Demons
estoit long, & gros comme l’vyn de leurs doigts.
76 Heuze, Do the Dead Live? 1923.
77 John Stearne’s Confirmation and Discovery of Witchcraft.
78 Robert Pitcairn, Criminal Trials, Edinburgh, 1833, III. pp. 603, 611,
617,
79 Idem.
80 Le Diable faict des mariages au Sabbat entre les Sorciers & Sorcieres,
& leur joignant les mains, il leur dict hautement
Esta es buena parati
Esta parati lo toma.
DEMONS AND FAMILIARS 109
Mais auant qu’ils couchent ensemble, il s’accouple auec elles, oste la virginité
des filles. Lancre, Tableau de lV Inconstance, p. 132.
81 This has been emphasized by Miss Murray in The Witch-Cult tn Western
Europe (‘‘ The Rites’), but she did not realize that the fascinum was well-
known to demonologists, and the use thereof severely reprobated sub mortali
by the Church.
82 See G. Belluci, Amuletti Italiani antichi e contemporanei; also Amuletti
italiani contemporanet. Perugia, 1898.
88 Auctore P.P. Parisiis, MDCCCXXVI.
84 Crudelissima anus. Petronii Satirae. 1388. p.105. Tertium edidit
Buecheler. Berlin. 1895.
85 Titi Petronii Satyricon, Concinnante Michaele Hadrianide. Amste-
lodami, 1669. Amongst the figures on the engraved title-page is a witch
mounted on her broomstick.
86 Priapeia. LXXXIV.
87 For whose impudicities see 8. Augustine, De Ciuitate Dei, VII. 26.
88 Priapi lignei in honorem Bacchi.
89 Francis Hutchinson, Historical Essay, London, 1718.
99 Witches at Chelmsford, Philobiblion Society, VIII.
91 Francis Hutchinson, Historical Essay on Witchcraft, 1718.
92 Hlogia Doctorum Uirorum, c. 101.
93 Liber II.; c. v.; 11, 12.
CHAPTER IV
THE SABBAT
Tue Assemblies of the witches differed very much from each
other in an almost infinite number of ways. On certain
ancient anniversaries the meeting was always particularly
solemn, with as large an attendance as possible, when all
who belonged to the infernal cult would be required to
present themselves and punishment was meted out to those
who proved slack and slow ; at other times these gatherings
would be occasional, resorted to by the company who resided
within a certain restricted area, it might be by only one coven
of thirteen, it might be by a few more, as opportunity served.
There were also, as is to be expected, variations proper to
each country, and a seemingly endless number of local
peculiarities. There does not clearly appear to be any formal
and fair order in the ceremonies throughout, nor should we
look for this, seeing that the liturgy of darkness is of its
essence opposed to the comely worship of God, wherein, as
the Apostle bids, all things are to be done “‘ decently and in
order.”’? The ceremonial of hell, sufficiently complex, obscure,
and obscene, is even more confused in the witches’ narratives
by a host of adventitious circumstances, often contradictory,
nay, even mutually exclusive, and so although we can piece
together a very complete picture of their orgies, there are
some details which must yet remain unexplained, incompre-
hensible, and perhaps wholly irrational and absurd. ‘‘ Le
burlesque s’y méle 4 Vhorrible, et les puérilités aux abomina-
tions.” (Ribet, La Mystique Divine, III. 2. Les Parodies
Diaboliques.) (Mere clowning and japery are mixed up with
circumstances of extremest horror; childishness and folly
with loathly abominations.) In the lesser Assemblies much,
no doubt, depended upon the fickle whim and unwholesome
caprice of the officer or president at the moment. The conduct
of the more important Assemblies was to a certain extent
110
THE SABBAT 111
regularized and more or less loosely ran upon traditional
lines. The name Sabbat may be held to cover every kind
of gathering,’ although it must continually be borne in mind
that a Sabbat ranges from comparative simplicity, the
secret rendezvous of some half a dozen wretches devoted to
the fiend, to a large and crowded congregation presided over
by incarnate evil intelligences, a mob outvying the very
demons in malice, blasphemy, and revolt, the true face of
pandemonium on earth.
The derivation of the word Sabbat does not seem to be
exactly established. It is perhaps superfluous to point out
that it has nothing to do with the number seven, and is
wholly unconnected with the Jewish festival. Sainte-Croix
and Alfred Maury? are agreed to derive it from the debased
Bacchanalia. Sabazius (ZaSatios) was a Phrygian deity,
sometimes identified with Zeus, sometimes with Dionysus,
but who was generally regarded as the patron of licentiousness
and worshipped with frantic debaucheries. He is a patron
of the ribald old Syrian eunuch in Apuleius: ‘“‘ omnipotens
et omniparens Dea Syria et sanctus Sabadius et Bellona
et Mater Idaea (ac) cum suo Adone Venus domina’’? are the
deities whom Philebus invokes to avenge him of the mocking
erier. 2aGaety is found in the Scholiast on Aristophane
(Birds, 874), and caBat, a Bacchic yell, occurs in a fragment
of the Bapte of Eupolis ; the fuller phrase evot ZaGéu
being reported by Strabo the geographer. The modern
Greeks still call a madman aes. But Littré entirely rejects
any such facile etymology. ‘‘ Attempts have been made
to trace the etymology of the Sabbat, the witches’ assembly,
from Sabazies; but the formation of the word does not
allow it; besides, in the Middle Ages, what did they know
about Sabazies ?”’®
Even the seasons of the principal Assemblies of the year
differ in various countries. Throughout the greater part
of Western Europe one of the chief of these was the Eve of
May Day, 30 April ;* in Germany’ famous as Die Walpurgis-
Nacht. S. Walburga (Walpurgis; Waltpurde; at Perche
Gauburge ; in other parts of France Vaubourg or Falbourg)
was born in Devonshire circa 710. She was the daughter of
S. Richard, one of the under-kings of the West Saxons, who
married a sister of S. Boniface. In 748 Walburga, who was
112 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
then a nun of Wimbourne, went over to Germany to found
claustral life in that country. After a life of surpassing
holiness she died at Heidenheim, 25 February, 777. Her
cultus began immediately, and about 870 her relics were
translated to Eichstadt, where the Benedictine convent which
has charge of the sacred shrine still happily flourishes.
S. Walburga was formerly one of the most popular Saints
in England, as well as in Germany and the Low Countries.
She is patroness of Eichstadt, Oudenarde, Furnes, Groningen,
Weilburg, Zutphen, and Antwerp, where until the Roman
office was adopted they celebrated her feast four times a
year. In the Roman martyrology she is commemorated on
1 May, but in the Monastic Kalendar on 25 February. The
first of May was the ancient festival of the Druids, when they
offered sacrifices upon their sacred mountains and kindled
their May-fires. These magic observances were appropriately
continued by the witches of a later date. There was not a
hill-top in Finland, so the peasant believed, which at mid-
night on the last day of April was not thronged by demons
and sorcerers.
The second witches’ festival was the Eve of 5S. John
Baptist, 23 June. Then were the S. John’s fires lit, a custom
in certain regions still prevailing. In olden times the
Feast was distinguished like Christmas with three Masses ;
the first at midnight recalled his mission as Precursor, the
second at dawn commemorated the baptism he confessed,
the third honoured his sanctity.
Other Grand Sabbat days, particularly in Belgium and
Germany, were 8S. Thomas’ Day (21 December) and a date,
which seems to have been movable, shortly after Christmas.
In Britain we also find Candlemas (2 February), Allhallowe’en
(31 October), and Lammas (1 August), mentioned in the
trials. Wright, Narratives of Sorcery and Magic (I. p. 141),
further specifies S. Bartholomew’s Eve, but although a
Sabbat may have been held on this day, it would seem to
be an exceptional or purely local use.
During a famous trial held in the winter of 1610 at Logrono,
a town of Old Castille, by the Apostolic Inquisitor, Alonso
Becerra Holguin, an Alcantarine friar, with his two assessors
Juen Valle Alvarado and Alonso de Salasar y Frias, a number
of Navarrese witches confessed that the chief Sabbats were
THE SABBAT 113
usually held at Zugarramurdi and Berroscoberro in the
Basque districts, and that the days were fixed, being the
vigils of the “nine principal feasts of the year,’ namely,
Kaster, Epiphany, Ascension Day, the Purification and
Nativity of Our Lady, the Assumption, Corpus Christi, All
Saints, and the major festival of S. John Baptist (24 June).
It is certainly curious to find no mention of Christmas and
Pentecost in this list, but throughout the whole of the process
not one of the accused—and we have their evidence in fullest
detail—named either of these two solemnities as being chosen
for the infernal rendezvous. °
Satan is, as Boguet aptly says, ‘‘ Singe de Dieu en tout,’’}°
and it became common to hold a General Sabbat about the
time of the high Christian festivals in evil mockery of these
holy solemnities, and he precisely asserts that the Sabbat
“se tient encor aux festes les plus solemnelles de l’année.”’44
(Is still held on the greatest festivals of the year.) So he
records the confession of Antide Colas (1598), who ‘“‘ auoit
esté au Sabbat a vn chacun bon iour de l’an, comme & Noel,
a Pasques, a la feste de Dieu.’’ The Lancashire witches met
on Good Friday; and in the second instance (1683) on
All Saints’ Day; the witches of Kinross (1662) held an
assembly on the feast of Scotland’s Patron, S. Andrew,
30 November, termed ‘‘S. Andrew’s Day at Yule,’’ to dis-
tinguish it from the secondary Feast of the Translation of
S. Andrew, 9 May. The New England witches were wont to
celebrate their chief Sabbat at Christmas. In many parts
of Europe where the Feast of S. George is solemnized with
high honour and holiday the vigil (22 April) is the Great
Sabbat of the year. The Huzulo of the Carpathians believe
that then every evil thing has power and witches are most
dangerous. Not a Bulgarian or Roumanian farmer but
closes up each door and fastens close each window at night-
fall, putting sharp thorn-bushes and brambles on the lintels,
new turf on the sills, so that no demon nor hag may find
entry there.
The Grand Sabbats were naturally held in a great variety
of places, whilst the lesser Sabbats could be easily assembled
in an even larger number of spots, which might be convenient
to the coven of that district, a field near a village, a wood,
a tor, a valley, an open waste beneath some blasted oak, a
I
114 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
cemetery, a ruined building, some solitary chapel or semi-
deserted church, sometimes a house belonging to one of the
initiates.
It was advisable that the selected locality should be
remote and deserted to obviate any chance of espionage or
casual interruption, and in many provinces some wild ill-
omened gully or lone hill-top was shudderingly marked as
the notorious haunt of witches and their fiends. De Lancre
says that the Grand Sabbat must be held near a stream,
lake, or water of some kind,!? and Bodin adds: ‘“‘ The places
where Sorcerers meet are remarkable and generally dis-
tinguished by some trees, or even a cross.’’! These ancient
cromlechs and granite dolmens, the stones of the Marais
de Dol, the monolith that lies between Seny and Ellemelle
(Candroz), even the market-crosses of sleepy old towns and
English villages, were among the favourite rendezvous of
the pythons and warlocks of a whole countryside. On one
occasion, which seems exceptional, a Sabbat was held in the
very heart of the city of Bordeaux. Throughout Germany
the Blocksburg or the Brocken, the highest peak of the Hartz
Mountains, was the great meeting-place of the witches, some
of whom, it was said, came from distant Lapland and Norway
to forgather there. But local Blocksburgs existed, or rather
hills so called, especially in Pomerania, which boasted two or
three such crags. The sorcerers of Corriéres held their Sabbat
at a deserted spot, turning off the highway near Combes ;
the witches of la Mouille in a tumbledown house, which had
once belonged to religious; the Gandillons and their coven,
who were brought to justice in June, 1598, met at Fontenelles,
a forsaken and haunted spot near the village of Nezar.
Dr. Fian and his associates (1591) ‘“‘upon the night of
Allhollen-Even ’’ assembled at ‘‘ the kirke of North-Berrick
in Lowthian.” Silvain Nevillon, who was executed at
Orleans, 4 February, 1615, confessed ‘‘ que le Sabbat se tenoit
dans vne maison,’ and the full details he gave shows this
to have been a large chateau, no doubt the home of some
wealthy local magnate, where above two hundred persons
could assemble. Isobel Young, Christian Grinton, and two
or three other witches entertained the Devil in Young’s
house in 1629. Alexander Hamilton, a ‘‘ known warlock ”’
executed at Edinburgh in 1630, confessed that “ the pannel
THE SABBAT 115
took him one night to a den betwixt Niddrie and Edmiston,
where the devill had trysted hir.’”? Helen Guthrie, a Forfar
witch, and her coven frequented a churchyard, where they
met a demon, and on another occasion they ‘“‘ went to Mary
Rynd’s house, and sat doune together at the table...
and made them selfes mirrie, and the divell made much of
them all” (1661). The Lancashire witches often held their
local Sabbat at Malking Tower. From the confession of the
Swedish witches (1670) at Mohra and Elfdale they assembled
at a spot called Blockula “‘ scituated in a delicate large Meadow
. . . The place or house they met at, had before it a Gate
painted with divers colours; . . . In a huge large Room of
this House, they said, there stood a very long Table, at which
the Witches did sit down; And that hard by this Room was
another Chamber in which there were very lovely and
delicate Beds.”!4 Obviously a fine Swedish country house,
perhaps belonging to a wealthy witch, and in the minds of
the poorer members of the gang it presently became imagi-
natively exaggerated and described.
Christian Stridtheckh De Sagis (XL) writes: ‘‘ They have
different rendezvous in different districts ; yet their meetings
are generally held in wooded spots, or on mountains, or in
caves, and any places which are far from the usual haunts
of men. Mela, Book III, chapter 44, mentions Mount
Atlas; de Vaulz, a warlock executed at Etaples in 1608,
confessed that the witches of the Low Countries were
wont most frequently to meet in some spot in the province
of Utrecht. In our own country, the Mountain of the
Bructeri, which some call Melibceus, in the duchy of Bruns-
wick, is known and notorious as the haunt of witches. In
the common tongue this Mountain is called the Blocksberg
or Heweberg, Brockersburg or Vogelsberg, as Ortelius notes in
his Thesaurus Geographicus.”15 The day of the week whereon
a Sabbat was held differed in the various districts and
countries, although Friday seems to have been most gen-
erally favoured. There is indeed an accumulation of evidence
for every night of the week save Saturday and Sunday. De
Lancre records that in the Basses-Pyrénées ‘“‘ their usual
rendezvous is the spot known as Lane du Bouc, in the Basque
tongue Aquelarre de verros, prado del Cabron, & there the
Sorcerers assemble to worship their master on three particular
116 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
nights, Monday, Wednesday, Friday.”1® Boguet says that the
day of the Sabbat varied, but usually a Thursday night was pre-
ferred.1? In England it was stated that the ‘“‘ Solemn appoint-
ments, and meetings... are ordinarily on Tuesday or Wednes-
day night.” 18 Saturday was, however, particularly avoided
as being the day sacred to the immaculate Mother of God.
It is true that the hysterical and obscene ravings of Maria
de Sains, a witness concerned in the trial of Louis Gaufridi
and who was examined on 17-19 May, 1614, assert that the
Sabbat used to be held on every day of the week. Wednesday
and Friday were the Sabbats of blasphemy and the black
ass. To the other days the most hideous abominations of
which humanity is capable were allotted. The woman was
obviously sexually deranged, affected with mania blas-
phematoria and coprolalia.
Night was almost invariably the time for the Sabbat,
although, as Delrio says, there is no actual reason why these
evil rites should not be performed at noon, for the Psalmist
speaks of ‘‘the terror of the night,’ the ‘ business that
walketh about in the dark,” and of ‘‘ the noonday devil.’”?*
(“Non timebis a timore nocturno ... a negotio peram-
bulante in tenebris; ab incursu et demonio meridiano.”’)
And so Delrio very aptly writes : ‘‘ Their assemblies generally
are held at dead of night when the Powers of Darkness reign ;
or, sometimes, at high noon, even as the Psalmist saith, when
he speaks of ‘ the noonday devil.’ The nights they prefer are
Monday and Thursday.’’?°
The time at which these Sabbats began was generally upon
the stroke of midnight. ‘‘ Les Sorciers,’’ says Boguet, “ vont _
enuiron la minuict au Sabbat.’2! It may be remembered
that in the Metamorphoseon of Apuleius, I, xi, the hags
attack Socrates at night ‘“‘ circa tertiam ferme uigiliam.”’
Agnes Sampson, ‘‘ a famous witch ””—as Hume of Godscroft
in his Account of Archibald, ninth Earl of Angus, calls her—
commonly known as the wise wife of Keith, who made a
prominent figure?? in the Fian trials, 1590, confessed that the
Devil met her, ‘‘ being alone, and commanded her to be at
North-Berwick Kirk the next night,”’ and accordingly she
made her way there as she was bid ‘‘ and lighted at the
Kirk-yard, or a little before she came to it, about eleven hours
at even.’’?3 In this case, however, the Sabbat was preceded
THE SABBAT wun Dy
by a dance of nearly one hundred persons, and so probably
did not commence until midnight. Thomas Leyis, Issobell
Coky, Helen Fraser, Bessie Thorn, and the rest of the
Aberdeen witches, thirteen of whom were executed in 1597,
and seven more banished, generally met “‘ betuixt tuell & ane
houris at nycht.’’?4 Boguet notes that in 1598 the witch
Francoise Secretain “‘adioustoit qu’elle alloit tousiours au
Sabbat enuiron la minuit, & beaucoup d’autres sorciers, que
lay eu en main, ont dit le mesme.’”’ In 1600 Anna Mauczin
of Tubingen confessed that she had taken part in witch
gatherings which she dubbed Hochzeiten. They seem to have
been held by a well just outside the upper gate of Rotenburg,
and her evidence insists upon ‘“ midnight dances’”’ and
revelling. A Scotch witch, Marie Lamont, ‘‘a young woman
of the adge of Eighteen Yeares, dwelling in the parish of
Innerkip’”’ on 4 March, 1662, confessed most ingenuously
*‘that when shee had been at a mietting sine Zowle last,
with other witches, in the night, the devill convoyed her
home in the dawing.’’?®
The Sabbat lasted till cock-crow, before which time none
of the assembly was suffered to withdraw, and the advowal
of Louis Gaufridi, executed at Aix, 1610, seems somewhat
singular: ‘‘I was conveyed to the place where the Sabbat
was to be held, and I remained there sometimes one, two,
three, or four hours, for the most part just as I felt inclined.’’?®
That the crowing ofacock dissolves enchantmentsis a tradition
of extremest antiquity. The Jews believed that the clapping
of a cock’s wings will make the power of demons ineffectual
and break magic spells. So Prudentius sang: ‘“‘ They say
that the night-wandering demons, who rejoice in dunnest
shades, at the crowing of the cock tremble and scatter in
sore affright.’’?? The rites of Satan ceased because the Holy
Office of the Church began. In the time of S. Benedict
Matins and Lauds were recited at dawn and were actually
often known as Gallicinium, Cock-crow. In the exquisite
poetry of S. Ambrose, which is chanted at Sunday Lauds,
the praises of the cock are beautifully sung :
Light of our darksome journey here,
With days dividing night from night !
Loud crows the dawn’s shrill harbinger,
And wakens up the sunbeams bright.
118 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
Forthwith at this, the darkness chill
Retreats before the star of morn;
And from their busy schemes of ill
The vagrant crews of night return.
Fresh hope, at this, the sailor cheers ;
The waves their stormy strife allay ;
The Church’s Rock at this, in tears,
Hastens to wash his guilt away.
Arise ye, then, with one accord !
No longer wrapt in slumber lie;
The cock rebukes all who their Lord
By sloth neglect, by sin deny.
At his clear ery joy springs afresh ;
Health courses through the sick man’s veins ;
The dagger glides into its sheath ;
The fallen soul her faith regains. *§
A witch named Latoma confessed to Nicolas Remy that
cocks were most hateful to all sorcerers. That bird is the
herald of dawn, he arouses men to the worship of God; and
many an odious sin which darkness shrouds will be revealed
in the light of the coming day. At the hour of the Nativity,
that most blessed time, the cocks crew all night long. A cock
crew lustily at the Resurrection. Hence is the cock placed
upon the steeple of churches. Pliny and Atlian tell us that
a lion fears the cock; so the Devil “‘ leo rugiens”’ flees at
cock-crow.
‘“‘Le coq,” says De Lancre, “s’oyt par fois es Sabbats
sonnat la retraicte aux Sorciers.’’
The witch resorted to the Sabbat in various manners. If
it were a question of attending a local assembly when, at
most, a mile or two had to be traversed, the company would
go on foot. Very often the distance was even less, for it
should be remembered that in the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries, and indeed, as a matter of fact, up to a quite
recent date, when the wayfarer had gone a few steps outside
the gates of a town or beyond the last house in the village
he was enfolded in darkness, entirely solitary, remote,
eloined. If footmen with flambeaux, at least the humbler
linkboy, were essential attendants after nightfall in the
streets of the world’s great cities, London, Rome, Paris,
THE SABBAT 119
Madrid,?° how black with shadows, dangerous, and utterly
lonesome was the pathless countryside! Not infrequently
the witches of necessity carried lanterns to light them on
their journey to the Sabbat. The learned Bartolomeo de
Spina, O.P.,*1 in his T'ractatus de Strigibus et Lamits (Venice,
1588), writes that a certain peasant, who lived at Clavica
Malaguzzi, in the district of Mirandola, having occasion to
rise very early one morning and drive to a neighbouring
village, found himself at three o’clock, before daybreak,
crossing a waste tract of considerable extent which lay
between him and his destination. In the distance he suddenly
caught sight of what seemed to be numerous fires flitting to
and fro, and as he drew nearer he saw that these were none
other than large lanthorns held by a bevy of persons who
were moving here and there in the mazes of a fantastic dance,
whilst others, as at a rustic picnic, were seated partaking of
dainties and drinking stoups of wine, what time a harsh
music, like the scream of a cornemuse, droned through the
air. Curiously no word was spoken, the company whirled
and pirouetted, ate and drank, in strange and significant
silence. Perceiving that many, unabashed, were giving them-
selves up to the wildest debauchery and publicly performing
the sexual act with every circumstance of indecency, the
horrified onlooker realized that he was witnessing the revels
of the Sabbat. Crossing himself fervently and uttering a
prayer he drove as fast as possible from the accursed spot,
not, however, before he had recognized some of the company
as notorious evil-doers and persons living in the vicinity who
were already under grave suspicion of sorcery. The witches
must have remarked his presence, but they seem to have
ignored him and not even to have attempted pursuit. In
another instance Fra Paolo de Caspan, a Dominican of great
reputation for piety and learning, reports that Antonio de
Palavisini, the parish priest of Caspan in the Valtellina, a terri-
tory infected with warlocks, most solemnly affirmed that when
going before daybreak to say an early Mass at a shrine hard by
the village he had seen through clearings in the wood an
assembly of men and women furnished with lanterns, who
were seated in a circle and whose actions left no doubt that
they were witches engaged in abominable rites. In both
the above cases the lanterns were not required in the cere-
120. THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
monies of the Sabbat, and they must have been carried for
the purely practical purpose of affording light.
Very often when going to a local Sabbat the coven of
witches used to meet just beyond the village and make their
way to the appointed spot in a body for mutual help and
security. ‘This is pointed out by Bernard of Como, a famous
scholar, who says: ‘‘ When they are to go to some spot hard
by they proceed thither on foot cheerily conversing as they
walk.”’*? The fact that the dark initiates walked to the
Sabbat is frequently mentioned in the trials. Boguet, who
is most exact in detail, writes: ‘‘ Sorcerers, nevertheless,
sometimes walk to the Sabbat, and this is generally the case
when the spot where they are to assemble does not lie very
far from their dwellings.’’*> And in the interrogatory, 17
May, 1616, of Barthélemi Minguet of Brécy, a young fellow
of twenty-five, accused with seventeen more, we have: ‘‘ He
was then asked in what place the Sabbat was held the last
time he was present there.
‘ He replied that it was in the direction of Billcron, at a
cross-road which is on the high-road leading to Aix, in the
Parish of Saint Soulange. He was asked how he proceeded
thither. He replied that he walked to the place.’’34
When Catharine Oswald of Niddrie (1625) one night took
Alexander Hamilton ‘‘ a known warlock ”’ ‘‘ to a den betwixt
Niddrie and Edmiston, where the devill had trysted hir,’’ it
is obvious that the couple walked there together.
On one occasion the truly subtle point was raised whether
those who walked to the Sabbat were as guilty as those who
were conveyed thither by the Devil. But De Lancre decides :
“Tt is truly as criminal & abominable for a Sorcerer to go
to the Sabbat on foot as to be voluntarily conveyed thither
by the Devil.’’35
Major Weir and his sister seem to have gone to a meeting
with the Devil in a coach and six horses when they thus
drove from Edinburgh to Musselburgh and back again on
7 September, 1648. So the woman confessed in prison, and
added “that she and her brother had made a compact with
the devil,’’6
Agnes Sampson, the famous witch of North Berwick (1590),
confessed “that the Devil in mans lickness met her going
out to the fields from her own house at Keith, betwixt five
PLATE IV
OFF TO THE SABBAT
Queverdo
[ face p. 120
THE SABBAT 121
and six at even, being alone and commanded her to be at
North-berwick Kirk the next night. To which place she came
on horse-back, conveyed by her Good-son, called Iohn
Couper.’’8? The Swedish witches (1669) who carried children
off to Blockula “ set them upon a Beast of the Devil’s pro-
viding, and then they rid away.’ One boy confessed that
“to perform the Journey, he took his own Fathers horse out
of the Meadow, where it was feeding.”?8 Upon his return
one of the coven let the horse graze in her own pasture, and
here the boy’s father found it the next day.
In the popular imagination the witch is always associated
with the broomstick, employed by her to fly in wild career
through mid-air. This belief seems almost universal, of all
times and climes. The broomstick is, of course, closely
connected with the magic wand or staff which was considered
equally serviceable for purposes of equitation. The wood
whence it was fashioned was often from the hazel-tree,
witch-hazel, although in De Lancre’s day the sorcerers of
Southern France favoured the ‘‘Souhandourra’’—Cornus
sanguinea, dog-wood. Mid hurricane and tempest, in the
very heart of the dark storm, the convoy of witches, strad-
dling their broomsticks, sped swiftly along to the Sabbat,
their yells and hideous laughter sounding louder than the
crash of elements and mingling in fearsome discord with the
frantic pipe of the gale.
There is a very important reference to these beliefs from
the pen of the famous and erudite Benedictine Abbot, Regino
of Priim (A.D. 906), who in his weighty De ecclesiasticis
disciplinis writes: ‘‘ This too must by no means be passed
over that certain utterly abandoned women, turning aside
to follow Satan, being seduced by the illusions and phantas-
mical shows of demons firmly believe and openly profess that
in the dead of night they ride upon certain beasts along with
the pagan goddess Diana and a countless horde of women,
and that in those silent hours they fly over vast tracts of
country and obey her as their mistress, whilst on certain
other nights they are summoned to do her homage and pay
her service.”’® The witches rode sometimes upon a besom
or a stick, sometimes upon an animal, and the excursion
through the air was generally preceded by an unction with
amagie ointment. Various recipes are given for the ointment,
122 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
and it is interesting to note that they contain deadly poisons :
aconite, belladonna, and hemlock.*® Although these unguents
may in certain circumstances be capable of producing definite
physiological results, it is Delrio who best sums up the reasons
for their use: ‘‘ The Demon is able to convey them to the
Sabbat without the use of any unguent, and often he does so.
But for several reasons he prefers that they should anoint
themselves. Sometimes when the witches seem afraid it
serves to encourage them. When they are young and tender
they will thus be better able to bear the hateful embrace
of Satan who has assumed the shape of aman. For by this
horrid anointing he dulls their senses and persuades these
deluded wretches that there is some great virtue in the viscid
lubricant. Sometimes too he does this in hateful mockery
of God’s holy Sacraments, and that by these mysterious
ceremonies he may infuse, as it were, something of a ritual
and liturgical nature into his beastly orgies.’’*!
Although the witch is universally credited with the power
to fly through the air*? to the Sabbat mounted upon a besom
or some kind of stick, it is remarkable in the face of popular
belief to find that the confessions avowing this actual mode
of aerial transport are extraordinarily few. Paul Grilland,
in his tractate De Sortilegiis (Lyons, 1583), speaks of a witch
at Rome during whose trial, seven years before, it was
asserted she flew in the air after she had anointed her limbs
with a magic liniment. Perhaps the most exactly detailed
accounts of this feat are to be found in Boguet,*? than whom
scarcely any writer more meticulously reports the lengthy
and prolix evidence of witches, such evidence as he so
laboriously gathered during the notorious prosecutions
throughout Franche-Comté in the summer of 1598. He
records quite plainly such statements as: ‘‘ Frangoise
Secretain disoit, que pour aller au Sabbat, elle mettoit un
baston blane entre ses iambes & puis pronongait certaines
paroles & dés lors elle estoit portée par l’air iusques en
V’assemblée des Sorciers.’’ (Francoise Secretain avowed that
in order to go to the Sabbat she placed a white stick between
her legs & then uttered certain words & then she was borne
through the air to the sorcerers’ assembly). In another
place she confessed “‘ qu’elle avoit esté vne infinité de fois
au Sabbat , . , & qu’elle y alloit sur vn baston blanc, qu’elle
THE SABBAT 123
mettoit entre sesiambes.” (That she had been a great number
of times to the Sabbat ... and that she went there on a
white stick which she placed between her legs.) It will be
noticed that in the second instance she does not explicitly
claim to have been borne through the air. Again: “ Fran-
coise Secretain y estoit portée [au Sabbat] sur vn baston
blane. Satan y trdsporta Thieuenne Paget & Antide Colas
estant en forme d’vn homme noir, sortans de leurs maison
le plus souuent par la cheminée.” ‘‘ Claudine Boban, ieune
fille confessa qu’elle & sa mére montoient sur vne ramasse, &
que sortans le contremont de la cheminée elles alloient par
Yair en ceste fagon au Sabbat.”” (Francoise Secretain was
earried [to the Sabbat] on a white stick. Satan, in the form
of a tall dark man conveyed thither Thieuenne Paget &
Antide Colas, who most often left their house by way of the
chimney. . . . Claudine Boban, a young girl, confessed that
both she and her mother mounted on a besom, & that flying
out by the chimney they were thus borne through the air
to the Sabbat.) A marginal note explains ramasse as “ autre-
ment balai, & en Lyonnois coiue.”’
Glanvill writes that Julian Cox, one of the Somerset coven
(1665), said ‘‘ that one evening she walkt out about a Mile
from her own House and there came riding towards her three
persons upon three Broom-staves, born up about a yard and
a half from the ground. Two of them she formerly knew,
which was a Witch and a Wizzard.” It might easily be that
there is some exaggeration here. We know that a figure in
one of the witch dances consisted of leaping as high as possible
into the air, and probably the three persons seen by Julian
Cox were practising this agile step. A quotation from Bodin
by Reginald Scot is very pertinent in this connexion. Speak-
ing of the Sabbat revels he has: ‘‘ And whiles they sing and
dance, euerie one hath a broome in his hand, and holdeth it
vp aloft. Item he saith, that these night-walking or rather
night-dansing witches, brought out of Italie into France, that
danse which is called La Volta.’44 Sir John Davies in his
Orchestra or A Poeme on Dauncing (18mo, 1596) describes
the lavolta as ‘‘ A loftie iumping, or a leaping round.”’
De Lancre observes that after the regular country dance at
the Sabbat the witches sprang high into the air. “‘ Apres la
dance ils se mettent par fois 4 sauter.’’*5 At their assembly
124 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
certain of the Aberdeen witches (1597) ‘* danced a devilish
dance, riding on trees, by a long space.”’ In an old repre-
sentation of Dr. Fian and his company swiftly pacing round
North Berwick church withershins the witches are repre-
sented as running and leaping in the air, some mounted on
broomsticks, some carrying their besoms in their hands.
There was discovered in the closet of Dame Alice Kyteler
of Kilkenny, who was arrested in 1324 upon the accusation
of nightly meeting a familiar Artisson and multiplied charges
of sorcery, a pipe of ointment, wherewith she greased a staff
‘‘upon which she ambolled and gallopped thorough thicke
and thin, when and what manner she listed.’’4® In the trial
of Martha Carrier, a notorious witch and ‘“‘ rampant hag ”
at the Court of Oyer and Terminer, held by adjournment at
Salem, 2 August, 1692, the eighth article of the indictment
ran: ‘One Foster, who confessed her own share in the
Witchcraft for which the Prisoner stood indicted, affirm’d,
that she, had seen the prisoner at some of their Witch-
meetings, and that it was this Carrier, who perswaded her to
be a Witch. She confessed that the Devil carry’d them on
a pole, to a Witch-meeting: but the pole broke, and she
hanging about Carriers neck, they both fell down, and she
then received an hurt by the Fall, whereof she was not at
this very time recovered.’’4?
In many of these instances it is plain that there is no
actual flight through the air implied; although there is a
riding a-cock-horse of brooms or sticks, in fact, a piece of
symbolic ritual.
It is very pertinent, however, to notice in this connexton the
actual levitation of human beings, which is, although perhaps
an unusual, yet by no means an unknown, phenomenon in
the séances of modern spiritism, where both the levitation of
persons, with which we are solely concerned, and the rising
of tables or chairs off the ground without contact with any
individual or by any human agency have occurred again
and again under conditions which cannot possibly admit of
legerdemain, illusion, or charlatanry. From a mass of
irrefutable evidence we may select some striking words by
Sir William Crookes, F.R.S., upon levitation. ‘‘ This has
occurred,”’ he writes, ‘‘in my presence on four occasions in
darkness; but . . . I will only mention cases in which deduc-
THE SABBAT 125
tions of reason were confirmed by the sense of sight... .
On one occasion I witnessed a chair, with a lady sitting on
it, rise several inches from the ground. ... On another
occasion the lady knelt on the chair in such manner that
the four feet were visible to us. It then rose about three
inches, remained suspended for about ten seconds, and then
slowly descended... .
“The most striking case of levitation which I have wit-
nessed has been with Mr. Home. On three separate occasions
have I seen him raised completely from the floor of the
room. ... On each occasion I had full opportunity of
watching the occurrence as it was taking place. There are
at least a hundred recorded instances of Mr. Home’s rising
from the ground.’’#8
Writing in July, 1871, Lord Lindsay said: “I was sitting
with Mr. Home and Lord Adare and a cousin of his.. During
the sitting Mr. Home went into a trance, and in that state
was carried out of the window in the room next to where
we were, and was brought in at our window. The distance
between the windows was about seven feet six inches, and
there was not the slightest foothold between them, nor was
there more than a twelve-inch projection to each window,
which served as a ledge to put flowers on. We heard the
window in the next room lifted up, and almost immediately
after we saw Home floating in air outside our window.’’*®
William Stainton Moses writes of his levitation in August,
1872, in the presence of credible witnesses: ‘“‘ I was carried
up... when I became stationary I made a mark [with a
lead pencil] on the wall opposite to my chest. This mark is
as near as may be six feet from the floor. . . . From the
position of the mark on the wall it is clear that my head must
have been close to the ceiling. . . . I was simply levitated
and lowered to my old place.’’*°
When we turn to the lives of the Saints we find that these
manifestations have been frequently observed, and it will
suffice to mention but a few from innumerable examples.
S. Francis of Assisi was often ‘‘ suspended above the earth,
sometimes to a height of three, sometimes to a height of
four cubits’; the same phenomenon has been recorded by
eye-witnesses in many instances throughout the centuries.
Among the large number of those who are known to have
126 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
been raised from the ground whilst wrapt in prayer are the
stigmatized S. Catherine of Siena; S. Colette; Rainiero de
Borgo San-Sepolcro; S. Catherine de Ricci; S. Alphonsus
Rodriguez, S.J.; S. Mary Magdalen de Pazzi; Raimond
Rocco ; Bl. Charles de Sezze ; S. Veronica Giuliani the
Capuchiness; S. Gerard Majella, the Redemptorist thau-
maturge ; that wondrous mystic Anne Catherine Emmerich ;
Dominica Barbagli (died in 1858), the ecstatica of Monte-
santo-Savino (Florence), whose levitations were of daily
occurrence. §S. Ignatius Loyola whilst deeply contemplative
was seen by John Pascal to be raised more than a foot from
the pavement; S. Teresa and S. John of the Cross were
levitated in concurrent ecstasies in the shady locutorio of the
Encarnacion, as was witnessed by Beatriz of Jesus and the
whole convent of nuns;5! §. Alphonsus Liguori whilst
preaching in the church of 8. John Baptist at Foggia was
lifted before the eyes of the whole congregation several feet
from the ground ;5* Gemma Galgani of Lucca, who died
11 April, 1903, was observed whilst praying one evening in
September, 1901, before a venerated Crucifix, to rise in the
air in a celestial trance and to remain several minutes at
some distance from the floor.®? Above all, S. Joseph of
Cupertino (1603-63), one of the most extraordinary mystics
of the seventeenth century, whose whole life seemed one
long series of unbroken raptures and ecstasies, was frequently
lifted on high to remain suspended in mid-air. Such notice
was attracted by this marvel that his superiors sent him
from one lonely house of Capuchins or Conventuals to another,
and he died at the little hill town of Osimo, where his
remains are yet venerated. For many years he was obliged
to say Mass at a private altar so inevitable were the ecstasies
that fell upon him during the Sacrifice. There are, I think,
few sanctuaries more sweet and more fragrant with holiness
than this convent at Osimo. During a most happy visit to
the shrine of S, Joseph I was deeply touched by the many
memorials of the Saints, and by the kindness of the Fathers,
his brethren to-day. S. Philip Neri and S. Francis Xavier
were frequently raised from the ground at the Elevation,
and of the ascetic S. Paul of the Cross the Blessed Strambi
writes: “* Le serviteur de Dieu s’éleva en l’air a la hauteur
de deux palmes, et cela, 4 deux reprises, avant et aprés la
THE SABBAT 127
consecration.”’®4 (The servant of God during Holy Mass was
twice elevated in the air to a height of two hand-breadths
from the ground both before and after the Consecration.)
It is well known that in a certain London church a holy
religious when he said Mass was not unseldom levitated
from the predella, which manifestation I have myself wit-
nessed, although the father was himself unconscious thereof
until the day of his death.
But, as Gorres most aptly remarks,®® although many
examples may be cited of Saints who have been levitated
in ecstasy, and although it is not impossible that this
phenomenon may be imitated by evil powers—as, indeed, it
undoubtedly is in the cases of spiritistic mediums—yet
nowhere do we find in hagiography that a large number of
Saints were in one company raised from the earth together
or conveyed through the air to meet at some appointed spot.
Is it likely, then, that the demons would be allowed seem-
ingly to excel by their power a most extraordinary and
exceptional manifestation ? It must be remembered, also,
that save in very rare and singular instances, such as that
of S. Joseph of Cupertino, levitation is only for a height of a
foot or some eighteen inches, and even this occurs seldom
save at moments of great solemnity and psychic con-
centration.
A question which is largely discussed by the demonologists
then arises: Do the witches actually and in person attend
the Sabbat or is their journey thither and assistance thereat
mere diabolic illusion? Giovanni Francesco Ponzinibio, in
his De Lamiis,°* wholly inclines to the latter view, but
this is superficial reasoning, and the celebrated canonist
Francisco Pefia with justice takes him very severely to task
for his temerity. Pefia’s profound work, In Bernardi
Comensis Dominicani Lucernam inquisitorum note et eiusdem
tractatum de strigibus,°®’ a valuable collection of most erudite
glosses, entirely disposes of Ponzinibio’s arguments, and puts
the case in words of weighty authority.
Sprenger in the Malleus Maleficarum, I, had already con-
sidered ‘‘ How witches are bodily transported from one place
to another,’”’ and he concludes ‘‘It is proven, then, that
sorcerers can be bodily transported.’®§ Paul Grilland
inquires: ‘“‘ Whether magicians & witches or Satanists are
128 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
bodily & actually conveyed to and fro by the Devil, or
whether this be merely imaginary ?”’ He freely acknow-
ledges the extraordinary difficulty and intricacy of the
investigation, beginning his answer with the phrase ‘‘ Quaestio
ista est multum ardua et famosa.’’5® (This is a very difficult
and oft-discussed question.) But S. Augustine, S. Thomas,
S. Bonaventure, and a score of great names are agreed upon
the reality of this locomotion, and Grilland, after balancing
the evidence to the nicety of a hair wisely concludes: ‘‘ My-
self I hold the opinion that they are actually transported.’ ®°
In his Compendium Maleficarum Francesco Maria Guazzo
discusses (Liber I. 18) ‘‘ Whether Witches are actually and
bodily conveyed from place to place to attend their Sabbats ”’;
and lays down: ‘“‘ The opinion which many who follow
Luther & Melancthon hold is that Witches only assist at
these assemblies in their imagination, & that they are choused
by some trick of the devil, in support of which argument the
objectors assert that the Witches have very often been seen
lying in one spot and not moving thence. Moreover, what is
related in the life of S. Germain is not impertinent in this
connexion, to wit, when certain women declared that they
had been present at a banquet, & yet all the while they
slumbered and slept, as several persons attested. That
women of this kind are very often deceived in such a way
is certain; but that they are always so deceived is by no
means sure. . . . The alternative opinion, which personally
I hold most strongly, is that sometimes at any rate Witches
are actually conveyed from one place to another by the
Devil, who under the bodily form of a goat or some other
unclean & monstrous animal himself carries them, & that
they are verily and indeed present at their foul midnight
Sabbats. This opinion is that generally held by the authori-
tative Theologians and Master Jurisprudists of Italy and
Spain, as also by the Catholic divines and legalists. The
majority of writers, indeed, advance this view, for example,
Torquemada in his commentary on Grilland, Remy, S. Peter
Damian, Silvester of Abula, Tommaso de Vio Gaetani,
Alfonso de Castro, Sisto da Siena, O.P., Pére Crespet, Barto-
lomeo Spina in his glosses on Ponzinibio, Lorenzo Anania,
and a vast number of others, whose names for brevity’s sake
I here omit.’ ®
THE SABBAT 129
This seems admirably to sum up the whole matter. In
the encyclopedic treatise De Strigibus®? by an earlier au-
thority, Bernard of Como, the following remarkable passage
occurs: “The aforesaid abominable wretches actually &
awake & in full enjoyment of their normal senses attend these
assemblies or rather orgies, and when they are to go to some
spot hard by they proceed thither on foot, cheerily conversing
as they walk. If, however, they are to meet in some distant
place then are they conveyed by the Devil, yet by whatsoever
means they proceed to the said place whether it be on foot
or whether they are borne along by the Devil, it is most
certain that their journey is real and actual, and not
imaginary. Nor are they labouring under any delusion when
they deny the Catholic Faith, worship and adore the Devil,
tread upon the Cross of Christ, outrage the Most Blessed
Sacrament, and give themselves up to filthy and unhallowed
copulations, fornicating with the Devil himself who appears
to them in a human form, being used by the men as asuccubus,
& carnally serving the woman as an incubus.’’®
The conclusion then is plain and proven. The witches do
actually and individually attend the Sabbat, an orgy of
blasphemy and obscenity. Whether they go thither on foot,
or horseback, or by some other means is a detail, which in
point of fact differs according to the several and infinitely
varied circumstances.
It is not denied that in some cases hallucination and
self-deception played a large part, but such examples are
comparatively speaking few in number, and these, moreover,
were carefully investigated and most frequently recognized
by the judges and divines. Thus in the Malleus Maleficarum
Sprenger relates that a woman, who had voluntarily sur-
rendered herself to be examined as being a witch, confessed
to the Dominican fathers that she nightly assisted at the
Sabbat, and that neither bolts nor bars could prevent her
from flying to the infernal revels. Accordingly she was shut
fast under lock and key in a chamber whence it was impossible
for her to escape, and all the while carefully watched by
lynx-eyed officers through a secret soupirail. These reported
that immediately the door was closed she threw herself on
the bed where in a moment she was stretched out perfectly
rigid in all her members. Select members of the tribunal,
K
1380 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
grave and acute doctors, entered the room. They shook her,
gently at first, but presently with considerable roughness.
She remained immobile and insensible. She was pinched
and pulled sharply. At last a lighted candle was brought
and placed near her naked foot until the flesh was actually
scorched in the flame. She lay stockish and still, dumb and
motionless as a stone. After a while her senses returned to
her. She sat up and related in exact detail the happenings
at the Sabbat she had attended, the place, the number of the
company, the rites, what was spoken, all that was done, and
then she complained of a hurt upon her foot. Next day the
fathers explained to her all that had passed, how that she
had never stirred from the spot, and that the pain arose
from the taper which to ensure the experiment had been
brought in contact with her flesh. They admonished her
straightly but with paternal charity, and upon the humble
confession of her error and a promise to guard against any
such ill fantasies for the future, a suitable penance was
prescribed and the woman dismissed.
In the celebrated cases investigated by Henri Boguet,
June, 1598, young George Gandillon confessed to having
walked to the Sabbat at a deserted spot called Fontenelles,
near the village of Nezar, and also to having ridden to the
Sabbat. Moreover, in his indictment the following occurs :
‘‘ George Gandillon, one Good Friday night, lay in his bed,
rigid as a corpse, for the space of three hours, & then on a
sudden came to himself. He has since been burned alive
here with his father & his sister.’’®4
Since Boguet, who is one of our chief authorities, discusses
the Sabbat with most copious details in his Discours des.
Sorciers it will not be impertinent to give here the head-
ings and subdivisions of his learned and amply docu-
mented chapters. ®®*
Chapter XVI. How, & in what way Sorcerers are conveyed
to the Sabbat.
1. They are sometimes conveyed there mounted on a stick,
or a broom, sometimes on a sheep or a goat, & some-
times by a tall black man.
2. Sometimes they anoint themselves with ointment, & some-
times not.
3.
4,
5.
THE SABBAT 131
There are some people, who although they are not Sor-
cerers, if they are anointed, are none the less carried
off to the Sabbat. The reason for this.
The unguent, & the ointment are actually of no use to the
Sorcerers, and do not in effect carry them to the Sabbat.
Sorcerers are sometimes conveyed to the Sabbat by a blast
of wind & a sudden storm.
Chapter XVII. Sorcerers may sometimes walk to the
Sabbat on foot.
Chapter XVIII. Is the journey of Sorcerers to the Sabbat
merely imagination ?
1
2.
9,
& 3. Reasons for supposing this to be the case, &
examples.
Indications, owing to which it may be supposed, that a
certain woman paid a purely imaginary visit to the
Sabbat.
. Reasons for supposing that the journey of Sorcerers to
the Sabbat, is a real expedition and not imaginary.
. How we are to understand what is related concerning
Erichtho, & Apollonius ; the first of whom raised a
soldier to life, & the latter a young girl.
. Sorcerers cannot raise the dead to life. Examples.
ce
8. The Author’s opinion concerning the subject of this
Neither can heretics perform miracles. Examples.
chapter.
Satan most frequently deceives mankind. Examples.
Chapter XIX.
1.
2.
8.
4A.
Sorcerers go to the Sabbat about midnight.
The reason why the Sabbat is generally held at night.
Satan delights in darkness & blackness, which are opposite
to the whiteness and light that please Heaven.
At the Sabbat Sorcerers dance back to back. For the most
part they wear masks.
5 & 8. When the cock crows the Sabbat immediately comes
6.
768
to an end, and vanishes away. The reason for this.
The voice of the cock frightens Satan in the same way as
ut terrifies lions & serpents.
Several authors relate that demons fear a naked sword.
132 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
Chapter XX. The days on which the Sabbat is held.
1. The Sabbat may be held on any day of the week, but
particularly on a Friday.
2. It is also held on the greatest festivals of the year.
Chapter XXI. The places where the Sabbat is held.
1. According to many writers the place where the Sabbat is
held is distinguished by a clump of trees, or sometimes
by across. The Author’s opinion on this point.
2. A remarkable account of a place where the Sabbat was
held.
3. There must be water near the place where the Sabbat 1s
held. The reason for this.
4. If there is no water in the place, the Sorcerers dig a hole
in the ground and urinate in this.
Chapter XXII. The proceedings at the Sabbat.
1. The Sorcerers worship the Devil who appears wnder the
form of a tall black man, or as a goat. They offer him
candles & kiss his posterior.
2. They dance. A description of their dances.
3. They give themselves up to every kind of filthy abomina-
tion. The Devil transforms himself into an Incubus
& into a Succubus.
4. The hideous orgies & foul copulations practised by the
Euchites, & Gnostics.
5. The Sorcerers feast at the Sabbat. Their meat & their
drink. The way in which they say grace before and
after table.
6. However, this food never satisfies their appetites, & they
always arise from table as hungry as before.
7%. When they have finished their meal, they give the Devil
a full account of all their actions.
8. They again renounce God, their baptism, &c. How Satan
incites them to do evil.
9. They raise dark storms.
10. They celebrate their mass. Of their vestments, & holy
water.
11. Sometimes to conclude the Sabbat Satan seems to be
- consumed in a flame of fire, & to be completely reduced
THE SABBAT 133
to ashes. All present take a small part of these ashes,
which the Sorcerers use for their charms.
12. Satan is always the Ape of God in everything.
As the procedure in the various Sabbats differed very
greatly according to century, decade, country, district, nay,
even in view of the station of life and, it would seem, the
very temperaments of the assembly, it is only possible to
outline in a general way some of the most remarkable
ceremonies which took place on the occasions of these infernal
congregations. An intimate and intensive study of the
Sabbat would require a large volume, for it is quite possible
to reconstruct the rites in every particular, although the
precise order of the ritual was not always and everywhere
the same.
Dom Calmet, it is true, has very mistakenly said: ‘‘ To
attempt to give a description of the Sabbat, is to attempt
a description of what does not exist, & what has never existed
save in the fantastic & disordered imagination of warlocks
& witches: the pictures which have been drawn of these
assemblies are merely the phantasy of those who dreamed
that they had actually been borne, body & soul, through the
air to the Sabbat.’’®* Happy sceptic! But unfortunately
the Sabbat did—and does—take place ; formerly in deserted
wastes, on the hill-side, in secluded spots, now, as often as
not, in the privacy of vaults and cellars, and in those lone
empty houses innocently placarded ‘‘ To be Sold.”
The President of the Sabbat was in purely local gatherings
often the Officer of the district ; in the more solemn assem-
blies convened from a wider area, the Grand Master, whose
dignity would be proportionate to the numbers of the com-
pany and the extent of his province. In any case the President
was Officially known as the “‘ Devil,” and it would seem that
his immediate attendants and satellites were also somewhat
loosely termed ‘“‘ devils,’ which formal nomenclature has
given rise to considerable confusion and not a little mystifi-
cation in the reports of witch trials and the confessions of
offenders. But in many instances it is certain—and ortho-
doxy forbids us to doubt the possibility—that the Principle
of Evil, incarnate, was present for the hideous adoration of
his besotted worshippers. Such is the sense of the Fathers,
134 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
such is the conclusion of the theologians who have dealt with
these dark abominations. Metaphysically it is possible ;
historically it is indisputable.
When a human being, a man, occupied the chief position
at these meetings and directed the performance of the rites,
he would sometimes appear in a hideous and grotesque
disguise, sometimes without any attempt at concealment.
This masquerade generally took the shape of an animal, and
had its origin in heathendom, whence by an easy transition
through the ceremonial of heretics, it passed to the sorcerer
and the witch. As early as the Liber Penitentialis of
S. Theodore, Archbishop of Canterbury, 668-690, we have
a distinct prohibition of this foul mummery. Capitulum xxvii
denounces the man who ‘‘ in Kalendas Ianuarii in ceruulo et
in uitula uadit.” ‘‘ If anyone at the kalends of January goes
about as a stag or a bull; that is making himself into a wild
animal and dressing in the skin of a herd animal, and putting
on the head of beasts; those who in such wise transform
themselves into the appearance of a wild animal, penance
for three years because this is devilish.”
Among the many animal forms which the leader of the
Sabbat (the ‘‘ Devil’’) assumed in masquerade the most
common are the bull, the cat, and above all the goat. Thus
the Basque term for the Sabbat is ‘‘ Akhelarre,” “ goat
pasture.’’ Sometimes the leader is simply said to have shown
himself in the shape of a beast, which possibly points to the
traditional disguise of a black hairy skin, horns, hoofs, claws,
and a tail, in fact the same dress as a demon wore upon the
stage.®? In an old German ballad, Druten Zeitung, printed
at Smalcald in 1627, ‘‘to be sung to the tune of Dorothea,”
it is said that the judges, anxious to extort a confession from
a witch, sent down into her twilight dungeon the common
hangman dressed in a bear’s skin with horns, hoofs, and tail
complete. The miserable prisoner thinking that Lucifer had
indeed visited her at once appealed to him for help:
Man shickt ein Henkersnecht
Zu ihr in Gefangniss n’unter,
Den man hat kleidet recht,
Mit einer Barnhaute,
Als wenns der Teufel war ;
Als ihm die Drut anschaute
Meints ihr Biihl kam daher.
THE SABBAT 135
Here we have a curious and perhaps unique example of the
demoniac masquerade subtly used to obtain evidence of
guilt by a trick. The Aberdeen witch Jonet Lucas (1597)
said that the Devil was at the Sabbat “* beand in likenes of
ane beist.”” But Agnes Wobster of the same company
declared that ‘‘ Satan apperit to them in the likenes of a calff,”’
so possibly two masquerades were employed. Gabriel Pellé
(1608) confessed that he attended a Sabbat presided over by
the Devil, and ‘‘ le Diable estoit en vache noire.’’®* Francoise
Secretain, who was tried in August, 1598, saw the Devil
‘““tantost en forme de chat.’’ Rolande de Vernois acknow-
ledged ‘‘ Le Diable se presenta pour lors au Sabbat en forme
d’vn groz chat noir.’’®® To the goat there are innumerable
allusions. In the Basses-Pyrénées (1609): ‘* Le Diable estoit
en forme de bouc ayant vne queue & audessous vn visage
d’homme noir.”? (The Devil appeared in the form of a goat
having a tail & his fundament was the face of a black man.)
Iohannis d’Aguerre said that the Devil was ‘‘en forme de
bouc.’’7° “‘ Marie d’Aguerre said that there was in the midst
of the ring an immense pitcher whence the Devil issued in
the form of a goat.’? Gentien le Clerc, who was tried at
Orleans in 1614, ‘‘ said that, as he was told, his mother when
he was three years old presented him at the Sabbat to a goat
whom they saluted as l’Aspic.”7! ‘‘Sur le tréne,’’ writes
Gorres, ‘‘ est assis un bouc, ou du moins la forme d’un bouc,
car le démon ne peut cacher ce qu’il est.’’”?
In 1630 Elizabeth Stevenson, alias Toppock, of Niddrie,
avowed to her judges that in company with Catharine
Oswald, who was tried for being by habite and repute a witch,
and Alexander Hamilton, ‘‘a known warlock,’’ she went
‘**to a den betwixt Niddrie and Edmiston, where the devill
had trysted hir, where he appeared first to them like a foall,
and then like a man, and appointed a new dyet at Salcott
Muire.”” When one of Catharine Oswald’s intimates, Alex-
ander Hunter, alias Hamilton, alias Hattaraick, a ‘‘ Warlok
Cairle ’’? who ‘‘ abused the Countrey for a long time,’’’* was
apprehended at Dunbar he confessed that the Devil would
meet him riding upon a black horse, or in the shape of a
corbie, a cat, or a dog. He was burned upon Castle Hill,
Edinburgh, 1631.
Sometimes those who are present at the Sabbat are
136 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
masked. Canon Ribet writes: ‘Les visiteurs du sabbat se
cachent quelquefois sous des formes bestiales, on se couvrent
le visage d’un masque pour demeurer inconnus.”** (Those
who attend the Sabbat sometimes disguise themselves as
beasts, or cover their faces to conceal their identities.)
At the famous Sabbat of one hundred and forty witches
in North Berwick churchyard on All Hallow e’en, 1590, when
they danced “ endlong the Kirk-yard”’ “‘ John Fian, mis-
sellit [masked] led the ring.”” The Salamanca doctors mention
the appearance at the Sabbats of persons “‘ aut aperta, aut
linteo uelata facie,’’’7> ‘‘ with their faces sometimes bare,
sometimes shrouded in a linen wimple.’’ And Delrio has in
reference to this precaution: ‘‘ Facie interdum aperta, inter-
dum uelata larua, linteo, uel alio uelamine aut persona.’’?®
(Sometimes their faces are bare, sometimes hidden, either in
a vizard, a linen cloth, or a veil, or a mask.)
In the latter half of the eighteenth century the territory
of Limburg was terrorized by a mysterious society known
as “ The Goats.’? These wretches met at night in a secret
chapel, and after the most hideous orgies, which included
the paying of divine honours to Satan and other foul blas-
phemies of the Sabbat, they donned masks fashioned to
imitate goats’ heads, cloaked themselves with long disguise
mantles, and sallied forth in bands to plunder and destroy.
From 1772 to 1774 alone the tribunal of Foquemont con-
demned four hundred Goats to the gallows. But the organi-
zation was not wholly exterminated until about the year
1780 after a regime of the most repressive measures and
unrelaxing vigilance.
Among certain tribes inhabiting the regions of the Congo
there exists a secret association of Egbo worshippers. Egbo
or Ekpé is the evil genius or Satan. His rites are Obeeyahism,
the adoration of Obi, or the Devil, and devil-worship is
practised by many barbarous races, as, for instance, by the
Coroados and the Tupayas, in the impenetrable forests
between the rivers Prado and Doce in Brazil, by the Abipones
of Paraguay, as well as by the Bachapins, a Caffre race, by
the negroes on the Gold Coast and the negroes of the West
Indies. In the ju-ju houses of the Egbo sorcerers are obscene
wooden statues to which great veneration is paid, since by
their means divination is solemnly practised. Certain
THE SABBAT 137
festivals are held during the year, and at these it is interesting
to note that the members wear hideous black masks with
huge horns which it is death for the uninitiated to see.
The first ceremony of the Sabbat was the worship of, and
the paying homage to the Devil. It would seem that some-
times this was preceded by a roll-call of the evil devotees.
Agnes Sampson confessed that at the meeting in North
Berwick, when the whole assembly had entered the church,
“The Devil started up himself in the Pulpit like a mickle
black man, and calling the Row, every one answered Here.
Mr. Robert Grierson being named, they all ran hirdie girdie,
and were angry: for it was promised he should be called
Robert the Comptroller, alias Rob the Rower, for expriming
of his name. The first thing he demanded was whether they
had been good servants, and what they had done since the
last time they had convened.”
The witches adored Satan, or the Master of the Sabbat who
presided in place of Satan, by prostrations, genuflections,
gestures, and obeisances. In mockery of solemn bows and
seemly courtesies the worshippers of the Demon approach
him awkwardly, with grotesque and obscene mops and mows,
sometimes straddling sideways, sometimes walking back-
wards, as Guazzo says: Cum accedunt ad demones eos
ueneraturi terga obuertunt & cessim eum cancrorum more
supplicaturi manus inuersas retro applicant.*? But their
chief act of homage was the reverential kiss, oseulum infame.
This impious and lewd ritual is mentioned in detail by most
authorities and is to be found in all lands and centuries. So
Delrio writes: ‘‘ The Sabbat is presided over by a Demon,
the Lord of the Sabbat, who appears in some monstrous
form, most generally as a goat or some hound of hell, seated
upon a haughty throne. The witches who resort to the
Sabbat approach the throne with their backs turned, and
- worship him , . . and then, as a sign of their homage, they
kiss his fundament.”’ Guazzo notes: ‘‘ As.a sign of homage
witches kiss the Devil’s fundament.” And Ludwig Elich
says: ‘* Then as a token of their homage—with reverence
be it spoken—they kiss the fundament of the Devil.’’’®
** Y al tiempo que le besan debajo de la cola, da una vento-
sidad de muy horrible olor,” adds the Spanish Relacion,
** fetid, foul, and filthy.”
188 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
To cite other authorities would be but to quote the same
words. Thomas Cooper, indeed, seems to regard this cere-
mony as a part of the rite of admission, but to confine it to
this occasion alone is manifestly incorrect, for there is
continual record of its observance at frequent Sabbats by
witches of many years standing. ‘‘ Secondly,’ he remarks,
‘‘ when this acknowledgement is made, in testimoniall of
this subiection, Satan offers his back-parts to be kissed of
his vassall.”79 But in the dittay of the North Berwick
witches, all of whom had long been notorious for their
malpractices, ‘‘ Item, the said Agnis Sampson confessed that
the divell being then at North Barrick Kerke, attending
their comming, in the habit or likenesse of a man,®® and
seeing that they tarried over long, hee at their comming
enjoyned them all to a pennance, which was, that they should
kisse his buttockes, in sign of duety to him, which being put
over the pulpit bare, every one did as he had enjoyned
therm: "*
One of the principal charges which was repeatedly brought
against the Knights Templars during the lengthy ecclesi-
astical and judicial processes, 1807-1314, was that of the
osculum infame given by the juniors to their preceptors.
Even so prejudiced a writer as Lea cannot but admit the
truth of this accusation. In this case, however, it has nothing
to do with sorcery but must be connected with the homo-
sexuality which the Order universally practised.
There are some very important details rehearsed in a Bull,
8 June, 1808, of the noble but calumniated Boniface VIII,
with reference to the case of Walter Langton, Bishop of
Lichfield and Coventry (1296-1322), and treasurer of
Edward I, when this prelate was accused of sorcery and
homage to Satan: ‘‘ For some time past it has come to our
ears that our Venerable Brother Walter Bishop of Coventry
and Lichfield has been commonly defamed, and accused,
both in the realm of England and elsewhere, of paying homage
to the Devil by kissing his posterior, and that he hath had
frequent colloquies with evil spirits.’’®? The Bishop cleared
himself of these charges with the compurgators. Bodin
refers to Guillaume Edeline, who was executed in 14538 as
a wizard. He was a doctor of the Sorbonne, and prior of
St. Germain en Laye: ‘‘ The aforesaid sire Guillaume
THE SABBAT 139
confessed . . . that he had done homage to the aforesaid
Satan, who appeared in the shape of a ram, by kissing his
buttocks in token of reverence and homage.’’®? A very rare
tract of the fourteenth century directed against the Waldenses
among other charges brings the following: ‘‘ Item, in ali-
quibus aliis partibus apparet eis demon sub specie et figura
cati, quem sub cauda sigillatim osculantur.”? (The Devil
appears to them as a cat, and they kiss him sub cauda.)*4
Barthélemy Minguet of Brécy, a young man of twenty-five,
who was tried in 1616, said that at the Sabbat ‘‘ he often
saw [the Devil] in the shape of a man, who held a horse by
its bridle, & that they went forward to worship him, each
one holding a pitch candle of black wax in their hands.’’*®®
These candles, as Guazzo tells us, were symbolic and required
by the ritual of the Sabbat, not merely of use for the purpose
of giving light: ‘‘ Then they made an offering of pitch black
candles, and as a sign of homage kissed his fundament.’’®®
The candles were ordinarily black, and one taper, larger than
the rest, was frequently carried by the Devil himself. At
the North Berwick meeting when the witches were all to
assemble in the church, ‘‘ John Fein blew up the Kirk doors,
and blew in the lights, which wer like Mickl black candles
sticking round about the Pulpit.”®”’ Boguet relates that the
witches whom he tried confessed that the Sabbat commenced
with the adoration of Satan, “‘ who appeared, sometimes in
the shape of a tall dark man, sometimes in the shape of a
goat, & to express their worship and homage, they made
him an offering of candles, which burned with a blue light.’’®8
John Fian, also, when doing homage to the Devil ‘‘ thought
he saw the light of a candle . . . which appeared blue lowe.”
This, of course, was on account of the sulphurous material
whence these candles were specially compounded. De Lancre
expressly states that the candles or flambeaux used at the
Sabbat were made of pitch.
