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By 1682, Charles II’s government began to imple- Bible as “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live,” it has
ment a reaction that involved attempts to clamp down frequently been quoted as offering Scriptural proof to
on opponents of the regime, especially religious dis- justify death sentences in witchcraft trials. The transla-
senters. The early investigations of these witches we re tion has ignited many debates. The original Hebrew
carried out, apparently with some enthusiasm, by local word is mekascheph, which has been generally taken to
authorities in Bideford, and religio-political strife with- mean “poisoner.” There is a degree of confluence and
in the town might have helped form a context for the fluidity in the meanings of these terms, since poisoning
accusations and for the decision to push ahead with was regarded as a separate crime but was often contin-
prosecuting these women. Certainly a letter from Lord gent on witchcraft or vice versa. However, there is an
Chief Justice Sir Francis North, who was present at the alternative interpretation of the word, in which it
trials, suggests that their executions we re politically means a female who can effect change in material
expedient: given the tremendous popular outcry against objects through the utterance of words. This definition
these three women, it was felt that executing them corresponded more closely to the concept of a witch. In
would both demonstrate the effectiveness of the official turn, this was translated as Maleficos non patieris vivere
judicial system and help preempt a larger witch hunt (“do not permit wrongdoers to live”) in the Latin
fueled by popular Protestantism, which the crown was Vulgate. As Russell points out (1997, 32), maleficus
anxious to contain. Another member of the North fam- (witch or wrongdoer) could also be understood as any
ily, remembering the trial at a later date, wrote that the criminal, although it came to denote a witch. Maleficus
executions were at least partially attributable to the ner- became the standard term for a witch, rather than other
vousness of the presiding judge in the face of consider- kinds of criminals, and the crime of witchcraft became
able popular pressure to convict. known as maleficia (evil acts or evildoings). However,
It should be noted that the last witch known to have the term criminal or wrongdoer is still in evidence as
been executed in England, Alice Molland, was also sen- a translation among sixteenth century codifiers of
tenced to death at Exeter at the Ma rch 1685 assize s . the law.
However, we know little about the circumstances of her Divine and natural law decreed only one punish-
case, except that she was accused of bewitching thre e ment for the m e k a s c h e p h (poisoner/witch)—death. In
people. g e n d e r - s p e c i fic languages, the term came to be com-
monly translated as feminine. In German, it was con-
JAMES SHARPE
sidered to be gender-neutral until the so-called Luther’s
See also:ENGLAND;WITCH’SMARK. Bible of 1534 re n d e red the Exodus verse as D i e
References and further reading: Zauberinnen soltu nicht leben lassen, “Thou shalt not
Anon. 1682. The Life and Conversation of Temperance Floyd, Mary
suffer a sorc e ress to live.” In Fre n c h , La Saincte Bi b l e
Lloyd, and Susanna Edwards, three eminent Witches lately con-
( Holy Bible) published in Lyons in 1566 similarly
demned at Exeter Assizes.London.
translated the term in a feminine gender, but added a
———. 1682. ATrue and Impartial Relation of the Informations
note that it applied equally to men. Leopolita’s Po l i s h
against three Witches, viz Temperance Lloyd, MaryTrembles, and
Roman Catholic Bible of 1561 renders the term in the
Susanna Edwards, who were indicted, arraigned, and convicted at
the Assizes holden for the County of Devon at the Castle of Exon, masculine form (as in the Bible of 1577 and Wu j e k’s
Aug. 14 1682.London. Roman Catholic Bible of 1599), although Wu j e k’s
———. 1682. The Tryal, Condemnation and Execution of three Bible also noted feminine forms in the margin.
Witches, viz Temperance Floyd, Mary Floyd, and Susanna Howe ve r, a 1563 Polish Protestant version, the
Edwards, who were all arraigned at Exeter on the 18th of August Radziwill Bible, used the feminine form. Many experts
1682.London. attribute the choice of the King James Bible of 1611 to
———. “Witches discovered and punished: or, the Trials and
translate the word as “witch” rather than “poisoner” to
Condemnation of three notorious Witches, who were tryed at
the king’s amply documented personal interest in
the last Assizes, holden at the Castle of Exeter.” InRoxburgh
witchcraft, although the choice might also have been
Ballads. 7 vol. Edited by J. Woodfall Ebsworth. 1869–1893.
influenced by the wording of England’s relatively recent
London. Vol. 6, pp. 706–708.
(1604) witchcraft statute.
Sharpe, James. 1996. Instruments of Darkness: Witchcraft in
England 1550–1750.London: Hamish Hamilton. As early as the sixteenth century, linguistic erro r s
we re pointed out. Because it was inherently dangero u s
Exodus 22:18 (22:17) to criticize the Bi b l e’s authority, criticism could only be
Contentious translations of this biblical verse (Exodus made of the translation. The first and perhaps most
22:18 in the Vulgate and in most Christian Bibles and famous exegesis came in 1563 when Johann We ye r
Exodus 22:17 in the He b rew Bible and in the disputed the translation of ( p h a r m a k e i a –p o i s o n e r /
Septuagint) have provided the justification in natural s o rc e rer) as either “s o rc e re r” or the Luther Bi b l e’s
and divine law for the execution of witches. Translated German equivalent, Za u b e rei. He contended that
in the long-standard King James English version of the the word mekascheph could also pertain to the magical
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passage in Exodus carried life-or-death implications for
accused witches.
WANDA WYPORSKA
See also:BIBLE;ENDOR,WITCHOF;HERESY.
References and further reading:
Russell, Jeffrey Burton. 1997. A History of Witchcraft.First
published in 1981 London: Thames and Hudson.
Scot, Reginald. 1584. The Discoverie of Witchcraft. London.
Weyer, Johann. 1998. OnWitchcraft. An Abridged Translation of
Johann Weyer’s De praestigiis daemonum. Edited by Benjamin
Kohl and H. C. Erik Midelfort. Ashville, NC: Pegasus.
Exorcism
In Christianity, exorcism is defined as a rite employed
to expel demons from objects, places, and the human
body, usually consisting of prayers and blessings. Jesus
performed numerous exorcisms and endowed his disci-
ples and other believers with the capacity to exorcise in
his name (Matt. 10:1, 8). As exorcism is held to be a
miracle—a divine, not human, action—Jesus is the
only person in Christian tradition held to have exor-
cised on his own authority. Early Christian proselytizers
displayed their charismatic power by using exorcism in
the conversion of pagans. Saints’ relics have been used
on or in the presence of the possessed, to confront
demons. Exorcism became highly contentious in early
modern Europe, amid hostility between Catholicism
and the new Christian churches. It was used for suc-
cessful propaganda, but fear of diabolical conjuring and
the possibility of fraud also made the rite an object of
suspicion and ridicule. For believers, exorcism can dis-
play visibly an individual’s power over evil, and the rite
Page from George Gifford’s A Discourse of the Subtill Practices of still features significantly in the militant re v i va l i s t
Devilles by Witches and Sorcerers(1587) discussing Exodus 22:18 churches of the modern world.
(22:17), the primary biblical passage that justified the execution of
witches in the age of witch hunting. (TopFoto.co.uk) The Aims and Means of Exorcism
While common use of the wordexorcismsuggests mere-
ly expulsion of demons from the body, the word itself
a rts, as evinced by other Biblical passages. As the dis- derives from the Greek word for adjuration, or placing
pute continued, the scriptural foundations we re ana- on oath. In this sense, exorcism functions as a calling to
lyzed more closely, especially as regards the translation account, most often expressed in the requirement that
of the terms m a l e ficia a n d ve n e ficia ( p o i s o n i n g / w i t c h- the Devil reveal his name, and identify the things that
craft). In Book 6 of Reginald Scot’s D i s c overie of vex him most to make exorcism (as expulsion) easier for
Wi t c h c raft (1584), the author points out that the the exorcist. In practice, this ambiguity has at times
He b rew term is translated into Greek as fa´r m a ôk become a carte blanche to override the aim of expul-
ônk jpízev´sete (“Do not permit a poisoner/witch to sion, leading to intense dialogues between exorcists and
s u rv i ve”) and re n d e red in this work as Ve n e ficos (sive ) demons, or worse (from the point of view of skeptical
ve n e ficas non retinebitis in vita ( “ Do not let male poi- observers) demonic monologues. Given this tension
s o n e r s / s o rc e rers [or] female p o i s o n e r s / between exorcism as adjuration and exorcism as expul-
s o rc e rers to remain alive”), which differs from the sion, the signs of successful exorcism have historically
Vulgate. Other Biblical passages that pertain to magic been bewilderingly imperfect. For while exorcisms are
or supposed witchcraft, such as Deuteronomy 18:10, 2 intended to represent the imposition of order on inher-
C h ronicles 33:6, Je remiah 27:9, Daniel 2:2, Ma l a c h i ently disorderly demons, the conduct of exorcisms has
3:5, or Acts 8 and 13, also employ different terminolo- often featured a marked degree of spontaneity and
gy in the Hebrew, Greek, and the Vulgate, thus creating i n ve n t i veness, due to the mischief of the alleged
f u rther variations in commentaries. But, only the demons, but also in order to serve the purposes of
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p roselytism. The risk in such behavior is that exo r- than others to the human body through whom the dev-
cists may be accused of mere conjuration, or witch- ils were to be attacked.
