The Malleus Maleficarum Read online

  It must be continually borne in mind also, and this is a fact which is very often slurred over and forgotten, that the heresies of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, to cope with which the tribunal of the Inquisition was primarily organized and regularized, were by no means mere theoretical speculations, which, however erroneous and dangerous in the fields of thought, practically and in action would have been arid and utterly unfruitful. To-day the word “heresy” seems to be as obsolete and as redolent of a Wardour-street vocabulary as if one were to talk of a game of cards at Crimp or Incertain, and to any save a dusty mediaevalist it would appear to be an antiquarian term. It was far other in the twelfth century; the wild fanatics who fostered the most subversive and abominable ideas aimed to put these into actual practice, to establish communities and to remodel whole territories according to the programme which they had so carefully considered in every detail with a view to obtaining and enforcing their own ends and their own interests. The heretics were just as resolute and just as practical, that is to say, just as determined to bring about the domination of their absolutism as is any revolutionary of to-day. The aim and objects of their leaders, Tanchelin, Everwacher, the Jew Manasses, Peter Waldo, Pierre Autier, Peter of Bruys, Arnold of Brescia, and the rest, were exactly those of Lenin, Trotsky, Zinoviev, and their fellows. There were, of course, minor differences and divergences in their tenets, that is to say, some had sufficient cunning to conceal and even to deny the extremer views which other were bold enough or mad enough more openly to proclaim. But just below the trappings, a little way beneath the surface, their motives, their methods, their intentions, the goal to which they pressed, were all the same. Their objects may be summed up as the abolition of monarchy, the abolition of private property and of inheritance, the abolition of marriage, the abolition of order, the total abolition of all religion. It was against this that the Inquisition had to fight, and who can be surprised if, when faced with so vast a conspiracy, the methods employed by the Holy Office may not seem - if the terrible conditions are conveniently forgotten - a little drastic, a little severe? There can be no doubt that had this most excellent tribunal continued to enjoy its full prerogative and the full exercise of its salutary powers, the world at large would be in a far happier and far more orderly position to-day. Historians may point out diversities and dissimilarities between the teaching of the Waldenses, the Albigenses, the Henricans, the Poor Men of Lyons, the Cathari, the Vaudois, the Bogomiles, and the Manichees, but they were in reality branches and variants of the same dark fraternity, just as the Third International, the Anarchists, the Nihilists, and the Bolsheviks are in every sense, save the mere label, entirely identical.

  In fact heresy was one huge revolutionary body, exploiting its forces through a hundred different channels and having as its object chaos and corruption. The question may be asked - What was their ultimate aim in wishing to destroy civilization? What did they hope to gain by it? Precisely the same queries have been put and are put to-day with regard to these political parties. There is an apparent absence of motive in this seemingly aimless campaign of destruction to extermination carried on by the Bolsheviks in Russia, which has led many people to inquire what the objective can possibly be. So unbridled are the passions, so general the demolition, so terrible the havoc, that hard-headed individuals argue that so complete a chaos and such revolting outrages could only be affected by persons who were enthusiasts in their own cause and who had some very definite aims thus positively to pursue. The energizing forces of this fanaticism, this fervent zeal, do not seem to be any more apparent than the end, hence more than one person has hesitated to accept accounts so alarming of massacres and carnage, or wholesale imprisonments, tortures, and persecutions, and has begun to suspect that the situation may be grossly exaggerated in the overcharged reports of enemies and the highly-coloured gossip of scare-mongers. Nay, more, partisans have visited the country and returned with glowing tales of a new Utopia. It cannot be denied that all this is a very clever game. It is generally accepted that from very policy neither an individual nor a junto or confederacy will act even occasionally, much less continually and consistently, in a most bloody and tyrannical way, without some very well-arranged programme is being thus carried out and determinate aim ensued, conditions and object which in the present case it seems extremely difficult to guess at and divine unless we are to attribute the revolution to causes the modern mind is apt to dismiss with impatience and intolerance.

