II. Maleficiorum efiFectus,

III, Eemedia adversus maleficia,
Et modus denique procedendi ac puniendi maleficas abunde continetur, prsecipue autem omnibus inquisitoribus et divini verbi concionatoribus utilis et necessarius.
The authors were appointed by the Pope, and were styled in the sorcery-bull Inquisitors. 1st. Jacobus Spren- ger, ordinis praedicorum et theologise professor in Cologne. 2nd. Johannes Grremper, clericus Constantien. diocess., magister in artibus ; and 3rd. Henricus, Institor in Ger- many. They were expressly called " Inquisitores hsereticse pravitatis." According to Becker and Hauber, there were others engaged with them in the composition of it. In the apology prefixed to the book the editors say distinctly, that they gathered matter rather than furnished it originally, in order that they might not be considered as the originators of it. As their authorities, they gave the names of Diony- sius Areopagitus, Chrysostom, John of Damascus, Hilarius, Augustin, G-regory I., Eemigius, Albertus Magnus, Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventura, Eabbi Mose, the " Yitae sanctorum patrum," Concilia, Jura canonica, Biblia sacra, etc. Besides these sacred supports, the following secular writers were quoted: — M. Psellus, de natura dcemonorum, Martin Plau- sius, Bishop of Tiibingen, de malejiciis, Bartholomew de Spina, de ludificatione dcEmonorum.
To the book, as was natural, was prefixed the papal bull, and also a testimony of approbation extracted by the fana- tical authors from the theological faculty of Cologne. Pinally, they contrived to obtain from the Emperor Maxi- milian, who himself entertained doubts as to the existence of sorcery, a diploma. And now, says Horst, all was in order ; and to their ferocious, humanity-outraging regula- tions, no further opposition could be made. Unfortunate Eatherland, worthy of all pity ! Thee it concerned before
THE WITCH-HAMMER. 159
all other countries ! For, in order to secure to tliemselves universal and undisputed lordship, to overcome all hin- drances, and to stupify all minds alike, it was necessary to have a complete book, which demonstrated from the sacred Scriptures, from the fathers of the church, from philoso- phical and theological writings and authorities, not only the possibility, but the actuality of sorcery, — should demonstrate it far beyond all doubt ; the dogmas of these works must become law ; and must receive the highest sanction of both spiritual and secular princedoms, in order that the witch- prosecutions should stand as a most momentous affair of God and of Christianity, and should thus bring the whole human race into subjection.
The Hexenhammer was, in fact, the codex, in which everything was clearly and fully set forth which belonged to witchcraft. Sprenger and his assistants have reduced witchcraft into a regular system, which raised on the foun- dation of the papal command, and placed under the legal protection of the secular magistracy, must be carried into execution by a few cunning witch-judges, against whom neither reason nor innocence, neither honour nor rank, may utter a syllable of disapprobation ; nay, was not allowed any appeal to the keys of 8t. Peter at liome, so that all rescue should be utterly impossible, and no bounds be set to the career of destruction.
In the Hexenhammer, the idea of witchcraft is systema- tically determined. Witches, sorcerers, and sorceresses, are people who deny Grod, and renounce him and his grace ; who have made a league with the devil ; have given them- selves up to him body and soul : who attend his assemblies and sabbaths, and receive from him poison-powder, and, as his subjects, receive command from him to injure and to destroy men and animals ; who, through de\^lish arts, stir up storms, damage the corn, the meadows, and the fields, and confound the powers of nature. The sorcerers were called Malefici, according to Isidorus, on account of their malignity, because they, with the help of the devil, briug even the elements into confusion. As the witches are more especially the objects of his attention, and as they carry on more feminine avocations, such as milking the neiglibours' cows, making witch-butter, fortune-telling, etc., they are the
160 HTSTOET OF MAGIC.
more numerous offenders ; yet are the wizards not to be overlooked in the Hexenhammer ; for these have it in their nature to be more engaged in maiming, stabbing, striking and shooting dead.
The Hexenhammer is, according to the prefixed apology, divided into three principal parts, containing various chapters and episodes, but very confused and full of contradictions. I can here only give a cursory view of it, referring for a more extended one to Horst's " Dsemonomagie."
The first division contains eighteen queries on all that presents itself under the head of sorcery ; namely, 1st. the devil ; 2nd. the sorcerer or witch ; and 3rd. the divine per- mission. The devil is the chief person, through whose aid sorcery takes place by the di\dne permission. The belief in this is orthodox ; the assertion of the contrary is heresy. This is the great principle, which is fortified by a multitude of quotations : to show the power of the devil in natural and bodily things, yet with the profound addition, that it is heresy to believe that God is not the stronger, and that nature is his own proper work. The devil has only power through God's permission ; and he works either directly or by delusion. Sprenger admits, too, in his way, deceptions of the imagination, but asserts that they are more frequently the devil's work, though heresy is often to be attributed rather to the imagination than to the de^dl. If the witches believe that they are making their excursions through the air with Diana or Herodias, it is properly with tlie devil that they do it, who operates on the imagination, and then the witch, when she is in her trance, believes in the devil and in the excursion.
The second division contains the query respecting the essential characteristics of witchcraft over station and knowledge. Ignorance is not wholly excusable, because people should conquer their ignorance.
On the question, how the devil acts in witches, it is answered : "The devil operates, in fact, alone, as in the case of Job ; but the witches are necessary instruments for his corporal actions, because the devil being a spiritual being, needs a vehicle through which to exercise his power. Many have greenish eyes, the glance of which injures. Natural things have all sorts of secret properties, which the witches
THE WITCH-HAMMEE— CONTINUED. 161
know, and therewith perform various wonders ; for instance, they lay something under the door-sills and bewitch men and beasts — nay, even destroy them, the devil being actually present on the occasions. The witches be^N-itch ; and sometimes by their bleared eyes. These bleared eyes are inflamed eyes ; these inflame the air, and even sound eyes, but especially when these bleared eyes fix themselves in a direct line with the healthy ones."
The third most beautiful and highly important question is, whether in the connections with the devil real children are begotten ? This question is often asked in the witch- trials. The question is answered succinctly in the affirma- tive ; to doubt it were heresy.
The fifth question treats of the influence of stars on plants, animals, and men, of course by the help of the devil, whose names, as Diabolus, Belial, Beelzebub, the god of flies, are etymologically thence derived.