craft. Indeed, Jesus was accused of conjuring demons The signs of apparently successful exorcism can vary
by the power of Be e l ze b u b, prince of demons (Ma t t . g re a t l y, and there is an underc u r rent of uncertainty in
12:24, 27). exorcism that is theologically impossible to circumvent.
Devils are held to be spiritual entities; but in Some examples of signs taken to indicate successful
Christian belief, God can give devils permission to exorcism (as expulsion) include writhing followed by a
affect the material world, spreading their malice in a calm or even comatose state and emetic exorcisms, with
variety of ways. In Catholic tradition a wide array of success seen in the spewing up of objects, or the emis-
p ro t e c t i ve rituals against lesser or potential diabolical sion of a foul odor, followed by a change in the state of
incursions have long served as cornerstones of devo- the possessed. An oblique form of exo rcism, attained
tional and daily life, and are sometimes called minor through the exposure of magic charms, and which loos-
e xo rcisms. Exo rcism of the possessed, with which we ened the hold of a witch’s spell, was common in the ear-
are primarily concerned here, is called major exorcism. ly modern period.
The most common exorcism of human beings, howev-
e r, is that effected in the rite of Christian baptism. In Exorcism in the Early
this case, the catechumen is not held literally to be pos- Modern Era
sessed, except to the extent that s/he is tainted by origi- Because exorcism can be seen as a form of conjuration,
nal sin. In the Reformation, Lutherans tended to it became controversial in the era of the Reformation.
a d h e re to some kind of baptismal exo rcism, while Late fifteenth- and early sixteenth-century Catholic
Calvinists rejected it. authors, such as Martin de Castañega, Pedro Ciruelo,
Catholic exorcism, like other so-called sacramentals, Desiderius Erasmus, and Heinrich Kramer (author of
differs profoundly from the sacraments, which are held the Malleus Maleficarum [The Hammer of Witches,
to be efficacious, regardless of the moral state of the per- 1486]), saw exo rcism as a mixed blessing for
son performing them. By contrast, the likelihood of Catholicism, if not a downright embarrassment.
success in exorcism has historically been understood as Exorcism was linked to illicit magic, and exorcists were
enhanced by the purity of the person performing the criticized for their reliance on externals, such as incan-
rite. And while members of the clergy tend to be the tations and ritual objects. Critics also objected to exor-
ones to perform exo rcism, lay persons—even women cists cultivating personal reputations as healers, when
and children—can in theory exo rcise, should Go d theologically their power was null without divine
reward their devotion by expelling a possessing demon. action. The Protestant and Reformed churches took
Even the collective prayers of the faithful may move these critiques further, disparaging exorcism as papist
God to perform this miracle. Since at least the third magic. Biblical precedent nonetheless gave the rite an
c e n t u ry, Catholic exo rcists have been obliged to seek incontestable pedigree, and rather than advocating its
dispensation from a bishop to exorcise, the aim being to abolition, reformers insisted on greater adherence to
p re vent cults developing around individual exo rc i s t s . biblical forms. Biblical eschatology also played a major
The Catholic order of exorcist was until 1972 a minor role in the interpretation of possession and exorcism by
order, second in the seven stages of ordination. clerics of all confessions, who saw exorcism as both a lit-
Many official forms of Christian exorcism of the pos- eral and metaphorical enactment of humanity’s battle
sessed—such as prayer and fasting, and the laying on of with the Antichrist.
h a n d s — d e r i ve from biblical healing methods. In the For Catholicism, conflict with the new Christian
Catholic case, cumulative accounts from canonical texts churches both intensified anxieties about exorcism, and
have historically encouraged a proliferation of licit exor- gave rise to a boom in its use. While some priests pur-
cist techniques. Catholic ritual formulae for exo rc i s m sued the pre-Reformation critique of exorcism as a form
might entail the recitation of psalms and other holy of magic, others performed public exorcisms to display
writings, notably the Gospel of St. John, repeated sign- to heretics the miracle-w o rking power of the Catholic
ing with the cru c i fix, and exhortation of the Devil to Church’s priesthood and devotional paraphernalia. The
leave the body of the possessed. Breathing on the pos- possessed, many of them young women, performed as
sessed, also found in the baptism ritual, is also some- demons, responding to the force of exo rcism by pro-
times used, and is intended to represent the Holy Spirit claiming the power of the Church. Indeed, a veritable
entering the possessed. The direct touching of the body epidemic of exo rcism took place across Catholic
of the possessed with church vestments, the Host or Eu rope, as the rite was used to make conversions in
other relics has also featured historically, though not times of confessional tension. A reliance on the materi-
without controve r s y. Early modern exo rcism manuals al and magical aspects of Catholicism left exorcists and
also considered the question of using violence against the possessed open to derision, howe ve r, and many
possessing demons, some authors being more attentive accounts show skeptical onlookers testing the possessed
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by using fake holy objects and waiting to fool the resulted from extreme exorcist practices among these
demon into a violent reaction. Such tests could be a g roups. Mo re moderate, intellectualist versions of
public relations disaster for militant Catholics. Christianity tend to be reflected in the often skeptical
Critics of church magic we re able to undermine attitudes articulated by modern mainstream churches.
almost entirely the notion of divine power acting Nonetheless, tensions as to the legitimacy of the rite
t h rough ritual objects, when, for example, it was still exist at the very top echelons of Catholicism, and
s h own that holy water and ord i n a ry water we re re a d i l y this is unsurprising, given its history. In 2000, the
i n t e rc h a n g e a b l e . Church’s senior exorcist, Father Gabriel Amorth, assert-
A new literature of Catholic exorcism manuals thus ed that John-Paul II had performed an exorcism on a
a p p e a red across western Eu rope, designed to counter- young woman in St Peter’s Square, but the Vatican
balance skepticism by providing strict guidelines for the instantly denied the claim.
use of exo rcism, rather than abandonment of the rite.
SARAH FERBER
Wo rks by authors such as Gi rolamo Menghi, Va l e r i o
Po l i d o ro, Pe t ro Thyraeus, and the new papal R i t u a l e See also: AIX-EN-PROVENCENUNS;CIRUELO,PEDRO;DARRELL,
Romanum(Roman Ritual) of 1614, instructed clerics in JOHN;DEMONS;DEVIL;DUVAL,ANDRÉ;ERASMUS,DESIDERIUS;
how to identify the presence of devils, and showed how
JESUS;LOUDUNNUNS;MALLEUSMALEFICARUM;MENGHI,GIRO-
to fight them with legitimate spiritual weapons. While
LAMO;MILLENARIANISM;OBRY,NICOLE;POSSESSION,DEMONIC;
SACRAMENTSANDSACRAMENTALS.
seeking to curb the perceived excesses of solo cult exor-
References and further reading:
cists, the successful dissemination of new works seems
Clark, Stuart. 1997.Thinking with Demons: The Idea of Witchcraft
to have contributed, paradoxically, to an increased use
in Early Modern Europe:Oxford: Clarendon.
of the rite. This enhanced capacity among clerics was “Exorcism.” Catholic Encyclopedia online, http://www.
re i n f o rced by an apparent rise in consumer demand newadvent.org/cathen/05709a.htm.
f rom parishioners responding to official critiques of Ferber, Sarah. 2004. Demonic Possession and Exorcism in Early
their homegrown superstitious remedies. Modern France.London: Routledge.