  Nearly a century and a half ago Anacharsis Clootz, “the personal enemy of Jesus Christ” as he openly declared himself, was vociferating “God is Evil,” “To me then Lucifer, Satan! whoever you may be, the demon that the faith of my fathers opposed to God and the Church.” This is the credo of the witch.

  Although it may not be generally recognized, upon a close investigation it seems plain that the witches were a vast political movement, an organized society which was anti-social and anarchichal, a world-wide plot against civilization. Naturally, although the Masters were often individuals of high rank and deep learning, that rank and file of the society, that is to say, those who for the most part fell into the hands of justice, were recruited from the least educated classes, the ignorant and the poor. As one might suppose, many of the branches or covens in remoter districts knew nothing and perhaps could have understood nothing of the enormous system. Nevertheless, as small cogs in a very small wheel, it might be, they were carrying on the work and actively helping to spread the infection. It is an extremely significant fact that the last regularly official trial and execution for witchcraft in Western Europe was that of Anna Goeldi, who was hanged at Glaris in Switzerland, 17 June, 1782. Seven years before, in 1775, the villian Adam Weishaupt, who has been truly described by Louis Blac as “the profoundest conspirator that has ever existed,” formed his “terrible and formidable sect,” the Illuminati. The code of this mysterious movement lays down: “it is also necessary to gain the common people (das gemeine Volk) to our Order. The great means to that end is influence in the schools.” This is exactly the method of the organizations of witches, and again and again do writers lament and bewail the endless activities of this sect amongst the young people and even the children of the district. So in the prosecutions at Würzburg we find that there were condemned boys of ten and eleven, two choir boys aged twelve, “a boy of twelve years old in one of the lower forms of the school,” “the two young sons of the Prince's cook, the eldest fourteen, the younger twelve years old,” several pages and seminarists, as well as a number of young girls, amongst whom “a child of nine or ten years old and her little sister” were involved.

  The political operations of the witches in many lands were at their trials exposed time after time, and these activities are often discernible even when they did not so publicly and prominently come to light. A very few cases, to which we must make but brief and inadequate reference, will stand for many. In England in the year 1324 no less than twenty-seven defendants were tried at the King's Bench for plotting against and endeavouring to kill Edward II, together with many prominent courtiers and officials, by the practice of magical arts. A number of wealthy citizens of Coventry had hired a famous “nigromauncer,” John of Nottingham, to slay not only the King, but also the royal favourite, Hugh le Despenser, and his father; the Prior of Coventry; the monastic steward; the manciple; and a number of other important personages. A secluded old manor-house, some two or three miles out of Coventry, was put at the disposal of Master John, and there he and his servant, Robert Marshall, promptly commenced business. They went to work in the bad old-fashioned way of modelling wax dolls or mommets of those whom they wished to destroy. Long pins were thrust through the figures, and they were slowly melted before a fire. The first unfortunate upon whom this experiment was tried, Richard de Sowe, a prominent courtier and close friend of the King, was suddenly taken with agonizing pains, and when Marshall visited the house, as if casually, in order that he might report the results of this sympathetic sorcery to t
he wizard, he found their hapless victim in a high delirium. When this state of things was promptly conveyed to him, Master John struck a pin through the heart of the image, and in the morning the news reached them that de Sowe had breathed his last. Marshall, who was by now in an extremity of terror, betook himself to a justice and laid bare all that was happening and had happened, with the immediate result that Master John and the gang of conspirators were arrested. It must be remembered that in 1324 the final rebellion against King Edward II had openly broken forth on all sides. A truce of thirteen years had been arranged with Scotland, and though the English might refuse Bruce his royal title he was henceforward the warrior king of an independent country. It is true that in May, 1322, the York Parliament had not only reversed the exile of the Despensers, declaring the pardons which had been granted their opponents null and void, as well as voting for the repeal of the Ordinances of 1311, and the Despensers were working for, and fully alive to the necessity of, good and stable government, but none the less the situation was something more than perilous; the Exchequer was well-nigh drained; there was rioting and bloodshed in almost every large town; and worst of all, in 1323 the younger Roger Mortimer had escaped from the Tower and got away safely to the Continent. There were French troubles to boot; Charles IV, who in 1322 had succeeded to the throne, would accept no excuse from Edward for any postponement of homage, and in this very year, 1324, declaring the English possessions forfeited, he proceeded to occupy the territory with an army, when it soon became part of the French dominion. There can be not doubt that the citizens of Coventry were political intriguers, and since they were at the moment unable openly to rebel against their sovran lord, taking advantage of the fact that he was harassed and pressed at so critical a juncture, they proceeded against him by the dark and tortuous ways of black magic.

