The Superstitions of Witchcraft, by Howard Williams

Index

PART II.

CHAPTER II.

Charlemagne's Severity—Anglo-Saxon Superstition—Norman and Arabic Magic—Influence of Arabic Science—Mohammedan Belief in Magic—Rabbinical Learning—Roger Bacon—The Persecution of the Templars—Alice Kyteler.

Tremendous as was the power of the witch in earlier Christendom, it was not yet degraded into the thoroughly diabolistic character of her more recent successors. Diabolism advanced in the same proportion with the authority of the Church and the ignorant submission of the people. In the civil law, the Emperor Leo, in the sixth century, abrogated the Constantinian edict as too indulgent or too credulous: from that time all sorts of charms, all use of them, beneficial or injurious, were declared worthy of punishment. The different states of Europe, founded on the ruins of the Western Empire, more or less were engaged in providing against the evil consequences of sorcery. Charlemagne pursued the criminals with great severity. He 'had several times given orders that all necromancers, astrologers, and witches should be driven from his states; but as the[64] number of criminals augmented daily, he found it necessary at last to resort to severer measures. In consequence, he published several edicts, which may be found at length in the "Capitulaire de Baluse." By these every sort of magic, enchantment, and witchcraft was forbidden, and the punishment of death decreed against those who in any way evoked the devil, compounded love-philters, afflicted either man or woman with barrenness, troubled the atmosphere, excited tempests, destroyed the fruits of the earth, dried up the milk of cows, or tormented their fellow-creatures with sores and diseases. All persons found guilty of exercising these execrable arts were to be executed immediately upon conviction, that the earth might be rid of the curse and burden of their presence; and those who consulted them might also be punished with death.'48

The Saxons, in the fifth century, imported into Britain the pagan forms of the Fatherland; and the Anglo-Saxon (Christian) laws are usually directed against practices connected with heathen worship, of which many reminiscences were long preserved. Their Hexe, or witch,49 appears to be half-divine, half-diabolic, a witch-priestess who derived her inspiration[65] as much from heavenly as from hellish sources; from some divinity or genius presiding at a sacred grove or fountain. King Athelstan is said to have made a law against witchcraft and similar acts which inflict death; that if one by them be made away, and the thing cannot be denied, such practicers shall be put to death; but if they endeavour to purge themselves, and be cast by the threefold ordeal, they shall be in prison 120 days; which ended, their kindred may redeem them by the payment [in the universal style of the English penalties] of 120 shillings to the king, and further pay to the kindred of the slain the full valuation of the party's head; and then the criminals shall also procure sureties for good behaviour for the time to come; and the Danish prince Knut denounces by an express doom the noxious acts of sorcery.50 Some of the witches who appear under Saxon domination are almost as ferocious as those of the time of Bodin or of James; cutting up the bodies of the dead, especially of children, devouring their heart and liver in midnight revels. Fearful are the deeds of Saxon sorcery as[66] related by the old Norman or Anglo-Norman writers. Roger of Wendover ('Flowers of History') records the terrible fate of a hag who lived in the village of Berkely, in the ninth century. The devil at the appointed hour (as in the case of Faust) punctually carries off the soul of his slave, in spite of the utmost watch and ward. These scenes are, perhaps, rather Norman than Saxon. It was a favourite belief of the ancients and mediævalists that the inhospitable regions of the remoter North were the abode of demons who held in those suitable localities their infernal revels, exciting storms and tempests: and the monk-chronicler Bede relates the northern parts of Britain were thus infested.51

From Scandinavia the Normans must have brought a conviction of the truths of magic; and although they had been long settled, before the conquest of England, in Northern France and in Christianity, the traditional glories of the land from which were de[67]rived their name and renown could not be easily forgotten. Not long after the Conquest the Arabic learning of Spain made its way into this country, and it is possible that Christian magic, as well as science, may have been influenced by it. Magic, scientifically treated, flourished in Arabic Spain, being extensively cultivated, in connection with more real or practical learning, by the polite and scientific Arabs. The schools of Salamanca, Toledo, and other Saracenic cities were famous throughout Europe for eminence in medicine, chymistry, astronomy, and mathematics. Thither resorted the learned of the North to perfect themselves in the then cultivated branches of knowledge. The vast amount of scientific literature of the Moslems of Spain, evidenced in their public libraries, relieves Southern Europe, in part at least, from the stigma of a universal barbaric illiteracy.52 Several volumes of Arabian philosophy are said to have been introduced to Northern Europe in the twelfth century; and it was in the school of Toledo that Gerbert—a[68] conspicuous name in the annals of magic—acquired his preternatural knowledge.