An important feature of the greater Sabbats was the ritual
dance, for the dance was an act of devotion which has
descended to us from the earliest times and is to be found
in every age and every country. Dancing is a natural move-
ment, a primitive expression of emotion and ideals. In the
ancient world there can have been few things fairer than
that rhythmic thanksgiving of supple limbs and sweet voices
140 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
which Athens loved, and for many a century was preserved
the memory of that day when the young Sophocles lead the
choir in celebration of the victory of Salamis.§® The Myste
in the meadows of Elysium danced their rounds with the
silver clash of cymbals and with madly twinkling snow-white
feet. At the solemn procession of the Ark from Cariathiarim
(Kirjath Jearim) King David ‘‘ danced with all his might
before the Lord, . . . dancing and leaping before the Lord.”’
S. Basil urges his disciples to dance on earth in order to fit
themselves for what may be one of the occupations of the
angels in heaven. As late as the seventeenth century the
ceremonial dance in church was not uncommon. In 1688 it
was the duty of the senior canon to lead a dance of choir-boys
in the Paris cathedral. Among the Abyssinian Christians
dancing forms no inconsiderable part of worship. Year by
year on Whit Tuesday hundreds of pilgrims dance through
the streets of Echternach (Luxemburg) to the shrine of
S. Willibrod in S. Peter’s Church. Formerly the devotees
danced three times round the great Abbey Courtyard before
proceeding to the sanctuary. But beyond all these the dance
has its own place in the ritual of Holy Church even yet.
Three times a year in Seville Cathedral—on Holy Thursday,
upon Corpus Christi and the Immaculate Conception—Los
Seises dance before a specially constructed altar, exquisitely
adorned with flowers and lights, erected near the outer door
of the grand western entrance of the cathedral. The cere-
mony in all probability dates from the thirteenth century.
The dresses of the boys, who dance before the improvised
altar at Benediction on Corpus Christi, are of the period of
Philip ITI, and consist of short trousers and jackets that hang
from one shoulder, the doublets being of red satin, with rich
embroidery. Plumed white hats with feathers are worn, also
shoes with large scintillating buckles. On Holy Thursday
the costume is also red and white, whilst it is blue and white
for “‘ the day of the Virgin.”
The eight boy choristers—with eight others as attendants—
dance, with castanets in their hands, to a soft organ obbligato,
down the centre of the cathedral to the decorated altar,
advancing slowly and gracefully. Here they remain for about
a quarter of an hour, singing a hymn, and accompanying it
(as the carols of the olden time) with dance and castanets.
THE SABBAT 141
They sing a two-part hymn in front of the altar, forming in
two eights, facing each other, the clergy kneeling in a semi-
circle round them.
Assuredly I cannot do better than quote Mr. Arthur
Symons’ verdict on this dance as he saw it a few years back
in Seville: ‘‘ And, yes, I found it perfectly dignified, perfectly
religious, without a suspicion of levity or indecorum. This
consecration of the dance, this turning of a possible vice into
a means of devotion, this bringing of the people’s art, the
people’s passion, which in Seville is dancing, into the church,
finding it a place there, is precisely one of those acts of divine
worldly wisdom which the Church has so often practised in
her conquest of the world.”
Not too fantastically has a writer suggested that High
Mass itself in some sense enshrines a survival of the ancient
religious dance—that stately, magnificent series of slow
movements which surely may express devotion of the most
solemn and reverent kind, as well as can the colour of vest-
ment or sanctuary, or the sounds of melody.
Since the dance is so essentially religious it must needs be
burlesqued and buffooned by God’s ape. For the dance of
the witches is degraded, awkward, foul, and unclean. These
very movements are withershins, as Guazzo points out:
‘““Then follow the round dances in which, however, they
always tread the measure to the left.”’°° ‘* The Sorcerers,”’
says Boguet, “‘ dance a country-dance with their backs turned
one to the other.’’®! This, of course, being the exact reverse
of the natural country-dance. ‘Sometimes, although
seldom,” he adds, “‘ they dance in couples, & sometimes one
partner is there, another here, for always everything is in
confusion.” ®? De Lancre writes of witches’ revels: ‘‘ They
only dance three kinds of brawls. ... The first is d@ la
Bohémienne . . . the second with quick trippings : these are
round dances.’’®? In the third Sabbat measure the dancers
were placed one behind another in a straight line.
An old Basque legend reported by Estefanella Hirigaray
describes how the witches were wont to meet near an old
limekiln to dance their rounds, a ceremony regarded through-
out that district as an essential feature of the Sabbat.
De Lancre notes the brawls da la Bohémienne as especially
favoured by sorcerers in Labourd. Sylvester Mazzolini, O.P.
142 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
(1460-1523), Master of the Sacred Palace, and the great
champion of orthodoxy against the heresiarch Luther, in his
erudite De Strigimagia®* relates that in Como and Brescia
a number of children between eight and twelve years old,
who had frequented the Sabbat, but had been happily
converted by the unsparing patience of the Inquisitors, at
the request of the Superiors gave exhibitions of these dances
when they showed such extraordinary adroitness and skill
in executing the most intricate and fantastic figures that it
was evident they had been instructed by no mere human
tutelage. Marco de Viqueria, the Dominican Prior of the
Brussels monastery, closely investigated the matter, and he
was a religious of such known acumen and exceptional probity
that his testimony soon convinced many prelates at Rome
who were inclined to suspect some trickery or cunning
practice. In Belgium this Sabbat dance was known as
Pauana.
In the Fian trial Agnes Sampson confessed that ‘* They
danced along the Kirk-yeard, Geilic Duncan playing on a
Trump, and John Fein mussiled led the Ring. The said
Agnes and her daughter followed next. Besides these were
Kate Gray, George Noilis his wife, . . . with the rest of their
Cummers above an hundred Persons.”’®®> She further added
‘that this Geillis Duncane did goe before them, playing
this reill or daunce uppon a small trumpe, called a Jewe’s
trumpe, untill they entered into the Kerk of North Bar-
rick.’’® ‘*‘ These confessions made the King [James I, then
James VI of Scotland] in a wonderfull admiration, and sent
for the saide Geillis Duncane, who, upon the like trumpe, did
play the saide daunce before the kinges maiestie.”’
Music generally accompanied the dancers, and there is
ample evidence that various instruments were played, violins,
flutes, tambourines, citterns, hautboys, and, in Scotland,
the pipes. Those of the witches who had any skill were the
performers, and very often they obliged the company awhile
with favourite airs of a vulgar kind, but the concert ended
in the most hideous discords and bestial clamour; the laws
of harmony and of decency were alike rudely violated. In
August, 1590, a certain Nicolas Laghernhard, on his way to
Assencauria, was passing through the outskirts of a wood
when he saw through the trees a number of men and women
THE SABBAT 143
dancing with filthy and fantastic movements. In amaze he
signed himself and uttered the Holy Name, whereupon the
company perceiving him took to flight, but not before he
had recognized many of these wretches. He was prompt
to inform the ecclesiastical tribunals, and several persons
being forthwith questioned freely acknowledged their in-
famies. Amongst these a shepherd named Michael, who
enjoyed a considerable reputation for his musical talents and
strangely fascinating voice, confessed that he was the piper
at the local Sabbat and that his services were in constant
requisition. At the lesser Sabbats (aquelarre) of Zugarra-
murdi, a hamlet of Navarre, some six hundred souls, in the
Bastan valley, some twelve leagues from Pampluna, one
Juan de Goyburu was wont to play upon the flute, and
Juan de Sansin the tambourine. These two unhappy
wretches, having shown every sign of sincerest contrition,
were reconciled to the Church.
Sinclar in his Relation XXXV, ‘‘ Anent some Prayers,
Charms, and Avies, used in the Highlands,” says: ‘‘ As the
Devil is originally the Author of Charms, and S‘pells, so is he
the Author of several baudy Songs, which are sung. A
reverend Minister told me, that one who was the Devils
Piper, a wizzard confest to him, that at a Ball of dancing,
the Foul Spirit taught him a Baudy song to sing and play,
as it were this night, and ere two days past all the Lads and
Lasses of the town were lilting it throw the street. It were
abomination to rehearse it.” Philip Ludwig Elich precisely
sums up the confused scene: ‘‘ The whole foul mob and
stinkard rabble sing the most obscene priapics and abomin-
able songs in honour of the Devil. One witch yells, Harr,
harr ; a second hag, Devil, Devil; jump hither, jump thither ;
a third, Gambol hither, gambol thither; another, Sabaoth,
Sabaoth, &c.; and so the wild orgy waxes frantic what time
the bedlam rout are screeching, hissing, howling, cater-
wauling, and whooping lewd wassail.’’®? Of all the horrors
of the Sabbat the climax was that appalling blasphemy and
abominable impiety by which the most Holy Sacrifice of
the Altar was mocked and burlesqued in hideous fashion.
And since no Christian will receive the Blessed Sacrament
save he be duly fasting as the Church so strictly enjoins, the
witches in derision of Christ’s ordinance satiate their appetites
144 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
with a wolfish feast and cram themselves to excess with
food of all kinds, both meat and drink, before they proceed
to the ritual of hell. These orgies were often prolonged amid
circumstances of the most beastly gluttony and drunkenness.
Guazzo writes: ‘‘ Tables are laid and duly furnished,
whereupon they set themselves to the board & begin to
gobbet piecemeal the meats which the Devil provides, or
which each member of the party severally brings with him.” °°
De Lancre also says: ‘‘ Many authors say that sorcerers at
the Sabbat eat the food which the Devil lays before them :
but very often the table is only dressed with the viands they
themselves bring along. Sometimes there are certain tables
served with rare dainties, at others with orts and offal.”
‘‘ Their banquets are of various kinds of food according to
the district & the quality of those who are to partake.”’°®
It seems plain that when the local head of the witches, who
often presided at these gatherings absente diabolo, was a
person of wealth or standing, delicacies and choice wines
would make their appearance at the feast, but when it was
the case of the officer of a coven in some poor and small
district, possibly a meeting of peasants, the homeliest fare
only might be served. The Lancashire witches of 1618,
when they met at Malking Tower, sat down to a goodly
spread of ‘‘ Beefe, Bacon, and roasted Mutton,”’ the sheep
having been killed twenty-four hours earlier by James Device ;
in 1633 Edmund Robinson stated that the Pendle witches
offered him “ flesh and bread upon a trencher, and drink in
a glass,” they also had ‘‘ flesh smoaking, butter in lumps, and
milk,’ truly rustic dainties. Alice Duke, a Somerset witch,
tried in 1664, confessed that the Devil ‘‘ bids them Welcome
at their Coming, and brings them Wine, Beer, Cakes, and
Meal, or the like.’’!°° At the trial of Louis Gaufridi at Aix
in 1610 the following description of a Sabbat banquet was
given: ‘‘ Then they feasted, three tables being set out
according to the three aforesaid degrees. Those who were
employed in serving bread had loaves made from wheat
privily stolen in various places. They drank malmsey in
order to excite them to venery. Those who acted as cup-
bearers had filched the wine from cellars where it was stored.
Sometimes they ate the tender flesh of little children, who
had been slain and roasted at some Synagogue, and some-
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THE SABBAT 145
times babes were brought there, yet alive, whom the witches
had kidnapped from their homes if opportunity offered,’’!%
In many places the witches were not lucky enough to get
bumpers of malmsey, for Boguet notes that at some Sabbats
“ They not unseldom drink wine but more often water.’?}°2
There are occasional records of unsavoury and tasteless
viands, and there is even mention of putrefying garbage and
carrion being placed before his evil worshippers by their
Master. Such would appear to have been the case at those
darker orgies when there was a manifestation of supernatural
intelligences from the pit.
The Salamanca doctors say: ‘‘They make a meal from
food either furnished by themselves or by the Devil. It is
sometimes most delicious and delicate, and sometimes a pie
baked from babies they have slain or disinterred corpses.
A suitable grace is said before such a table.” Guazzo thus
describes their wine: ‘‘ Moreover the wine which is usually
. poured out for the revellers is like black and clotted blood
served in some foul and filthy vessel. Yet there seems to
be no lack of cheer at these banquets, save that they furnish
neither bread nor salt. Isabella further added that human
flesh was served.’’1°4
Salt never appeared at the witches’ table. Bodin gives us
the reason that it is an emblem of eternity,1°> and Philip
Ludwig Elich emphatically draws attention to the absence
of salt at these infernal banquets.1°* ‘‘ At these meals,”
remarks Boguet, “‘ salt never appears.’’!°7 Gentien le Clere,
who was tried in Orleans in 1615, confessed: ‘‘ They sit
down to table, but no salt is ever seen.’!98 Madeleine de la
Palud declared that she had never seen salt, olives, or oil
at the Devil’s feasts.1°9
When all these wretches are replete they proceed to a
solemn parody of Holy Mass.
At the beginning of the eighteenth century Marcelline
Pauper of the Congregation of the Sisters of Charity of
Nevers was divinely called to offer herself up as a victim
of reparation for the outrages done to the Blessed Sacrament,
especially by sorcerers in their black masses at the Sabbat.
In March, 1702, a frightful sacrilege was committed in the
convent chapel. The tabernacle was forced open, the
ciborium stolen, and those of the Hosts which had not been
L
146 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
carried away by the Satanists were thrown to the pavement
and trampled under foot. Marcelline made ceaseless repara-
tion, and at nine o’clock of the evening of 26 April, she
received the stigmata in hands, feet, and side, and also the
Crown of Thorns. After a few years of expiation she died
at Tulle, 25 June, 1708.
The erudite Paul Grilland tells us that the liturgy is
burlesqued in every detail: ‘‘ Those witches who have
solemnly devoted themselves to the Devil’s service, worship
him in a particular manner with ceremonial sacrifices, which
they offer to the Devil, imitating in all respects the worship
of Almighty God, with vestments, lights, and every other
ritual observance, and with a set liturgy in which they are
instructed, so that they worship and praise him eternally,
just as we worship the true God.”!!° This abomination of
blasphemy is met with again and again in the confessions
of witches, and although particulars may differ here and
there, the same quintessence of sacrilege persisted through-
out the centuries, even as alas! in hidden corners and secret
lairs of infamy it skulks and lurks this very day.
What appears extremely surprising in this connexion is
the statement of Cotton Mather that the New England
witches ‘‘ met in Hellish Randezvous, wherein the Confessors
(i.e. the accused who confessed) do say, they have had their
Diabolical Sacraments, imitating the Baptism and the Supper
of our Lord.”4! At the trial of Bridget Bishop, alias Oliver,
at the Court of Oyer and Terminer, held at Salem, 2 June,
1692, Deliverance Hobbs, a converted witch, affirmed “ that
this Bishop was at a General Meeting of the Witches, in a Field
at Salem-Village, and there partook of a Diabolical Sacrament
in Bread and Wine then administered.”’ In the case of
Martha Carrier, tried 2 August, 1692, before the same court,
two witnesses swore they had seen her “‘ at a Diabolical
Sacrament ... when they had Bread and Wine Adminis-
tered unto them.” Abigail Williams confessed that on
31 March, 1692, when there was a Public Fast observed in
Salem on account of the scourge of sorcery ‘‘ the Witches had
a Sacrament that day at an house in the Village, and that
they had Red Bread and Red Drink.” This ‘ Red Bread ”
is certainly puzzling. But the whole thing, sufficiently pro-
fane no doubt, necessarily lacks the hideous impiety of the
THE SABBAT 147
black mass. A minister, the Rev. George Burroughs, is
pointed to by accumulated evidence as being the Chief of
the Salem witches; ‘‘he was Accused by Eight of the
Confessing Witches as being an Head Actor at some of their
Hellish Randezvouses, and one who had the promise of being
a King in Satan’s kingdom”; it was certainly he who
officiated at their ceremonies, for amongst others Richard
Carrier “‘affirmed to the jury that he saw Mr. George
Burroughs at the witch meeting at the village and saw him
administer the sacrament,’ whilst Mary Lacy, senr., and her
daughter Mary “affirmed that Mr. George Burroughs was
at the witch meetings with witch sacraments.’’}!2
The abomination of the black mass is performed by some
apostate or renegade priest who has delivered himself over
to the service of evil and is shamefully prominent amongst
the congregation of witches. It should be remarked from
this fact that it is plain the witches are as profoundly con-
vinced of the doctrines of Transubstantiation, the Totality,
Permanence, and Adorableness of the Eucharistic Christ, and
of the power also of the sacrificing priesthood, as is the most
orthodox Catholic. Indeed, unless such were the ease, their
revolt would be empty, void at any rate of its material
malice.
One of the gravest charges brought against the Templars
and in the trials (13807-1314) established beyond any question
or doubt was that of celebrating a blasphemous mass in
which the words of consecration were omitted. It has,
indeed, been suggested that the liturgy used by the Templars
was not the ordinary Western Rite, but that it was an
Eastern Eucharist. According to Catholic teaching the
Consecration takes place when the words of institution are
recited with intention and appropriate gesture, the actual
change of the entire substances of bread and wine into the
Body and Blood of Christ being effected in virtue of the
words Hoc est enim Corpus meum; Hic est enim Calix
sanguinis met. . . . This has been defined by a decree of the
Council of Florence (1489): ‘‘ Quod illa uerba diuina Salu-
atoris omnem uirtutem transsubstantiationis habent.’’ (These
divine words of Our Saviour have full power to effect tran-
substantiation.) But the Orthodox Church holds that an
Kpiklesis is necessary to valid consecration, the actual
148 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
6
words of Our Lord being repeated “as a narrative”
[Seyynuarixes],233 which would seem logically to imply that
Christ’s words have no part in the form of the Sacrament.
In all Orthodox liturgies the words of Consecration are found
together with the Epiklesis, and there are in existence some few
liturgies, plainly invalid, which omit the words of Consecra-
tion altogether. These are all of them forms which have been
employed by heretical sects ; and it may be that the Templars
used one of these. But it is far more probable that the words
were purposely omitted ; the Templars were corroded with
Gnostic doctrines, they held the heresies of the Mandzans
or Johannites who were filled with an insane hatred of Christ
in much the same way as witches and demonolaters, they
followed the tenets of the Ophites who venerated the Serpent
and prayed to him for protection against the Creator, they
adored and offered sacrifice before an idol, a Head, which, as
Professor Prutz holds, represented the lower god whom
Gnostic bodies worshipped, that is Satan. At his trial in
Tuscany the knight Bernard of Parma confessed that the
Order firmly believed this idol had the power to save and to
enrich, in fine, flat diabolism. The secret mass of the Templars
may have burlesqued an Eastern liturgy rather than the
Western rite, but none the less it was the essential cult of the
evil principle.
In 1336 a priest who had been imprisoned by the Comte de
Foix, Gaston III Phébus, on a charge of celebrating a Satanic
mass, was sent to Avignon and examined by Benedict XII
in person. The next year the same pontiff appointed his
trusty Guillaume Lombard to preside at the trial of Pierre
du Chesne, a priest from the diocese of Tarbes, accused of
defiling the Host.
Gilles de Sillé, a priest of the diocese of S. Malo, and the
Florentine Antonio Francesco Prelati, formerly of the diocese
of Arezzo, were wont to officiate at the black masses of
Tiffauges and Machecoul, the castles of Gilles de Rais, who
was executed in 1440.
A priest named Benedictus in the sixteenth century caused
great scandal by the discovery of his assistance at secret and
unhallowed rites. Charles [IX employed an apostate monk
to celebrate the eucharist of hell before himself and his
intimates, and during the reign of his brother the Bishop of
THE SABBAT 149
Paris burned in the Place de Gréve a friar named Séchelle
who had been found guilty of participating in similar profane
mysteries. In 1597 the Parliament of Paris sentenced Jean
Belon, curé of S. Pierre-des-Lampes in the Bourges diocese,
to be hanged and his body burned for desecration of the
Sacrament and the repeated celebration of abominable cere-
monies.144 The Parliament of Bordeaux in 1598 condemned
to the stake Pierre Aupetit, curé of Pageas, near Chalus
Limousin. He confessed that for more than twenty years
he had frequented Sabbats, especially those held at Mathe-
goutte and Puy-de-Déme, where he worshipped the Devil
and performed impious masses in his honour.445 August 14,
1606, a friar named Denobilibus was put to death at Grenoble
upon a similar conviction. In 1609 the Parliament of
Bordeaux sent Pierre De Lancre and d’Espagnet to Labourd
in the Bayonne district to stamp out the sorcerers who
infested that region. No less than seven priests were arrested
on charges of celebrating Satan’s mass at the Sabbat. Two,
Migalena, an old man of seventy, and Pierre Bocal, aged
twenty-seven, were executed, but the Bishop of Bayonne
interfered, claimed the five for his own tribunal and contrived
that they should escape from prison. Three other priests
who were under restraint were immediately set free, and
wisely quitted the country. A twelvemonth later Aix and
the whole countryside rang with the confessions of Madeleine
de la Palud who “Dit aussi que ce malheureux Loys
magicien . . . a controuvé le premier de dire la messe au
sabatt et consacrer Véritablement et présenter le sacrifice A
Lucifer.”’46 It was, of course, mere ignorance on her part to
suppose that “‘ that accursed Magician Lewes did first inuent
the saying of Masse at the Sabbaths,” although Gaufridi may
have told her this to impress her with a sense of his importance
and power among the hierarchies of evil. Certainly in her
evidence the details of the Sabbat worship are exceptionally
detailed and complete.
They are, however, amply paralleled, if not exceeded, by
the narrative of Madeleine Bavent, a Franciscan sister of the
Third Order, attached to the convent of SS. Louis and
Elizabeth at Louviers. Her confessions, which she wrote at
length by the direction of her confessor, des Marets, an
Oratorian, meticulously describe scenes of the most hideous
150 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
blasphemy in which were involved three chaplains, David,
Maturin Picard, the curé of Mesnil-Jourdain, and Thomas
Boullé, sometime his assistant. Amongst other enormities
they had revived the heresy of the Adamites, an early Gnostic
sect, and celebrated the Mass in a state of stark nudity amid
circumstances of the grossest indecency. Upon one Good
Friday Picard and Boullé had compelled her to defile the
crucifix and to break a consecrated Host, throwing the
fragments upon the ground and trampling them. David
and Picard were dead, but Boullé was burned at Rouen,
21 August, 1647.11?
During the reign of Louis XIV a veritable epidemic of
sacrilege seemed to rage throughout Paris.14* The horrors of
the black mass were said in many houses, especially in that
of La Voisin (Catherine Deshayes) who lived in the rue Beau-
regard. The leading spirit of this crew was the infamous
abbé Guibourg, a bastard son—so gossip said—of Henri
de Montmorency. With him were joined Brigallier, almoner
of the Grande Mademoiselle; Bouchot, director of the
convent of La Saussaye; Dulong, a canon of Notre-Dame ;
Dulausens, vicar of Saint-Leu; Dubousquet; Seysson ;
Dussis; Lempérier; Lépreux; Davot, vicar of Notre-
Dame de Bonne-Nouvelle; Mariette, vicar of Saint-Séverin,
skilled in maledictions ; Lemeignan, vicar of Saint-Eustache,
who was convicted of having sacrificed numberless children
to Satan; Toumet; Le France; Cotton, vicar of St. Paul,
who had baptized a baby with the chrism of Extreme Unction
and then throttled him upon the altar; Guignard and
Sébault of the diocese of Bourges, who officiated at the black
mass in the cellars of a house at Paris, and confected filthy
charms under conditions of the most fearful impiety.
In the eighteenth century the black mass persisted. In
1728 the police arrested the abbé Lecollet and the abbé
Bournement for this profanity; and in 1745 the abbé de
Rocheblanche fell under the same suspicion. At the hotel
of Madame de Charolais the vilest scenes of the Sabbat were
continued. A gang of Satanists celebrated their monstrous
orgies at Paris on 22 January, 1793, the night after the murder
of Louis XVI. The abbé Fiard in two of his works, Lettres
sur le diable, 1791, and La France Trompée .. « Paris, 8vo,
1803, conclusively shows that eucharistic blasphemies were
THE SABBAT 151
yet being perpetrated but in circumstances of almost
impenetrable secrecy. In 1865 a scandal connected with
these abominations came to light, and the Bishop of Sens, in
whose diocese it occurred, was so horrified that he resigned
his office and retired to Fontainebleau, where he died some
eighteen months later, practically of shock. Similar practices
were unmasked at Paris in 1874 and again in 1878, whilst it
is common knowledge that the characters of Joris Karl
Huysmans’ La-Bas were all persons easy of identification,
and the details are scenes exactly reproduced from con-
temporary life.14® The hideous cult of evil yet endures.
Satanists yet celebrate the black mass in London, Brighton,
Paris, Lyons, Bruges, Berlin, Milan, and alas! in Rome
itself. Both South America and Canada are thus polluted.
In many a town, both great and small, they have their dens
of blasphemy and evil where they congregate unsuspected
to perform these execrable rites. Often they seem to con-
centrate their vile energies in the quiet cathedral cities of
England, France, Italy, in vain endeavour to disturb the
ancient homes of peace with the foul brabble of devil-worship
and all ill.
They have even been brought upon the public stage. One
episode of Un Soir de Folie, the revue (1925-6) at the Folies
Bergére, Paris, was ‘“‘ Le Sabbat et la Herse Infernale,”’
where in a Gothic cathedral an actor (Mons. Benglia)
appeared as Satan receiving the adoration of his devotees.
At the more frequented Sabbats the ritual of Holy Mass
was elaborately burlesqued in almost every detail. An altar
was erected with four supports, sometimes under a sheltering
tree, at others upon a flat rock, or some naturally convenient
place, ‘‘auprés d’vn arbre, ou parfois auprés d’vn rocher,
dressant quelque forme d’autel sur des colonés infernales,”’
says De Lancre.!2® In more recent times and to-day when
the black mass is celebrated in houses such an altar is often
permanent and therefore the infernal sanctuary can be
builded with a display of the full symbolism of the hideous
cult of evil. The altar was covered with the three linen
cloths the ritual enjoins, and upon it were six black candles
in the midst of which they placed a crucifix inverted, or an
image of the Devil. Sometimes the Devil himself occupied
this central position, standing erect, or seated on some kind
152 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
of monstrous throne. In 1598, at a celebrated witch-trial
before the Parliament of Bordeaux with the Vicar-general
of the Bishop of Limoges and a learned councillor Peyrat as
assessors, Antoine Dumons of Saint-Laurent confessed that
he had frequently provided a large number of candles for
the Sabbat, both wax lights to be distributed among those
- present and the large black tapers for the altar. These were
lit by Pierre Aupetit, who held a sacristan’s reed, and
apparently officiated as Master of the Ceremonies when he
was not actually himself saying the Mass.121
In May, 1895, when the legal representatives of the
Borghese family visited the Palazzo Borghese, which had
been rented for some time in separate floors or suites, they
found some difficulty in obtaining admission to certain
apartments on the first floor, the occupant of which seemed
unaware that the lease was about to expire. By virtue of
the terms of the agreement, however, he was obliged to allow
them to inspect the premises to see if any structural repairs
or alterations were necessary, as Prince Scipione Borghese,
who was about to be married, intended immediately to take
up his residence in the ancestral home with his bride. One
door the tenant obstinately refused to unlock, and when
pressed he betrayed the greatest confusion. The agents
finally pointed out that they were within their rights to
employ actual force, and that if access was longer denied they
would not hesitate to do so forthwith. When the keys had
been produced, the cause of the reluctance was soon plain.
The room within was inscribed with the words Templum
Palladicum. The walls were hung all round from ceiling to
floor with heavy curtains of silk damask, scarlet and black,
excluding the light; at the further end there stretched a
large tapestry upon which was woven in more than life-size
a figure of Lucifer, colossal, triumphant, dominating the
whole. Exactly beneath an altar had been built, amply
furnished for the liturgy of hell: candles, vessels, rituals,
missal, nothing was lacking. Cushioned prie-dieus and
luxurious chairs, crimson and gold, were set in order for the
assistants ; the chamber being lit by electricity, fantastically
arrayed so as to glare from an enormous human eye. The
visitors soon quitted the accursed spot, the scene of devil-
worship and blasphemy, nor had they any desire mere
THE SABBAT 153
nearly to examine the appointments of this infernal
chapel.}??
The missal used at the black mass was obviously a manu-
script, although it is said that in later times these grimoires
of hideous profanity have actually been printed. It is not
infrequently mentioned. Thus De Lancre notes that the
sorcerers of the Basses-Pyrénées (1609) at their worship saw
the officiant ‘“‘ tournant les feuillets d’vn certain liure qu’il
a en main.’’!23 Madeleine Bavent in her confession said:
‘’ On lisait la messe dans le livre des blasphémes, qui servait
de canon et qu’on employait aussi dans les processions.’’!24
The witches’ missal was often bound in human skin, generally
that of an unbaptized babe.!25 Gentien le Clerc, tried at
Orleans, 1614-1615, confessed that ‘‘ le Diable . . . marmote
dans un liure duquel la couuerture est toute velué comme
d’vne peau de loup, auec des feuillets blancs & rouges,
d’autres noires.”’
The vestments worn by the celebrant are variously
described. On rare occasions he is described as being arrayed
in a bishop’s pontificalia, black in hue, torn, squalid, and fusty.
Boguet reports that a witch stated: ‘‘ Celuy, qui est commis
a faire l’office, est reuestu d’vne chappe noire sans croix,’’}26
but it seems somewhat strange that merely a plain black
cope should be used, unless the explanation is to be found
in the fact that such a vestment was most easily procurable
and no suspicion of its ultimate employment would be
excited. The abbé Guibourg sometimes wore a cope of white
silk embroidered with fir-cones, which again seems remark-
able, as the symbolism is in no way connected with the
Satanic rites he performed. But this is the evidence of
Marguerite, La Voisin’s daughter, who was not likely to be
mistaken.!27_ It is true that the mass was often, perhaps, .
partially erotic and not wholly diabolic in the same sense as’
the Sabbat masses were, but yet Astaroth, Asmodeus, and
Lucifer were invoked, and it was a liturgy of evil. On other
occasions Guibourg seems to have donned the orthodox
eucharistic chasuble, stole, maniple, girdle, alb, and amice.
In the thirty-seventh article of his confession Gaufridi
acknowledged that the priest who said the Devil’s mass at
the Sabbat wore a violet chasuble.!28 Gentien le Clerc, tried
at Orleans in 1614-1615, was present at a Sabbat mass when
154 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
the celebrant ‘‘ wore a chasuble which was embroidered with
a Cross; but there were only three bars.”’1*® Later a
contemporary witness points to the use of vestments em-
broidered with infernal insignia, such as a dark red chasuble,
the colour of dried blood, upon which was figured a black
buck goat rampant; a chasuble that bore the inverse Cross,
and similar robes adorned by some needle with the heraldry
of hell.
In bitter mockery of the Asperges the celebrant sprinkled
the witches with filthy and brackish water, or even with
stale. ‘‘ The Devil at the same time made water into a hole
dug in the earth, & used it as holy water, wherewith the
celebrant of the mass sprinkled all present, using a black
aspergillum.’’!°° Silvain Nevillon, a sorcerer who was tried at
Orleans in 1614-1615, said: ‘‘ When Tramesabot said Mass,
before he commenced he used to sprinkle all present with
holy water which was nothing else than urine, saying mean-
while Asperges Diaboli.”*1_ According to Gentien le Clerc:
‘“The holy water is yellow... & after it has been duly
sprinkled Mass is said.’’!82_ Madeleine de la Palud declared
that the sorcerers were sprinkled with water, and also with
consecrated wine from the chalice upon which all present cried
aloud: Sanguis eius super nos et super filios nostros.133 (His
~ blood be upon us and upon our children.)
This foul travesty of the holiest mysteries began with an
invocation of the Devil, which was followed by a kind of
general confession, only each one made mock acknowledge-
ment of any good he might have done, and as a penance he
was enjoined to utter some foul blasphemy or to break some
precept of the Church. The president absolved the con-
gregation by an inverse sign of the Cross made with the left
hand. The rite then proceeded with shameless profanity,
but De Lancre remarks that the Confiteor was never said,
not even in a burlesque form, and Alleluia never pronounced.
After reciting the Offertory the celebrant drew back a little
from the altar and the assembly advancing in file kissed his
left hand. When the Queen of the Sabbat—the witch who
ranked first after the Grand Master, the oldest and most evil
of the witches (‘‘en chasque village,’ says De Lancre,
‘“‘trouuer vne Royne du Sabbat’’)—was present she sat on
the left of the altar and received the offerings, loaves, eggs,
THE SABBAT 155
any meat or country produce, and money, so long as the
coins were not stamped with a cross. In her hand she held
a dise or plate “‘ vne paix ou platine,”’ engraved with a figure
of the Devil, and this his followers devoutly kissed. In many
places to-day, especially Belgium, during Holy Mass the
pax-brede (instrumentum pacis) is kissed by the congregation
at the Offertory, and universally when Mass is said by a
priest in the presence of a Prelate the pax-brede is kissed
by the officiant and the Prelate after the Agnus Dei and the
first appropriate ante-communion prayer.
Silvain Nevillon, who was tried at Orleans in 1614-15,
avowed: ‘‘ The Devil preached a sermon at the Sabbat, but
nobody could hear what he said, for he spoke in a growl.’’!*4
At the Sabbat a sermon is not infrequently delivered, a
farrago of impiety and evil counsel.
The hosts are then brought to the altar. Boguet describes
them as dark and round, stamped with a hideous design ;
Madeleine Bavent saw them as ordinary wafers only coloured
red; in other cases they were black and triangular in shape.
Often they blasphemed the Host, calling it ‘‘ Tean le blane,”’
just as Protestants called it ‘‘ Jack-in-the-box.’’ The chalice
is filled, sometimes with wine, sometimes with a bitter
beverage that burned the tongue like fire. At the Sanctus
a horn sounded harshly thrice, and torches burning with a
sulphurous blue flare ‘‘ qui est fort puante’’ were kindled.
There was an elevation, at which the whole gang, now in a
state of hysterical excitement and unnatural exaltation,
burst forth with the most appalling screams and maniac
blasphemies, rivalling each other in filthy adjurations and
crapulous obscenities. The protagonist poured out all the
unbridled venom that diabolic foulness could express, a
stream of scurrility and pollution; hell seemed to have
vomited its reeking gorge on earth. Domine adiuua nos,
domine adiuua nos, they cried to the Demon, and again
Domine adiuua nos semper. Generally all present were com-
pelled to communicate with the sacrament of the pit, to
swallow morsels soiled with mud and ordures, to drink the
dark brew of damnation. Gaufridi confessed that for Ite
missa est these infernal orgies concluded with the curse:
‘* Allez-vous-en tous au nom du diable!’’ Whilst the abbé
Guibourg cried: “ Gloria tibi, Lucifero !”
156 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
The black mass of the Sabbat varied slightly in form
according to circumstances, and in the modern liturgy of the
Satanists it would appear that a considerable feature is made
of the burning of certain heavy and noxious weeds, the
Devil’s incense. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
the use of incense is very rare at the Sabbat, although Silvain
Nevillon stated that he had seen at the Sabbat ‘‘ both holy
water and incense. This latter smelled foul, not fragrant as
incense burned in church.’’!35
The officiant nowadays consecrates a host and the chalice
with the actual sacred words of Holy Mass, but then instead
of kneeling he turns his back upon the altar,18° and a few
moments later—sit uenia uerbis!—he cuts and stabs the
Host with a knife, throwing it to the ground, treading upon
it, spurning it. A part, at least, of the contents of the chalice
is also spilled in fearful profanation, and not infrequently there
further has been provided a ciborium of consecrated Hosts,
all stolen from churches!’ or conveyed away at Communion
in their mouths by wretches unafraid to provoke the sudden
judgement of an outraged God. These the black priest, for
so the celebrant is called by the Devil worshippers, scatters
over the pavement to be struggled and fought for by his
congregation in their madness to seize and outrage the
Body of Christ.
Closely connected with the black mass of the Satanists
and a plain survival from the Middle Ages is that grim
superstition of the Gascon peasant, the Mass of S. Sécaire.138
Few priests know the awful ritual, and of those who are
learned in such dark lore fewer yet would dare to perform
the monstrous ceremonies and utter the prayer of blasphemy.
No confessor, no bishop, not even the Archbishop of Auch,
may shrive the celebrant ; he can only be absolved at Rome
by the Holy Father himself. The mass is said upon a broken
and desecrated altar in some ruined or deserted church where
owls hoot and mope and bats flit through the crumbling
windows, where toads spit their venom upon the sacred stone.
The priest must make his way thither late attended only by
an acolyte of impure and evil life. At the first stroke of
eleven he begins; the liturgy of hell is mumbled backward,
the canon said with a mow and a sneer; he ends just as
midnight tolls, The host is triangular, with three sharp
THE SABBAT 157
points and black. No wine is consecrated but foul brackish
water drawn from a well wherein has been cast the body of
an unbaptized babe. The holy sign of the cross is made
with the left foot upon the ground. And the man for whom
that mass is said will slowly pine away, nor doctor’s skill nor
physic will avail him aught, but he will suffer, and dwindle,
and surely drop into the grave.18°
Although there is, no doubt, some picturesque exaggeration
here the main details are correct enough. A black, triangular
wafer is not infrequently mentioned in the witch-trials as
having been the sacramental bread of the Sabbat, whilst
Lord Fountainhall’?° in describing the devilish communion
of the Loudian witches says: ‘“‘ the drink was sometimes
blood, sometimes black moss-water,’’ and many other details
may be closely paralleled.
When the blasphemous liturgy of the Sabbat was done all
present gave themselves up to the most promiscuous de-
bauchery, only interrupting their lasciviousness to dance or
to spur themselves on to new enormities by spiced foods
and copious draughts of wine. ‘‘ You may well suppose,”’
writes Boguet, ‘‘ that every kind of obscenity is practised
there, yea, even those abominations for which Heaven poured
down fire and brimstone on Sodom and Gomorrah are quite
common in these assemblies.’’!41_ The erudite Dominican,
Father Sebastian Michaelis, who on the 19 January, 1611,
examined Madeleine de la Palud concerning her participation
in Sabbats, writes!4? that she narrated the most unhallowed
orgies.148 ‘The imagination reels before such turpitudes !
But Madeleine Bavent (1643) supplied even more execrable
details.144 Gentien le Clere at Orleans (1614-1615) acknow-
ledged similar debauchery.14° Bodin relates that a large
number of witches whom he tried avowed their presence at the
Sabbat.14® In 1459 ‘‘ large numbers of men & women were
burned at Arras, many of whom had mutually accused one
another, & they cenfessed that at night they had been
conveyed to these hellish dances.’’!47 In 1485 Sprenger
executed a large number of sorcerers in the Constance dis-
trict, and “‘ almost all without exception confessed that the
Devil had had connexion with them, after he had made them
renounce God and their holy faith.’!48 Many converted
witches likewise confessed these abominations “‘ and let it be
158 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
known that whilst they were witches demons had swived them
lustily. Henry of Cologne in confirmation of this says that
it is very common in Germany.’’!4° Throughout the cen-.
turies all erudite authorities have the same monstrous tale
to tell, and it would serve no purpose merely to accumulate
evidence from the demonologists. To-day the meetings of
Satanists invariably end in unspeakable orgies and hideous
debauchery.
Occasionally animals were sacrificed at the Sabbat to the
Demon. ‘The second charge against Dame Alice Kyteler,
prosecuted in 1824 for sorcery by Richard de Ledrede, Bishop
of Ossory, was ‘‘ that she was wont to offer sacrifices to
devils of live animals, which she and her company tore limb
from limb and made oblation by scattering them at the
cross-ways to a certain demon who was called Robin, son
of Artes (Robin Artisson), one of hell’s lesser princes.’’?°°
In 1622 Margaret McWilliam ‘‘ renounced her baptisme,
and he baptised her and she gave him as a gift a hen or
cock.’’151 In the Voodoo rites of to-day a cock is often the
animal which is hacked to pieces before the fetish. Black
puppies were sacrificed to Hecate; Aineas offers four jetty
bullocks to the infernal powers, a coal-black lamb to Night ;1°?
at their Sabbat on the Esquiline Canidia and Sagana tear
limb from limb a black sheep, the blood streams into a
trench.153 Collin de Planey states that witches sacrifice
black fowls and toads to the Devil.154 The animal victim
to a power worshipped as divine is a relic of remotest
antiquity.
The presence of toads at the Sabbat is mentioned in many
witch-trials. They seem to have been associated with
sorcerers owing to the repugnance they generally excite, and
in some districts it is a common superstition that those whom
they regard fixedly will be seized with palpitations, spasms,
convulsions, and swoons: nay, a certain abbé Rousseau
of the eighteenth century, who experimented with toads,
avowed that when one of these animals looked upon him
for some time he fell in a fainting fit whence, if help had not
arrived, he would never have recovered.?®5> A number of
writers—Aélian, Dioscorides, Nicander, Attius, Gesner—
believe that the breath of the toad is poisonous, infecting
the places it may touch. Since such idle stories were credited
THE SABBAT 159
it is hardly to be surprised at that we find the toad a close
companion of the witch. De Lancre says that demons often
appeared in that shape. Jeannette d’Abadie, a witch of the
Basses-Pyrénées, whom he tried and who confessed at length,
declared that she saw brought to the Sabbat a number of
toads dressed some in black, some in scarlet velvet, with little
bells attached to their coats. In November, 1610, a man
walking through the fields near Bazas, noticed that his dog
had scratched a large hole in a bank and unearthed two pots,
covered with cloth, and closely tied. When opened they were
found to be packed with bran, and in the midst of each was
a large toad wrapped in green tiffany. These doubtless had
been set there by a person who had faith in sympathetic
magic, and was essaying a malefic spell. No doubt toads
were caught and taken to the Sabbat, nor is the reason far
to seek. Owing to their legendary venom they served as a
prime ingredient in poisons and potions, and were also used
for telling fortunes, since witches often divined by their toad
familiars. Juvenal alludes to this when he writes :
«J neither will, nor can Prognosticate
To the young gaping Heir, his Father’s Fate
Nor in the Entrails of a Toad have pry’d.’’156
Upon which passage Thomas Farnabie, the celebrated English
scholar (1575-1647) glosses thus: ‘‘ He alludes to the office of
the Haruspex who used to inspect entrails & intestines. Pliny
says: The entrails of the toad (Rana rubeta), that is to say the
tongue, tiny bones, gall, heart, have rare virtue for they are
used in many medicines and salves. Haply he means the pud-
dock or hop-toad, thus demonstrating that these animals are
not poisonous, their entrails being completely inefficacious in
confecting poisons.”’15? In 1610 Juan de Echalar, a sorcerer
of Navarre, confessed at his trial before the Alcantarine
inquisitor Don Alonso Becerra Holguin that he and his coven
collected toads for the Sabbat, and when they presented these
animals to the Devil he blessed them with his left hand, after
which they were killed and cooked in a stewpot with human
bones and pieces of corpses rifled from new-made graves.
From this filthy hotch-potch were brewed poisons and
unguents that the Devil distributed to all present with
directions how to use them. By sprinkling corn with the
160 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
liquid it was supposed they could blight a standing field,
and also destroy flowers and fruit. A few drops let fall upon
a person’s garments was believed to insure death, and a
smear upon the shed or sty effectually diseased cattle. From
these crude superstitions the fantastic stories of dancing
toads, toads dressed en cavalier, and demon toads at the
Sabbat were easily evolved.
There is ample andcontinuousevidencethat children, usually
tender babes who were as yet unbaptized, were sacrificed at
the Sabbat. These were often the witches’ own offspring,
and since a witch not unseldom was the midwife or wise-
woman of a village she had exceptional opportunities of
stifling a child at birth as a non-Sabbatial victim to Satan.
‘‘ There are no persons who can do more cunning harm to the
Catholic faith than midwives,” says the Malleus Maleficarum,
Pars I, q. xi: ‘‘ Nemo fidei catholice amplius nocet quam
obstetrices.”’ The classic examples of child-sacrifice are those
of Gilles de Rais (1440) and the abbé Guibourg (1680). In
the process against the former one hundred and forty children
are explicitly named: some authorities accept as many as
eight hundred victims. Their blood, brains, and bones were
used to decoct magic philtres. In the days of Guibourg the
sacrifice of a babe at the impious mass was so common that
he generally paid not more than a crown-piece for his victim.
‘* Tl avait acheté un écu l’enfant qui fut sacrifié a cette messe.”’
(‘‘ The child sacrificed at this mass he had bought for a
crown.’’) These abominable ceremonies were frequently per-
formed at the instance of Madame de Montespan in order
that Louis XIV should always remain faithful to her, should
reject all other mistresses, repudiate his queen, and in fine
raise her to the throne.1®& The most general use was to cut
the throat of the child, whose blood was drained into the
chalice and allowed to fall upon the naked flesh of the
inquirer, who lay stretched along the altar. La Voisin
asserted that a toll of fifteen hundred infants had been thus
murdered. This is not impossible, as a vast number of
persons, including a crowd of ecclesiastics, were implicated.
Many of the greatest names in France had assisted at these
orgies of blasphemy. From first to last no less than two
hundred and forty-six men and women of all ranks and
grades of society were brought to trial, and whilst thirty-six
THE SABBAT 161
of humbler station went to the scaffold, one hundred and
forty-seven were imprisoned for longer or shorter terms, not
a few finding it convenient to leave the country, or, at any
rate, to obscure themselves in distant chateaux. But many
of the leaves had been torn out of the archives, and Louis
himself forbade any mention of his favourite’s name in
connexion with these prosecutions. However, she was
disgraced, and it is not surprising that after the death of
Maria Teresa, 81 July, 1683, the king early in the following
year married the pious and conventual Madame de Main-
tenon.
Ludovico Maria Sinistrari writes that witches ‘‘ promise
the Devil sacrifices and offerings at stated times: once a
fortnight, or at least each month, the murder of some child,
or an homicidal act of sorcery,” and again and again in the
trials detailed accusation of the kidnapping and murder of
children are brought against the prisoners. In the same way
as the toad was used for magical drugs so was the fat of the
child. The belief that corpses and parts of corpses constitute
a most powerful cure and a supreme ingredient in elixirs is
universal and of the highest antiquity. The quality of
directly curing diseases and of protection has long been
attributed to a cadaver. Tumours, eruptions, gout, are
dispelled if the afflicted member be stroked with a dead
hand.1°® Toothache is charmed away if the face be touched
with the finger of a dead child.1®° Birthmarks vanish under
the same treatment.!®! Burns, carbuncles, the herpes, and
other skin complaints, fearfully prevalent in the Middle Ages,
could be cured by contact with some part of a corpse. In
Pomerania the “ cold corpse hand” is a protection against
fire,‘®2 and Russian peasants believe that a dead hand
protects from bullet wounds and steel.1®° It was long thought
by the ignorant country folk that the doctors of the hospital
of Graz enjoyed the privilege of being allowed every year
to exploit one human life for curative purposes. Some young
man who repaired thither for toothache or any such slight
ailment is seized, hung up by the feet, and tickled to death !
Skilled chemists boil the body to a paste and utilize this as
well as the fat and the charred bones in their drug store.
The people are persuaded that about Easter a youth annually
disappears in the hospital for these purposes.164 This
M
162 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
tradition is, perhaps, not unconnected with the Jewish ritual
sacrifices of S. William of Norwich (1144); Harold of Glou-
cester (1168); William of Paris (1177); Robert of Bury
S. Edmunds (1181); S. Werner of Oberwesel (1286) ;
S. Rudolph of Berne (1294); S. Andreas of Rinn (1462) ;
S. Simon of Trent, a babe of two and a half years old (1478) ;
Simon Abeles, whose body lies in the Teyn Kirche at Prague,
murdered for Christ’s sake on 21 February, 1694, by Lazarus
and Levi Kurtzhandel; El santo Nifio de la Guardia, near
Toledo (1490), and many more.?®®
The riots which have so continually during three centuries
broken out in China against Europeans, and particularly
against Catholic asylums for the sick, foundling hospitals,
schools, are almost always fomented by an intellectual party
who begin by issuing fiery appeals to the populace: “‘ Down
with the missionaries! Kull the foreigners! They steal or
buy our children and slaughter them, in order to prepare
magic remedies and medicines out of their eyes, hearts, and
from other portions of their dead bodies.’? Baron Hiibner
in his Promenade autour du monde, II (Paris, 1878) tells the
story of the massacre at Tientsin, 21 June, 1870, and relates
that it was engineered on these very lines. In 1891 similar
risings against Europeans resident in China were found to
be due to the same cause. Towards the end of 1891 a
charge was brought in Madagascar against the French
that they devoured human hearts and for this purpose
kidnapped and killed native children. Stern legislation was
actually found necessary to check the spread of these
accusations.1%
In the Navarrese witch-trials of 1610 Juan de Echelar
confessed that a candle had been used made from the arm
of an infant strangled before baptism. The ends of the
fingers had been lit, and burned with a clear flame, a *‘ Hand
of Glory” in fact. At Forfar, in 1661, Helen Guthrie and
four other witches exhumed the body of an unbaptized babe
and made portions into a pie which they ate. They imagined
that by this means no threat nor torture could bring them
to confession of their sorceries. This, of course, is clearly
sympathetic magic. The tongue of the infant had never
spoken articulate words, and so the tongues of the witches
would be unable to articulate.
THE SABBAT 163
It is a fact seldom realized, but none the less of the deepest
significance, that almost every detail of the old witch-trials
can be exactly paralleled in Africa to-day. Thus there exists
in Bantu a society called the ‘‘ Witchcraft Company,”’ whose
members hold secret meetings at midnight in the depths of
the forest to plot sickness and death against their enemies
by means of incantations and spells. The owl is their sacred
bird, and their signal call an imitation of its hoot. They
profess to leave their corporeal bodies asleep in their huts,
and it is only their spirit-bodies that attend the magic
rendezvous, passing through walls and over the tree-tops
with instant rapidity. At the meeting they have visible,
audible, and tangible communication with spirits. They hold
feasts, at which is eaten the ‘‘ heart-life’’ of some human
being, who through this loss of his heart falls sick and, unless
“the heart ’’ be later restored, eventually dies. Earliest
cock-crow is the warning for them to disperse, since they fear
the advent of the morning-star, as, should the sun rise upon
them before they reach their corporeal bodies, all their plans
would not merely fail, but recoil upon themselves, and they
would pine and languish miserably. This hideous Society
was introduced by black slaves to the West Indies, to Jamaica
and Hayti, and also to the Southern States of America as
Voodoo worship. Authentic records are easily procurable
which witness that midnight meetings were held in Hayti
as late as 1888, when human beings, especially kidnapped
children, were killed and eaten at the mysterious and evil
banquets. European government in Africa has largely
suppressed the practice of the black art, but this foul belief
still secretly prevails, and Dr. Norris!®’ is of opinion that
were white influence withdrawn it would soon hold sway as
potently as of old.
A candid consideration will show that for every detail of
the Sabbat, however fantastically presented and exaggerated
in the witch-trials of so many centuries, there is ample
warrant and unimpeachable evidence. There is some hallu-
cination no doubt; there is lurid imagination, and vanity
which paints the colours thick; but there is a solid stratum
of fact, and very terrible fact throughout.
And as the dawn broke the unhallowed crew separated in
haste, and hurried each one on his way homewards, pale,
164 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
weary, and haggard after the night of taut hysteria, frenzied
evil, and vilest excess.
‘Le coq s’oyt par fois és sabbats sonnat le retraicte aux
Sorciers.”168 (The cock crows; the Sabbat ends; the
Sorcerers scatter and flee away.)
NOTES TO CHAPTER IV
1 Omnia autem honeste et secundum ordinem fiant. 1 Cor. xiv. 40,
2 Miss Murray, misled no doubt by the multiplicity of material, postulates
two separate and distinct kinds of assemblies: Tho Sabbat, the General
Meeting of all members of the religion; the Esbat ‘‘ only for the special and
limited number who carried out the rites and practices of the cult, and
[which] was not for the general public.” The Witch-Cult in Western Europe, .
p. 97. Gérres had already pointed out that the smaller meetings were often
known as Esbats. The idea of a ‘‘ general public’’ at a witches’ meeting
is singular.
3 On a voulu trouver l’etymologie du sabbat, réunion des sorciers, dans
les sabazies ; mais la forme ne le permet pas; d’ailleurs comment, au moyen
age aurait on connu les sabazies ? Saint-Croix, Recherches sur les mystéres
du paganisme ; Maury, Histoire des religions de la Gréce antique.
4 Metamorphoseon, VIII. 25.
5 Miss Murray thinks that Sabbat ‘“‘is possibly a derivative of s’esbattre,
‘to frolic,’’’? and adds ‘‘ a very suitable description of the joyous gaicty of
the meetings’’!!
6 Miss Murray mistakenly says (p. 109) that May Eve (30 April) is called
Roodmas or Rood Day. Roodmas or Rood Day is 3 May, the Feast of the
Invention of Holy Cross. An early English calendar (702-706) even gives
7 May as Roodmas. The Invention of Holy Cross is found in the Lectionary
of Silos and the Bobbio Missal. The date was not slightly altered. The
Invention of Holy Cross is among the very early festivals.
7 Especially in the North and North-East. Bavaria, Wurtemberg, and
Baden, knew little of this particular date.
8 Inthe Rituale we have ‘‘ Benedictio Rogi, que fit a Clero extra Ecclesiam
in Uigilia Natiuitatis S. Joannis Baptiste. (Blessing of a pyre, which the
Clergy may give on the Vigil of the Nativity of 8. John Baptist, but out-
side the Church.) This form is especially approved for the Diocese of ‘Tarbes.
® Relacion de las personas que salieron al auto de la fé que los inquisidores
apostilicos del reino de Navarra y su distrito, celebraron en la ciudad De Logrono, .
en 7 y 8 del mes de noviembre de 1610 avios, 1611.
10 Discours des Sorciers, XXII. 12. Tertullian’s Diabolus simia Des.
11 Idem, XX. 2.
12 Tableau, p. 65.
13 Les lieux des assemblées des Sorciers sont notables et signalez de quelques
arbres, ou croix. Fleau, p. 181.
14 Anthony Horneck; Appendix to Glanvill’s Sadducismus T'riumphatus.
London, 1681.
15 Locus in diuersis regionibus est diuersus; plerumque autem comitia
in syluestribus, montanis, uel subterraneis atque ab hominum conuersatione
dissitis locis habentur. Mela. Lib. 3. cap. 44. montem Atlantem nominat ;
de Vaulx Magus Stabuleti decollatus, fatebatur 1603, in Hollandia congrega-
tionem frequentissimam fuisse in Ultraiectine ditionis aliquo loco. Nobis
ab hoc conuentu notus atq; notatus mons Bructerorum, Meliboeus alias
dictus in ducatu Brunsuicensi, uulgo der Blocksberg oder Heweberg, Peucero,
der Brockersberg, & Tilemanno Stelle, der Vogelsberg, perhibente Ortelio
in Thesauro Geographico. For the Bructeri see Tacitus, Germania, 33: Velleius
Paterculus, II, 105, i. Bructera natio, Tacitus, Historie, 1V, 61.
16. . . le lieu ot on le trouue ordinairement s’appelle Lanne de bouc,
& en Basque Aquelarre de verros, prado del Cabron, & 1a des Sorciers
THE SABBAT 165
le vont adorer trois nuicts durant, celle du Lundy, du Mercredy, & du
Vendredy. De Lancre, Jableau, p. 62.
17 Boguet, Discours des Sorciers, p. 124.
18 A Pleasant Treatise of Witches, London, 1673.
19 Psalm xc.
20 Conuentus, ut plurimum ineuntur uel noctis medie silentio, quando
uiget potestas tenebrarum ; uel interdiu meridie, quo sunt qui referant illud
Psalmistz notum de demonio meridiano. Noctes frequentiores, que feriam
tertiam et sextam precedunt. Delrio, Disquisitiones Magice, Lib. II. xvi.
*1 Discours, XIX. 1. ‘‘ The Sorcerers assemble at the Sabbat about
midnight.”’
22 Her indictment consists of fifty-three points.
23 Spottiswoode’s Practicks.
24 Spalding Club, Miscellany, I.
25 MS. formerly in the possession of Michael Stewart Nicolson, Esq.
26, , . jeme trouvais transporté au lieu ot le Sabatt se tenait, y demeurant
quelquefois une, deux, trois, quatre heures pour le plus souvent suivant
les affections.
27 Ferunt uagantes Demonas
Leetas tenebras noctium
Gallo canente exterritos
Sparsim timere et credere.
28 Nocturna lux uiantibus
A nocte noctem segregans,
Preco diei iam sonat,
Iubarque solis euocat.
Hoc nauta uires colligit,
Pontique mitescunt freta :
Hoc, ipsa petra Ecclesia,
Canente, culpam diluit.
Surgamus ergo strenue :
Gallus iacentes excitat,
Et somnolentos increpat,
Gallus negantes arguit.
Gallo canente, spes redit,
fHgris salus refunditur,
Mucro latronis conditur,
Lapsis fides reuertitur.
The translation in text is by Caswall, 1848.
29 Tableau, p. 154.
30 For London, see Dr. Johnson’s London (1738) :
Prepare for death, if here at night you roam,
And sign your will before you sup from home.
In 1500 Paolo Capello, the Venetian Ambassador, wrote: ‘‘ Every night
they find in Rome four or five murdered men, Prelates and so forth.”” During
the reign of Philip IV (1621-1665) the streets of Madrid, noisome, unpaved,
were only lit on the occasion of festal illuminations.
31 1475-1546.
32 Quando uadunt ad loca propinqua uadunt pedestres mutuo se inuicem
inuitantes. De Strigibus, II.
33 Les Sorciers neatmoins vont quelquefois de pied au Sabbat, ce qui leur
aduient principalement, lors que le lieu ot ils font leur assemblée, n’est pas
guieres eslongé de leur habitation. Discours, c. xvii.
34 Enquis en quel lieu se tint le Sabbat le dernier fois qu’il y fut.
Respond que ce fut vers Billeron 4 un Carroy qui est sur le chemin
tendant aux Aix, Parroisse de Saincte Soulange, Iustice de ceans.
Enquis de quelle fagon il y va.
Respond qu’il y va de son pied.
~ De Lancre, Tableau, pp. 803-805.
85 Aussi vilain & abominable est au Sorcier d’y aller de son pied que
d’y estre transporté de son consentement par le Diable. Tableau, p. 632.
166 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
86 Sinclar, Satan’s Invisible World Discovered (Reprint 1875), VII.
37 Idem, p. 25.
38 Idem, pp. 175, 178.
39 Tllud etiam non omittendum quod quedam scelerate mulieres retro
post Satanam conuerse, demonum illusoribus et phantasmatibus seductz
credunt se et profitentur nocturnis horis cum Diana paganorum dea et
innumera multitudine mulierum equitare super quasdam bestias et multa
terrarum spatia intempeste noctis silentio pertransire eiusque iussionibus
uelut dominz obedire, et certis noctibus ad eius seruitium euocari. Minge,
Patres Latini, CX XXII. 352.
40 See Professor A. J. Clark’s note upon “ Flying Ointments.” Witch-Cult
in Western Europe, pp. 279-280.
41 Posset demon eas transferre sine unguento, et facit aliquando; sed
unguento mauult uti uariis de causis. Aliquando quia timidiores sunt sage,
ut audeant ; uel quia teneriores sunt ad horribilem illum Satane contactum
in corpore assumpto ferendum; horum enim unctione sensum obstupefacit
et miseris persuadet uim unguento inesse maximam. Alias autem id facit
ut sacrosancta a Deo instituta sacramenta inimice adumbret, et per has
quasi cerimonias suis orgiis reuerentiz et uenerationis aliquid conciliat.
Delrio, Disquitiones magice, Liber II, q* xvi.
42 In antiquity we have the case of Simon Magus, who was levitated in
the presence of Nero and his court.
43 Henri Boguet, the High Justice of the district of Saint-Claude, died in
1616. The first edition (of the last rarity) of his Discours des Sorciers is Lyons,
1602; second edition, Lyons 1608; but there is also a Paris issue, 1603.
Pp. 64 and 104.
44 Scot, Discoverie of Witchcraft (1584). Book III. p. 42.
45 De Lancre, Tableau, p. 211.
46 Thomas Wright, Proceedings against Dame Alice Kyteler, Camden
Society. 1843.
47 Cotton Mather, Wonders of the Invisible World, 1693. (Reprint, 1862.
P. 158.)
48 Quarterly Journal of Science, January, 1874.
49 J, Godfrey Raupert, Modern Spiritism. 1904. Pp. 34, 35. See also
Sir W. Barrett, On the Threshold of the Unseen, p. 70.
50 Arthur Lillie, Modern Mystics and Modern Magic, 1894, pp. 74, 75.
51 David Lewis, Life of S. John of the Cross (1897), pp. 73-4.
52 See the Saint’s own letter (written in 1777) to the Bishop of Foggia.
Lettere di S. Alfonso Maria de’ Liguori (Roma, 1887), II. 456 f.
53 Philip Coghlan, 0o.P. Gemma Galgani (1923), p. 62. For fuller details
see the larger biography by Padre Germano.
54 Vie du B. Paul de la Croix. (French translation.) I. Book ii. c. 3.
55 La Mystique Divine. Traduit par Sainte-Foi. V. viii. 17. p. 193.
56 Giovanni Francesco Ponzinibio was a lawyer whose De Lamiis was
published at Venice, 1523-4. It called forth a reply, Apologic tres aduersum
Joannem Franciscum Ponzinibium Iurisperitum, Venice, 1525. The edition
of De Lamiis I have used is Venice, 1584, in the Thesaurus Magnorum iuris
consultorum. This reprint was met by Pefia’s answer and two treatises by
Bartolomeo Spina, o.P.
57 Rome, 1584.
58 De modo quo localiter transferentur [sage] de loco ad locum... .
Probatur quod possint malefici corporaliter transferri.
5® An isti Sortilegi & Strigimage siue Lamiz uere & corporaliter deferantur
a demone uel solum in spiritu ? De Sortilegiws, VII.
60 Sum modo istius secunde opinionis quod deferantur in corpore.
61 Doctrina multi eorum qui sequuti sunt Lutherum, & Melanctonem,
tenuerent Sagas ad conuentus accedere animi duntaxat cogitatione, &
diabolica illusione interesse, allegantes quod eorum corpora inuenta sunt
spe numero eodem loco iacentia, nec inde mora fuisse, ad hoc illud pertinens
quod est in uita D. Germani, de mulierculis conuiuantibus, vt uidebantur, &
tamé dormierant dormientes. Huiusmodi mulierculas sepe numero decipi
THE SABBAT 167
certum est, sed semper ita fieri non probatur. . . . Altera, quam uerissimam
esse duco, est, nonnunquam uere Sagas transferri a Demone de loco ad locum,
hirco, uel alteri animali fantastico vt plurimum eas simul asportanti cor-
poraliter, & conuentu nefario interesse, & hec sententia est multo communior
Theologorum, imd & Lurisconsultorum Italie, Hispanie, & Germanize inter
Catholicos; hoc idem tenent alii quam plurimi. Turrecremata super Gril-
landum,! Remigius,? Petrus Damianus,’ Siluester Abulensis,* Caietanus®
Alphonsus a Castro® Sixtus Senensis? Crespetus® Spineus® contra Ponzinibium,
Ananias,!° & alii quam plurimi, quos breuitatis gratia omitto. Per Fratrem
Franciscum Mariam Guaccium Ord. S. Ambrosti ad Nemus Medtiolani com-
pilatum. Mediolani. Ex Collegii Ambrosiani Typographia. 1626.
62 De Strigibus, II. I have used the reprint, 1669, which is given in the
valuable collection appended to the Malleus Maleficarum of that date, 4 vols.
4to.
63 Ad quam congregationem seu ludum prefate pestiferee persone uadunt
corporaliter & uigilantes acin propriis ear sensibus & quando uadunt ad loca
propinqua uadunt pedestres mutuo se inuicem inuitantes. Si auté habent
congregari in aliquo loco distanti tune deferuntur a diabolo, & quomodocunque
uadant ad dictum locum siue pedibus suis siue adferantur a diabolo ueru est
quod realiter et ueraciter & n6 phatastice, neque illusorii abnegant fidé
catholicam, adorant diabolum, conculcant crucem, & plura nefandissima
opprobria committunt contra sacratissimum Corpus Christi, ac alia plura
spurcissima perpetrant cum ipso diabolo eis in specie humana apparenti, &
se uiris succubum, mulieribus autem incubum exhibenti.