One of the most entertaining chapters is the answer to the sixth query, ^hy women are more given to sorcery than men. Here there is no lack of merry monkish wit. " The holy fathers of the church," it says, "always assert that three things, whether for good or for evil, know no bounds ; namely, the tongue, a priest, and a woman. As to the tongue, it is quite clear that the Holy Ghost conferred fiery tongues on the apostles : amongst preachers the tongue is like the tongues of the dogs which licked the sores of Lazarus. So there are amongst all men, amongst the clergy as well as others, wicked and unwholesome tongues ; for as the holy Bernard says : — ' Nostri prselati facti sunt Pilati, nostri pastores facti sunt tonsores.' (Our shepherds are become sheep-shearers.) As to women, it is also very clear ; for the wise Solomon gives his experience of them, and what St. Chrysostom says does not sound very flattering : — ' Marriage is a very doubtful thing ; for what is a woman but an enemy to friendship, an unavoidable punishment, a necessary evil, a natural temptation, a desirable misfoi-tune, a domestic danger, a perpetual fountain of tears, a mischief of nature overlaid with a glittering varnish ?' Seneca says : ' A woman loves or hates ; there is no third course. If sshe weeps there is deceit afloat, for two sorts of tears bedew the eyes of women: the one kind are evidences of their
VOL. II. M
162 HISTOET or MAGIC.
pain, the other of their deceit and thair ciuming.' But of good wives the fame also is unbounded ; and men, and indeed whole countries, have been saved by them." But the AVitch-hammer turns quickly from this subject, and draws this immediate conclusion — that women are more addicted to sorcery than men — from these causes : 1st. from their easiness of faith ; 2nd. from the weakness of their constitutions, by which they become more susceptible to revelations (thus, a weakness and yet a higher endowment from Grod are attributed to them) ; 3rd. on account of their slippery tongues, and their inquisitive wits, by which they tempt the devil, i. e.,put questions to him, — get too far with him to get back again. A whole host of crimes are then enumerated against the female sex, as squabbling, envy, stiffneckedness (because they were made out of Adam's crooked rib). Already in Paradise Eve practised deceit, and showed a want of faith, for femina comes from fe — faith, and minus — less.
The eighth and ninth queries are a sort of continuation ; the tenth query is, whether it be deception or reality when men appear to be turned into beasts by the witches ? Here truth precedes falsehood in oi-der to make the apparent more imposing. " An actual metamorphosis," it says, " appears impossible, for two creatures of diHerent natures cannot exist in the same subject, as St. Augustin says. But the devil can so dispose the imagination, that a man may seem, both to himself and others, to be a beast. In this case a bodily change does take place, namely, that of the countenance ; which the pagan Circe accomplished on the comrades of Ulysses, which, was, however, only a change to the eye. A brave girl rejected the advances of a dissipated young man steadfastly ; and he went away, highly excited, to a Jew, and had her i3ewitched, and the poor thing was turned into a horse ; but it was no real change, but only a jugglery of the devil, who so blinded the eyes of the maiden and of others that she seemed to be a horse. They took her to St. Macarius, over whose eyes the devil had no power. He immediately knew her for a real maiden, and not a horse, and relieved her happily from the witchcraft." (How naive and pious !)
When wolvea sometimes fall on men and carry children
IIEVELA.TIONS IN THE WITCIT-HAMM^Tl. 163
fl^ny out of their cradles (wehrwolf, -y^ anthropy, k^Tian- thropy — possession and metamorphosis into tne nature of doi^s and wolves), they sometimes are real wolves, but in others they are only delusions of the devil. The Lord God formerly menaced the people -with wild beasts, through Moses. The devil also disposes the imagination to a wolf- mania ; and in the first case the devil can enter into real wolves as into real swine ; in the other case it is only aii])earance. (The AVitch-hammer becomes philosophical too!)
The twelfth question treats of witch-midwives, who injure the fruits, produce untimely births, and carry children under the chimneys or into the open air, and dedicate them to the devil. The twelfth and thirteenth questions treat of the permission of God — an edifying argument! The fourteenth question is, " What must we think of witches, and what shall we preach about them ?" The witches are fallen from God, are heretics and apostates, and thus deserve condign punishment more than all other criminals whatever. As heretics, they are deserving the ban of the church, confiscation of goods, and death. Is the heretic a layman, ar.d declines to abjure his error, he must be burnt. If a coiner is punishable with death, how much more a coiner of false faith ! Ecclesiastics were either condemned to death, or cast for life into prison. But the witches, as apostates, were not to escape with life, even if they confessed their sins, and repented of them. (Very full of Christian love !)
The fifteenth query or chapter : Innocent, and otherwise not dangerous people, were sometimes bewitched, partly through their own sins, and partly through the sins of the sorcerer. The sixteenth chapter : Explanation and com- parison of the preceding with other kinds of crimes and superstition.
Seventeenth chapter : Comparison of the devil's works with witches' works. The witches are worse than the devil himself. Eighteenth chapter: How you are to preach against the five proofs that God does not allow the devil so great power to bewitch men. Here the fifth objection gave the inquisitors a good deal to do ; namely, why the judges, who prosecuted and burnt witches, were not bewitched by them before all other men ? — a question which the second
164 HISTOET OF MAGIC.
part of fhe "Witch-hammer answered, in which there are only two cardinal questions : 1st. How people are to defend themselves against sorcery, — treated in six chapters ; and 2nd. How sorcery is again to be removed, — treated in eight chapters.
There are three kinds of men whom witchcraft cannot touch : magistrates, clergymen exercising the pious rites of the church, and saints who are under the immediate protec- tion of the angels. Of course, inquisitors and judges stand first under the protection of God. Especial injuries done by the devil to the innocent, bodily and spiritual. The devil seduces pious young women through witches. Two were burnt by the authors at Eavensburg. One of them was of bad character ; and she confessed that she had suffered much from having endeavoured to seduce a young maiden of the city to the devil's will. Once she had invited her on a festival day, when the devil, in the shape of a fine young gentleman, spoke with her. But the pious maiden con- stantly defended herself by making the sign of the cross whenever he approached her, till at length he was com- pelled to abandon his attempt, for which she, the witch, had to undergo much torment. Many such edifying stories the authors of the Witch-hammer give from their own experience.
The second chapter treats of the manner in which witch- craft is expelled ; one of the most important and interesting chapters. It contains also a description of the belief in witches at the end of the fifteenth century. There are three kinds of witches, it states : the mischievous — maleficcBj who cannot again disenchant you ; those who hurt no one ; and hurtful ones, who can, however, release their victims from their spells. Amongst the first kind, the most mis- chievous are the devourers of children. These are the most powerful of all, who occasion hail, thunder, and tem- pests, who fly through the air, and make themselves devoid of feeling on the rack ; nay, they even sometimes bewitch the judges, and seek to confuse them with compassion. They rob both animals and men of their power of repro- duction, and through help of the devil have revelations oi future things, which they foretell distinctly. If they do not devour children, they yet persecute them in all manner
ACCTJSATIOIfS OF THE WITCH-HAMMEEEES. 165
of ways ; plunge them into water, if they are playing by brooks ; and make horses shy and start. The form of com- pact with the devil is minutely described, which either took place solemnly on a witch-sabbath, or in private. In the first, the devil takes the place of honour, as the grand master, though in the witch-trials he is usually styled the little master ; and the old witches present the female candi- dates to the prince of hell. There then takes place an examination as to faith and abilities ; and the novice swears truth and obedience. The devil, on the other hand, teaches them how to make magic ointment, and drinks, and powders, for the damage or destruction of men and cattle, from the bones and members of new-born infants, and still more efficacious ones from those of baptised children. AH this the authors of the Witch-hammer have themselves ex- perienced.
A child-eater related the following ceremonial before the tribunal of justice, which is important for a true estimate of the witch-trials. "We lie in wait," she said, "for children. These are often found dead by their parents ; and the simple people believe that they have themselves overlain them, or that they died from natural causes ; but it is we who have destroyed them. For that purpose we steal them out of the grave and boil them with lime, till all the flesh is loosed from the bones, and is reduced to one mass. We make out of the firm part an ointment, and fill a bottle with the fluid ; and whoever drinks with due ceremonies of this, belongs to our league, and is already capable of bewitching."