Most tragically, the early modern era saw a conjunc- Gentilcore, David. 1992. From Bishop to Witch: The System of the
tion between the use of Christian exorcism to interro- Sacred in Early ModernTerra d’Otranto.Manchester and New
York: Manchester University Press.
gate demons and an active belief in the evils of witch-
Lea, Henry Charles. 1957. Materials Towards a History of
craft. The resulting prosecution of alleged witches,
Witchcraft.Vol. 3. Arranged and edited by Arthur C. Howland;
effectively on the basis of demonic evidence, was highly
with an introduction by George Lincoln Burr. NewYork:
controversial. Several cases in France, such as the execu-
Yoseloff.
tion of the priests Louis Gaufridy (d. 1611) and Urbain
Midelfort, H. C. Erik. 1989. “The Devil and the German People:
Grandier (d.1634), saw theological battles arise over the Reflections on the Popularity of Demon Possession in
limits of exorcism. Even those who believed strongly in Sixteenth-Century Germany.” Pp. 98–119 in Religion and
the virtues of exo rcism, such as the French theologian Culture in the Renaissance and Reformation.Edited by Steven
André Du val, objected to its use for the purposes of Ozment. Ann Arbor: Sixteenth Century Essays & Studies,
prosecuting witches. Vol. XI.
Nischan, Bodo. 1987. “The Exorcism Controversy and Baptism in
Exorcism in Perspective the Late Reformation.” Sixteenth Century Journal18, no.
1: 31–51.
The spirituality and altruism of the Christian message
O’Neil, Mary R. 1984. “‘Sacerdote ovvero strione’: Ecclesiastical
have often been at odds with militant, physical forms of
and Superstitious Remedies in Sixteenth-Century Italy.”
proselytism—a tension underpinned by belief in the
Pp. 53–83 in Understanding Popular Culture.Edited by Steven
possibility of spirit acting in matter. Exorcism focuses
L. Kaplan. Berlin: Mouton.
these issues for Christians, as it has often been associat- Roper, Lyndal. 1994. “Exorcism and the Theology of the Body.”
ed with an uncompromising religiosity, capable of Pp. 171–198 in Oedipus and the Devil.London and NewYork:
underscoring the difference between God and his mali- Routledge.
cious adversary Satan through a visible battle in a Twelftree, Graham H. 1993. Jesus the Exorcist: A Contribution to
human body. Accompanying this zeal has been a fre- the Study of the Historical Jesus.Tübingen, Germany: J.C.B.
quent perception among exorcists that the body of the Mohr (Paul Siebeck).
Walker, Daniel P. 1981. Unclean Spirits: Possession and Exorcism in
possessed (often a woman) is no longer human, but
France and England in the Late Sixteenth and Early Seventeenth
totally in the sway of devils. Historically, this has some-
Centuries.London: Scolar.
times led to the use of violence in exorcism, a situation
exacerbated since the late twentieth century, as exor-
cism has become a favored medium among evangelical Experiments and Tests
Christian groups (and among some non-Christians), Testing and experimentation were essential to discus-
who see the power to exorcise as the mark of a particu- sions of witchcraft in early modern Eu rope and
lar holiness. In several cases, death and injury have America. Because witchcraft was defined as a crime,
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rules of evidence and judicial procedure were necessary interaction; the earliest re c o rded anecdotes (early
to evaluate the truthfulness of accusations. Confessions 1400s) seem intended to disprove the possibility.They
and testimony by witnesses were vital for obtaining concern women who claimed to experience flying and
convictions, at least in Roman law. Both, however, orgiastic banqueting after anointing themselves with
could be unreliable: confession could be contaminated herbal unguents. Alonso Tostado (d. 1455) told of a
by dementia or fear of torture, testimony by envy or woman who challenged her neighbors to a test because
revenge. So the need for more trustworthy evidence was they refused to believe her stories of flying and feasting.
often felt. By seve rely beating and burning her while she was
Two tests for witchcraft had a long history: the swim- unconscious, the neighbors convinced her that the
ming test and the Devil’s mark. Swimming was related experience was a dream. Johannes Nider (d. 1438) told
to a long tradition of judicial ordeals, ceremonies in a similar story in which a Dominican inquisitor
which the defendant’s (and often the accuser’s) ability witnessed a woman’s failure and rebuked her for
or inability to perform a task was interpreted as God’s foolishness.
signal, re vealing guilt or innocence. Be f o re witchcraft In these early stories, the experimental initiative
mythology was consolidated, swimming had been used came from the woman, not from her opponents; she
to test heretics, on the theory that water, the physical was accused of delusion, not maleficium (harmful mag-
element of baptism, would “a c c e p t” innocent defen- ic). Tostado never mentioned demons, while Ni d e r
dants and “re j e c t” guilty ones. (Pa r a d ox i c a l l y, this implied that the woman was ignorant of interacting
notion placed the innocent at risk of drowning, because with a demon. Both authors agreed with the Ca n o n
defendants’ hands and feet were bound.) Episcopi that such women we re delusional, but modifie d
Conversely, the Devil’s mark was interpreted as a sign it by attributing women’s nocturnal illusions to hallu-
f rom Satan, a cryptic signature on the body of his cinogenic unguents. Tostado identified and analyze d
human intimates, confirming his pact with them. anesthesia, calling it a natural force derived from certain
Judicial authorities and witch finders intent on pro o f plants. Pa r a d ox i c a l l y, both authors we re early theorists
devised tests for discovering Satan’s signatures on witch- of witchcraft. Tostado supported the concept of witch-
es’ bodies. Historically, these marks were related to the es’ physical transvection or flying; Nider asserted corpo-
idea of the pact as a text; Caesarius of Heisterbach told real, face-to-face relations between witches and demons
(ca. 1225) of heretics who could not be burned until (Stephens 2002, 146–159).
the Devil revealed that each heretic had sewn a copy of Later theorists of witchcraft told similar stories but
the pact under the skin of his armpit; the story was clearly re g retted that experiments never confir m e d
repeated in Malleus Ma l e fic a ru m (The Hammer of demonic presence and the reality of witchcraft. In
Witches, 1486) (Stephens 2002, 406n.). Conceptually, 1523, Bartolomeo della Spina told how a minor prince
m a rks we re the contrary both of stigmata, like those persuaded an inquisitor to perform an experiment wit-
that saints re c e i ved from Christ, and the c h a ra c t e r, a n nessed by courtiers. A convicted witch was forced to
invisible but literal sign left on the human soul by bap- anoint herself while eve ryone watched. They observe d
tism, confirmation, and ordination into the priesthood. only the witch’s nap.The prince and courtiers left con-
Applied only in England and dating from 1566, the test vinced that witchcraft was a delusion, that inquisitors
for the witch’s mark, a teat or some sort of protuberance persecuted old women for imaginary crimes. Sp i n a
on bodies of witches that their familiars or imps rebutted that the experiment demonstrated the pre s-
( g u a rdian demons) fed on, also proved to be evidence ence of two devils, rather than none: one carried the
of the pact with the Devil. woman away invisibly, the other counterfeited her
sleeping form. God allowed this deceit to punish the
Experiments nobles’ presumptuous curiosity and the inquisitor’s sin-
Tests like swimming or pricking we re practiced to decide ful acquiescence (Stephens 2002, 159–162).
juridical questions of guilt or innocence, although they To assert that witchcraft experiments sometimes
depended on theoretical and theological pre s u p p o s i t i o n s . w o rked, writers sought second hand empirical evidence.