64 George Gandillon, la nuict d’vn Ieudy Sainct, demeura dans son lict,
comme mort, pour l’espace de trois heures, & puis reuint 4 soy en sursaut.
Il a depuis esté bruslé en ce lieu auec son pére & vne sienne sceur.
65 Chapitre xvi. Comme, & en quelle fagon les Sorciers sont portez au
Sabbat.
1. Ils y sont portez tantost sur un baston, ow ballet, tantost sur un mouton
ou bouc, & tantost par un homme noir.
2. Quelquefois ils se frottét de graisse, & da d'autres non.
3. Il y en a, lesquels n’estans pas Sorciers, & s’estans frottez, ne delaissent
pas d@estre transportez au Sabbat, & la raison.
4, L’onguent, & la graisse ne seruent de rien aux Sorciers, pour leur
transport au Sabbat.
5. Les Sorciers sont quelquefois portez au Sabbat par un vent & tourbillon.
Chapitre xvii. Les Sorciers vont quelques fois de pied au Sabbat.
Chapitre xviii. Si les Sorciers vont en ame seulement au Sabbat.
1&3. Daffirmatiue, & exemples.
2. Indices, par lesquels on peut coniecturer, qu’vne certaine femme estott
au Sabbat en ame seulement.
4. La negatiue.
5. Comme s’entend ce que l’on dit d’Hrichtho, & d’ Apollonius lesquels
resusciterent lun un soldat, & Vautre une ieune fille.
6. Les Sorciers ne peuuent resusciter un mort, & exemples.
7. Non plus que les heretiques & exemples.
8. Opinion del Autheur sur le suiect de ce chapitre.
9. Satan endort le plus souuent les personnes, & exemples.
1 De haereticis et sortilegiis. Lugduni. 1536.
2 Nicolas Remy, Dela démonoldtrie.
3 Epistolarum, IV. 17.
4 Silvester of Avila.
5 Tommaso de Vio Gaetanl, 0.P. 1469-1534.
6 Alfonso de Castro, Friar Minor. (1495-1558). Confessor to Charles V and Philip II of Spain.
7 aoe da Siéna, o.p. Bibliotheca Sancta. ,. (Liber V); Secunda editio. Francofurti.
1575. folio.
8 Pére Crespet, Celestine monk. Deus livres de lahaine de Satan et des malins esprits contre
Vhomme. Paris. 1590.
9 Bartholomeo Spina, 0.P. De lamiis. De strigibus. Both folio, Venice, 1584. Apologia
tres aduersus Joannem Franciscum Ponzinibium Jurisperitum. Venice. 1525. Giovanni Fran-
cesco Ponzinibio wrote a Dedamiis of which I have used a late edition. Venice, 1584.
10 Giovanni Lorenzo Anania, De natura demonum: libri iili. Venetiis. 1581. 8vo9.
168 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
Chapitre xix.
1. Les Sorciers vont enuiron la minuict au Sabbat.
. La raison pourquoy le Sabbat si tient ordinairement de nuict.
. Satan se plait aux tenebres, & a la couleur noire, estant au contraire
la blancheur agreable a Dieu.
. Les Sorciers dansent doz contre doz au Sabbat, & se masquent pour
la plus part.
. Le cog venant a chanter, le Sabbat disparoit aussi tost, & la raison.
. La voix du cog funeste a Satan tout ainsi qu’au lyon, & au serpent.
. Le Demon, selon quelques uns a crainte d’vne espée nue.
5,
~I oO mm wb
Chapitre xx. Du iour du Sabbat.
1. Le Sabbat se tient a un chacun iour de la semaine, mais principalement
le Ieudy.
2. Il se tient encor aux festes les plus solemnelles de Vannée.
Chapitre xxi. Du lieu du Sabbat.
1. Le lieu du Sabbat est signalé, selon aucuns, de quelques arbres ou bien
de quelques croix, & Vopinion de Vautheur sur ce sutect.
2. Chose remarquable d’vn lieu pretendu pour le Sabbat.
3. Il faut de Peau au lieu, ot se tient le Sabbat, & pourquoy.
4. Les Sorciers, a faute d’eau, urinent dans un trou, qwils font en terre.
Chapitre xxii. De ce qui se fait au Sabbat.
1, Les Sorciers y adorent Satan, estit en forme @homme noir, ou de bouc, &
luy offrent des chandelles, & le baisent aux parties honteuses de
derriere.
Ils y dansent, & de leurs danses.
. Ils se desbordent en toutes sortes de lubricitez, & comme Saian se fait
Incube & Succube.
Incestes, & paillardises execrebles des Huchites & Gnostiques.
Les Sorciers banquettent au Sabbat, de leurs viandes, & brewuages, &
de la facgon quwils tiennent a benir la table, & a rendre graces.
. Ils ne prennent cependant point de gout aux Viandes, & sortent ordinaire-
ment auec farm du repas.
. Le repas paracheué, ils rendent conte de leurs actions & Satan.
. Ils renoncent de nouueau a& Dieu, au Chresme, &c. Et comme Satan
les sollicite a mal faire.
. Ils y font la gresle.
. Ils y celebrent messe, & de leurs chappes, & eau benite.
. Satan se consume finalement en feu, & se reduit en cendre, de laquelle
les Sorciers prennent tous, & a quel effet.
12. Satan Singe de Dieu en tout.
MOD OI MD TR coors
fel fe
°° Vouloir donner une description du Sabbat, c’est vouloir decrire ce qui
n’existe point, & n’a jamais subsisté que dans imagination creuse & séduite
des Sorciers & Sorcieres: les peintures qu’on nous en fait, sont d’aprés les
réveries de ceux & de celles qui s’imaginent d’étre transportés A travers
les airs au Sabbat en corps & en ame. Traité sur les Apparitions des Esprits,
par le R. P. Dom Augustin Calmet, Abbé de Sénones. Paris, 1751, I. p. 138.
°7 See the woodcut upon the title-page of Middleton & Rowley’s The
World tost at Tennis, 4to, 1620.
p.
68 De Lancre, L’Incredulité, p. 769.
69 Boguet, Discours des Sorciers.
70 De Lancre, Tableau, p. 217.
71 De Lancre, L’Incredulité, p. 800. .
gant La Mystique Divine, traduit par Charles Sainte-Foi. V. viii. 19.
8.
7° George Sinclar, Satan’s Invisible World Discovered, Relation XVII.
74 La Mystique Divine, 1902 (Nouvelle édition). III. p. 381.
18 Tractatus, xxi. c. 11. P. xi. n. 179.
76 Disquisitiones Magice, Lib. IJ. qte x.
7 Compendium Maleficarum, p. 78.
THE SABBAT 169
78 Solent ad conuentum delate demonem conuentus preesidem in solio
considentem forma terrifica, ut plurimum hirci uel canis, obuerso ad illum
tergo accedentes, adorare . . . et deinde, homagii quod est indicium, osculari
eum in podice.”! Guazzo notes: ‘‘ Ad signum homagii demonem podice
osculantur.”** And Ludwig Elich says: ‘‘ Deinde quod homagii est indicium
(honor sit auribus) ab iis ingerenda sunt oscula Demonis podici.’’$
79 Mystery of Witchcraft.
8° It may bo remembered that, as related elsewhere, there is strong reason
to suppose Francis Stewart, Earl of Bothwell, grandson of James V, was
“the Devil”? on this occasion, as he was certainly the Grand Master of the
witches and the convener of the Sabbat.
81 Newes from Scotland, declaring the damnable Life of Doctor Fian. London.
W. Wright. [1592].
82 Dudum ad audientiam nostram peruenit, quod uenerabilis frater noster
G. Conuentrensis et Lichefeldensis episcopus erat in regno Angliz et alibi
publice defamatur quod diabolo homagium fecerat et eum fuerat osculatus in
tergo eique locutus multotius.
8° Confessa ledit sire Guillaume ... avoir fait hommage audit ennemy
en l’espéce et semblance d’ung mouton en le baisant par le fondement en
signe de révérence et d’hommage. Jean Chartier, Chronique de Charles VII
(ed. Vallet de Viriville). Paris, 1858. III. p.45. Shadwell, who has intro-
duced this ceremony into The Lancashire Witches, II, (The Scene Sir Edward’s
Cellar), in his notes refers to ‘‘ Doctor Edlin . . . who was burn’d for a
Witch.”
84 Reliquie Antique, vol. I. p. 247. ’
8® Tl a veu [le diable] quelque fois en forme d’homme, tenant son cheval
par le froin, & qu’ils le vont adorer tenans vue chandelle de poix noir en
leurs mains, le baisent quelque fois au nombril, quelque fois au cul. De Lancre,
I’ Incredulité, p. 25.
86 ‘Tum candelis piceis oblatis, vel vmbilico infantili, ad signum homagii
eum in podice osculantur, Liber I. xiii.
87 Satan’s Invisible World Discovered, Relation III.
88... qui apparait la, tantost en forme d’vn grand homme noir, tantost
en forme de bouc, & pour plus grand hommage, ils luy offrent des chandelles,
qui rendent vne flamme de couleur bleiie. Discours des Sorciers, p. 131.
etde AUpa Kadi vyevolunv éhepartivn,
Kal we Kadol waldes pépoerv Acovictov es xopdv.
(Fain would I be a fair lyre of ivory, and fair boys carrying me to Dionysus’
choir.)
9° Sequuntur his choree quas in girum agitant semper tamen ad leuam
progrediendo. Compendium Maleficarum, I. xiii.
*1 Les Sorciers, dansent & font leurs danses en rond doz contre doz.
* Quelquefois, mais rarement, ils dansent deux & deux, & par fois l’vn
ga & lautre la, & tousiours en confusion.
°8 On n’y dangoit que trois sortes de bransles. . . . La premiere c’est a la
Bohemienne. . . . La seconde c’est & sauts: ces deux sont en rond. Sir
John Davies in his Orchestra or A Poeme on Dauncing, London, 18mo, 1596,
describes the seven movements of the Cransles (Crawls) as :
Upward and downeward, forth and back againe,
T'o this side and to that, and turning round.
o6- 375-7,
95 Sinclar, Satin’s Invisible World Discovered, III.
9° Newes from Scotland, (1592). |
*? ‘Tota turba colluuiesque pessima fescenninos in honorem demonum
cantat obscenissimos. Hec cantat Harr, harr; illa Diabole, Diabole, salta
huc, salta illuc; altera lude hic, lude illic; alia Sabaoth, Sabaoth, &c. ;
1 Disquisiliones Magice, Lib. Il. qto xvi.
Compendium Maleficarum, I. 13.
® Demonomagia, Questis x.
170 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
immo clamoribus, sibilis, ululatibus, propicinis furit ac debacchatur.
Demonomagia, Questio x.
°8 Hi habent mensas appositas & instructas accumbunt & incipiunt
conuluari de cibis quos Demon suppeditat uel iis quos singuli attulere,
Compendium Maleficarum, I. xiii.
9° Les liures disent que les sorciers mangent au Sabbat de ce que le Diable
leur a appresté: mais bien souuét il ne s’y trouue que des viandes qu’ils ont
porté eux mesmes. Parfois il y a plusieurs tables seruies de bons viures &
d’autres fois de tres meschans. ‘Les Sorciers ... banquettent & se
festoient,’? remarks Boguet, ‘‘leur banquets estans composez de plusieurs
sortes de viandes, selon les lieux & qualitez des personnes.’’ Tableau, p. 197.
Discours des Sorciers, p. 135.
100 Sinclar, Invisible World Discovered, Relation XXIX.
101 [ls banquétent, dressant trois tables selon les trois diversités des gens
susnommés. Ceux qui ont la charge du pain, ils portent le pain qu’ils font
de blé dérobé aux aires invisiblement en divers lieux. Ils boivent de la
malvoisie, pour eschauffer la chair a la luxure, que les deputés portent, la
dérobant des caves ot elle se trouve. Ils y mangent ordinairement de la
chair des petits enfants que les députés cuisent a la Synagogue et parfois
les y portent tout vifs, les derobant 4 leurs maisons quand ils trouvent
la commodité. Pére Sébastien Michaélis, 0o.P. Histoire admirable de la
possession, 1613.
102 On y boit aussi du vin, et le plus souvent de l’eau.
103 Conuiuant de cibis a se uel a demone allatis, interdum delicatissimis,
et interdum insipidis ex infantibus occisis aut cadaueribus exhumatis,
precedente tamen benedictione mensz tali coetu digna. Salamanticenses,
Trxxi. 0, TSP. dds nek s9,
104 Uinum eorum preterea instar atri atque insinceri sanguinis in sordido
aliquo scipho epulonibus solitum propinari. Nullam fere copiam rerum illic
deesse afferunt praeterqua panis et salis. Addit Dominica Isabella apponi
etiam humanas carnes. Compendium Maleficarum, I. xiii.
105 Dela Démonomanie, III. 5.
106 Doemonomagio, Questio vii.
107 Tl n’y a jamais sel en ces repas. Discoura des Sorcters.
108 On se met a table, ot il n’a iamais veu de sel.
Shadwell draws attention to this detail: The Lancashire Witches, II, the
Sabbat scene; where Mother Demdike says:
See our Provisions ready here,
To which no Salt must e’er come near !
109 Pére Sébastien Michaélis, o.p. Histoire admirable, 1613.
110 Tsti uero qui expressam professionem fecerunt, reddunt etiam expressum
cultum adorationis dzemoni per solemnia sacrificia, que ipsi faciunt diabolo,
imitantes in omnibus diuinum cultum, cum paramentis, luminaribus, et aliis
huiusmodi, ac precibus quibusdam et orationibus quibus instructi sunt,
adeo ipsum adorant et collaudant continue, sicut nos uerum Creatorem
adoramus. De Sortilegiis, Liber II. c. iii. n. 6.
111 The Wonders of the Invisible World. A Hortatory Address. p. 81.
112 J, Hutchinson, History of Massachusett’s Bay, II. p. 55. (1828.)
113 Huchologion of the Orthodox Church, ed. Venice, 1898, p. 63.
114 Baissac, Les grands jours de la Sorcellerie (1890), p. 391.
115 Calmeil, De la folie, I. p. 344.
116 Sébastien Michaélis, Histoire admirable. 1613. Translated as Admirable
Historie. London, 1613.
117 Desmarest, Histoire de Magdelaine Bavent. Paris. 4to. 1652.
118 For full details see Francois Ravaisson, Archives de la Bastille, Paris,
1873, where the original depositions are given.
119 [La-Bas appeared in the Echo de Paris, 1890-1.
120 Tableau, p. 401. For the full account of these ceremonies I have chiefly
relied upon Guazzo; Boguet, Discours, XXII, 10; De Lancre, pp. 86, 122,
126, 129; and Gorres, Mystique, V. pp. 224-227. It hardly seems necessary
to give particular citations here for each circumstance,
THE SABBAT 171
121 De Lancre, Tableau, IV. 4.
122 Corriere Nazionale di Torino, Maggio. 1895
123 De Lancre, Tableau, p. 401.
124 Gorres, Mystique, V. p. 230.
125 Roland Brévannes, L’Orgie Satanique, 1V. Le Sabbat, p. 122.
126 Discours, p. 141.
127 §. Caleb, Messes Noires, p. 153.
128 Confession faicte par Messire Loys Gaufridi, A Aix. MVCXI.
129 A yne Chasuble qui a vne croix; mais qu’elle n’a que trois barres.
130 Le Diable en mesme temps pisse dans vn trou 4a terre, & fait de l’eau
beniste de son vrine, de laquelle celuy, qui dit la messe, arrouse tous les
assistants auec vn asperges noir. Boguet, Discours, p. 141.
131 . . . lors que Tramesabot disoit la Messe, & qu’auant la commencer li
iettoit de l’eau beniste qui estoit faicte de pissat, & faisoit la reverence de
Vespaule, & disoit Asperges Diaboli. De Lancre, L’Incredulité.
132 T,’eau beniste est iaune comme du pissat d’asne, & qu’apres qu’on la
iettée on dit la Messe.
133 Michaélis Histoire admirable, 1613. Miss Murray, The Witch-Cult, p.149,
suggests that this sprinkling was “‘a fertility rite’?! An astounding theory.
This blasphemy, of course, alludes to the curse of the Jews, 8S. Matthew
xxvii. 25.
134 Que le Diable dit le Sermo au Sabbat, mais qu’on n’entend ce qu’il dit,
parce qu’il parle come en grodant. Which suggests the wearing of a mask,
or, at least, a voice purposely disguised.
135 Dit qu’il a veu bailler au Sabbat du pain benist & de l’encens, mais il ne
sentoit bon comme celuy de l’Eglise.
136 So in the Orleans trial Gentil le Clere confessed that the Devil “ tourne
le dos a l’Autel quand il veut leuer l’Hostie & le Calice, qui sont noirs.”
137 Silvain Nevillon, (1614-1615). Dit aussi auoir veu des Sorciers &
Sorcieres qui apportoient des Hosties au Sabbat, lesquelles elles auoient
gardé lors qu’on leur auoit baillé 4 communier a |’Eglise.
188 Presumably S. Cesarius of Arles, 470-543, who incidentally was famous
for eradicating the last traces of Pagan superstitions and practices. He
imposed the penalty of excommunication upon all those who consulted
augurs and wore heathen amulets. The Gnostics were especially notorious
for their employment of such periapts, talismans, and charms,
139 J, F. Bladé, Quatorze superstitions populaires de la Gascogne, pp. 16 sqq.
Agen. 1883.
140 Decisions. Edinburgh, 1759.
141 To laisse & penser si l’on n’exerce pas la toutes les especes de lubricités
veu encor que les abominations, qui firent foudre & abismer Sodome &
Gomorrhe, y font fort communes. Boguet, Discours, c. xxii. p. 137.
142 Histoire admirable, 1613.
143 Finalement, ils paillardent ensemble: le dimanche avec les diables
succubes ou incubes; le jeudi, commettent la sodomie; le samedi la
bestialité ; les autres jours & la voie naturelle.
144 The Louviers process lasted four years, 1643-7.
145 Aprés la Messe on dance, puis on couche ensemble, hommes auec hommes,
& auec des femmes. Puis on se met & table. . .. Dit qu’il a cognu des
hommes & s’est accouplé auec eux; qu’il auoit vne couppe on gondolle par
le moyen de laquelle toutes les femmes le suiuoient pour y boire.
146 Apres la danse finie les diables se coucherét auecques elles, & eurét
leur cOpagnie.
147. | . grand nombre d’hommes & femmes furent bruslees en la ville
d’Arras, accusees les vns par les autres, & cdfesserent qu’elles estoient la
nuict transportees aux danses, & puis qu’ils se couploient auecques les diables,
qu’ils adoroient en figure humaine.
148. | . toutes generalement sans exception, confessoient que le diable
auoit copulation charnelle auec elles, apres leur auoir fait renoncer Dieu
& leur religion.
149. . . c’est A scauoir que les diables, tat qu’elles auoient esté Sorcieres,
172 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
auoic) eu copulation auec elles. Henry de Cologne confirmant ceste opinion
dit, yuw’il y a rien plus vulgaire en Alemaigne.
150 | | . quod sacrificia dabant dszmonibus in animalibus uiuis, que
diuidebant mombratim et offerebant distribuendo in inferne quadruuiis
cuidam demoni qui se facit appellari Artis Filium ex pauperioribus inferni.
Dame Alice Kyteler, ed. T. Wright. Camden Society. 1843. pp. 1-2.
161 Highland Papers, III. p. 18.
152 #neid, VI. 243-251.
153 Horace, Sermonum, I. viii.
154 Dictionnaire Infernal, ed. 1863, p. 590.
155 Salgues, Des erreurs et des prejugés, I, p. 423.
156 TIT. 44-45.
157 Alludit ad Haruspicis officium, qui exta & viscera inspiciebat. Plinius
inquit: Ha rane rubete utsceribus; id est, lingua, ossiculo, licne, corde,
mira fiert posse constat, sunt enin plurimis medicaminibus referta. Forte
intelligit rubetam uel bufonem, indicans se non esse ueneficum, nec rubetarum
extis uti ad uenefica. Cf. also Pliny, Historia Naturalis, XXXII. 5.
158 Ravaisson, Archives de la Bastille, VI. p. 295 et alibi. Tho interrogatories
of these scandals may be found in volumes IV and V of this work.
159 J, Strackerjan, Aberglaube und Sagen aus dem Herzogthum Oldenburg
(1867), I. 70.
160 Kénigsberger Hartung’sche Zeitung, 1866. No. 9.
161 V, Fossel. Volksmedicin und medicinischer Aberglaube in Steiermark,
Graz, 1886.
162 U, Jahn, Zauber mit Menschenblut und anderen Teilen des menschlichen
Korpers, 1888.
163 A, Lowenstimm, Aberglaube und Strafecht, (Die Volksmedizin), 1897.
164 V. Fossel, Volksmedicin, ut swpra.
165 Adrian Kembter, 0.8.P., writing in 1745 enumerates 52 instances, and
his last is dated 1650. This number might be doubled, and extends until
the present century. H.C. Lee, in an article, Hl santo nino de la Guardia, has
signally failed to disprove the account. See the series of forty-four articles
in the Osservatore Cattolico March and April, 1892, Nos. 8438-8473.
166 Le Temps, Paris, 1 Feb. and 23 March, 1892.
167 Hetichism in West Africa, New York, 1904.
168 De Lancre, T'ableau, p. 154.
CHAPTER V
THe Witcyu In Hoty Writ
In the course of the Holy Scriptures there occur a great
number of words and expressions which are employed in
connexion with witchcraft, divination, and demonology,
and of these more than one authority has made detailed and
particular study. Some terms are of general import, one
might even venture to say vague and not exactly defined,
some are directly specific: of some phrases the signification
is plain and accepted; concerning others, scholars are still
undecided and differ more or less widely amongst them-
selves. Yet it is noteworthy that from the very earliest
period the attitude of the inspired writers towards magic and
related practices is almost wholly condemnatory and uncom-
promisingly hostile. The vehement and repeated denuncia-
tions launched against the professors of occult sciences and
the initiate in foreign esoteric mysteries do not, moreover,
seem to be based upon any supposition of fraud but rather
upon the ‘‘ abomination ’’ of the magic in itself, which is
recognized as potent for evil and able to wreak mischief upon
life and limb. It is obvious, for example, that the opponents
of Moses, the sorcerers! Jannes and Mambres, were masters
of no mean learning and power, since when, in the presence
of Pharaoh, Aaron’s rod became a live serpent, they also and
their mob of disciples ‘‘ fecerunt per incantationes Augyptiacas
et arcana quedam similiter,” casting down their rods, which
were changed into a mass of writhing snakes. They were
able also to bring up frogs upon the land, but it was past
their wit to drive them away. We have here, however, a
clear acknowledgement of the reality of magic and its dark
possibilities, whilst at the same time prominence is given to
the fact that when it contests with the miraculous power
divinely bestowed upon Moses it fails hopelessly and com-
pletely. The serpent, which was Aaron’s rod, swallows all
173
174. THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
the other serpents. The swarms of mosquitoes and gadflies
which Aaron caused to rise in myriads from the dust the
native warlocks could not produce, nay, they were con-
strained to cry ‘‘ Digitus Dei est hic”’; whilst a little later
they were unable to protect even their own bodies from the
pest of blains and swelling sores. None the less a super-
natural power was possessed by Jannes and Mambres as
truly as by Moses, although not to the same extent, and
derived from another, in fact, from an opposite and
antagonistic source.
Even more striking is the episode of Balaam, who dwelt
at Pethor, a city of Mesopotamia (the Pitru of the cuneiform
texts), and who was summoned thence by Balak, King of
Moab, to lay a withering curse upon the Israelites, encamped
after their victory over the Amorrhites at the very confines
of his territory. The royal messengers come to Balaam
‘““ with the rewards of divination in their hand,’’ a most
illuminating detail, for it shows that already the practice of
magical arts is rewarded with gifts of great value.?. In fact
when Balaam refuses, although with reluctance, to accompany
the first embassy, princes of the highest rank are then sent
to him with injunctions to offer him rank and wealth or
whatsoever he may care to ask. ‘‘I will promote thee to
very great honour, and I will do whatsoever thou sayest unto
me; come, therefore, and curse this people,” are the king’s
actual words. After great difficulties, for Balaam is, at first,
forbidden to go and only wins his way on condition that he
undertakes to do what he is commanded and to speak no
more than he is inspired to say, the seer commences his
journey and is met by the king at a frontier town, and by
him taken up “‘ unto the high places of Baal,’ to the sacred
groves upon the hill-tops, where seven mystic altars are
built, and a bullock and a ram offered upon each. Balaam
then senses the imminent presence of God, and withdraws
swiftly apart to some secret place where ‘‘ God met” him.
He returns to the scene of sacrifice and forthwith blesses the
Israelites. Balak in consternation and dismay hurries him to
the crest of Pisgah (Phasga), and the same ceremonies are
performed. But again Balaam pours forth benisons upon the
people. A third attempt is made, and this time was chosen
the summit of Peor (Phogor), a peculiarly sacred sanctuary, the
THE WITCH IN HOLY WRIT 175
centre of the local cult of Baal Peor, whose ancient worship
comprised a ritual of most primitive obscenity. Again the
sevenfold sacrifice is offered upon seven altars, and this time
Balaam deliberately resists the divine control, a vain
endeavour, since he passes into trancé, and utters words of
ineffable benediction gazing down the dim avenues of
futurity to the glorious vision of the Madonna, Stella
Jacob, and her Son, the Sceptre of Israel. Beating his
clenched hands together in an access of ungovernable fury
the choused and exasperated king incontinently dismisses
his guest.
It must be remarked that throughout the whole of this
narrative, the details of which are as interesting as they are
significant, there is on the part of the writer a complete
recognition of the claims put forth by Balaam and so amply
acknowledged and appreciated by Balak. Balaam was a
famous sorcerer, and one, moreover, who knew and could
launch the mystic Word of Power with deadly effect. Among
the early Arabs as among the Israelites the magic spell, the
Word of Blessing or the Curse, played a prominent part. In
war, the poet, by cursing the enemy in rhythmic runes,
rendered services not inferior to the heroism of the warrior
himself. So the Jews of Medina used to bring into their
synagogues images of their hated enemy Malik b. al-Aglam ;
and at these effigies they hurled maledictions each time they
met. The reality of Balaam’s power is clearly the key-note
of the Biblical account. Else why should his services be
transferred to the cause of Israel? Balak’s greeting to the
seer is no empty compliment but vitally true: ‘I wot that
he whom thou blessest is blessed, and he whom thou cursest
is cursed.”’ Not impertinent is the bitter denunciation in the
song of Deborah, Judges v. 23, ‘“‘ Curse ye me Meroz, said the
angel of the Lord, curse ye bitterly the inhabitants thereof ;
because they came not to the help of the Lord against the
mighty !’’(A.V.) Belief in the potency of the uttered word
has existed at all times and in all places, and yet continues
to exist everywhere to-day.
Although Balaam prophesied it must be borne in mind
that he was not a prophet in the Scriptural sense of the term ;
he was a soothsayer, a wizard; the Vulgate has hariolus,‘
which is derived from the Sanskrit hira, entrails, and
176 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
equivalent to haruspea. This term originally denoted an ~
Ktruscan diviner who foretold future events by an inspection
of the entrails of sacrificial victims. It was from the
Ktruscans that this practice was introduced to the Romans.
It is probable that Balaam employed the seven bullocks and
rams in this way, the technical ewtispicitum, a method of
inquiry and forecasting which seems to have been almost
universal, although the exact manner in which the omens
were read differed among the several peoples and at various
times. It persisted, none the less, until very late, and indeed
it is resorted to, so it has been said, by certain occultists even
at the present day. It is known to have been practised by
Catherine de’ Medici, and it is closely connected with the
dark Voodoo worship of Jamaica and Hayti. S. Thomas,
it is true, has spoken of Balaam as a prophet, but the holy
doctor hastens to add “‘ a prophet of the devil.”’ The learned
Cornelius 4 Lapide, glossing upon Numbers xxii and xxiii
writes: “It is clear that Balaam was a prophet, not of God,
but of the Devil. .. . He was.a magician, and he sought
for a conference with his demon to take counsel with him.’’®
He is of opinion that the seven altars were erected in honour
of the Lords of the Seven Planets. Seven is, of course, the
perfect number, the mystic number, even as three; and all
must be done by odd numbers. The woman in Vergil who
tries to call back her estranged lover Daphnis by potent
incantations cries: numero deus impare gaudet. (Heaven
loves unequal numbers.) Eclogue viii. 75 (Pharmaceutria).
S. Augustine, S. Ambrose, and Theodoret consider that
when Balaam on the first occasion withdrew hastily saying
‘** Peradventure the Lord will come to meet me,” he
expected to meet a demon, his familiar. But ‘‘ God met
Balaam.” The very precipitation and disorder seem to
point to the design of the sorcerer, for as in the Divine
Liturgy all is done with due dignity, grace, and comeliness,
so in the functions of black magic all is hurried, ugly, and
terrible.
One of the most striking episodes in the Old Testament
is concerned with necromancy, the appearance of Samuel in
the cave or hut at Endor. Saul, on the eve of a tremendous
battle with the Philistines, is much dismayed and almost
gives away to a complete nervous collapse as he sees the
THE WITCH IN HOLY WRIT 177
overwhelming forces of the ruthless foe. To add to his panic,
when he consulted the Divine Oracles, no answer was
returned, “‘neither by dreams, nor by Urim, nor by
prophets.” And although he had in the earlier years of his
reign shown himself a determined represser of Witchcraft, in
his dire extremity he catches at any straw, and bids his
servants seek out some woman “‘ that hath a familiar spirit,”’
and his servants said to him, ‘‘ Behold there is a woman that
hath a familiar spirit at Endor,” which is a miserable hamlet
on the northern slope of a hill, lying something south of
Mount Tabor. |
The phrase here used, rendered by the Vulgate ‘‘ pytho ”’
(Querite mihi mulierem habentem pythonem) and by the
Authorized Version “‘ familiar spirit,” is in the original ’6bh,®
which signifies the departed spirit evoked, and also came to
stand for the person controlling such a spirit and divining by
its aid. The Witch of Endor is described as the possessor of
an *6bh. The LXX. translates this word by éyyacrpauvOos,
which means ventriloquist, either because the real actors
thought that the magician’s alleged communication with the
spirit was a mere deception to impose upon the inquirer
who is tricked by the voice being thrown into the ground
and being of strange quality—a view which mightily com-
mends itself to Lenormant? and the sceptical Renan® but
which is quite untenable—or rather because of the belief
common in antiquity that ventriloquism was not a natural
faculty but due to the temporary obsession of the medium
by a spirit. In this connexion the prophet Isaias has a
remarkable passage : Querite a pythonibus, et a diuinis qui
strident in incantationibus suis. (Seek unto them that have
familiar spirits, and unto wizards that peep and that mutter.
A.V.) Many Greek and Latin poets attribute a peculiar and
distinctive sound to the voices of spirits. Homer (Iliad,
XXIII, 101; Odyssey, XXIV, 5, and 9) uses pie,
which is elsewhere found of the shrill cry or chirping of
partridges, young swallows, locusts, mice, bats,? and of such
other sounds as the creaking of a door, the sharp crackling
of a thing burned in a fire. Vergil 4#ineid, III, 39, speaks
of the ery of Polydorus from his grave as gemitus lacrimabilis,
and the clamour of the spirits in Hades is wow exigua. Horace
also in his description of the midnight Esbat on the Esquiline
N
178 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
describes the voice as triste et acutum ; (Sermonum, I. vii,
40-1) :
singula quid memorem, quo pacto alterna loquentes
umbrae cum Sagana resonarent triste et acutum.
Statius, Thebais, VII, 770, has “‘ stridunt anime,’’ upon which
Kaspar von Barth, the famous sixteenth-century German
scholar, annotates ‘“‘ Homericum hoc est qui corporibus
excedentes animas stridere excogitauit.’’ So in Shakespeare’s
well-known lines, Hamlet I, 1:
the sheeted dead
Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets,
When he had been informed of this witch Saul, accordingly,
completely divested himself of the insignia of royalty and in
a close disguise accompanied only by two of his most trusted
followers similarly muffled in cloaks, he painfully made his
way at dead of night to her remote and squalid hovel. He
eagerly requested her to exercise her powers, and to raise
the spirit of the person whom he should name. At first she
refused, since some years before the laws had been stringently
enforced and the penalty of death awaited all sorcerers
and magicians. Not unreasonably she feared that these
mysterious strangers might be laying a trap for her, to
imperil her life. But the concealed king persuaded her, and
bound himself by a mighty oath that she should come to no
harm. Whereupon she consented to evoke the soul of the
prophet Samuel, as he desired. The charm commenced, and
after the vision of various familiars—the woman said: Deos
uidi ascendentes de terra—and S. Gregory of Nyssa explains
these as demons, ta favtacuara,—Samuel appeared amid
circumstances of great terror and awe, and in the same
moment the identity of her visitant was recognized (we are
not informed how) by the sybil.1° In a paroxysm of rage
and fear the haggard crone turned to him and shrieked out :
“Why hast thou deceived me? For thou art Saul.” The
king, however, tremblingly reassured her for her own safety,
and feeling that he was confronted by no earthly figure—he
could not see the phantom, although he sensed a presence from
beyond the grave—he asked: ‘‘ What form is he of ?”’? And
when the beldame, to whom alone the prophet was visible,
described the spirit: ‘‘ An old man cometh up, and he is
THE WITCH IN HOLY WRIT 179
covered with a mantle,” Saul at once recognized Samuel,
and fell prostrate upon the ground, whilst the apparition
spake his swiftly coming doom.
Here we have a detailed scene of necromancy proper’
There are, it is true, some remarkable, and perhaps unusual,
features : the witch alone sees the phantom, but Saul instantly
knows who it is from her description ; he directly addresses
Samuel, and he hears the prediction of the dead prophet.
The whole narrative undoubtedly bears the impress of *
actuality and truth.
There are several interpretations of these incidents. In
the first place some writers have denied the reality of the
vision, and so it is claimed that the witch deceived Saul by
skilful trickery. This hardly seems possible. It is not likely
that she would have run so grave a risk as the exercise, or
pretended exercise, of magical arts must entail were she a
mere charlatan ; an accomplice of remarkably quick wit and
invention would have been necessary to carry out the details
of the plot; it is surely incredible that they should have
ventured upon so uncompromising a denunciation of the
king and have foretold so evil an end to his house. In fact
the whole tenor of the story conflicts with this explanation,
which is not allowed by the Fathers. Theodoret, it is true,
inclines to suppose that some deception was practised, but
he hesitates to maintain an unequivocal opinion in the matter.
In his Questiones in I Regum Cap. xxviii he asks was
Ta KaTa Thy éyyactpiuvOoy vonTréov 341 and says that some
think that the witch actually evoked Samuel, others believe
the Devil took the likeness of the prophet. The first opinion
he characterizes as impious, the second foolish.
S. Jerome, whose authority would, of course, be entirely “=
conclusive, does not perhaps pronounce definitely ; but his
comments sufficiently show, I think, that he regarded the
apparition as being really Samuel. In his tractate In
Esaiam, III, vii, he writes: ‘‘ Most authors think that a clear
sign was given Saul from the earth itself and from the very
depths of Hades when he saw Samuel evoked by incantations
and magic spells.”12, And again, In Ezechielem, Lib. IV ; xiii,
the holy doctor, speaking of witches, has: ‘‘they are
inspired by an evil spirit. The Hebrews say that they are
well versed in baleful] crafts, necromancy and soothsayings,
180 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
such as was the hag who seemed to raise up the soul of
Samuel,’’8
Some authors directly attribute this appearance of Samuel
to an evil spirit, who took the form of the prophet in order
i~ to dishearten Saul and tempt him to despair. Thus S. Gregory
of Nyssa in his letter De pythonissa ad Theodosium'' says
that the Devil deceived the witch, who thus in her turn
deceived the king. S. Basil expressly lays down (In Esaiam,
VIII. 218): ‘* They were demons who assumed the appear-
ance of Samuel.’’!5 And he conjectures that, inasmuch as
the denunciation of Saul was strictly true in every detail,
the demons having heard the sentence delivered by God
merely reported it. Among the Latins Tertullian, more than
a century before, had written: ‘‘ And I believe that evil
spirits can deceive many by their lies; for a lying spirit was
allowed to feign himself to be the shade of Samuel.’’1®
The preponderance of opinion, however, is decidedly in
favour of a literal and exact understanding of the event, that
it was, in effect, Samuel who appeared to the guilty monarch
and foretold his end. Origen argues upon these lines, basing
his reasons upon the plain statements of Holy Writ: “ But
it is distinctly stated that Saul knew it was Samuel.”’!? And
later he adds: ‘‘ The Scripture cannot lie. And the words of
Scripture are: And the woman saw Samuel.’’!8 Elsewhere
when treating of evil spirits he precisely states: ‘“‘ And that
souls have their abiding place I have made known to you
from the evocation by the witch of Samuel, when Saul
requested her to divine.’’!® S. Ambrose also says: ‘“‘ Even
after his death Samuel, as Holy Scripture informs us, pro-
phesied of what was to come.’?® We have further the
overwhelming witness of S. Augustine, who in more than one
place discusses the question at some length, and decides that
the phantom evoked by the sibyl was really and truly the
soul of the prophet Samuel. Thus in that important treatise
De Doctrina Christiana, commenced in 397 and finally revised
for issue in 427, he has: ‘‘ The shade of Samuel, long since
dead, truly foretold what was to come unto King Saul.’’??
Whilst a passage in the even more famous and weighty
De Cura pro mortuis gerenda, written in 421, asserts: ‘* For
the prophet Samuel, who was dead, revealed the future to
King Saul, who was yet alive.’’2?
THE WITCH IN HOLY WRIT 181
Josephus believed the apparition to have been summoned
by the witch’s necromantic powers, for in his Jewish Anti-
quities, VI, xiv, 2, when dealing with the story of Endor, he
chronicles: ‘‘ [Saul] bade her bring up to him the soul of
Samuel. She, not knowing who Samuel was, called him out
of Hades,’ *? a remarkable testimony.
Throughout the whole of the Old Testament the sin of
necromancy is condemned in the strongest terms, but the
very reiteration of this ban shows that none the less evoca-
tion of the dead was extensively and continuously practised,
albeit in the most clandestine and secret manner. The
Mosaic law denounces such arts again and again: ‘* Go not
aside after wizards, neither ask any thing of soothsayers, to
be defiled by them: I am the Lord your God ” (Leviticus
xix. 31); ‘‘ The soul that shall go aside after magicians and
soothsayers, and shall commit fornication with them, I will
set my face against that soul, and destroy it out of the midst
of its people’ (Leviticus xx. 6). Even more explicit in its
details is the following prohibition: ‘‘ Neither let there be
found among you any one . . . that consulteth soothsayers,
or observeth dreams and omens, neither let there be any
wizard, nor charmer, nor any one that consulteth pythonic
spirits, or fortune tellers, or that seeketh the truth from the
dead. For the Lord abhorreth all these things” (Deuteronomy
Xvi. 10-12). Hence it is obvious that the essential malice
of the sin lay in the fact that it was lése-majesté against God,
such as is also the sin of heresy.24 This is, moreover, clearly
brought out in the fact that the temporal penalty was death.
“ A man, or woman, in whom there is a pythonical or
divining spirit, dying, let them die ’’ (Leviticus xx. 27 ). And
the famous statute, Exodus xxii. 18, expressly Says :
“Wizards thou shalt not suffer to live.” Nevertheless,
necromancy persisted, and on occasion, such as during the
reign of Manasses, thirteenth king of Juda (692-688 z.c.),25
it no longer lurked in dark corners and obscene hiding-holes,
but flaunted its foul abomination unabashed in the courts
of the palace and at noon before the eyes of the superstitious
capital. In the days of this monarch divination was openly
used, omens observed, pythons publicly appointed, whilst
soothsayers multiplied ‘‘ to do evil before the Lord, and to
provoke Him” (4 Kings [2 Kings] xxi. 6). The ghastly rites
182. THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
of human sacrifice were revived, and it was common know-
ledge that the sovereign himself, upon the slightest and most
indifferent pretexts, resorted to eatispicium, the seeking of
omens from the yet palpitating entrails of boys devoted to
this horrid purpose. ‘‘ Manasses shed also very much innocent
blood, till he filled Jerusalem up to the mouth” (4 Kings
[2 Kings] xxi. 16), We may parallel the foul sorceries of the
Jewish king with the detailed confession of Gilles de Rais,
who at his trial ‘‘related how he had stolen away children,
detailed all his foul cajolements, his hellish excitations, his
frenzied murders, his ruthless rapes and ravishments :
obsessed by the morbid vision of his poor pitiful victims,
he described at length their long-drawn agonies or swift
torturings ; their piteous cries and the death-rattle in their
throats; he avowed that he had wallowed in their warm
entrails; he confessed that he had torn out their hearts
through large gaping wounds, as a man might pluck ripe
fruit.?26 The demonolatry of the sixth century before Christ
is the same as that of fourteen hundred years after the birth
of Our Lord.
As has been previously noticed, Balaam employed bullocks
and rams for eatispicitum, and nine centuries later, in the
book of Ezechiel (xxi. 21), Esarhaddon is represented as
looking at the liver of an animal offered in sacrifice with a
view to divination. ‘‘ For the king of Babylon stood in the
highway, at the head of two ways, seeking divination,
shuffling arrows: he inquired of the idols, and consulted
entrails. On his right hand was the divination of Jerusalem,
to set battering rams, to open the mouth in slaughter.” The
mode of sortilege by arrows, belomancy, to which allusion is
here made was extensively practised among the Chaldeans, as
also by the Arabs. Upon this passage S. Jerome comments:
‘‘He shall stand in the highway, and consult the oracle
after the manner of his nation, that he may cast arrows into
a quiver, and mix them together, being written upon or
marked with the names of each people, that he may see whose
arrow will come forth, and which city he ought first to
attack.”
Among the three hundred and sixty idols which stood
round about the Caaba of Mecca, and which were all destroyed
by Mohammed when he captured the city in the eighth year
THE WITCH IN HOLY WRIT 183
of the Hejira, was the statue of a man, made of agate, who
held in one hand seven arrows such as the pagan Arabs
used in divination. This figure, which, it is said, anciently
represented the patriarch Abraham, was regarded with
especial awe and veneration.
The arrows employed by the early Arabs for magical
practices were more generally only three in number. They
were carefully preserved in the temple of some idol, before
whose shrine they had been consecrated. Upon one of them
was inscribed ‘“‘My Lord hath commanded me’’s upon
another ‘“*‘ My Lord hath forbidden me ’’; and the third was
blank. If the first was drawn the inquirer looked upon it
as a propitious omen promising success in the enterprise ; if
the second were drawn he augured failure; if the third, all
three were mixed again and another trial was made. These
divining arrows seem always to have been consulted by the
Arabs before they engaged in any important undertaking, as,
for example, when a man was about to go upon a particular
journey, to marry, to commence some weighty business.
In certain cases and in many countries rods were used
instead of arrows. Small sticks were marked with occult
signs, thrown into a vessel and drawn out; or, it might be,
cast into the air, the direction they took and the position
in which they fell being carefully noted. This practice is
known as rhabdomancy. The LXX, indeed, Ezechiel xxi. 21,
has paBdouarteta not BeAouayteia, and rhabdomancy is men-
tioned by S. Cyril of Alexandria.
In the Koran, chapter V, The Table or The Chapter of
Contracts, ‘‘ divining arrows ’”’ are said to be “ an abomina-
tion of the work of Satan,’? and the injunction is given
‘‘ therefore avoid them that ye may prosper.”
It is noticeable that in the early Biblical narrative one
form of divination is mentioned, if not with approval, at any
rate without overtreproach. Upon the occasion of the second
journey of Jacob’s sons to Egypt to buy corn in the time
of famine, Joseph gave orders that their sacks were to be
filled with food, that each man’s money was to be put in the
mouth of his sack, but that in the sack of Benjamin was also
to be concealed the ‘‘ cup, the silver cup.” And the next
morning when they had set out homewards and were gone
a little way out of the city they were overtaken by a band
184 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
of Joseph’s servants under the conduct of his steward who
arrested their progress and accused them of the theft of the
cup: “ Is not this it in which my lord drinketh, and whereby
indeed he divineth ? Ye have done evil in so doing ” (A.V.).
The Vulgate has: ‘‘Scyphus quem furati estis, ipse est in
quo bibit dominus meus et in quo augurari solet : pessimam
rem fecistis ” (Genesis xliv. 5). And later when they are
brought back in custody and led into the presence of Joseph
he asks them: ‘‘ Wot ye not that such a man as I can
certainly divine?” Vulgate: ‘‘ An ignoratis quod non sit
similis mei in augurandi scientia ? ”’
In the first place it cannot be for a moment supposed that
Joseph’s claim, which here he so publicly and so emphatically
states, to be a diviner of no ordinary powers was a mere
device for the occasion. From the prominence given to the
cup in the story it is clear that his steward regarded it as
a vessel of especial value and import, dight with mysterious
properties.
This cup was used for that species of divination known as
hydromantia, a practice almost universal in antiquity and
sufficiently common at the present day. The seer, or in some
cases the inquirer, by gazing fixedly into a pool or basin
of still water will see therein reflected as in a mirror a pic-
ture of that which it is sought to know. Strabo, XVI, 2,
39, speaking of the Persians, writes: vapade tote répaats
of Mayot kat vexvouavrers Kat @tt of eyouevor Nexavomavrers
kal vdpouavres. King Numa, according to one very
ancient tradition, divined by seeing gods in a clear stream.
‘For Numa himself, not being instructed by any prophet
or Angel of God, was fain to fall to hydromancy : making
his gods (or rather his devils) to appear in water, and
instruct him in his religious institutions. Which kind of
divination, says Varro, came from Persia and was used by
Numa and afterwards by Pythagoras, wherein they used
blood also and called forth spirits infernal. Necromancy,
the Greeks call it, but necromancy or hydromancy, whether
you like, there it is that the dead seem to speak ” (S. Augustine
De Ciuitate Det. VII. 35).27
Apuleius in his De Magia,*® quoting from Varro, says:
‘‘ Trallibus de euentu Mithridatici belli magica percontatione
consultantibus puerum in aqua simulacrum Mercuri con-
dl
THE WITCH IN HOLY WRIT 185
templantem, quee futura erant, centum sexaginta uersibus
cecinisse.”” In Egypt to-day the Magic Mirror is frequently
consulted. A boy is engaged to gaze into a splash of water,
or it may be ink or some other dark liquid poured into the
palm of the hand, and therein he will assuredly see pictorially
revealed the answers to those questions put to him. When
a theft has been committed the Magic Mirror is invariably
questioned thus. In Scandinavia the country folk, who had
lost anything, would go to a diviner on a Thursday night to
see in a pail of water who it was had robbed them.?® All
the world over this belief prevails, in Tahiti and among the
Hawaiians, in the Malay Peninsula, in New Guinea, among
the Eskimos.
Similar forms of divination are those by things dropped
into some liquid, a precious stone or rich amulet is cast into
a cup, and the rings formed on the surface of the contents
were held to predict the future. Again warm wax or molten
lead is poured into a vessel of cold water, and significant
letters of the alphabet may be spelled out or objects dis-
cerned from the shapes this wax or lead assumes; or again,
the empty tea-cup is tilted and from the leaves, their size,
shape, and the manner in which they lie, prognostications
are made. This is common in England, Scotland, Ireland,
Sweden, Lithuania, whilst in Macedonia coffee-dregs are
employed in the same manner.
But whether the seer be Hebrew patriarch or Roman
king and the divination dignified by some occult name, Cero-
mancy (the melting of wax), Lecanomancy (basins of water),
Oinomancy (the lees of wine), or whether it be some old plaid-
shawled grandam by her cottage fire peering at the leaves
of her afternoon tea, the object is the same throughout the
ages, for all systems of divination are merely so many
pe becca of obscuring the outer vision, in order that the inner
Vv
ision may become open.
As was inevitable hydromantia lent itself to much trickery,
and Hippolytus of Rome, presbyter and antipope (0b. circa
A.D. 236), in his important polemic against heretics, Philoso-
phumena,®® IV, 35, explains in detail how persons were
elaborately duped by the pseudo-magicians. A room was
prepared, the roof of which was painted blue to resemble
the sky, there was set therein a large vessel full of water
186 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
with a glass bottom, {mmediately under which lay a secret
chamber. The inquirer gazed steadfastly into the water, and
the actors walking in the secret chamber below would seem
as though they were figures appearing in the water itself.
In view of the severe and general condemnation of magical
practices found throughout Holy Writ it is remarkable that
the Pentateuchal narrative does not censure Joseph’s hydro-
mantic arts. Indeed, except in the book Genesis, it is seldom
that any forms of presaging or the use of charms are noted
save with stern reprobation. In Isaias iii. 2, however, the
Koésém, magician or diviner, is mentioned with singular
respect. ‘‘Ecce enim dominator. Dominus exercituum
auferet a Jerusalem et a Juda ualidum et fortem omne robur
panis et omne robur aque, fortem, et uirum bellatorem,
iudicem, et prophetam, et hariolum, et senem.” Here the
Authorized Version deliberately mistranslates and obscures
the sense: ‘‘ For, behold, the Lord, the Lord of hosts, doth
take away from Jerusalem and from Judah, the stay and the
staff, the whole stay of bread and the whole stay of water,
the mighty man and the man of war, the judge and the
prophet, and the prudent, and the ancient.” ‘‘ The Prudent ”
is by no means a rendering of Kosém which “ hariolus ”’
perfectly represents.
In the thirteenth chapter of Genesis we have a most
detailed and striking narrative of sympathetic magic. Jacob,
who is serving Laban, is to receive as a portion of his hire
all the speckled and spotted cattle, all the brown among the
sheep, and the spotted and speckled among the goats. But
the crafty old Syrian prevented his son-in-law by removing
to a distance, a journey of three days, all such herds as had
been specified, ‘‘and Jacob fed the rest of Laban’s flocks.
Thereupon Jacob took rods of green poplar, hazel, and
chestnut, and peeled these rods in alternate stripes of white
and bark, and he put them in the gutters in the watering-
troughs when the flocks came to drink.”’ The animals duly
copulated, and “‘ the flocks conceived before the rods, and
brought forth cattle, ringstraked, speckled, and spotted.”
Moreover, it was only when the stronger cattle conceived
that Jacob set the rods before their eyes, so that eventually
all the best of the herds fell to his share. The names of the
trees are in themselves significant. The poplar in Roman
THE WITCH IN HOLY WRIT 187
folklore was sacred to Hercules,*! and as it grew on the
banks of the river Acheron in Epirus it was connected with
Acheron, the waters of woe in the underworld, a confused
tradition which is undoubtedly of very early origin. So
Pausanias has: ty Aeveny 0 ‘HpaxAys mepvxviav jwapa TOV
"Axépovtra evpeto év Ocotpwtia rotayov' In seventeenth-
century England poplar-leaves were accounted an important
ingredient in hell-broths and charms. The hazel has been
linked with magic from remotest antiquity, and the very
name witch-hazel remains to-day. The chestnut-tree and
its nuts seem to have been associated with some primitive
sexual rites. The connexion is obscure, but beyond doubt
traceable. In that most glorious marriage song, the Epitha-
lamium of Catullus, as the boys sang their Fescennines of
traditional obscenity nuts were scattered among the crowd.*?
Petronius (Fragmentum XXXIII, ed. Buecheler, Berolini,
1895) mentions chestnuts as an amatory gift:
aurea mala mihi, dulcis mea Marcia, mittis
mittis et hirsutae munera castaneae,
In Genesis again is recorded a most interesting and
instructive example of the belief in the magic efficacy of
plants. ‘‘ And Reuben went in the days of wheat harvest and
found mandrakes in the field and brought them to his mother
Leah” (xxx. 14 A.V.). Reuben brings his mother man-
drakes (Love Apples), which Rachel desires to have. Where-
upon Leah bargains with Rachel, and the latter for a portion
of the fruit consents that Jacob shall that night return to
the bed of his elder wife, who indeed conceives and in due
time she bare Issachar. Leah ate of the mandrake as a
charm to induce pregnancy, and no disapproval of such use
is expressed.
A similar theme is treated in Machiavelli’s famous master-
piece of satirical comedy La Mandragola,** written between
1518 and 1520, and performed by request before Leo X in
the April of the latter year. It had already been acted in
Florence. In this play Callimaco is bent upon securing as
his mistress Lucrezia, the wife of a gullable doctor of laws,
Messer Nicia, whose one wish in life is to get a son. Callimaco
is introduced as a physician to Nicia, to whom he explains
that a potion of mandragora administered to the lady will
188 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
remove her sterility, but that it has fatal consequences to
the husband. He must perish unless some other man be
first substituted whose action will absorb the poison, and
leave Lucrezia free to become the mother of a blooming
family. This plot is fully worked out, and by the services
of his supple confederates Callimaco is introduced to
Lucrezia’s bedchamber as the necessary victim, and gains
his desire.
Mandrakes and mallows were potent in all forms of
enchantment, and about the mandrake in particular has
grown up a whole library of legend, which it would require
much time and space thoroughly to investigate. Western
lore is mainly of somewhat a grim character, but not entirely,
and by the Orientals mandrake is regarded as a powerful
aphrodisiac. So in Canticles VII, 18, we have: Mandragore
dederunt odorem. (The mandrakes give a fragrant smell.)
In antiquity mandrakes were used as an anesthetic. Dio-
scorides alludes to the employment of this herb before
patients have to be cut or burned; Pliny refers to its odour
as causing sleep during an operation; Lucian speaks of it
as used before cautery ; and both Galen and Isidorus have
passages which mention its dormitive quality. The Shake-
~ spearean allusions have rendered this aspect familiar to all.
The Arabs and ancient Germans thought that a powerful
spirit inhabited the plant, an idea derived, perhaps, from the
fancied resemblance of the root to the human form. Ducagne
has under Mandragore: ‘‘Pomi genus cuius mentio fit,
Gen. xxx. 14. nostris etiam notis sub nomine Mandragores,
quod pectore asseruatum sibi diuitiis acquirendis idoneum
somniabunt.”’ And Littré quotes the following from an old
chronicle of the thirteenth century: ‘Li dui compaignon
[un couple d’éléphants] vont contre Orient prés du paradis
terreste, tant que la femelle trouve une herbe que on apele
mandragore, si en manjue, et si atize tant son masle qu’il en
manjue avec li, et maintenant eschaufe la volenté de chascun,
et s’entrejoignent 4 envers et engendrent un filz sanz plus.”
In the Commentaria ad Historiam Caroli VI et VII it is
related that several mandrakes found in the possession of
Frére Richard, a Cordelier, were seized and burned as
savouring of witchcraft.
It seems certain that the teraphim, which Rachel stole
THE WITCH IN HOLY WRIT 189
from her father (Genesis xxxi, 19, and 31-85), and which when
he was in pursuit she concealed by a subtle trick, were used
for purposes of divination. From the relation of the incident
it is obvious that they were regarded of immense value—he
who had conveyed them away was, if found, to die the death
—and invested with a mysterious sanctity. Centuries later,
during the period of drastic reform, King Josias (639-608 B.c.)
‘would no longer tolerate them : ‘‘ Moreover the workers with
familiar spirits, and the wizards, and the images [teraphim],
and the idols, and all abominations that were spied in the
land of Judah and in Jerusalem did Josiah put away ”
(2 Kings xxii. 24. A.V.). The Vulgate has: ‘“‘Sed et
pythones, et hariolos, et figuras idolorum, et immunditias, et
abominationes, quee fuerant in terra Juda et. Jerusalem,
abstulit Josias.”’ In Ezechiel xxi. 21, Esarhaddon is said to
have divined by teraphim as well as by belomancy ; and in
Zacharias (x. 2) the teraphim are stated on occasion to have
deceived their inquirers, “‘simulacra locuta sunt inutile,”
“the idols have spoken vanity.’ Notwithstanding this it is
obvious from Osee (Hosea) iil. 4, that divination by teraphim
was sometimes permitted: ‘‘ Dies multos sedebunt filii Israel
sine rege, et sine principe, et sine sacrificio, et sine altari, et
sine ephod, et sine teraphim.”’ ‘‘ The children of Israel shall
abide many days without a king, and without a prince, and
without a sacrifice, and without an image, and without an
ephod, and without teraphim.”’
The learned Cornelius a Lapide glossing on Genesis xxxi
writes: ‘‘Idola, teraphim quod significat statuee humane
siue humaneas formas habentes ut patet, I. Reg. xix.” The
allusion is to the deception practised by Michal on Saul’s
messengers, when putting one of the teraphim in bed and
covering it with quilts she pretended it was David who lay
sick. ‘“‘Secundo,’’ continues 4 Lapide, “‘nomen theraphim
non appropriatum est in eas statuas, que opera demonorum
deposci debent, ut patet Judicum, xviii, 18,” the reference
being to the history of Micas. Calvin very absurdly says :
‘*‘ Theraphim sunt imagines quales habent papiste.”’
Spencer** is of opinion that these teraphim were small
images or figures, and the point seems conclusively settled by
S. Jerome, who in his twenty-ninth Epistle, De Ephod et
Teraphim, quotes 1 Kings xix. 15, and uses “ figuras siue
1909 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
figurationes’”’ to translate uwoppouata of Aquila of Pontus.
This writer was the author of a Greek version of the Old
Testament published circa a.D. 128. About eight years before
he seems to have been expelled from the Christian community,
by whom he was regarded as an adept in magic. The work
of Aquila, who studied in the school of Rabbi Akiba, the
founder of Rabbinical Judaism, is said by S. Jerome to have
attained such exactitude that it was a good dictionary to
furnish the meaning of the obscurer Hebrew words. The
Targum of Jonathan commenting upon Genesis xxxi. 19,
puts forward the singular view that the teraphim, concealed
by Rachel, consisted of a mummified human head.
In the book ‘Tobias we have a detailed and important
account of exorcism, and one, moreover, which throws consider-
able light upon the demonology of the time. Tobias, the son
of Tobias, is sent under the guidance of the unknown Angel,
S. Raphael, to Gabelus in Rages of Media, to obtain the ten
talents of silver left in bond by his father. Tobias, whilst
bathing in the Tigris is attacked by a monstrous fish, of
which he is told by his Angel protector to reserve the heart,
liver, and gall; the first two of these are to prevent the
devil who had slain seven previous husbands of Sara, the
beautiful daughter of Raguel, from attacking him. They
arrive at the house of Raguel, and Tobias seeks the hand
of Sara. She, however, is so beloved by the demon Asmodeus
that seven men who had in turn married her were by him
put to death the night of the nuptials, before consummation.
Tobias, however, by exorcism, by the odour of the burning
liver of the fish, and by the help of S. Raphael, routs
Asmodeus, “‘ Then the Angel Raphael took the Devil, and
bound him in the desert of upper Egypt.’? The story which
must be accepted as fact-narrative was originally written
during the Babylonian exile in the early portion of the
seventh century, B.c. It plainly shows that demons were
considered to be capable of sexual love, such as was the love
of the sons of God for the daughters of men recorded in
Genesis (vi. 2). One may compare the stories of the Jinns
in Arabian lore. Asmodeus is perhaps to be identified with
the Persian Aéshma daéva, who in the Avesta is next to
Angromainyus, the chief of the evil spirits. The introduction
of Tobias’s dog should be remarked. The dog accompanies
THE WITCH IN HOLY WRIT 191
his master on the journey and when they return home ‘“‘ the
dog, which had been with them in the way, ran before, and
coming as if he had brought the news, shewed his joy by his
fawning and wagging his tail.” Among the Persians a certain
power over evil spirits was justly assigned to the faithful
dog.
The New Testament evidence for the reality of magic and
divination is such that cannot be disregarded by any who
accept the Christian revelation.
In the Gospels we continually meet with possession by
devils ; the miracle wrought in the country of the Gerasenes
(Gergesenes) (S. Matthew viii. 28-34), the dumb man possessed
by a devil (S. Matthew ix. 32-84), the healing of the lunatic
boy who was obsessed (S. Matthew xvii. 14-21), the exorcism
of the unclean spirit (S. Mark {. 28-27), the casting out of
devils whom Christ suffered not to speak (S. Mark i. 82-84),
the exorcism in the name of Jesus (S. Mark ix. 88), the demons
who fled our Lord’s presence crying out ‘‘ Thou art Christ,
the son of God ”’ (S. Luke iv. 41), the healing of those vexed
with unclean spirits (S. Luke vi. 18), and many instances
more.
Very early in the Apostolic ministry appears one of the
most famous figures in the whole history of Witchcraft,
Simon, who is as Simon Magus, sorcerer and heresiarch. At
the outbreak of that persecution (circa A.D. 87) of the
Christian community in Jerusalem which began with the
martyrdom of S. Stephen, when Philip the Deacon went down
to Samaria, Simon, a native of Gitta, was living in that
city. By his magic arts and by his mysterious doctrine, in
which he announced himself as ‘‘ the great power of God,”
he had made a name for himself and gained many adherents.
He listened to Philip’s sermons, was greatly impressed by
_ them, he saw with wonder the miracles of healing and the
exorcisms of unclean spirits, and like many of his countrymen
was baptized and united with the community of believers in
Christ. But it is obvious that he only took this step in
order to gain, as he hoped, greater magical power and thus
increase his influence. For when the Apostles S. Peter and
S. John came to Samaria to bestow upon those who had been
baptized by Philip the outpouring of the Holy Ghost which
was accompanied by heavenly manifestations Simon offered
192 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
them money, saying, ‘“‘ Give me also this power,” which he
obviously regarded as a charm or occult spell. 8S. Peter
forthwith sharply rebuked the unholy neophyte, who,
alarmed at this denunciation, implored the Apostles to pray
for him.
Simon is not mentioned again in the New Testament, but
the first Christian writers have much to say concerning him.
S. Justin Martyr, in his first Apologia (a.p. 1538-155) and in
his dialogue Contra Tryphonem (before A.D. 161), describes
Simon as a warlock who at the instigation of demons claimed
to bea god. During the reign of the Emperor Claudius, Simon
came to Rome, and by his sorceries won many followers
who paid him divine honours. He was accompanied by a
lewd concubine from Tyre, Helena, whom he claimed was
Heavenly Intelligence, set free from bondage by himself
the “ great power.”
In the Pseudo-Clementine Homilies (probably second cen-
tury) Simon appears as the chief antagonist of S. Peter, by
whom his devilish practices are exposed and his enchantments
dissolved. ‘The apocryphal Acts of S. Peter, which are of
high antiquity,®® give in detail the well-known legend of the
death of Simon Magus. By his spells the warlock had almost
won the Emperor Nero to himself, but continually he was
being foiled and thwarted owing to the intercession of the
Apostle. At last when Cesar demanded one final proof of
the truth of his doctrines, some miracle that might be
performed at midday in the face of all Rome, Simon offered
to take his flight into the heavens—a diabolical parody of
the Ascension—so that men might know his power was full
as mighty as that of Him whom the Christians worshipped as
God.