A similar relation of the ceremonies of abjuration was made by a young man who was accused with his wife, and who was forced to this confession by the authors of the Witch-hammer themselves ; but, spite of this confession, the two were de- livered up to death by fire. The young man declared before his execution that his wife would rather sufier herself to be torn to pieces on the rack — nay, even burnt alive, than confess any such thing ; and this she actually did ; but the husband himself made the confession, and yet was put to death. " A woman in Basle," continues the Witch-hammer, " had for seven years intercourse with the devil ; but Grod took pity on her poor soul, for very shortly before the com-
166 HISTOET OF MAGIC.
pletion of this time she was happily discovered by us, seized, and burned. She confessed her sins very penitently."
The third chapter treats of the manner in which they made their flights through the air. If people ascribe these flights merely to the imagination, that is directly contrary to the "Word of God, " for the devil took the Lord Christ himself, and set h^m upon the pinnacle of the Temple, and showed him all the glory of the world." A good angel also took the pious Habakuk by the hair of the head, and bore him through the air. Before the flight, the witches smear a broom-stick, an oven-fork, or a piece of linen, with their ointment, and they are at once borne away ; it may be by day, but much oftener by night. There are very edify- ing stories told of the way in which these women produce rain when it is wanted. From the fourth to the seventh chapters, the amorous afl"airs of the witches and the devil are treated of; in the eighth again the change of men into beasts. To doubt of that is heresy. " Was not Nebuchadnezzar changed into an ox and ate grass ?" In the ninth chapter it says, " The devil in such metamorphoses secretes himself in the head or the body of the man. He causes a blinding of the outer and inner senses ; and the seats of the various faculties are very phrenologically given, as, for instance, memory in the hinder part of the head up towards the middle above, Mhere imagination has her organ. Se?isus comtnunis has its cell in the front part of the head, where the imagination presents, with lightning speed, the figure of a horse, so that the man swears that he sees such an one. The devil does this with such skill, that not even a head-ache occurs from it, such miracles does he work ; but they are no real miracles ; those only are wrought by God."
The tenth chapter treats of the bodily possession of the devil ; and contains a demonology in the spirit of the "Witch- hammer. The eleventh and twelfth are repetitions of the midwives, children-eaters, and child-oflerings which were made to the devil. The thirteenth contains the conversa- tion of a father with his eight-years'-old daughter on the drought whicli then prevailed ; and the daughter declared that she was ableto produce rain,on which the mother, witha threat-
THE wtsdo:m of the witch-hammer. 167
ening countenance, commanded her to keep quiet. Yes, she could produce thunder and hail. The inquisitors heard of this ; the godless mother was arrested and burnt, but the maiden was saved.
The fourteenth chapter explains how the witches bewitch the cows. According to Sprenger, the witch-milking pro- ceeds thus : The witch sticks a knife into a wall, takes a milk-pail between the knees, and cries to the devil to send them the milk of the cow that belongs to this or that person. The devil immediately milks the cow, and brings the milk to the witch, when it appears to run out of the knife-handle, by which the devil only deceives the witch, for he has brought the milk through the air. In a similar manner the witches supplied themselves with butter out of water that flowed by, and especially good May-butter ; and the devil steals for them the wine of pious people, from their cellars. Cattle are bewitched by the touch, and even by looking at them. They make for such purposes all kinds of magical instruments, pictures, especially of toads, lizards, and snakes, etc., and lay them under the door-sills, and thereby they spoil milk, and produce diseases in the cattle.
The fifteenth chapter treats of witch thunder-storms, and damages to cattle and corn. As on one occasion terrible tem- pests laid waste the country from Eavensburg to Salzburg, the peoplecried loudly against the witches who occasioned it. "We caused, therefore," says Sprenger, "afewnotorious oldwomen tobearrested and tortured ; and the event showed that we had hit on the chief offenders, for they all confessed." They were burnt as a matter of course. Sixteenth chapter: The witchery of men consists of three principal kinds : — Shooting with bows, the devil directing the arrows, so that they are sure to hit ; the enchanting of swords, so as to sharpen those of friends and dull those of enemies, for which purpose they use magic songs, spells, and witch-knots. To the great trouble, however, of the wizards, such men were very frequently taken under the protection of the powerful nobles.
The second part consists of two chief questions, how witchcraft is to be done away with. The means are physical and spiritual. Of the first, smoke is a means ; of the last, prayers and making the sign of the cross. This
168 HISTOET or MAGIC.
is followed by a diffuse inquiry of nearly a hundred pages, with learned treatment of bewitchings and freeing from witchery.
The third part contains the criminal code, which was to be used against the witches and heretics, in five-and-thirty questions, or items, in which the whole process of trial, from the arrest to the judgment, is fully detailed. It is necessary to the understanding of the whole spirit of the Witch- hammer, that we should make ourselves acquainted with the penal laws, of which I give the following brief notice : —
The first chapter or query is, how a witch-prosecution is to be conducted. The arrest may take place on the simple rumour that a witch is to be found here or there, without any pre^^ous denunciation, since the duty of the judge is here to afford help. The second chapter is concerning the witnesses. Two or three are sufiicient ; and the judge may summon them, administer the oath, and frequently examine them. The witnesses, according to the chapters three and four, must have no high qualities. Excommunicated, in- famous, runaway, and lewd scoundrels were fitting wit- nesses. Accomplices are admitted, in matters of faith of each kind, as evidence. Nay, in the absence of better wit- nesses, heretics and witches are taken as unexceptionable evidence against their fellows ; the wife may witness against the husband, and vice versa, and the children against their parents. According to the fifth chapter, enemies, when they are not mortal enemies, that is, through attempts upon life, are admitted as half witnesses ; and if they agree in their e\idence wholly with another they two make a whole witness. For instance, Michael's Eliza says that Peter's Barbara has quarrelled with her, and bewitched her child — a half witness. Another man bears testimony that Peter's Barbara seven years before took away the milk of his cow — a whole witness. Barbara is convicted of witchcraft, and burnt.
The sixth chapter teaches how the prosecution was to be conducted. Here come all sorts of interesting and most important questions which are addressed to the accused. As, whether she confessed that she was a witch ? Why slie let herself be seen in the field or the stall? Why she touched the cow, which thereupon became ill ? AYhy
THE WISDOM OF THE WITCH- HAMMEE — CONTINUED. 169
her cow gave more milk than three or four of other people's ?