  Very many similar conspiracies in which sorcery was mixed up with treasonable practices and attempts might be cited, but only a few of the most important must be mentioned. Rather more than a century later than the reign of Edward II, in 1441, one of the greatest and most influential ladies in all England, “the Duchesse of Gloucestre, was arrested and put to holt, for she was suspecte of treson.” This, of course, was purely a political case, and the wife of Duke Humphrey had unfortunately by her indiscretion and something worse given her husband's enemies an opportunity to attack him by her ruin. An astrologer, attached to the Duke's household, when taken and charged with “werchyrye of sorcery against the King,” confessed that he had often cast the horoscope of the Duchess to find out if her husband would ever wear the English crown, the way to which they had attempted to smooth by making a wax image of Henry VI and melting it before a magic fire to bring about the King's decease. A whole crowd of witches, male and female, were involved in the case, and among these was Margery Jourdemain, a known a notorious invoker of demons and an old trafficker in evil charms. Eleanor Cobham was incontinently brought before a court presided over by three Bishops, London, Lincoln, and Norwich. She was found guilty both of high treason and sorcery, and after having been compelled to do public penance in the streets of London, she was imprisoned for life, according to the more authoritative account at Peel Castle in the Isle of Man. Her accomplices were executed at London.

  In the days of Edward IV it was commonly gossiped that the Duchess of Bedford was a witch, who by her spells had fascinated the King with the beauty of her daughter Elizabeth, whom he made his bride, in spite of the fact that he had plighted his troth to Eleanor Butler, the heiress of the Earl of Shrewsbury. So open did the scandal become that the Duchess of Bedford lodged an official complaint with the Privy Council, and an inquiry was ordered, but, as might have been suscepted, this completely cleared the lady. Nevertheless, five years later the charges were renewed by the Lord Protector, the Duke of Gloucester. Nor was this the first time in English history that some fair dame was said to have fascinated a monarch, not only by her beauty but also by unlawful means. When the so-called “Good Parliament” was convened in April, 1376, their first business seemed to be to attack the royal favourite, Alice Perrers, and amongst the multiplicity of charges which they brought against her, not the least deadly was the accusation of witchcraft. Her ascendancy over the King was attributed to the enchantments and experiments of a Dominican friar, learned in many a cantrip and cabala, whom she entertained in her house, and who had fashioned two pictures of Edward and Alive which, when suffumigated with the incense of mysterious herbs and gums, mandrakes, sweet calamus, caryophylleae, storax, benzoin, and other plants plucked beneath the full moon what time Venus was in ascendant, caused the old King to dote upon this lovely concubine. With great difficulty by a subtle ruse the friar was arrested, and he thought himself lucky to escape with relegation to a remote house under the strictest observance of his Order, whence, however, he was soon to be recalled with honour and reward, since the Good Parliament shortly came to an end, and Alice Perrers, who now stood higher in favour than ever, was not slow to heap lavish gifts upon her supporters, and to visit her enemies with condign punishment.

  It is often forgotten that in the troublous days of Henry VIII the whole country swarmed with astrologers and sorcerers, to whom high and low alike made constant resort. The King himself, a prey to the idlest superstitions, ever lent a credulous ear to the most foolish prophecies and old wives' abracadabra. When, as so speedily happened, he wearied of Anne Boleyn, he openly gave it as his opinion that he had “made this marriage seduced by witchcraft; and that this was evident because God did not permit them to have any male issue.”