The few in any way acquainted with Greek literature were indebted to the Latin translations of the Arabs; while the Jewish rabbinical learning, whose more useful lore was encumbered with much mystical nonsense, enjoyed considerable reputation at this period. The most distinguished of the rabbis taught in the schools in London, York, Lincoln, Oxford, and Cambridge; and Christendom has to confess its obligations for its first acquaintance with science to the enemies of the Cross.53 The later Jewish authorities had largely developed the demonology of the subjects of Persia; and the spiritual or demoniacal creations of the rabbinical works of the Middle Ages might be readily acceptable, if not coincident, to Christian faith. But the Western Europeans, before the philosophy of the Spanish Arabs was known, had come in contact with the Saracens and Turks of the East during frequent pilgrimages to the tomb of Christ; and the fanatical crusades of the eleventh and twelfth centuries facilitated and secured the hazardous journey. Mohammedans of the present day preserve the implicit faith of their ancestors in the efficacy of the 113th chapter of the Koran against evil spirits, the spells of witches and sorcerers—a chapter said to[69] have been revealed to the Prophet of Islam on the occasion of his having been bewitched by the daughters of a Jew. The Genii or Ginn—a Preadamite race occupying an intermediate position between angels and men, who assume at pleasure the form of men, of the lower animals, or any monstrous shape, and propagate their species like, and sometimes with, human kind—appear in imposing proportions in 'The Thousand and One Nights'—that rich display of the fancy of the Oriental imagination.54 Credulous and confused in critical perception, the crusading adventurers for religion or rapine could scarcely fail to confound with their own the peculiar tenets of an[70] ill-understood mode of thought; and that the critical and discriminating faculties of the champions of the Cross were not of the highest order, is illustrated by their difficulty in distinguishing the eminently unitarian religion of Mohammed from paganism. By a strange perversion the Anglo-Norman and French chroniclers term the Moslems Pagans, while the Saxon heathen are dignified by the title of Saracens; and the names of Mahmoud, Termagaunt, Apollo, could be confounded without any sense of impropriety. However, or in whatever degree, Saracenic or rabbinical superstition tended to influence Christian demonology, from about the end of the thirteenth century a considerable development in the mythology of witchcraft is perceptible.55

Conspicuous in the vulgar prejudices is the suspicion attaching to the extraordinary discoveries of philosophy and science. Diabolic inspiration (as in our age infidelity and atheism are popular outcries) was a ready and successful accusation against ideas or discoveries in advance of the time. Roger Bacon,[71] Robert Grostête, Albert the Great, Thomas of Ercildoun, Michael Scot—eminent names—were all more or less objects of a persecuting suspicion. Bacon may justly be considered the greatest name in the philosophy of the Middle Age. That anomaly of mediævalism was one of the few who could neglect a vain and senseless theology and system of metaphysics to apply his genius to the solid pursuits of truer philosophy; and if his influence has not been so great as it might have been, it is the fault of the age rather than of the man. Condemned by the fear or jealousy of his Franciscan brethren and Dominican rivals, Bacon was thrown into prison, where he was excluded from propagating 'certain suspected novelties' during fourteen years, a victim of his more liberal opinions and of theological hatred. One of the traditions of his diabolical compacts gives him credit at least for ingenuity in avoiding at once a troublesome bargain and a terrible fate. The philosopher's compact stipulated that after death his soul was to be the reward and possession of the devil, whether he died within the church's sacred walls or without them. Finding his end approaching, that sagacious magician caused a cell to be constructed in the walls of the consecrated edifice, giving directions, which were properly carried out, for his burial in a tomb that was thus neither within nor without the church—an evasion of a long-expected event, which[72] lost the disappointed devil his prize, and probably his temper. 'Friar Bacon' became afterwards a well-known character in the vulgar fables: he was the type of the mediæval, as the poet Virgil was of the ancient, magician. A popular drama was founded on his reputed exploits and character in the sixteenth century, by Robert Greene, in 'Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay;' but the famous Dr. Faustus, the most popular magic hero of that time on the stage, was a formidable rival. While his cotemporaries denounced his rational method, preferring their theological jargon and scholastic metaphysics; how much the Aristotle of mediævalism has been neglected even latterly is a surprising fact.56