Seventh chapter : — "Wlietherthe accused was to be regarded as a witch ? Eighth chapter : — How the matches were to be arrested ? And in this particular it is most important to take care that the prisoner does not touch the ground, or she might, by her witchcraft, liberate herself On this account witches at a later day, according to Horst, were suspended in the witch-tower at Liadheim, and there burnt, ^inth and tenth chapters : — Detail further proceedings with the prisoner. Whether a defence was to be allowed ? What may happen under the circumstances — but the affair is delicate. If an advocate defended his client beyond what was requisite, whether it was not reasonable that he too should be considered guilty; for he is a patron of witches and heretics. (No wonder that there was no great zeal shown in defending those accused.) Eleventh and twelfth chapters : — Proceedings with unknown names, and by enemies. Here all sorts of cunning and juridical artifices were allowed. Thirteenth chapter : — What the judge has to notice in the audience of the torture-chamber. Witches who have given themselves up for years, body and soul, to the devil (who, in fact, have been afflicted with cramps and convulsions), are made by him so insensible to pain on the rack, that they rather allow themselves to be torn to pieces than confess. Others, who were not so true, he ceased to torture. Such were easy to bring to confession. (The unhappy sensitive ones preferred death to the rack.) Eourteenth chapter : — Upon torture and the mode of racking ; — very instructive ! Eor instance : In order to bring the accused to voluntary confession, you may promise her her life ; which promise, however, may after- wards be withdrawn. If the witch does not confess the first day, the torture to be continued the second and third days. But here the difference between continuing and re- peating is important. The torture may not be continued without fresh evidence ; but it may be repeated according to judgment. Eor instance, the judge announces after the first torture : " We condemn thee to be again tortured to- morrow." Eifteenth chapter : — Continuance of the discovery of a witch by her marks. Here, amongst other signs, weep-
170 HISTOET OF MAGIC.
ing is one. It is a damning thing if an accused, on being brought up, cannot at once shed tears. The clergy and judges lay their hands on the head of the accused, and adjure her by the hot tears of the most glorified Virgin, that in case of her innocence she shed abundant tears in the name of Grod the Father. (Who now will only believe on God, and not on the devil too ?) It was found by experience that the more a witch was adjured, the less she could weep. Further, the judge must be careful in touching the witch that he carry upon his person consecrated herbs and salt ; and he must not look directly at her; for after look- ing at the accused, the judges lost all power of condemn- ing them, and set them at liberty ! The witches were, therefore, carried backwards into the room. The witches must also have all their hair shorn off ; for without this foresight many cannot be brought to confession. In Grermany this shaving was denounced as disgraceful, as the Witch-hammer complains. In other countries less resistance was made. When even pity was reduced to silence, indignation against the breach of morals and decency aroused the Grerman breast, and became loud.
Sixteenth chapter : — Continuation. Seventeenth chap- ter : — Means of purification on the part of the witches, and the fire-proof. The fire-proof is opposed, because there are herbs which defend against the fire, which the witches knew ; and the devil can make them insensible to the effect of hot iron. Eighteenth chapter : — On how many kinds of suspicion the judgment of death may be awarded. Twen- tieth chapter to the three-and-twentieth : — On questioning and judging notorious witches, of which sufficient has already been seen in the preceding chapters. Five-and-twentieth : — Here the grey witch-cloaks present themselves, in which the witches must, in all cases, do penance before the doors of the church. It was a wide, grey cloak, like a monk's cloak, only without a cape, with saffron-coloured crosses of three hands long and two broad. Six- and Seven-and-twentieth chapters: — The mode of proceeding with a heretic who has confessed, but afterwards has returned to the church. Twenty-eighth : — But how, when a repentant heretic again apostatises, he shall be dealt with. Twenty-ninth to thethirty- thirdchapter: — Similar questions as to confession, and the then
POPE INNOCENT AND HIS BULL. 171
denying of confession : of avoiding temptation. Of caution in the proceedings against persons \y1io have been accused by witches already tried and burnt, because the devil often spoke out in them. (Nearly the only trace of humanity in the whole work.) Thirty-fourth chapter : — How to proceed with a witch who has actually employed magic means, — as midwives and shooters. Pinally, thirty-fifth chapter : — How sorcerers and witches are to be dealt with who appeal to a higher tribunal. This appeal must be opposed ; and if it sometimes please the judge to allow of it, he is under no necessity to hasten the proceedings.
These brief indications of the contents of the "Witch- hammer are all of an essential character, and may serve us as a little abridgment of the history of the faith and legal practice of that time, and especially as it regards the witch- prosecutions, on which, therefore, we may be more concise.
The bull of Innocent YIII. opened a wide door to the most terrific tyranny of past ages ; body and life, honour and estate, were given up as a prey to the will of ignorant and fanatic wizards, so that no one Mas any longer safe in his house, nor even in his sleep and dreams. "VVe have here cer- tainly an unexampled reign of terror, for the bull and the "Witch-hammer were not of an evanescent nature, but their influence continued operating for ages both on Catholics and Protestants, so that all conditions and both sexes suf- fered under a chronic bewilderment of mind, and were affected, as it were, by a universal mania. But if we calmly consider that in history, as in nature, everything has a fixed, certain course prescribed by certain laws, as we have already shown, we shall see that this was also, as it were, a natural development of the time. Pope Innocent, who had assumed this name at Fleury, undoubtedly because he wished it to indicate whab he really desired to be, has been denounced by later, and especially by Protestant writers, as " a scandalous hypocrite," and his bull as " a cursed war-song of hell ;" the inquisitors as hangman' s slaves, rabid jailers, blood-thirsty monsters, etc. Pope Innocent was the child of the time. Witchcraft had grown up long before him ; prosecutions of heretics and witches had been carried on ; but what the Papal throne had not yet accomplished — that of setting its principle of sacerdotal authority above the secular power —
172 HISTOET OF MAGIC.
Innocent effected. Witchcraft and heresy had long been judged to be twin-sisters, and the devil as the universal enemy, who was the soul and mainspring of the system. The spiritual power deemed itself bound to proclaim eter- nal war against him ; and it was thought that success was the most certain if they seized on his allies and destroyed them. And the accusation which was made against Inno- cent could only have been justly founded if the Pope had not participated in the general belief, if he had been wiser than his time, and really seen that the heretics were no allies what- ever of the de\il, and that the witches were no heretics.
The idea of witchcraft was a disease of the time ; and who shall assert that in such a general condition of igno- rance and bewilderment there were not reckless and base men eno^v who invented all sorts of stratagems in order to speculate on the health, the properties, and the lives of others, and to make their own fortunes on their ruin ? who, contrary to all law and order, contrary to morals and decency, took the field, and to whom the Holiest and his servants were a stum- bling-block? The question then was, whence was help to arise ? A few sagacious and well-meaning persons might preach and teach, but their voices were lost in the wilderness. The secular magistracy was destitute of the knowledge and under- standing to detect mere lies and deceit, — what was human and what devilish. They had no influence on public opinion, nor' even on faith. Did not these concern the ecclesiastical power, which possessed the greatest rank, consideration, and knowledge ? did it not behove the head of the Church to discover some means of putting a stop to the universal evil and corruption? The will is one thing, and the conse- quence of the act is another. Who shall declare that In- nocent did not really desire the good of mankind, although his bull produced so much abuse, so much calamity and misery ? That which is really wonderful lies rather in the Witch-hammer than in the bull ; wonderful is it how such a medley of nonsense, of theologic, sophistical, and juridical silli- ness, should become the general code of law for four centuries; for, till the end of the seventeenth century, witch-prosecu- tions were still in progress, and the death-fires were not extin- guished. A hundred and fifty years after the Eeformation, even amongst jurists in general, the same belief in witches still
TRUE KNO-^LEDGE THE OPPONENT OF WITCHCEAFT. 173
continued as in the Witch-hammer, of which the last edition of Carpzov's Criminal Practice of 1758 aifords eyidence, — "B. Carpzovii practica nova rerum criminalium, editio Boehmer, 3 vols, fol."