Oc c a s i o n a l l y, actual experiments we re undertaken to Witches we re forced to confess anointing their naked
determine the objective reality of hypothetical interac- bodies and being carried by demons on bro o m s ,
tions between humans and demons. While they might be p i t c h f o rks, and so forth. Witnesses allegedly observe d
i n voked as judicial pro o f, their intent was primarily witches anoint themselves and fly away, then re p e a t e d
philosophical or scientific. Experimenters commonly the feat themselves, while remaining innocent of
tested the reality of witches’ crimes by attempting to wit- witchcraft or demonic pacts; the venerable tale of
ness the moment when a demon would arrive in some Lucius and Pamphile in Ap u l e i u s’s Me t a m o r p h o s e s o r
physical form to interact with a defendant. Golden Ass (second century C.E.) was sometimes cited
These experiments have a paradoxical history. T h e y as historical evidence of this possibility. Si l ve s t ro
were not originally intended as proof of human–demon Prierias (d. ca. 1527) claimed inquisitors commanded
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children of eight to twelve years to dance “as they do at own experiments in necromancy at Rome in 1523.
the Sabbat,” interpreting their “unnatural” movements Christopher Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus (1604, 1616) exper-
as evidence of supernatural—that is, demonic— imented with necromancy to determine the reality of
instruction (Stephens 2002, 166). demonic interventions (including succubi), hell, and
Subsequent experiments with ointments continued human immortality.
to support nondemonic pharmacological explanations. Nu m e rous discussions of demonic possession and
Johann We yer repeated stories re c o rded by e xo rcism from 1400–1700 suggest that tests of pos-
Giambattista Della Po rta and Gi rolamo Cardano to sessed persons often served experimental motiva t i o n s
oppose the idea of physical interaction between witches m o re than therapeutic ends. In Malleus Ma l e fic a ru m ,
and devils. Della Porta tells one story closely resembling Heinrich Kramer re c o rded his systematic experiment
those of Tostado and Nider, assuming as obvious that it on a possessed priest to verify the presence of a
describes psychopharmaceutical hallucinations, not demon, bequeathing a causal connection betwe e n
demonic encounters. Similar stories we re repeated far m a l e fic i u m and possession to later witchcraft theorists
into the eighteenth century. Lu d ovico Antonio ( Stephens 2002, 322–356). Treatises such as Gi ro l a m o
Muratori told of an experiment from the early 1700s Me n g h i’s Compendio dell’ a rte essorcista ( C o m p e n d i u m
performed on confessed witches who had not used the of the Exo rc i s t’s Art, 1576) re veal endemic doubt and
ointment and we re proved melancholic (Mu r a t o r i systematic experimentation. But once again, as with
1995, 101–102). Gi rolamo Ta rt a rotti repeated the m a l e fic i u m , experimental demonstrations of fraud in
s t a n d a rd anecdotes and re f e r red his readers to “ve ry p a rticular cases of possession could not invalidate the
many others.” Quoting Tostado’s experiment verbatim, c o n c e p t .
he paired it with a late seve n t e e n t h - c e n t u ry case
WALTER STEPHENS
proving the same point through more elaborate proce-
d u res. A judge experimented on a woman accused of See also:APULEIUSOFMADAURA;AQUINAS,THOMAS;BENEVENTO,
maleficiumwho believed that she flew to Sabbats at the WALNUTTREEOF;CARDANO,GIROLAMO;CONFESSIONS;DELLA
g reat walnut tree of Be n e ve n t o. The injuries she suf-
PORTA,GIAMBATTISTA;DEMONS;DEVIL’SMARK;DRUGSAND
fered refuted her claims while providing a milder pun-
HALLUCINOGENS;EVIDENCE;FLIGHTOFWITCHES;MALLEUS
MALEFICARUM;MENGHI,GIROLAMO;MURATORI,LUDOVICO
ishment than execution for her “evil intentions.” Bu t
ANTONIO;NIDER,JOHANNES;OINTMENTS;PRICKINGOFSUS-
Ta rt a rotti exposed the moralistic pretense, saying the
PECTEDWITCHES;PRIERIAS,SILVESTRO;SALAZARFRÍAS,ALONSO
judge also satisfied his own curiosity. Although witches’
DE;SPINA,BARTOLOMEO;SWIMMINGTEST;TARTAROTTI,GIRO-
Sabbat experiences we re illusory, Ta rt a rotti affir m e d LAMO;TOSTADO,ALONSO;WEYER,JOHANN;WITCH’SMARK.
that Satan ord e red witches to use hallucinogens, and References and further reading:
defended the Devil’s reality (Tartarotti 1745, 108–109, Henningsen, Gustav. 1980.The Witches’ Advocate: Basque
141–148). Witchcraft and the Spanish Inquisition (1609–1614). Reno:
The most extensive and re n owned experiments on University of Nevada Press.
witchcraft phenomena we re arranged by the skeptical Muratori, Ludovico Antonio. 1995. Della forza della fantasia
umana.Intro. by Claudio Pogliano. Florence: Giunti.
Spanish inquisitor Alonso de Sa l a z a r, who helped end
Stephens, Walter. 2002. Demon Lovers: Witchcraft, Sex, and the
an epidemic of witch burnings in 1610. Yet re p e a t e d
Crisis of Belief.Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
f a i l u re of witchcraft experiments probably convinced
Tartarotti, Girolamo. 1745. Del congresso notturno delle lammie
only observers whose will to believe in witchcraft was
libri tre.Venice: Giambattista Pasquali.
a l ready weakened. Witchcraft proponents argued that
Weyer, Johann. 1991.Witches, Devils, and Doctors in the
absence of confirmation was not confirmation of Renaissance. Johann Weyer, De Praestigiis Daemonum.Edited by
absence. George Mora et al. Binghamton, NY: Medieval and
Treatises we re not the only source of speculation Renaissance Texts and Studies.
about experimentation. Sometimes trial transcripts
s h ow prosecutors performing tests on accused witches Eymeric, Nicolas (ca. 1320–1399)
and demanding feats of them that sound suspiciously Eymeric was known for his massive handbook for
like experiments to determine the presence of devils inquisitors of 1376, the D i rectorium In q u i s i t o ru m
(Stephens 2002, 104–105). ( Di re c t o ry of Inquisitors). Born at Ge rona in
Attempts to verify demonic intervention empirically Catalonia, Eymeric entered the Dominican order in
p redated the early experiments mentioned by Ni d e r 1334, studying theology, philosophy, and canon law.
and Tostado. Caesarius of Heisterbach recorded necro- He taught and preached at Barcelona by 1351. He
mantic experiments with stated purposes to ve r i f y became vicar of the Dominican province of Aragon in
demonic reality.Thomas Aquinas (d. 1274) had already 1361 and inquisitor general of Aragon from 1357 to
p roposed possession and necromancy as proof that 1360 and again from 1365 to 1375. His zeal as an
demons we re not imaginary (Stephens 2002, inquisitor often stirred up considerable resistance. In
323–324). Benvenuto Cellini left a vivid account of his 1375, he was imprisoned and then exiled from Aragon
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by King Pedro IV. Eymeric became Inquisitor General within the jurisdiction of inquisitors of here t i c a l
of Aragon once more, from 1387 to 1392, but was d e p r a v i t y. In the fort y - t h i rd question, Eymeric argues
again exiled by King Juan I. Eymeric retired to Gerona that the second kind of diviners and magicians paid
in 1397, where he died two years later. latria to demons, the kind of honor that was appropri-
Eymeric wrote theological tracts, commentaries on ate only for God, as well as a lesser kind of veneration,
S c r i p t u re, and many polemical attacks against both d u l i a , that was appropriate only for the angels, saints,
individuals (including Raymond Lull, Arnald of popes, and kings.
