During the witchraft trials in this country the
exercises were the result of clergy competition and the signs were
very similar to events at Cane Ridge and elsewhere under the heading
of religious revivalism. The same events were reported in Corinth
where Paul said that their assemblies did more harm than good. The
following notes distributed for educational purposes only give
further background. The methods of witchcraft are often adopted by
Christian groups trying, as did Nimrod, "to create spiritual revival
through external means." Click
Here
Medieval Sourcebook:
Witchcraft Documents [15th Century]
Book: 1692 Witch Hunt : The Layman's Guide to the Salem
Witchcraft Trials by George Malcolm Yool
The really intense period of persecution of witches did
not come until the late 16th and 17th centuries. The basic doctrines
of the later witchcraze were laid down in documents of the later
medieval period. These documents built on longstanding folk beliefs
which were put in vaguely academic dress.
There has been much recent discussion of
whether witches actually existed. For a long period the whole
discussion was seen as a mirror of psychological anxieties. Some
recent authors - notably Carlo Ginzberg - however, have argued that
there were indeed groups of people who regarded themselves as
witches. This whole issue is still under discussion.
Real or not, witches and witchcraft, were very
real phenomena to the writers of the fifteenth century and later.
Their writing tell us much about their thought worlds, and also their
attitudes towards women. There can be no doubt that, whether of not
there were real groups of witches, many women and a few men, suffered
intense persecution and death as a result of intolerance. As Arthur
Miller showed in his play The
Crucible, set in Massachusetts at the
time of the Salem witch trials but about McCarthyism, irrational
prejudice and state action based on such, is hardly a medieval, or
even a religious, phenomenon.
The three documents below include the Papal
Bull of 1484, in which the pope provided his blessing and
encouragement to witchhunting; an account of some beliefs about
witches; and an extract from the Hammer of Witches describing the
process of examination and trial. If the twists and turns to produce
a confession were not so tragic, they would constitute humor worthy
of Kafka.
Innocent VIII: BULL Summis desiderantes,
Dec. 5th, 1484
Bullarium Romanum (Taurinensis editio), sub,
anno 1484. The Bull is also printed in full at the head of the
Malleus maleficarum.
Innocent, bishop, servant of the servants of
God, Ad futuram rei memoriam
Desiring with supreme ardor, as pastoral solicitude
requires, that the catholic faith in our days
everywhere grow and flourish as
much as possible,
and that all heretical depravity be put
far from the territories of the
faithful,
we freely declare and anew decree this by which
our pious desire may be fulfilled, and, all errors being
rooted out
by our toil as with the hoe of a wise laborer,
zeal and devotion to this faith may take deeper hold on the hearts of
the faithful themselves.
It has recently come to our ears, not without
great pain to us, that in some parts of upper Germany, as well as in
the provinces, cities, territories, regions, and dioceses of Mainz,
Koln, Trier, Salzburg, and Bremen, many persons of both sexes,
heedless of their own salvation and forsaking the catholic faith,
give themselves over to devils
male and female,
and by their incantations,
charms,
and conjurings,
and by other abominable superstitions and sortileges, offences,
crimes, and misdeeds, ruin and cause to perish the offspring of
women, the foal of animals, the products of the earth, the grapes of
vines, and the fruits of trees, as well as men and women, cattle and
flocks and herds and animals of every kind, vineyards also and
orchards, meadows, pastures, harvests, grains and other fruits of the
earth;
that they afflict and torture with dire pains
and anguish, both internal and external, these men, women, cattle,
flocks, herds, and animals, and hinder men from begetting and women
from conceiving, and prevent all consummation of marriage; that,
moreover, they deny with sacrilegious lips the faith they received in
holy baptism; and that, at the instigation of the enemy of mankind,
they do not fear to commit and perpetrate many other abominable
offences and crimes, at the risk of their own souls, to the insult of
the divine majesty and to the pernicious example and scandal of
multitudes.
And, although our beloved sons Henricus
Institoris and Jacobus Sprenger, of the order of
Friars Preachers, professors of theology, have been and still are
deputed by our apostolic letters as inquisitors of
heretical pravity, the former in the aforesaid parts of upper Germany,
including the provinces, cities, territories, dioceses, and other
places as above, and the latter throughout certain parts of the
course of the Rhine; nevertheless certain of the clergy and of the
laity of those parts, seeking to be wise above what is fitting,
because in the said letter of deputation the aforesaid provinces,
cities, dioceses, territories, and other places, and the persons and
offences in question were not individually and specifically named, do
not blush obstinately to assert that these are not at all included in
the said parts and that therefore it is illicit for the aforesaid
inquisitors to exercise their office of inquisition in the provinces,
cities, dioceses, territories, and other places aforesaid, and that
they ought not to be permitted to proceed to the punishment,
imprisonment, and correction of the aforesaid persons for the
offences and crimes above named. Wherefore in the provinces, cities,
dioceses territories, and places aforesaid such offences and crimes,
not without evident damage to their souls and risk of eternal
salvation, go unpunished.