The cause of this long-continued effect lay in the preva- lence of the religious faith, which in both Catholics and Protestants continued the same on this head. With both, demonology stood on the same basis, — namely, the devilish ; they believed that the devil possessed an unspeakably great, at least as great a power as Grod himself; or that God per- mitted this to him ; permitted him to seduce men, to possess and to bewitch them. Now man is in nothing so slow as in adopting heartily a new faith ; and, once adopted, he is equally slow in yielding it up again, whether his faith be rooted in fact or in mere appearance. And as now the voices of the su- perior few, however urgent, convdncing, and well-meant they might be, fell on deaf ears, and only rarely found atten- tion or acquiescence, it is easy to perceive by what slow de- grees and with what labour the mind was opened, and the understanding enlightened by the light of truth. This was only possible to be effected very gradually, both as regarded religious errors and the laws of natural phe- ncmena. In this department a great number of natural philosophers, theologists, and men learned in the law, have in mutual action and reaction won a deathless renown by the cure of the witch-mania and absurdity, by breaking the bonds of sorcery, teaching us to discriminate between witch- craft and the operations of nature, and, in a word, bringing the witch-mania to an end. Paracelsus, Van Helmont, Bacon, Wier, Becker, Thomasius, Spec, Molitor, Tartaretti, Reginald Scott, Dell' Ossa, Reiche, Hauber, etc., are the writers who, bold and enterprising, illuminated their own times, stood forth undauntedly against the monstrous tyranny of the devil, and delivered over the "Witch-hammer to the rust of the obsolete armoury of Superstition.
By the detailed description of the contents of the Witch- hammer, we have become acquainted with the conditions, the means, and the aim of the witch-prosecutions. We have, therefore, no further occasion for a long history of these. But as the magical phenomena which appear in these concern our subject nearly, we shall notice a few par-
174 HISTOET OF MAGIC.
ticular instances, by which we shall in part corroborate the past, and in part learn more perfectly some important iso- lated facts. For this purpose I shall select those trials which characterise their times and nationality. These are, first, the witch-prosecutions at Arras in France in 1459 — thus, previous to the sorcery-bull ; secondly, the witch-trial at Mora in Sweden in 1670 ; and, thirdly, the trial of the nun Maria Renata at Wiirzburg in 1749. The first gives evidence of the demoniac assemblies of paramour-devils, of both sexes. The proceedings of these assemblies, whither the witches were suddenly transported in the night, exceed everything that ever was conceived by superstition or the grossest sensuality and depraved imagination. If the trial at Arras surpasses in legal ferocity those which succeeded, that at Mora at least is not behind it in cruelty, and exceeds it in proofs of the universal belief in sorcery, the folly of women in declarmg it, and a contagious, and, as it were, general perversion of mind, for even children were summoned on the trial ; — for example, a child of four years old, which declared in the examination that " he did not yet know the reading by rote which had been given to him." Many children were aifected simultaneously with the women with cramps and faintings, in which they passed to the witch- dances, and to the witch-assemblies on the Blocksberg. There arose a universal terror in Sweden, and the king sent a commission to Mora, where the Inquisitors, by means ol the rack, soon procured evidence enough ; and seventy-two women with fifteen children were condemned to death, and many others to severe punishments. Nearly all condemned victims confessed the most absurd nonsense as to their inter- course with the devil in all sorts of shapes and clothes ; that they had lived and feasted with hira ; had been married to him ; and that he had even allowed a priest to baptise him. The trial of the Maid of Orleans at Rouen in 1434 deserves a brief notice. That quiet, pious herd-maiden, who helped and gave to all ; the heroic maid, who freed France from decline and subjection ; the prophetic seeress, who, in inter- course with the saints, performed unheard-of deeds of martial leadership, and at the same time spared the enemy, fell before injustice and superstition, — yielded up her beautiful young life amid the flames. When thirteen years
THE MAID OF OELEANS. 175
of age, she heard in her father's garden a voice, and a form stood in splendour before her eyes. St. Catherine and St. Margaret appeared to her, and exhorted her to fulfil the commands of the Almighty ; to proceed to the in- terior of France and raise the siege of Orleans, in order to recover the kingdom for her king Charles YII. ; which, ill spite of stupendous difficulties and obstructions, she actually accomplished. Finally, taken prisoner by her enemies, the English, she was tried on the plea that she could only have performed such wonderful deeds through witchcraft ; the accusation was admitted by her own country- men, and the Inquisition brought her before its tribunal ; and spite of the want of a single trace of guilt, she was condemned in the most arbitrary manner.
Schiller, in his drama, " The Maid of Orleans," less his- torically true than poetically great in its execution, has, through the introduction of the Black Knight, produced in that composition a perfect piece of art. This Black Knight is purposely, not accidentally, chosen. He faithfully cha- racterises the inner darkness of that time by the outward appearance of the evil one exercising lordship on the earth, eutanfrlins: in subtle snares the senses and the heart of man. How striking are these passages in the ninth scene of the third act : —
Maid of Orleans.
Detested ai't thou to my inmost soul, Even as the night, which is thy hateful hue : To chase thee from the friendly Hght of day Inspires me with unconquerable longing.
Open thy yisor !
To which the Black Knight rephes : —
Is the prophetic spirit silent in thee ?
Maid op Orleans.
No ! still it speaketh in my deepest breast
And tells that dire misfortune dogs my steps.
Who art thou, double-tongued, perfidious man,
That seeks to terrify and to confound me ?
How dar'st thou with false oracles presume
To prophesy the false ?
But, bearing God's own sword, why should I fear?
Victoriously I will complete my course ;
And even thougli hell itself should take the field,
It shall not make my courage quail or waver.
Die that which is but mortal!
176 HTSTOET OF MAGIC.
The Black Knight replies : —
It was a juggling form, A shape of hell, a spirit of delusion, Which from the lake of fire before thee came! He who sent deception will withdraw it ; When it is ripe the fruit of fate shall fall.
Schiller represents Joan as one inspired by Grod ; as a "being \Yho performs heroic deeds, but who in her innocence is equally capable of keeping silence, and of bearing her fate till her time is come : —
" Who dare cry halt ! to me ?
Who can command the spirit that doth lead me ?
The arrow must fly onward to the mark
To which the archer's hand directeth it.
Heaven spake, and I was silent.
I gave myself in silence to my mission."
That Scbiller had in view to work out in this tragedy the idea of the inward, creative, and divine spirit, in opposition to the phrenzy and misconceptions of man, is sufficiently obvious in this poem of the " Maid of Orleans" : —
" To shame in thee the noble human form, Did mockery cast thee down into the dust. Wit wars for ever with the beautiful : It has no faith in angel nor in Grod ; But, like thyself, born of a child-hke race — Herself a pious shepherdess hke thee — Hath poetry endowed thee with her gifts. As with a glory she hath crowned thee, Has formed thy heart that thou may'st live for ever. The world delights to soil the luminous And drag the glorious down into the dust. The noisy market Momus may amuse. But noble souls love only noble forms."
Hauber first transferred the Witch-trial of Arras into German; and since then, Horst has introduced it in his Damonomagie, from Enguerrand de Monstrelet's Chronicle.
