CHAPTER IV

Of Tying the Points. Argument.
FIND that learned men have given seven immediate causes of this impotence. The first is when one
* “At Saluzzo.”” This is from Girolamo Cardano, 1501-1570, the famous Italian physi- cian, mathematician, and philosopher. ‘“De rerum uarietate libri XVII,” lib. XV, c. 80. I have used the Basle edition, “‘per. H. Petri,”
1557+
92 of a married couple is made hateful to the other, or both hateful to each other, by means of calumny or sus- picion, or by the affliction of some dis- ease, as Medea is said to have injected a poison which made all the women of Lemnos smell badly in their breath, and so caused their husbands to neg- lect them.
The second is some bodily hindrance to their coming together. By this means a husband and wife are either kept apart in different places; or, when they try to approach each other, a phantasm or some such thing is interposed be- tween them, ] as will be | seen in the example.
The third is when the vital | spirit is hin- dered from flowing to the | genital organ, | and so the emission of semen is pre- | vented. This # has been well § expounded by § John Mayor.*
The fourth is when the fertile semen is dried up and taken away.
The fifth is when the man’s penis becomes flabby whenever he wishes to perform the conjugal act.
The sixth is the application of cer- tain natural drugs which in some way deprive a woman of the power to con- ceive. These are the more common causes mentioned by learned Doctors.
The seventh is rarer, namely, the
Pes,
S Te ie
* “Fohn Mayor.” Foannes Maior or Had- dingtonus Scotus, Scotch philosopher and his- torian, 1496-1550. For an account of his many literary productions which were all written in Latin see Mackay’s “Life of Fohn Mayor” prefixed to Constable’s translation of Mayor’s “History of Greater Britain,’ Edinburgh, 1892.
COMPENDIUM
f at é , po i= . Ga = 5 Ss AE in, BES OSS
BK. II. CH. IV.
closing up or narrowing of the female genitals; or the retraction, hiding or actual removal of the male genitals. Sprenger (II, q. 1, cap. 7) and Remy (II, 5) tell various stories of such a calamity to the male. This kind of witchcraft is of two sorts, one tem- porary and the other permanent. It is called permanent when it lasts up to death and cannot be removed by any natural medicine or other lawful means. It is temporary when it is only to last for a certain time.
Examples.
Vincent of Beauvaisf tells the fol- lowing. At Rome in the time of the Emperor Henry III there was a certain noble and "rie young man who had lately mar- ried a_ wife and invited his friends to a sumptuous wedding feast, and they went out after dinner into the fields to play at ball. The bridegroom as leader of the game asked for the ball, and lest his be- trothal ring should fall off he put it on the finger of a bronze statue of Venus which was close by, and all
t “Vincent of Beauvais.’ Even the years of the birth and death of this celebrated encyclo- paedist are uncertain, but the dates most fre- quently assigned are 1190 and 1264 respectively. It 1s thought that he joined the Dominican Order shortly after 1218, and that he passed practically his whole life in his monastery at Beauvais incessantly occupied with his enor- mous work, of which the general title is ““Specu- lum Mauus,”’ containing 80 books divided into 9885 chapters.
BK. II. CH. IV.
turned to the game. He soon grew tired and stopped playing, and came back to the statue to get his ring; but the statue’s finger was bent back to the palm of the hand, and however he tried to recover the ring, he could not bend the finger nor draw off the ring. He went back to his friends, but told them nothing about this. In the dark of night he came back with a servant to the statue, and found the finger stretched out as it had been at first, but without the ring. He kept quiet about his loss and went into the house to his newly married wife; and when he entered the bridal chamber and wished to lie with his wife, he felt himself prevented, and something cloudy and dense rolled between his body and his wife’s. He could feel this, but he could not see it. By this ob- stacle he was prevented from embrac- ing his wife ; and he also heard a voice saying: “Live with me, for to-day you have wed me. I am Venus, upon whose finger you placed the ring, which I shall not return.’”? The man (says S. Antoninus, who takes this story from Vincent of Beauvais) was terri- fied by such a prodigy, and neither did he dare nor was he able to make any answer, but he spent that night without sleep in deep thought. So it continued for a long time, that when- ever he wished to have intercourse with his wife he felt and heard the same thing. In other respects he was healthy, ruled his house well, and was diligent in his military service. At last, driven by his wife’s complaints, he took the matter to his parents and they, after due consideration, made it known to a certain suburban priest named Palumbus, who was a necro- mancer and a master of spells. This man, in return for many fair promises, wrote a letter and gave it to the young man, saying: “Go at such an hour of the night to the cross-road where four ways meet, and stand there in silent thought. There will go by you the figures of men and women of all ages and conditions, some on horseback
MALEFICARUM
93
and some afoot, some rejoicing and some mourning; but whatever you hear, you must not speak. Following that company will come one of greater stature and bulk sitting on a car, and to him you must silently give the letter to read; and he will at once do what you desire.” The young man did all this exactly as he had been directed, and he saw there among the rest a woman clothed like a harlot riding upon a mule with her hair flowing loose over her shoulders and bound with a golden fillet in front, carrying in her hand a golden rod with which she drove the mule, and appearing almost naked because of the thinness of her garment, and making lascivious gestures. Last came the Lord of the whole rout, bending terrible eyes upon the young man from a superb chariot made of emeralds and pearls, and asked him why he was there. He answered nothing, but held out the letter to him. The demon recognised the seal and, not daring to despise it, read what was written, and thereupon raised his arms to heaven and said: “Almighty God, how long wilt Thou suffer the iniquities of the priest Pa- lumbus?”’ He at once sent his servants from his side to wrest the ring from Venus, who after many subterfuges at last yielded it with reluctance. So the young man, having obtained what he sought, at last consummated his long- wished love. But when Palumbus heard of the demon’s cry to God about him, he understood that his days were numbered ; therefore he himself cut off all his limbs and died in miserable pain, having confessed to unheard of crimes in the presence of the Roman people.