  There was nobody more thoroughly scared of witchcraft than Henry's daughter, Elizabeth, and as John Jewel was preaching his famous sermon before her in February, 1560, he described at length how “this kind of people (I mean witches and sorcerers) within these few last years are marvellously increased within this Your Grace's realm;” he then related how owing to dark spells he had known many “pine away even to death.” “I pray God,” he unctuously cried, “they may never practise further than upon the subjects!” This was certainly enough to ensure that drastic laws should be passed particularly to protect the Queen, who was probably both thrilled and complimented to think that her life was in danger. It is exceedingly doubtful, whether there was any conspiracy at all which would have attempted Elizabeth's personal safety. There were, of course, during the imprisonment of the Queen of Scots, designs to liberate this unfortunate Princess, and Walsingham with his fellows used to tickle the vanity of Gloriana be regaling her with melodramatic accounts of dark schemes and secret machinations which they had, with a very shrewd knowledge of stagecraft, for the most part themselves arranged and contrived, so we may regard the Act of 1581, 23 Eliz., Cap. II, as mere finesse and chicane. That there were witches in England is very certain, but there seems no evidence at all that there were attempts upon the life of Elizabeth. None the less the point is important, since it shows that in men's minds sorcery was inexplicably mixed up with politics. The statute runs as follows: “That if any person . . . during the life of our said Sovereign Lady the Queen's Majesty that now is, either within her Highness' dominions or without, shall be setting or erecting any figure or by casting of nativities or by calculation or by any prophesying, witchcraft, conjurations, or other like unlawful means whatsoever, seek to know, and shall set forth by express words, deeds, or writings, how long her Majesty shall live, or who shall reign a king or queen of this realm of England after her Highness' decease . . . that then every such offence shall be felony, and every offender therein, and also all his aiders (etc.), shall be judged as felons and shall suffer pain of death and forfeit as in case of felony is used, without any benefit of clergy or sanctuary.”

  The famous Scotch witch trial or 1590, when it was proved that upon 31 October in the preceding year, All Hallow E'en, a gang of more than two hundred persons had assembled for their rites at the old haunted church of North Berwick, where they consulted with their Master, “the Devil,” how they might most efficaciously k
ill King James, is too well known to require more than a passing mention, but it may be remembered that Agnes Sampson confessed that she had endeavoured to poison the King in various ways, and that she was also avowed that she had fashioned a wax mommet, saying with certain horrid maledictions as she wrought the work: “This is King James the sext, ordinit to be consumed at the instance of a noble man Francis Erle of Bodowell.” The contriver of this far-reaching conspiracy was indeed none other than Francis Stewart, Earl of Bothwell, who, as common knowledge bruited, almost overtly aspired to the throne and was perfectly reckless how he compassed his ends. It was he, no doubt, who figured as “the Devil” at the meeting in the deserted and ill-omened kirkyard. In fact this is almost conclusively shown by a statement of Barbara Napier when she was interrogated with regard to their objects in the attempted murder of the King. She gave as her reason “that another might have ruled in his Majesty's place, and the Government might have gone to the Devil.” That is to say, to Francis Bothwell. The birth of Prince Henry at Stirling, 19 February, 1594, and further of Prince Charles at Dunfermline, 19 November, 1600, must have dashed all Bothwell's hopes to the ground. Moreover, the vast organization of revolutionaries and witches had been completely broken up, and accordingly there was nothing left for him to do but to seek safety in some distant land. There is an extremely significant reference to him in Sandys, who, speaking of Calabria in the year 1610, writes: “Here a certaine Calabrian hearing that I was an English man, came to me, and would needs persuade me that I had insight in magicke: for the Earl Bothel was my countryman, who liues at Naples, and is in these parts famous for suspected negromancie.”