" In the year 1459 a terrible circumstance took place in the city of Arras, or in the country of Artois, which the people called Vaudoiree : why, I know not. It was said, however, that certain people, men and women, were carried away by night by help of the devil from the place where
THE WITCH-TEIAL AT AREAS. 177
they were, and came suddenly to a certain remote place in a desert, where a great multitude of men and women found themselves. There they met a devil in the shape of a man, whose face they never were able to see ; and this devil read or delivered to them his commands and regulations, as to how they should worship and serve him as their lord. Hereupon lie allowed each of them to kiss him, after which he gave every one some money. Finally, he divided wine and viands amoiQgst them, and they made merry. Then followed scenes that are better left unrevealed, and afterwards, by aid of the devil, they all found themselves at the places whence they came.
" On account of these follies, numbers of people of con- dition in the city of Arras, as also other people of less con- sideration, were arrested and imprisoned, and then so tortured and horribly racked, that some of them confessed that they had conducted themselves in the manner above described. And besides this, it being suggested to them, and put into their mouths by the Inquisitors, they confessed, under the agonies of the rack, that they had seen people of rank, prelates and magistrates occupying posts and offices in the city, at these witch-assemblies. Some of these were immediately arrested, and so terribly racked that they also actually confessed that that was true which had been reported of them. The former people were most barbarously executed, and the greater part of them burnt. Others who were richer and more powerful purchased their security by money. There were some also who were assured that they should neither suffer in their persons nor their property if they would only confess. Others endured the agonies of the torture with wonderful patience, but would confess nothing to the injury of others. Greater numbers, however, gave large sums to the judges, and to ail those who coidd free them from the torture ; others fled the country, and made their innocence so apparent that they were left in peace.
" And here it is not to be omitted that many honourable people stated confidently that these accusations were many of them made by malicious individuals to injure people of condition to whom they owed a grudge, or from a disposition prone to envy and evil. Besides this, the judges were in the habit of taking low people, and giving them a touch of
VOL. II. N
178 ■ HISTORY OF MAGIC.
the rack, so that they were ready to accuse people of wealth, from whom the judges could extorfc money.
'•' There is also another relation of this barbarous witch- prosecution, which is not wholly so liberal and honourable as the other, but is, at the same time, the more interesting, because it shews the overbearing conduct of the judges, the monstrous violation of principles of justice and law, and the bribing and rescuing with gold, etc." Jacob Meyer relates the affair in his "Annal. Flandriae, lib. xvi. sub Phillippo Burgundione ad ann. 1459."
" In the year 1459 we read that at Arras something very fearful took place. That very many people were inhumanly burnt with fire, for having had nocturnal meetings with the devil, who had given them much gold. Very many gentlemen and ladies of condition were arrested on the evidence of those who were burnt, and most barba- rously tortured. Others purchased their escape with gold ; some fled from the country, but others suffered the torture steadfastly, and would confess nothing. It is related that some of the judges were so abominably base that they ac- cused numbers of persons to whom they were inimical, in order that they might have the pleasure of torturing them. Others assert that there really were such nocturnal assem- blies of men and women, where they worshipped the devil in the shape of a he-goat or a tom-cat, never being allowed to see his face ; yet have sworn to obey his com- mands. That they then made a banquet, and concluded with lewd practices."
Horst adds to this, that in these witch-prosecutions one Peter Briissard was made beadle. They accused these witches at the same time of being Waldenses and Mani- chasans. Limborch says that many persons who had been compelled to criminate themselves under torture, as soon as they were condemned to the fire protested against the whole proceeding, and cried out with all their might pub- licly that they were innocent and should die unjustly ! That they never were at the devil's sabbaths in Waldesia, but that they had been inhumanly betrayed by the judges, who had promised them, with many flatteries, that if they con- fessed what they were accused of, they should be at once released from the rack, and set free."
THE WTTCH-TEIAL AT MORA. 179
Horst says that the witch-prosecution at Mora in Sweden was the greatest and most frightful in Europe. The account exists in many Swedish and Latin documents ; and Glanvil has introduced it to the English in his " Sadduca^is- mus oder Atheismus Triumphans." There is something so monstrous, says Horst, in this prosecution, that we know not what to think of it, because Sweden at that time stood second to no nation in Europe in the science of legislation ; and the trials in that country had never been so savage as in most other countries, and nearly all the public officers and clergy of Dalecarlia were present as members of the examinations.
The circumstance about to be related occurred in the year 1669, at Mora, in Dalecarlia, that province so celebrated through Gustavus Wasa and Gustavus III. Many chil- dren at this place fell at the same time into swoons, suflered violent attacks on their nerves, and cramps ; their coun- tenances became distorted, and they spoke and raved when they awoke of Blokula, and the witches there. Blokula — renowned as the rendezvous of the Swedish witches, and also called Blakula — was a rock in the sea between Smoland and (Eland, — meaning literally, the Black Hill. According to Arnkiel, there was a sea-goddess Blakylla.
The affair made an extraordinary sensation. The cause was attributed to witchcraft, and strange rumours spread all over the province that the witches took the children with them to an unknowTi place called Blokula. The king dispatched a Commission to Mora, who, with the judges, and nearly the whole of the clergy of the pro- vince, constituted a public tribunal in order to investigate the affair on the spot. The whole population of Mora seemed actually gone mad on the subject ; and the clergy and judges were strongly affected with the mania. The Inquiry, in which the rack ^xas not the least convincing means, ended its labours by finally convicting of witchcraft sixty-two women and fifteen of the elder children, all of whom were condemned to death. Sixty-six others were condemned to severe punishments, and forty-seven otlier persons, involved in the course of the trials, were detained for further examination. Nearly all confessed the fol- lowing absurdities: — "The place to which they had taken the children was called Blokula, and was only known to
ISO HISTORY OF MAGIC.
them. Here the devil appeared in all sorts of shapes, but usually in a grey coat, red breeches, and stockings. He had a red beard, had a tall hat with various coloured ribbons (a Swedish fashion then), and the same ribbons adorned his breeches. They rode through the air to Blokula ; but they were expected to take with them at least fifteen children, their o^vn and others, whom they clandestinely carried ofi". If they failed in this the devil chastised them severely. They rode through the air on all kinds of animals, and some- times on men, or on spits and staves. "When they rode on he-goats and had many children with them, they thrust a pole through the goat behind, on which the children rode very conveniently. If they had brought many children with them, these were often in returning obliged to ease them- selves in the air, and what fell from them was aurora- coloured, and was often found in the cabbage garden (a moist fungus), and that is the true witch- butter. On Blokula every witch must cut her finger, and write her name in the devil's book with her blood. Then the devil cited a clergyman, and caused himself to be baptized. This done, he gave them a litttle purse containing the filings of church bells, and this they were to fling into the water, saying, " As these filings will never come to the bell again, so may my soul never come to heaven." After which the banquet began ; and the devil treated them to cabbage broth, bacon, oatmeal-porridge, milk, -butter, and cheese (pure Swedish dishes). After the banquet there was a dance, in which there arose contentions and often blows. When the devil was in a right merry humour, he caused all the witches to ride about on poles ; then he suddenly plucked the poles away from between their legs, and beat them on the back with them till they often went home with their backs all black and blue, at which he laughed till his sides shook. He sometimes al makings, so that they became miserable and sickly in conse- quence. ' But sometimes the devil was very gracious, and played all kind of beautiful pieces on the harp, and took those witches with whom he was most pleased aside with him. All confessed to the same intercourse with the devil, and to having had children by him ; but not real children, only lizards, snakes, and toads. Sometimes they said the devil was ill, and then the witches must open a vein for
WITCn-TEIALS A:5fD WITCHES TN EIS-GLAKD. 181
liim, and put on cupping-glasses. Yes, sometimes he was even at the point of death, on which there was great lamen- tation on Blokula."