A mighty concourse gathered in the Forum : Vestal Virgins,
Senators, Equites, their ladies, and a whole rabble of lesser
folk. In the forefront of a new Imperial box sat the Lord Nero
Claudius Cesar Augustus Germanicus, on one side his mother,
Agrippina, on the other Octavia his wife. Magic staff in
hand the magician advanced into the midst of the arena:
muttering a spell he bade his staff await his return, and
forthwith it stood upright, alone, upon the pavement. Then
with a deep obeisance to the ruler of the known world Simon
Magus stretched forth his arms, and a moment more with
THE WITCH IN HOLY WRIT 198
rigid limbs and stern set face he rose from the ground and
began to float high in air toward the Capitol. Like some
monstrous bird he rose, and hovered fluttering in space
awhile. But among the throng stood S. Peter, and just as
the sorcerer had reached the topmost pinnacles of the shrine
of Juno Moneta, now Santa Maria in Aracceli, where brown
Franciscans sing the praises of God, the first Pope of Rome
kneeled down, lifted his right hand and deliberately made a
mighty Sign of the Cross towards the figure who usurped the
privileges of the Incarnate Son of Mary. Who shall say what
hosts of hells fled at that moment? The wizard dropped
swift as heavy lead ; the body whirled and turned in the air ;
it crashed, broken and breathless, at the foot of the Emperor’s
seat, which was fouled and bespattered with black gouts
of blood. At the same moment with a ringing sound the
staff fell prone on the pavement. The flag upon which
S. Peter kneeled may be seen even until this day in the
Church of Santa Francesca Romana. For, in order to
commemorate the defeat of the warlock, Pope S. Paul I
(757-767) built a church upon the site of his discomfiture,
and in 850 Pope S. Leo IV reconstructed it as Santa Maria
Nova, which gave place to the present fane dedicated in
1612.
But the fame of Simon Magus as a wizard has been
swallowed up in his ill repute as a heretic ; so early do heresy
and magic go hand in hand. He was the first Gnostic, whose
disciples the Simonians, an Antinomian sect of the second
century, indulged the sickest fantasies. Menander, the
successor of Simon, proclaimed himself the Messiah and
asserted that by his baptism immortality was conferred upon
his followers. He also was regarded as a mighty magician,
and the sect which was named after him, the Menandrians,
seems to have lasted for no inconsiderable time.
In his missionary journeys S. Paul was continually com- —
bating Witchcraft. At Paphos he was opposed by the
sorcerer Elymas; in Philippi a medium, ‘a certain damsel
possessed with a spirit of divination,” “spiritum pythonem,”
followed him along the streets erying out and naming him
as “a servant of the most high God,’ until he exorcized the
spirit ; at Ephesus, a hotbed of sorcery and superstition, he
converted many diviners and witches, who cleansed their
Oo
194 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
souls by the Sacrament of Penance, and burned their con-
juring books, a library of no mean value. It amounted
indeed to fifty thousand drachmas (£2000), and one may
suppose that in addition to manuscripts there were amulets
of silver and gold, richly wrought and jewelled. In Ephesus,
also, had foregathered a large number of vagabond Jews,
exorcists. The chief characteristic of a Jewish exorcism was
the recitation of names believed to be efficacious, principally
names of good angels, which were used either alone, or in
combination with El (God); and, indeed, a blind reliance
upon the sound of mere names had long been a settled
practice with these amateur sorcerers, who considered that
the essence of their charms lay in the use of particular names
declaimed in a particular order, which differed on several
occasions. It was this belief, no doubt, that induced the
seven sons of Sceva, who had witnessed S. Paul’s exorcisms
in the name of Jesus, to try upon their own account the
formula ‘‘I conjure thee by Jesus whom Paul preacheth,”’
an experiment disastrous to their credit. For in one case the
patient cried out ‘‘ Jesus I know, and Paul I know, but who
are ye?” and leaped upon them with infernal strength,
beating and wounding them, so that they fled for safety from
the house, their limbs bruised and their garments torn, to
the great scandal of the neighbourhood.
For the fact of demoniac possession the authority of
Christ Himself is plainly pledged; whilst Witchcraft is
explicitly ranked by S. Paul with murder, sedition, hatred,
and heresy (Galatians v. 20-21). S. John, also, twice
mentions sorcerers in a hideous catalogue of sinners. There
can be no doubt whatsoever that the reality of Witchcraft
is definitely maintained by the New Testament writers,*®
and any denial of this implicitly involves a rejection of the
truth of the Christian revelation.
Among the Jews of a later period, and probably even
to-day, various diseases are said to be induced by demons,
who, it is instructive to notice, haunt marshy places, damp
and decayed houses, latrines, squalid alleys, foul atmospheres
where sickness is bred and ripened.
Josephus (0b. A.D. 100) relates that God taught Solomon
how demons were to be expelled, a “science useful and
sanitative to men.” He also gives an account of Eliezar, a
THE WITCH IN HOLY WRIT 195
celebrated exorcist of the time, whom, in the presence of the
Emperor Vespasian, the historian actually saw casting out
evil spirits. The operator applied to the nose of the possessed
a ring having attached to it a root which Solomon is said
to have prescribed—“ Baaras,” a herb of magical properties,
and one dangerous for the uninitiate to handle. As the
devils came forth Eliezar caused them to pass into a basin
filled with water, which was at once poured away. It may
be noticed also that demonology plays an important part
in the Book of Enoch (before 170 B.c.). Even in the Mishna
there are undoubted traces of magic, and in the Gemara
demonology and sorcery loom very largely. Throughout
the Middle Ages Jewish legend played no insignificant part
in the history of Witchcraft, and, especially in Spain, until
the nineteenth century at least, there were prosecutions, not
so much for the observance of Hebrew ceremonies as is often
suggested and supposed, but for the practice of the dark and
hideous traditions of Hebrew magic. Closely connected with
these ancient sorceries are those ritual murders, of which
a learned Premonstratensian Canon of Wilthin, Adrian
Kembter, writing in 1745, was able to enumerate no less
than two-and-fifty,?” the latest of these having taken place
in 1650, when at Cadan in Bohemia, Matthias, a lad of four
years old, was killed by certain rabbis with seven wounds.
In many cases the evidenee is quite conclusive that the
body, and especially the blood of the victim, was used for
magical purposes. Thus with reference to little S. Hugh
of Lincoln, after various very striking details, the chronicler
has: ‘‘ Et cum exspirasset puer, deposuerunt corpus de cruce,
et nescitur qua ratione, euiscerarunt corpusculum; dicitur
autem, quod ad magicas artes exercendas.” In 1261 at
Forcheim in Bavaria the blood of a murdered boy was
used to sprinkle certain thresholds and doors. In 1285 at
Munich a witch was convicted of selling Christian children
to the Jews, who carefully preserved the blood in curious
vessels for secret rites. In 1494 at Tyrnau twelve vampires
were executed for having opened the veins of a boy whom
they had snared, and having drunk his warm blood thence
whilst he was yet alive. A deed of peculiar horror was
discovered at Szydlow in 1597 when the victim was put to
death in exquisite tortures, the blood and several members
196 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
of the body being partaken of by the murderers. In almost
every case the blood was carefully collected, there can be
no doubt for magical purposes, the underlying idea being the
precept of the Mosaic law: Anima enim omnis carnis in
sanguine est :38 For the life of all flesh is in the blood thereof
NOTES TO CHAPTER V
1 Khartummim. The same word is used to describe the magicians whom
Pharaoh summoned to interpret his dream, Genesis xli. 8, where the Vulgate
has coniectores. Hxodus viii. 11, the Vulgate reads: ‘‘ Uocauit autem Pharao
sapientes et maleficos.”’
2 It is perhaps worth mentioning that even the most modernistic com-
mentators assign the history of Balaam to the oldest document of the
Hexateuch, that they call the Jehovistic.
3 In his commentary on the ninth chapter of the prophet Osee (Hosea),
S. Jerome says: ‘‘ Ingressi [sunt] ad Beel-Phegor, idolum Moabitarum quem
nos PRIAPUM possumus appelare.’? And Rufinus on the same prophet has :
‘* Beel-Phegor figuram Priapi dixerunt tenere.’’ (They entered in unto
Beel-Phegor, the idol of the Moabites, whom we may identify with PRIAPUS.
. . . Beel-Phegor is said to have had the same shape as Priapus.)
4 Balaam hariolus a Domino mittitur ut decipiat Balac filium Beor. In
Ezechielem, IV. xiv. Migne, Patres Latini, XXV.p.118. (Baalam, a sooth-
sayer, is sent by God to deceive Balac, son of Beor.)
5 Balaam fuisse prophetam non Dei, sed diaboli constat. . . . Fuit ipse
magus, et demonis alloquium querebat, eumque consulere.
6 The word is usually found with yidde ’onim (from yada, ‘‘ to know,’’)
and they are generally considered to be identical in meaning. But W. R.
Smith, Journ. Phil., XIV. 127, makes the following distinction: Yidde ’oni
is a familiar spirit, one known to him who ealls it up; the *6bh is any spirit
who may be invoked by a spell and foreed to answer questions.
7 Divination, et la science des présages, Paris, 1875. p. 161 ff.
8 History of the People of Israel, 3 vols., London, 1888-91. I. p. 347.
® Cf. Ovid, Metamorphoseon, IV, 412-3, of bats :
Conatzeque loqui, minimam pro corpore uocem
Emittunt ; peraguntque leues stridore querelas.
10 Josephus says that Samuel told the witch it was Saul.
11 Migne, Patres Greci, LX XX. p. 589.
12 Plerique putant Saulem signum accepisse de terra et de profundo inferni
quando Samuelem per incantationes et artes magicas uisus est suscitasse.
Migne, Patres Latinit, XXIV. p. 106.
13. . . inspirantur diabolico spiritu. Has autem dicunt Hebrei maleficis
artibus eruditas per necromantias et pythicum spiritum qualis fuit illa que
uisa est suscitare animam Samuelis. Idem, XXV. p. 114.
14 Migne, Patres Greci, XLV. pp. 107-14.
15 Aaiuoves yap hoav of karacxnuarifoures éavrods els TO TOD Lamounr mpdowmov.
Idem, XXX. p. 497.
16 Et credo quia [spiritus immundi] mendacio possunt ; nec enim pythonico
tune spiritui minus liciut animam Samuelis effingere. (De Anima, LVII.)
Migne, Patres Latini, II. p. 749.
17 "ANAd yéypamrat, orl yyw Laovr bre Dapounr éore.
18 érel od divarar Wevdéobar 7 Tpadyn. ra de pruara THs padjs éorly* Kal eldev
) yuh Tov Samovnr. (In librum Regum. Homilia II.) Migne, Patres Greci,
XII. p. 1013.
19 kal dre pévovow al Puxal, arédeta buty éx Tou Kal Thy Dapounr Wuxhv KrAnOFvac
Umd THs eyyaoTpiumvdov, ws HElwow 6 Laovi, (In I. Regum. XXVIII.) Idem, XII.
20 Samuel post mortem, secundum Scripture Testimonium futura non
tacuit. I. Regum. XXVIII. 17 et seg. (In Lucam. I. 33.) Migne, Patres
Latint. XV. p. 1547.
THE WITCH IN HOLY WRIT 197
*} Imago Samuelis mortui Saul regi uera prenuntiauit. Idem, XXXIV.
p. 52. And De Cura, XL. p. 606.
** Nam Samuel propheta defunctus uiuo Sauli etiam regi futura preedixit.
°8 Whiston’s translation. Ed. 1825. Vol. I, p. 263.
24 So 1 Kings (Samuel) xv. 23: ‘ Because it is like the sin of witchcraft,
to rebel.’’ Heresy and rebellion are fundamentally the same.
2° Schrader, Die Keilenscheiften und das alte Testament, Giessen, 2nd ed.,
1883.
6. . . raconta ses rapts d’enfants, ses hideuses tactiques, ses stimulations
infernales, ses meurtres impétueux, ses implacables viols; obsédé par la
vision des ses victimes, il décrivit leurs agonies ralenties ou hatées, leurs
appels et leurs rales; il avoua s’étre vautré dans les élastiques tiédeurs des
intestins ; il confessa qu’il avait arraché des cceurs par des plaies élargies,
ouvertes, telles que des fruits miirs. Lda-Bas, J. K. Huysmans, c. xviii.
27 Healey’s translation, 1610.
28 De Magia, XLVII.
29 The Primitive Inhabitants of Scandinavia, Sven Nilsson. 3rd edition.
1868. p. 241.
8° The original title is xara racdv alpécewv éreyxos. A Refutation of all
Heresies. The first book had long been known; books IV-X, which had
been discovered a short time previously, were first published in 1851 (Oxford)
by Miller as the work of Origen, but edited by Duncker and Schneidewin
as by Hippolitus, eight years later, Géttingen, 1859. The first chapters of
the Fourth, and the whole of the Second and Third Books are still missing.
*} Theocritus, II. 121. Kpart & éxwv detxav ‘Hpaxdéos lepdy éepvos. Vergil.
Eclogue VIII, 61: Populus Alcide gratissima. A#neid, VIII, 276: Herculea
bicolor quem populus umbra .. .
*° Pliny (Historia Naturalis, XV. 86) says walnuts were thrown, and it
appears from an inscription that this custom prevailed on birthdays as well
as at weddings. But originally, at any rate, chestnuts were also used. In
time the meaning became obscured, and as nuts were used in all kinds of
games they merely became synonymous with playthings.
83 The play is referred to in 1520 as Messer Nicia, and the first edition
printed at Florence circa 1524 has the title The Comedy of Callimaco and
Lucrezia, but the Prologue definitely gives the name La Mandragola (The
Mandrake), and this is used in all later editions. The story has been imitated
by La Fontaine; the play itself (which is still acted in Italy) has been
repeatedly translated, at least six times into French and five times into
German, but as yet no English version has been published.
84 De Legibus Hebreorum ritualibus earumque rationibus, 2 vols., Tubinge,
1732.
°° Not later than a.p. 200. They were well known to Commodian, who
wrote about a.p. 250.
86 This is, of course, the view of the Fathers, and even later theological
writers (e.g. Alfred Edersheim, Delitzsch, Rev. Walter Scott) accept this
literal truth.
*7 In his book Acta pro Ueritate Martyrii corporis, & cultus publici
B. Andree Rinnensis, Innsbruck, 1745. Blessed Andrew, a child, was killed
at Rinn in the Tyrol, 12 July, 1462. A systematic investigation would, no
doubt, wellnigh double the number of instances recorded by Kembter, and
there are 15 for the eighteenth, 39 for the nineteenth century. In 1913.
Mendil Beiliss was tried upon the charge of ritually murdering a Russian
lad, Yushinsky.
38 Leviticus xvii. 14.
CHAPTER VI
Dr1aBouiic PossEssIoN AND MODERN SPIRITISM
THE phenomenon of diabolic possession, the mere possibility
of which materialists and modernists in recent years have for
the most part stoutly denied, has, nevertheless, been believed
by all peoples and at all periods of the earth’s history. In
truth he who accepts the spiritual world is bound to realize
all about him the age-long struggle for empery of discarnate
evil ceaselessly contending with a thousand cunning sleights
and a myriad vizardings against the eternal unconquerable
powers of good. Nature herself bears witness to the contest ;
disease and death, cruelty and pain, ugliness and sin, are
all evidences of the mighty warfare, and it would be surprising
indeed if some were not wounded in the fray—for we cannot
stand apart, each man, S. Ignatius says, must fight under
one of the two standards—if some even did not fall.
The ancient Egyptians, whose religion of boundless
antiquity is pre-eminent in,the old world for its passionate
earnestness, its purity, and lofty idealism certainly held that
some diseases were due to the action of evil spirits or demons,
who in exceptional circumstances had the power of entering
human bodies and of vexing them in proportion to the
opportunities consciously or unconsciously given to their
malign natures and influences. Moreover, the Egyptians
were regarded as being supremely gifted in the art of curing
the diseases caused by demoniacal possession, and one note-
worthy instance of this was inscribed upon a stele and set up
in the temple of the god Khonsu at Thebes so that all men
might learn his might and his glory.1. When King Rameses II
was in Mesopotamia the various princes made him many
offerings of gold and gems, and amongst other came the
Prince of Bekhten, who brought his daughter, the fairest
maiden of that land. When the king saw he loved her and
bestowed upon her the title of ‘‘ Royal spouse, ehief lady,
198
DIABOLIC POSSESSION 199
Ra-neferu ”’ (the beauties of Ra, the Sun-god), and taking
her back to Egypt he married her with great pomp and
hallowed solemnity. In the fifteenth year of the king’s reign
there arrived at his court an ambassador from the Prince
of Bekhten, bearing rich presents and beseeching him ‘‘ on
behalf of the lady Bent-ent-resht, the younger sister of the
royal spouse R4a-neferu, for, behold, an evil disease hath laid
hold upon her body, “‘ wherefore,” said the envoy, “‘ I beseech
thy Majesty to send a physician? to see her.’? Rameses
ordered the books of the “‘ double house of life ’’ to be brought
and the wise men to choose from their number one who
might be sent to Bekhten. They selected the sage Tehuti-
em-heb, who in company with the ambassador forthwith
departed on their journey, and when they had arrived
the Egyptian priest soon found the lady Bent-ent-resht
was possessed of a demon or spirit over which he was
powerless. Wellnigh in despair the Prince of Bekhten sent
again to the king begging him to dispatch even a god to his
help.
When the ambassador arrived a second time Rameses was
worshipping in the temple of Khonsu Nefer-hetep at Thebes,
and he at once besought that deity to allow his counterpart
Khonsu to go to Bekhten and to deliver the daughter of the
prince of that country from the demon who possessed her.
Khonsu Nefer-hetep granted the request, and a fourfold
measure of magical power was imparted to the statue of the
god which was to go to Bekhten. The god, seated in his boat,
and five other boats with figures of gods in them, accompanied
by a noble attendance of horses and chariots upon the right
and the left, set out for Bekhten, where in due course they
were received with great honour. The god Khonsu was
brought to the place where the princess was, magical cere-
monies were performed, and the demon _ incontinently
departed. Khonsu remained in Bekhten three years, four
months, and five days, being worshipped with the utmost
veneration. One night, however, the Prince had a dream
in which he saw a hawk of gold issue from the sacred shrine
and wing its way towards Egypt. In the morning the
Kgyptian priests interpreted his dream as meaning that the
god now wished to return, and accordingly he was escorted
back in superb state, and with him were sent grateful gifts
200 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
and thank offerings innumerable to be laid in the temple of
Khonsu Nefer-hetep at Thebes.
The Greeks of the earlier civilization were inclined generally
to attribute all sickness to the gods, who again often by this
particular means took almost immediate revenge upon those
who had insulted their images, profaned their sanctuaries,
or derided their worship. Thus Pentheus who resists the
introduction of the mysteries of Dionysus into Thebes is
driven mad by the affronted deity. The madness of Ajax,
and that of the daughters of Proetus,4 who imagined them-
selves changed into cows, shows us that this belief went back
to heroic times. In later days Demaratus and his brother
Alopecos were driven lunatic (zapadponjoay) after having
found the statue of Artemis Orthosia, and this was considered
to be the power of the goddess. The frenzy which attacked
Quintus Fulvius was regarded as a punishment, a possession
by evil spirits on account of his sacrilege in having stolen
the marble roof of the temple of Juno Lacinia at Locri.®
Pythagoras taught that the ailments both of men and
of animals are due to demons who throng the regions of the
air, and this doctrine does no more than state clearly what
had been more or less vaguely believed from the dawn of
human history. Wherefore Homer in the Odyssey, speaking
of a man who is racked by a sore disease, says that a hateful
demon is tormenting him: otvyepos 6é of &xpae Sdatuwr,
V, 896. (But a hateful demon griped him fast.) The word
Kakodaimovia, possession by an evil spirit, in Aristophanes signi-
fies “‘raving madness,” and the verb xaxodaipovaw, to be
tormented by an evil spirit, is used by Xenophon, Demos-
thenes, Dinarchus, and Plutarch? amongst other authors.
Many philosophers believed that each man has a protecting
daimon, who in some sense personifies his individuality. It
followed that lunatics and the delirious were afflicted with
madness by these spirits who guided them, and accordingly
the Greek names for those distraught are highly significant :
evepyoumevot (in later Greek, persons possessed of an evil
spirit), damowodnyrro (influenced by devils), OedAy7To1,
OeoBraBes (stricken of God), Oeduaves (maddened by the
gods); and so Euripides has Avoca OBeouanjs, and again
Ocouavns rotruos.8 The very name maria given by the
Greeks to madness was derived from the root-word man,
DIABOLIC POSSESSION 201
men,® which occurs in the Latin Manes, and indeed the
Romans thought that a madman was tormented by the
goddess Mania, the mother of the Lares, the hallucinations
of lunatics being taken to be spectres who pursued them.?°
And so a madman was laruarum plenus, larwatus,4 one whom
phantoms disturbed ; as in Plautus, where the doctor says :
‘What kind of a disease is this? Explain. Unfold, old sire,
I say. Art thou crazed (laruatus) or lunatic? Tell me now.”!2
The frantic exaltation which thrilled the Galli, and the
Corybantes when they celebrated the Dionysia, seems to
have been epidemic, and was universally attributed to divine
possession. There are many allusions to the connexion
between the rites of Cybele and Dionysus. Apollodorus!®
says Dionysus was purified from madness by Rhea at the
Phrygian Cybela, and was then initiated into her rites and
took her dress; thence he passed into Thrace with a train
of Bacchanals and Satyrs. Strabo,!4 on the other hand,
thinks the rites were brought from Thrace by colonists from
that country into Phrygia; he even quotes a fragment from
the Edoni of Auschylus!® as proving the identity of the
cultus of Dionysus and Cybele. So also we have in Euripides,
Bacche, 58,
Up, and wake the sweet old sound,
The clang that I and mystic Rhea found,
The Timbrel of the Mountains. 16
It is interesting to remark that Nicander of Claros,17 who
was a physician, in his Alexipharmaca (’AreE:pappaka),
speaking of a particular form of lunacy, compares the shrieks
uttered by patients with those of a priestess of Rhea, when
on the ninth day she makes all whom she encounters in
the streets tremble at the hideous how] of the Idzean Mother ;
Kepvopopos faxopos Pwulctpia ‘“Peins is the exact phrase.}8
In the Hippolytus (141 sqq.) the Chorus speaking to
Phaedra says :
Is this some spirit, O child of man?
Doth Hecat hold thee perchance, or Pan ?
Doth She of the Mountains work her ban,
Or the Dread Corybantes bind thee ? !9
And in the Medea (1171-2) we have: ‘‘ She-seemed, I wot,
to be one frenzied, inspired with madness by Pan or some
other of the gods.’’?° ,
202 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
Here twos Oeav, says Paley, alludes to Dionysus or
Cybele. Madness was sometimes thought to be sent by Pan
for any neglect of his worship, so in the Rhesus Hector
cries (86-7): ‘‘ Can it be that you are scared by the fear-
causing stroke of Pan of old Kronos’s line ? ’’?4
Aretzeus, the medical writer, who is especially celebrated
for his accuracy of diagnosis, in his De signis chronicorum
morborum, VI, describes Corybantic frenzy as a mental
malady and says that patients may be soothed and even
cured by the strains of soft music.22. We have here then the
same remedy as was applied in the case of Saul, whom, we
are told, “‘ an evil spirit from the Lord troubled,’’?? and to
whose court David, the sweet harper, was summoned. This
seems to be the only instance of demoniac possession in the
Old Testament and although the Hebrew word ruah need
not absolutely imply a personal influence, if we may judge
from Josephus?4 the Jews certainly gave the word that
meaning in this very passage.
It may be well here clearly to explain the difference
between possession and obsession, two technical terms some-
times confounded. By obsession is meant that the demon
attacks a man’s body from without ;?° by possession is meant
that he assumes control of it from within. Thus 8. Jerome
describes the obsessions which beset S. Hilarion: ‘“‘ Many
were his temptations ; day and night did the demons change
and renew their snares. . . . As he lay down how often did
not nude women encircle him? When he was an hungered
how often a plenteous board was spread before him ? ’’?6
S. Antony the Great, also was similarly attacked: ‘“ The
devil did not let to attack him, at night assuming the form
of some maiden and imitating a woman’s gestures to deceive
Antony.’’?? These painful phenomena are not uncommon in
the lives of the Saints. Very many examples might be cited,
but one will suffice, that of S. Margaret of Cortona,?® the
Franciscan penitent,?® who was long and terribly tormented :
‘* Following her to and fro up and down her humble cell as
she wept and prayed [the devil] sang the most filthy songs,
and lewdly incited Christ’s dear handmaid, who with tears
was commending herself to the Lord, to join him in trolling
forth bawdy catches . . . but her prayers and tears finally
routed the foul spirit and drove him far away.”°° The
DIABOLIC POSSESSION 203
theologians, however, warn us to be very cautious in dealing
with so difficult a matter, and the supreme authority of
S. Alphonsus Liguori advises us that by far the greater part
of these obsessions are distressing hallucinations, neuras-
thenia, imagination, hysteria, in a word, pathological: ‘‘ It
is advisable always to be very suspicious of such diabolic
attacks, for it cannot be gainsaid that for the most part
they are fancy, or the effect of imagination, or weakness,
especially when women are concerned.’?!_ Dom Dominic
Schram presses home the same point with equal emphasis :
‘“ Very often what are supposed to be demoniacal obsessions
are nothing else than natural ailments, or morbid imaginings,
or even distractions or actual lunacy. Wherefore it is
necessary to deal with these cases most carefully, until the
peculiar symptoms clearly show that it is actual obsession.’?22
Demoniac possession is frequently presented to us in the
New Testament, and we have the authority of Christ Himself
as to its reality. The infidel argument is to deny the possi-
bility of possession in any circumstances, either on the
hypothesis that there are no evil spirits in existence, or that
they are powerless to influence the human body in the
manner described. But whatever view Rationalists may
adopt—and they are continually shifting their ground—no
reader of the Scriptural narrative can deny that Christ by
word and deed showed His entire belief in possession by evil
spirits. And if Christ were divine how came He to foster
and encourage a delusion? Why did He not correct it ?
Only two answers can be supposed. Either He was ignorant
of a religious truth, or He deliberately gave instructions that
He knew to be false, frequently acting in a way which was
something more than misleading. To a Christian either of
these explanations is, of course, unthinkable. The theory
of accommodation formulated by Winer ** may be accepted
by Modernists, but will be instantly condemned by all others.
Accommodation is understood as the toleration of harmless
illusions of the day having little or no connexion with religion.
Kiven if this fine piece of profanity were allowed, which, of
course, must not be the case, the argument could not be
applied here, indeed it seems wholly repugnant even in
regard to a Saint, but entirely impossible in consideration of
the divinity of Christ,
204 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
The victims of possession were sometimes deprived of speech
and sight: ‘‘ Then was offered to him one possessed of a
devil, blind and dumb: and he healed him, so that he spoke
and saw’’ (S. Matthew xii. 22). Sometimes they had lost
speech alone: ‘‘ Behold, they brought him a dumb man,
possessed with a devil, and after the devil was cast out the
dumb man spoke” (S. Matthew ix. 32, 33); also ‘“‘ And he
was casting out a devil, and the same was dumb: and when
he had cast out the devil the dumb spoke ”’ (S. Luke xi. 14).
In many cases the mere fact of possession is mentioned
without further details: ‘“‘ they presented to him such as
were possessed by devils, and lunatics ... and he cured
them ”’ (S. Matthew iv. 24); ‘‘ and when evening was come,
they brought to him many that were possessed with devils,
and he cast out the spirits with his word ”’ (S. Matthew viii.
16); ‘“‘ And, behold a woman of Canaan, who came out of
those coasts, crying out, said to him: Have mercy on me,
O Lord, thou son of David: my daughter is grievously
troubled by a devil . . . Then Jesus answering, said to her:
O woman, great is thy faith: be it done to thee as thou wilt :
and her daughter was cured from that hour ” (S. Matthew xy.
22-28); *“* And when it was evening after sunset they brought
to him all that were ill and that were possessed with devils ”’ ;
‘* And he cast out many devils, and he suffered them not to
speak, because they knew him’”’; ‘‘ And he was preaching
in their synagogues, and in all Galilee, and casting out
devils ’’ (S. Mark i. 82, 84, 89); ‘‘ And the unclean spirits,
when they saw him, fell down before him: and they cried,
saying: Thou art the Son of God” (S. Mark iii. 11, 12);
‘And devils went out from many, crying out and saying:
Thou art the Son of God” (S. Luke iv. 41); ‘‘ And they
that were troubled with unclean spirits were cured ” (S. Luke
vi. 18); ‘‘ And in that same hour, he cured many of their
diseases, and hurts, and evil spirits” (S. Luke vii. 21).
The exorcism of the man “ who had a devil now a very long
time,” and who dwelt among the tombs in the country of
the Gerasens (Gadarenes) is related by S. Luke (viii. 27-89).
The possessed is tormented by so many unclean spirits that
they proclaim their name as Legion: he is endowed with
supernatural strength so that he breaks asunder bonds
and fetters: the devils recognize Christ as God, and Our
DIABOLIC POSSESSION 205
Lord converses with them, asking how they are called.
Immediately the devils have been cast out the man is
clothed, peaceable, reasonable, and quiet, “in his right
mind.”’
At the foot of Mount Tabor a young man is brought by
his father to be healed. The youth is possessed of a dumb
spirit, ‘‘ who, wheresoever he taketh him dasheth him, and
he foameth, and gnasheth with the tecth, and pineth away.”
When Jesus approached, ‘“‘ immediately the spirit troubled
him; and being thrown down upon the ground, he rolled
about foaming.” The patient had been thus afflicted “‘ from
his infancy, and oftentimes hath he cast him into the fire and
into waters to destroy him.” Our Lord threatened the
spirit, and forthwith expelled it. (S. Mark ix. 14-28.) It
should be noticed that it is the demons who are addressed
on these occasions, not their victims. In the face of this
catena of Biblical evidence and the various circumstances
attending these exorcisms it is impossible to maintain that
the possessed suffered merely from epilepsy, paralysis, acute
mania, or any other such disease. In fact the Evangelists
carefully separate natural maladies from diabolic possession :
‘ He cast out the spirits with his word: and all that were
sick he healed” (S. Matthew viii. 16); ‘ They brought to
him all that were ill and that were possessed with devils . . .
and he healed many that were troubled with divers diseases
and he cast out many devils ”’ (S. Mark i. 82, 34). In the
original Greek the distinction is still more clearly and
unmistakably shown: aytas Tovs Kaxas éxovras Kal Tovs
damovgouevovs. Saint Matthew, again, differentiates :
“they presented to him all sick people that were taken
with divers diseases [zoxiAas vécos] and torments
[Sacavors] and such as were possessed by devils [da:mou-
Couevovs] and lunatics [ceAnviafouevovs] and those who
had the palsy [wapadvtixovs] and he cured them,” iv. 24.
Moreover, Our Lord expressly distinguishes between posses-
sion and natural disease; ‘‘ Behold I cast out devils and do
cures,” are the Divine Words; iSov é@Badd\o Saudna Kat
laces amoteA@ (S. Luke xiii. 32).
That the demoniacs were often afflicted with other diseases
as well is highly probable. The demons may have attacked
those who were already sick, whilst the very fact of obsession
206 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
or possession would of itself produce disease as a natural
consequence.
According to S. Matthew x. 1, Our Lord gave special
powers to the Apostles to exorcize demons: ‘*‘ And having
called his twelve disciples together, he gave them power over
unclean spirits to cast them out, and to heal all manner of
diseases, and all manner of infirmities.”’? And S. Peter, when
describing the mission and miracles of Christ, stresses this
very point: ‘“ Jesus of Nazareth: how God anointed him
with the Holy Ghost, and with power, who went about doing
good, and healing all that were possessed by the devil,”
Tous Katadvvactevouevous Uro Tov dtaBoroy (Acts x. 88).
Our Lord Himself directly appeals to His power over evil
spirits as a proof of His Messiahship: ‘‘If I by the finger
of God cast out devils; doubtless the kingdom of God is
come upon you”; e de év daxtiAw Oceod éxBadrtr\w Ta
daimona, apa épOacev éf tuas 7 Bacirela Tov Ocod (S. Luke
i020);
Whilst yet on earth Christ empowered the Apostles to
cast out demons in His Name, and in His last solemn charge
He promised that the same delegated power should be
perpetuated: ‘“‘ These signs shall follow them that believe :
in my name they shall cast out devils’; onueia de Tots
TigTevoacl TavTAa TapaKkoAovOyce’ ev TW Ovow“aTl pov Satmovia
exBarovor (S. Mark xvi. 17.) But the efficacy of exorcism
was conditional, not absolute as in the case of Our Lord
Himself, for He explained, upon an occasion when the
Apostles seemed to fail, that certain spirits could only be
expelled by prayer and fasting. Moreover, a perfect belief
and complete command are necessary for the exorcizer. Tore
mpocéeAOorres of paOytat TH ‘Incod cat (diay etrov, Avatl imeis ovK
novvjOnnev éxBareiv avto; 6 dé "Iycots Neyer adrois, Ata tiv
odryomiaTiay Uma’... TOUTO bé TO yévos OvK ExTopeveTat EC MH
év Tpocevxy Kat yyoteia (S. Matthew xvii. 19-21). S. Paul,
and no doubt the other Apostles and Disciples, regularly made
use of this exorcizing power. Thus, at Philippi, where the girl
‘having a pythonical spirit . . . who brought to her masters
much gain by divining ” (radioxny TWa €xovcay ev ka
Wd > - - Ul “~
Tv0wva . . + TIS épyaciay TroAAHV TApelLXe TOS KUpLOls auTAS
pavTevoxevn)*®* met S. Paul and S. Luke and proclaimed them
as servants of the most high God, S. Paul “ being grieved,
DIABOLIC POSSESSION 207
turned, and said to the spirit : I command thee, in the name
of Jesus Christ, to go out from her. And he went out the
same hour” (Acts xvi. 16-18). And at Ephesus, a hot-bed
of magic and necromancy, ‘‘ God wrought by the hand of
Paul more than common miracles. So that even there were
brought from his body to the sick, handkerchiefs and aprons,
and the diseases departed from them, and the wicked spirits
went out of them” (Acts xix. 11, 12). Those who do not
imagine that the powers Our Lord perpetually bestowed
upon the Apostles and their followers abruptly ceased with
the thirty-first verse of the twenty-eighth chapter of The
Acts of the Apostles, realize that the charisma of exorcism
has continued through the ages, and in truth the Church
has uninterruptedly practised it until the present day.
The Exorcist is ordained by the Bishop for this office,
ordination to which is the second of the four minor orders
of the Western Church. Pope Cornelius (251-252) mentions
in his letter to Fabius that there were then in the Roman
Church forty-two acolytes, and fifty-two exorcists, readers,
and door-keepers, and the institution of these orders together
with the organization of their functions, seems to have been
the work of the predecessor of Cornelius, Pope Saint Fabian
the Martyr (236-251).
The rite of the Ordination of Exorcists, ‘‘ De Ordinatione
Exorcistarum,”’ is as follows : First, the Book of Exorcisms,
or in its place the Pontifical or Missal must be ready at hand ;
Pro Exorcistis ordinandis paretur liber exorcismorum, cuius
loco dari potest Pontificale uel Missale (A Book of Exorcisms
must be prepared for those who are to be ordained Exorcists.
Howbeit in place thereof the Pontifical or the Missal may be
handed to them) runs the rubric. When the Lectors have
been ordained, the Bishop resuming his mitre takes his place
upon his seat or faldstool at the Epistle side of the altar,
and the Missal with the bugia being brought by his acolytes
he proceeds to read the Gradual, or (if it be within the Octave
of Pentecost) the Alleluia. Meantime the Gradual is sung
by the choir. When it is finished, he rises, takes off his
mitre, and turning to the altar intones the third collect.
He next sits again, resumes his mitre, and the third Lection
is read. Two chaplains assist him with bugia and book
whence he reads the Lection. The Archdeacon now summons
208 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
the ordinandi, who approach, holding lighted tapers in their
hands, and kneel before the Bishop, who solemnly admonishes
them with the prayer :
‘Dearest children who are about to be ordained to the
office of Exorcists, ye must duly know what ye are about
to undertake. For an Exorcist must cast out devils; and
announce to the people that those that may not be present
at the sacrifice should retire; and at the altar minister
water to the priest. Ye receive also the power of placing
your hand upon energumens, and by the imposition of your
hands and the grace of the Holy Spirit and the words of
exorcism unclean spirits are driven out from the bodies of
those who are obsessed. Be careful therefore that as ye
drive out devils from the bodies of others, so ye banish all un-
cleanness and evil from your own bodies lest ye fall beneath
the power of those spirits who by your ministry are con-
quered in others. Learn through your office to govern all
imperfections lest the enemy may claim a share in-you and
some dominion over you. For truly will ye rightly control
those devils who attack others, when first ye have overcome
their many crafts against yourselves. And this may the
Lord vouchsafe to grant you through His Holy Spirit.’’%°
After which the Bishop hands to each severally the Book
of Exorcisms (or Pontifical or Missal), saying: ‘“* Receive
this and commit it to thy memory and have power to place
thy hands upon energumens, whether they be baptized, or
whether they be catechumens.’’8* All kneel, and the Bishop,
wearing his mitre, stands and prays :
‘“‘ Dearest brethren, let us humbly pray God the Father
Almighty that He may vouchsafe to bless these his servants
to the office of Exorcists that they may have the power to
command spirits, to cast forth from the bodies of those who
are obsessed demons with every kind of their wickedness
and deceit. Through His only begotten Son Jesus Christ
Our Lord who with Him liveth and reigneth in the unity
of the Holy Spirit, one God, world without end. R. Amen.”’*?
Then, his mitre having been removed, he turns to the altar
with ‘“‘ Oremus” to which is given the reply “‘ Flectamus
genua’”’ with ‘‘ Leuate,” and the last prayer is said over
the kneeling exorcists: ‘‘ Holy Lord, Almighty Father,
Eternal God vouchsafe to bless these thy servants to the
DIABOLIC POSSESSION 209
office of Exorcists ; that by the imposition of our hands and
the words of our mouth they may have power and authority
to govern and restrain all unclean spirits: that they may be
skilful physicians for Thy Church, that they may heal many
and be themselves strengthened with all Heavenly Grace.
Through Our Lord Jesus Christ Thy Son who with Thee
liveth and reigneth in the unity of the Holy Spirit one God
world without end. R. Amen.” And then, at a sign from
the Archdeacon, they return to their places.38
It should be remarked that the Exorcist is specifically
ordained “‘ to cast out demons,” and he receives “ power to
place his (your) hands upon the possessed, so that by the
imposition of his (your) hands,? the grace of the Holy Ghost,
and the words of exorcism, evil spirits are driven out from
the bodies of the possessed.” The very striking term
spirttualis imperator is strictly applied to him, and God
the Father is earnestly entreated to grant him the grace
‘to cast out demons from the bodies of the possessed with
all their many sleights of wickedness.” Nothing could be
plainer, nothing could be more solemn, nothing could be
more pregnant with meaning and intention. The Order and
delegated power of Exorcists cannot be minimized ; at least,
so to do is clean contrary to the mind of the Church as
emphatically expressed in her most authoritative rites. In
actual practice the office of Exorcist has almost wholly been
taken over by clerics in major orders, but this, of course, in
no way affects the status and authority of the second of the
four minor orders.
Every priest, more especially perhaps if he be a parish
priest, is liable to be called upon to perform his duty as
Exorcist. In doing so he must carefully bear in mind and
adhere to the prescriptions of the Rituale Romanum, and he
will do well to have due regard to the laws of provincial or
diocesan synods, which for the most part require that the
Bishop should be consulted and his authorization obtained
before exorcism be essayed.
The chief points of importance in the detailed instructions
under twenty-one heads prefixed to the rite in the Rituale
may thus be briefly summarized: (1) The priest or exorcist
should be of mature age, humble, of blameless life, courageous,
of experience, and well-attested prudence. It is fitting he
P
210 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
should prepare himself for his task by special acts of devotion
and mortification, by fervent prayer and by fasting (S. Mat-
thew xvii. 20). (2) He must be a man of scholarship and
learning, a systematic student and well versed in the latest
trends and developments of psychological science. (38) Pos-
session is not lightly to be taken for granted. Each case is
to be carefully examined and great caution to be used in
distinguishing genuine possession from certain forms of
disease. (4) He should admonish the possessed in so far as
the latter is capable, to dispose himself for the exorcism by
prayer, fasting, by confession, and Holy Communion, and
while the rite is in progress he must excite in his heart a most
lively faith in the goodness of God, and perfect resignation
to the divine will. (5) The exorcism should take place in the
Church, or some other sacred place, if convenient, but no
crowd of gazers must be suffered to assemble out of mere
curiosity. There should, however, be a number of witnesses,
grave and devout persons of standing, eminent respectability,
and acknowledged probity, not prone to idle gossip, but
discreet and silent. If on account of sickness or for some
legitimate reason the exorcism takes place in a private house
it is well that members of the family should be present ;
especially is this enjoined, as a measure of precaution, if the
subject be a woman. (6) If the patient seems to fall asleep,
or endeavours to hinder the exorcist in any way during the
rite he is to continue, if possible with greater insistence, for
such actions are probably a ruse to trick him. (7) The
exorcist, although humble and having no reliance upon
himself alone, is to speak with command and authority, and
should the patient be convulsed or tremble, let him be more
fervent and more insistent; the prayers and adjurations
are to be recited with great faith, a full and assured con-
sciousness of power. (8) Let the exorcist remember that he
uses the words of Holy Scripture and Holy Church, not his
own words and phrases. (9) All idle and impertinent
questioning of the demon is to be avoided, nor should the
evil spirit be allowed to speak at length unchecked and
unrebuked. (10) The Blessed Sacrament is not to be brought
near the body of the obsessed during exorcism for fear of
possible irreverence; Relics of the Saints may be employed,
but in this case every care must be most scrupulously
DIABOLIC POSSESSION 211
observed that all due veneration be paid to them; the
Crucifix and Holy Water are to be used. (11) If expulsion
of the evil spirit, who will often prove obstinate, is not
secured at once, the rite should be repeated as often as
need be.
It will be seen that the Church has safeguarded exorcism
with extraordinary precautions, and that everything which
is humanly possible to prevent superstition, indecorum, or
abuse is provided for and recommended. Again and again
the warning is repeated that so solemn, and indeed terrible,
an office must not lightly be undertaken. The actual form
in present use is as follows :4°
THE FORM OF EXORCISING THE POSSESSED
[TRANSLATED FROM THE ‘“‘ RomANn RiTvat.”’]
The Priest, having confessed, or at least hating sin in his
heart, and having said Mass, uf it possibly and conveniently
can be done, and humbly implored the Divine help, vested in
surplice and violet stole, the end of which he shall place round
the neck of the one possessed, and having the possessed person
before him, and bound if there be danger of violence, shall sign
himself, the person, and those standing by, with the sign of the
Cross, and sprinkle them with holy water, and kneeling down,
the others making the responses, shall say the Litany as far as
the prayers.
At the end the Antiphon. Remember not, Lord, our
offences, nor the offences of our forefathers, neither take
Thou vengeance of our sins.
Our Father. Secretly.
Y And lead us not into temptation.
ky But deliver us from evil.
Psalm liii.
Deus, in Nomine.
The whole shall be said with Glory be to the Father.
Y. Save Thy servant,
ky. O my God, that putteth his trust in Thee.
VY. Be unto him, O Lord, a strong tower,
ky. From the face of his enemy.
212 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
Let the enemy have no advantage of him,
. Nor the son of wickedness approach to hurt him.
Send him help, O Lord, from the sanctuary,
. And strengthen him out of Sion.
Lord, hear my prayer,
. And let my cry come unto Thee.
The Lord be with you,
. And with thy spirit.
Let us pray.
O God, Whose property is ever to have mercy and to
forgive: receive our supplications and prayers, that of Thy
mercy and loving-kindness Thou wilt set free this Thy
servant (or handmaid) who is fast bound by the chain of
his sins.
O holy Lord, Father Almighty, Eternal God, the Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ: Who hast assigned that tyrant
and apostate to the fires of hell; and hast sent Thine
Only Begotten Son into the world, that He might bruise
him as he roars after his prey: make haste, tarry not,
to deliver this man, created in Thine Own image and
likeness, from ruin, and from the noon-day devil Send
Thy fear, O Lord, upon the wild beast, which devoureth
Thy vine. Grant Thy servants boldness to fight bravely
against that wicked dragon, lest he despise them that put
their trust in Thee, and say, as once he spake in Pharaoh :
I know not the Lord, neither will I let Israel go. Let Thy
right hand in power compel him to depart from Thy servant
N. (or Thy handmaid N.) +h, that he dare no longer to hold
him captive, whom Thou hast vouchsafed to make in Thine
image, and hast redeemed in Thy Son; Who liveth and
reigneth with Thee in the Unity of the Holy Spirit, ever
One God, world without end. Amen.
Then he shall command the spirit in this manner.
I command thee, whosoever thou art, thou unclean spirit,
and all thy companions possessing this servant of God, that
by the Mysteries of the Incarnation, Passion, Resurrection
and Ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ, by the sending of
the Holy Ghost, and by the Coming of the same our Lord
DIABOLIC POSSESSION 213
to judgment, thou tell me thy name, the day, and the hour
of thy going out, by some sign: and, that to me, a minister
of God, although unworthy, thou be wholly obedient in all
things: nor hurt this creature of God, or those that stand
by, or their goods in any way.
Then shall these Gospels, or one or the other, be read over
the possessed.
The Lesson of the Holy Gospel according to S. John i. 1.
As he says these words he shall sign himself and the possessed
on the forehead, mouth, and breast. In the beginning was the
Word .. . full of grace and truth.
The Lesson of the Holy Gospel according to S. Mark
xvi. 15. At that time: Jesus spake unto His disciples :
Go ye into all the world . . . shall lay hands on the sick,
and they shall recover.
The Lesson of the Holy Gospel according to S. Luke
x. 17. At that time: The seventy returned again with joy
. . . because your names are written in heaven.
The Lesson of the Holy Gospel according to S. Luke
xi. 14. At that time: Jesus was casting out a devil, and it
was dumb . . . wherein he trusted, and divideth his spoils.
VY. Lord, hear my prayer,
ky. And let my cry come unto Thee.
VY. The Lord be with you,
ky. And with thy Spirit.
Let us pray.
Almighty Lord, Word of God the Father, Jesus Christ,
God and Lord of every creature: Who didst give to Thy
Holy Apostles power to tread upon serpents and scorpions :
Who amongst other of Thy wonderful commands didst
vouchsafe to say—Put the devils to flight : by Whose power
Satan fell from heaven like lightning: with supplication
I beseech Thy Holy Name in fear and trembling, that to me
Thy most unworthy servant, granting me pardon of all my
faults, Thou wilt vouchsafe to give constancy of faith and
power, that shielded by the might of Thy holy arm, in trust
and safety I may approach to attack this cruel devil, through
Thee, O Jesus Christ, the Lord our God, Who shalt come to
judge the quick and the dead, and the world by fire. Amen,
214 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
Then defending himself and the possessed with the sign of
the Cross, putting part of his stole round the neck, and his
right hand upon the head of the possessed, firmly and with great
faith he shall say what follows.
VY. Behold the Cross of the Lord, flee ye of the contrary
part,
k7. The Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David,
hath prevailed.
VY. Lord, hear my prayer,
ky. And let my cry come unto Thee.
VW. The Lord be with you,
ky. And with thy spirit.
Let us pray.
O God, and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, I call upon
Thy Holy Name, and humbly implore Thy mercy, that Thou
wouldest vouchsafe to grant me help against this, and every
unclean spirit, that vexes this Thy creature. Through the
same Lord Jesus Christ.
THE EXORCISM.
I exorcise thee, most foul spirit, every coming in of the
enemy, every apparition, every legion; in the Name of our
Lord Jesus > Christ be rooted out, and be put to flight from
this creature of God 44. He commands thee, Who has bid
thee be cast down from the highest heaven into the lower
parts of the earth. He commands thee, Who has commanded
the sea, the winds, and the storms. Hear therefore, and fear,
Satan, thou injurer of the faith, thou enemy of the human
race, thou procurer of death, thou destroyer of life, kindler
of vices, seducer of men, betrayer of the nations, inciter of
envy, origin of avarice, cause of discord, stirrer-up of troubles :
why standest thou, and resistest, when thou knowest that
Christ the Lord destroyest thy ways? Fear Him, Who was
sacrificed in Isaac, Who was sold in Joseph, was slain in the
Lamb, was crucified in man, thence was the triumpher over
hell. The following signs of the Cross shall be made upon the
forehead of the possessed. Depart therefore in the Name of
the Father +f, and of the Son >, and of the Holy +4 Ghost :
give place to the Holy Ghost, by this sign of the holy > Cross
DIABOLIC POSSESSION 215
of Jesus Christ our Lord: Who with the Father, and the
same Holy Ghost, liveth and reigneth ever one God, world
without end. Amen.
Lord, hear my prayer.
And let my ery com? unto Thee.
The Lord be with you.
And with thy spirit.
Let us pray.
O God, the Creator and Protector of the human race, Who
hast formed man in Thine own Image: look upon this Thy
servant N. (or this Thy handmaid N.), who is grievously
vexed with the wiles of an unclean spirit, whom the old
adversary, the ancient enemy of the earth, encompasses with
a horrible dread, and blinds the senses of his human under-
standing with stupor, confounds him with terror, and harasses
him with trembling and fear. Drive away, O Lord, the
power of the devil, take away his deceitful snares: let the
impious tempter fly far hence: let Thy servant be defended
by the sign +h (on his forehead) of Thy Name, and be safe both
in body, and soul. (The three following crosses shall be made
on the breast of the demoniac.) Do Thou guard his inmost >
soul, Thou rule his inward +4 parts, Thou strengthen his 44
heart. Let the attempts of the opposing power in his soul
vanish away. Grant, O Lord, grace to this invocation of
Thy most Holy Name, that he who up to this present was
causing terror, may flee away affrighted, and depart con-
quered; and that this Thy servant, strengthened in heart,
and sincere in mind, may render Thee his due service.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
THe Exorcism.
I adjure thee, thou old serpent, by the Judge of the quick
and the dead, by thy Maker, and the Maker of the world:
by Him, Who hath power to put thee into hell, that thou
depart in haste from this servant of God N., who returns to
the bosom of the Church, with thy fear and with the torment
of thy terror. I adjure Thee again > (on his forehead), not
in my infirmity, but by the power of the Holy Ghost, that
thou go out of this servant of God N., whom the Almighty
216 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
God hath made in His Own Image. Yield, therefore, not to
me, but to the minister of Christ. For His power presses
upon thee Who subdued thee beneath His Cross. Tremble
38 His arm, which, after the eroanings of hell were subdued,
led forth the souls into light. Let the body + (on his breast)
of man be a terror to thee, let the image of God +k (on his
forehead) be an alarm to thee. Resist not, nor delay to depart
from this person, for it has pleased Christ to dwell in man.
And think not that I am to be despised, since thou knowest
that I too am so great a sinner. God > commands thee.
The majesty of Christ }4 commands thee. God the Father +
commands thee. God the Son 4 commands thee. God the
Holy 4 Ghost commands thee. The Sacrament of the
Cross 44 commands thee. The faith of the holy Apostles
Peter and Paul, and of all the other Saints 44, commands thee.
The blood of the Martyrs 44 commands thee. The stedfast-
ness (continentia) of the Confessors 44 commands thee. The
devout intercession of all the Saints 44 commands thee. The
virtue of the Mysteries of the Christian Faith 44 commands
thee. Go out, therefore, thou transgressor. Go out, thou
seducer, full of all deceit and wile, thou enemy of virtue, thou
persecutor of innocence. Give place, thou most dire one:
give place, thou most impious one: give place to Christ in
Whom thou hast found nothing of thy works: Who hath
overcome thee, Who hath destroyed thy kingdom, Who hath
led thee captive and bound thee, and hath spoiled thy goods :
Who hath cast thee into outer darkness, where for thee and
thy servants everlasting destruction is prepared. But why,
O fierce one, dost thou withstand ? why, rashly bold, dost
thou refuse ? thou art the accused of Almighty God, whose
laws thou hast broken. Thou art the accused of Jesus Christ
our Lord, whom thou hast dared to tempt, and presumed to
crucify. ‘Thou art the accused of the human race, to whom
by thy persuasion thou hast given to drink thy poison.
Therefore, I adjure thee, most wicked dragon, in the Name of
the immaculate > Lamb, Who treads upon the lion and adder,
Who tramples under foot the young lion and the dragon, that
thou depart from this man + (let the sign be made upon his
forehead), that thou depart from the Church of God +h (let the
sign be made over those who are standing by): tremble, and
flee away at the calling upon the Name of that Lord, of Whom
DIABOLIC POSSESSION 217
hell is afraid; to Whom the Virtues, the Powers, and the
Dominions of the heavens are subject ; Whom Cherubim and
Seraphim with unwearied voices praise, saying: Holy, Holy,
Holy, Lord God of Sabaoth. The Word 4 made Flesh
commands thee. He Who was born +4 of the Virgin com-
mands thee. Jesus 44 of Nazareth commands thee; Who,
although thou didst despise His disciples, bade thee go
bruised and overthrown out of the man: and in his presence,
having separated thee from him, thou didst not presume to
enter into the herd of swine. Therefore, thus now adjured
in His Name 4, depart from the man, whom He has formed.
It is hard for thee to wish to resist 44. It is hard for thee to
kick against the pricks 44. Because the more slowly goest
thou out, does the greater punishment increase against thee,
for thou-despisest not men, but Him, Who is Lord both of
the quick and the dead, Who shall come to judge the quick
and the dead, and the World by fire. Ry. Amen.
VY. Lord, hear my prayer.
ky. And let my cry come unto thee.
VY. The Lord be with you.
ky. And with thy spirit.
Let us pray.
0 God of heaven, God of earth, God of the Angels, God
of the Archangels, God of the Prophets, God of the Apostles,
God of the Martyrs, God of the Virgins, God, Who hast the
power to give life after death, rest after labour; because
there is none other God beside Thee, nor could be true, but
Thou, the Creator of heaven and earth, Who art the true
King, and of Whose kingdom there shall be no end: humbly
I beseech Thy glorious majesty, that Thou wouldest vouch-
safe to deliver this Thy servant from unclean spirits, through
Christ our Lord. Amen.
THE Exorcism.
I therefore adjure thee, thou most foul spirit, every
appearance, every inroad of Satan, in the Name of Jesus
Christ 44 of Nazareth, Who, after His baptism in Jordan,
was led into the wilderness, and overcame thee in thine own
stronghold: that thou cease to assault him whom He hath
218 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
formed from the dust of the earth for His own honour and
glory : and that thou in miserable man tremble not at human
weakness, but at the image of Almighty God. Yield, there-
fore, to God 44 Who by His servant Moses drowned thee and
thy malice in Pharaoh and his army in the depths of the sea.
Yield to God +4, Who put thee to flight when driven out of
King Saul with spiritual song, by his most faithful servant
David. Yield thyself to God 44, Who condemned thee in the
traitor Judas Iscariot. For He touches thee with Divine 4
stripes, when in His sight, trembling and crying out with
thy legions, thou saidst: What have I to do with Thee,
Jesus, Son of the Most High God ? Art Thou come hither to
torment us before the time? He presses upon thee with
perpetual flames, Who shall say to the wicked at the end of
time—Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire,
prepared for the devil and his angels. For thee, O impious
one, and for thy angels, is the worm that dieth not; for thee
and thy angels is the fire unquenchable prepared: for thou
art the chief of accursed murder, thou the author of incest,
thou the head of sacrileges, thou the master of the worst
actions, thou the teacher of heretics, thou the instigator of all
uncleanness. Therefore go out +h, thou wicked one, go out Hy,
thou infamous one, go out with all thy deceits ; for God hath
willed that man shall be His temple. But why dost thou
delay longer here? Give honour to God the Father 4
Almighty, before Whom every knee is bent. Give place to
Jesus Christ 4 the Lord, Who shed for man His most precious
Blood. Give place to the Holy 44 Ghost, Who by His blessed
Apostle Peter struck thee to the ground in Simon Magus ;
Who condemned thy deceit in Ananias and Sapphira; Who
smote thee in Herod, because he gave not God the glory ;
Who by his Apostle Paul smote thee in Elymas the sorcerer
with a mist and darkness, and by the same Apostle by his
word of command bade thee come out of the damsel possessed
with the spirit of divination. Now therefore depart >,
depart, thou seducer. The wilderness is thy abode. The
serpent is the place of thy habitation: be humbled, and be
overthrown. There is no time now for delay. For behold
the Lord the Ruler approaches closely upon thee, and His
fire shall glow before Him, and shall go before Him; and
shall burn up His enemies on every side, If thou hast deceived
DIABOLIC POSSESSION 219
man, at God thou canst not scoff: One expels thee, from Whose
Sight nothing is hidden. He casts thee out, to Whose power
all things are subject. He shuts thee out, Who hast prepared
for thee and for thine angels everlasting hell ; out of Whose
mouth the sharp sword shall go out, when He shall come to
judge the quick and the dead, and the World by fire. Amen.
All the aforesaid things being said and done, so far as there
shall be need, they shall be repeated, until the possessed person
be entirely set free.
The following which are noted down will be of great assistance,
said devoutly over the possessed, and also frequently to repeat
the Our Father, Hail Mary, and Creed.
The Canticle. Magnificat.
The Canticle. Benedictus.
The Creed of S. Athanasius.
Quicunque uult.
Psalm xe. Qui habitat.
Psalm Ixvii. Haurgat Deus.
Psalm Ixix. Deus in adiutorium.
Psalm lil. Deus, In Nomine Tuo.
Psalm exvil. Confitemini Domino.
Psalm xxxiv. JIudica, Domine.
Psalm xxx. In Te, Domine, speraut.
Psalm xxi. Deus, Deus meus.
Psalm iii. Domine, quid multiplicasti ?
Psalm x. In Domino confido.
Psalm xii. Usquequo, Domine ?
Each Psalm shall be said with Glory be to the Father, &c.
Prayer after being set free.
We pray Thee, O Almighty God, that the spirit of wicked-
ness may have no more power over this Thy servant N.
(or Thy handmaid N.), but that he may flee away, and never
come back again: at Thy bidding, O Lord, let there come
into him (or her) the goodness and peace of our Lord Jesus
Christ, by Whom we have been redeemed, and let us fear
no evil, for the Lord is with us, Who liveth and reigneth
with Thee, in the Unity of the Holy Ghost, ever one God,
world without end. ky. Amen.
/
220 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
A shorter form of exorcism, which, being general, differs
in aim and use, was published by order of Pope Leo XIII
and may be found in the later editions of the Rituale
Romanum, “‘ Exorcismus in Satanam et Angelos aposta-
licos.”"44, After the customary invocation In nominee...
the rite begins with a prayer to S. Michael, the solemn
adjuration of some length follows with versicles and responses,
a second prayer is next recited, and the whole concludes by
three aspirations from the Litany: ‘‘ From the deceits and
crafts of the Devil; O Lord, deliver us. That it may please
Thee to rule Thy Church so it shall alway serve Thee in last-
ing peace and true liberty ; We beseech Thee, hear us. That
Thou wouldst vouchsafe to beat down and subdue all the
enemies of Thy Holy Church; We beseech Thee, hear us.”’
And the place is sprinkled with Holy Water,*? is the final
rubric.
The Baptismal Exorcism and exorcisms such as those of
water, salt,*? and oil, it were perhaps impertinent to treat
of here. It may, however, be noticed that in the ceremony
of the Blessing of the Waters*4 (approved by the Sacred
Congregation of Rites, 6 December, 1890), performed on the
Vigil of the Epiphany, there occurs a solemn ‘‘ Exorcismus
contra Satanam et Angelos apostalicos,”’ followed by ‘‘ Exor-
cismus Salis’? and “‘ Exorcismus aque.”’
There are recorded throughout history innumerable
examples of obsession and demoniacal possession, as also of
potent and successful exorcism. It is, of course, quite possible,
and indeed probable, that many of these cases were due to
natural causes, epilepsy, acute hysteria, incipient lunacy,
and the like. But, none the less, when every allowance has
been made for incorrect diagnosis, for ill-informed ascriptions
of rare and obscure forms of both physical and mental
maladies, for credulity, honest mistakes, and exaggerations of
every kind, there will yet remain a very considerable quota
which it seems impossible to account for and explain save
on the score of possession by some evil and hostile intelligence.
But nobody is asked to accept all the instances of diabolic
possession recorded in the history of the Church, nor even
to form any definite opinion upon the historical evidence in
favour of any particular case. That is primarily a matter
for historical and medical science. And, perhaps, even at
DIABOLIC POSSESSION 221
the present day and among civilized races this phenomenon
is not so rare as is popularly supposed.
The annals of Bedlam, of many a private madhouse, and
many an asylum could tell strange and hideous histories.
And if we may judge from the accounts furnished by the
pioneers of the Faith in missionary countries the evidences
of diabolical agency there are as clearly defined and un-
mistakable as they were in Galilee in the time of Christ.45
Demoniacal possession is frequently described and alluded
to by the early fathers and apologists in matter-of-fact terms
which leave no shadow of doubt as to their belief in this
regard. Indeed the success of Christian exorcism is often
brought forward as an argument for the acceptance of the
Divinity of the founder of Christianity. It would be an easy,
but a very lengthy process, to make a catena of such passages
from Greek and Latin authors alike.4® §S. Justin Martyr
(0b. circa A.D. 165) speaks of demons flying from ‘‘ the touch
and breathing of Christians ”’ (Apologia, II, 6), ‘as from a
flame that burns them,” adds S. Cyril of Jerusalem (ob.
385-6: Catechesis, XX, 8). Origen (ob. 253-4) mentions the
laying on of hands to cast out devils, whilst S. Ambrose?
(0b. 897), S. Ephrem Syrus48 (ob. 373), and others used this
ceremony when exorcizing. The holy sign of the Cross also
is extolled by many Fathers for its efficacy against all kinds
_ of diabolic molestation; thus Lactantius writes: ‘‘ Nunc
satis est, huius signi [Crucis] potentiam, quantum ualeat
exponere. Quanto terrori sit demonibus hoc signum, sciet,
qui uiderit, quatenus adiurati per Christum, de corporibus,
que obsederint, fugiant,”4® Diwinarwm Institutionum, IV,
xxvil.°? §. Athanasius (0b. 873), De Incarnatione Uerbi,
XLVII; S. Basil (0b. 379), In Esaiam, XI, 249; S. Cyril of
Jerusalem, Catechesis, XIII; S. Gregory of Nazianzus (ob.
circa 389), Carmen aduersus Iram, 415 sqq., all have passages
of no little weight to the same effect. S. Cyril, Procatechesis,
IX; and S. Athanasius, Ad Marcellum, XXIII, recom-
mend that the prayers of exorcism and the adjuration
should as far as possible repeat the exact words of Holy
Scripture. 7
In the annals of hagiography we find from the earliest days
until our own time very many instances of possession, very
many cases where a poor afflicted wretch has been released
222 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
and relieved by the power and prayer of some Saint or holy
servant of God.*!
Thus in the life of S. Benedict, that noble, calm, dignified,
prudent, great-souled, and high-minded hero, there are
recorded several occasions upon which he was confronted
by extraordinary manifestations of evil spirits who resisted
the building of his monastery upon the crest of Monte
Cassino, where Satanism had been previously practised. It
is not said that there were any visible appearances, save to
S. Benedict alone,®? but a succession of untoward accidents,
of abnormal occurrences and constant alarms, plainly showed
that the Saint was contending against superhuman difficulties.
More than once he found it necessary to exorcize certain of
his monks,** and so marked was his triumph over these
malignant and destructive influences that he has always
been venerated in the Church as a most potent “ effugator
demonum,”’ and is confidently invoked in the hour of
spiritual peril and deadly attack. Great faith also is placed
in the Medal of Saint Benedict. This medal, originally a
cross, is dedicated to the devotion in honour of the Patriarch.
One side bears the figure of the Saint holding a cross in his
right hand, and the Holy Rule in his left. Upon the other
is a cross together with the following letters arranged on and
around it: C.S.P.B., Crux Sancti Patris Benedicti (The Cross
of the holy Father Benedict). C.S.S.M.L., Crux Sacra Sit
Mihi Lux (May the holy Cross be my Light). N.D.S.M.D.,
Non Draco Sit Mihi Dux (Let not the Devil be my guide).