We therefore, desiring, as is our duty, to
remove all impediments by which in any way the said inquisitors are
hindered
in the exercise of their office, and to prevent the taint of
heretical pravity and of other like evils from spreading their
infection to the ruin of others who are innocent, the zeal of
religion especially impelling us, in order that the provinces,
cities, dioceses, territories, and places aforesaid in the said parts
of upper Germany may not be deprived of the office of inquisition
which is their due, do hereby decree, by virtue of our apostolic
authority, that it shall be permitted to the said inquisitors in
these regions to exercise their office of inquisition and to
proceed to the correction, imprisonment,
and punishment of the aforesaid persons
for their said offences and crimes, in all respects and altogether
precisely as if the provinces, cities, territories, places, persons,
and offences aforesaid were expressly named in the said letter. And,
for the greater sureness, extending the said letter and deputation to
the provinces, cities, dioceses, territories, places, persons, and
crimes aforesaid, we grant to the said inquisitors that they or
either of them joining with them our beloved son Johannes Gremper,
cleric of the diocese of Coonstance, master of arts, their present
notary, or any other notary public who by them or by either of them
shall have been temporarily delegated in the provinces, cities,
dioceses, territories, and places aforesaid, may exercise against all
persons, of whatsoever condition and rank, the said office of
inquisition, correcting, imprisoning, punishing and chastising,
according to their deserts, those persons whom they shall find guilty
as aforesaid.
And they shall also have full and entire
liberty to propound and preach to the faithful word of God, as often
as it shall seem to them fitting and proper, in each and all of the
parosh churches in the said provinces, and to do all things necessary
and suitable under the aforesaid circumstances, and likewise freely
and fully to carry them out.
Johannes Nider, the ANT HILL, circa 1437
Nider, Formicarius, ed. of Augsburg, ca.
1476Lib. V. cap. 3
This is one of the earliest books which thows
light on the methods of persecution. Written by the Dominican scholar
Johannes Nider, about 1436, the work consists of a dialogue between a
theologian and a doubter on a variety of topics
I will relate to you some examples, which I
have gained in part from the teachers of our faculty, in part from
the experience of a certain upright secular judge, worthy of all
faith, who from the torture and
confession of witches and from his
experiences in public and private has learned many things of
this sort-a man with whom I have often discussed this subject broadly
and deeply-to wit,
Peter, a citizen of Bern, in the diocese of
Lausanne, [Note: this is Peter of Gruyeres, Bernese castellan
1392-1406] who has burned many
witches of both sexes, and has
driven others out of the territory of the Bernese.
I have moreover conferred with one
Benedict,
a monk of the Benedictine order, who, although now a very devout
cleric in a reformed monastery at Vienna,
was a decade ago, while still in
the world, a necromancer, juggler, buffoon, and strolling
player, well-known as an
expert
among the secular
nobility.
I have likewise heard certain of the following
things from the Inquisitor of
Heretical Pravity [note: this was the
official title of the represenative of the Inquistion] at Autun, who
was a devoted reformer of our order in the convent at Lyons, and has
convicted many of witchcraft in the diocese of Autun.
The same procedure was more clearly described
by another young man, arrested and
burned as a witch, although as I
believe, truly, penitent, who had earlier, together with his wife, a
witch invincible to persuasion, escaped the clutches of the aforesaid
judge, Peter.
The aforesaid youth, being again
indicted
at Bern,
with his wife, and placed in a different prison from hers, declared:
"If I can obtain absolution for my sins, I will freely lay bare all I
know about witchcraft, for I see that I have death to expect." And
when he had been assured by the scholars that, if he should truly
repent, he would certainly be able to gain absolution for his sins,
then he gladly offered himself to death, and disclosed the methods of
the primeval infection.
The ceremony, he said, of my seduction was as
follows:
First, on a Sunday, before the holy water is consecrated, the
future disciple with his masters must go into the church, and there
in their presence must
renounce Christ and his faith, baptism, and the
church universal.
Then he must do homage to the magisterulus, that is, to
the little master (for so, and not otherwise, they call the Devil).
Afterward he drinks from the aforesaid
flask: and, this done, he forthwith feels himself to conceive
and hold within himself an image of our
art and the chief rites of this sect.
After this fashion was I seduced; and my wife
also, whom I believe of so great pertinacity that she will endure the flames
rather than confess the least whit of the truth; but, alas, we are
both guilty. What the young man had said was found in all respects
the truth.