Just as edifying were the questions of the judges, — for in- stance, whether they were quite certain that they were carried off by the devil ; or whether he only appeared to them iu swoons or dreams ; and whether he went up the chimney or througli the closed windows ; to which the witches often gave admirably befitting answers.
The celebrated witch-trial at Marbois, in England, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, may be cited as a parallel to that of Mora. In memory of this barbarous trial, there con- tinued to be a sermon annually preached at Huntingdon against witchcraft, down to the eighteenth century. But Eng- land is the country, as we have already stated, where haunt- ing spectres were always at home. Witches were equally prevalent, and transcended those of other countries no less in power than in folly. Thus the female sex was here, earlier than in other countries, dreaded on account of witchcraft. Before the coronation of E-ichard Coeur de Lion, it was proclaimed that neither Jews nor women should be present at it (see Hume's History of England). The Jews, un- doubtedly, were forbidden, on account of their having cruci- fied Christ ; the women because they were suspected of ' witchcraft.
In the year 1303 a bishop of Coventry was accused at Bome of a series of crimes, and amongst others, " quod diabolo homagium fecerat et eum fuerit osculatus in tergo." Boniface VIII. acquitted him. The same accusation was made against the later witches. James I. was so devoted to the devil and to witchcraft that he wrote a Demonology, in which he stood forward as the defender of witches against one of his own subjects, Eeginald Scott, and against Joh. Wier. This royal production is in form and contents very like the Witch-hammer. A witch had given him in- struction, for which he gave her her life ; and witchcraft was, therefore, quite the mode at his court. The witch-trial at Marlborough was, for the most part, a consequence of this. The Incubus and Succubus then had a king for their champion, who proved the reality of such thini^-s from the Scriptures. Iu respect to the amorous devils,
IS 2 HISTOET OF MAGIC.
there were many names for them, — fairies, fays, peri, and elves. According to Sir Walter Scott, they retained these names all the longer because they had a mixture of Greek, oriental, and Teutonic ideas in them, and because the "Witch- hammer was not able then to reduce ti^era all to one repul- sive form, as in Germany. Yet even the fairies did not fail to kindle fires at the stake. Thus, according to Hippert, in his History of Spiritual Life, a plethorically sick woman had pro- bably continual visions both sleeping and waking, in which she associated with the queen of the elves and with the good neighbours. In such visions she saw her cousin Simpson, whom the elves had carried away into the mountains. She received an ointment from the elves which healed every disease ; and the Bishop of St. Andrew's did not despise the emolument from it. In the criminal indictment against her, it is stated, that as she and some other persons had been ID, and had lain in bed, a man clothed in green came to them (green is the colour of fairies and elves), who promised her a cure in return for her fidelity to him. She cried out, however, four times, but as no one came, she declared her acquiescence, on the assurance that he came in God's name ; on which he took his leave. Another time, it was said, he came as a jolly feUow, in company vrith men and women ; but she crossed herself, and remained vrith them, and was entertained with music and feasting. She had seen the Good Neighbours prepare the ointment over the fire. This woman was ultimately burnt as a witch.
The Deasil of the English is celebrated from antiquity. Like the magic circle of the Druids. The Deasil was a circle in which a person with certain solemn ceremonies ran three times round, following the course of the sun. By this circumgyration it happened, as with the Schamans, that the performer fell into ecstasy, and foretold hidden things. Second-sight was also communicated to others by Deasil- riinning, especially when it took place in haunted ground, or in a mystic mood of mind.
One of the most remarkable witch-trials in Denmark was at Kioge, ^here one of the most singular inquiries, amongst others, was about the " membrum virile diaboli." In Ger- many great witch-prosecutions were introduced into Trier, Cologne, Baden, Bamberg, in various places of Upper
THE BUENIIfG OF MAEIA RENATA. 183
Germany ; in the dominions of tlie Princes and Counts, and also into the free cities. But the reader must pardon passing over many things with Tfhich he is already acquainted. I refer him for more details to Hauber and Horst.
The last trial in Germany was that of the nun, Maria Eenata, at Wiirzburg, in 1749. The last witch was executed at Clarus, I will shortly relate the history of this tragedy from "The Christian Address at the burning of Maria Eenata, of the convent of Unterzell, who was burnt on the 21st of June, 1749 ; which address was delivered to a numerous multitude, and afterwards printed by command of the authorities."
Maria Eenata was born at Munich, and as a child of six or seven years old went into the neighbourhood of Linz, and was seduced to witchcraft by an officer, in whom the de%dl was probably embodied ; and as hell cannot endure the name of Maria, she was called Emma Eenata, — my ne\N'- born one. At twelve years old she had reached such a pitch, that she took the first rank at the assemblies of the prince of darkness. At the age of nineteen, probably against her will, she was placed in the convent of Ijnterzell near Wiirzburg, celebrated for its good discipline, where, on account of her apparent piety, she was placed over the other nuns as sub-prioress. Eenata passed fifty years in the con- vent, during which time, by the special providence of God, she was prevented, according to her own communications, from injuring the souls of any of the sisters. Satan, therefore, enraged, tormented the bodies of these ladies, and they suf- fered in that convent, as in most others, especially from spasms. Eenata endeavoured to heal four of the nuns, partly by magical breathing on them, and partly by roots and herbs of magic power. She, however, bewitched several infernal spirits into five other, together with a lay-sister. On account of all these circumstances, Eenata was arrested and examined by the spiritual power. She was then delivered over to the secular arm, and condemned to death. Through the clemency of the prince she was permitted to be first beheaded, and afterwards her lifeless body burnt to ashes, BO that no trace of it should remain, and that her memory might perish \s-ith her ashts.
Por the text of this witch-sermon the preacher took, of
184 HISTOET or MAGIC.
course, " A witch shalt thou not suffer to live." This law, it says, is by no means abolished by Christianity, but made the more imperative, insomuch as they blaspheme Grod and all the saints, for a witch renounces all these and the holy mother, and curses and reviles them. They insult the Christian church, for the witches imitate and bring into ridicule its most holy rites ; and in the same manner the preacher makes it appear that they alone libel and corrupt all laws, institutions of society, and morals. He concludes by saying that men must seize on spiritual w^eapons to over- come and destroy the wizard arts of geomancy, the magic glass, and of fortune-telling by cups, chalices, and bags ; and that all must admire the means of grace by which Eenata had finally been rescued from the claws of the devil !
With the trial of Emma B-enata the fires of the death- pyre were extinguished, but not the haunting of possession ; for in the convent of Unterzell there continued to be, for a long time afterwards, nuns who gave themselves out to be possessed. Order and decorum vanished; clergymen and laymen went into the convent every hour ; everywhere they sent for exorcists, but nowhere for physicians.