But in proof of the prevalence of the popular suspicion, not even the all-powerful spiritual Chief of Christendom was spared. Many of the pontiffs were charged with being addicted to the 'Black Art'—an odd imputation against the vicars of Christ and the successors of St. Peter. A charge, however, which we may be disposed to receive as evidence that in a long and disgusting list of ambitious priests and licentious despots there have been some popes who, by cultivating philosophy, may have in some sort[73] partially redeemed the hateful character of Christian sacerdotalism. At a council held at Paris in the interest of Philip IV., Boniface VIII. was publicly accused of sorcery: it was affirmed that 'he had a familiar demon [the Socratic Genius?]; for he has said that if all mankind were on one side and he alone on the other, he could not be mistaken either in point of fact or of right, which presupposes a diabolical art'—a dogma of sacerdotalism sufficiently confident, but scarcely requiring a miraculous solution. This pope's death, it is said, was hastened by these and similar reports of his dealings with familiar spirits, invented in the interest of the French king to justify his hostility. Boniface VIII.'s esoteric opinions on Catholicism and Christianity, if correctly reported, did not show the orthodoxy to be expected from the supreme pontiff: but he would not be a singular example amongst the numerous occupants of the chair of St. Peter.57

John XXII., one of his more immediate successors, is said to be the pope who first formally condemned the crime of witchcraft, more systematically anathematised some hundred and fifty years afterwards by Innocent VIII. He complains of the universal in[74]fection of Christendom: that his own court even, and immediate attendants, were attached to the devil's service, applying to him on all occasions for help. The earliest judicial trial for the crime on record in England is said to have occurred in the reign of John. It is briefly stated in the 'Abbreviatio Placitorum' that 'Agnes, the wife of Odo the merchant, accused Gideon of sorcery; and he was acquitted by the judgment of iron.' The first account of which much information is given occurs in Edward II.'s reign, when the lives of the royal favourites, the De Spencers, and his own, were attempted by a supposed criminal, one John of Nottingham, with the assistance of his man, Robert Marshall, who became king's evidence, and charged his master with having conspired the king's death by the arts of sorcery.58 Cupidity or malice was the cause of this informer's accusation. One of the distinguishing characteristics in its annals was the abuse of the common prejudice for political purposes, or for the gratification of private passion.

At the commencement of the fourteenth century the persecution and final destruction of the Order of the Knights Templars in the different countries of Europe, but chiefly in France (an instance of the[75] former abuse), is one of the most atrocious facts in the history of those times. The fate of the Knights of the Temple (whose original office it had been to protect their coreligionists during pilgrimages in the Holy City, and whose quarters were near the site of the Temple—whence the title of the Order) in France was determined by the jealousy or avarice of Philip IV. Founded in the first half of the twelfth century as a half-religious, half-military institution, that celebrated Order was, in its earlier career, in high repute for valour and success in fighting the battles of the Cross. With wealth and fame, pride and presumption increased to the highest pitch; and at the end of 150 years the champions of Christendom were equally hated and feared. Their entire number was no more than 1,500; but they were all experienced warriors, in possession of a number of important fortresses, besides landed property to the amount, throughout their whole extent, of nine thousand manorial estates. When the Holy Land was hopelessly lost to the profane ambition or religious zeal of the West, its defenders returned to their homes loaded with riches and prestige if not with unstained honour, and without insinuations that they had betrayed the cause of Christ and the Crusades. Such was the condition of the Temple when Philip, after exhausting the coffers of Jews and[76] Christians, found his treasury still unfilled. The opportunity was not to be neglected: it remained only to secure the consent of the Church, and to provoke the ready credulity of the people. Church and State united, supported by the popular superstition, were irresistible; and the destined victims expected their impending fate in silent terror. At length the signal was given. Prosecutions in 1307 were carried on simultaneously throughout the provinces; but in French territory they assumed the most formidable shape. In many places they were acquitted of the gravest indictments: the English king, from a feeling of justice or jealousy, expressed himself in their favour. As for Spain, 'it was not in presence of the Moors, and on the classic ground of Crusade, that the thought could be entertained of proscribing the old defenders of Christendom.' Paris, where was their principal temple, was the centre of the Order; their wealth and power were concentrated in France; and thus the spoils not of a single province, but almost of the entire body, were within the grasp of a single monarch. Hence he assumed the right of presiding as judge and executioner.59 On October 12, 1307, Jacques Molay, with the heads[77] of the Temple, was invited to Paris, where, loaded with favours, they were lulled into fatal security. The delusion was soon abruptly dispelled. Molay, together with 140 of his brethren, was arrested—the signal for a more general procedure throughout the kingdom.

The charges have been resolved under three heads: (1) The denial of Christ. (2) Treachery to the cause of Christianity. (3) The worship of the devil, and the practice of sorcery. The principal articles in the indictment were that the knights at initiation formally denied the divinity of Christ, pronouncing he was not truly a God—even going so far as to assert he was a false prophet, a man who had been punished for his crimes; that they had no hopes of salvation through him; that at the final reception they always spat on the Cross, trampling it under foot; that they worshipped the devil in the form of a cat, or some other familiar animal; that they adored him in the figure of an idol consecrated by anointing it with the fat of a new-born infant, the illegitimate offspring of a brother; that a demon appeared in the shape of a black or gray cat, &c. The idol is a mysterious object. According to some it was a head with a beard, or a head with three faces: by others it was said to be a skull, a cat. One witness testified that in a chapter of the Order one brother said to[78] another, 'Worship this head; it is your God and your Mahomet.' Of this kind was the general evidence of the witnesses examined. Less incredible, perhaps, is the statement that they sometimes saw demons in the appearance of women; and a more credible allegation is that of a secret understanding with the Turks.