U.R.S.: N.S.M.U.: S.M.Q.L.: I.U.B.: Uade Retro Satana :
Nunquam Suade Mihi Uana: Sunt Mala Que Libas: Ipse
Uenena Bibas. (Begone, Satan, never suggest things to me,
what thou offerest is evil, drink thou thyself thy poison).®4
The “Centenary ’’ form of the medal (struck at Monte
Cassino in 1880 to commemorate the 18th centenary of
the birth of S. Benedict in 480) has under the figure the
words: He S.M. Cassino MDCCCLXXX. Upon the same
side round the edge runs the inscription: Eius in obitu nro
presentia muniamur (May we be protected by his presence
at the hour of our death), and the word PAX appears above
the cross.
It is doubtful when the Medal of S. Benedict originated,
but during a trial for Witchcraft at Natternberg, near the
DIABOLIC POSSESSION 223
abbey of Metten, in Bavaria, during the year 1647, the
accused women testified that they had no power over Metten
which was under the particular protection of the cross.
Upon investigation a number of painted crosses surrounded
by the letters which are now engraved upon Benedictine
medals were found on the walls of the abbey, but their
signification had been wholly forgotten. At length, in an
old manuscript, written in 1415, was discovered a picture
representing S. Benedict holding in one hand a staff which
ended in a cross, and in the other a scroll. On the staff and
scroll were written in full the formulas of which the mysterious
letters were the initials. Medals with the figure of S. Benedict,
a cross, and these letters began now to be struck and rapidly
spread over Europe. The medals were first authoritatively
approved by Benedict XIV in his briefs of 23 December, 1741,
and 12 March, 1742.
In the case of the possessed boys of Illfurt (Alsace) they
exhibited the utmost horror and dread of a Medal of
S. Benedict.
These medals are hallowed with a proper rite®> in which
the adjuration commences: ‘ Exorcizo uos, numismata, per
Deum Patrem + omnipotentem....” “TI exorcize ye,
medals, through God the Father 4 Almighty. . . . May the
power of the adversary, all the host of the Devil, all evil
attack, every spirit and glamour of Satan, be utterly put to
flight and driven far away by the virtue of these medals.
Hevea) Lhe prayer runs:; “'O-Lord Jesus Christ .°... by
Thy most Holy Passion I humbly pray and beseech Thee,
that Thou wouldest grant that whosoever devoutly invoketh
Thy Holy Name in this prayer and petition which Thou
Thyself hast taught us, may be delivered from every deceit
of the Devil and from all his wiles, and that Thou wouldest
vouchsafe to bring Thy servant to the harbour of salvation.
Who livest and reignest. . . .”?5?
S. Maurus also, the beloved disciple of S. Benedict, was
famous for the cures he wrought in cases of possession.58
Visiting France in 548 he became founder and superior of
the abbey of Glanfeuil, Anjou, later known by his name,
St. Maur-sur-Loise.®® The relics of S. Maurus after various
translations were finally enshrined at St. Germain-des-Prez,
In the eleventh century an arm of the Saint had been with
224 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
great devotion transferred to Monte Cassino, where by its
touch a demoniac was delivered. This is related by Desi-
derius,®° who was abbot at that time, and afterwards became
Pope, Blessed Victor III (ob. 16 September, 1087). Through-
out the Middle Ages the tomb of S. Maur at St. Germain
was a celebrated place of pilgrimage, and the possessed were
brought here in large numbers to be healed. *®
The Holy Winding Sheet of Besancon, again, was greatly
resorted to for the relief and cure of possession. This
venerable relic, being one of the linen cloths used at the
burial of Christ, was brought to Besan¢on in 1206 by Otto
de la Roche, and the feast of its arrival (Susceptio) was
ordered to be kept on 11 July. At present it is a double of
the first class in the cathedral, St. Jean, and of the second
class throughout the diocese. .
Novenas made in the church at Bonnet, near Nantes, were
popularly supposed to be of especial efficacy in healing
possession.
It is, of course, impossible even briefly to catalogue the
most important and striking of the numberless cases of
possession recorded throughout the centuries in every country
and at every era. Of these a great number are, no doubt,
to be attributed to disease ; very many to a commixture of
hysteria and semi-conscious, or more frequently unconscious,
fraud ; some few to mere chousing; and, if human evidence
is worth anything at all, many actually to diabolic influence.
There were some curious episodes in England during Queen
Elizabeth’s reign, when a third-rate Puritan minister, John
Darrel, made a considerable stir owing to his attempts
at exorcism. This idea seems to have been suggested
to him by the exorcisms of the famous Jesuit missionary
priest, William Weston, who after having been educated at
Oxford, Paris, and Douai, entered the Society on 5 November,
1575, at Rome. He then worked and taught in Spain, until
he was called to his native mission, actually arriving in
England, 20 September, 1584. In the course of his labours,
which at that dangerous time were carried on in circum-
stances of extremest peril, he was required to perform the
rite of exorcism upon several distressed persons, who were
for the most part brought to him at the houses of two zealous
Catholics, Sir George Peckham of Denham, near Uxbridge,
DIABOLIC POSSESSION 225
and Lord Vaux of Hackney, both of which gentlemen had
suffered in many ways for their faith. With regard to the
patients we can only say that we lack evidence to enable us
to decide whether the cases were genuine, or whether they
were merely sick and ailing folk; but we can confidently
affirm that there is no suspicion of any fraud or cozenage.
Father Weston is acknowledged to have been a man of the
most candid sincerity, intensely spiritual, and of no ordinary
powers. Although the rites, in which several priests joined,
were performed with the utmost secrecy and every precaution
was taken to prevent any report being spread abroad, some-
body gossiped, and in about a year various exaggerated
accounts were being circulated, until the matter came beforé
the Privy Council. A violent recrudescence of persecution
at once followed, many of the exorcists were seized and
butchered for their priesthood, the rest, including Weston,
were flung into jail, August, 1586. A long period of imprison-
ment ensued, and in 1599 Weston was committed to the
Tower, where he suffered such hardships that he wellnigh
lost his sight. Eventually in 1608 he was banished, and
spent the rest of his days at Seville and Valladolid. He was
rector of the latter college at the time of his death, 9 June,
Has Pla
It was in 1586, just when the exorcisms of the Jesuit
fathers had unfortunately attracted so widespread attention
and foolish comment, that John Darrel, although a Pro-
testant and lacking both appropriate ordination and training,
rashly resolved to emulate their achievements. He was
young, not much more than twenty, he was foolhardy and
he was ignorant, three qualities which even in our own time
often win cheap notoriety. It seems that he was first called
in to cure a young girl of seventeen, Katherine Wright, who
lived at Mansfield, Nottingham. Darrel forthwith pronounced
that she was afflicted by an evil spirit, and he prayed over
her from four o’clock in the morning till noon, but entirely -
without result. He then declared that the wench had been
bewitched and that the demon, moreover, was sent by one
Margaret Roper, with whom the patient had recently quar-
relled. The girl backed his story, and the accused woman
was at once taken into custody by the constable. When,
however, she appeared before Mr. Fouliamb, a justice of the
Q
226 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
peace, not only was she incontinently discharged, but Darrel
received a smart rebuff and found himself in no small danger
of arrest.
This mischance sufficiently scared the would-be exorcist,
and for some ten years he disappeared from view, only to
come before the public again at Burton-upon-Trent, where
he was prominent in the sensation and the scandal that ,
centred round Thomas Darling, a young Derbyshire boy.
This imaginative juvenal was subject to fits—real or feigned
—during which he had visions of green angels and a green
eat. Betimes his conversation became larded with true
Puritan cant, and he loved to discourse with godly ministers.
A credulous physician suggested that the lad was bewitched,
and very soon afterwards it was noticed that the reading
aloud of the Bible, especially certain verses in the first chapter
of S. John’s Gospel, threw him into frantic convulsions. He
also began a long prattling tale about “a little old woman ”’
who wore ‘‘a broad thrimmed hat,’”’ which proved amply
sufficient to cause two women, Elizabeth Wright, and her
daughter, Alse Gooderidge, long vehemently suspected of
sorcery, to be examined before two magistrates, who com-
mitted Alse to jail. Next those concerned summoned a
cunning man, who used various rough methods to induce the
prisoner to confess. After having been harried and even
tortured the wretched creature made some rambling and
incoherent acknowledgements of guilt, which were twisted
into a connected story. By now Darling had been ill for
three months, and so far from improving, was getting
worse.
At this juncture, exactly the dramatic moment, John Darrel,
full of bluff and bounce, appeared upon the scene, and forth-
with took charge of affairs. According to his own account
his efforts were singularly blessed ; that is to say the boy got
better and the sly Puritan claimed all the credit. Alse
Gooderidge was tried at the assizes, convicted by the
jury, and sentenced to death by Lord Chief Justice
Anderson; ‘‘She should have been executed but that
her spirit killed her in prison,” says John Denison the
pamphleteer! The whole affair greatly increased Darrel’s
reputation.
Not long after a much-bruited case of alleged possession
DIABOLIC POSSESSION 227
in Lancashire gave him further opportunity to pose in the
limelight. Ann Starchie, aged nine, and J ohn, her brother,
aged ten, were seized with a mysterious disorder; “a
certaine fearefull starting and pulling together of her body ”
affected the girl, whilst the boy was “‘compelled to shout #
on his way to school. Both grew steadily worse until their
father, Nicholas Starchie, consulted Edmund Hartley, a
notorious conjurer of no very fair repute. Hartley seems to
have quieted the children by means of various charms, and
the father paid him something like a retaining fee of forty
shillings a year. This, however, he insisted should be in-
creased, and when any addition was denied, there were
quarrels, and presently the boy and girl again fell ill. The
famous Dr. Dee was summoned, but he was obviously non-
plussed, and whilst he ‘sharply reproved and _straitly
examined ” Hartley, in his quandary could do or say little
more save advise the help of ‘‘ godlie preachers.’ The
situation in that accursed house now began to grow more
serious. Besides the children three young wards of Mr.
Starchie, a servant, and a visitor, were all seized with the
strange disease. ‘‘ All or most of them joined together in
a strange and supernatural loud whupping that the house
and grounde did sounde therwith again.’”’ Hartley fell under
suspicion, and was haled before a justice of the peace, who
promptly committed him to the assizes. Evidence was given
that he was continually kissing the Starchie children, in fact,
he kept embracing all the possessed, and it was argued that
he had thus communicated an evil spirit to them. He was
accused of having drawn magic circles upon the ground, and
although he stoutly denied the charge, he was convicted of
felony and hanged at Lancaster. John Darrel and _ his
assistant, George More, minister of a church in Derbyshire,
undertook to exorcize the afflicted, and in a day or two, after
long prayers and great endeavours, they managed to expel
the devils. Here we have folly, imposture, and hysteria all
blended together to make a horrible tale.
At this time Darrel was officiating as a minister at Notting-
ham, where there happened to be living a young apprenticed
musician, a clever and likely lad, William Somers, who some
years before had met Darrel at Ashby-de-la-Zouch, where
both had been resident. It appears that the boy had once
228 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
met a strange woman, whom he offended in some way, and
suddenly he “ did use such strang and idle kinde of gestures
in laughing, dancing, and such like lighte behaviour, that he
was suspected to be madd.”? The famous exorcist was sent for
on the 5th of November, 1597, and forthwith recognized the
signs of possession. The lad was suffering for the sins of
Nottingham. Accordingly sermons were delivered and
prayers were read in true ranting fashion, and when Darrel
named one after the other fourteen signs of possession the
patient, who had been most carefully coached, illustrated
each in turn.
It is possible that Darrel had to some extent mesmeric
control over Somers, whose performance was of a very
remarkable nature at least, for ‘‘he tore; he foamed; he
wallowed ; his face was drawn awry; his eyes would stare
and his tongue hang out”’; together with a thousand other
such apish antics which greatly impressed the bystanders.
Finally the boy lay as if dead for a quarter of an hour, and
then rose up declaring he was well and whole.
However, obsession followed possession. The demon still
assailed him, and it was not long before Master Somers
accused thirteen women of having contrived his maladies by
their sorcery. Darrel, the witch-finder, had by this time
attained a position of no small importance in the town, being
chosen preacher at S. Mary’s, and he was prepared to back
his pupil to the uttermost. Yet even his influence for some
reason did not serve, and all but two of the women concerned
were released from prison. Next certain unbelieving citizens
had the bad taste to interfere, and to carry off the chief actor
to the house of correction, where he pretty soon confessed
his impostures, in which, as he acknowledged, he had been
carefully instructed by Darrel. The matter now became a
public scandal, and upon the report of the Archdeacon of
Derby the Archbishop of York appointed a commission to
inquire into the facts. Brought before these ministers, not
one of whom could possibly have had any means of forming
a correct Judgement, Somers retracted his words, asserted
that he had been induced to slander Darrel, and thereat
fell into such fits, foamings, and contortions that the
ignoramuses were convinced of the reality of his demoniac
possession.
DIABOLIC POSSESSION 229
At the Nottingham assizes, however, things went differ-
ently. Summoned to court and encouraged by the Lord
Chief Justice, Sir Edmund Anderson, ® to tell the truth the
wretched young man made a clean breast of all his tricks.
The case against Alice Freeman, the accused, was dismissed,
and Sir Edmund, shocked at the frauds, wrote a weighty
letter to Whitgift, the Archbishop of Canterbury. Darrel
and More were cited to the Court of High Commission, where
Bancroft, Bishop of London, two of the Lord Chief Justices,
the Master of Requests, and other high officials heard the
case. It is obvious that Bancroft really controlled the
examination from first to last, and that he combined the
roles of prosecutor and judge. Somers now told the Court
how he had been in constant communication with Darrel,
how they had met secretly when Darrel taught him “ to doe
all those trickes which Katherine Wright did” and later
sent him to see and learn of the boy of Burton. In fact
Darrel made him go through a whole series of antics again
and again in his presence, and it was after all these pre-
liminaries and practice that the lad posed as a possessed
person at Nottingham and was prayed over and exhibited.
The vulpine Puritan was fairly caught. No doubt the Bishop
of London may have been a trifle arbitrary, but after all
he was dealing with a rank impostor. Darrel and More
were deposed from the ministry, and committed to close
prison.
The whole of this case is reported by Samuel Harsnett,
chaplain to Bancroft, in a book of three hundred and twenty-
four pages, A Discovery of the Fraudulent Practises of John
Darrel, Bacheler of Artes. . . . London, 1599, and a perfect
rain of pamphlets followed. Both Darrel and More answered
Harsnett, drawing meantime a number of other persons into
the paper fray. We have such works as An Apologie, or
defence of the possession of William Sommers, a young man |
of the towne of Nottingham. .. . By John Darrell, Minister
of Christ Jesus . . . a black letter brochure which is undated
but may be safely assigned to 1599; The Triall of Maist.
Dorrel, or A Collection of Defences against Allegations .. .
1599 ;®* and Darrel’s abusive A Detection of that sinnful,
shamful, lying, and ridiculous discours of Samuel Harshnet,
1600. There are several allusions in contemporary dramatists
230 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
to the scandal, and Jonson in The Divell is an Asse, acted in
1616; V, 8, has:
It is the easiest thing, Sir, to be done.
As plaine as fizzling : roule but wi’ your eyes,
And foame at th’ mouth. A little castle-soape
Will do’t, to rub your lips: And then a nutshell,
With toe and touchwood in it to spit fire,
Did you ner’e read, Sir, little Darrel’s tricks,
With the boy o’ Burton, and the 7 in Lancashire,
Sommers at Nottingham? All these do teach it.
And wee’! give out, Sir, that your wife ha’s bewitch’d you.
It is probable that in his books Harsnett is to a large
extent the mouthpiece of the ideas of Bancroft,®> whose
opinions must have carried no small weight seeing that in
1604 he became Archbishop of Canterbury. But Harsnett
himself was also a man who could well stand alone, a divine
marked out for the highest preferments. As Master of
Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, Vice-chancellor of that Uni-
versity, Bishop of Chichester, Bishop of Norwich, and finally
in 1628 Archbishop of York,®® he was certainly one of the
most prominent men of the day. His views, therefore, are
not only of interest, but may be regarded as an expression
of recognized Anglican authority. Bancroft, who was a
bitter persecutor of Catholics, seems to have turned over a
quantity of material he had collected to Harsnett, who in
1608 published a verjuiced attack upon the priesthood in
particular and upon the supernatural in general under the
title of A Declaration of Egregious Popish Impostures.®” This
violent and foolish polemic with its heavy periods of coarse
ill-humour and scornful profanity jars upon the reader like
the harsh screeching of some cankered scold. True, it has
a certain force due to the very vehemence and elaborate
gusto of the wrathful ecclesiastic, the force of Billingsgate
and deafening vituperation bawled by leathern lungs and
raucous tongue. As a sober argument, a reasoned contribu-
tion to controversy and debate, the thing is negligible and
has been wholly forgotten. Nevertheless, historically Harsnett
and Bancroft are important, for it was the latter who drew
up, or at least inspired, carried through Convocation, and
at once enforced the Canons generally known as those of
1604, of which number 72 lays down: ‘‘ No minister or
ministers shall . . . without the license or direction (manda-
DIABOLIC POSSESSION 231
tum) of the Bishop . . . attempt upon any pretence what-
soever either of possession or obsession, by fasting or prayer,
to cast out any devil or devils, under pain of the imputation
of imposture or cozenage, and deposition from the ministry.”
This article seems definitely intended to fix the position
of the Church of England.*® The whole question of exorcism
had, in common with every other point of Christian doctrine,
caused the most acrid disagreement. The Lutherans retained
exorcism in the baptismal rite and were both instant and
persevering in their exorcisms of the possessed. Martin
Luther himself had a most vivid realization of and the firmest
belief in the material antagonism of evil. The black stain
in the castle of Wartburg still marks the room where he
flung his ink-horn at the Devil. The silly body, the blind,
the dumb, the idiot, were, as often as not, afflicted by demons ;
the raving maniac was assuredly possessed. Physicians might
explain these evils as natural infirmity, but such physicians
were ignorant men; they did not know the craft and power
of Satan. Many a poor wretch who was generally supposed
to have committed suicide had in truth been seized by the
Fiend and strangled by him. The Devil could beget children ;
had not Luther himself come in contact with one of them ?°°
At the close of the sixteenth century, however, an intermin-
able and desperate struggle took place between the believers
in exorcism and the Swiss and Silesian sectaries who entirely
discarded exorcism, 7° either declaring it to have belonged only
to the earliest years of Christianity or else trying to explain
away the Biblical instances on purely rationalistic grounds.
In England baptismal exorcism was retained in the First
Prayer Book of 1549, but by 1552, owing to the authority
of Martin Bucer, we find it entirely eliminated. Under
Elizabeth the ever-increasing influence of Zurich and Geneva,
to which completest deference was paid, thoroughly dis-
credited exorcisms of any kind, and this misbelieving attitude
is repeatedly and amply made clear in the sundry “ Apolo-
gies’ and ‘‘ Defences ’’ of Jewel and his followers.
A letter of Archbishop Parker in 15747! with reference to
the proven frauds of two idle wenches, Agnes Bridges and
Rachel Pinder,”? shows that he was thoroughly sceptical as
to the possibility of possession, and his successor, the stout
old Calvinist Whitgift, was certainly of the same mind.
232 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
In 1603 five clergymen attempted exorcism in the case of
Mary Glover, the daughter of a merchant in Thames Street,
who was said to be possessed owing to the sorceries of a
certain Elizabeth Jackson. John Swan, ‘‘ a famous Minister
of the Gospel,” took the lead in this business, which made
considerable noise at the time. The Puritans were not
unnaturally anxious to vindicate their powers over the Devil
and they seem avidly to have grasped at any such opportunity
that offered. Swan did not fail to advertise his supposed
triumph in A True and Breife Report of Mary Glover’s Vexation
and of her delwerance by the meanes of fastinge and prayer,
1603; moreover, after her deliverance he took her home to
be his servant “least Satan should assault her again.”
Old Mother Jackson was indicted, committed by Sir John
Crook, the Recorder of London, and actually sentenced by
Sir Edmund Anderson, the Lord Chief Justice, to be pilloried
four times and be kept a year in prison. Unfortunately for
the would-be exorcists and their pretensions King James,
whose shrewd suspicions were aroused, sent to examine the
girl, a physician, Dr. Edward Jorden, who detected her
imposture, in which, I doubt not, she had been well coached
by the Puritans. Dr. Jorden recounted the circumstance in
his pamphlet A briefe discourse of a disease called the Suffocation
of the Mother, Written uppon occasion which hath beene of late
taken thereby to suspect possession of an evill spirit (London,
1603). ‘The ministers were extremely chagrined, and one
Stephen Bradwell even took up the cudgels in a tart
rejoinder to Jorden, which was singularly futile as his
lucubrations remain unpublished.?3 It is not improbable
that this performance had its share of influence on Bancroft
when he drew up article 72 of the 1604 Canons.
Francis Hutchinson in his Historical Essay on Witchcraft
(1718)?4 doubts whether any Bishop of the Church of England
ever granted a licence for exorcism to any one of his clergy,
and indeed the case which is given by Dr. F. G. Lee,7® who
relates how Bishop Seth Ward of Exeter assigned a form
under his own signature and seal in January, 1665, to the
Rev. John Ruddle, vicar of Altarnon, is probably unique.
And even so, this was not strictly speaking an instance of ex-
orcism, at least there was no deliverance of a person possessed.
Mr. Ruddle records in his MS. Diary that in a lonely field
DIABOLIC POSSESSION 233
belonging to the parish of Little Petherick? an apparition
was seen by a lad aged about sixteen, the son of a certain
Mr. Bligh. The ghost, which was that of one Dorothy
Durant, who had died eight years before, appeared so
frequently to the boy at this same spot which he was obliged
to pass daily as he went to and from school, that he fell ill
and at last confessed his fears to his family, who treated the
matter with ridicule and scolded him roundly when they
saw that jest and mockery were of no avail. Eventually
Mr. Ruddle was sent for to argue him out of his foolishness.
The vicar, however, was not slow to perceive that young
Bligh was speaking the truth, and he forthwith accompanied
his pupil to the field, where they both unmistakably saw the
phantom just as had been described. After a little while
Mr. Ruddle visited Exeter to interview his diocesan and
obtain the necessary licence for the exorcism. The Bishop,
however, asked: “On what authority do you allege that
I am entrusted with faculty so to do? Our Church, as is
well known, hath abjured certain branches of her ancient
power, on grounds of perversion and abuse.’ Mr. Ruddle
quoted the Canons of 1604, and this appears to have satisfied
the prelate, who called in his secretary and assigned a form
“insomuch that the matter was incontinently done.” But
the worthy vicar was not permitted to depart without a
thoroughly characteristic caution: ‘‘ Let it be secret, Mr.
Ruddle,—weak brethren! weak brethren!’ The MS. Diary
gives some details of the manner in which the ghost was laid,
and it is significant to read that the operator described a
circle and a pentacle upon the ground further making use
of a rowan “crutch” or wand. He mentions “‘ a parchment
scroll,”’ he spoke in Syriac and proceeded to demand as the
books advise; he “went through the proper forms of
dismissal and fulfilled all, as it was set down and written in
my memoranda,” and then “ with certain fixed rites I did
dismiss that troubled ghost.’ It would be interesting to
know what form and ceremonies the Bishop prescribed. It
does not sound like the details of a Catholic exorcism, but
rather some superstitious and magical ritual. From what is
related the form can hardly have been arranged for the
nonce. .
Although exorcism was not recognized by Protestants
‘
234 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
there are instances upon record where an appeal has been
made by English country-folk for the ministrations of a
Catholic priest. In April, 1815, Father Edward Peach of the
Midland District, was implored to visit a young married
woman named White, of King’s Norton, Worcestershire.
She had for two months been afflicted with an extraordinary
kind of illness which doctors could neither name nor cure.
Her sister declared that a young man of bad repute, whose
hand had been rejected, had sworn revenge and had employed
the assistance of a reputed wizard at Dudley to work some
mischief. However that might be, the unhappy girl seemed
to lie at death’s door ; she raved of being beset day and night
by spirits who mocked and moped at her, threatening to
carry her away body and soul, and suggesting self-destruction
as the only means to escape them. The clergyman of the
parish visited and prayed with her, but no good resulted
from all his endeavours. It so happened that a nurse who
was called in was a Catholic, and horrified at the hideous
ravings of the patient she procured a bottle of holy water,
with which she sprinkled the room and bed. A few drops
fell upon the sufferer, who uttered the most piercing cries,
and screamed out, ‘‘ You have scalded me! You have
scalded me!” The paroxysm, however, passed, and she fell
for the first time during many weeks into a sound slumber.
After some slight improvement for eight and forty hours
she was attacked by violent convulsions, and her relatives,
in great alarm, on Tuesday in Rogation Week, 2 May, 1815,
sent a special messenger to beg Father Peach to come over
immediately.
When the priest appeared the girl was being held down in
bed by two women who were forced to put forth all their
strength, and as soon as she saw him—he was a complete
stranger to her nor could his sacred profession be recognized
by his attire—so terrible were her struggles that her husband
was bound to lend his aid also to master her writhing limbs.
Presently she fell into a state of complete exhaustion, and
Father Peach, dismissing the rest of the company, was able
to talk to her long and seriously. He seems to have been
quite satisfied that it was a genuine case of diabolic possession,
and his evidence, carefully expressed and marshalled with
great moderation, leave no reasonable doubt that this strange
DIABOLIC POSSESSION 235
sickness owned no natural origin. In the course of conversa-
tion it appeared that she had never been baptized. A simple
instruction was given and finding her in excellent dispositions
Father Peach at once baptized her. During the administra-
tion of this sacrament she trembled like a leaf, and as the water
fell upon her she winced pitifully, a spasm of agony distorting
her countenance. She afterwards averred that it gave her
as much pain as if boiling water had been poured upon her
bare flesh. Immediately afterwards there followed a truly
remarkable change in her health and spirits; her husband
and sister were overjoyed and thought it no less than a
miracle. The next day Father Peach visited her again and
noticed a rapid improvement. Save for a slight weakness
she seemed perfectly restored, and, says the good father,
writing a twelvemonth later than the event from notes he
had taken at the time, there was no return, nor the least
lingering symptom of her terrible and distressing malady.
In its issue of 11 October, 1925, The Sunday Express,
under the heading ‘“ Evil Spirit Haunts A Girl,’ devoted a
prominent column to the record of some extraordinary
happenings. The account commences :
‘*‘ Haunted for twelve months and more by a mischievous
spirit—called a Poltergeist—driven almost to a state of
distraction, threatened with a lunatic asylum, and then
cured by the help of a band of spirit Indians, is the extra-
ordinary experience of the nineteen-year-old Gwynneth
Morley, who lives with her widowed mother at Keighley,
and who was employed in the spinning mills of Messrs. Hay
and Wright.”
These phenomena were communicated to Sir Arthur Conan
Doyle, who informed Mr. Hewet McKenzie, with the result
that the girl was brought to London for psychic treatment,
Mr. McKenzie being ‘‘ honorary principal of the British
College of Psychic Science,” an institution which is advertised
as the ‘‘ Best equipped Centre for the study of Psychic
Science in Britain,’’ and announces ‘‘ Lectures on Practical
Healing,” ‘“‘ Public Clairvoyance,”’ ‘“‘ A Small Exhibition of
notable water colours . . . representing Soul development,
or experience of the Soul in ethereal conditions.” ‘‘ The
College ” is, I am given to understand, a well-known centre
for spiritistic séances,
236 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
Gwynneth Morley worked in Mr. McKenzie’s family for
three months ‘‘ as a housemaid, under close observation, and
recelving psychic treatment.
“ Day by day the amazing manifestations of her tormenting
spirit were noted down. In between the new and full moon
the disturbances were worse. Everything in the room in
which Gwynneth happened to be would be thrown about and
smashed. Tables were lifted and overturned, chairs smashed
to pieces, bookcases upset, and heavy settees thrown over.
‘In the kitchen of Holland Park the preparation of meals,
when Gwynneth was about, was a disconcerting affair.
Bowls of water would be spilt and pats of butter thrown on
the floor. |
‘On another occasion when Gwynneth was in the kitchen
the housekeeper, who was preparing some grape fruit for
breakfast, found that one half had disappeared and could be
found neither in the kitchen nor in the scullery. She got two
bananas to take its place, and laid them on the table beside
her; immediately the missing grape fruit whizzed past her
ear and fell before her and the bananas vanished. Some ten
minutes later they were found on the scullery table.
‘ All this time Gwynneth was being treated by psychic
experts. Every week the girl sat with Mr. and Mrs. McKenzie
and others. It was found that she was easily hypnotised,
and that tables moved towards her in the circle.
‘At other times during the cure the Poltergeist seemed
to accept challenges. One night after a particularly exciting
day, Mrs. Barkel magnetised her head and quietened her,
and Mrs. McKenzie suggested that she should go to bed,
saying * Nothing happens when you get into bed.’ Going up
the stairs a small table and a metal vase crashed over, and
a little later a great noise of banging and tearing was heard
in Gwynneth’s room. When Mrs. McKenzie went into the
room it looked as if a tornado had swept over it.
“ After an active spell from June 21 to June 25 the spirit
behaved itself until July 1, when the girl had a kind of fit.
Suddenly she fell off her chair with her hands clenched. They
laid her on a bed, and she fell into another fit. She gripped
her own throat powerfully.
** Since that evening she has had no further attacks, nor
have there been any disturbances.”
DIABOLIC POSSESSION 237
The main cause of this apparent cure is said to be the
mediumship of Mrs. Barkel.
‘ On many occasions Mrs. Barkel gave Gwynneth excellent
clairvoyance, describing deceased relatives, friends, and
incidents in her past life which the girl acknowledged and
corroborated.
‘One near relative, says Mr. McKenzie, whose life had
been misspent, and who had been a heavy drinker, was
clearly seen. The girl feared and hated this personality, in
life and beyond death, and had herself often seen him clair-
voyantly before the disturbances began at all. Through
Mrs. Barkel’s spirit guide, Mr. McKenzie got into touch with
him, and he promised to carry out any instructions that
might be given for the benefit of the girl.
‘ The request was made that he should withdraw altogether
from any contact with her and not return except by request.
* Professor J.,’ a worker on the other side, became interested.
Mr. McKenzie asked that a band of Indians, who sometimes
profess to be able to help, should take Gwynneth in hand
and protect her from the assaults of disturbing influences.
“The following day Mrs. Barkel described an Indian who
_had come to help, and improvements were noted from about
this date. The *‘ professor’ encouraged the treatment by
suggestion, and told Mr. McKenzie that in a few weeks, with
the help of the Indian workers, he would place the medium
in an entirely new psychic condition. Mr. McKenzie says
that the promise was kept.”
I have quoted this case at some length owing to the
prominence afforded it in a popular and widely read news-
paper. That the facts are substantially true I see no reason
at all to doubt. It is an ordinary instance of obsession, and
will be easily recognized as such by those priests whose duty
has required them to study these distressing phenomena.
That the interpretation put upon some of the occurrences is
utterly false I am very certain. The clairvoyance is merely
playing with fire—I might say, with hell-fire—by those who
cannot understand what they are about, what forces they are
thus blindly evoking. ‘‘ Professor J.” and “the band of
Indians,”’ indeed all these ‘‘ workers on the other side”’ are
nothing else than evil, or at the least gravely suspect intelli-
gences, masquerading as spirits of light and goodness. If,
238 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
indeed, the girl is relieved from obsession one cannot but
suppose some ulterior motive lurks in the background ; it
is but part of a scheme organized for purposes of their own
by dark and secret powers ever alert to trick and trap
credulous man. The girl, Gwynneth Morley, should have
been exorcized by a trained and accredited exorcist. These
amateurs neither know nor even faintly realize the harm
they may do, the dangers they encounter. ale!
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DIABOLIC POSSESSION 251
fearfully beset and bewildered and deluded. There was no
human help for me. They led me into some extravagances
of action, and to believe, in a measure, a few of their delusions,
often combining religion and devilry in a most. surprising
manner.’’ 89
In my own experience, I myself, not onee, but over and
over again, have seen all these symptoms unmistakably
marked in those whose sole interest and aim in life seemed
to be a constant attendance at séances. I have watched, in
spite of every effort unable to check and dissuade, the fear-
fully rapid development of such characteristics in persons
who have begun to dabble with Spiritism, at first no doubt
in moods of levity and wanton curiosity, but soon with
hectic anxiety and the most morbid absorption. Some
fifteen years ago in a well-known English provincial town a
circle was formed by a number of friends to experiment with
table-turning, psychometry, the planchette, ouija-boards,
crystal-gazing, and the like. They were, perhaps, a little
tired of the usual round of social engagements, dances,
concerts, bridge, the theatre, dinner parties, and all those
mildly pleasurable businesses which go to make up life, or
at least a great portion of life, for so many. They wanted
some new excitement, something a little out of the ordinary.
A lady, just returned home from a prolonged visit to London,
had (it seems) been taken to some Spiritistic meeting, and
she was full of the wonders both witnessed and heard there.
The sense of the eerie, the unknown, lent a spice of adventure
too. The earlier meetings were informal, first at one house,
now at another. They began by being infrequent, almost
casual, at fairly long intervals. Next a certain evening each
week was fixed for these gatherings, which soon were fully
attended by all concerned. No member would willingly miss
a single reunion. Before long they met twice, three times,
every evening in the week. Professional mediums were
engaged who travelled down from London and other great
cities, some at no small distance, to give strange exhibitions
of their powers. I myself met two of these experts, a man
and a woman, both of whose names I have since seen adver-
tised in Spiritistic journals of a very recent date, and I am
bound to say that I was most unfavourably impressed in each
instance. Not that I for a moment think they were fraudu-
252 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
lent, nor do I suspect any vulgar trickery or pose; they were
undoubtedly honest, thoroughly convinced and sincere, which
makes the matter ten times worse. And so from being mere
idle triflers at a new game, incredulous and a little mocking,
the whole company became besotted by their practices,
fanatics whose thoughts were always and ever centred and
concentrated upon their communion with spirits, who talked
of nothing else, who seemed only to live for those evenings
when they might meet and enter—as it were—another world.
Argument, pleading, reproof, authority, official admonish-
ment, all proved useless; one could only stand by and see
the terrible thing doing its deadly work. The symptoms were
exactly as above described. In two cases, men, the moral
fibre was for a while apparently destroyed altogether; in
another case, a woman, there was obsession, and persons who
either knew nothing of, or had no sort of belief in, Spiritism,
whispered of eccentricities, of outbursts of uncontrolled
passion and ravings, which pointed to a disordered mind, to
an asylum. All sank into a state of apathy ; former interests
vanished ; the amenities of social intercourse were neglected
and forgotten ; old friendships allowed to drop for no reason
whatsoever ; a complete change of character for the worse,
a terrible deterioration took place; the physical health
suffered ; their faces became white and drawn, the eyes dull
and glazed, save when Spiritism was discussed, and then they
lit with hot unholy fires; one heard covert gossip that
hinted of crude debauch, of blasphemous speeches, of licence
and degradation. Fortunately by a series of providential
events the circle was broken up; outside circumstances
compelled the principals to fall away, and what was
doubtless a more potent factor than any, one or two were
suddenly brought to realize the deadly peril and the folly
of their proceedings. It proved a hard struggle indeed to rid
themselves of the controls to which they had so blindly and
so utterly submitted ; their wills were weakened, their health
impaired ; more than once they slid back again into the old
danger zone, more than once they were on the verge of
giving up the contest in despair. But under direction and
availing themselves of those means of grace the Church so
bounteously proffers they persevered, and were at length
made clean.
DIABOLIC POSSESSION 253
There must be many who have had similar experiences,
who know intimately, even if they have not actually had to
rescue and to guide, those who have been meshed and trapped
by Spiritism and are endeavouring to escape. They will
appreciate how difficult is the task, they will realize how
pernicious, how potent, how evil, such toils may be. Nobody
who has had to deal with sensitives, with poor dupes who are
eager to abandon their practices, can think lightly of
Spiritism.
That Spiritism opens the door to demoniac possession, so
often classed as lunacy, is generally acknowledged by all save
the prejudiced and superstitious. As far back as 1877
Dr. L. S. Forbes Winslow wrote in Spiritualistic Madness :
“ Ten thousand unfortunate people are at the present time
confined in lunatic asylums on account of having tampered
with the supernatural.” And quoting an American journal
he goes on to say: ‘‘ Not a week passes in which we do not
hear that some of these unfortunates destroy themselves by
suicide, or are removed to a lunatic asylum. The mediums |
often manifest signs of an abnormal condition of their mental
faculties, and among certain of them are found unequivocal
indications of a true demoniacal possession. The evil spreads
rapidly, and it will produce in a few years frightful results.
- . . [wo French authors of spiritualistic works, who wrote
Le Monde Spirituel and Sauvons le genre humain, died insane
in an asylum; these two men were distinguished in their
respective professions; one as a highly scientific man, the
other as an advocate well learned in the Law. These
individuals placed themselves in communication with spirits
by means of tables. I could quote many such instances
where men of the highest ability have, so to speak, neglected
all and followed the doctrines of Spiritualism only to end
their days in the lunatic asylum.”
Some half a dozen years ago an inquiry was undertaken.
and there was circulated an interrogatory or enquéte which
invited opinions upon (1) “the situation as regards the
renewed interest in psychic phenomena”’; (2) whether this
“ psychic renewal” denoted a “‘ passing from a logical and
scientific (deductive) to a spiritual and mystic (inductive)
conception of life,” or ‘“‘a reconciliation between the two,
that is between science and faith ” ;9° (3) “‘ the most powerful
254 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
argument for, or against, human survival’; (4) ‘‘ the best
means of organizing this (psychic) movement in the highest
interest, philosophical, religious and scientific, of the nation,
especially as a factor of durable peace.” Five-and-fifty of
the answers were collected and published under the title
Spiritualism: Its Present-Day Meaning,®! a book which
certainly makes most interesting and illuminating if extremely
varied reading. Being a symposium, all schools of thought
are represented, and I would venture to add that among the
contributions are some outpourings which evince no thought
at all, a fact which is of itself not without considerable
significance. We have the unflinching logic and sound
common-sense of Father Bernard Vaughan, whose verdict is
reiterated by the Rev. James Adderley and the Rev. J. A. V.
Magee; the concise, outspoken, pertinent and telling com-
ments of General Booth; the vague hopelessly inadequate
flotsam of Dr. Percy Dearmer,®? vapid stuff which makes
a theologian writhe; the sweet sugary sentimentalism of
Miss Evelyn Underhill, so anzemic, so obviously popular, and
so ingenuously miscalled mysticism ; the dull worthless dross
of Mr. McCabe’s superstitious materialism; the feverish
panicky special pleading of the convinced Spiritists. Here,
too, we have much that directly bears out our present
contention, the medical evidence of such names as Sir Bryan
Donkin; Dr. W. H. Stoddart, who treats of ‘‘ The Danger
to Mental Sanity”; with Dr. Bernard Hollander on ‘‘ The
Peril of Spirits” ; and Dr. A. T. Schofield on ‘‘ The Spiritist
Kpidemic.”’ Thus Dr. Stoddart writes: ‘‘ In some cases the
spiritualistic hallucinations so dominate the whole mental
life that the condition amounts to insanity; and I can
confirm Sir Bryan Donkin’s statement that spiritualistic
inquiries tend to induce insanity.’’®3 Dr. Hollander is even
more emphatic: ‘‘ The practice is a dangerous one. Persons
become intoxicated with spirits of that nature as others do
with spirits of another kind. And similarly, as not all persons
who take alcohol get drunk, so not all spiritualists show the
effects of their indulgences. . . . But that is no proof against
the harmful nature of these practices, and, as a mental
specialist, I confess I have seen victims of both, and that the
one addicted to material spirits is the easier to treat.’’%4
Spiritism, Dr. Schofield points out, ‘‘has been known to
DIABOLIC POSSESSION 255
Christians for 2000 years. Any benefit derived therefrom is
more than neutralized by the very doubtful surroundings and
character of the supposed revelation (I say ‘supposed ’
because it has been known so long). If, however, it must be
coupled with the dangers, horrors, and frauds that so often
in modern Spiritism accompany the knowledge of the unseen,
we are almost as well without it, at any rate from such a
source. , . . There can be no doubt the epidemic will
eventually subside, but before it does, the vast mischief of
a spiritual tidal wave of very doubtful origin will be most
disastrously done, and thousands of unstable souls will be
wrecked in spirit, if not in mind and body as well. . . . To
class it as a religion is an insult to the faith of Christ,’?9
Sir William Barrett utters a word of grave import: ‘‘ All
excitable and unbalanced minds need to be warned away
from a subject that may cause, and in many cases has caused,
serious mental derangement.’®® ‘ Spiritualism,” says Father
Bernard Vaughan, “‘ only too often means loss of health, loss
of morals and loss of faith. Consult not Sir Oliver Lodge or
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle or Mr. Vale Owen, but your family
medical adviser, and he will tell you to keep away from the
séance-room as you would from an opium den. In fact, the
drug habit is not more fatal than the practice of Spiritualism
in very many cases. Read the warning note sounded by
Dr. Charles Mercier, or by Dr. G. H. Robertson or by Colonel
R. H. Elliot, and be satisfied that yielding to Spiritualism is
qualifying for an asylum. You may not get there but you
deserve to be an inmate.’°? The following letter written by
Miss Mary G. Cardwell, M.B., Ch.B., from the Oldham Union
Infirmary, speaks for itself: ‘‘ One day recently I admitted
a woman of thirty-five years to the hospital of which I have
the honour to be resident medical officer. She was sent in
as incapable of looking after herself or her family. She told
me that she was a medium, having been introduced into
Spiritualism by a man, also a medium, who said he could
thereby help her over some family worries. As a direct
result of this, she has neglected her children, so that the
public authorities have removed them from her care, her
home is ruined, and she herself is a mental and moral wreck.
She had paid the other medium for his services by the
sacrifice of her virtue.’’®& And this is no isolated, no
256 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
exceptional, instance. I have myself known precisely similar
cases. |
Occasionally some particularly shocking incident will find
its way into the public Press and we have records such as
the following, which was headed ‘‘ Family of Eleven Mad.
Burning Mania after Séance. Child to be Sacrificed.
‘“The story of an entire family of eleven persons, in the
village of Krucktenhofen, Bavaria, going out of their minds
after a spiritualistic séance is sent by the Exchange Paris
correspondent, quoting the Berliner Tageblatt.
‘* Renouncing the goods of this world, the father, mother,
three sons, two elder daughters, and subsequently the remain-
ing four younger members of the family, joined in burning
their furniture and bedding.
‘* Finally, the three-months-old child of one of the daughters
was about to be burnt when neighbours interfered. The
whole family is now in an asylum.”’ (Daily Mirror, 19 May,
1921.)
‘Camouflage it as you will, Spiritualism with its kindred
superstitions, such as necromancy and occultism, is a
recrudescence of the old, old practices cultivated in the days
of long ago.’’®® In other words this ‘‘ New Religion ”’ is but
the Old Witchcraft. There is, I venture to assert, not a single
phenomenon of modern Spiritism which cannot be paralleled
in the records of the witch trials and examinations; not a
single doctrine which was not believed and propagated by
the damnable Gnostic heresies of long ago.
Some of the definitions of Spiritism given by spiritists
themselves are sufficiently startling. They frankly tell us
that ‘‘ Spiritualism is the science or art of communion with
spirits. . . . It does not follow that because a communication
comes from ‘the unseen,’ it is therefore from God, as a
revelation. It may be from the latest dead lounger, as an
amusement,’’!99 or, I would add, from a demon as a snare.
There is something inexpressibly ugly and revolting about
this cold-blooded necromancy defined in set categorical
terms.
Modern Spiritism is usually considered to have had its
origin in America. In the year 1848 there lived at Hydes-
ville, Wayne, New York State, a family of the Methodist
persuasion named Fox ; a father, mother, and two daughters,
DIABOLIC POSSESSION 257
Margaretta and Katie, aged fifteen and twelve respectively.
During the month of March all the household began to
declare that they were kept awake at night by the most
extraordinary noises, loud knockings on the wall, and foot-
steps. The children amused themselves by trying to imitate
the noises ; they tapped on the wainscot, and to their great
Surprise answering taps came back, so that they found they
could get into communication with the unknown agency.
They would ask a question and invite it to respond with
one sharp rap for “no” and three for “ yes,” and thus it
continually replied. They further held actual conversations
in this way by repeating the alphabet and establishing a
regular code. Mrs. Fox then began to make inquiries concern-
ing the former occupants of the house, and soon discovered that
a pedlar named Charles Rayn was said to have been murdered
in the very bedroom where her two girls were sleeping, and that
his body had been buried in the cellar. Public curiosity was
aroused, and it was now generally believed that it was the
spirit of the unfortunate victim who haunted the farm-house,
endeavouring to convey some message to those whom he had
left. Actually no body was found in the cellar, and the
alleged murderer whose name was given, appeared at
Hydesville and ‘‘ threw very hot water on the story.’ Later
when the family moved to Rochester—it is said they were
practically driven out of Hydesville by the Methodist minister
there—the rappings followed them, and the whole town was
speedily on the tiptoe of excitement. It was then given out
that the noises were communications from the spirits of those
recently dead, and that the Fox girls, who apparently
attracted them, were gifted with some special faculty which
rendered intercourse of this kind possible. People soon began
to flock round them asking their assistance in getting messages
from their departed relatives and friends ; the two girls held
regular séances, and netted a fair sum of money. It was not |
long before other persons discovered that they also possessed
this extraordinary faculty of attracting spirit manifestations,
and of getting into communication with the other world at
will. But the Fox sisters were first in the field, and to them
came a continuous stream of persons with well-filled pockets
from all parts of America. There was also opposition, which
sometimes took a very violent form. As early as November,
S
258 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
1850, an attack was made upon Margaretta Fox, who was
staying at West Troy in the house of a Mr. Bouton. A rough
mob surrounded the premises, stones were thrown at the
windows, and shots fired, whilst both men and women uttered
threats and imprecations against the “‘ unholy witch-woman
within.”? At one of the séances Dr. Kane, a famous Arctic
explorer was present, and he was so fascinated by the beauty
of Margaretta Fox that he never rested until he had taken
her away from her sordid and harmful surroundings, had her
educated at Philadelphia, and finally, much to the annoyance
of his relations, who loathed any connexion with the Fox
family, made her his wife.
Dr. Kane died soon after his marriage, but in the book
published by his widow there are several references to his
abhorrence of Spiritism. ‘‘ Do avoid spirits,” he urges,
‘“T cannot bear to think of you as engaged in a course of
wickedness and deception.”? For ten years Mrs. Kane did
indeed abandon it; in fact in August, 1858, she was bap-
tized as a Catholic at New York; but then,!°! owing perhaps
to the pinch of poverty, she again took up work as a medium,
and was received back with acclamations by the whole
Spiritistic community. From that moment dates her steady
deterioration, both physical and moral.
Kate Fox, Mrs. Jencken as she had become, the wife of a
London barrister, was the mother of a baby whom popular
talk credited with mediumistic powers of the most extra-
ordinary kind. The whole Spiritistic following prophesied a
brilliant future for the poor child, of whom, however, there
is nothing recorded save that he was sadly neglected by his
miserable mother, who died of chronic alcoholism in June,
1892. Mrs. Kane survived her sister for nine months, a
pitiable and hopeless wreck, craving only for drink. The last
few weeks of her life were spent in a derelict tenement house.
‘* This wreck of womanhood has been a guest in palaces and
courts. The powers of mind now imbecile were the wonder
and the study of scientific men in America, Europe, and
Australia... . The lips that utter little else now than
profanity, once promulgated the doctrine of a new religion.”
It would, indeed, be difficult to conceive anything more
sordid and more miserable than this sad and shocking story
of utter degradation. The collapse and moral corruption
DIABOLIC POSSESSION 259
of the first apostles of modern Spiritism should surely prove
a timely warning and a danger signal not to be mistaken.1
In the earliest days of Spiritism the subject was investi-
gated by men like Horace Greeley, William Lloyd Garrison,
Robert Hare, professor of chemistry in the University of
Pennsylvania, and John Worth Edmonds, a judge of the
Supreme Court of New York State. Conspicuous among the
spiritists we find Andrew Jackson Davis, whose work The
Principles of Nature (1847), dictated by him in trance,
contained theories of the universe closely resembling those
of the Swedenborgians. From America the movement
filtered through to Europe, and when in 1852 two mediums,
Mrs. Haydon and Mrs. Roberts, came to London, not merely
popular interest but the careful attention of the leading
scientists of the day was attracted. Robert Owen, the
Socialist, frankly accepted the Spiritistic explanation of the
various phenomena, while Professor De Morgan, the mathe-
matician, in his account of a sitting with Mrs. Haydon
declared himself convinced that ‘“ somebody or some spirit
was reading his thoughts.” In the spring of 1855 Daniel
Dunglas Home (Hume)—Home was the son of the eleventh
Lord Home and a chambermaid at the Queen’s Hotel,
Southampton, but was brought up in America—who was
then a young man of twenty-two, crossed to England from
America. In 1856 Home was received into the Church at
Rome by Father John Etheridge, S.J., and he then gave a
promise to refrain from all exercise of his mediumistic powers,
but in less than a year he had broken his pledge and was
living as before. This famous medium is almost the only
one who, as even Podmore admits, was never clearly con-
victed of fraud. Sir David Brewster, the scientist, and Dr.
J. J. Garth Wilkinson, a scholar of unblemished integrity and
one of the leading homeopathic physicians, both avowed
that they were incapable of explaining the phenomena they |
had witnessed by any natural means. It was in 1855 that
the first English periodical dealing exclusively with the
subject, The Yorkshire Spiritual Telegraph, was pub-
lished at Keighley, in Yorkshire. In 1864 the Davenport
brothers visited England, and in 1876 Henry Slade. Amongst
English mediums the Rev. William Stainton Moses became
prominent in 1872,'°4 and about the same year Miss Florence
260 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
Cook, so well known for the materializations of ‘‘ Katie King,”
which were scrupulously investigated by the late Sir William
Crookes. In 1878 and in 1874, however, the trickery of two
mediums, Mrs. Bassett and Miss Showers, was definitely
exposed.!°5 In 1876 and 1877 the sensitive “‘ Dr.”” Monck
was at the height of his reputation, and both Dr. Alfred
Russel Wallace, F.R.S., and the late Archdeacon Colley state
that in various séances with him they witnessed on several
occasions phenomena, including materialization, under rigid
test conditions which admitted of no dispute as to their
genuineness. It is true that in 1876 Monck had been in
trouble and was sentenced to a term of imprisonment under
the Vagrant Act. About the same time William Eglinton,
who figures in Florence Marryat’s work There is No Death,
appeared on the scenes and for a while loomed largely in the
public eye. He became famous for his slate-writing per-
formances as well as his materializations. He was, however,
exposed by Archdeacon Colley, who during the discussion
which had centred round a medium named Williams, detected
in fraudulent practices during séances in Holland, wrote to
The Medium and Daybreak to say: ‘It unfortunately fell
to me to take muslin and false beard from Eglinton’s port-
manteau. ... Some few days before this I had on two
several occasions cut pieces from the drapery worn by, and
clipped hair from the beard of, the other figure representing
Abdullah. I have the pieces so cut off beard and muslin
still. But note that when I took these things into my
possession I and a medical gentleman (25 years a Spiritualist
and well known to the old members of the Movement) found
the pieces of muslin cut fit exactly into certain corresponding
portions of the drapery thus taken.’’1°°
The medium Slade, who was famous for slate-writing, was
upon one occasion suddenly seized as he was about to put
the slate under the table. His hands were held fast, and
when the slate was snatched from him it was seen to be
already covered with characters. Anna Rothe, who died in
1901, a medium well known for her apports of flowers,
suffered a term of imprisonment in Germany on a charge of
fraud. When Baily, the Australian sensitive, visited Italy
he refused to sit under the strict conditions which were
arranged in answer to a challenge of his powers. Charles
DIABOLIC POSSESSION 261
Eldred of Clowne, an adept at materialization, employed a
chair skilfully made with a double seat, and in this recess
were discovered the whole paraphernalia he employed in his
performances.
Mrs. Williams, an American medium, who for a long while
was a centre of spiritistic attention at Paris, used to materi-
alize a venerable doctor with a flowing beard who was some-
times accompanied by a young girl dressed in white. At
one circle Mons. Paul Leymaric gave a prearranged signal.
He and a friend each laid hold of one of the apparitions; a
third spectator seized Mrs. Williams’ assistant ; and a fourth
turned on the lights. Mons. Leymaric was seen to be strug-
gling with the medium, who had donned a grey wig and a
long property beard ; the young girl was a mask from which
were draped folds of fine white muslin and which she mani-
pulated with her left hand. Miller, a Californian medium,
was more than suspected of producing spirits from gauze
and nun’s veiling.1°7 From one of the mediums of Mons.
de Rochas, Valentine, there emanated mysterious lights, which
moved quickly hither and thither during the séances. Colonel
de Rochas, when this manifestation was once at its height,
suddenly switched on a powerful electric torch and Valentine
was seen to have slipped off his socks and to be waving in
the air his feet, which were covered with some preparation
of phosphorus.1°* As early as June, 1875, a photographer
named Buguet was convicted of selling faked photographs
of spirits by which he netted a very pretty sum.1°9
It is notorious that in Spiritistic séances and circles
charlatanry and swindling of every kind are rife ; that again
and again mediums have been convicted of fraud; that not
infrequently all kinds of properties, stuffed gloves, gauzes,
yards of diaphanous muslin, invisible wires, hooks, beards,
wigs, have been discovered ; that the use of luminous paint
is very effective and far from uncommon; that a sliding |
trap or panel may on occasion prove of inestimable service ;
that we must allow for self-deception, delusions, suggestion,
hypnotism even; but when all has been said, when we
candidly acknowledge the imposture, the adroit legerdemain,
the conjurer’s clever tricks, the significant mise en scéne, the
verbal wit and quibbling, the deliberate and subtle cozenage
contrived by shrewd minds and the full play of dramatic
262 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
instinct and energy, nevertheless there yet remain numbers
of instances when it has been repeatedly proven that acute
and trained observers have witnessed phenomena which
could not by any possibility whatsoever have been fraudu-
lently produced ; that clear-headed, cold-hearted, suspicious,
hard men of science with every sense keenly alert at that
very moment have conversed with, inspected, nay, actually
handled, materialized forms and figures no personation could
have devised and manifested.
The proceedings against Monck plainly showed that he
had at any rate a firm belief in his own psychic powers, and
although Eglinton was detected in a trick upon more than
one occasion there is irrefutable evidence to prove that in
other instances when he assisted at séances any normal
mode of production of the phenomena seen there was. quite
impossible. A large number of Miller’s manifestations also
were genuine.4° The same may be said of very many
mediums. This means, in fine, that although the manifesta-
tions of almost any medium may in some cases have been
artificially contrived, such phenomena are not on any account
to be adjudged always fraudulent, and even if the charge
of imposture could be brought home far more conclusively
than has so far been possible as regards the majority of
sensitives, yet it were a false inference indeed to deduce there-
from that all phenomena are equally fraudulent and devised.
It is only the recklessly illogical mind and the loose thinker
who will in the face of absolutely conclusive proof of genuine
manifestations continue to maintain that a certain quota.
of quackery can invalidate the whole. Writers of the temper
of Messrs. Edward Clodd, Joseph McCabe, J. M. Robertson
must, of course, be expected to condemn Spiritism without
knowing the facts or weighing the evidence as an obvious
absurdity which calls for no serious refutation. But this,
I think, matters little. The superstitious dogmatism of
the materialist is gravely discredited nowadays. True,
the sort of book he produces is widely circulated and
very successful within certain limits. We should expect
tenth-rate ideas which could only emanate from a lack
of understanding, a total want of imagination, and
no training in metaphysics or philosophy, to have a
direct appeal to the immature intelligences, the un-
DIABOLIC POSSESSION 263
educated vulgar and the blatant yet presumptuous ignor-
ance, which alone are eager for this kind of outmoded
fare.
In France Spiritism was first proclaimed by a pamphlet
of Guillard Table qui danse et Table qui répond. The way had
been long paved owing to the interest which was generally
taken in the doctrines of Emanuel Swedenborg. Balzac had
published in 1835 his esoteric hybrid Séraphita (Séraphitus),
a fanciful yet interesting work, in which there are many pages
of theosophic philosophy. Perhaps he meant these seriously,
but it is impossible to take them as other than flights of
romance. In 1848 Cohognet more immediately heralded
Guillard by publishing at Paris the first volume of his Arcanes
de la vie future devoilées, which actually contains what
purport to be communications from the dead. In 1858
séances were being held at Bourges, Strasburg, and Paris,
and a regular furore ensued. Nothing was talked of but the
wonders of Spiritism, which, however, soon met an opponent,
Count Agénor de Gasparin, a Swiss Protestant, who carefully
investigated table-turning with a circle of his friends and
came to the conclusion that the phenomena originated in
some physical force of the human body. It must be admitted
that his Des Tables Tournantes (Paris, 1854) is unconvincing
and to some extent superficial, but more perhaps could hardly
be expected from a pioneer in so tortuous an investigation.
The Baron de Guldenstubbe, on the contrary, declared his
firm belief in the reality of these phenomena and spirit
intervention in general. His work La Réalité des Esprits
(Paris, 1857) eloquently argued for his convictions, whilst
Le Lwre des Esprits (Paris, 1858) by M. Rivail or Rival,
better known under his pseudonym Allan Kardec, became a
world-wide textbook to the whole subject. In these early
days the most distinguished men were wont to meet in the
rue des Martyrs at Paris for séances. Tiedmen Marthése,
governor of Java; the academician Saint-René-Taillandier ;
Sardou, with his son; Flammarion; all were constant
visitors. The notorious Home was, it is said, expelled from
France after a séance at the Tuileries, during which he had
touched the arm of the Empress with his naked foot, pretend-
ing that it was a caress from the tiny hands of a little child
who was about fully to materialize. No one, I think, could
264 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
be surprised to know that the famous Joris Karl Huysmans,
an epicure in the byways of the occult, made many experi-
ments in Spiritism, and séances were frequently held at
No. 11 rue de Sévres where he lived. Extraordinary mani-
festations took place, and upon one occasion at least the
circle effected a materialization of General Boulanger, or an
apparition of the General appeared to them.
At the present time Spiritism is as widely spread in France
as in England, if indeed not far more widely. Thus La
Science de Ame is a new bi-monthly journal issued under
the auspices of La Revue Spirite. It has articles on Magnetism
and Radio-activity, the analysis of the soul, and vital
radiations. In the number of La Revue Spirite, which
commences the year 1925, Mons. Camille Flammarion prints
a signed letter from Heliopolis, which describes a first
experience of a séance, where the death of the writer’s father
was predicted in six months and took place ten days after
the allotted time. Elsewhere in the issue are particulars of
the International Congress of Spiritism which was to be held
at Paris in September, 1925, and would be open to all Federa-
tions, Societies, and Groups everywhere. An immense con-
course was expected. The President is Mr. George F. Berry,
a well-known name in English Spiritistie circles, and the
compliment of honorary membership is paid to Léon Denis,
Gabriel Delanne, Sir William Barrett, and Ernest Bozzano.
A glance at the pages of any Spiritistic journal in England
will show almost endless activities in every direction. In one
issue of the weekly Light (Saturday, 21 February, 1925) we
have amongst other announcements nine “ Sunday’s Society
Mectings ” in various districts of London, with addresses on
Wednesdays and Thursdays. The following seems sufficiently
startling and a close enough imitation: ‘“‘ St. Luke’s Church
of the Spiritual Evangel of Jesus the Christ, Queen’s-road,
Forest Hill, S.E.—Minister: Rev. J. W. Potter. February
22nd, 6.30, Service, Holy Communion and Address. Healing
Service, Wed., Feb. 25th, 7 p.m.” In the next column
are details of ‘“‘ Rev. G. Vale Owen’s Lecture Tour.” The
‘ London Spiritualist Alliance, Ltd.” has a list of meetings.
There are discussion classes and demonstrations of clair-
voyance, psychometry, and Mystic Pictures. Among ‘“ Books
that will Help you” we find Talks with the Dead, Report on
DIABOLIC POSSESSION 265
Spiritualism, The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ—(is
this used at St. Luke’s Church of the Spiritual Evangel ?)—
Spirit Identity, Spiritualism, and many more of similar
import. There is a ‘ British College of Psychic Science’”’
where Mr. Horace Leaf, a medium of some repute, lectures
on “The Psychology and Practice of Mediumship,”’ Mrs.
Barker demonstrates Trance Mediumship, and Mrs. Travers
Smith the Ouija-Board and Automatic Writing. There is a
** London Spiritual Mission ”’ and a ‘“‘ Wimbledon Spiritualist
Mission.”’ At Brighton ‘“‘ St. John’s Brotherhood Church ”’
provides “The Spiritual Evangel of Jesus the Christ,”
“Minister, Brother John.’’ And all this is scarcely a tithe
of the various announcements and advertisements.
However grotesque, and indeed often puerile in its bombast
and grandiloquence, such a mass of heterogeneous notices
may seem we must remember that these people are in deadly
earnest, and I doubt not but their meetings and assemblies
are well attended by enthusiastic devotees. In a report of
an address by the Rev. G. Vale Owen at the “ Spiritualist
Community Services in the County Hall ’’ on Sunday evening,
15 February, 1925, I read ‘‘all seats were filled long before
the advertised hour for starting. The doors were closed and
many for a time were denied admission. A little later they
were allowed to enter and take up positions along the edges
of the dais and other odd places about the hall.’’44?_ This,
of course, was possibly some exceptional occasion, but
there is no indication that such was the case. Mr. Vale Owen
may be a very eloquent speaker and able to hold his audience
spell-bound with the magic of his words. It must assuredly
be his manner and not his matter, for his so-called revelations
of the life beyond the grave, written under control and
presumed to be directly derived from spirit agency, which
appeared in The Weekly Dispatch are vapid, inept, idle, and
insipid to the last degree. Such banal ramblings would
provoke a smile, were it not for the pity that any person can
be so self-deluded, and can apparently induce others to give
credit to his silliness.
There have been large numbers of mediums in recent
years who owing to one cause or another attracted consider-
able attention from time to time, and there are many well-
known contemporary sensitives widely practising to-day.
266 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
Mrs. Verrall and Mrs. Holland, who were believed to have
obtained spirit messages from the late F. W. H. Myers,
occupied the serious attention of the Society of Psychical
Research" for a considerable period; Mrs. Piper is an
automatic writer of no little repute; Mr. Vout Peters
specializes in psychometry and clairvoyance; Mr. Vearn-
combe and Mrs. Deane have recently enjoyed their full share
of notoriety ;144 the Rev. Josie K. Stewart (Mrs. Y.), a lady
hailing from the United States, has a gift for the production
of “writing and drawings on cards held in her hand”:
Mrs. Elizabeth A. Tomson, in spite of being detected of fraud
at a Spiritistic ‘‘Church”’ in Brooklyn, still has devoted
followers ; Franek Kluski, Stella C., and Ada Besinnet, are
in the forefront of American mediums; whilst the famous
Goligher circle at Belfast was carefully and patiently investi-
gated for no less than three months by Dr. Fournier d’Albe,
who has published the result of his experiences.15 The very
cream of these occult manifestations is materialization, the
most complex problem of all, which has been described as
“the exercise of the power of using of the matter of the
medium’s and the sitters’ bodies in the formation of physical
structures on a principle totally unknown to ordinary life,
although probably present there.”46 Recently (1922) Erto,
the Italian medium, appears to have been the subject of
careful experiments at the French Metaphysical Institute
during a period of several months, those who assisted being
pledged to silence until a decision had been reached. The
particular phenomena produced by or in his presence were
chiefly characterized by the radiation of an extraordinary
light about his person. At the end of 1922 two papers
appeared in La Revue Métapsychique on the part of Dr.