But it appears very clearly from the confessions of Renata, and others, that the possession of those nuns was nothing else than the symptoms of diseases which have always been more prevalent within the walls of convents than without them. All complain of tension and unusual movement in the region of the stomach, of a rising and a swelling sen- sation towards the heart and throat, of anxiety, depression, and loss of voice before the actual attack of convul- sions, which were accompanied by ravings, in which they uttered the most violent denunciations against every- thing sacred. Such invalids answered, in the character of the concealed spirit of the demon, by whom they believed themselves possessed, many times, with the imitated howl- ing of beasts ; they were also very clever at throwing their interrogators into confusion, by the exposure of their ignorance, or of their failings. Similar phenomena I have observed in mesmeric subjects, with an inimitable mimicry ard wit, and every experienced physician must have done the saii}e. Thus a possessed person answered Kerna, a celebrated Protestant theologian, who adjured her with the
VAl^TPTETSM IN THE EAST OE EUEOPE. 185
•words, " Spirit, thou who art a nothing, I command thee to go out !" To which the spirit replied with ironic coolness, " That is the stupidest stuff that I ever heard." ^ The paroxysms in this convent terminated with fainting, violent diarrhoea, with a general perspiration, followed by repose, cheerfulness, and a continuance of health for some time. That which appeared the most extraordinary, and which the people believed could only be ascribed to the power of the devil, were, the terrible attacks which produced all kinds of gestures, grimaces, turning round in a speechless state, wild cries, catalepsy, epilepsy, and all sorts of pro- phetic visions ; accompanied by the power of infecting and transferring the spasms and visions to the other sisters ; and, farther, those apparitions of nightmare, insensibility to all exterior excitement, and long abstinence from any nourishment, as well as the appearance of pins and needles in various parts of the body, which is by no means unusual in cases of this kind.
Towards the end of the seventeenth century the belief in witchcraft grew more wavering, and men began to oppose it with keenness and vigour ; and this even in Germany, which had hitherto swarmed with witches, and where the smoke of the death-fires had choked all genuine Chris- tianity. But that which this mock-faith lost in Germany, France, and Italy, it gained in the far north and in the east of Europe, in Livonia, in Poland and Eussia, in Servia and "Wallachia, where the blood-sucking vampire hovered the longest, — a superstition of the most revolting kind " A vampire-ghost," says an official document quoted by Horst, " is a dead person who continues to live on in the grave ; who in the night aseends fi'om his tomb as an apparition, in order to suck the blood of the living, by which he maintains his body in the earth unemaciated, and incapable of decay."
This vampirism had a different kind of penal trial from that of witches, for here the dead bodies were examined and burnt. It is said in the above-mentioned statement, which being official may stand as the type of many others, that " after P. Plagoymitz had been interred a few days, several persons at once fell ill, and within eight days nine people died. All these on their death-beds protested that the said Plagoymitz was the sole cause of their deaths, because he
186 HISTOET OF MAGIC.
had come by niglit as tliej slept, had seized them by their throats, and sucked their blood. In order to put an end to this general calamity in the village, it was determined to open the grave, when, to the astonishment of all the spec- tators, the body, although it had lain three weeks in the grave, gave forth not the slightest odour of death, and, except that his nose was somewhat fallen in, the whole was perfectly fresli and sound. They took the body out of the grave, sharpened a stake, and drove it through the heart of the vampire, upon which fresh blood gushed from the mouth and ears. They then burnt the body, and turned hirh, thus pierced through, to dust and ashes." This account is draAvn up from the surgeon of the place, who himself directed the inquiry.
It was in Spain — the western land of marvels — that magic was originally introduced into the universities, and there it first disappeared ; to which, probably, the constant troubles and wars with the Moors mainly contributed. On the contrary, it has maintained itself longest in the East, where possibly yet more absurd superstitions existed, where the imagination loosed itself to every poetical fancy, and where the faith in sorcery is not even yet totally subdued, because German illumination has not hitherto been able to penetrate thither : German illumination which has driven the whole witch and apparition world from its own soil, spite of all the arms and opposition that it could bring against it, and this it has done pre-eminently through the cultivation of natural philosophy. The Germans, even in the worst times of witchcraft, set themselves in the most courageous opposition to that desolating superstition, encoun- tering it with invincible reasons, as we shall see.
In order to prolong the career of the authorized witch- prosecutions, two of the succeeding popes issued from time to time bulls in the same spirit ; the first of these being the act of Alexander YI., the successor of Innocent VIII. But in the sixteenth century men began gradually to awake; and there arose voices in Italy and Germany against those maniacal barbarities, and that so strongly, that the secular magistracy began to resist the arbitrary will of the witch- commissioners. It was the republic of Venice which first in Italy made complaints to the Pope through the Doge and Grand Council, praying him to add a commission extra-
"WITH THE DA.WS OF LEAENING WITCHCEAFT DECEEASES. 187
ordinary to the witch-in qiiisitors ; to which the Pope con- sented, and appointed the nuncio, Bishop of Poli, to this office, either, or with others, to revise their judgments. When the judge of heresy in Berscia, Bergamo, and Como, had condemned a formidable list of witches with renewed zeal, the council of Venice forbade the sentences to be executed, and would not allow the required costs of the prosecutions to be paid. This bold proceeding gave umbrage to the Pope ; he deemed it hostile to the freedom and dominance of the church, and issued a fresh bull, by which he invested the judges of heresy again with full powers. But the spirit of the time was already too far advanced ; and the Venetians displayed less fear than the church had expected.
The Pope found himself engaged in other important and absorbing business, and the general persecution of witches continued more and more to relax. In Germany the Re- formation put an end to the papal prosecutions of heretics, and in the countries and cities where the doctrines of Luther prevailed the heresy-edicts disappeared lapidly, yet not altogether : for after Luther's death free-thinking j sprung up by the side of fanaticism, and again the i death-fires blazed np, before their final extinction, fiercer \ than ever. Any one who now opposed himself stoutly to the heretical faith, — and this took place not only amougst the Protestants but amongst the Catholics even more frequently, was set down himself as a heretic, as was experienced by popes and cardinals. (See Staiidlin's History of Scepticism, Vol. ii.)
Many learned men, as Stephen Dolet, Gottfried Valer at Paris, Jordan Brunus, in 1600, were executed at Eome as atheists. And, indeed, the learned had not always found the true medium course between faith and knowledge, be- tween fanaticism and atheism ; and while many of them con- tended against the extravagant belief in witchcraft, they not wholly themselves renounce their own faith in magic and demonology. The French and Italian schools held fast by that faith, and amongst their most distinguished men Pomponaz, Cardanus, Casalpinus, Cosmus Rugieri, Thom- Campanella.
One of the most free-thinking and enlightened intellects
188 HISTORY OF MAGIC.
was Bodinus (Colloquium de abditis rerum sublimium causis, de magorum dsemonomania, 1603 ; Universse naturae The- atrum, in Baumgarten's Halle Bibliothek, Vol. iii.) Bo- dinus's opinions on Eeligion and the Church, fortunately for him, were only known after his death ; yet, with all their scepticism and naturalism, they were by no means free from belief in astrology and demons. In a similar manner was Cornelius Agrippa of E-ettesheim a lander of the magic arts, and Mich. Nostradamus, the court physician of Henry