Villanova, and even St. Vincent Ferrer) and devotional Eymeric goes on to describe the horrific rituals and
m ovements. Howe ve r, his most important work was practices that the demons require their servants to per-
the Directorium. It became the most widely used work form, the reasons these qualify as heresy, and allows for
of its kind, printed with extensive commentary by the possibility of abjuration, but also envisages the
Francisco Peña in 1578, several times augmented and death penalty for those who either refuse to abjure or
reprinted, and extremely influential until well into the relapse into diabolical sorc e ry after they have abjure d .
seventeenth century. Eymeric’s discussion of sorcery in He then cites a long list of authorities, including
the work is the most extensive of any of the early S c r i p t u re, St. Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Po p e
inquisitorial handbooks, far more detailed, for example, Innocent V, the Canon Episcopi,and several more recent
than in the better-known handbook by Be r n a rd Gu i , papal decretals.
written in 1323/1324. The significance of Eymeric’s discussion of diabolical
Ey m e r i c’s D i rectorium In q u i s i t o ru m was the fruit of sorcery lies in his insistent linking of it with traditional
many years of extensive theological study and practical and recently articulated ideas concerning the nature of
experience as an inquisitor. He composed it toward the heresy and its prosecution, as well as his categorization
end of the fourteenth century, after a number of popes, of both heresy and diabolical sorcery as forms of aposta-
kings, theologians, canon lawyers, and inquisitors had sy and idolatry, and there f o re violations of the Fi r s t
written extensively about the nature of diabolical sor- Commandment and the greatest of sins. The extraordi-
c e ry and the jurisdiction over it of various tribunals, narily wide circulation of the Directoriumtestifies to its
including those of the inquisitors of heretical depravity. wide appeal. As it circulated, Eymeric’s ideas about dia-
Early in the century, a number of trials involving dia- bolical sorcery circulated with it.
bolical sorcery in one form or another, often in political
EDWARD PETERS
contexts, had taken place. In the best known of these,
that of the Order of the Knights Templar in the fir s t See also:AUGUSTINE,ST.; BAPHOMET;DIABOLISM;DIVINATION;
and second decades of the century, many similar DOMINICANORDER;GUI,BERNARD;HERESY;IDOLATRY;INQUISI-
charges were made. During the long papal residence at
TION,MEDIEVAL;JOHNXXII,POPE;KYTELER,ALICE;ORIGINSOF
Avignon from 1305 to 1378, a number of popes had
THEWITCHHUNTS;PACTWITHTHEDEVIL;PAPACYANDPAPAL
BULLS;PEÑA,FRANCISCO;TEMPLARS.
also expressed increasing concerns about diabolical sor-
References and further reading:
c e ry, particularly John XXII. Eymeric had written a
Bailey, Michael D. 2001 “From Sorcery to Witchcraft: Clerical
s h o rt treatise on the subject of sorc e ry around 1359,
Conceptions of Magic in the Later Middle Ages.” Speculum76:
which he may have reworked for the relevant part of the 960–990.
Directorium. Borromeo, Agostino. 1983. “A proposito del Directorium
Ey m e r i c’s discussion of diabolical sorc e ry occurs in Inquisitorum di Nicolas Eymerich e delle sue edizioni cinque-
p a rt II of the D i re c t o r i u m , questions 42 and 43. centesche.” Critica storica 20: 499–547.
Question 42 deals with the jurisdiction over diviners Kors, Alan Charles, and Edward Peters, eds. and trans. 2001.
and magicians by the inquisitors of heretical depravity, Witchcraft in Europe, 400–1700: A Documentary History.2d ed.
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press: 120–127.
a question that had been hotly debated since the late
Macy, Gary. 1998. “Nicolas Eymeric and the Condemnation of
thirteenth century. Eymeric distinguishes a kind of nat-
Orthodoxy.” Pp. 369–381 in The Devil, Heresy and Witchcraft
ural and nonheretical kind of divination—his example
in the Middle Ages: Essays in Honor of Jeffrey B. Russell.Edited
is palmistry — f rom the kinds of divination and magic
by Alberto Ferreiro. Leiden, Boston, and Cologne: Brill.
that he thought required formal abjuration of Christian
Peters, Edward. 1978. The Magician, the Witch, and the Law.
baptism (apostasy) and ritualized submission to Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press: 132–135,
demons (idolatry). T h e re f o re, such activities fell we l l 196–202.
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F
Fairfax, Edward (d. 1635) gentleman’s reactions when his child was thought to be
Known for his account of his daughter’s bewitchment, b ewitched, and re c o rds the kind of sufferings and
Edward Fairfax was a member of one of the most pow- visions that a supposedly bewitched young woman
erful gentry families in Yorkshire. He married the sister from a godly background might experience. Fairfax also
of a leading government administrator in the north, makes a number of comments about witches and
lived at Fewston in West Yorkshire, and fathered four witchcraft in his home region, which is relatively badly
daughters (one of whom died shortly after birth) and documented for witchcraft history.When his daughters
four sons. He was a learned man, best known for his we re bewitched, he considered going to cunning men
translation of Torquato Tasso’s Gerusalemme Liberata or using countermagic, such as scratching, but rejected
(Jerusalem Liberated), published in 1600. these means as ungodly, and decided to resort to prayers
Fa i rf a x’s connection with the history of witchcraft and fasting, the theologically correct remedy. His narra-
began on October 28, 1621, when his eldest daughter, tive also shows that he was aware of classical references
Helen, then aged sixteen, fell into a trance in the family to witchcraft, and a number of recent cases.
parlor for several hours. When she awoke, she claimed The women suspected of bewitching Helen and
that she had been in the church of the nearby town of Elizabeth we re acquitted after trial, perhaps a surprise
Leeds, hearing a sermon by the vicar, Alexander Cooke g i ven Fa i rf a x’s family connections. Fa i rf a x’s account of
(the family had previously lived in Leeds: Cooke was a their trial provides useful insights into the way English
very forceful preacher, who also published a number of witchcraft trials we re operating by the 1620s, and the
tracts against popish recusants). She continued to fall d e g ree of caution, verging on skepticism, with which
into trances and described visions when she emerged the authorities we re treating witchcraft by that time.
f rom them, behavior that gradually led her parents to Fairfax stressed how opinion in Fewston, including that
believe that she was bewitched. of the vicar, was opposed to his attempt to prosecute his
Her younger sister, Elizabeth, began to demonstrate daughters’ tormentors for witchcraft, while he was also
similar symptoms, and eventually suspicions focused on surprised and offended by the attitude of the local jus-
six local women who were thought to be afflicting the tices of the peace and the assize judges when the six
Fa i rfax girls and another girl from Fewston, Ma u d women suspects came to trial.
Je f f r a y. Fa i rf a x’s account of his daughters’ affli c t i o n s
JAMES SHARPE
contributed to a body of narratives about the bewitch-
ment of children and adolescents in English gentry See also: BEWITCHMENT;CHILDREN;COUNTERMAGIC;CUNNING
households, which began with the Warboys affair.The FOLK;ENGLAND;FAMILIARS;WARBOYSWITCHES.
References and further reading:
visions that Helen Fairfax reported provide fascinating
Grainge, William, ed. 1882. Daemonologia: A Discourse on
insights into the ways in which a devout young woman
Witchcraft as it was acted in the Family of Mr Edward Fairfax, of
of the period envisaged God, the Devil, and witches.
Fuyston, in the County of York, in the Year 1621: Along with the
Helen frequently suffered afflictions imposed on her by
only two Eclogues of the same Author known to be in Existence.
specters of the women who we re tormenting her, and
Harrogate:R. Ackrill.
her discourse shows obvious familiarity with contempo- Sharpe, James. 1996. Instruments of Darkness: Witchcraft in
r a ry witchcraft lore, especially that associated with England 1550–1750.London: Hamish Hamilton.
familiars. The six women we re eventually tried for
witchcraft at York assizes in 1623, but were acquitted. Fairies
Fairfax recorded his daughters’ sufferings in a lengthy During the period of witchcraft prosecutions, many
n a r r a t i ve that has never re c e i ved a full-scale modern suspected witches throughout Europe claimed under
study, although several manuscript copies of it circulat- interrogation to possess supernatural powers after their
ed in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Hi s encounters with fairies. No modern scholar has under-
account of his daughters’ afflictions provides re m a rk- taken a full study of this question throughout Europe.
able insights into an educated, and sincerely Protestant, Partial studies ranging from classical Greece and Rome
FairIES 345 |
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to the British Isles, Sicily, the Alps, and eastern Europe, regarded these powers, and their fairy donors, as simul-
especially Hungary, suggest a Europe-wide series of taneously useful and dangerous in the community.
conceptually related beliefs—though with considerable The fairies were—alarmingly, in the patriarchal cul-
regional and local variations. Broadly, what is shared is tures of early modern Europe—a matriarchy, and praise
a belief in fairies as a particular class of dead persons, or of Elizabeth I of England as “the fairy queen” acknowl-
more accurately as a possible destination for the bodies edges the exceptionality of this form of gove r n m e n t .
and spirits of some of the dead. In particular, those who Mo re ove r, the queen of the fairies was ove rtly sexual,
had died before their allotted span—murder victims, often abducting young men for her sexual delight.
soldiers who died in battle, and women and babies who More pertinent to women storytellers was her appetite
died in or shortly after childbirth—were likely to return for babies; rationalized later by folklorists as due to her
as fairies. Feelings about these beings were ambivalent. own inability to bear children. The primal hunger for
Sometimes they were thought to protect their commu- an infant spoke deeply to maternal feelings and ambiva-
nities against darker supernatural powers, and some- lence in women. This was especially true of the belief in
times to behave like fearsome vampires or revenants, changelings, the idea that the fairies stole a mortal child
preying on their neighbors and kin. Mortals could gain and left a fairy child in its place. Stories add that it was
power over, or from, fairies most commonly either by possible to get one’s own child back by making the
giving them a baby or by having sex with them, but changeling suffer, for example by burning it over a fire
sometimes by temporarily becoming one of them, a or by abandoning it in woodland for hours at a time.
process which often involved joining an airborne fairy Such things may never have been practiced, but such
ride. Those thus favored by the fairies received some or stories, perhaps offering a popular explanation for
all of the characteristic supernatural powers of cunning Down’s syndrome children, express otherwise unspeak-
folk: healing powers, the ability to find lost objects and able rages and loathings of some mothers toward some
buried treasure, and the ability to prognosticate. Others children.