Sanguinetti and Dr. William Mackenzie of Genoa indicating
their assurance (1) that every scientific precaution had been
taken, and (2) that the phenomena were genuine. However,
the experiments seem to have continued and later there
appeared in Le Matin an enthusiastic contribution by
Dr. Stephen Chauvet, which caused Dr. Gustave Geley,
Director of the Metaphysical Institute, to come forward in
confirmation of the testimony. It is only fair to add that im-
mediately afterwards Dr. Geley to a certain extent retracted
his statement, as he suggested that the psychic lights could be
DIABOLIC POSSESSION 267
produced with ferro-cerium, and it was thought that traces
of this substance could be found on Erto’s clothes. The
medium protested his innocence of any deception, and offers
himself for further experiments. A writer in Psychica is
inclined to believe that the phenomena were genuine, but
that later some fraud may have been practised owing to
waning power. This is possibly the case, for that the radia-
tions were at first supernormal cannot, I think, be gainsaid
in view of the high testimony adduced. For this phenomenon
Mr. Cecil Hush and Mr. Craddock have sat repeatedly ;_ of
the extraordinary manifestations of the late Kusapia Palladino
there can be no reasonable doubt at all; the materializations
of Mlle ‘‘ Eva Carrére,’’!!” although on several occasions not
altogether successful, are at other times supported by the
strongest evidence ; Nino Pecoraro, who is described as ‘‘a
remarkably muscular young Neapolitan,” is famous for “‘ ecto-
plasmic effects’; and Stanislava P., Willy S., the Countess
Castelvicz, and very many more psychics possess these
supernormal powers, although, as we might expect, they have
to be used with the utmost caution and often prove very
exhausting to the subject. After all, it must be remembered
that probably under certain conditions materialization cannot
take place, whilst under favourable conditions it can be
completely effected. For an exhaustive and authoritative
discussion of the whole matter the Baron Von Schrenck-
Notzing’s Phenomena of Materialization (Kegan Paul, 1923),
should be consulted. The 225 photographic reproductions
are of the utmost importance, whilst the investigations were
carried on under conditions of such pitiless severity to
eliminate any hypothesis of fraud that the mediums cannot
but have been subjected to the intensest physical and moral
strain.
Among recent psychic phenomena very general attention
has been attracted by what is known as ‘‘ The Oscar Wilde
Script,’ which was widely discussed in 1923-24. Briefly, this
purports to be a number of communications which were
delivered by the spirit of the late Oscar Wilde at the rate
of 1020 words in an hour by means of automatic writing
through the mediumship of Mrs. Travers Smith (Mrs. Hester
M. Dowden)!!® and a certain Mr. V. True, there were
published in The Sunday Express pages which had a super-
268 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
ficial resemblance to the more flashy characteristies of Wilde’s
flamboyant style, but it seemed as if the wit and point had
vanished, leaving only a somewhat heavy and imitative
prose; one had a sense of damp fireworks, and personally
I do not for a moment accept this script as being inspired
or dictated by Wilde. I hasten to add that I do not suggest
there was any conscious fraud or trickery on the part of those
concerned ; it is quite probable that these psychic messages
were conveyed by some intelligence of no very high standing,
and the result in fine is not of any value. It is said that a
three act play is being or has been communicated through
the ouija-board from what purports to be Wilde. This I have
not read, and therefore I am not in a position to pronounce
upon it.
Spiritism is upheld by many distinguished names. Sir
Oliver Lodge, F.R.S., has battled on its behalf, as also have”
Sir William Barrett, F.R.S., and Sir William Crookes, F.R.S.,
Professors Charles Richet, Janet, Bernheim, Lombroso, and
Flammarion lend it the weight of their authority, whilst
Sir Conan Doyle has poured forth his benedictions upon
occultism of every kind.1!® He has even presided over the
opening of a most attractive bookshop in Victoria Street,
Westminster, where Spiritistic publications are sold.
How then are we to regard this mighty movement at
which it were folly to sneer, which it is impossible to ignore ?
The Catholic Church does neither. But none the less she
condemns it utterly and entirely. Not because she dis-
believes in it, but because she believes in it so thoroughly,
because she knows what is the real nature of the moving
forces, however skilfully they may disguise themselves,
however quick and subtle their shifts and turns, the intelli-
gences which inform and direct the whole. It is a painful
subject since (I reiterate) many good people, no doubt many
thoughtful seekers after truth, have been fascinated and
swept along by Spiritism. They are as yet conscious of neither
physical nor moral harm, and, it may be, they have been
playing with the fire for years. Nay more, Spiritism has been
a sweet solace to many in most poignant hours of bitter
sorrow and loss; wherefore it is hallowed in their eyes by
tenderest memories. They are woefully deceived. Hard
as it may seem, we must get down to the bed-rock of fact.
DIABOLIC POSSESSION 269
Spiritism has been specifically condemned on no less than
four occasions by the Holy Office,1?° whose decree, 30 March,
1898, utterly forbids all Spiritistic practices although inter-
course with demons be strictly excluded, and communication
sought with good spirits only. Modern Spiritism is merely
Witcheraft revived. The Second Plenary Council of Balti-
more (1866), whilst making ample allowance for prestidigitation
and trickery of every kind, warns the faithful against lending
any support whatsoever to Spiritism and forbids them to
attend séances even out of idle curiosity, for some, at least,
of the manifestations must necessarily be ascribed to Satanic
intervention since in no other manner can they be understood
or explained.
NOTES TO CHAPTER VI
1. de Rougé, Htude sur une stéle Egyptienne, Paris, 1858: E. A. W.
Budge, Hgyptian Magic, VII.
2 Rekh Khet, ‘‘ knower of things.”’
3 Euripides, Bacchew: passim; Ovid, Metamorphoses. III. 513, sqq. ;
Apollodorus, III. v. 2.; Hyginus, Fabule, 184; Nonnus, Dionysiaca (Bassa-
rica), XIV, 46.
4 Sophocles, Ajax ; Pindar, Nemea, VII, 25; Ovid, Metamorphoses, XIII,
1-398.
5 Pausanias, III, xvi, 6.
6 Valerius Maximus, I, 11, 5. Lacinium was a promontory on the east
coast of Bruttium, a few miles south of Croton, and forming the western
boundary of the Tarentine gulf. The remains of the temple of Juno Lacinia
are still extant, and have given the modern name to the promontory, Capo
delle Colonne or Capo di Nao (vaés).
7 Xenophon, Memorabilia. 11.1.5; Demosthenes, XCIII, 24 ; Dinarchus,
CI, 41; Plutarch, Lucullus, IV.
8 Euripides, Orestes, 1. 854, and 1. 79.
9 Cf. warts.
10 Cf. Vergil Aneid. IV. 471-3:
Agamemnonius scenis agitatus Orestes
armatam facibus matrem et serpentibus atris
cum fugit, ultricesque sedent in limine Dire.
(Or as the Atridan matricide
Runs frenzied o’er the scene,
What time with snakes and torches plied
He flees the murdered queen,
While at the threshold of the gate
The sister-fiends expectant wait.)
11 Plautus, Amphitruo, II. 2. 145. Nam hee quidem edepol lauarum
plenast.
12 Quid esset illi morbi, dixeras ? Narra, senex.
Num laruatus, aut cerritus ? fac sciam.
Menechmei. V. 1, 2. Apuleuis has laruans = a madman: “ hunc [pul-
cherrimam Mercurii imaginem] denique qui laruam putat, ipse est laruans.”’
(Laruatus is a poorer reading in this passage.) Cerritus. a rare word, is
contracted from cerebritus (cerebrum), and not connected with Ceres, as was
formerly suggested. Cf. Horace, Sermonum, II, ili. 278.
270 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
Per PLL LL ey cks
S647 15 saq.
15 56, Nauck.
16 ramixwpl év rider Ppvyav TbuTava,
“Péas Te wenrpos ud O' ebpjuara.
17 Circa 185-135 B.c.
18 Professor Leuba, The Psychology of Religious Mysticism Kegan Paul,
London, 1925, p. 11 sqq. has some very important references to the worship
of Dionysus.
19 ob yap évOeos, & Kovpa,
eir’ é€x Ilavds et0’‘Exdras
Hh ceuvav KopuBarvrwy
potras, 7) warpos dpelas,
30 défacd mov
} Ilavods dpyas 7 rivds Oe@y pondéiv.
21 4X # Kpovlov ILavds rpomepg
pdotiye Poe ;
22 Pythagoras prescribes music for mental disorders, Eunapius Ujita
philosophorum, 67; and Celius Aurelianus by his references shows that this
was a common remedy in such cases, De Morbis Chronicis (Tardarum
Passionum) VI. Origen, Aduersus Celsum, III, x, and Martianus Capella
De Nuptiis Philologie et Mercurii IX, 925, have similar allusions.
#3] Kings xvi. 14 (A.V. 1 Samuel xvi. 14): ‘‘ Exagitabat eum [Saul]
spiritus nequam a Domino.”’
24 Antiquitates Iud., VI, viii, 2; ii, 2.
25 La Mystique Divine, Ribet, II, ix, 4, it is true, speaks of ‘‘ l’obsession
intérieure,’’ but he makes the above distinction, and further says: ‘* L’obses-
sion purement intérieure ne différe des tentations ordinaires que par la
véhémence et la durée.” |
76 Mult sunt tentationes eius, et die noctuque uarie dsemonum insidiz
. . . Quoties illi nude mulieres cubanti, quoties esurienti largissime appa-
ruere dapes ? Uita S. Hilarionis. VII. Migne. vol. XXIII. col. 32.
*7 Sustinebat miser diabolus uel mulieris formam noctu induere, femineque
gestus imitari, Antonium ut deciperet. §. Athanasius, Uita S. Antonii, V.
Migne. vol. XXVI. col. 847.
28 Feast (duplex maius apud Minores), 22 February.
29 It may perhaps not be amiss to point out that S. Margaret before her
conversion was by no means the woman of scandalous life so many biographers
have painted her.
8° Sectando per cellam orantis et flentis, cantauit [diabolus] turpissimas
cantationes, et Christi famulam lacrymantem et se Domino commendantem
procaciter inuocabat ad cantum ...; tentantem precibus et lacrymis
repulit ac eiecit. Bollandists, 22 February. Vol. VI.
*1 Ceterum consilium est semper de talibus inuasionibus suspicionem
habere, non enim negandum maiorem earum partem esse aut fictiones, aut
imaginationes, aut infirmitates, presertim in mulieribus. Praxis confes-
sartorum, n. 120.
32 Sepissime, que putantur dzemonis obsessiones, non sunt nisi morbi
naturales, aut Naturales imaginationes, uel etiam inchoata aut perfecta
amentia. Quare caute omnino procedendum, usquedum per specialissima
signa de obsessione constet. Theologia mystica, I. n. 228.
33 Biblisches Realworterbuch, Leipsig, 1833.
34 This word is found nowhere else in the New Testament, and wherever
it is used in the LXX, it is invariably of the sayings of lying prophets, or
those who practised arts forbidden by the Jewish Law. Thus of the witch
of Endor (1 Kings (1 Samuel) xxviii. 8) udvrevoar 54 wo ev TH eyyaorpronvdy,
and (Ezechiel xiii. 6) BXéroures Wevd4, pavTevduevor wdraca.
3° Ordinandi, filii charissimi, in officium Exorcistarum, debitis noscere
quid suscipitis. Exorcistam etenim oportet abiicere demones; et dicere
populo, ut, qui non communicat, det locum ; et aquam in ministerio fundere.
Accipitis itaque potestatem imponendi manum super energumenos, et per
DIABOLIC POSSESSION 271
impositionem manuum vestrarum, gratia spiritus sancti, et uerbis exorcismi
pelluntur spiritus immundi a corporibus obsessis. Studete igitur, ut, sicut
a corporibus aliorum dzmones expellitis, ita a mentibus, et corporibus
uestris omnem immunditiam, et nequitiam eiiciatis; ne illis succumbatis,
quos ab aliis, uestro ministerio, effugatis. Discite per officium uestrum
uitiis imperare; ne in moribus uestris aliquid sui iuris inimicus ualeat
uindicare. Tunc etenim recte in aliis demonibus imperabitis, cum prius in
uobis eorum multimodam nequitiam superatis. Quod nobis Dominus agere
concedat per Spiritum suum sanctum.
36 Accipite, et commendate memoriz, et habete potestatem imponendi
manus super energumenos, siue baptizatos, siue catechumenos.
37 Deum Patrem omnipotentem, fratres charissimi, supplices deprecamur,
ut hos famulos suos bene % dicere dignetur in officium Exorcistarum ; ut
sint spirituales imperatores, ad abiiciendos dzemones de corporibus obsessis,
cum omni nequitia eorum multiformi. Per unigenitum Filium suum Dominum
nostrum Jesum Christum, qui cum eo uiuit et regnat in unitate Spiritus
sancti Deus, per omnia secula seculorum. R. Amen.
38 Domine sancte, Pater omnipotens, eterne Deus, bene »&* dicere dignare
hos famulos tuos in officium Exorcistarum ; ut per impositionem manuum,
et oris officium, potestatem, et imperium habeant spiritus immundos coer-
cendi: ut probabiles sint medici Ecclesia tue, gratia curationum uirtuteque
ccelesti confirmati. Per Dominum nostrum Iesum Christum Filium tuum,
qui tecum uiuit, et regnat in unitate Spiritus sancti Deus, per omnia sxcula
seculorum. R. Amen. Post hec, suggerente Archidiacono, redeunt ad loca sua.
39 Sulpitius Severus (d. 420-5) in his Dialogues, III (II), 6; (Migne, Patres
Latini, XX, 215) tells us that 8. Martin of Tours was wont to cast out demons by
prayer alone without the imposition of hands or the use of the formule recom-
mended to the clergy. Similar instances occur in the lives of the Saints.
40 Translated from the Rituale Romanum. There are several forms extant,
some authorized, but more, perhaps, unauthorized. There is an authorized
form in the Greek Huchologion. It commences with the Trisagion, and
Psalms, Domine exaudi (cxlii.), Dominus regit me (xxii.), Dominus illu-
minatio mea (xxvi.), Esurgat Deus (lxvii.), Miserere (lvi.), Domine ne
in furore (vi.), Domine exaudi orationem (ci.). Then follows the Consolatory
Canon, with a long Hymn addressed to Our Lord, Our Lady, and All Saints.
Next the priest anoints the patient, saying a prayer over him, and so the
office closes. |
41 Tt is also given in the Horw Diurne O.P., Rome, 1903, where an indul-
gence of 300 days is attached, plenary once a month.
42 Ab insidiis diaboli, libera nos Domine; Ut Ecclesiam tuam secura tibi
facias libertate seruire, te rogamus, audi nos; Ut inimicos sancte Ecclesiz
humiliare digneris, te rogamus, audi nos. Et aspergatur locus aqua benedicta.
48 Holy water, the commonest of the sacramentals, is a mixture of exorcised
salt and exorcised water.
44 Of Eastern origin. It should be remembered that the Baptism of Christ
in Jordan is commemorated on the Epiphany. In the present Breviary
office in Nocturn I the first response for the day, the Octave, and the Sunday
within the Octave deal with the Baptism, as does the second response. The
antiphon to the Benedictus and the Magnificat antiphon at Second Vespers
also make mention of the same mystery. In Rome the Latin rite of the
Blessing of the Waters is pontificated by a Cardinal at S. Andrea della Valle
on 5 January, about 3.30 p.m., at the church of the Stimmate of 8. Francesco :
at 9.30 a.m. on the Feast itself. On the Vigil the Oriental rite is performed
at the Greek church of 8S. Atanasio, beginning about 3.30 a.m.
45 See Wilson, Western Africa ; and the article ‘‘ Possession diabolique ”’
by Waffelaert in the Dictionnaire apologétique de la foi catholique, Paris, 1889.
The opinion of the Cistercian Dom Robert de la Trappe (Dr. Pierre-Jean-
Corneille Debreyne), who, whilst acknowledging that the demoniac possessions
as detailed in the New Testament are de fide, supposes that all other cases
are to be attributed to fraud or disease, must be severely censured as regret-
tably rash and even culpable. Essai sur la théologie morale, IV. p. 356.
272 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
46 §. Justin Martyr, Apologia, VI; Dialogues, XXX, LXXXV: Minutius
Felix, Octavius, XX VII; Origen, Contra Celsum, I, 25; VII, 4,67: Tertullian,
Apologia, XXII, XXIII.
47 Paulinus, Uita Ambrosi, 28, 43.
48 §. Gregory of Nyssa, De Uita Ephraem
49 Upon this passage Servatius Galle (1627-1709), a Dutch minister at
Haarlem, in his edition of Lactantius, 1660, writes the most absurd note
I have ever met with in any commentator.
50 Published between 304-313. De Labriolle, Histoire de la Lnittérature
Latine Chrétienne, p. 272.
51 A very full and scholarly monograph upon this subject may be recom-
mended: La Réalité des Apparitions Démoniaques, by Dom Bernard-Marie
Maréchaux, Olivetan, 0.S.B., Paris, Téqui, 1899.
52 Tt is true that on one occasion S. Maurus, who was with S. Benedict,
beheld an apparition, and S. Benedict once enabled a monk to see a similar
vision.
53 One of Sodoma’s exquisite frescoes at Monte Oliveto (Siena) depicts
an exorcism by S. Benedict.
54 The letters have been thus translated by Dom Benedict McLaughlin
of Ampleforth :
Holy Cross be thou my light,
Put the evil one to flight.
Behind me Satan speedily,
Whisper not vain things to me.
You can give but evil, then
Keep it for yourself. Amen.
55 All English Benedictine priests hold the special faculty to use this
(bestowed 23 February, 1915), and it has also been granted to many others,
religious and seculars.
56 Omnis virtus aduersarii, omnis exercitus diaboli, et omnis incursus,
omnis phantasma Satane, eradicare et effugare ab his numismatibus ...
57 Domine Iesu Christe... per hanc tuam sanctissimam passionem
humiliter exoro ; ut omnes diabolicas insidias et fraudes expellas ab eo, qui
nomen sanctum tuum, his litteris ac characteribus a te designatis, deuote
inuocauerit, et eum ad salutis portum perducere digneris. Qui uiuis et
regnas ...
58 The Rituale Romanum has ‘‘ Benedictio Infirmorum cum Ligno 8S.
Crucis, D.N.J.C. sew Signum S8. Mauri Abbatis.’’ This is a blessing of the
sick with a Relic of the Holy Cross and the invocation of 8S. Benedict and
S. Maurus.
59 The Uita S. Mauri (Mabillon, Acta S.S. O. S.B., I, 274) is ascribed to
a companion, the monk Faustus of Monte Cassino. Pére Delehaye, in his
unfortunate and temerarious work Légendes Hagiographiques (translation.
London, 1907), indecorously attacks this and treats S. Maurus with scant
respect. A worthy defence was made by Adlhoch, Stud. u. Mittheil., 1903, 3;
1906, 185. According to Peter the Deacon he also wrote a Cantus ad B.
Maurum.
60 Blessed Victor III. Dialogues, I, 2.
61 Abbé Lebeuf. Histoire du diocése de Paris, V. 129 sqq.
62 Portraits of him are preserved at Rome and Valladolid.
63 A hearty believer in witchcraft. He had sent at least one witch to the
gallows, and another to prison.
64 Apparently the work of Darrel himself, but in the Huth catalogue
(V, 1643) ascribed to James Bamford.
65 Darrel in his Detection of that sinnful, shamful, lying, and ridiculous
discours of Samuel Harshnet, 1600, writes: ‘‘ There is no doubt but that
S.H. stand for Samuell Harsnet, chapline to the Bishop of London, but
whither he alone, or his lord and hee, have discovered this counterfeyting
and cosonage there is the question. Some think the booke to be the Bishop’s
owne doing : and many thinke it to be the joynt work of them both.”’
66 On 10 November, 1629, he was sworn of the Privy Council.
DIABOLIC POSSESSION 273
*” Whence Shakespeare derived the names of various evil spirits whom
Edgar mentions in King Lear.
** I do not conceive that at the present time many, if any, Bishops of the
Church of England would license exorcism. Certainly the more scientifically
minded and modernistic Lords Spiritual of the Anglican bench have rid
themselves of such an idle superstition. How they would explain Our Blessed
Lord’s words and actions I do not pretend to know, but I suppose that
according to their wider knowledge Christ—sit wenia uerbis—was mistaken
in this as in other particulars.
%° Colloquia Mensalia, passimy
7 Tt is difficult to see how the teachings of such a Protestant leader as
Gaspar von Schwenckfeld (1489-90—1561) are anything save tantamount
to mere personal morality and a vague individual pietism. A critical edition
of his numerous works is in course of publication under the editorship of
Basa Schlutter, and Johnson : Corpus Schwenckfeldianorum, I, Leipzig,
07.
71 Parker’s Correspondence, Parker Society, Cambridge, 1856, pp. 465-6.
™ By vomiting pins and straws they had made many believe that they
were bewitched, but the tricks were soon found out and they were compelled
to public penance at S. Paul’s. There is a black letter pamphlet The discloysing
of a late counterfeyted possession by the devyl in two maydens within the Citie
of London [1574], which describes this case. See also Holinshed, Chronicles
(ed. London, 1808), IV, 325, and Stow Annales, London, 1631, p. 678. But
the fact that there are malingerers does not mean there are none sick.
78 Marie Glover’s late woefull case.... A defence of the truthe against
‘D. J. his scandalous Impugnations, British Museum, Sloane MSS., 831.
Sinclar, Satan’s Invisible World Discovered, Edinburgh, 1685, Relation XII
quotes an account of Mary Glover from Lewis Hughes’ Certaine Grievances
(1641-2); and hence Burton, The Kingdom of Darkness, and Hutchinson,
Historical Essay concerning Witchcraft, both assign a wrong date (1642) to
the occurrence.
74 Enlarged edition, 1720.
78 The Other World, London, 18765, I, pp. 59-69. The incident is narrated
by Fortescue Hitchins, The H istory of Cornwall, Helston, 1824, IT, pp. 548-51 ;
and also in fuller detail by the Rev. R. 8. Hawker, Footprints of Former Men
in Far Cornwall, London, 1870, who quotes from Ruddle’s MS. Diary.
76 Six miles north of §. Columb and three miles due south from Padstow.
7 A full and documented account of these strange happenings may be
found in Lucifer, or the True Story of the Famous Diabolic Possession in Alsace,
London, 1922, with the Imprimatur of the Bishop of Brentwood. Compiled
from original documents by the abbé Paul Sutter and translated by the
Rev. Theophilus Borer.
78 Jesus . . . comminatus est spiritui immundo, dicens illi: Surde et
mute spiritus, Ego precipio tibi, exi ab eo: et amplius ne introcas in eum.
Huan. sec. Marcum. IX. 25.
1726-1755. This great Saint was then Venerable; he was beatified by
Leo XIII, 29 J. anuary, 1893, and canonized by Pius X, 11 December, 1903.
His feast is kept on 16 October.
0 Peter Paul Stumpf succeeded Andreas Riss as Bishop of Strasburg,
1887-1890.
81 Une Possédée Contemporaine (1834-1914). Héléne Poirier de Coullons ‘
(Lotret). Paris, Téqui, 1924. An ample study, profusely documented, of
517 pages, edited by M. le Chanoine Champault of the diocese of Orleans.
*2 A partir de cette époque, la vie d’Héléne s’écoulera au milieu de souf-
frances physiques et morales si grandes, que dans sa bouche les plaintes de
Job ne seraient point déplacées.
88 Mr. G. R. 8. Mead, however, in this connexion not impertinently recalls
the “ controlling ” of members of the Shaker communities by what purported
to be spirits of North American Indians. This was prior to 1848.
** Ses souffrances physiques et morales, commencées le 25 mars, 1850, se
poursuivirent jusqu’a sa mort, 8 janvier, 1914, soit pendant soixante-quatre ans.
T
274 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
Toutefois les vexations diaboliques cessérent vers la fin de 1897. Ces vexa-
tions durérent donc prés de quarante-sept années, dont six de possession.
85 Du 25 mars, 1850, au courant de mars, 1868, Héléne fut seulement obsédée.
Cette obsession dura donc 18 années. Au bout de ce temps et pendant 13 mois
elle fut obsédée et possédée tout ensemble.
De Vobsession et de la possession elle fut complétement délivrée par les
exorcismes officiels, A Orléans, le 19 avril, 1869.
Suivirent quatre mois de tranquillité, jusqu’au recommencement volon-
taire et généreux de ses peines.
A la fin d’aofit, 1869, elle accepta de la main de Notre Seigneur les tourments
d’une nouvelle obsession et possession afin d’obtenir la conversion du célébre
général Ducrot. La conversion obtenue, elle fut délivrée a Lourdes le
3 septembre, 1875, par les priéres des 15,000 pélerins qui s’y trouvaient réunis.
Obsession et possession renouvelées avaient duré cing ans.
Plus jamais, pendant les quarante ans qu’elle avait encore a vivre, elle
ne fut possédée ; mais elle continua a étre obsédée tantdt plus, tantdt moins.
Les souffrances de toutes sortes, qu’elle endura alors, eurent pour but d’obtenir
le salut et le triomphe du clergé.
Quant aux raisons et au but des premiéres persécutions diaboliques qu’elle
subit pendant dix-neuf ans et dont elle fut délivrée par les exorcismes officiels,
ils sont restés inconnus. Une Possédée Contemporaine (1834-1914), pp. 171-2.
86 A fragment of the soutane of this most holy Pontiff was taken to Hélene
and during one of her fits placed upon her forehead. At the contact she
cried out: ‘‘ Le Pape est un saint, oui un grand saint.’’ (The Pope is a Saint,
truly a great Saint !)
87 Pour y étre admis, il faut apporter une ou plusiers hosties consacrées,
‘es remettre au démon qui, sous forme corporelle ou visible, préside l’assemblée.
li faut les profaner d’une maniére horrible, adorer le démon lui-méme et
commettre avec lui et les autres sociétaires les actes d’impudicité les plus
révoltants. Trois villes: Paris, Rome, et Tours sont les siéges de cette
société infernale.
88 La seconde possession fut plus terrible quela premiére. 1¢: Par la durée ;
la premiére fut de treize mois, la seconde de cing ans. 2°: La premiere fut
a‘loucie par de nombreuses consolations surnaturelles ; la seconde trés peu.
3°: Les dévices abondérent dans la premiére; dans la seconde les avanies
morales l’emportérent de beaucoup sur les avanies physiques. Une Possédée
Contemporaine (1834-1914), p. 405.
89 Spirit Possession, Henry M. Hugunin, published in Sycamore, IIl.,
U.S.A.
99 One should note the implication that science and faith are opposed.
Dr. Wilfred T. Grenfell pointedly comments: ‘‘ This question seems inept.
To me the terms are not in antithesis, i.e. logical v. spiritual.
91 Edited by Huntly Carter. Fisher Unwin, 1920.
92 Whose contribution, From Non-Religion to Religion, opens with the
following inepitude: ‘‘I think that the renewal of Spiritualism is mainly
due to a real increase in our knowledge of psychical facts.” This phrase
could only have been written by one wholly ignorant of mystical theology,
and, it would seem, of historical Christianity.
%3 Spiritualism, Its Present-Day Meaning, p. 258.
94 Idem, p. 269.
95 Idem, pp. 270-1.
96 Idem, p. 245.
97 Idem, p. 206.
98 Idem, pp. 206-7.
99 Idem, p. 205. The words are those of Father Bernard Vaughan.
100 ** Seventeen Elementary Facts concerning Spiritualism.’’ Jzght, 21
February, 1925. Here we also have the frank avowal : ‘‘ Modern Spiritualism
is only a revival of phenomena and experiences that were well known in
ancient times.’’ It should be remarked that similar phenomena, believed to
be a genuine case of haunting, occurred at the house of Mr. Samuel Wesley,
at Epworth, Lincolnshire, in 1716, and attracted universal attention. It is
DIABOLIC POSSESSION 275
said that the knockings at the house of Parsons, Cock Lane, West Smithfield,
in 1760, were proved to be fraud, but I do not know that the case has ever
been candidly studied.
101 She took part in a séance on 25 October, 1860, but this seems to have
been exceptional.
102 Washington Daily Star, 7 March, 1893, quoted in The Medium and the
Daybreak, 7 April, 1893.
103 In the ‘‘ educational’’ primers prepared by certain spiritists for use by
children the story of the Fox Sisters is told in glowing colours to a point,
but the history of their downfall is suppressed.
104 He died at Bedford, 5 September, 1892. His control was the spirit
Imperator, who claimed to be the prophet Malachias. For a very full bio-
graphy see Arthur Lillie’s Modern Mystics and Modern Magic. London.
1894.
106 For Mrs. Bassett see The Medium, 11 April and 18 April, 1873, pp. 174
and 182; for Miss Showers, The Medium, 8 May and 22 May, pp. 294 and
326.
106 Medium and Daybreak, 15 November, 1878, p. 730.
107 [/ Eclair, 6 April, 1909.
108 Dr. Grasset, L’Occultisme, pp. 56, sqq. ; p. 424.
109 Procés des Spirites, 8vo. Paris. 1875.
110 La Revue Spirite and L’ Echo du Mentalisme, Nov., 1908.
111 Who apparently belioves that Spiritism is authorized by the Scriptures,
and that many of the prophets, nay, even Our Divine Lord Himself, were
but mediums.
12 Tight. Saturday, 21 February, 1925, p. 89.
113 Organized in 1882 for the scientific examination of ‘‘ debatable phenom-
ena.”
114 See the Report presented 11 May, 1922, and published by The Magic
Circle, Anderton’s Hotel, Fleet Street.
15 The Goligher Circle, May to August, 1921. Experiences of E. E. Fournier
d’Albe, p.sc. London, Watkins, 1922.
116 The Classification of Psychic Phenomena, by W. Loftus Hare. The
Occult Review, July, 1924, p. 38.
117 Her real name appears to be Marthe Béraud. Professor Richet is
satisfied that in his experiments with this medium at the Villa Carmen (Algiers)
in 1905 genuine materialization was effected.
118 Who, as noted above, specializes in the Ouija-Board and Automatic
Writing.
119 Ho has written such works as The New Revelation, and compiled The
Spiritualists’ Reader, ‘‘ A Collection of Spirit Messages from many sources,
specially prepared for Short Readings.”’
120 In all of whose documents the distinction is clearly drawn between
lezitimate scientific investigation and superstitious abuses.
CHAPTER VII
Tue Wrircu IN Dramatic LITERATURE
Tur English theatre, in common with every other form
of the world’s drama, had a religious, or even more exactly
a liturgical, origin. At the Norman Conquest as the
English monasteries began to be filled with cultured French
scholars there is evidence that Latin dialogues, the legends
of saints and martyrs, something after the fashion of
Hrotsvitha’s comedies, which we do not imagine to have been
a unique phenomenon, found their way here also, and from
recitation to the representation of these was an easy and
indeed inevitable step. For it is almost impossible to
declaim without appropriate action. From the very heart
of the liturgy itself arose the Mystery Play.
The method of performing these early English guild plays
has been frequently and exactly described, and I would only
draw attention to one feature of the movable scaffold which
passed from station to station, that is the dark cavern at
the side of the last of the three sedes, Hell-mouth. No pains
were spared to make this as horrible and realistic as might
be. Demons with hideous heads issued from it, whilst ever and
anon lurid flames burst forth and dismal cries were heard.
Thus the Digby S. Mary Magdalen play has the stage-
direction: ‘‘a stage, and Helle ondyrneth that stage.” At
Coventry the Cappers had a “ hell-mouth ” for the Harrowing
of Hell, and the Weavers another for Doomsday. This was
provided with fire, a windlass, and a barrel for the earth-
quake. In the stage-directions to Jordan’s Cornish Creation
of the World Lucifer descends to hell ‘‘ apareled fowle w™
fyre about hem ”’ and the place is filled with ‘‘ every degre of
devylls of lether and spirytis on cordis.” Among the
‘ establies ” required for the Rouen play of 1474 was “ Enfer
fait en maniere d’une grande gueulle se cloant et ouvrant
quant besoing en est.’ The last stage-direction of the
276
WITCH IN DRAMATIC LITERATURE 277
Sponsus, a liturgical play from Limoges,—assigned by M. M.
W. Cloetta and G. Paris to the earlier half of the twelfth
century—which deals with the Wise and Foolish Virgins runs
as follows: “‘ Modo accipiant eas [| fatuas uirgines] demones et
precipitentur in infernum.”
The Devil himself is one of the most prominent characters
in the Mystery, the villain of the piece. So the York cycle
commences with The Creation and the Fall of Lucifer. Whilst
the Angels are singing ‘‘ Holy, Holy, Holy” before the
throne of God, Satan appears exulting in his pride to be cast
down speedily into hell whence he howls his complaint
beginning ‘‘ Owte, owte! harrowe!’’ There is a curious
incident in the episode of the Dream of Pilate’s wife. Whilst
she sleeps Satan whispers in her ear the vision which moves
her to try to stay the condemnation of Jesus whereby
mankind is to be redeemed. The last play of the York cycle
is the Day of Judgement.
In like manner the Towneley cycle opens with The Creation,
and presently we have the stage-direction hic deus recedit
a suo solio & lucifer sedebit in eodem solio. The scene soon
shifts to hell when we hear the demons reproaching Lucifer
for his pride. After the creation of Adam and Eve follows
Lucifer’s lament. In the long episode of Doomsday a number
of demons appear and are kept inordinately busy.
The Devil was represented as black, with goat’s horns,
ass’s ears,.cloven hoofs, and an immense phallus. He is, in
fact, the Satyr of the old Dionysiac processions, a nature-
spirit, the essence of joyous freedom and unrestrained delight,
shameless if you will, for the old Greek knew not shame.
He is the figure who danced light-heartedly across the
Aristophanaic stage, stark nude in broad midday,? animally
physical, exuberant, ecstatic, crying aloud the primitive
refrain, Paris, éraipe Baxxiov, Evyxwue, vuxTepoTAaryTe, MOLXE,
mawWepacra, (Phales, boon mate of Bacchus, joyous comrade.
in the dance, wanton wanderer o’ nights, fornicating Phales),
in a word he was Paganism incarnate, and Paganism was
the Christian’s deadliest foe ; so they took him, the Bacchic
reveller, they smutted him from horn to hoof, and he
remained the Christian’s deadliest foe, the Devil.?
It was long before the phallic demon was banished the
stage, for strange as it may seem, positive evidence exists
278 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
that he was known there as late as Shakespeare’s day.
In 1620 was published in London by Edward Wright 4
Courtly Masque: The Deuice called, The World tost at Tennis.
‘‘ As it hath beene diuers times Presented to the Contentment
of many Noble and Worthy Spectators: By the Prince his
Seruants.” It was ‘“Inuented and set downe by Tho:
Middleton, Gent. and William Rowley, Gent.” The title-page
presents a rough engraving of the various characters in this
masque, doubtless from a sketch made at the actual per-
formance. Outside the main group stands a hideous black
figure ‘‘ The Diuele,” who made his appearance towards the
end to take part in the last dance, furnished with horns,
hoofs, talons, tail, and a monstrous phallus. It may be
remarked that these horns are prominent on the goat-like
head (a clear satyr) of the Devil in Doctor Faustus as depicted
on the title-page of the Marlovian quarto. A phallus, to
which reference is made in the text, was also worn. by the
character dressed up as the monkey (Bavian) in the May-
dance scene in Shakespeare & Fletcher’s The Two Noble
Kinsman, Act III, 5, 1618. It is worth remembering that
troops of phallic demons formed a standing characteristic
of the old German carnival comedy. Moreover, several of the
grotesque types of the Commedia dell’ arte in the second
decade of the seventeenth century were traditionally equipped
in like manner.? That the Devil was so represented in the
English theatre is important. It gives us the popular idea
of the Prince of Evil, and incidentally throws a side-light
upon much of the grotesque and obscene evidence in the
contemporary witch-trials.
In Skelton’s lost Nigramansir one of the stage directions
is stated to have been ‘‘ Enter Balsebub with a beard,’’ no
doubt the black vizard with an immense goatish beard
familiar to the old religious drama. Presumably the chief
use of the Necromancer, who gives his name to this play,
was indeed but to speak the Prologue which summons
the Devil who buffets and kicks him for his pains.
However, we only know the play from Warton, who
describes it as having been shown him by William Collins,
the poet, at Chichester, about 1759. He says: “It is the
Nigramansir, a morall Enterlude and a pithie, written by
Maister Skelton laureate, and plaid before the King and other
WITCH IN DRAMATIC LITERATURE 279
estatys at Woodstoke on Palme Sunday. It was printed by
Wynkyn de Worde in a thin quarto, in the year 1504. It
must have been presented before Henry VII, at the royal
manor or palace at Woodstock in Oxfordshire, now destroyed.
The characters are a Necromancer or conjurer, the devil, a
notary public, Simony, and Philargyria or Avarice. It is
partly a satire on some abuses in the Church. . . . The story,
or plot, is the trial of Simony and Avarice.”” Beyond what
Warton tells us nothing further is known of the play. Ritson,
Bibliographia Poetica, 106, declared : “‘ it is utterly incredible
that the Nigramansir . . . ever existed.’’ It has been shown,
too, that Warton as a literary historian is not infrequently
suspect, and E. G. Duff, Hand Lists of English Printers, can
trace no extant copy of this “‘ morall Enterlude.”
In the English moralities the Devil plays an important
part, and, as in their French originals or analogues, he 1s
consistently hampering and opposing the moral purpose or
lesson which the action of these compositions is designed to
enforce. In the later English plays also which evolved with
added regularity from these interludes the Devil is always a
popular character. He is generally attended by the Vice,
who although in some sort a serving-man or jester in the
fiend’s employ, devotes his time to twitting, teazing, torment-
ing, and thwarting his master for the edification, not unmixed
with fun, of the audience. In The Castell of Perseverance
Lucifer appears shouting in good old fashion ‘* Out herowe
I rore,’’ just as he was wont to announce himself in the
Mysteries, and he is wearing his “ devil’s array’ over the
habit of a “‘ prowde galaunt.’’ Wever’s Lusty Juventus has
unmistakable traces of the slime of the evil days of Edward VI,
in whose reign it was written, and when the Devil calls
‘Hipocrisy to his aid we are prepared for a flood of empty
but bitter abuse which embodies the sour Puritan hatred
against the Catholic Church, and towards the end, under the
misnomer God’s Merciful Promises, we are not surprised to
meet a tiresome old gentleman who cantingly expounds the
doctrine of Justification by Faith.
In the interlude to which Collier has assigned the name
Mankind Mischief summons to her aid the fiend Titivillus,
who had appeared in the Judiciwm of the Towneley Mysteries.
Once the Devil’s registrar and tollsman, he is best known as
280 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
“Master Lollard.”? According to a silly old superstition
Titivillus was an imp whose business it was to pick up
the words any priest might drop and omit whilst saying
Mass. ,
When we pass to the beginnings of the regular drama we
find an extremely interesting play that introduces, if not
magic, at least fortune-telling, John Lyly’s ‘‘ Pleasant Con-
ceited Comedie’’ Mother Bombie, acted by the children of
Paul’s and first printed in 1594. Although the plot is of the
utmost complexity and artificiality it does not seem to be
derived, as are most of Lyly’s stories, from any classical or
pseudo-classical source, whilst the cunning old woman of
Rochester, who supplies the title, has in fact little to say or
do, except that her intervention helps to bring about the
unravelling of a perfect maze and criss-cross of incidents.
When Selena addresses the beldame with ‘“‘ They say, you
are a witch,’”’ Mother Bombie quickly retorts ‘‘ They lie,
I am a cunning woman,”’ a passage not without significance.
Upon a very different level from Lyly’s play stands
Marlowe’s magnificent drama The Tragical History of Dr.
Faustus. The legend of a man who sells his soul to the Devil
for infinite knowledge and absolute power seems to have
crystallized about the sixth century, when the story of
Theophilus was supposed to have been related in Greek by
his pupil Kutychianus. Ofcourse, every warlock had bartered
his soul to Satan, and throughout the whole of the Middle
Ages judicial records, the courts of the Inquisition, to say
nothing of popular knowledge, could have told of a thousand
such. But this particular legend seems to have captured the
imagination of both Western and Eastern Christendom; it is
met with in a variety of forms; it was introduced into the
collections of Jacopo 4 Voragine; it found its way into the
minstrel repertory through Rutebeuf, a French trouvére of the
thirteenth century ; it reappeared in early English narrative
and in Low-German drama. Icelandic variants of the story
have been traced. It was made the subject of a poem by
William Forrest, priest and poet, in 1572; and it also formed
the material for two seventeenth-century Jesuit ‘‘ comedies.”
That the original Faust was a real personage,‘ a wandering
conjurer and medical quack, who was well known in the
south-west of the German Empire, as well as in Thuringia,
WITCH IN DRAMATIC LITERATURE 281
Saxony, and the adjoining countries somewhere between
the years 1510-1540, does not now admit of any serious
doubt. Philip Begardi, a physician of Worms, author
of an Index Sanitatis (1539), mentions this charlatan,
many of whose dupes he personally knew. He says that
Faust was at one time frequently seen, although of later
years nothing had been heard of him. It has indeed been
suggested the whole legend originated in the strange history
of Pope S. Clement I and his father Faustus, or Faustinianus,
as related in the Recognitions, which were immensely popular
throughout the Middle Ages. But Melanchthon knew a
Johannes Faustus born at Kniitlingen, in Wurtemberg, not far
from his own home, who studied magic at Cracow, and after-
wards “‘ roamed about and talked of secret things.’’ There was
a doctor Faustus in the early part of the sixteenth century, a
friend of Paracelsus and Cornelius Agrippa, a scholar who won
an infamous reputation for the practice of necromancy. In
1513 Conrad Mutt, the Humanist, came across a vagabond
magician at Erfurt named Georgius Faustus Hermitheus
of Heidelberg. Trithemius in 1506, met a Faustus junior
whose boast it was that if all the works of Plato and Aristotle
were burned he could restore them from memory. It seems
probable that it was to the Dr. Faustus, the companion of
Paracelsus and Cornelius® Agrippa, that the legend became
finally and definitely attached. The first literary version of
the story was the Volksbuch, which was published by Johann
Spies in 1587, at Frankfort-on-the-Main, who tells us that
he obtained the manuscript ‘‘ from a good friend at Spier,”
and it soon afterwards appeared in England as The History
of the Damnable Life and Deserved Death of Dr. John Faustus,
a chap-book to which Marlowe mainly adhered for the
incidents in his play. The tragedy was carried across to
Germany by the English actors who visited that country in
the last years of the sixteenth and the earlier part of the |
seventeenth century, and thus, while it was itself derived
from a German source, it greatly influenced, if it did not
. actually give rise to, the treatment of the same theme by
the German popular drama and puppet-play. These were
seldom printed, and usually for the most part extem-
porized, keeping all the while more or less closely to
the theme. Scheible in his Kloster (1847), Volume V, gives
282 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
the excellent Ulm piece, and there are marionette versions
edited by W. Hamm (1850; English translation by T. C. H.
Hedderwick, 1887), O. Schade (1856), K. Engel (1874),
Bielschowsky (1882), and Kralik and Winter (1885).
Lessing projected two presentations of the story, and
Klinger worked the subject into a romance, Fausts Leben,
Thaten, und Hiéllenfahrt (1791; translated into English by
George Barrow in 1826). A bombast tragedy was published
by Klingemann in 1815, whilst Lenau issued his epico-
dramatic Faust in 1836. Heine’s ballet Der Doctor Faust, ein
Tanzpoem appeared in 1851. The libretto for Spohr’s opera
(1814) was written by Bernard.
Goethe’s masterpiece, planned as early as 1774, was given
to the world in 1808, but the second part was delayed until
1831.
General evidence points to 1588 as the date of the
first production of Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus, for it seems
certain that the ballad of the Life and Death of Doctor
Faustus the great Conjurer, entered in the Stationers’ Register,
February, 1589, did not precede but was suggested by the
drama. The first extant quarto is 1604, but already it had
been subjected to more than one revision. Upon the stage
Doctor Faustus long remained popular, and in England, at
least, however fragmentary Marlowe’s tragedy may be it
has never been supplemented by any other literary handling
of its theme. Old Prynne in his Histriomastix (1633) retails
an absurd story to the effect that the Devil in propria persona
‘‘ appeared on the stage at the Belsavage Playhouse in Queen
Elizabeth’s days’? whilst the tragedy was being performed,
“ the truth of which I have heard from many now alive who
well remember it.”? It was revived after the Restoration, and
on Monday, 26 May, 1662, Pepys and his wife witnessed the
production at the Red Bull, “ but so wretchedly and poorly
done that we were sick of it.”” It was being performed at the
Theatre Royal in the autumn of 1675, but no details are
recorded. In 1685-6 at Dorset Garden appeared William
Mountfort’s The Life and Death of Doctor Faustus, Made into
a Farce, with the Humours of Harlequin and Scaramouch, a
queer mixture of Marlowe’s scenes with the Italian commedia
dell’ arte. Harlequin was acted by nimble Thomas Jevon,
the first English harlequin, and Scaramouch by Antony Leigh,
WITCH IN DRAMATIC LITERATURE 283
the most whimsical of comedians. At the end of the third
act after Faustus has been carried away by Lucifer and
Mephistopheles, his body is discovered torn in pieces. Then
““ Faustus Limbs come together. A Dance and Song.’ This
farce was continually revived with great applause, and during
the whole of the eighteenth century Faust was the central
figure of pantomime after pantomime. Nearly forty dramatic
versions of the Faust legend might be enumerated. Many
are wildly romantic and were especially beloved of the minor
theatres: such are Faustus by G. Soane and D. Terry,
produced at Drury Lane 16 May, 1825, with ‘‘O” Smith
as Mephistopheles; H. P. Grattan’s Faust, or The Demon
of the Drachenfels performed at Sadlers Wells, 5 September,
1842, with Henry Marston, Mephistopheles, T. Lyon, Faust,
“the Magician of Wittenberg,’ Caroline MRankley,
Marguerite; T. W. Robertson’s Faust and Marguerite,
played at the Princess’s Theatre in April, 1854: some are
operatic ; the ever-popular Faust of Gounod, with libretto by
Barbier and Carré, first seen at the Thédtre Lyrique,
Paris, in 1859; and Hector Berlioz’ The Damnation
of Faust, which, adapted to the English stage by T. H.
Friend, was performed at the Court, Liverpool, 3 February,
1894; many more are burlesques, descendants of the
eighteenth-century farces, amongst which may be remembered
F.C. Burnard’s Faust and Marguerite, S. James, 9 July, 1864 ;
C. H. Hazlewood’s Faust: or Marguerite’s Mangle, Britannia
Theatre, 25 March, 1867; Byron’s Litile Doctor Faust (1877) ;
Faust in Three Flashes (1884) ; Faust in Forty Minutes (1885);
and the most famous of all the travesties Faust Up to Date,
produced at the Gaiety, 30 October, 1888, with E. J. Lonnen
as Mephistopheles and Florence St. John as Marguerite. In
France the Faust—apres Goethe—of Theaulou and Gondelier
first seen at the Nouveautés, 27 October, 1827, had a great
success, and in the following year no less than three pens, .
Antony Béraud, Charles Nodier, and Merle, combined to
produce a Faust in three acts, the music of which is by
Louis Alexandre Piccini, the grandson of Gluck’s famous
rival. In 1858 Adolphe Dennery gave the Parisian stage
Faust, a “‘drame fantastique”’ in five acts and sixteen
tableaux, a drama of the Grattan school, effective enough
in a lurid Sadlers Wells way, which is, at any rate, a
284 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
vein greater dramatists have exploited with profit and
applause.
Of more recent English dramas which have the Faust legend
as their theme the most striking is undoubtedly the adapta-
tion by W. G. Wills from the first part of Goethe's tragedy,
which was produced at the Lyceum 19 December, 1885,
with H. H. Conway as Faust; George Alexander, Valentine ;
Mrs. Stirling,.Martha; Miss Ellen Terry, Margaret ; and
Henry Irving, Mephistopheles. Not merely in view of the
masterpieces of Marlowe and Goethe, but even by the side
of theatrical versions of the legend from far lesser men the
play itself was naught, a superb pantomime, a thing helped
out by a witches’ kitchen, by a bacchanalia of demons, by
chromo-lithographic effects, by the mechanist and the brushes
of Telbin and Hawes Craven, but it was informed throughout
and raised to heights of greatness, nay, even to awe and
terror, by the genius of Irving as the red-plumed Mephis-
topheles, that sardonic, weary, restless figure, horribly unreal
yet mockingly alert and alive, who dominated the whole.
To attempt a comparison between Marlowe and Goethe
were not a little absurd, and it is superfluous to expatiate
upon the supreme merits of either masterpiece. In Goethe’s
mighty and complex work the story is in truth refined away
beneath a wealth of immortal philosophy. Marlowe adheres
quite simply to the chap-book incidents, and yet in all profane
literature I scarcely know words of more shuddering dread
and complete agony than Faust’s last great speech :
Ah, Faustus,
Now hast thou but one bare hour to live.
And then thou must be damned perpetually |
The scene becomes intolerable. It is almost too painful to
be read, too overcharged with hopeless darkness and despair.
As it is in some sense at least akin to the Faust story it
may not be impertinent briefly to mention here an early
Dutch secular drama, which has been called ‘‘ one of the
gems of Dutch medieval literature,” A Marvellous History
of Mary of Nimmegen, who for more than seven years lived
and had ado with the Devil,® printed by William Vorsterman
of Antwerp about 1520. It is only necessary to call attention
to a few features of the legend. Mary, the niece of the old
WITCH IN DRAMATIC LITERATURE 285
priest Sir Gysbucht, one night meets the Devil in the shape
of Moonen with the single eye. He undertakes to teach her
all the secrets of necromancy if she will but refrain from
crossing herself and change her name to Lena of Gretchen.
But Mary, who has had a devotion to our Lady, insists upon
retaining at least the M in her new nomenclature, and so
becomes Emmekin. ‘‘ Thus Emma and Moonen lived at
Antwerp at the sign of the Golden Tree in the market, where
daily of his contrivings were many murders and slayings
together with every sort of wickedness.’’ Emma then resolves
to visit her uncle, and insists upon Moonen accompanying
her to Nimmegen. It is a high holiday and she sees by chance
the mystery of Maskeroon on a pageant-waggon in a public
square. Our Lady is pleading before the throne of God for
mankind, and Emma is filled with strange remorse to hear
such blessed words. Moonen carries her off, but she falls
and is found in a swoon by the old priest, her uncle. No
priest of Nimmegen dared shrive her, not even the Bishop
of Cologne, and so she journeyed to Rome, where the Holy
Father heard her confession and bade her wear in penitence
three strong bands of iron fastened upon neck and arms.
Thus she returned to Maestricht to the cloister of the
Converted Sinners, and there her sorrow was so prevailing
and her humility so unfeigned that an Angel in token of
Divine forgiveness removed the irons as she slept.
And go ye to Maestricht, an ye be able
And in the Converted Sinners shall ye see
The grave of Emma, and there all three
The rings be hung above her grave.’
Magic and fairy-land loom large in the plays of Robert
Greene, whose place in English literature rests at least as
much upon his prose-tracts as on his dramas. It seems to
me fairly obvious that The Honourable History of Friar Bacon |
and Friar Bungay, which almost certainly dates from 1589,
although the first quarto is 1594, was composed owing to the
success of Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus. Greene was not the
man to lose an opportunity of exploiting fashion, and with
his solid British bent I have no doubt he considered an old
English tale of an Oxford magician would be just as effective
as imported legends from Frankfort and Wittenberg. To
2386 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
say that the later play is on an entirely different level is not
to deny it interest and considerable charm. But in spite
of Bacon’s avowal
Thou know’st that I have divéd into hell
And sought the darkest palaces of fiends ;
That with my magic spells great Belcephon,
Hath left his lodge and kneeled at my cell,
his sorceries are in lighter vein than those of Faustus ;
moreover neither his arts nor the magic of Friar Bungay.
form the essential theme of the play, which also sketches the
love of Edward, Prince of Wales (afterwards Edward I) for
Margaret, ‘‘ the fair Maid of Fressingfield.”” It is true Bacon
conjures up spirits enough, and we are shown his study at
Brasenose with the episode of the Brazen Head. It may be
noted that Miles, Bacon’s servant, is exactly the Vice of the
Moralities, and at the end he rides off farcically enough on
the Devil’s back, whilst Bacon announces his intention of
spending the remainder of his years in becoming penitence
for his necromancy and magic.
In Greene’s Orlando Furioso, 4to, 1594, which is based on
Ariosto, canto XXIII, we meet Melissa, an enchantress : and
in Alphonsus, King of Arragon, 4to, 1599, which is directly
imitative of Tamburlaine, a sibyl with the classical name
Medea, conjures up Calehas ‘‘in a white surplice and
cardinal’s mitre,’’ and here we also have a Brazen Head
through which Mahomet speaks. A far more interesting
play is A Looking Glasse for London and England, 4to, 1594,
an elaborated Mystery upon the history of the prophet Jonah
and the repentance of Nineveh. Among the characters are
a Good Angel, an Evil Angel, and “‘one clad in Devil’s
attire,’’ who is soundly drubbed by Adam the buffoon. In
1598 was published, ‘‘ As it hath bene sundrie times publikely
plaide,” The Scottish Historie of Iames the fourth, slawne at
Flodden. Entermized with a pleasant Comedie, presented by
Oboram, King of Fayeries. But the fairies only appear in a
species of prose prologue, and in brief interludes between
the acts.
George Peele’s charming piece of folk-lore The Old Wives’
Tale introduces among its quaint commixture of episodes
the warlock Sacripant, son of a famous witch Meroe,* who
WITCH IN DRAMATIC LITERATURE 287
has stolen away and keeps under a spell the princess Delia.
His power depends upon a light placed in a magic glass
which can only be broken under certain conditions. Eventu-
ally Sacripant is overcome by the aid of a friendly ghost,
Jack, the glass broken, the light extinguished, and the lady
restored to her lover and friends.
Other magicians who appear in various dramas of the days
of Elizabeth and her immediate successors are Brian Sansfoy
in the primitive Sir Clyomon and Sir Clamydes, 4to, 1599 ;
the Magician in The Wars of Cyrus; Friar Bacon, Friar
Bungay, and Jaques Vandermast in Greene’s Friar Bacon
and Friar Bungay, Merlin and Proximus in the pseudo-
Shakespearean The Birth of Merlin, where the Devil also
figures ; Ormandini and Argalio in The Seven Champions of
Christendom, where we likewise have Calib, a witch, her
incubus Tarpax, and Suckabus their clownish son; Comus
in Milton’s masque; Mago the conjurer with his three
familiars Eo, Meo, and Areo in Cokain’s Trappolin Creduto
Principe, Trappolix suppos’d a Prince, 4to, 1656, excellent
light fare, which Nahum Tate turned into A Duke and No
Duke and produced at Drury Lane in November, 1684, and
which in one form or another, sometimes ‘‘a comic melo-
dramatic burletta,’”? sometimes a ballad opera, sometimes a
farce, was popular until the early decades of the nineteenth
century.
Seeing that actors are ‘‘ the abstracts and brief chronicles
of the time,”’ it is not surprising to find that Witchcraft has
a very important part in the theatre of Shakespeare. Setting
aside such a purely fairy fantasy as 4 Midsummer-Night’s
Dream, such figures as the ‘‘ threadbare juggler”? Pinch in
The Comedy of Errors, such scenes as the hobgoblin mask
beneath Herne’s haunted oak, such references as that to
Mother Prat, the old woman of Brainford, who worked
‘‘ by charms, by spells, by the figure,” or the vile abuse by |
Richard, Duke of Gloucester, of ‘‘ Edward’s wife, that
monstrous witch, Consorted with that harlot strumpet
Shore,’’ we have one historical drama King Henry VI,
Part II, in which an incantation scene plays no small part ;
we have one romantic comedy The Tempest, one tragedy
Macbeth, the very motives and development of which are
due to magic and supernatural charms. It must perhaps be
9388 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
remarked that King Henry VI, Part I, is defiled by the
obscene caricature of S. Joan of Arc, surely the most foul
and abominable irreverence that shames English literature.
It is too loathsome for words, and I would only point out
the enumeration in one scene where various familiars are
introduced of the most revolting details of contemporary
witch-trials, but to think of such horrors in connexion with
S, Joan revolts and sickens the imagination.
In King Henry VI (Part II) the Duchess of Gloucester
employs John Hume and John Southwell, two priests ;
Bolingbroke, a conjurer ; and Margery Jourdemain, a witch,
to raise a spirit who shall reveal the several destinies of the
King, and the Dukes of Suffolk and Somerset. The scene
is written with extraordinary power and has not a little of
awe and terror. Just as the demon is dismissed ’mid thunder
and lightning the Duke of York with his guards rush in and
arrest the sorcerers. Later the two priests and Bolingbroke
are condemned to the gallows, the witch in Smithfield is
“ burn’d to ashes,” whilst the Duchess of Gloucester after
three days’ public penance is banished for life to the Isle
of Man.
The incidents as employed by Shakespeare are fairly
correct. It is certain that the Duchess of Gloucester, an
ambitious and licentious woman, called to her counsels
Margery Jourdemain, commonly known as the Witch of Eye,
Roger Bolingbroke an astrologer, Thomas Southwell, Canon
of S. Stephen’s, a priest named Sir John Hume or Hun, and
a certain William Wodham. These persons frequently met
in secret, and it was discovered that they had fashioned
according to the usual mode a wax image of the King which
they melted before a slow fire. Bolingbroke confessed, and
Hume also turned informer; and in 1441 Bolingbroke was
placed on a high scaffold before Paul’s Cross together with a
chair curiously carved and painted, found at his lodging,
which was supposed to be an instrument of necromancy, and
in the presence of Cardinal Beaufort of Winchester, Henry
Chicheley, Archbishop of Canterbury, and an imposing
array of bishops, he was compelled to make abjuration
of his wicked arts. The Duchess of Gloucester, being re-
fused sanctuary at Westminster, was arrested and confined
in Leeds Castle, near Maidstone. She was brought to trial
WITCH IN DRAMATIC LITERATURE 289
with her accomplices in October, when sentence was passed
upon her as has been related above. Margery Jourdemain
perished at the stake as a witch and relapsed heretic ; Thomas
Southwell died in prison; and Bolingbroke was hanged at
Tyburn, 18 November.
In The Tempest Prospero is a philosopher rather than a
wizard, and Ariel is a fairy not a familiar. The magic of
Prospero is of the intellect, and throughout, Shakespeare is
careful to insist upon a certain detachment from human
passions and ambitions. His love for Miranda, indeed, is
exquisitely portrayed, and once—at the base ingratitude of
Caliban—his anger flashes forth, but none the less, albeit
superintending the fortunes of those over whom he watches
tenderly, and utterly abhorring the thought of revenge, he
seems to stand apart like Providence divinely guiding the
events to the desired issue of reconciliation and forgiveness.
Even so, the situation was delicate to place before an Eliza-
bethan audience, and how nobly and with what art does Shakes-
peare touch upon Prospero’s ‘‘ rough magic’’! In Sycorax
we recognize the typical witch, wholly evil, vile, malignant,
terrible for mischief, the consort and mistress of devils.
There are few scenes which have so caught the world’s
fancy as the wild overture to Macbeth. In storm and wilder-
ness we are suddenly brought face to face with three
mysterious phantasms that ride on the wind and mingle with
the mist in thunder, lightning, and in rain. They are not
agents of evil, they are evil; nameless, spectral, wholly
horrible. And then, after the briefest of intervals, they
reappear to relate such exploits as killing swine and begging
chestnuts from a sailor’s wife, to brag of having secured such
talismans as the thumb of a drowned pilot, businesses proper
to Mother Demdike or Anne Bishop of Wincanton, Somerset.
Can this change have been intentional? I think not, and
its very violence and quickness are jarring to a degree. The
meeting with Hecate, who is angry, and scolds them “ bel-_
dames as you are, Saucy and overbold” does not mend
matters, and in spite of the horror when the apparitions are
evoked, the ingredients of the cauldron, however noisome
and hideous, are too material for ‘‘ A deed without a name.”
There is a weakness here, and it says much for the genius
of the tragedy that this weakness is not obtrusively felt.
U
290 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
Nevertheless it was upon this that the actors seized when for
theatrical effect the incantation scenes had to be “ written
up” by the interpolation of fresh matter. Davenant also
in his frankly operatic version of Macbeth, produced at Dorset
Garden in February, 1672-8 elaborated the witch scenes to
an incredible extent, although by ample conveyance from
Middleton’s The Witch together with songs and dances he
was merely following theatrical tradition.®
There seems no reasonable doubt that The Witch is a later
play than Macbeth, but it is only fair to say that the
date of The Witch is unknown—it was first printed in 1778
from a manuscript now in the Bodleian—and the date of
Macbeth (earlier than 1610, probably 1606) is not demon-
strably certain. The Witch is a good but not a distinguished
play. Owing to the incantation scenes and its connexion
with Macbeth it has acquired an accidental interest, and an
enduring reputation. The witches themselves, Hecate and
her crew, stand midway between the mystic Norns of the
first scene in Macbeth, and the miserable hag of Dekker in
The Witch of Edmonton; they are just a little below the
Witches in Macbeth as they appear after the opening lines.
There is a ghastly fantasy in their revels which is not lessened
by the material grossness of Firestone the clown, Hecate’s
son. They raise “ jars, jealousies, strifes, and heart-burning
disagreements, like a thick scurf o’er life,” and although
their figures are often grotesque their power for evil is not
to be despised. Much of their jargon, their charms and
gaucheries complete, are taken word for word from Reginald
Scott’s Discoverie of Witchcraft, London, 1584.
The village witch, as she appeared to her contemporaries,
a filthy old doting crone, hunch-backed, ignorant, malevolent,
hateful to God and man, is shown with photographic detail
in The Witch of Edmonton ; A known True Story by Rowley,
Dekker, and Ford, produced at the Cockpit in Drury Lane
during the autumn or winter of 1621. It seems to have been
very popular at the time, and not only was it applauded in
the public theatre, but it was presented before King James
at Court. It did not, however, find its way into print until
as late as 1658.
The trial and execution (19 April, 1621) of Elizabeth
Sawyer attracted a considerable amount of attention.
PLATE VIII
The Witch of Edmonton
“- -Aknowntrde ST 0 R x.
Compofed into
A TRAGICOMED\
By divers well-efteemed Poers ;
William Rowley. Thomas Dekker, Fobn Ford, &
Poe Py the Princes Servants, often ac the Cock-Pit in Drur y- LAbey.
once at Court, wich fingular Applaufe..
ites er Pe ted t: dd HOW.
to eee .
Sane ra DeceMtr nomen tuum |
Mote. gue
py
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Les
London,: Printed by }. Cah ve Eiger ee the Boe el in
“Paul's Chureh- yard, 1658.
THE WITCH OF EDMONTON
The First Quarto
[ face p. 290
WITCH IN DRAMATIC LITERATURE 291
Remarkable numbers of ballads and doggerel songs were
made upon the event, detailing her enchantments, how she
had blighted standing corn, how a ferret and an owl con-
stantly attended her, and of many demons and familiars who
companied with her in the prison. Not only were these
ditties trolled out the day of the execution but many were
published as broadsides, and sold widely. Accordingly the
Newgate Ordinary hastened to pen The Wonderfull Discoverie
of Elizabeth Sawyer, a Witch, Late of Edmonton, Her Con-
viction, and Condemnation, and Death, Together with the
Relation of the Divels Accesse to Her, and Their Conference
Together, ‘‘ Written by Henry Goodcole, Minister of the Word
of God, and her Continual Visiter in the Gaole of Newgate,”
Published by Authority, 4to, 1621. This tractate is in the
form of a dialogue, question and answer, between Goodcole
and the prisoner, who makes ample confession of her crimes.
In some ways The Witch of Edmonton is the most interest-
ing and valuable of the witch dramas, because here we have
the hag stripped of the least vestige of glamour and romance ©
presented to us in the starkest realism. We see her dwelling
apart in a wretched hovel, ‘‘ shunned and hated like a sick-
ness,’ miserably poor, buckl’d and bent together, dragging
her palsied limbs wearily through the fields, as she clutches
her dirty rags round her withered frame. And if she but
dare to gather a few dried sticks in a corner she is driven
from the spot with hard words and blows. What wonder
her mouth is full of cursing and revenge ?
’Tis all one
To be a witch as to be counted one.