For, after confession, the young
man was seen to die in great contrition. His wife, however, though
convicted by the testimony of witnesses, would not confess the truth
even under the torture or in death;
but when the fire was prepared for her by the
executioner, uttered in most evil words a curse upon him, and so was
burned.
Extracts from THE HAMMER OF WITCHES [Malleus
maleficarum], 1486
Even with the papal bull the German inquisitors
found their preparation incomplete. Soon after their return from Rome
they set about compiling a handbook - an exposition of witchcraft and
a code of procedure for detection and punishment of witches.
Completed in 1486, it was called the Hammer of Witches.
The method of beginning an
examination by torture is as follows:
First, the jailers prepare the
implements of torture, then they strip the
prisoner (if it be a woman, she has
already been stripped by other women, upright and of good report).
This stripping is lest some means of witchcraft
may have been sewed into the
clothing-such as often, taught by the
Devil, they prepare from the bodies of unbaptized infants, [murdered]
that they may forfeit salvation.
And when the implements of torture have been
prepared, the judge, both in person and through other good men
zealous in the faith,
tries to persuade the prisoner to
confess the truth freely; but, if he will not confess, he bid
attendants make the prisoner fast to the strappado or some other
implement of torture.
The attendants obey forthwith, yet with
feigned agitation. Then, at the prayer of some of those present, the
prisoner is loosed again and is taken aside and once more persuaded
to confess,
being led to
believe that he will in that case
not be put
to death.
Here it may be asked whether the judge, in the
case of a prisoner much defamed, convicted both by witnesses and by
proofs, nothing being lacking but his own confession,
can properly lead him to hope that
his life will be spared when,
even if he confess his crime, he will be punished with death.
It must be answered that opinions vary. Some
hold that even a witch of ill
repute, against whom the evidence
justifies violent suspicion, and who, as a ringleader of the witches,
is accounted very dangerous, may be assured her life, and condemned
instead to perpetual imprisonment on bread and water, in case she "I
give sure and convincing testimony against other witches; yet this
penalty of perpetual imprisonment must not be announced to her, but
only that her life will be spared, and that she will be punished in
some other fashion, perhaps by exile.
And doubtless such notorious witches,
especially those who prepare witch-potions or who by
magical methods cure those bewitched, would be peculiarly suited to
be thus preserved, in order to aid the bewitched or to accuse other
witches, were it not that their accusations cannot be trusted, since
the Devil is a liar, unless confirmed by proofs and witnesses.
Others hold, as to this point, that
for a time the promise made to the witch
sentenced to imprisonment is to be kept, but that after a time she
should be burned.
A third view is, that the judge may safely
promise witches to spare their lives, if only he will later excuse himself from pronouncing the sentence and will let another do
this in his place.
But if, neither by threats nor by promises such
as these, the witch can be induced to speak the truth, then
thejailers must carry out the sentence, and torture the prisoner
according to the accepted methods, with more or less of severity as
the delinquent's crime may demand. And, while he is being tortured,
he must be questioned on the articles of accusation, and this
frequently and persistently, beginning with the lighter charges-for
he will more readily confess the lighter than the heavier. And, while
this is being done, the notary must write down everything in his
record of the trial - how the prisoner is tortured, on what points he
is questioned and how he answers.
And note that, if he confesses under the
torture, he must afterward be conducted to another place, that he may
confirm it and certify that it was
not due alone to the force of the
torture.
But, if the prisoner will not confess the truth
satisfactorily, other sorts of tortures must be placed before him,
with the statement that unless he will confess the truth, he must
endure these also. But, if not even thus he can be brought into
terror and to the truth, then the next day or the next but one is to
be set for a continuation of the tortures - not a repetition, for it
must not be repeated unless new evidences produced.
The judge must then address to the prisoners
the following sentence: We, the judge, etc., do assign to you, such
and such a day for the continuation of the tortures, that from your
own mouth the truth may be heard, and that the whole may be recorded
by the notary.
And during the interval, before the day
assigned, the judge, in person or through approved men, must in the
manner above described try to persuade the prisoner to confess,
promising her (if there is aught to be gained by this promise) that
her life shall be spared.
The judge shall see to it, moreover, that
throughout this interval guards are constantly with the prisoner, so
that she may not be I alone; because she will be visited by the De
and tempted into suicide.
University of Pennsylvania. Dept. of History:
Translations and Reprints from the Original Sources of European
history, published for the Dept. of History of the University of
Pennsylvania., Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press
[1897?-1907?]. Vol III:4, pp, 7-10 (Papal Bull), 6-7 (Nider), 10-13
(Hammer)
This text is part of the Internet Medieval Source Book. The Sourcebook is a collection of public domain and
copy-permitted texts related to medieval and Byzantine
history.
(c) Paul Halsall Mar 1996
halsall@murray.fordham.edu
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