A fairy procession. Europeans believed that fairies comprised the dead who had returned to life, could be either benevolent or malevolent, and often
gave powers to witches. (Images.com/Corbis)
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When told by women, stories about fairies seem less a Pocs, Eva. 1999. Between the Living and the Dead.A Perspective on
matter of wish-fulfillment than of fear of breaking the Witches and Seers in the Early Modern Age.Budapest: Central
bounds set for them by society. It seems clear that European University Press.
Purkiss, Diane. 2001. At the Bottom of the Garden: A History of
under interrogation and during trials, cunning
Fairies and Fairy Stories. NewYork: NewYork University Press.
women often told the same story about their encoun-
Thomas, Keith. 1971. Religion and the Decline of Magic.London:
ters with fairies that they had been using to explain
Weidenfeld and Nicolson; NewYork: Charles Scribner’s Sons.
their powers to clients. Like all magical healers, sus-
pected fairy witches we re often among the first to be
accused during an outbreak of local prosecution. It
may be that the English familiar, so puzzlingly alien to Familiars
continental demonology, is a form of household fairy, The familiar spirit was a private, and in many
or hob; several accused witches speak of their familiar instances domesticated, demon usually taking an ani-
as if it we re a brownie, and a few speak of feeding mal form, that a witch would keep to aid her in acts
them on milk, as brownies we re fed. If so, it may be of m a l e ficium (harmful magic). Fu t u re re s e a rch may
that fairy beliefs—or, given the fact of frequent pro s- modify this assertion; but it now seems that the
ecution, the failure of fairy beliefs—lie behind many f a m i l i a r, in its fully developed form, was ve ry much
m o re witchcraft trials than have so far been studied. p a rticular to English witchcraft. Familiars seem to
Mo re extensive studies of relations between folklore h a ve been an integral part of Basque witchcraft
and witch beliefs are needed. beliefs, where toads played a part, but they seem less
Fa i ry beliefs of the kind described above we re grad- i m p o rtant than the familiar in England—and toads,
ually but patchily displaced by the creation of literary unlike most British familiars, secreted real poison.
f a i r i e s — t i n y, morally good or neutral, and comely, Si m i l a r l y, anthropologists occasionally re p o rt some-
with minimal supernatural powers—in which few thing like familiars among the witchcraft beliefs of
people ever truly believe. These fig u res we re intro- the peoples they study, but these too generally seem
duced by Sh a k e s p e a re and promulgated by his con- less elaborate than the ideas about familiars current in
t e m p o r a ry Michael Drayton, and they later became early modern En g l a n d .
key aspects of social satire. Yet even a late version of Howe ve r, the concept of the familiar in early mod-
f a i ry beliefs like James Ba r r i e’s Pe t e r Pa n retains some ern English witchcraft has not been given thoro u g h
of the folkloric sense of fairies’ ambiguity, powe r, and analysis, although both trial re c o rds and pamphlets
connection with death. Even the faked fairies of about trials contain a wealth of detail, sometimes con-
Cottingley retain a connection with death through the t r a d i c t o ry, about them. The concept already appears
spiritualist rhetoric used to describe them. (T h e in the first English witchcraft-trial pamphlet, describ-
Cottingley fairies, made out of shapes traced from a ing the trial of three Essex women in 1566. Ac c o rd i n g
c h i l d re n’s book, cut out of card b o a rd, and stuck on to the pamphlet, one of them, Elizabeth Francis, con-
hatpins, then photographed by two teenage girls, we re fessed that she had learned witchcraft at age twe l ve
hailed as genuine by Arthur Conan Doyle and the f rom her grandmother, who made her renounce Go d
Theosophical Society in 1922; they we re welcomed by and gave her a familiar, named “Sathan,” in the shape
those who had recently lost family members in the of a cat. He re we have an indication of one possible
Great War and we re in search of reassurance; many function of familiars in English witch beliefs:
other fairy sightings followed, and many people have although the demonic pact took a long time to enter
written to me to say that they have really seen one.) English popular thinking about witchcraft, a familiar
Despite this, the modern fairy is anodyne and one- named “Sa t a n” was clearly diabolical and functioned
dimensional in comparison with her more complex as a substitute for the Devil. This cat was re p o rt e d l y
a n c e s t o r s . fed bread and milk was and kept in a basket. The cat
DIANE PURKISS could speak and was sent by Francis to perform acts of
m a l e fic i u m .
See also: CUNNINGFOLK;DEMONS;FAMILIARS;FOLKLORE;GHOSTS; Another important element was present in this early
HUNGARYANDSOUTHEASTERNEUROPE,MAGIC;HUNGARYAND pamphlet. Whenever the cat did anything for Elizabeth
SOUTHEASTERNEUROPE,WITCHCRAFT;MOTHERHOOD; Francis, it re q u i red a drop of blood, which the witch
REVENANTS;SCOTLAND;VAMPIRE.
p rovided by pricking herself. This notion deve l o p e d
References and further reading:
fairly quickly into the idea that the familiar sucked
Gre g o ry, Annabel. “Witchcraft, Politics and ‘Good Ne i g h b o u r h o o d’
blood from a witch’s extra teat, the English version of
in Seventeenth-Century Rye.” Past and Present133: 31–66.
the witch’s mark. By the early seventeenth century, it
Henningsen, Gustav. 1990. “‘The Ladies from Outside’: An
was generally accepted that the mark would be on the
Archaic Pattern of the Witches’ Sabbat.” Pp. 191–215 in Early
Modern European Witchcraft: Centres and Peripheries.Edited by w i t c h’s genitals or on her anus, thus adding a sexual
Bengt Ankarloo and Gustav Henningsen. Oxford: Clarendon. dimension to the relationship between the female witch
Familiars 347 |
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A witch feeding her “familiars” (imps), domesticated demons common to English witchcraft. Imps appeared as small animals or fantastical
creatures. (Fortean Picture Library)
and her familiar. This functioned as a pornographic or for any intent or purpose.” This addition was clearly
t r a n s f e rence for the direct sexual intercourse with the d i rected at the keeping and using of familiars.