Then appears the Black Dog and seals a contract with her
blood. She blights the corn and sends a murrain on the cattle
of her persecutors; here a horse has the glanders, there a sow
casts her farrow ; the maid churns butter nine hours and it will
not come ; above all a farmer’s wife, whom she hates, goes mad
and dies in frantic agony ; mischief and evil run riot through
the town. But presently her familiar deserts her, she falls
into the hands of human justice, and after due trial is dragged
to Tyburn shrieking and crying out in hideous despair. It is
a sordid and a terrible, but one cannot doubt, a true picture.
It is obvious that in this drama?? Frank Thorney, a most
292 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
subtle and minute study of weakness and degeneracy, is
wholly Ford’s. Frank Thorney may be closely paralleled
with Giovanni in ’7%s Pity She’s a Whore. Winnifride, too,
has all the sentimental charm of Ford’s heroines, Annabella
and Penthea.
Carter is unmistakably the creation of Dekker. Simon
Eyre and Orlando Friscobaldo are the same hearty, bluff,
hospitable, essentially honest old fellows. To Dekker also
I would assign Mother Sawyer herself.
Rowley’s hand is especially discernible in the scenes where
Cuddy Banks and the clowns make their appearance.
It may be mentioned that Elizabeth Sawyer figures in
Caulfield’s Portraits, Memoirs, and Characters of Remarkable
Persons, 1794; and she is also referred to in Robinson’s
History and Antiquities of the Parish of Edmonton with a
woodcut ‘‘ from a rare print in the collection of W. Beckford,
esq.”
A second drama which was also actually founded upon
a contemporary trial is Heywood and Brome’s The Late
Lancashire Witches, ‘‘A Well Received Comedy” pro-
duced at the Globe in 1684.11 In the previous year, 1638,
a number of trials for Witchcraft had drawn the attention
of all England to Pendle Forest. A boy, by name Edmund
Robinson, eleven years of age, who dwelt here with his father,
a poor wood-cutter, told a long and detailed story which led
to numerous arrests throughout the district. Upon All Saints’
Day when gathering “ bulloes”’ in a field he saw two grey-
hounds, one black, the other brown, each wearing a collar
of gold. They fawned upon him, and immediately a hare
rose quite near at hand. But the dogs refused to course,
whereupon he beat them with a little switch, and the black
greyhound started up in the shape of an old woman whom
he recognized as Mother Dickenson, a notorious witch, and
the other as a little boy whom he did not know. The beldame
offered him money, either to buy his silence or as the price
of his soul, but he refused. Whereupon taking something
like a Bridle ‘‘ that gingled ’’ from her pocket she threw it
over the little boy’s head and he became a white horse.
Seizing young Robinson in her arms they mounted and
were conveyed with the utmost speed to a large house where
had assembled some sixty other persons. A bright fire was
WITCH IN DRAMATIC LITERATURE 293
burning on the hearth with roast meat before it. He was
invited to partake of ‘‘ Flesh and Bread upon a Trencher
and Drink in a Glass,’’ which he tasted, but at once rejected.
He was next led into an adjoining barn where seven old
women were pulling at seven halters that hung from the roof.
As they tugged large pieces of meat, butter in lumps, loaves
of bread, black puddings, milk, and all manner of rustic
dainties fell down into large basins which were placed under
the ropes. When the seven hags were tired their places
were taken by seven others. But as they were engaged at
their extraordinary task their faces seemed so fiendish and
their glances were so evil that Robinson took to his heels.
He was instantly pursued, and he saw that the foremost of
his enemies was a certain Mother Lloynd. But luckily for
himself two horsemen, travellers, came up, whereupon the
witches vanished. A little later when he was sent in the
evening to fetch home two kine, a boy met him in the dusk
and fought him, bruising him badly. Looking down he saw
that his opponent had a cloven foot, whereupon he ran away, ©
only to meet Mother Lloynd with a lantern in her hand. She
drove him back and he was again mauled by the cloven-
footed boy.??
Such was the story told to the justices and corroborated
by Robinson’s father. A reign of terror ensued. Mother
Dickenson and Mother Lloynd were at once thrown into jail,
and in the next few days more than eighteen persons were
arrested. The informer and his father netted a good sum by
going round from church to church to point out in the
congregations persons whom he recognized as having been
in the house and barn to which he was led. A little quiet
blackmail of the wealthier county families, threats to disclose
the presence of various individuals at the witches’ feast,
brought in several hundreds of pounds.
The trial took place at Lancaster Assizes and seventeen
of the accused were incontinently found guilty. But the
judge, completely dissatisfied with so fantastic a story,
obtained a reprieve. Four of the prisoners were sent up to
London, where they were examined by the Court physicians.
King Charles. himself also questioned one of these poor
wretches and, discerning that the whole history was a fraud,
forthwith pardoned all who had been involved. Meantime
294 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
Dr. John Bridgeman, the Bishop of Chester, had also been
holding a special inquiry into the case. Young Robinson
was lodged separately, being allowed to hold no communi-
cation with his relatives, and when closely interrogated he
gave way and confessed that the scare from beginning to
end had been manceuvred by his father, who carefully coached
him in his lies. In spite of this fiasco the talk did not die
down immediately, and there were many who continued to
maintain that Mother Dickenson was indeed a witch, however
false the evidence on this occasion might be. It must be
remembered, moreover, that twenty-two years before, in
the very same district, a coven of thirteen witches, of whom
the chief was Elizabeth Demdike, had been brought to
justice, “‘ at the Assizes and Generall Gaole-Delivery, holden
at Lancaster, before Sir Edward Bromley and Sir James
Eltham.” Old Demdike herself—she was blind and over
eighty years of age—died in prison, but ten of the accused
were executed, and the trial, which lasted two days, occa-
sioned a tremendous stir.
It seems not at all improbable that Heywood had written
a topical play in 1612 dealing with this first sensational
prosecution, and that when practically the same events
repeated themselves in the same place less than a quarter
of a century after he and the ever-ready Brome fashioned
anew the old scenes. In the character of the honourable
country-gentleman Master Generous, whose wife is discovered
to be guilty of Witchcraft, there is something truly noble,
and his tender forgiveness of her crime when she repents is
touched with the loving pathos that informs 4 Woman Kuilde
with Kindnesse, whilst his agony at her subsequent relapse
is very real, although Heywood has wisely refrained from
any attempt to show a broken heart save by a few quite
simple but poignant words. The play as a whole is a faithful
picture of country life, homely enough, yet not without a
certain winsome beauty. The comic episodes are sufficiently
broad in their humour; we have a household turned topsy-
turvy by enchantment, a wedding-breakfast bewitched: the
kitchen invaded by snakes, bats, frogs, beetles, and hornets,
whilst to cap all the unfortunate bridegroom is rendered
impotent. In Act II we have the incident of a Boy with a
switch (young Edmund Robinson) and the two greyhounds.
WITCH IN DRAMATIC LITERATURE 295
Gammer Dickison carries him off against his will “‘ to a brave
feast,’’ where we see the witches pulling ropes for food :
Pul for the poultry, foule and fish,
For emptie shall not be a dish.
In Act V the Boy tells Doughty the story of his encounter
with the Devil: ‘‘ He came to thee like a boy, thou sayest,
about thine owne bisnesse ?”’ they ask him, and the whole
scene meticulously follows the detailed evidence given before
the judge at Lancaster. Of the witches, Goody Dickison,
Mal Spencer, Mother Hargrave, Granny Johnson, Meg, Mawd,
are actual individuals who were accused by Robinson; Mrs.
Generous alone is the poet’s fiction. When Robin, the blunt
serving-man, refuses to saddle the grey gelding she shakes
a bridle over his head and using him as a horse makes him
carry her to the satanical assembly. There is a mill, which
is haunted by spirits in the shape of cats, and here a soldier
undertakes to watch. For two nights he is undisturbed, but
on the third “‘ Enter Mrs. Generous, Mal, all the Witches and
their Spirits (at severall dores).” ‘* The Spirits come about him
with a dreadfull noise,’ but he beats them thence with his
sword, lopping off a tabby’s paw in the hurly-burly. In the
morning a hand is found, white and shapely, with jewels on
the fingers. These Generous recognizes as being his wife’s
rings, and Mrs. Generous, who is in bed ill, is found to have
one hand cut off at the wrist. This seals her fate. All the
witches are dragged in and in spite of their charms and
bug-words are identified by several witnesses including the
boy who “saw them all in the barne together, and many
more, at their feast and witchery.”
The play was evidently produced just after the Lancaster
Assizes, whilst four of the accused were in the Fleet prison,
London, for further examination, and the King’s pardon had
not as yet been pronounced. This is evident from the
Epilogue, which commences :
Now while the witches must expect their due,
By lawfull justice, we appeale to you
For favourable censure ; what their crime
May bring upon ’em ripens yet of time
Has not reveal’d. Perhaps great mercy may,
After just condemnation, give them day
Of longer life.
296 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
It will be convenient to consider in this connexion a drama
largely founded upon Heywood and Brome, and produced
nearly half a century later at the Duke’s House, Dorset
Garden, Shadwell’s The Lancashire Witches and Teague o
Divelly, the Irish Priest, which was first seen in the autumn
of 1681 (probably in September). The idea of using magic in
a play was obviously suggested to Shadwell by his idolized
Ben Jonson’s Masque of Queens, performed at Whitehall,
2 February, 1609. In close imitation of his model Shadwell
has further appended copious notes to Acts one, two, three,
and five, giving his references for the details of his enchant-
ments. In the Preface (4to, 1682) he naively confesses :
‘* For the magical part I had no hopes of equalling Shakespear
in fancy, who created his witchcraft for the most part out
of his own imagination (in which faculty no man ever
excell’d him), and therefore I resolved to take mine from
authority. And to that end there is not one action in the
Play, nay, scarce a word concerning it, but is borrowed from
some antient, or modern witchmonger. Which you will find
in the notes, wherein I have presented you a great part of
the doctrine of witchcraft, believe it who will.’? And he has
indeed copious citations from Vergil, Horace, Ovid, Pro-
pertius, Juvenal, Tibullus, Seneca, Tacitus, Lucan, Petronius,
Pliny, Apuleius, Aristotle, Theocritus, Lucian, Theophrastus ;
S. Augustine, S. Thomas Aquinas; Baptista Porta; Ben
Jonson (The Sad Shepherd); from the Malleus Maleficarum of
James Sprenger, O.P., and Henry Institor (Heinrich Kramer),
written circa 1485-89, from Jean Bodin’s (1520-96) La
Demonomanie des Sorciers, 1580; the Daemonolatria, 1595,
of Nicolas Remy; Disquisitionum Magicarum libri six of
Martin Delrio, 8.J. (1551-1608) ; Historia Rerum Scoticarum,
Paris, 1527, of Hector Boece (1465-1536); Formicarius,
5 vols., Douai, 1602, of John Nider, O.P. (1880-1488) ; De
Prestigiis Demonum, 1563, by the celebrated John Weyer,
physician to the Duke of Cleves; De Gentibus Septentriona-
libus,1* Rome, 1555, by Olaus Magnus, the famous Archbishop
of Upsala; Discoverie of Witchcraft, 1584, by Reginald
Scot; Daemonomagia, by Philip Ludwig Elich, 1607; De
Strigimagis, by Sylvester Mazzolini, O.P. (1460-1523), Master
of the Sacred Palace and champion of the Holy See against
the heresiarch Luther; Compendium Maleficarum (Milan,
WITCH IN DRAMATIC LITERATURE 297
1608), by Francesco Maria Guazzo of the Congregation of
S. Ambrose; Disputatio de Magis (Frankfort, 1584), by
Johan Georg Godelmann; Tractatus de Strigtis et Lamiis
of Bartolommeo Spina, O.P.; the Decretum (about 1020) of
Burchard, Bishop of Worms ; the De Sortilegiis (Lyons, 1533)
of Paolo Grilland; the De Occulta Philosophia (Antwerp,
1531) of Cornelius Agrippa; the Apologie pour tous les Grands
Hommes qui ont este faussement supconnez de Magie (1625) of
Gabriel Naudé, librarian to Cardinal Mazarin; De Subtilitate
(libri XXI, Nuremberg, 1550) of Girolamo Cardano, the
famous physician and astrologer; De magna et occulta
Philosophia of Paracelsus; IIII Livres des Spectres (Angers,
1586) by Pierre le Loyer, Sieur de Brosse, of which Shadwell
used the English version (1605) A treatise of Specters ...
translated by Z. Jones.
It will be seen that no less than forty-one authors, authori-
ties on magic, are quoted by Shadwell in these notes, whilst
not infrequently the same author is cited again and again,
and extracts of some length, not merely general references,
are given.
But for all this parade of learning, perchance because of
all this parade of learning, Shadwell’s witch scenes are
intolerably clumsy, they are gross without being terrible.
Shadwell was a clever dramatist, he was able to draw a
character, especially a crank, with quite remarkable vigour,
and his scenes are a triumph of photographic realism. True,
he could not discriminate and select; he threw his world
en masse higgledy piggledy on to the stage, and as even in
the reign of the Merry Monarch there were a few tedious folk
about, so now and again—but not very often—one chances
upon heavy passages in Shadwell’s robust comedies. On the
other hand The Sullen Lovers, Epsom Wells, The Virtuoso,
Bury Fair, The Squire of Alsatia, The Volunteers, in fact all
his native plays, are full of bustle and fun, albeit a trifle
riotous and rude as the custom was. Dryden, who very well
knew what he was about, for purposes of his own cleverly
dubbed Shadwell dull. And dull he has been dubbed ever
since by those who have not read him. But Shadwell had
not a spark of poetry in his whole fat composition. And so
his witches become farcical, yet farcical in a grimy unpleasant
way, for we are spared none of the loathsome details of the
298 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
Sabbat, and should anyone object, why, there is the authority
of Remy or Guazzo, the precise passage from Prierias or
Burchard to support the author. Indeed we feel that these
witches are very real in spite of their materialism. They
present a clear picture of one side of the diabolic cult, how-
ever crude and crass.
Even so, these incantation scenes are not, I venture to
think, the worst thing in the play. The obscene caricature
of the Catholic priest, Teague o Divelly, is frankly disgusting
beyond words. He is represented as ignorant, idle, lecherous,
a liar, a coward, a buffoon, too simiously cunning to be a
fool, too basely mean to be a villain. It is a filthy piece of
work, malignant and harmful prepense.'*
But Shadwell showed scant respect for the Protestants
too, since Smerk, Sir Edward Hartfort’s chaplain, is described
as ‘‘ foolish, knavish, popish, arrogant, insolent ; yet for his
interest, slavish.”
It is hardly a matter for surprise that after the play had been
in the actors’ hands about a fortnight complaints from such
high quarters were lodged with Charles Killigrew, the Master
of the Revels, that he promptly sent for the script, which at
first he seems to have passed carelessly enough, and would
only allow the rehearsals to proceed on condition that a
quantity of scurrilous matter was expunged. Even so the
dialogue is sufficiently offensive and profane. There was some-
thing like a riot in the theatre at the first performance, and the
play was as heartily hissed as it deserved. Yet it managed
to make a stand: those were the days of the Third Ex-
clusion Bill and rank disloyalty, but the tide was on the turn,
a rebel Parliament had been dissolved on the 28th March,
on the 31st of August Stephen College, a perjured fanatic
doubly dyed in treason and every conceivable rascality, had
met his just reward on the gallows, whilst the atrocious
Shaftesbury himself was to be smartly laid by the heels in
the November following. That part of the dialogue which
was not allowed to be spoken on the stage Shadwell has
printed in italic letter,!> and so we plainly see that the censor
was amply justified in his demands. The political satire is
of the muddiest; the railing against the Church is lewd
and rancorous.
Such success as The Lancashire Witches had in the theatre—
WITCH IN DRAMATIC LITERATURE 299
and it was not infrequently revived—was wholly due to the
mechanist and the scenic effects, the “flyings’’ of the
witches, and the music, this last so prominent a feature that
Downes does not hesitate to call it “‘ a kind of Opera.”
In Shadwell’s Sabbat scenes the Devil himself appears,
once in the form of a Buck Goat and once in human shape,
whilst his satellites adore him with disgusting ceremonies.
The witches are Mother Demdike, Mother Dickenson, Mother
Hargrave, Mal Spencer, Madge, and others unnamed.
Elizabeth Demdike and Jennet Hargreaves belonged to
the first Lancashire witch-trials, the prosecutions of 1612 ;
Frances Dickenson and Mal Spencer were involved in the
Robinson disclosures of 1633; so it is obvious that Shadwell
has intermingled the two incidents. In his play we have a
coursing scene where the hare suddenly changes to Mother
Demdike; the witches raise a storm and carouse in Sir
Edward’s cellar something after the fashion of Madge Gray,
Goody Price, and Goody Jones in The Ingoldsby Legends ;
Mal Spencer bridles Clod, a country yokel, and rides him to
a witches’ festival, where Madge is admitted to the infernal
sisterhood ; the witches in the guise of cats beset.a number
of persons with horrible scratchings and miauling, Tom
Shacklehead strikes off a grimalkin’s paw and Mother
Hargreave’s hand is found to be missing: ‘“‘ the cutting off
the hand is an old story,” says Shadwell in his notes. It
will be seen that the later dramatist took many of his
incidents from Heywood and Brome, although it is only fair
to add that he has also largely drawn from original sources.
Shortly after the Restoration was published a play dealing
with one of the most famous of English sibyls, The Life of
Mother Shipton. ‘‘ A New Comedy. As it was Acted Nine-
teen dayes together with great Applause. . . . Written by
T[homas]T[homson].’” Among the Dramatis Persone appear
Pluto, the King of Hell, with Proserpina, his Queen ;
Radamon, A chief Spirit; Four other Devils. The scene is
‘“The City of York, or Naseborough Grove in Yorkshire.”’
It is a rough piece of work, largely patched together from
Middleton’s A Chaste Maid in Cheapside and Massinger’s
The City Madam, whilst the episodes in which Mother Shipton
is concerned would seem to be founded on one of the many
old chap-books that relate her marvellous adventures and
300 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
prophetic skill. Agatha Shipton (her name is usually given
as Ursula) is complaining of her hard lot when she encounters
Radamon, a demon who holds high rank in the court of Dis.
He arranges to meet her later, and returns to his own place
to boast of his success. He reappears to her dressed as a
wealthy nobleman; he marries her; and for a while she
is seen in great affluence and state. At the commencement
of Act III she finds herself in her poor cottage again. As
she laments Radamon enters, he informs her who he really
is, and bestows upon her magical powers. Her fame spreads
far and wide, and as popular story tells, the abbot of Beverley
in disguise visits her to make trial of her art. She at once
recognizes him, and foretells to his great chagrin the sup-
pression of the monasteries with other events. In the end
Mother Shipton outwits and discomforts the devils who
attempt to seize her, she is vouchsafed a heavenly vision,
and turns to penitence and prayer. The whole thing is a
crude enough commixture, of more curiosity than value.
There are some well-written episodes in Nevil Payne’s
powerful tragedy The Fatal Jealousie,1® produced at Dorset
Garden early in August, 1672. Among the characters we
have Witch, Aunt of Jasper, the villain of the piece. Jasper,
who is servant to Antonio, applies to his aunt to help him
in his malignant schemes. At first he believes she is a
genuine sorceress, but she disabuses him and frankly
acknowledges
I can raise no Devils,
Yet I Confederate with Rogues and Taylors,
Things that can shape themselves like Elves,
And Goblins
Her imps Ranter and Swash, Dive, Fop, Snap, Gilt, and Pick-
lock, are slim lads in masquing habits, trained to trickery.
None the less they manage an incantation scene to deceive
Antonio and persuade him that his wife, Caelia, is false. An
‘“¢ Antick Dance of Devils”? which follows is interrupted by the
forcible entry of the Watch. The Aunt shows Jasper a secret
hiding-place, whereupon he murders her and conceals the body
in the hole. He pretends that she was in truth a witch and
has vanished by magic. The Captain of the Watch, however,
had detected her charlatanry long before, and presently a
demon’s vizor and a domino are found on the premises.
WITCH IN DRAMATIC LITERATURE 301
Later a little boy, who is caught in his devil’s attire, confesses
the impostures, and trembling adds that in one of their
secret chambers they have discovered their mistress’s corpse
stabbed to death. Finally Jasper is unmasked, and only
escapes condign punishment by his dagger. The character
of the Witch is not unlike that of Heywood’s Wise Woman
of Hogsdon, although in The Fatal Jealousie the events take
a tragic and bloody turn. Smith acted Antonio; Mrs.
Shadwell, Caelia; Mrs. Norris, the Witch; and Sandford was
famous in the role of Jasper.
There are incantation scenes in Dryden’s tragedies, but
these hardly come within our survey, as the magicians are
treated romantically, one might even say decoratively, and
certainly here no touch of realism is sought or intended. We
have the famous episode in The Indian-Queen (produced at
the Theatre Royal in January, 1663-4), when Zempoalla
seeks Ismeron the prophet who raises the God of Dreams to
prophesy her destiny ;!7 in the fourth act of Tyrannick Love
(Theatre Royal, June, 1669), the scene is an Indian cave,
where at the instigation of Placidius the magician Nigrinus
raises a vision of the sleeping S. Catharine, various astral
spirits appear only to fly before the descent of Amariel, the
Saint’s Guardian-Angel; in Cdipus, by Dryden and Lee
(Dorset Garden, December, 1678), Teresias plays a consider-
able part, and Act III is mainly concerned with a necromantic
spell that raises the ghost of Laius in the depths of a hallowed
grove. In The Duke of Guise, moreover (Theatre Royal,
December, 1682), there is something of real horror in the
figures of Malicorne and his familiar Melanax, and the scene?®
when the miserable wizard, whose bond is forfeit, is carried
shrieking to endless bale, cannot be read without a shudder
even after the last moments of Marlowe’s Faustus. Act IV
of Lee’s Sophonisba (Theatre Royal, April, 1675) commences
with the temple of Bellona, whose priestesses are shown at
their dread rites. Cumana is inspired by the divinity, she
raves in fury of obsession, there is a dance of spirits, and
various visions are evoked.
In Otway’s curious rehandling of Romeo and Juliet which
he Latinized as The History and Fall of Caius Marius
produced at Dorset Garden in the autumn of 1679, the Syrian
witch Martha only appears for a moment to prophesy good
302 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
fortune to Marius and to introduce a dance of spirits by the ©
waving of her wand.
Charles Davenant’s operatic Circe (Dorset Garden, March,
1676-7) is an amazing distortion of mythological story.
There are songs without number, a dance of magicians,
storms, dreams, an apparition of Pluto in a Chariot drawn
by Black Horses, but all these are very much of the stage,
stagey, born of candle-light and violins, hardly to be endured
in cold print. Ragusa, the Sorceress in Tate’s Brutus of Alba :
or the Enchanted Lovers (Dorset Garden, May, 1678) is a far
more formidable figure. Tate has managed his magic not
without skill, and the conclusion of Act III, an incantation,
was deservedly praised by Lamb. Curiously enough the plot
of Brutus of Alba is the story of Dido and Aeneas, Vergil’s
names being altered ‘‘ rather than be guilty of a breach of
Modesty,” Tate says. But Tate supplied Henry Purcell with
the libretto for his opera Dido and Aeneas, wherein also
witches appear. It must not be forgotten that Macbeth was
immensely popular throughout the whole of the Restoration
period, when, as has been noted above, the witch scenes were
elaborated and presented with every resource of scenery,
mechanism, dance, song, and meretricious ornament. Revival
followed revival, each more decorative than the last, and the
theatre was unceasingly thronged. Duffett undertook to
burlesque this fashion, which he did in an extraordinary
Epilogue to his skit The Empress of Morocco, produced at
the Theatre Royal in the spring of 1674, but for all his
japeries Macbeth never waned in public favour.
Spirits in abundance appear in the Earl of Orrery’s
unpublished tragedy Zoroastres,'® the principal character
being described as ‘‘ King of Persia, the first Magician.”
He is attended by ‘‘ several spirits in black with ghastly
vizards,” and at the end furies and demons arise shaking
dark torches at the monarch whom they pull down to hell,
the sky raining fire upon them. It was almost certainly never
acted, and is the wildest type of transpontine melodrama.
Edward Ravenscroft’s ‘‘ recantation play ’? Dame Dobson,
or, The Cunning Woman (produced at Dorset Garden in the
early autumn of 1688) is an English version of La Devineresse ;
ou les faux Enchantements (sometimes known as Madame
Jobin), a capital comedy by Thomas Corneille and Jean
WITCH IN DRAMATIC LITERATURE 308
Donneau de Vise. This French original had been produced
in 1679, and both the stage-craft and the adroit way in which
the various tricks and conjurations are managed must be
allowed to be consummately clever. An English comedy
on a similar theme is The Wise Woman of Hogsdon, the
intricacies of which are a triumph of technique. La Devin-
eresse was published in 1680 with a frontispiece picturing
a grimalkin, a hand of glory, noxious weeds, two blazing
torches and other objects beloved of necromancy. There
are, moreover, eight folding plates which embellish the little
book, and these have no small interest as they depict scenes
in the comedy. But Dame Dobson cannot be accounted a
play of witchcraft; it is no more than an amusing study of
dextrous charlatanry. The protagonist herself?® is of that
immortal sisterhood graced by Heywood’s sibyl, of whom
it is said ‘‘ She is a cunning woman, neither hath she her
name for nothing, who out of her ignorance can fool so many
that think themselves wise.”
Mrs. Behn, in her amusing comedy The Luckey Chance ;
or, An Alderman’s Bargain, produced at Drury Lane in the
. late winter of 1686, 4to, 1687, has made some play with
pretended magic in the capital scenes where Gayman
(Betterton) is secretly brought by the prentice Bredwel
(Bowman), disguised as a devil, to the house of Lady Fulbank
(Mrs. Barry). Here he is received by Pert, the maid, who
is dressed as an old witch, and conducted to his inamorata’s
embraces. But the whole episode is somewhat farcically
treated, and it is, of course, an elaborate masquerade for
the sake of an intrigue.”#
Shadwell in 1681 took Witchcraft seriously, and notwith-
standing the half-hearted disclaimer in his address ‘‘ To the
Reader ”’ that prefaces The Lancashire Witches I think he
was sensible enough to recognize the truth which lies at the
core of the matter in spite of the grotesqueness of the
formule and spells doting hags and warlocks are wont to
employ. Witchcraft was still a capital offence when some
fifteen years later Congreve lightly laughed it out of court.
Foresight (Love for Love), ‘‘ an illiterate old Fellow, peevish
and positive, superstitious, and pretending to understand
Astrology, Palmistry, Phisiognomy, Omens, Dreams, etc.,’’ is
in close confabulation with his young daughter’s Nurse, when
304 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
Angelica his niece trips in to ask the loan of his coach, her
own being out of order. He says no, and presses her to
remain at home, muttering to himself some old doggerel
which bodes no good to the house if all the womenfolk are
gadding abroad. The lady fleers him, twits him with jealousy
of his young wife: ‘“‘ Uncle, I’m afraid you are not Lord of
the Ascendant, ha! ha! hal’ He is obstinate in his
refusal; and she retorts: ‘‘I can make Oath of your
unlawful Midnight Practices ; you and the Old Nurse there.
. . . Lsaw you together, through the Key-hole of the Closet,
one Night, like Saul and the Witch of Endor, turning the
Sieve and Sheers, and pricking your Thumbs to write poor
innocent Servants’ Names in Blood about a little Nutmeg-
Grater, which she had forgot in the Caudle-Cup.”’ “ Hussy,
Cockatrice,”’ storms the old fellow beside himself with rage.
Angelica mocks him even more bitterly, accuses him and the
Nurse of nourishing a familiar, ‘‘ a young Devil in the shape
of a Tabby-Cat,” and with a few last thrusts she departs,
trilling with merriment, in a sedan-chair.
To return for a brief space to an earlier generation when
it would have hardly been possible, or at least highly in-
advisable, to treat Witchcraft in this blithesome mood, of
two plays that would almost certainly have been of great
interest in this connexion we have only the names, The Witch
of Islington, acted in 1597, and The Witch Traveller, licensed
in 1628.
In addition to The Masque of Queens, which as has already
been noted, served to some extent for a model to Shadwell
when inditing his encyclopedic notes on magic, Ben Jonson
in that sweet pastoral The Sad Shepherd introduces a Scotch
witch, Maudlin. The character is drawn with vigorous
strokes ; realism mingles with romance.
During the quarrel scene which opens The Alchemist Face
threatens Subtle :
I’ll bring thee, rogue, within
The statute of sorcerie, tricesimo tertvo
Of Harry the Eight.
Dapper the gull asks Subtle for a familiar, as Face ex-
plains (I, 2):
Why, he do’s aske one but for cups, and horses,
A rifling flye: none o’ your great familiars.
WITCH IN DRAMATIC LITERATURE 305
And later in order to trick him thoroughly Dol Common
appears as the ‘* Queene of Faerie.’”’ The Queen of Elphin
or Elfhame, who is particularly mentioned in the Scotch
witch-trials, seems to be identical with the French Reine du
Sabbat. In 1670 Jean Weir confessed: ‘‘ That when she
keeped a school at Dalkeith, and teached childering, ane tall
woman came to the declarant’s hous when the childering
were there ; and that she had, as appeared to her, ane chyld
upon her back, and one or two at her foot; and that the
said woman disyred that the declarant should imploy her to
spick for her to the Queen of Farie, and strik and battle in
her behalf with the said Queen, (which was her own words).’’??
Beaumont and Fletcher afford us but few instances of
witchcraft in the many dramas that conveniently go under
their names. We have, it is true, a she-devil, Lucifera, in
The Prophetess, but the incident is little better than clown-
ing. Delphia herself is a severely classical pythoness far
removed from the Sawyers, Demdikes, and Dickensons
Sulpitia, in The Custom of the County dons a conjurer’s robe
and at Hippolita’s bidding blasts Zenocia almost to death
by her spells, but yet she is more bawd than witch. Peter
Vecchio in The Chances, ‘‘a reputed wizard,” is as sharp
and cozening a practitioner as Forobosco, the mountebank,
a petty pilferer, who is exposed and sent to the galleys at
the end of The Fair Maid of the Inn; or Shirley’s Doctor
Sharkino?? whom silly serving-men consult about the loss
of silver spoons and napkins; or Tomkis’s Albumazar; nay,
Jonson’s Subtle himself.?4
In Marston’s Sophonisba (4to, 1606) appears Erictho,
borrowed from Lucan. The Friar in Chapman’s Bassy
d Ambois (4to, 1607) puts on a magician’s habit, and after a
sonorous Latin invocation raises the spirits Behemoth and
Cartophylax in the presence of Bussy and Tamyra,
A far more interesting drama than these is Shirley’s
S. Patrick for Ireland, acted in Dublin, 1639-40, which has
as its theme the conversion of Ireland by S. Patrick and the
opposition of the Druids under their leader Archimagus.
The character of S. Patrick moves throughout with a quiet
spiritual dignity that has true beauty, and the magicians in
their baffled potency for evil are only less effective. This
drama is a work of stirling merit, to which I would unhesita-
X
306 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
tingly assign a very high place in Shirley’s theatre. We are
shown the various attempts upon S. Patrick’s life: poison
is administered in a cup of wine, the Saint drinks and
remains unharmed; Milcho, a great officer, whose servant
S. Patrick once was, locks him and his friends in a house and
fires it. The Christians pass out unscathed through the
flames which devour the incendiary. In the last scene whilst
S. Patrick sleeps Archimagus summons a vast number of
hideous serpents to devour him, but the Apostle of Ireland
wakes, and expels for ever all venomous reptiles from his
isle, whereon the earth gapes and swallows the warlock alive.
Particularly impressive is the arrival of 5. Patrick, when as
the King and his two sons, his druids and nobles, are gathered
in anxious consultation at the gates of their temple, they
see passing in solemn procession through the woods a fair
company with gleaming crosses, silken banners, bright tapers
and incense, what time the sweet music of a hymn strikes
upon the ear:
_ Post maris seeui fremitus Jernee
(Nauitas coelo tremulas beante)
Uidimus gratum iubar,enatantes
Littus inaurans.
(Now that we have crossed the fierce waves of ocean to
Ireland’s coast, and Heaven has blessed its poor fearful
wanderers, wending our way along with joy do we see a
sunbeam of light gilding these shores.)
As Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus has already been treated in this
connexion it may not be altogether impertinent very briefly
to consider some three or four other Elizabethan plays in
which the Devil appears among the Dramatis Persone, even
if he act no very prominent part. These for the most part
fluctuate between the semi-serious and merest buffoonery.
Thus the prologue of The Merry Devil of Edmonton (4to,
1608), in which the enchanter Peter Fabell tricks the demon
who has come to demand the fulfilment of his contract, is
at the opening managed with due decorum, but it soon
adopts a lighter, and even trivial, vein. William Rowley’s
The Birth of Merlin, or The Childe hath found his Father (not
printed until 1662) is a curious medley of farce and romance,
informed with a certain awkward vigour and not wholly
destitute of poetry. Dekker’s If it. be not good, the Divel 1s
WITCH IN DRAMATIC LITERATURE 307
in ut (4to, 1612), which may be traced to the old prose History
of Friar Rush, depicts the exploits of three lesser fiends who
are dispatched to spread their master’s kingdom in Naples.
It is an unequal play, the satire of which falls very flat,
since it is obvious that the poet was not sincere in his
extravagant theme.?®
Ben Jonson’s The Devil is an Ass, acted in 1616, is wholly
comic. Pug, “‘the less devil,’? who visits the earth, and
engages himself as servant to a Norfolk squire, Fabian
Fitzdottrel, is hopelessly outwitted on every occasion by the
cunning of mere mortals. Eventually he finds himself lodged
in Newgate, and in imminent danger of the gallows were he
not rescued by the Vice, Iniquity, by whom he is carried
off rejoicing to the nether regions. His fate may be compared
with that of Roderigo in Wilson’s excellent comedy Belphegor :
or, The Marriage of the Devil (produced at Dorset Garden in
the summer of 1690), who with his two attendant devils
flies back to his native hell to escape the woes of earth.
In The Devil’s Charter, however, by Barnaby Barnes (1607),
we have what is undoubtedly a perfectly serious tragedy,
which if not exactly modelled upon, at least owes many hints
to Marlowe’s Faustus. It is flamboyant melodrama and
wildly unhistorical throughout, a very tophet of infernal
horror. The chief character is a loathsome caricature of
Pope Alexander VI,?° and, as we might expect, all the lies
and libels of Renaissance satirists and Protestant pam-
phleteers are heaped together to portray an impossible
monster of lust and crime. The filthiest seandals of Burchard,
Sanudo, Giustiniani, Filippo Nerli, Guicciardini, Paolo Giovio,
Sannazzaro and the Neapolitans, have been employed with
one might almost say a scrupulous conscientiousness. The
black art, in particular, occupies a very prominent place in
these lurid scenes. Alexander has signed a bond with a
demon Astaroth, and it is to this contract that all his success
is ascribed. In Act IV there is a long incantation when the
Pope puts on his magical robes, takes his rod and pentacle,
and standing within the circle he has traced conjures in
strange terms, commencing a Latin exorcism which tails off
into mere gibberish. Various devils appear, and he is shown
a vision of Gandia’s murder by Cesar,?? with other atrocities.
At the climax of the piece we have the banquet with Cardinal
308 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
Adrian of Corneto, and whilst the guests talk “‘ The Devill
commeth and changeth the Popes bottles.” The Borgias
are poisoned, and in a far too protracted ‘‘ Scena Ultima ”
Alexander discourses and disputes frantically with the demons
who appear to mock and torment him. There is the old
device of an ambiguous contract; presently a “* Devil like
a Poast’’ enters winding a horn to summon the unhappy
wretch, who raves and shrieks out meaningless ejaculations
as he is dragged away amid thunder and lightning. This
sort of thing pandered to the most brutalized appetites of
the groundlings, and The Devil’s Charter may be summed up
as a disgusting burlesque not without its quota of vile stuff
that is so repulsive as to be physically sickening.
Upon a careful consideration of those seventeenth-century
plays which have Witchcraft as their main theme, and leaving
on one side, for our purpose, the essentially romantic treat-
ment of the subject, however realistic some details of the
picture may be, it is, I think, beyond dispute that The Watch
of Edmonton in the figure of Mother Sawyer offers us the
best contemporary illustration of the Elizabethan witch.
The drama itself is one of no ordinary merit and power,
whilst the understanding and restraint which set the play
apart from its fellows also raises it to the level of genuine
tragedy. It should be noticed that we see a witch, so to
speak, in the process of making. Mother Sawyer is in truth
the victim of the prejudices of the village hinds and ignorant
yokels. When she first appears it is merely as a poor old
crone driven to desperation by her brutal neighbours; the
farmers declare she is a witch, and at length persecution
makes her one. She is malignant and evil enough once the
compact with the demon has been confirmed; she longs
from the first to be revenged upon her enemies and mutters
to herself ‘‘ by what art May the thing called Familiar be
purchased ?’’ But, in one sense, she is urged and hounded
to her destiny, and the authors, although never doubting her
compact with the powers of darkness, her vile and poisonous
life, show a detached but very real sympathy for her. It is
this touch of humanity, the pathos and pity of the poor old
hag, repulsive, wicked, and baleful as she may be, which
must place The Witch of Edmonton in my opinion among the
greatest and most moving of all Elizabethan plays.
WITCH IN DRAMATIC LITERATURE 309
It is no pleasant task to turn now to the theatre of the
eighteenth century in this connexion. The witch became
degraded; she was comic, burlesqued, buffooned ; a mere
property for a Christmas pantomime: Harlequin Mother
Bunch, Mother Goose, Harlequin Dame Trot, Charles Dibdin’s
The Lancashire Witches, or The Distresses of Harlequin?®
whose tinsel, music, and mummery drew all the macaronis
and cyprians in London to the Circus during the winter
of 1782-3.
Some subtle premonition of the great success of Harrison
Ainsworth’s powerful story The Lancashire Witches—for this
and the macabre Rookwood are probably the best of the work
of a talented writer now unduly depreciated and decried—
seems to have suggested to the prolific Edward Fitzball his
‘Legendary Drama in Three Acts,” The Lancashire Witches,
A Romance of Pendle Forest, produced at the Adelphi Theatre,
3 January, 1848. It was quick work, for it was only a month
before, 8 December, 1847, that Ainsworth, writing to his
friend Crossley of Manchester, states that he has accepted |
the liberal offer of the Sunday Times—£1000 and the copy-
right to revert to the author on the completion of the work—
that his new romance The Lancashire Witches should make
its appearance as a serial in the paper. He had already
sketched out the plan, and he must have given Fitzball an
idea of this, or at least have allowed the dramatist the use
of some few rough notes, for although the play and the novel
have little, one might say nothing essential, in common,
the chief character in the theatre, Bess of the Woods, * 140
years old, formerly Abbess of 5. Magdalen’s, doomed for her
crimes to an unearthly age,” is none other than the anchoress
Isolde de Heton.2® The fourth scene of the second act
presents the ruins of Whalley Abbey by moonlight. During
an incantation the picture gradually changes; the broken
arches form themselves into perfect masonry; the ivy
disappears from the windows to show the ruby and gold of
coloured glass; the decaying altar glitters with piled plate
and the gleam of myriad tapers. A choir of nuns rises from
the grave to dance with spectral gallants. Among the
votaries are Nutter, Demdike, and Chattox “‘ Three Weird
Sisters, doomed for their frailties to become Witches.” But
they utter no word, and have no part save this in the action,
310 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
This scene must have proved extraordinarily effective upon
the stage. It owes much to the haunted convent in Meyer-
beer’s Robert le Diable, produced at the Académie Royale in
November, 18381, and given in a piratical form both at Drury
Lane and Covent Garden within a few weeks. Nor is it
comparable to its original. In Fitzball’s melodrama O. Smith
appeared as Gipsy Dallan, a new character ; and Miss Faucit
(Mrs. Bland) as Bess of the Woods. The play, for what it is,
a luridly theatrical and Surrey-side sensation, has merit ;
but to speak of it in the same breath as Middleton or even
as Barnes would be absurd.
Shelley’s genius has with wondrous beauty translated for
us scenes from Calderon’s El Magico Prodigioso, one of the
loveliest songs of the Spanish nightingale. On another plane,
admittedly, but yet, I think, far from lacking a simple
comeliness of its own and surely not without most poignant
pathos, is Longfellow’s New England Tragedy Giles Corey
of the Salem Farms.®*° The honest sincerity of Cotton Mather,
the bluff irascible heartiness of Corey himself, the inopportune
scepticism of his wife—which to many would seem sound
common sense—the hysteria of Mary Walcot, the villainy
of John Gloyd, all these are sketched with extraordinary
power, a few quiet telling touches which make each character,
individual, alert, alive.
In the French theatre we have an early fourteenth-century
Miracle de Nostre Dame de Robert le Dyable, and in 1505 was
acted Le mystére du Chevalier qui donna sa femme au Diable,
& dix personnages. As one might well expect during the
long classical period of the drama Witchcraft could have
found no place in the scenes of the French dramatists. It
would have been altogether too wild, too monstrous a fantasy.
And so it is not until the 24 floréal, An XIII (11 June, 1805)
that a play which interweaves sorcery as its theme is seen
at the Théatre francais, when Les Templiers of Raynouard
was given there. A few years later Le Vampire, a thrilling
melodrama by Charles Nodier and Carmouche, produced on
13 August, 1820, was to draw all idle Paris to the Porte-
Saint-Martin. In 1821 two facile writers quick to gauge the
public appetite, Frédéric Dupetit-Méré and Victor Ducagne,
found some favour with La Sorciére, ou VOrphelin écossais.
Alexandre Dumas, and one of his many ghosts Auguste
WITCH IN DRAMATIC LITERATURE 311
Maquet, collaborated (if one may use the term) in a grandiose
five-act drama Urbain Grandier, 1850. La Sorciére Canidie,
a one-act play by Aurélien Vivie, produced at Bordeaux in
1888 is of little account. La Reine de Esprit (1891) of
Maurice Pottecher is founded to some extent on the Comte
de Gabalis, whilst the same author’s three-act Chacun cherche
son Trésor, ‘histoire des sorciers ”’ (1899) was not a little
helped by the music of Lucien Michelet. There are many
excuses for passing over with a mere mention Les Noces de
Sathan (1892), a ‘‘drama ésoterique,” by Jules Bois, and
Les Basques ou la Sorciére d’Espelette, a lyric drama in three
acts by Loquin and Mégret de Belligny, produced at
Bordeaux in 1892, has an interest which is almost purely
local. Alphonse Tavan’s Les Mases (sorciers), a legendary
drama of five acts of alternating prose and verse seen in 1897
was helped out by every theatrical resource, a ballet, chorus,
mechanical effects, and confident advertisement. Serge
Basset’s Vers le Sabbat ‘‘ évocation de sorcellerie en un acte”’
which appeared in the same year need not be seriously —
considered. Nor does an elaborate episode ‘‘ Le Sabbat et
la Herse Infernale,” wherein Mons. Benglia appeared as
Satan, that was seen in the Folies Bergére revue, Un Soir
de Folie, 1925-6, call for more than the briefest passing
mention.
In more recent days Victor Sardou’s La Sorciére is a
violent, but effective, melodrama. Produced at the Théatre
Sarah-Bernhardt, 15 December, 19038, with De Max as
Cardinal Ximenes and Sarah Bernhardt as the moresque
Zoraya, it obtained a not undeserved success. The locale
of the tragedy is Toledo, anno domini 1506; Act IV, the
Inquisition scene; and Act V, the square before the Cathedral
with the grim pyre ready for the torch, were—owing to the
genius of a great actress—truly harrowing. Of course it is
very flamboyant, very unbalanced, very unhistorical, but
in its gaudy theatrical way—all the old tricks are there—
La Sorciére had an exciting thrill for those who were content
to be unsophisticated awhile.
John Masefield’s adaptation from the Norwegian of Wiers-
Jennsen, The Witch,?1.a drama in four acts, is a very different
thing. Here we have psychology comparable to that of
Dekker and Ford. Nor will the performances of Miss Janet
312 THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT
Achurch as Merete Beyer and Miss Lillah McCarthy as Anne
Pedersdotter easily be forgotten. As a picture of the horror
of Witchcraft in cold Scandinavia, the gloom and depression
of formidable fanaticism engendered by Lutheran dogma
and discipline with the shadow of destiny lowering implacably
over all, this is probably the finest piece of work dealing in
domestic fashion with the warlock and the sorceress that
has been seen on the English stage since the reign of wise
King James three hundred years ago.
NOTES TO CHAPTER VII
1 The Floralia, the most wanton of Roman festivals, commenced on the
fourth day before the Kalends of May, and during these celebrations the
spectators insisted that the mime should play naked, ‘‘ agebantur [Floralia]
a meretricibus ueste exutis omni cum uerborum licentia, motuumque_
obsceenitate,’’ says the old commentator on Martial I, 1. ‘‘ Lasciui Floralia
laeta theatri’’ Ausonius names them, De Feriis Romanis, 25. Lactantius, De
Institutionibus Diuinis, I, 20, writes: ‘‘ Celebrantur ergo illi ludi cum omni
lasciuia, conuenientes memorize meretricis. Nam praeter uerborum licentiam,
quibus obscenitas omnis effunditur; exuuntur etiam uestibus populo
flagitante meretrices ; que tunc mimorum funguntur officio ; et in conspectu
populi usque ad satietatem impudicorum luminum cum pudendis motibus
detinentur.”? Both §. Augustine and Arnobius reprehend the lewdness of
these naked dances. At Sens during the Feast of Fools, when every licence
prevailed, men were led in procession nudi. Warton (History of English
Poetry, by T. Warton, edited by W. C. Hazlitt, 4 vols., 1871), II, 223, states
that in the Mystery Plays ‘‘ Adam and Eve are both exhibited on the stage
naked, and conversing about their nakedness; this very pertinently intro-
duces the next scene, in which they have coverings of fig-leaves.”” In a stage-
direction of the Chester Plays we find: ‘‘ Statim nudisunt. . . . Tune Adam
et Hua cooperiant genitalia sua cum foliis.’” Chambers, The Medieval Stage,
IT, 143, doubts whether the players were actually nude, and suggests a suit
of white leather. Warton, however, is probably right.
2 Phales was an early deity, very similar to Priapus, and closely associated
with the Bacchic mysteries. For the refrain.see The Acharnians, 263-265.
3 See Callot’s series of character-etchings, I Balli di Sfessanio.
4 Not to be confused with the printer Fust, as was at one time frequently
supposed.
5 In Marlowe’s play Faust welcomes ‘‘ German Valdes and Cornelius.”
Who Valdes is has not been satisfactorily explained. The suggestion of
Dr. Havelock Ellis that Paracelsus seems intended is no doubt correct.
8 Translated from the Middle Dutch by Harry Morgan Ayres, with an
Introduction by Adriaan J. Barnouw. The Dutch Library, The Hague:
Martinus Nijhoff. 1924.
? The International Theatre Society gave a private subscription per-
formance of Mary of Nimmegen at Maskelyne’s Theatre on Sunday, 22
February, 1925. But such a play, presenting crowded scenes of burgher
life, the streets, the market-place, to be effective demands a large stage and
costly production.
8 Meroe is the hag “ saga et diuina’”’ in Apuleius, Metamorphoseon, I.
® Macbeth was tinkered at almost from the first. Upon the revival of the
play immediately after the Restoration the witch scenes were given great
theatrical prominence. 7 January, 1667, Pepys declared himself highly
delighted with the “‘ divertissement, though it be a deep tragedy.”’
10 The Witch of Edmonton was revived under my direction for two per-
ormancss at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith, 24 and 26 April, 1921.
‘
WITCH IN DRAMATIC LITERATURE 313
Sybil Thorndike played the Witch, Russell Thorndike, the Familiar ; Ion
Swinley, Frank Thorney; Edith Evans, Ann Ratcliffe; and Frank Cochrane,
Cuddy Banks.
11 4to 1634: Stationers’ Register, 28 October.
12 In a famous Scotch trial for witchcraft, 1661, Jonet Watson of Dalkeith
confessed “‘ that the Deivill apeired vnto her in the liknes of ane prettie boy,
in grein clothes.”
13 Liber III. De Magis et Maleficis Finnorum.
14 Tegue 0’ Divelly was acted by Antony Leigh, the most famous comedian
of his day, and an intimate friend of Shadwell.
15 Curiously enough Halliwell in The Poetry of Witchcraft, a private reprint
of Heywood and Shadwell’s plays, 80 copies only, 1853, has not reproduced
the italic letter but gives all the dialogue in roman to the great detriment
of this edition.
16 Licensed for printing 2 November, 1672, and published quarto with
date 1673.
17 At a later revival Ismeron’s recitative ‘‘ Ye twice ten hundred Deities ”
was set by Purcell.
18 Dryden’s. He wrote the first scene of the first act, the whole of the
fourth act, rather more than one-half of act five, and Lee is responsible for
the rest of the tragedy.
19 For a full analysis and critical examination of Zoroastres see my article
in the Modern Language Review, XII, Jan., 1917.
20 The title-réle Dame Dobson was played by Mrs. Corey, a mistress of
broad comedy, who was much admired for her humour by Samuel Pepys.
21 Mrs. Behn owes a hint to Shirley’s The Lady of Pleasure, licensed by
Sir Henry Herbert, 15 October, 1635 ; 4to. 1637. It must be confessed that
she has managed her scenes with more wit and spirit than the older dramatist,
whose charming verse is perhaps too seriously poetical for the actual situation.
22 George Sinclar, Satan’s I nvisible World Discovered, 1685. Reprint,
Edinburgh, 1871. Supplement, I, p. xii.
23 The Maid’s Revenge, acted 1626, printed 1639.
24 Compare Mopus in Wilson’s The Cheats (acted in 1662); Stargaze in
The City Madam ; Rusee, Norbrett, and their accomplices in Rollo ; Iacchelino
in Ariosto’s Il Negromante ; and a score beside.
25 Sir Adolphus Ward, English Dramatic Literature, 1899, II, 465, says that
Langbaine wrongly supposed the source of this play to be ‘‘ Machiavelli’s
celebrated Novella on the marriage of Belphegor.’ But this is hardly correct.
Langbaine wrote: ‘‘ The beginning of his Play seems to be writ in imitation
of Matchiavel’s Novel of Belphegor: where Pluto summons the Devils to
Councel.”’
26 For a fitting account of Alexander VI see Le Pape Alexandre VI et les
Borgia, Paris, 1870, by Pere Ollivier, 0.P.; also Leonetti Papa Alessandro VI
secondo documenti e carteggi del tempo, 3 vols., Bologna, 1880. Chronicles of
the House of Borgia, by Frederick, Baron Corvo, 1901, may be studied with
profit. Monsignor de Roo’s Material for a History of Pope Alexander VI,
5 vols., Bruges, 1924, is of the greatest value, and completely authoritative.
27 The murderer of the Duke of Gandia is unknown to history, if not to
historians.
28 The songs only are printed, 8vo, 1783.
29 Fosbrooke, British Monachism, says that in the reign of Henry VI one
Isolde de Heton petitioned the King to let her be admitted as an anchoress
in the Abbey of Whalley. But afterwards she left the enclosure and broke
her vows, whereupon the King dissolved the hermitage.
30 The incidents are historically correct. See Cotton Mather’s Wonders
of the Invisible World. Corey refusing to plead was pressed to death.
31 Originally produced 10 October, 1910, at the Royalty, Glasgow: in
London, 31 January, 1911, at the Court. Revived at the Court, 29 October,
1913, when it ran for a month, and was afterwards included in the subsequent
three weeks’ repertory season. |
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Tuts Bibliography does not aim at anything beyond pre-
senting a brief and convenient hand-list of some of the more
important books upon Witchcraft. It does not even purport
to give all those monographs to which reference is made in
the body of this study. A large number of books T have
thought it superfluous to include. Thus I have omitted
general works of reference such as the Encyclopedia
Britannica, Du Cange’s Glossarium ad scriptores medie@ et
infime latinitatis, Dugdale’s Monasticon ; daily companions
such as the Missal, the Breviary, the Bible ; Homer, Vergil,
Horace, Ovid, Petronius, Lucan; Shakespeare, Marlowe,
Ford, Dryden, Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy, and English
classics ; those histories which are on every library shelf,
Gibbon, Lingard, Ranke; and such histories as the Cam-
bridge Modern History.
On the other hand, I have of purpose included various
books which may not seem at first sight to have much
connexion with Witchcraft, although they are, as a matter
of fact, by no means impertinent. In order to appreciate
this vast subject in all its bearings, even the desultory or
amateur investigator should at least be fairly grounded in
theology, philosophy, and psychology. The student must be
a capable theologian.
I have devoted some particular attention to the works
of the demonologists, now almost universally neglected, but
a close study of which is essential to the understanding of
occultism and the appreciation of the grave dangers that
may lurk there.
I am only too conscious of the plentiful lacunz in this
Bibliography. However, to attempt anything like a com-
plete catalogue—if, indeed, it were possible to essay so
illimitable a task—would involve the listing of very many
thousands of books, and would itself require no inconsider-
able a tale of volumes.
315
316 BIBLIOGRAPHY
I need hardly point out that side by side with works of
the highest importance it has been found necessary to
include a few of no great value, which yet have their use to
illustrate some one point or special phase.
GENERAL
CAILLET, ALBERT L. Manuel bibliographique des sciences psychiques ou
occultes, science des Mages, hermétique, astrologie, Kabbale, Franc-
magonnerte, médecine ancienne, mesmérisme, sorcellerie, singularités, etc.
3 vols. Paris, 1913.
GRA2SSE, JOHAN GEORG THEODOR. Bibliotheca magica et pneumatica. Leipzig,
1843. (In spite of obvious defects a very valuable bibliography.)
YveE-Puiessis, R. Bibliographie francaise de la sorcellerie. Paris, 1900. (An
immense and exhaustive work on French books.)
AARON THE GREEK [Simon Blocquel]. La Magie rouge. Paris, 1821.
ABNER, THEODORE. Les apparitions du Diable. Brussels, 1879.
Acontivus. Stratagemata Satance. Libri VIII. Basle, 1565.
Acta Sanctorum. Par les Bollandistes. Antwerp, Tongerloo, Brussels, 1644
sqq. Reprinted, Paris, 1863 sqq.
ADHEMAR DE CHABANNES. Chronicle: in Monumenta Germanic historica.
Ed. G. A. Pertz, ete. Vol. IV.
AGOBARD, 8S. Opera omnia. Migne, Patrologia latina, Vol. CIV.
AGRIPPA, HEINRICH CorRNELIUS La philosophie occulte de Henr. Corn.
Agrippa . . . traduite du latin [par A. Levasseur]. 2 vols. Hague,
1727.
Guvres magiques .. . mises en frangais par Pierre d Aban. Rome, 1744.
(Of the last rarity. There are other editions, Liége, 1788 ; Rome, 1800 ;
Rome, 1744 (circa 1830); but all these are extremely scarce.)
ALANUS (Alain de Lille). Adwersus hereticos et Waldenses.. Ed. J. Masson.
Paris, 1612.
ALANUS, HENRICUS. Ciceronis de Divinatione et de Fato. 1839.
ALBERT, LE Petit. Alberti Parui Lucti libellus de mirabilibus Nature arcanis.
(This treatise which tells how to confect philtres, make talismans, use
the hand of glory, discover treasures, etc., has been very frequently
translated into French, generally under the running title Les secrets
merveilleux de la magie naturelle et cabalistique. . . .)
Bu. ALBERTUS Maanus, O.P. Opera omnia. Ed. Father Peter Jammy, O.P.
21 vols. Lyons, 1651, ete.
De alchimia. (This treatise is said to be doubtful.)
De secretis mulierum. (This work is certainly not from the pen of the
great Dominican doctor, to whom, however, it was universally ascribed.
There are a vast number of editions, and translations, especially into
French. Les secretz des femmes et homes . . . stampato in Torino par
Pietro Ranot, N.D. circa 1540. Les secrets admirables du grand Albert.
Paris, 1895.)
Commentaria. Lib. IV, dist. 34. An maleficii impedimento aliquis potest
impediri a potentia cocundt. (Neud de Vaiguillette.)
ALEXANDER III, Pore. LEpistole apud Regesta R. R. Pontificum. Nos. 10,
584-14, 424. Ed. Jaffé. And Loéwenfeld’s Epistole Pontif. Rom. inedite.
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ENGLAND: THE PAMPHLET LITERATURE
(Arranged in chronological order)
The Examination and confession of certaine Wytches at Chensforde in the Countie
of Essex before the Quenes maiesties Judges, the XXVI daye of July Anno
1566.
A Rehearsall both straung and true of hainous and horrible actes committed by
Elizabeth Stile, alias Rockingham, Mother Dutten, Mother Devell, Mother
Margaret. Fower notorious Witches apprehended at Winsore in the Countie
of Barks, and at Abington arraigned, condemned and executed on the 28
daye of Februarie last anno 1579.
A Detection of damnable driftes, practised by three Witches arraigned at Chelms-
forde in Essex . . . whiche were executed im Aprill 1579. 1579.
The apprehension and confession of three notorious Witches arraigned and by
Justice condemnede in the Countye of Essex the 5 day of Julye last past.
1589.
A True and just Recorde of the Information, Examination and Confessions of
all the Witches taken at St. Oses in the countie of Essex : wherefore some
were executed, and other some entreated accordingly to the determination
of Lawe. . . . Written orderly, as the cases were tryed by evidence, by W. W.
1582.
The most strange and admirable discoverie of the three Wvitches of Warboys,
arraigned, convicted and executed at the last assizes at Huntingdon. London,
1593.
(This was one of the most famous cases of English Witchcraft. A
whole literature grew up in connexion therewith. In Notes and Queries, |
Twelfth Series, I, 1916, p. 283 and p. 304, will be found: “ The Witches
of Warboys: Bibliographical Note,” where twenty-eight entries are
made.)
The most wonderfull and true storie of a certaine Witch named Alse Gooderidge
of Stapenhill, who was arraigned and convicted at Darbie. . . . As also a
true Report of the strange Torments of Thomas Darling, a boy of thirteen
years of age, that was possessed by the Devill, with his horrible Fittes and
terrible apparitions by him uttered at Burton, upon Trent, in the county of
Stafford, and of his marvellous deliverance. London, 1597. [By John
Denison. |
The Arraignment and Execution of 3 detestable Witches, John Newell, Joane
his wife, and Hellen Calles ; two executed at Barnett, and one at Braynford,
1 Dec. 1595.
The severall Facts of Witcherafte approved on Margaret Haskett of Stanmore,
1585. Black letter.
An Account of Margaret Hacket, a notorious Witch, who consumed a young Man
to Death, rotted his Bowells and back bone asunder, who was executed at
Tiborn, 19 Feb. 1585. London, 1585.
The Examination and Confession of a notorious Witch named Mother Arnold,
alias Whitecote, alias Glastonbury, at the Assise of Burntwood in July, 1574 :
who was hanged for Witchcraft at Barking. 1575.
(The four preceding pamphlets although referred to. by Lowndes and
other bibliographers apparently have not been traced.)
A true report of three Straunge Witches, lately found at Newnham Regis.
(Not traced. Hazlitt, Handbook, p. 231.
A short treatise declaringe the detestable wickednesse of magicall sciences, as
Necromancie, Coniuration of Spirites, Curiouse Astrologie and such
lyke. . . . Made by Francis Coxe. [London, 1561.] Black letter.
The Examination of John Walsh, before Master Thomas Williams, Commissary
to the Reverend father in God, William, bishop of Eucester, upon certayne
Interrogatories touchyng Wytch-crafte and Sorcerye, in the presence of
divers gentlemen and others, the XX of August, 1566. 1566. Black letter.
The discloysing of a late counterfeyted possession by the devyl in two maydens
within the Citie of London. [1574.] Black letter.
330 BIBLIOGRAPHY
The Wonderfull Worke of God shewed upon a Chylde, whose name 1s William
Withers, being in the Towne of Walsam .. . Suffolk, who, being Eleven
Yeeres of age, laye in a Traunce the Space of tenne Days . . . and hath
continued the Space of Three Weeks. London, 1581.
A Most Wicked worke of a Wretched Witch (the like whereof none can record
these manie yeares in England) wrought on the Person of one Richard Burt,
servant to Maister Edling of Woodhall in the Parrish of Pinner wm the
Countie of Myddlesex, a myle beyond Harrow. Latelie committed in March
last, An. 1592 and newly recognized acording to the truth. By G. B. maister
of Artes. [London, 1593.]
A defensative against the poyson of supposed prophecies, not hitherto confuted
by the penne of any man; which being eyther uppon tle warrant and
authority of old paynted bookes, expositions of dreames, oracles, revelations,
invocations of damned spirits . . . have been causes of great disorder in
the commonwealth and chiefly among the simple and unlearned people.
Circa 1581-3.
The scratchinge of the wytches. 1579.
A warnynge to wytches. 1585.
A lamentable songe of Three Wytches of Warbos, and executed at Huntingdon.
1593.
(The three preceding are ballads. See Hazlitt, Bzrblographical
Collections and Notes, 2nd Series. London, 1882.)
A poosye in forme of a visyon, agaynste wytche Crafte, and Sosyrye.
A Breife Narration of the possession, dispossession, and repossession of William
Sommers ... Together with certaine depositions taken at Nottingham.
1598.
An Apologie, or defence of the possession of William Sommers, a yong man of
the towne of Nottingham. . . . By John Darrell, Minister of Christ Jesus.
[1599 ?] Black letter.
The Triall of Maist. Dorrel, or A Collection of Defences against Allegations. . .
1599.
(Apparently written by Darrel himself; but the Huth catalogue
(V. 1643) ascribes it to James Bamford.)
A brief Apologie proving the possession of William Sommers. Written by John
Dorrel, a faithful Minister of the Gospell, but published without his
knowledge. . . . 1599.
A Discovery of the Fraudulent Practises of John Darrel, Bacheler of Artes... .
London, 1599. (By Samuel Harsnett.)
A True Narration of the strange and grevous Vexation by the Devil of seven
persons in Lancashire. . . . 1600. Written by Darrel.
(Reprinted in 1641, and again in the Somers Tracts, III.)
A True Discourse concerning the certaine possession and dispossession of 7
persons in one familie in Lancashire, which also may serve as part of an
Answere to a fayned and false Discoverie. . . . By George More, Minister
and Preacher of the Worde of God. . . . 1600.
A Detection of that sinnful, shamful, lying, and ridiculous discours of Samuel
Harshnet. 1600. (By Darrel in answer to Harsnett.)
A Summarie Answere to al the Material Points in any of Master Darel his
bookes, More especiallie to that one Booke of his, intituled, the Doctrine
of the Possession and Dispossession of Demoniaks out of the word of God.
By John Deacon [and] John Walker, Preachers. London, 1601.
A Survey of Certaine Dialogical Discourses, written by John Deacon and John
Walker. . . . By John Darrell, minister of the gospel. . . . 1602.
The Replie of John Darrell, to the Answer of John Deacon, and John Walker
concerning the doctrine of the Possession and Dispossession of Demoniakes.
. « 1602.
A True and Breife Report of Mary Glover’s Vexation, and of her deliverance
by the meanes of fastinge and prayer. ... By John Swan, student in
Divinitie. . . . 1603.
Elizabeth Jackson was indicted on the charge of having bewitched
Mary Glover, but Dr. Edward Jorden, who examined the girl declared
her an hysterical impostor in his pamphlet
BIBLIOGRAPHY 331
A briefe discourse of a disease called the Suffocation of the Mother, Written uppon
occasion which hath beene of late taken thereby, to suspect possession of an
evill spirit. . . . London, 1603.
A history of the case of Catherine Wright.
The strange Newes out of Sommersetshire, Anno 1584, tearmed, a dreadfull
discourse of the dispossessing of one Maggaret Cooper at Ditchet, from a
devill in the likenes of a headlesse beare. Discovery of the Fraudulent
Practices of John Darrel. 1584.