Notoriously suspicious communication had been maintained with the enemy; they even went so far as to adopt their style of dress and living. Worse than all, by an amiable but unaccustomed tolerance, the followers of Mohammed had been allowed a free exercise of their religion, a sort of liberality little short of apostasy from the faith. Without recounting all the horrors of the persecution, it must be sufficient to repeat that fifty-four of the wretched condemned, having been degraded by the Bishop of Paris, were handed over to the flames. Four years afterwards the scene was consummated by the burning of Jacques Molay. Torture of the most dreadful sort had been applied to force necessary confessions; and the complaint of one of the criminals is significant—'I, single, as I am, cannot undertake to argue with the Pope and the King of France.'60 In attempting to detect the mysterious facts of this dark[79] transaction little assistance is given by the contradictory statements of cotemporary or later writers; some asserting the charges to be mere fabrications throughout; others their positive reality; and recent historians have attempted to substantiate or destroy them. Hallam truly remarks that the rapacious and unprincipled conduct of Philip, the submission of Clement V. to his will, the apparent incredibility of the charges from their monstrousness, the just prejudice against confessions obtained by torture and retracted afterwards; the other prejudice, not always so just, but in the case of those not convicted on fair evidence deserving a better name, in favour of assertions of innocence made on the scaffold and at the stake, created, as they still preserve, a strong willingness to disbelieve the accusations which come so suspiciously before us.61 An approximation to the truth may be obtained if, rejecting as improbable[80] the accusations of devil-worship and its concomitant rites which, invented to amuse the vulgar, characterise the proceedings, we admit the probability of a secret understanding with the Turks, or the possibility of infidelity to the religion of Christ. Their destruction had been predetermined; the slender element of truth might soon be exaggerated and confounded with every kind of fiction. Their pride, avarice, luxury, corrupt morals, would give colour to the most absurd inventions.62

If the history of the extermination of the Templars exemplifies in an eminent manner the political uses made by the highest in office of a prevalent superstition, the story of Alice Kyteler illustrates equally the manner in which it was prostituted to the private purposes of designing impostors. The scene is in Ireland, the period the first half of the fourteenth century; Richard de Ledrede, Bishop of Ossory, being the principal prosecutor, and a lady, Alice Kyteler, the defendant. The details are too tedious to be repeated here;63 but the articles upon which the conviction of Alice Kyteler and her accomplices was[81] sought are not dissimilar to those just narrated. To give effect to their sorcery they were in the habit of denying the faith for a year, or shorter period, as the object to be attained was greater or less. Demons were propitiated with sacrifices of living animals, torn limb by limb and scattered (a Hecatean feast) about cross-roads. It was alleged that by sorceries they obtained help from the devil; that they impiously used the ceremonies of the Church in nightly conventicles, pronouncing with lighted candles of wax excommunication against the persons of their own husbands, naming expressly every member from the sole of the foot to the top of the head. Their compositions are of the Horatian and Shakspearian sort.[82] With the intestines of cocks were sacrificed various herbs, the nails of dead men, hair, brains, and clothes of children dying unbaptized, with other equally efficacious ingredients, boiled in the skull of a certain famous robber recently beheaded: powders, ointments, and candles of fat boiled in the same skull were the intended instruments for exciting love or hatred, and in affecting the bodies of the faithful. An unholy connection existed between the Lady Alice and a demon in the form sometimes of a black dog, sometimes of a cat. She was possessed of a secret ointment for impregnating a piece of wood, upon which, with her companions, she was carried to any part of the world without hurt or hindrance: in her house was found a wafer of consecrated bread inscribed with the name of the devil. The event of this trial was the conviction and imprisonment of the criminals, with the important exception of the chief object of the bishop's persecution, who contrived an escape to England. Petronilla de Meath was the first to suffer the extreme penalty. This lady, by order of the bishop, had been six times flogged, when, to escape a repetition of that barbarous infliction, she made a public confession involving her fellow-prisoners. After which Petronilla was carried out into the city and burned before all the people—the first witch, it is said, ever burned in Ireland. Of the other accused all were treated with[83] more or less severity; two were subsequently burned, some were publicly flogged in the market-place and through the city, others banished; a few, more fortunate, escaping altogether.

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