Devil that characterized continental witchcraft. Su b s e q u e n t l y, women we re occasionally indicted sim-
T h roughout the period of witchcraft trials in ply for keeping familiars, even without performing acts
England (and long afterwards), familiars remained cen- of maleficium.
tral to English witchcraft beliefs. The forms they took Conversely, the familiar played a role similar to that
varied: they might be any simple animal. By the time of of the Devil in tempting a woman to repudiate her god
the Matthew Hopkins trials of 1645, familiars assumed and serve the Devil; indeed, some confessing witches
a variety of shapes, sometimes taking on gro t e s q u e scarcely differentiated between the Devil and their ani-
hybrid forms. Their names ranged from the very famil- mal familiar. A good example of this, also from a trial
iar to the totally fanciful. The way in which familiars pamphlet, is provided by Elizabeth Sawyer, “The Witch
we re acquired also varied. Sometimes familiars we re of Edmonton,” executed in 1621. In this case, the Devil
passed on by a re l a t i ve, as with Elizabeth Francis in first came to Elizabeth in the shape of a dog when she
1566, or were gifts from another witch. was cursing, swearing, and blaspheming. The dog
T h e re is also some possibility of regional va r i a t i o n s assured her that he would help her revenge herself upon
in the strength of belief in the familiar. In this period, her enemies whenever she asked, in return for which he
familiar spirits are mentioned most frequently in East took her soul and her body. Sawyer sealed the bargain
Anglia and Essex, but apparently less often in such by allowing him to suck her blood a little above her
n o rthern counties as Lancashire or Yo rk s h i re. T h e “fundament,” a continuation of this process resulting in
witch’s teat became central to “proving” that a woman the forming of a teat. She called the dog-devil “Tom,”
was a witch, and hence, the role of the familiar became and would stroke its back, which made him wag his
more important. These developments were almost cer- tail.
tainly strengthened by the English 1604 witchcraft The familiar was thus a central element in En g l i s h
statute. Like its Elizabethan predecessor, it made invo- witch beliefs. At present, howe ve r, it is ve ry uncert a i n
cation or conjuration of an evil spirit punishable by where this concept, apparently well developed by 1566
death, but added the death penalty for those who dared but rarely mentioned in earlier English witchcraft cases,
to “employ, feed or reward any evil and wicked spirit to originated, and why it assumed such importance in
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England but nowhere else. Some possible clues are pro- FOLKLORE;HOPKINS,MATTHEW;METAMORPHOSIS;SEXUAL
vided by another 1566 pamphlet, describing the exam- ACTIVITY,DIABOLIC;TOADS;WITCH’SMARK.
ination of a man named John Walsh before the episco- References and further reading:
Davies, Owen. 1999. Witchcraft, Magic and Culture 1736–1951.
pal court of Exeter.Walsh described how he had learned
Manchester: Manchester University Press.
magical arts and acquired magical books from his previ-
Sharpe, James. 1996. Instruments of Darkness: Witchcraft in
ous master, a priest named Ro b e rt Drayton. He said
England 1550–1750.London: Hamish Hamilton.
that he also inherited a familiar from his master, which
———. 2002. “The Witch’s Familiar in Elizabethan England.”
visited him in various animal forms, and sometimes as a
Pp. 209–232 in Authority and Consent in Tudor England: Essays
man with cloven feet. When first given it by Drayton, presented to C. S. L. Davies.Edited by G. W. Bernard and S.J.
Walsh gave the familiar a drop of his blood; but he usu- Gunn. Aldershot: Ashgate.
ally rewarded it for services rendered (normally finding Willis, Deborah. 1995. Malevolent Nurture: Witch-Hunting and
stolen goods) by feeding it a chicken or other live ani- Maternal Power in Early Modern England. Ithaca, NY, and
mal. He also told how to use toad familiars to help London: Cornell University Press.
work magic. Walsh also claimed to be in touch with the
fairies, and it seems obvious from some other early Family
descriptions of familiars that there was an overlap in the Family units, primarily in the nuclear household, then
popular consciousness between such cre a t u res and secondarily among extended kin, formed the basic
familiars. Walsh, moreover, told how he would raise his structure of European society, so the family naturally
m a s t e r’s familiar spirits by using spells that his master played a vital if ambiguous role in witchcraft beliefs and
had taught him. Here we may have another clue to the practices. The classic misfortunes attributed to witches
origins of the concept. We re the familiars, so fir m l y struck against families, most notably their children and
lodged in popular beliefs, the folklorized equivalents of their animals. It was therefore natural for suspicions to
the spirits that necromancers like Drayton had been form at this level, before gossip spread into the wider
t rying to raise for several centuries? Mo re generally, community, and for family members to join together in
writers from classical antiquity onward had imagined action against the witch.
beings that were half animal and half demon, and it is At the same time, there was a marked tendency for
possible that this tradition, emphasizing the reality of whole families to become suspect, which pro b a b l y
such beings, had entered folklore. increased once persecution became endemic in specific
Belief in familiars remained a central aspect of witch- localities. A significant number of accusations against
craft beliefs in England long after the end of the witch- men, in particular, can be seen as extensions of the rep-
craft trials. When folklorists began their investigations utation that first attached to their wives. Once a close
in the nineteenth century, they found that familiars, relative, and especially a parent, had been executed, all
most frequently in the form of white mice, fig u re d family members could expect to have this remembered
p rominently in ideas about witchcraft. Now usually against them, and cited as if it amounted to a presump-
described as i m p s (or n i g g e t s in Essex), familiars we re tion of guilt.
still thought to be passed on from one generation to In most of Eu rope it was normal to confiscate the
another, as in 1566. Connected beliefs held that a witch property of a condemned witch, so children might also
lost her power if her imps were killed, and that a witch be reduced to extreme poverty. Unsurprisingly, many of
could not die until she found a relative who would take the condemned seem to have left their native commu-
her imps. These beliefs, interestingly, were strongest in nities, although their dangerous reputations accompa-
the eastern counties. There was an associated belief that nied them to their new addresses. There appears to have
witches kept toads, who performed many of the func- been a notion of witchcraft as a craft that was learned,
tions of the familiar, in the west country. In the north, with parents corrupting their children, often under
folklorists found ve ry little evidence of familiars, heavy pressure from the Devil. Children were allegedly
although in that region the beliefs in shape-changing taken to the Sabbat for initiation, a notion that helped
among witches were stronger, establishing another facet to set up the pattern of denunciation by child witches
of the witch’s interface with the animal world. Thus the found in some notable panics. There are numerous less
f a m i l i a r, a concept with origins that that remain so spectacular instances where children told fanciful sto-
e l u s i ve, retained a central place in English witchcraft ries or claimed magical powers in such a fashion that
until the early twentieth century. The modern world- they brought their parents under suspicion.
wide popular notion that the witch habitually keeps a Families normally provided a considerable degree of
pet cat is a remnant of this notion. p rotection for their members. Husbands are often
re c o rded as threatening or conciliating those they
JAMES SHARPE f e a red might accuse their wives, or seeking damages
See also:ANIMALS;ANIMISTICANDMAGICALTHINKING;BASQUE f rom them for slander. Mothers often intervened to
COUNTRY;BLOOD;CATS;DEVIL;DOGS;ENGLAND;FAIRIES; defend their children against other children or adults in
Family 349 |
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ways that led to lasting animosities or became the basis to bewitchment. The same role might be attributed to
for witchcraft charges if illness or death followed a con- disputes over inheritance, which often led to splits in
f rontation. Groups of village children also became the the extended family network, or between parents and
mouthpieces of local gossip, publically voicing suspi- c h i l d ren. While it was ve ry rare for suspicions within
cions their elders only expressed privately, and taunting families to turn directly into formal legal pro c e e d i n g s ,
others with the reputations of their parents. At a more they quite often became known to neighbors and
mundane level, the elderly were expected to receive sup- helped to create reputations. The frequency of infant
p o rt from their children and kin rather than go beg- mortality may have had more subtle effects, because it
ging. The vulnerability of older women to witchcraft would have re i n f o rced the tendency for siblings to
charges clearly related to the fact that many became b e l i e ve that ill will tow a rd the new rival for maternal
w i d ows, and a significant pro p o rtion of these had no attention was truly deadly, the kind of link betwe e n
surviving children. Potential accusers would have been inner feelings and external effects that was a central
well aware of the ill will relatives of the convicted might constituent of witchcraft beliefs. Another set of tensions
feel tow a rd them; they may also have been conscious i n vo l ved servants, whose relationships among them-
that countercharges could be made against members of selves and with their employers were often uneasy.They
their own families. Reputations stretching back many might be accused of bewitching one another, or argu-
years might therefore become far more dangerous once ments about payment and treatment could be treated as
individuals had become both isolated and dependent the motive for a vengeful parent’s magical assault on the
on aid from the community. Such people occasionally family. At other times it was a servant who became the
seem to have played on the fears they aroused to extract victim after turning away a beggar or running some
m o re support from their neighbors, following a ve ry errand for her or his employer, because the servant was
high-risk strategy. the person in direct contact with the supposed witch.