The Most Cruell and Bloody Murther committed by an Inn-keepers Wife called
Annis Dell, and her Sonne George Dell, Foure Years since... . With
the severall Witch-crafts and most damnable practices of one Iohane H arrison
and her Daughter, upon several persons men and women at Royston, who
were all executed at Hartford the 4 of August last past 1606. London, 1606.
The Witches of Northamptonshire.
Agnes Browne Arthur Bull
Joane Vaughan Hellen Jenkenson
Mary Barber
Who were all executed at Northampton the 22 of July last. 1612. 1612.
The severall notorious and lewd Cosenages of Iohn West and Alice West, falsely
called the King and Queene of Fayries . . . convicted... . 1613. London,
1613.
The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the countie of Lancaster. With the
Arraignment and Triall of Nineteene notorious Witches, at the Assizes
and Gaole deliverie, holden at the Castle of Lancaster, upon Munday, the
seventeenth of August last, 1612. Before Sir James Altham, and Sir
Edward Bromley. London, 1613.
(Reprinted by the Chetham Society, edited James Crossley. 1845.
One of the most famous of the witch-trials.)
Witches Apprehended, Examined and Executed, for notable villanies by them
committed both by Land and Water. With a strange and most true trial how
to know whether a woman be a Witch or not. London, 1613.
A Booke of the Wytches Lately condemned and executed at Bedford, 1612-1613.
A Treatise of Witchcraft. . . . With a true Narration of the Witchcrafts which
Mary Smith, wife of Henry Smith, Glover, did practise .. . and lastly,
of her death and execution. . . . By Alexander Roberts, B.D. and Preacher
of Gods Word at Kings-Linne in Norffolke. London, 1616.
The Wonderful Discoverie of the Witchcrafts of Margaret and Phillip Flower,
daughters of Joan Flower neere Bever Castle: executed at Lincolne,
March 11, 1618. Who were specially arraigned and condemned .. . for
confessing themselves actors in the destruction of Henry, Lord Rosse, with
their damnable practises against others the Children of the Right Honourable
Francis Earle of Rutland. Together with the severall Examinations and
Confessions of Anne Baker, Joan Wilimot, and Ellen Greene, Witches of
Leicestershire. London, 1619.
Strange and wonderfull Witchcrafts, discovering the damnable Practises of seven
Witches against the Lives of certain noble Personages and others of this
Kingdom ; with an approved Triall how to find out either Witch or any
Apprentise to Witchcraft. 1621. Another edition in 1635.
The Wonderfull discoverie of Elizabeth Sawyer... late of Edmonton, her
conviction, condemnation and Death, . . . Written by Henry Goodcole,
Minister of the word of God, and her continuall Visiter in the Gaole of
Newgate... . 1621.
(Reprinted in Vol. I (Ixxxi-cvii) of Bullen’s recension of the Dyce-
Gifford Ford. 3 vols. London, 1895.)
The Boy of Bilson: or A True Discovery of the Late Notorious Impostures of
Certaine Romish Priests in their pretended Exorcisme, or expulsion of the
Divell out of a young Boy, named William Perry... - London, 1622.
A Discourse.of Witchcraft As it was acted in the Family of Mr. Edward Fairfax
of Fuystone in the County of York, im the year 1621. Edited by R.
Monckton Milnes (Lord Houghton) for Vol. V of Miscellanies of the
Philobiblon Soc. London, 1858-1859. (The editor says the original MS.
is still in existence.)
\ Witches
332 BIBLIOGRAPHY
A Most certain, strange and true Discovery of a Witch, Being overtaken by some
of the Parliament Forces, as she was standing on a small Planck-board and
sayling on it over the River of Newbury, Together with the strange and true
manner of her death. 1643.
A Confirmation and Discovery of Witch-craft . . . together with the Confessions
of many of those executed since May, 1645. . . . By John Stearne.
The Examination, Confession, Triall, and Execution of Joane Williford, Joan
Cariden and Jane Hott: who were executed at Faversham, in Kent...
all attested under the hand of Robert Greenstreet, Maior of Faversham.
A true and exact Relation of the severall Informations, Examinations, and Con-
fessions of the late Witches arraigned . . . and condemned at the late Sessions, -
holden at Chelmsford before the Right Honorable Robert, Earle of Warwicke,
and severall of his Majesties Justices of Peace, the 29 of July, 1645.
A True Relation of the Arraignment of eighteene Witches at St. Edmundsbury,
27th August, 1645. ... As Also a List of the names of those that were
executed. ;
Strange and fearfull newes from Plaisto in the parish of Westham neere Bow
foure miles from London. London, 1645.
The Lawes against Witches and Conjuration, and Some brief Notes and
Observations for the Discovery of Witches. Being very Usefull for these
Times wherein the Devil reignes and prevailes. . . . Also The Confession
of Mother Lakeland, who was arraigned and condemned for a Witch at
Ipswich in Suffolke. . . . By Authority. London, 1645.
Signes and Wonders from Heaven. . . . Likewise a new discovery of Witches
in Stepney Parish. And how 20. Witches more were executed in Suffolk
this last Assize. Also how the Divell came to Sofforn to a Farmer’s house
in the habit of a Gentlewoman on horse backe. London [1645].
Relation of a boy who was entertained by the Devil to be Servant to him...
about Credition in the West, and how the Devil carried him up in the aire,
and showed him the torments of Hell, and some of the Cavaliers there, etc.,
with a coppie of a Letter from Maior Generall Massie, concerning these
strange and Wonderfull things, with a certaine box of Reliques and Crucifixes
found in Tiverton Church. 1645.
(A ridiculous, but not uninteresting, publication.)
The Witches of Huntingdon, their Examinations and Confessions. . . . London,
1646.
(The Dedication is signed by John Davenport.)
The Discovery of Witches : in answer to severall Queries, lately Delivered to the
Judges of Assize for the County of Norfolk. And now published by Matthew
Hopkins, Witchfinder. For the Benefit of the Whole Kingdome. . .
London, 1647.
(The most famous of the “‘ Hopkins series.’’)
A strange and true Relation of a Young Woman possest with the Devill. By name
Joyce Dovey dwelling at Bewdley neer Worcester. . . . Also a Letter from
Cambridge, wherein is related the late conference between the Devil (in the
shape of a Mr. of Arts) and one Ashbourner, a Scholler of S. Johns Colledge
. who was afterwards carried away by him and never heard of since onely
his Gown found in the River. London, 1647.
The Full Tryals, Examination and Condemnation of Four Notorious Witches,
At the Assizes held in Worcester on Tuseday the 4th of March. ... As
also Their Confessions and last Dying Speeches at the place of Execution,
with other Amazing Particulars. . . . London, no date.
The Divels Delusions or A faithfull relation of John Palmer and Elizabeth Knot
two notorious Witches lately condemned at the Sessions of Oyer and Terminer
in St. Albans. 1649.
Wonderfull News from the North, Or a True Relation of the Sad and Grievous
Torments Inflicted wpon the Bodies of three Children of Mr. George Mus-
champ, late of the County of Northumberland, by Witchcraft. . . . As also.
the prosecution of the sayd Witches, as by Oaths, and their own Confessions
will appear and by the Indictment found by the Jury against one of them,
at the Sessions of the Peace held at Alnwick, the 24 day of April, 1650.
London, 1650.
BIBLIOGRAPHY 333
The strange Witch at Greenwich haunting a Wench, 1650.
A Strange Witch at Greenwich, 1650.
The Witch of Wapping, or an Exact and Perfect Relation of the Life and Devilish
Practises of Joan Peterson, who dwelt in Spruce Island, near Wapping ;
Who was condemned for practising Witchcraft, and sentenced to be Hanged
at Tyburn, on Munday the 11th of April, 1652. London, 1652.
A Declaration in Answer to several lying Pamphlets concerning the Witch of
Wapping, . . . shewing the Bloudy Plot and wicked Conspiracy of one
Abraham Vandenhemde, Thomas Crompton, Thomas Collet, and others.
London, 1652.
The Tryall and Examinations of Mrs. Joan Peterson before the Honourable
Bench at the Sessions house in the Old Bayley yesterday. [1652.]
Doctor Lamb’s Darling, or Strange and terrible News from Salisbury ; Being
A true, exact, and perfect Relation of the great and wonderful Contract and
Engagement made between the Devil, and Mistris Anne Bodenham ; with
the manner how she could transform herself into the shape of a Mastive Dog,
a black Lyon, a white Bear, a Woolf, a Bull, and a Cat... . The Tryal,
Examinations, and Confession .. . before the Lord Chief Baron Wild.
. . . By James (Edmond ?| Bower, Cleric. London, 1653.
Doctor Lamb Revived, or, Witchcraft condemn’d in Anne Bodenham .. . who
was Arraigned and Executed the Lent Assizes last at Salisbury, before the
Right Honourable the Lord Chief Baron Wud, Judge.of the Assize....
By Edmund Bower, an eye and ear Witness of her Examination and
Confession. London, 1653. (Bower’s second and more detailed account.)
A Prodigious and Tragicall History of the Arraignment, Tryall, Confession,
and Condemnation of six Witches at Maidstone, in Kent, at the Assizes
there held in July, Fryday 30, this present year, 1652. Before the Right
Honorable, Peter Warburton. . .. Collected from the Observations of
E. G. Gent, a learned person, present at their Convictions and Condemnation .
London, 1652.
The most true and wonderfull Narration of two women bewitched in Yorkshire :
Who comming to the Assizes at York to give Evidence against the Witch
after a most horrible noise to the terror and amazement of all the beholders,
did vomit forth before the Judges, Pins, wool. .. . Also a most true Relation
of a young Maid ...who...did... vomit forth wadds of straw,
with pins a crosse in them, won Nails, Needles, . . . as it is attested under
the hand of that most famous Phisition Doctor Henry Heers. . . . 1658.
A more Exact Relation of the most lamentable and horrid Contract with Lydia
Rogers, living in Pump-Alley in Wapping, made with the Divel.. .
Together with the great pains and prayers of many eminent Divines. . .
1658.
The Snare of the Devill Discovered : Or, A True and perfect Relation of the sad
and deplorable Condition of Lydia the Wife of John Rogers House Carpenter,
living in Greenbank in Pumpe alley in Wappin. .« » Also her Examination
by Mr. Johnson the Minister of Wappin, and her Confession, As also in
what a sad Condition she continues. . . . London, 1658.
Strange and Terrible Newes from Cambridge, being A true Relation of the
Quakers bewitching of Mary Philips . . . into the shape of a Bay Mare,
riding her from Dinton towards the University. With the manner how she
became visible again . . . in her own Likeness and Shape, with her sides
all rent and torn, as if they had been spur-galled, .. . and the Names of
the Quakers brought to tryal on Friday last at the Assizes held at Cambridge.
. . . London, 1659.
The Power of Witchcraft, Being a most strange but true Relation of the most
~ miraculous and wonderful deliverance of one Mr. William Harrison of
Cambden in the County of Gloucester, Steward to the Lady Nowell. .. .«'
London, 1662.
A True and Perfect Account of the Examination, Confession, Tryal, Condemna-
tion and Execution of Joan Perry and her two Sons .. . for the supposed
murder of William Harrison, Gent. . . . London, 1676.
A Tryal of Witches at the assizes held at Bury St. Edmonds for the County of
Suffolk ; on the tenth day of March, 1664. London, 1682; and 1716.
334 | BIBLIOGRAPHY
The Lord’s Arm Stratched Out in an Answer of Prayer or a True Relation of
the Wonderful Deliverance of James Barrow, the Son of John Barrow of
Olaves Southwark, London, 1664. (A Baptist tract.)
The wonder of Suffolke, being a true relation of one that reports he made a league
with the Devil for three years, to do mischief, and now breaks open houses,
robs people daily .. . and can neither be shot nor taken, but leaps over
walls fifteen feet high, runs five or six miles in a quarter of an hour, and
sometimes vanishes in the midst of multitudes that go to take him. Faith-
fully written in a letter from a solemn person, dated not long since, to a friend
in Ship-Yard near Temple-bar, and ready to be attested by hundreds... .
London, 1677.
Daimonomageia : a small Treatise of Sicknesses and Diseases from Witchcraft
and Supernatural Causes. . . . Being useful to others besides Physicians,
in that it confutes Atheistical, Sadducistical, and Sceptical Principles and
Imaginations. . . . London, 1665.
Hartford-shire Wonder. Or, Strange News from Ware, Being an Exact and
true Relation of one Jane Stretton . . . who hath been visited in a
strange kind of manner by extraordinary and unusual fits. . . . London,
1669.
A Magicall Vision, Or a Perfect Discovery of the Fallacies of Witchcraft, As tt
was lately represented in a pleasant sweet Dream to a Holysweet Sister, a
faithful and pretious Assertor of the Family of the Stand-Hups, for pre-
servation of the Saints from being tainted with the heresies of the Congregation
of the Doe-Litiles. London, 1673. (Hazlitt, Bibliographical Collections,
fourth series, s. wu. Witchcraft.)
A Full and True Relation of The Tryal, Condemnation, and Execution of Ann
Foster . . . at the place of Execution at Northampton. With the Manner
how she by her Malice and Witchcraft set all the Barns and Corn on Fire
. and bewitched a whole Flock of Sheep. . . . London, 1674.
Strange News from Arpington near Bexby in Kent: Being a True Narrative
of a yong Maid who was Possest with several Devils. . . . London, 1679.
Strange and Wonderful News from Yowell in Surry ; Giving a True and
Just Account of One Elizabeth Burgess, Who was most strangely Bewitched
and Tortured at a sad rate. London, 1681.
An Account of the Tryal and Examination of Joan Buts, for being a Common
Witch and Inchantress, before the Right Honourable Sir Francis Pemberton,
Lord Chief Justice, at the Assizes. . . . 1682. Single leaf.
The Tryal, Condemnation, and Execution of Three Witches, viz., Temperance
Floyd, Mary Floyd, and Susanna Edwards. Who were Arraigned at
Exeter on the 18th of August, 1682. London, 1682.
A True and Impartial Relation of the Informations against Three Witches, viz.,
Temperance Lloyd, Mary Trembles, and Susanna Edwards, who were .. .
Convicted at the Assizes holden... at... Hxon, Aug. 14, 1682. With
their several Confessions . . . as also Their ... Behaviour, at the...
Execution on the Twenty fifth of the said Month. London, 1682.
Witchraft discovered and punished Or the Tryals and Condemnation of three
Notorious Witches, who were Tryed the last Assizes, holden at the Castle
of Exeter . . . where they received sentence of Death, for bewitching severall
Persons, destroying Ships at Sea, and Catiel by Land. To the Tune of
Doctor Faustus ; or Fortune my Foe.
(A ballad. Roxburghe Collection. Broadside.)
The Life and Conversation of Temperance Floyd, Mary Lloyd and Susanna
Edwards ...; Lately Condemned at Exeter Assizes ; together with a
full Account of their first Agreement with the Devil: With the manner how
they prosecuted their devilish Sorceries. . . . London, 1687.
A Full and True Account of the Proceedings at the Sessions of Oyer and Terminer
. which began at the Sessions House in the Old Bayley on Thursday,
June lst, and Ended on Fryday, June 2nd, 1682. Wherein is Contained
the Tryall of Jane Kent for Witchcraft.
Strange and Dreadful News from the Town of Deptford in the County of Kent,
Being a Full, True, and Sad Relation of one Anne Arthur. 1684-5.
One leaf, folio.
BIBLIOGRAPHY 335
Strange newes from Shadwell, beinga . . . relation of the death of Alice Fowler,
who had for many years been accounted a witch. London, 1685.
A True Account of a Strange and Wonderful Relation of one John Tonken, of
Pensans in Cornwall, said to be Bewitched by some Women : two of which
on Suspition are committed to Prison. London, 1686.
News from Panier Alley ; or a True Relation of Some Pranks the Devil hath
lately play’d with a Plaster Pot there. London, 1687.
A faithful narrative of the... fits which. . . Thomas Spatchet . . . was
under by witchcraft. . . . 1693.
The Second Part of the Boy of Bilson, Or a True and Particular Relation of
the Imposter Susanna Fowles, wife of John Fowles of Hammersmith in the
Co. of Midd., who pretended herself to be possessed. London, 1698.
A Full and True Account Both of the Life: And also the Manner and Method
of carrying on the Delusions, Blasphemies, and Notorious Cheats of Susan
Fowls, as the same was Contrived, Plotted, Invented, and Managed by
wicked Popish Priests and other Papists.
The trial of Susannah Fowles, of Hammersmith, for blaspheming Jesus Christ,
and cursing the Lord’s Prayer. . . . London, 1698.
The Case of Witchcraft at Coggeshall, Essex, in the year 1699. Being the Narra-
tive of the Rev. J. Boys, Minister of the Parish. Printed from his manu-
script in the possession of the publisher (A. Russell Smith). London,
1901.
A True and Impartial Account of the Dark and Hellish Power of Witchcraft,
Lately Exercised on the Body of the Reverend Mr. Wood, Minister of
Bodmyn. In a Letter from a Gentleman there, to his Friend in Exon, in
Confirmation thereof. Exeter, 1700.
A Full and True Account of the Apprehending and Taking of Mrs. Sarah
Moordike, Who is accused for a Witch, Being taken near Pauls’ Wharf .. .
for having Bewitched one Richard Hetheway. . . . With her Examination '
before the Right Worshipful Sir Thomas Lane, Sir Oven Buckingham, and
Dr. Hambleton in Bowe-lane. 1701.
A short Account of the Trial held at Surry Assizes, in the Borough of Southwark ;
on an Information against Richard Hathway . . . for Riot and Assault.
London, 1702.
The Tryall of Richard Hathaway, upon an Information For being a Cheat and
Imposter. For endeavouring to take away the Life of Sarah Morduck, Por
being a Witch at Surry Assizes. . . . London, 1702.
A Full and True Account of the Discovery, Apprehending, and taking of a
Notorious Witch, who was carried before Justice Bateman in Well-Close
on Sunday, July the 23. Together with her Examination and Commitment
to Bridewel, Clerkenwell. London, 1704.
An Account of the Tryals, Examination, and Condemnation of Elinor Shaw
and Mary Phillips. . . . 1705.
The Northamptonshire Witches. . . . 1705.
The Devil Turned Casuist, or the Cheats of Rome Laid open in the Exorcism
of a Despairing Devil at the House of Thomas Bennington in Oriel. . . .
By Zachary Taylor, M.A., Chaplain to the Right reverend Father im
God, Nicholas, Lord Bishop of Chester, and Rector of Wigan. London,
1696.
The Surey Demoniack, Or an Account of Satan’s Strange and Dreadful Actings,
In and about the Body of Richard Dugdale of Surey, near Whalley in
Lancashire. And How he was Dispossest by Gods blessing on the Fastings
and Prayers of divers Ministers and People. London, 1697.
The Surey Imposter, being an answer to a late Fanatical Pamphlet, entituled
The Surey Demoniack. By Zachary Taylor. London, 1697.
A Vindication of the Surey Demoniack as no Imposter: Or, A Reply to a
certain Pamphlet publish’d by Mr. Zach. Taylor, called The Surey Imposter.
... By T. J., London, 1698.
Popery, Supersitition, Ignorance and Knavery very unjustly by a letter in the
general pretended ; but as far as was charg’d very fully proved upon the
Dissenters that were concerned in the Surey Imposture. 1698. Written by
Zachary Taylor.
336 BIBLIOGRAPHY
The Lancashire Levite Rebuked, or a Vindication of the Dissenters from Popery,
Superstition, Ignorance, and Knavery, unjustly Charged on them by
Mr. Zachary Taylor. . . . London, 1698.
The Lancashire Levite Rebuked, or a Farther Vindication. 1698.
Popery, Superstition, Ignorance, and Knavery, Confess’d and fully Proved
on the Surey Dissenters, from a Second Letter of an Apostate Friend, to
Zach. Taylor. To which is added a Refutation of T'. Jollie’s Vindication.
. . . London, 1699. Written by Zachary Taylor.
A Refutation of Mr. I’. Jolly’s Vindication of the Devil in Dugdale ; Or, The
Surey Demoniack. London, 1699.
The Portsmouth Ghost, or A Full and true Account of a Strange, wonderful, and
dreadful Appearing of the Ghost of Madam Johnson, a beautiful young
Lady of Portsmouth, Shewing, 1. Her falling in Love with Mr. John Hunt,
a Captain in one of the Regiments sent to Spain. 2. Of his promising her
Marriage, and leaving her big With Child. 3. Of her selling herself to the
Devil to be revenged on the Captain. 4. Of her ripping open her own Belly,
and the Devil’s flying away with her Body, and leaving the Child in the room.
... 7. Of her Carrying [the Captain] away in the night in a flame of fire.
Printed and sold by Cluer Dicey and Co. in Aldermary Church Yard,
Bow Lane. Circa 1704.
A Looking Glass for Swearers, Drunkards, Blasphemers, Sabbath Breakers,
Rash Wishers, and Murderers. Being a True Relation of one Elizabeth
Hale, in Scotch Yard in White Cross Street ; who having sold herself to the
Devil to be reveng’d on her Neighbours, did on Sunday last, in a wicked
manner, put a quantity of Poyson into a Pot where a Piece of Beef was a
boyling for several Poor Women and Children, Two of which dropt down
dead, and Twelve more are dangerously Ill; the Truth of which will be
Attested by several in the Neighbourhood. Her Examination upon the
Crowners Inquest and her Commitment to Newgate. Printed by W. Wise
and M. Holt in Fleet Street, 1708.
The Witch of the Woodlands ; Or, The Cobler’s New Translation. Printed and
Sold in Aldermary Church Yard, Bow Lane, London. No date, but
about 1710. This pamphlet merely relates an old legend, but is interesting
ag reproducing with appropriate woodcuts intimate details of the
medieval Sabbat.
An Account of the Tryal, Examination, and Condemnation of Jane Wenham,
on an Indictment of Witchcraft, for Bewitching of Matthew Gilston and
Anne Thorne of Walcorne, in the County of Hertford... .
A Full and Impartial Account of the Discovery of Sorcery and Witchcraft,
Practis’d by Jane Wenham of Walkerne in Hertfordshire, upon the bodies
of Anne Thorn, Anne Street, &c. ... till she... recew’d Sentence of
Death for the same, March 4, 1711-12. London, 1712.
Witchcraft Farther Display’d. Containing (I) An Account of the Wutchcraft
practisd by Jane Wenham of Walkerne, in Hertfordshire, since her
Condemnation, wpon the bodies of Anne Thorne and Anne Street. . .
(II) An Answer to the most general Objections against the Being and
Power of Witches : With some Remarks upon the Case of Jane Wenham in
particular, and on Mr. Justice Powel’s procedure therein. . . . London,
1712.
A Full Confutation of Witchcraft: More particularly of the Depositions against
Jane Wenham, Lately Condemned for a Witch; at Hertford. In which
the Modern Notions of Witches are overthrown, and the Ill Consequences
of such Doctrines are exposed by Arguments ; proving that, Witchcraft is
Priestcraft. . .. In a Letter from a Physician in Hertfordshire, to his
Friend in London. London, 1712.
The Impossibility of Witchcraft, Plainly Proving, From Scripture and Reason,
That there never was a Witch ; and that tt is both Irrational and Impious
to believe there ever was. In which the Depositions against Jane Wenham,
Lately Try’d and Condemned for a Witch, at Hertford, are Confuted and
Ezxpos’d. London, 1712.
The Belief of Witchcraft Vindicated ; proving from Scripture, there have been
Witches ; and from Reason, that there may be Such still. In answer to a
BIBLIOGRAPHY 337
late Pamphlet, Intituled, The Impossibility of Witchcraft.. . By G. R.,
A.M. London, 1712.
The Case of the Hertfordshire Witchcraft Consider’d. Being an Examination
of a book entitl’d, A Full and Impartial Account. . . . London, 1712.
A Defense of the Proceedings against Jane Wenham, wherein the Possibility
and Reality of Witchcraft are Demonstrated from Scripture... . In
Answer to Two Pamphlets Entituled : (I) The Impossibility of Witchcraft,
etc. (II) A Full Confutation of Witchcraft. By Francis Bragge, A.B.,
London, 1712.
The Impossibility of Witchcraft Further Demonstrated, Both from Scripture and
Reason . . . with some Cursory Remarks on two trifling Pamphlets in
Defense of the existence of Witches. 1712.
An Account of The Tryals, Examination and Condemnation of Elinor Shaw
and Mary Phillips (Two notorious Witches) on Wednesday the 7th of
March, 1705, for Bewitching a Woman, and two children. . . . With an
Account of their strange Confessions. This is signed at the end, ‘‘ Ralph
Davis, March 8, 1705.” It was followed very shortly by a completer
account, written after the execution, and entitled :
The Northamptonshire Witches, Being a true and faithful account of the Births,
Educations, Lives, and Conversations of Elinor Shaw and Mary Phillips
(The two notorious Witches) That were Executed at Northampton on
Saturday, March the lith, 1705... with their full Confession to the
Minister, and last Dying Speeches at the place of Execution, the like never
before heard of. . . . Communicated in a Letter last Post, from Mr. Ralph
Davis of Northampton, to Mr. William Simons, Merchantt in London.
London, 1705.
The Whole Trial and Examination of Mrs. Mary Hicks and her Daughter
Elizabeth, But of Nine Years of Age, who were Condemn’d the last Assizes
held at Huntingdon for Witchcraft, and there Executed on Saturday, the
28th of July, 1716. . . the like never heard before ; their Behaviour with
several Divines who came to converse with ’em whilst under their sentence
of Death ; and last Dying Speeches and Confession at the place of execution.
London, 1716. There is a copy in the Bodleian Library.
(These last three pamphlets are almost certainly spurious.)
A Terrible and seasonable Warning to young Men. Being a very particular
and True Relation of one Abraham Joiner a young Man about 17 or 18
Years of Age, living in Shakesby’s Walks in Shadwell, being a Ballast Man
by Profession, who on Saturday Night last pick’d up a leud Woman, and
spent what Money he had about him in Treating her, saying afterwards if
she wowd have any more he must go to the Devil for it, and slipping out of
her Company, he went to the Cock and Lyon in King Street, the Devil
appear’d to him, and gave him a Pistole, . . . appointing to meet him the
next Night at the World’s End at Stepney ; Also how his Brother perswaded
him to throw the Money away, which he did ; but was suddenly Taken in a
very strange manner ; so that they were fain to send for the Reverend Mr.
Constable and other Ministers to pray with him, he appearing now to be very
Penttent. . . . Printed for J. Dulton, near Fleet Street. Circa 1718.
A Timely Warning to Rash and Disobedient Children Being a strange and
wonderful Relation of a young Gentleman in the Parish of Stepheny in the
Suburbs of London, that sold himself to the Devil for 12 years to have the
Power of being revenged on his Father and Mother, and how his Time being
expired, he lay in a sad and deplorable Condition to the Amazement af all
Spectators. Edinburgh: Printed Anno 1721.
The Kentish Miracle, Or, a Seasonable Warning to all Sinners Shewn in The
Wonderful Relation of one Mary Moore, whose Husband died some time
ago, and left her with two Children, who was reduced to great Want. . .
How the Devil appeared to her, and the many great Offers he made to her to
deny Christ, and enter into his Service ; and how she confounded Satan by
powerful Arguments . . . with an Account how an Angel appeared to her
and relieved her. . . . Edinburgh: Printed in the Year 1741.
(This is probably a reprint. The style of the pamphlet seems some
thirty or forty years earlier.)
Z
338 BIBLIOGRAPHY
Trial of Thomas Colley, to which is annexed some Further Particulars of the
Affair from the Mouth of John Osborne. 1751. (The trial took place at
Hertford Assizes, 30 July, 1751.)
Remarkable Confession and Last Dying Words of Thomas Colley. 1751.
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work.)
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Cuasioz, Fritz. Les sorciéres neuchatéloises. Neuchatel, 1868.
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Histoire véritable des crimes horribles commis a Boulogne par deux moynes, deux
gentils-hommes, et deux damoiselles, sur le S. Sacrement de ?Autel, quwils
ont fait consumer a une Cheure et a un Oye, et sur trois enfants, qwils ont
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La Magie et l Astrologie. Paris, 1860. (Often reprinted.)
MonnoveEr, JutEs. La sorcellerie en Hainault . . . avec analyse de procés
pour sortiléges (1568-1683). Mons, 1886.
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FRANCE: SPECIAL CASES
Madeleine Bavent
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Responce a V Examen de la possession des religieuses de Louviers, n.d.
Récit véritable de ce qui s’est fait et passé a Louviers, touchant les religieuses
possédées, n.d.
Lr GAUFFRE. LFzxorcismes de plusieurs religieuses de la ville de Louwiers en
présence de Monsieur le Penitencier d’ Evreux et de Monsieur Le Gauffre.
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pratiquer, tant dans ledit monastére qu’au Sabbat. Paris, 1652.
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340 BIBLIOGRAPHY
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Arrest donné par la chambre ordonée par le Roy au temps des vacations contre
Marie Benoist. Rouen, 1699.
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La Cadiére and Pére Girard
Justification de demoiselle Catherine Cadiére. 1731.
Factum pour Marie Catherine Cadiére contre le Pére J-B. Girard, jésuite, o& ce
religieux est accusé de Vavoir portée par un abominable Quietisme aux plus
criminels excés de Vimpudicité. Hague, 1731.
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absous des accusations . . . n.d.
Leonora Galigat
La Juste punition de Lycaon, Florentin, Marquis d Ancre. Paris, 1617.
Arrest de la Cour de Parlement contre le marechal d’ Ancre et sa femmé, prononce
et exécuté a Paris le 8 juillet, 1617.
Harangve de la marquise @’ Ancre, estant sur Vechaffaut. 1617.
Bref récit de ce qui s’est passé pour Vexécution . . . de la marquise d Anchre.
Paris, 1617.
Discours sur le mort de Eléonor Galligay, femme de Conchine, marquis d’Ancre.
Paris, 1617.
La Médée de la France, dépeinte en personne de la Marguerite d’Ancre. Paris,
1617.
Louis Gaufridi and Madeleine de la Palud
Arrest de la Covr de Parlement de Provence, portant condamnation contre
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Confession faicte par Messire Lovys Gaufridt, prestre en l’église Accoules de
Marseille, prince de magiciens depuis Constantinople jusques a Paris... .
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procez de... Louys Gauffridy. Paris, 1611.
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Arrest et condamnation de mort contre Maistre Vrbain Grandier . . . atteint
et convaincu du crime de magie. Pais, 1634.
Relation veritable de ce qui s’est passé & la mort du curé de Loudun, bruslé tout
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S. Joan of Arc
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Gilles de Rais
Mevuret, F.C. Annales de Nantes. Nantes, circa 1840.
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INDEX
Abraham, Statue of, 183
Accommodation theory, false, 203
Ad Abolendam, Bull of Lucius III, 17
4flian, 118, 158
Mneas sacrifices to Night, 158
Attius, 158
African witchcraft, 163
Agrippa, Cornelius, 103, 296
Akiba, Rabbi, 190
Albertus Magnus, Blessed, 64
Albigenses, 17, 27, 28, 62, 87
Alchemist, The, 304-5
Aldonistz, 17
Alduin, Count, 26
Alexander III, 17, 18
Alexander IV, 13, 43, 64
Alphonsus, King of Arragon (Greene),
287
Alphonsus Liguori, 8., 41, 68-9, 92,
126, 203
Alphonsus Rodriguez, S.J., 126
Ambrose, S., 14, 117, 176, 180, 224
Anania, Lorenzo, 128, 167
Andreas, S., of Rinn, 162, 197
Anne Catherine Emmerich, 126
Antony, S. (the Great), 202
Apollodorus, 201 4
Apuleius, Lucius, 111, 116, 184, 296
Aquila of Pontus, 190
Aquinas, 8S. Thomas, 45, 64, 91, 128,
176, 296
Arab witches, 5
Aretzus, 202
Ariberto, Archbishop of Milan, 16
Aristophanes, 98, 200
Aristotle, 296
Arnauld Amaury, 18
Arnobius, 99
Arrows, Divination with, 182-3
Asceticus, heretical treatise, 22
Asmodeus, 190
Asperges, mock, at witches’ mass, 154
Athanasius, §., 224
Augustine of Hippo, S., 13, 64, 100,
128, 176, 180, 184, 296
Aupetit, Pierre, 149, 152
Azor, 8.J., Juan, 92
Bacon, Lord, 65
Bagnolenses, 17°
Balaam, 174, sqq.
Balac, 174, sqq.
Baltimore, Second Council of, 61
Balzac, Honoré de, 263
Bancroft, Richard, Archbishop of
Canterbury, 229-30
Baptism at the Sabbat, 84-5
Barbagli, Domenica (ecstatic), 126
Barrett, Sir William, 255, 264, 268
Basil, S., 180, 224
Basque Sabbats, 112-13, 115
Basques, Les, 311
Bavent, Madeleine, 87, 149, 153, 155,
157
Becquet, Isabel, 81
Beghards, 17
Bekhten, The Prince of, 198-200
Belon, Jean, 149
Belphegor, 307
Benedict XII, 65
Benedict XIV, 69, 92, 223
Benedict, S., 117, 222-23
Benedict, S., Medal of, 240
Benedictus (a sorcerer), 148
Bernard of Como, 120, 129
Berry, Mr. George F., 264
Besancon, The Holy Winding Sheet
of, 224
Besinnet, Ada, 266
Billuart, O.P., Charles René, 92
Binsfield, Bishop Pierre, 61, 94
Birth of Merlin, The, 287, 306
Bishop, Bridget, 76, 146
Black book or roll of witches, 85-6
Blackstone’s Commentaries, 63
Blessing of the Waters (Epiphany),
220
Blocksburg, The, 114, 115
Blockula, 121
Blood used to seal compacts, 67-8
Bocal, Pierre, 149
Bodin, Jean, 1, 65, 94, 114, 123, 145,
157, 296
Bogomiles, 17, 22, 23, 27
Boguet, Henri, 5, 6, 58, 94, 97, 113,
116, 117, 122, 130-3, 139, 141,
145, 157
Bois, Jules, 311
Bonacina, Martino, 92
Bonaventura, S., 64, 91, 128
Boulanger, General, 264
Boullé, Thomas, 150
347
348
Bourignon, Antoinette, 70, 83
Bournement, Abbé, 150
Bouvier, Jean-Baptist, Bishop of Le
Mans, 92-3
Boyle, Robert, 65
Brey, Abbé Charles, 240-3
Bricaud, Joanny, 28
Brignoli, 96
Broomstick, The Witches’, 121-4
Browne, Sir Thomas, 65
Brutus of Alba, 302
Bulls dealing with sorcery, 46
Burchard of Worms, 100, 297
Burner, Thiébaut and Joseph, The
Possession of, 238—43
Burroughs, George, 84, 147
Busembaum, 8.J., Hermann, 106
Buskitt, Dr. F. G., 27
Bussy @ Ambois, 305
C., Stella, 266
Cesarius, S., of Arles, 14
Cainites, 21
Caius Marius, 301-2
Caligula, 55
Calmet, Augustin Dom, 133
Camisards, 62, 78
Candles, black, used at Sabbat, 139
Canidia, 158
Carino, the Manichee, 17
Carpocrates, 22
Oarrére, Mlle Eva, 267
Carrier, Martha, a Salem witch, 124,
145
Castell of Perseverance, The, 279
Castelvicz, Countess, 267
Castro, Alfonso de, 94, 128, 167
Oathari, 17, 23, 27, 37
Catherine de Medici, 176
Catherine de Ricci, 8., 126
Catherine of Siena, S., 45, 126
Charles IX of France, causes black
mass to be performed, 148
Charles de Sezze, Bl., 126
Charolais, Madame de, 150
Chesne, Pierre du, 148
Cincture of S. Monica, 82-3
Clement XI, 63
Clement of Alexandria, 99
Cockcrow, Sabbat ends at, 117-18
Colette, S., 126
College, Stephen, 298
Colley, Archdeacon, 260
Collin de Plancy, 158
Coman, Widow, 76
Concorrezenses, 17
Consolamentum, Manichzan rite, 23
Contract of witches with the Devil,
65-70, 81
Cook, Florence, 260
Cord of 8. Francis, 82
Cornelius, Pope, 207
INDEX
Cornelius & Lapide, 176
Covens, number of members in, 40;
organization of, 83
Cox, Julian, 5, 123
Craddock, Mr., 267
Craisson, Mgr., 92
Crespet, Pére, 128, 167
Crookes, F.R.S., Sir William, 124,
246, 260, 268
Cross, Recovery of the True, 56
Cullender, Rose, 76
Custom of the Country, The, 305
Cybele, The rites of, 201-2
Cyprian of Antioch, S., 69
Cyril, 8., of Jerusalem, 224
Cyril, S., of Alexandria, 182
D’Abadie, Jeannette, 81, 84
Dame Dobson, 302-3
Dance, at the Sabbat, 139-43; Re-
ligious, 140; at Seville (Los
Seises), 140-1
Danzus, Lambert, 58
Darling, Thomas, 226
’ Darrel, John, 224-30
Davenport brothers, 259
David, Abbé, 150
Davies, Sir John, 123
Deane, Mrs., 266
Deborah (Debbora), Song of, 175
Dee, Dr. John, 227
De Lancre, 58, 63, 87, 94, 98, 118,
120, 123, 141, 144, 149, 150, 151,
153, 154, 159
Delrio, 8.J., Martin Anton, 71, 93,
116, 137, 296
Demaratus, 200
Demdike, Elizabeth, 84, 294, 299
Demosthenes, 200
Denobilibus, 149
De Rebus Uenereis ..., 92
Devil, a man, Grand Master of the
Sabbat, 7; theological teaching
concerning, 51-4; in animal
disguise at the Sabbat, 134-7
Devil’s Charter, The, 307-8
Devil is an Ass, The, 307
Dianic cult, imaginary, 43
Dido and Aineas, 302
Dinarchus, 200
Diocletian, 13, 22, 36
Dionysus, The rites of, 201-2
Dioscorides, 158
Divine, men who have claimed to be,
55-7
Divining Cup of Joseph, The, 183-4}
Domitian, 55
Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan, 235, 255,
268
Dryden, 301
Dualistic religion, 21
Ducrot, General, 245
INDEX
Duke and No Duke, 287
Duke of Guise, The, 301
Duny, Amy, 76
Dupanloup, Mgr., Bishop of Orleans,
244-5
D’Urfey, Tom, 78
Echalar, Juan de (sorcerer), 159
Edeline, Guillaume, 66
Edmonds, John Worth, 259
Egbo sorcerers, 136—7
Eglinton, William, 60, 260, 262
Egyptian, belief in possession, 198--
200; magicians and Moses, 59
Eicher, 8.J., Father, 241
Elbel, O.F.M., Benjamin, 92
Eldred, Charles, 261
Eleusinian Mysteries, 44
Elich, Philip Ludwig, 143, 145, 296
Eliezar, 194—5
Elipandus of Tolido, 15, 56
Elymas the sorcerer, 193
Empress of Morocco, The (Duffett),
302
Endor, The Witch of, 176—84
Ephrem Syrus, 8., Doctor Ecclesiz,
224
Ermanno of Parma, 17
Erto (medium), 266—7
Etheridge, 8.J., Father John, 259
Euchites, 22
Eugenius IV, 83
Euripides, 201-2
Evagrius Scholasticus, 100
Executions, Last European, 46
Exorcism, The rite of, 209-19; A
shorter, 220; Baptismal, 220
Exorcists, Anglican canon concerning,
230-3; Attempted by Puritan
ministers, 232; Minor Order of,
207; Ordination of, 207-9
Eznih of Kolb, 27
Fabre des Essarts, 28
Fair Maid of the Inn, The, 305
False Christs, 57
Familiars, animal, 40, 41
Farnabie, Thomas, 159
Fascinum, 98-101
Fatal Jealousie, The, 300-1
Faust (Goethe), 103
Faust Legend, Dramatic versions of
the, 280-4
Feasting at the Sabbat, 144-5
Felix of Urgel, heretic, 15
Fian, Doctor, and his confederates,
72, 85, 88, 116, 124, 139, 142
Fiard, Abbé, 150
Filliucci, 8.J., Vincenzo, 92
Fox family (mediums), 256-9
Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay, 285-6
349
Francis, Elizabeth, 102
Francis of Assisi, §., 125
Francis Xavier, S., 126
Fugairon, Dr., of Lyons, 28
Gallicinium, 117
Garrison, William Lloyd, 250
Gasparin, Agénor de, 263
Gaufridi, Louis, 72-3, 82, 84—5, 116,
144, 149, 155
Gazariens, 37
Gemma Galgani, 126
Gerard Majella, 8., 126, 240
Gerson, 65
Gesner, 158
Gil, of Santarem, Blessed, 69
Giles Corey, 310
Gilles de Rais, 33, 34, 36, 89, 148, 160
Glanvill, 65
Glossarium Eroticum, 99
Gnostic, The first, 193
Gnostic Church of Lyons, 29
Gnostics, 20
‘“‘ Goats, The ”’ (secret society), 136
Godelmann, Johann, 297
Gérres, Johann Joseph, 94, 127
Gothescalch of Fulda, heretic, 15, 16
Gottardo of Marsi, 17 :
Grandier, Urbain, 73
Greek heroes, The cult and relics of,
30, 31
Greeley, Horace, 259
Gregory VII, 8., 19
Gregory IX, 20
Gregory XIII, 83
Gregory XV, 65
Gregory, S., of Nyssa, 178, 180
Gregory of Nanzianzus, S., 99, 224
Grilland, Paul, 94, 122, 127, 128, 145,
167, 297
Grimoires, 11, 68
Guardia, El santo Nino de la, 162
Guazzo, Francesco Maria, 65, 81-9,
95, 128, 137, 141, 144, 145,-167,
297
Guibourg, Abbé, 89 (and _ his con-
federates), 150, 153, 160
Guldenstubbe, Baron de, 263
Guthrie, Helen, a Forfar witch, 26
Hare, Robert, 259
Harold of Gloucester, 162
Harsnett, Samuel, 229-30
Hartley, Edmund, 227
Haydon, Mrs. (medium), 259
Heliogabalus, 55
Henry II of England, 16
Heraclius, 56
Herod Agrippa I, 55
Herodas, 98-9
Hilarion, S., 202
Hinemar, Archbishop of Rheims, 15
350
Hippolytus, 185
Holland, Mrs. (medium), 266
Holt, Lord Chief Justice, 102
Home, Daniel D. (medium), 125, 246,
259, 263 :
Homer, 201
Hopkins, Matthew, 4, 102
Horace, 296
Horner, Elizabeth, 76
Hosts, as used at witches’ mass, 15,
155, 156-7; Stolen from
churches, 156
Hugh of Lincoln, 8., 195
Humiliati, 17
Hush, Mr. Cecil, 267
Hutchinson, Bishop Francis, 101-2,
109
Huysmans, J. K., 29, 151, 264
Hydesville, Home of Fox family,
256-7
Hydromantia, 184
If It Be Not Good, The Divel is in tt,
306-7
Tgnatius Loyola, S., 126
Illfurt, Case of possession at, 238-43
Incense, noxious weeds burned for, in
witches’ rites, 156
Incubi, 89-103
Indian-Queen, The, 301
Innocent III, 18
Innocent IV, 20
Innocent VIII, 12, 43, 44, 88, 94
Institutiones Theologie Mystice
(Schram), 93
Treland, Witchcraft in, 25
Isidore of Seville, 8., 13
James the Fourth (Greene), 286
Janicot, Basque deity, 42
Jerome, S., 179, 182, 202
Jetzer, Brother, a Jacobin of Berne, 4
Joan, S., of Arc, false theories con-
cerning, 33, 34
Johannites, 148
John XXII, 64
John Chrysostom, 8., 13
John George II, Prince-Bishop of
Bamberg, 24
John of the Cross, S., 45, 126
Jonson, Ben, 296
Joseph of Cupertino, 8., 126-7
Josephins, 17
Jovio Paolo, 103
Judas Iscariot, 21
Juno Lacinia, 200
Justin Martyr, S8., 224
Juvenal, 159, 296
Kembter, C.P.R., Adrian, 172, 195
Khlysti, 56
Khonsu, god of Thebes, 198-200
INDEX
Khosroes (Khusran) IT of Persia, 56
Kincaid, John, 74
King Henry VI (Part II), 287-9
Kluski, Franek, 266
Kosém (magician), 186
Kyteler, Dame Alice, 25, 103, 124,
158
Laban and Jacob, 186
La-Bas (Huysmans), 151
Lactantius, 99-100, 224
Lancashire Witches, The (Ainsworth),
309
Lancashire Witches, The (Dibdin), 309
Lancashire Witches, The (Fitzball),
309-10
Lancashire Witches, The (Shadwell),
296-9, 303
Langton, Walter, Bishop of Coventry,
138
Laruatus (= crazed), 201
Late Lancashire Witches, The, 292-6
Leaf, Mr. Horace, 265
Lecollet, Abbé, 150
Lemmi, Adriano, 8
Leo IV, Pope, S., 193
Leo XIII, 28, 90, 220
Levitation, 124-7, 246
Liber Penitentialis of S. Theodore, 6,
88, 134
Life of Mother Shipton, The, 299-300
Lodge, Sir Oliver, 268
Louis XIV, 160, 161
Love for Love, 80, 303-4
Lucan, 296
Luciferians, 21
Lucius III, 17
Luckey Chance, The, 303
Lunacy, Induced by Spiritism, 253-6
Lusty Juventus, 279
Luther, Martin, 231
Macbeth, 289-90
Machiavelli Niccolo, 187
Magdalena de la Cruz, 69—70
Magico Prodigioso, El, 310
Maiolo, Simon, 61
Malleus Maleficarum, 24, 63, 94, 127,
129, 160, 296
Manasses, King of Juda, 181
Mandezans, 148
Mandragola, La, 187-8, 197
Mandrakes, 187-8
Mani, 21, 22
Mania, Roman goddess, 201
Manichees, 14, 15, 17, 20, 21, 25, 26,
27, 32, 36, 148
Mankind, 279
Manlius, 103
Margaret of Cortona, 8., 202
Maria Maddalena de Pazzi, 8., 126
Marion, Elie, 62, 78
‘~~
INDEX
Mark, The Devil’s, 70—5, 89
Martin, S., of Tours, 14
Mary of Nimmegen, 284-6
Masks worn at the Sabbat, 136-7
Masque of Queens, 296, 304
Mass, mock, 87
Mass of 8. Sécaire, 156—7
Mass, Witches’, origin of,
liturgy of, 145-57
Maternus, Julius Firmicus, 99
Mather, Cotton, 83, 145
Maurus, O.S.B., 8., 223-4
May-fires, 112
Mazzolini, O.P., Sylvester, 142, 296
Medal of 8. Benedict, 222-3
Melancthon, 103, 128
Menander (heretic), 193
Merry Devil of Edmonton, The, 306
Messalians, 22
Michaelis, Sebastian Ven., 157
Middleton, Thomas, 9, 108
Midsummer bonfires, 43
Midsummer-Night’s Dream, 287
Muller (medium), 261-2
Missal, Devil’s, 87
Montanus, 56
Montespan, Madame de, 160
More, George, 227-9
Moses, 59, 173
Moses, William Stanton, 125, 259
Mother Bombie, 280
Mousseaux, Gougenot des, 94
Munnings, Mother, 102
Murray, Miss M. A., 31, 32, 33, 40, 41,
43: 43, 44, 45, 75
Mystery Plays, 276-8
Mystique Divine, La (Ribet), 90, 110
42-3 ;
Naasseni, 21
Name given to witches, 85
Naudé, Gabriel, 297
Neo-Gnostic Church, 28
Neri, 8. Philip, 44
Nevillon, Silvain, 84
Newes from Scotland, 9
Nicander, 158, 201
Nicephones Calixtus, 100
Nicetas, 99
Nicniven, ‘‘ a notabill sorceres,’’ 7, 85
Nider, O.P., John, 94, 296
Nigramansir, 278-9
Nipple, Supernumerary, 75—7
Norbert, S., 39, 49, 50
North-Berwick Kirk, 116, 121, 138,
142
Numa, Second King of Rome, 184
Odour of Sanctity, 45
(Edipus (Dryden and Lee), 301
Ointment, Flying, 6
Old Wives’ Tales, The (Peele), 286—7
Ophites, 21, 148
Origen, 180
Orlando Furioso (Greene), 286
Orthodox Eucharist, 147-8
Osculum infame, 137-9
Ovid, 296
Owen, Rev. G. Vale, 255, 264—5
P., Stanislava, 267
Palladian Temple (Templum Palladi-
cum), discovered in Rome, 152-3
Palladino Eusapia, 267
Palmer, John, a wizard, 76
Palud, Madeleine de la, 82, 149, 154,
157
Paolo de Caspan, O.P., Fra, 119
Pasagians, 17
Patarini, 17
Paterson, a pricker, 74-5
Paul, S., 193—4, 206—7
Paul I., Pope S., 193
Paul of the Cross, S., 126
Pauliciani, 17, 23
Pauper, Marcelline, 145-6
Pausanias, 187
Pauvres de Lyon, 17
Pax, burlesqued by witches, 155
Peach, Father Edward, 234-5
Peckham, Sir George, 224
Pecoraro, Nino, 267
Pelagius I, 14
Pefia, Francesco, 127
Pentheus, 200
Peratez, 21
Peter Damian, S., 128, 167
Peter, S., 191-3
Peter of Verona, S., 17
Peter Parenzo, 8., 17
Peters, Mr. Vout, 266
Petronius Arbiter, 99, 109, 187, 296
Pheedra, 201
Philip I of France, 19
Philip Neri, 8., 44, 126
Philip the Deacon, 191
Philippi, a medium healed at, 206—7
Picard, Maturin, 150
Pike, Albert, of Charleston, 8
Piper, Mrs., 266
Pius IX, 246
Plautus, 201
Pliny, 118, 159, 296
Plutarch, 200
Poirier, Possession of Héléne-Jose-
phine, 243-8
Ponzinibio, Giovanni Francesco, 127,
166, 167
Porta, Baptista, 296
Possession of devils in the Gospels,
191, 203-6
Prelati, Antonio Francesco, 148 _
Prickers of witches, Official, 74—5
Priscillian of Avila, heretic, 14
Propertius, 296
352
Prosecution of witches by the Cesars,
11,12
Protestant exorcism, 232-3
Prudentius, 117
Prynne, William, 282
Psychic Science, British College of,
235-8
Pythagoras, 200
Quintus Fulvius, 200
Raimond Rocco, 126
Rameses II, 198-9
Raphael, S., 190
Read, Mary, 76
Red Book of Appin, 86—7
Regino of Prim, 121
Reid, Thom, 7
Relics, The cultus of, 31
Religion of the Manichees, The, 27
Remy, Nicolas, 118, 128, 167
Richet, Professor Charles, 268
Robert I of France, 25
Robert le Diable, 310
Robert of Bury 8S. Edmunds, 162
Robinson, Anne, 4
Rocheblanche, Abbé de, 150
Rosary, The Holy, 82
Rothe, Anne, 260
Rousseau, Abbé, 158
Rowley, William, 11
Rudolph, 8., of Berne, 162
S., Willy (medium), 267
Sabazius, 111
Sabbat, Dances at the, 139-43; De-
rivation of name, 111; Feasting
at, 148-5; Liturgy of, 145-7;
Methods of travelling to the,
118-33; Music at the, 142-3;
When held, 111-6; Where held,
113-7
Sacrament, Diabolical,
witches, 146—7
Sacrifice, of animals, 158-60; of
children, 88—9, 160; of the God,
hypothetical], 33-6
S. Patrick for Ireland, 305-6
Salmanticenses, 91—2, 145
Samuel, Ghost of, 178-81
Saturday, why no Sabbat held on, 116
Saul, 202
Sawyer, Elizabeth, 58-9, 76, 102,
290-2, 308
Scapular, Carmelite, 82
Sceva, The seven sons of, 194
Schott, S.J., Gaspar, 94
Schram, O.S.B., Dominic, 93
Schrenck-Notzing, Baron von, 267
Scot, Reginald, 69, 88, 123
Secret Commonwealth, The (Robert
Hink), 71
of Salem
INDEX
Seneca, 296
Sethians, 21
Seven Champions of Christendom, The,
287
Seville Cathedral, Ritual dance at,
Shadwell, Mrs., 301
Shadwell, Thomas, 75, 296-9 —
Shrill voice of ghosts, 177-8
Sillé, Gilles de, 148
Silvester of Abula, 128, 167
Simon Abeles, 162
Simon Magus, 20, 191
Simon, 8., of Trent, 162
Sinistrari, Ludovico Maria, 65, 71, 78,
95, 161
Sir Clyomon and Sir Clamydes, 287
Sisto da Siena, 128, 167
Slade (a medium), 260
Soir de Folie, Un (revue), 151, 311
Somers, William, 227-30
Sophonisba (Lee), 301
Sophonisba (Marston), 305
Sorciére Canidie, La, 311
Sorciére, La (Dupetit-Méré and Du-
cagne), 310
Sorciére, La (Sardou), 311
Soulis, Lord William, of Hermitage, 7
Speronistz, 17
Spina, Bartolomeo de, 119, 128, 167,
297
Spiritism, Condemned by the Catholic
Church, 268—9
Spiritism, Some present-day activi-
ties of, 264—5
Spiritistic churches and assemblies,
264-5, 266
Spiritualism, its present-day mean-
ing, 254-5
Sprenger, James, vide Malleus Male-
jficarum
Stapleton, Thomas, 46
Starchie, Nicholas, 227
Statius, 178
Stearne, John, 102, 108
Stewart, Francis, Earl of Bothwell, 8
Stewart, Mrs. Josie K., 266
Strabo, 184, 201
Stridtheckh, Christian, 115
Stumpf, Peter-Paul, Bishop of Stras-
burg, 241
Suarez, 8S.J., Francesco, 52, 54, 68, 91
Summis desiderantes, Bull of Innocent
VIII, 12, 43, 88
Symons, Arthur, 141
Tacitus, 296
Tamburini, 8.J., Thomas, 92
Tanchelin and his anarchy, 36—40, 49
Targum of Jonathan, 190
Tartarins, 17
Tartary, Wizards in, 59, 60
INDEX
Tea-leaves used in divination, 185
Tempest, The, 287, 289
Templars, The, 26, 138, 147-8
Templiers, Les, 310
Teraphim, 189-90
Teresa, S., 126
Tertullian, 180
Theodore, 8., of Canterbury, 6, 88, 134
Theodoret, 99, 176, 179
Theodosius IT, 23
Thurston, 8.J., Father, 63
Thyraus, 8.J., Hermann, 93
Tibullus, 99, 296
Titivillus, 279-80
Toads, associated with Sabbat, 158-9
Tobias, 190-1
Tomson, Mrs. Elizabeth A., 266
Trappolin Creduto Principe, 287
Travers-Smith, Mrs., 265, 267
Trial of Witchcraft, The (John Bell),
70-1
Tuileries, Séance at, 263
Turrecremata (Torquemada), Juan
de, 128
T'wo Noble Kinsmen, The, 278
T'yrannick Love, 301
Veo Mr. 267
Valentine (medium), 261
Valentinian I, 22
Valentinian IT, 22
Valentinian III, 23
Valentinians, heretical sect, 29
Valentinus, heretic, 29
Vampire, Le, 310
Vaudois, 26, 37, 87
Vaughan, S.J., Bernard, 254-5
Vearncombe, Mr., 266
Vergil, 176, 296
Veronica Guiliani, 8., 126
Verrall, Mrs., 266
353
Vestments worn at witches’ mass,
153-4
Victor III Bl. (Desiderius), 224
Vio Gaetani, Tommaso de, 128, 167
Visigoth code, 36
Voisin, Catherine la, 89, 160
Voisin, Marguerite la, 153
Voodooism, 26, 158, 163
Walburga, S., 111-2
Waldenses, 17, 87
Walpurgis-Nacht, Die, 111
Ward, Seth, Bishop of Exeter, 233
Wars of Cyrus, The, 287
Weir, Major Thomas, 34-6, 120
Wenham, Jane, 102
Werner, 8., of Oberwesel, 162
Weston, 8.J., William, 224—5
Weyer, John, 103, 296
Wilde, Oscar, Alleged script by, 267-8
William of Paris, boy martyr, 162
William, S., of Norwich, 162
Williams, Mrs. (medium), 261
Willibrod, S., Ritual at shrine of, 140
Winer, 203
Wise Woman of Hogsdon, 303
Witch, The (Middleton), 108, 290
Witch, The (Wiers-Jennsen), 311-2
Witch of Edmonton, The (Ford and
Dekker), 102, 290-2, 308
Witch of Islington, The, 304
Witch Traveller, The, 304
Witchcraft forbidden in the Bible,
181-2
World tost at Tennis, The, Masque, 9,
10, 278
Wright, Elizabeth, 75-6
Wright, Katherine, 225-6
Zoroastres, 302
bat be TR ARC he :
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Rie te vi : ll ee “eg ap
tite HISTORY ‘OF
CIVILIZATION
A COMPLETE HISTORY OF MANKIND FROM
PREHISTORIC TIMES TO THE PRESENT
DAY IN UPWARDS OF 200 VOLUMES
DESIGNED TO FORM A COMPLETE
LIBRARY OF SOCIAL EVOLUTION
Editor: C. K. OGDEN, of Magdalene College, Cambridge
Consulting American Editor : Professor HARRY ELMER BARNES.
A, PRE-HISTORY AND ANTIQUITY
I InrropuctTIon AND Pre-History
*Social Organization W. H.R. Rivers
The Earth Before History E. Perrier
Prehistoric Man JF. de Morgan
*The Dawn of European Civilization V. Gordon Childe
A Linguistic Introduction to History JF. Vendryes
A Geographical Introduction to History L. Febvre
Race and History E. Pittard
*The Aryans V. Gordon Childe
From Tribe to Empire A. Moret
*Woman’s Place in Simple Societies JF. L. Myers
*Cycles in History F. L. Myers
*The Diffusion of Culture G. Elliot Smith
*The Migration of Symbols D. A. Mackenzie
I] Tue Earry Empires
The Nile and Egyptian Civilization A. Moret
*Colour Symbolism of Ancient Egypt D. A. Mackenzie
The Mesopotamian Civilization L. Delaporte
The Aigean Civilization G. Glotz
III Greece
The Formation of the Greek People A. Fardé
*Ancient Greece at Work G. Glotz
The Religious Thought of Greece C. Sourdille
The Art of Greece W. Deonna and A. de Ridder
Greek Thought and the Scientific Spirit L. Robin
The Greek City and its Institutions G. Glotz
Macedonian Imperialism P. Fouguet
* An asterisk denotes that the volume does not form part of the French collection,
L' Evolution del’ Humanité.
IV Rome
Ancient Italy L. Homo
The Roman Spirit in Religion, Thought, and Art 4. Grenter
Roman Political Institutions L. Homo
Rome the Law-Giver F. Declareuil
Ancient Economic Organization F. Toutain
The Roman Empire V. Chapot
*Ancient Rome at Work P. Louts
The Celts H. Hubert
V Beyonp THE Roman EMPIRE
Germany and the Roman Empire H. Hubert
Persia C. Huart
Ancient China and Central Asia _ M. Granet
*A Thousand Years of the Tartars E. H. Parker
India (Ed.) S. Lévt
*The Heroic Age of India N. K. Sidhanta
*Caste and Race in India G. S. Ghurye
*The Life of Buddha as Legend and History E. H. Thomas
CHRISTIANITY AND THE MIDDLE AGES
I Tue Oricins or CHRISTIANITY
Israel and Judaism A. Lods
Jesus and the Birth of Christianity C. Guignebert
The Formation of the Church C. Guignebert
The Advance of Christianity C. Guignebert
*History and Literature of Christianity P. de Labriolle
Il Tue Break-up OF THE EMPIRE
The Dissolution of the Western Empire F, Lot
The Eastern Empire F C. Diebl
Charlemagne L. Halphen
The Collapse of the Carlovingian Empire F. Lot
The Origins of the Slavs (Ed.) P. Boyer
*Popular Life in the East Roman Empire N. Baynes
*The Northern Invaders B. S. Phillpotts
III Rezicrous ImpERIALism
Islam and Mahomet E. Doutté
The Advance of Islam L. Barrau-Dthigo
Christendom and the Crusades P. Alphandéry
The Organization of the Church R. Genestal
IV Tue Art or THE Mippie Aces
The Art of the Middle Ages P. Lorquet
*The Papacy and the Arts E. Strong
V ReconstTiTuTION oF Monarcnic Power
VI
Vil
VIII
The Foundation of Modern Monarchies C. Petit-Dutaitllis
The Growth of Public Administration E. Meynial
The Organization of Law E. Meynial
SocrAL AND Economic EvoLuTIon
The Development of Rural and Town Life G. Bourgin
Maritime Trade and the Merchant Gilds P. Botssonnade
*Life and Work in Medieval Europe P. Botssonnade
*The Life of Women in Medieval Times Etleen Power
*Travel and Travellers of the Middle Ages (Ed.) 4. P. Newton
INTELLECTUAL EVOLUTION
Education in the Middle Ages G. Huisman
Philosophy in the Middle Ages E. Bréhter
Science in the Middle Ages Abel Rey and P. Boutroux
From tHe Mippie Acts to Mopern ‘Times
Nations of Western and Central Europe P. Lorquet
Russians, Byzantines, and Mongols (Ed.) P. Boyer
The Birth of the Book G. Renaudet
*The Grandeur and Decline of Spain C’. Hughes Hartmann
*The Influence of Scandinavia on England M. E. Seaton
*The Philosophy of Capitalism T. L£. Gregory
*The Prelude to the Machine Age D. Russell
*Life and Work in Modern Europe G. Renard
A special group of volumes will be devoted to
(1)
Suspyect Histori£s
*The History of Medicine C. G. Cumston
*The History of Money T. E. Gregory
*The History of Costume M. Hiler
*The History of Witchcraft M. Summers
*The History of Taste F. Lsaac
*The History of Oriental Literature E. Powys Mathers
*The History of Music Cecil Gray
(2) Hisrorrcat ETHNoLocy |
*The Ethnology of India T. C. Hodson
*The Peoples of Asia L.H. Dudley Buxton
*The Threshold of the Pacific C. £. Fox
*The South American Indians Rafael Karsten
In the Sections devoted to MODERN HISTORY the majortty of titles
will be announced later. Many volumes are, however, in active preparation,
and of these the first to be published will be
*The Restoration Stage M, Summers
*London Life in the Eighteenth Century M. Dorothy George
*China and Europe in the Eighteenth Century A. Reichwein
The New York Times calls this series “ An adventure in letters and learning
whose range is so audacious as to challenge the imagination to conceive it in its
full implication. . . . A new type of vision on the whole perspective of
historical science.” :
The Chicago Evening Post: ‘The scope is to be comprehensive and the
performance so far has been brilliant. Mr. Knopf will have done the public an
invaluable service by thus putting at its disposal an authoritative history of the
world, entirely in English, each field covered by a man who has mastered it.
The History of Civilization ought to prove a force not only in the spread
of knowledge, but in the propagation of international good-will.”
James T. Shotwell writes : ‘The History of Civilization, edited by Mr. Ogden
of Magdalene College, Cambridge, marks a new stage in the History of History.
Hitherto we have had co-operative surveys of sections of European History, but
they have all suffered from limitations of space. The various contributors have
been obliged by the editors to put into a chapter material which ordinarily would
call for a whole volume. This great History leaves the author a real freedom
to cover his subject adequately, and once this is granted, the chief editorial
problem is to secure the outstanding authority in the particular subject. The
list of authors in this series could hardly be bettered. Each writer can bring a
distinct contribution apart from the data with which he deals ; each great phase
of human evolution is presented here in a masterful survey and fits well into the
general synthesis.
“Turning from the special volumes to the work as a whole, one finds a con-
ception of history which corresponds to the demands of those interested in the
social and intellectual development of Europe, while alongside of it the political
story still furnishes the traditional framework. It is a living picture of a vast
movement, splendidly conceived and sure to be adequately executed.”
Date Due
Princeton Theological Seminary—Speer Libr
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