Gotschalcus Hollen,* the Augus- tinian Eremite, writes as follows (Prae-
* “Gotschalcus Hollen the Augustinian.” I have used two editions of the ‘‘Praeceptorium”’ of this Eremite theologian; Preceptorit nouum, Cologne, folio, 1481; and ‘‘Preceptorium gots- calci ordinis heremitarum sancti Augustini,”’ Cologne, folio, 1489.
94 COMPENDIUM
ceptorium, fol. 20, litt. A). I know a woman who wished to cause a divorce between a man and a woman who loved each other, and for this she was to receive payment. She wrote upon some cards two strange characters, together with other devout words, and gave them these cards to wear; yet they did not quarrel. Then she wrote the same words on a cheese which she gave them to eat; and afterwards took a black chicken which she cut in half, and offered one half to the devil with certain sacrificial rites, and gave the other half to the man and woman to eat. After this there arose the greatest hatred between them, so that they could not bear to look at each other. And how did this happen, unless it were a sacrificial offering to the devil? So writes Hollen.
Giovanni Battista Codronchi (De morbis maleficiis, XIII, 8) relates that there was in the town of Sepino, in the Kingdom of Naples, a man named Jacopo whose wife so detested him that, from the very first day of their marriage, they had been so far from being able to consummate the wed- ding that they could not even live together; and if ever Jacopo tried to approach his wife, she was filled with such fury and rage that she would rather throw herself from the window than submit to him. This was told to a certain religious man to whom they had given hospitality; and he found it difficult to believe the story, and there- fore, in order to prove it, asked that the woman should be approached there and then. The husband accord- ingly hid himself within the house, lest his wife, knowing him to be present, should refuse to come in. The woman came, and being asked the reason for her hatred of her husband began to bemoan her evil fate and said that she could give no reason at all; but she declared that when her husband was absent she was consumed with such a longing and love for him as she could not express in words; but when she went near him to speak to him and
BK. II. CH. IV.
look at him, there at once appeared in her imagination such deformed, ugly and horrible monsters in the like- ness of her husband that she would rather die than endure him; and that her whole soul and all her strength and part of her life seemed to be drawn into her husband as an evil offering to her own ruin: but when he was again absent she again burned with the same love. The good priest wished to prove the truth of the woman’s words and told the women who were with her to bind her by her arms and legs with a strong rope to the bed in the form of a cross; and he told the husband to put off all repugnance and quickly have to do with her. For the priest suspected that the woman might be pretending to be affected in that way so that she might conceal some deformity. The wife, in her desire for her husband, let herself be bound and asked that her husband should be ad- mitted to her: but when he came in, never was seen such terrible fury, no wild beast was ever so fierce or so filled with madness and rage as that woman; for she foamed at the mouth and gnashed her teeth and rolled her eyes, whilst her whole body seemed to be shaken and possessed with demons. The women who were present said that when they touched her belly which was twisting under the ropes, it appeared to be crammed full, and all her skin was covered with weals as if she had been beaten. There was no end to this raging until the husband, tired out with struggling and moved with pity for her, went away. The same author says as follows. In the town S. Gimignano in Etruria a young man so desperately fell in love with a witch that he left his beautiful and faithful wife as well as his children and, forgetting them, lived with his mistress until his wife, persuaded that his conduct was due to witchcraft, secretly searched for the charm which had caused it, and found in a jar under her bed a toad with its eyes stitched up. This she at once took away, opened
BK. Il. CH. V.
its eyes, and afterwards burned; and immediately her husband, as if he were awaking from sleep, remembered his family and forthwith came back to his wife and children.
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