Tensions both within and between families are often Of ficial doctrines attached great importance to the
p e rceptible from the legal re c o rds. A striking example family as the framework for a well-regulated society, in
can be found in the famous Salem Village episode, which women, children, and servants submitted to
w h e re family rivalries helped stru c t u re a complex pat- patriarchal authority. Breaches of the rules were readily
tern of accusations. T h e re are German cases where envi- i d e n t i fied as signs of more fundamental disord e r, ye t
ous younger men attacked leading male members of vil- w i ves in particular we re often obliged to act with a
lage communities by charging their wives with d e g ree of assert i veness that contradicted the theories.
witchcraft. Di s c o rd between spouses could be blamed Whether marketing household produce, dealing with
on witchcraft by third parties, although in extreme cases importunate neighbors, herding animals, or participat-
it might lead to direct accusations. Both the popular and ing in group activities, they needed to be pert i n a c i o u s
the ecclesiastical rituals of marriage we re thought to in defending their household’s interests. Their social
offer protection against various dangers, including the role as prime creators and propagators of local gossip
i n fliction of impotence by tying ligatures, although this also threatened the passive stereotype. Ho u s ew i ve s
w i d e s p read belief does not appear in many witchcraft emerge from the re c o rd as rather assert i ve fig u res. In
cases. Marital troubles are another matter, because one witchcraft cases, there are reasons to believe that house-
of the most common reasons a woman gave for suppos- w i ves did not merely testify against suspects, but that
edly yielding to the De v i l’s blandishments was that she they often spurred their menfolk into action against
was in despair after quarrelling with her husband or suspected witches whose labeling was largely the work
being beaten by him. On other occasions women of the female community. For some educated male
alleged that they we re in terrible pove rty because their commentators this was indeed an additional reason for
husbands drank away their money and left the childre n skepticism when dealing with accusations they saw as
h u n g ry. These negative pictures imply a more positive i r remediably tainted by feminine credulity and super-
ideal, and should not be taken as reliable evidence for stition. A women’s household role might also help to
the normal state of early modern family life. The witch- shape the nature of charges, with suspected witches
craft trials also contain much evidence for support i ve identified as threatening the housewife’s basic duties of
attitudes, showing heavy expenditures of time and mon- childcare and nourishment. Witchcraft often appeared
ey caring for sick spouses or children. Many of the atti- as the polluting element that disrupted such eve ryd a y
tudes repeatedly expressed are quite incompatible with activities as making butter or spinning; the suffere r s
the dismal view of dysfunctional families that have been who found that practical efforts to put matters right
adopted by some incautious historians. were ineffective might well resort to countermagic, such
High mortality rates necessarily led to many broken as placing a red-hot piece of iron in the milk.
families and remarriages; inevitably, problems with In their general assault on fertility of eve ry kind,
stepparents and stepchildren manifest themselves in the witches might well be seen as aiming to destroy the
evidence, sometimes as motives for the hostility that led family as the center of re p roduction. Their supposed
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ability to penetrate into domestic space, whether as those associated with the Family of Love, also known as
a s s e rt i ve unwelcome visitors or through shape-chang- Familists, Familia Charitatis (Family of Charity), and
ing, gave dramatic expression to this thre a t . Fedeli d’Amore (the Faithful of Love), the last name
Confessions about the Sabbat sometimes explained being used by a thirteenth-century literary current asso-
h ow groups of witches sallied forth to snatch babies ciated with Dante Alighieri, would have had obvious
f rom their cradles by night, or to kill them. In more appeal to nondogmatic Christians. There are similiari-
elaborate theories, it was supposed that the Devil want- ties between the Fedeli d’Amore and the familia amor-
ed his agents to behave in this way to prevent the com- is(Family of Love) persecuted in Milan in 1300–1302.
pletion of the divinely appointed number of the just, The Familists held their meetings in secret and con-
thus delaying his own predestined fate at the Last cealed their true beliefs while appearing to be orthodox
Judgment. Christians, both being types of behavior that many in
At the popular level, the dominant fears were rather early modern Europe attributed to witches.
that households enjoying some modest level of viability They we re followers of Hendrik Ni c l a e s
might lose both pro p e rty and status, or be unable to (1509–1580), a Dutch spiritualist and a wealthy mer-
bring any children to maturity. Occasionally this pat- chant. In 1540, Niclaes had a re velation that induced
tern was inve rted, in the sense that unusual economic him to found this sect. Niclaes was arrested in Münster
success was attributed to witchcraft. The most common for holding Lutheran views, and then went to
expression of such beliefs attached to dairying, with the A m s t e rdam, where he was suspected of being an
idea that neighbors could somehow steal milk fro m Anabaptist, and then to Emden. His works were strong-
other people’s cows, surfaced at various points acro s s ly influenced by the Radical Reformation, as well as the
Eu rope. In other cases the allegations simply invo l ve d medieval Brethren of the Free Spirit and Erasmianism.
the ability to produce exceptional quantities of butter Niclaes signed with his initials, H.N., also meaning
or cheese. The most typical situation, howe ve r, was homo novus,or Helie Nazarenus,a prophet of God.
when some envious neighbor sought to disrupt a suc- As a group, the Familists practiced Nicodemism, dis-
cessful family, so it was natural that some of the most sembling their true beliefs while conforming to ortho-
common forms of countermagic were designed to pro- d ox norms. St ressing righteousness, Niclaes thought
tect thresholds and prevent any incursions into the pri- that faith was meaningless without an imitation of
vate world of the household. Jesus’s passion. Niclaes asserted and defended an inter-
nal liberty that allowed men to live peacefully and
ROBIN BRIGGS
a voided confrontations through an emphasis on
See also: ACCUSATIONS;ANIMALS;CHILDREN;COUNTERMAGIC; Christian ethical values. Pr a yer was also rejected, and
FEMINISM;GENDER;METAMORPHOSIS;MILK;MOTHERHOOD; Familists attached little importance to external sacra-
SABBAT;SALEM.
ments or forms of worship. When accused of being
References and further reading:
Familists, they could claim their legal rights as Go d -
Boyer, Paul, and Stephen Nissenbaum. 1974. Salem Possessed: The
fearing and churchgoing Christians. Familism on the
Social Origins of Witchcraft.Cambridge, MA: Harvard
continent appealed to humanists who found it a way of
University Press.
living fre e l y. Some famous sixteenth-century people,
Briggs, Robin. 2002. Witches and Neighbours: The Social and
Cultural Context of European Witchcraft.2d ed. Oxford: including the printer Christophe Plantin, the mapmak-
Blackwell. er Abraham Ortels (Ortelius), the neostoicist philoso-
Hufton, Olwen H. 1995. The Prospect Before Her: A History of pher Justus Lipsius, and the Spanish humanist Arias
Women in Western Europe.Vol. I,1500–1800.London: Montano, joined this second Family of Love, adopting
HarperCollins. their leader’s theories toward political troubles, practic-
Purkiss, Diane. 1996. The Witch in History: Early Modern and ing an external conformity and inward withdrawal that
Twentieth-Century Representations.London: Routledge.
p re s e rved both themselves and their individualistic
Roper, Lyndal. 1994. Oedipus and the Devil: Witchcraft, Sexuality
religion.
and Religion in Early Modern Europe.London: Routledge.
England experienced a peculiar type of Fa m i l i s m .
Wiesner, Merry E. 1993. Women and Gender in Early Modern
The standard view sees English Familism as the adapta-
Europe.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
tion of a set of imported beliefs to existing patterns of
Willis, Deborah. 1995. Malevolent Nurture: Witch-Hunting and
Maternal Power in Early Modern England.Ithaca, NY, and English nonconformity (Marsh 1994) or as a kind of
London: Cornell University Press. adulterated Niclaesism with Anabaptist ro o t s
( Hamilton 1981). Despite any “n a t i o n a l” differe n c e s
Family of Love that the “Brotherhood of Love” took in England and in
A sixteenth-century religious group of Dutch origin, the Low Countries, its main aim everywhere was mutu-
Family of Love included some who were skeptical of al assistance and protection. The Familists held their
diabolical witchcraft, the reality of the pact with the meetings in secret and hoped to conve rt new enlight-
Devil, and the existence of demons. The central ideas of ened members. Here as on the Continent, the writings
Family of Love 351 |
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of Niclaes appealed to humanists who found in 1513 and Bamberg in 1520, where Bishop Georg III
Familism a way of finding a freer spiritual life, but the a c k n owledged the importance of “Doctor Fa u s t u s”
Familists never spread their message beyond a tiny por- with a gift of 20 florins. The towns of Ingolstadt and
tion of society. Familists were never a major force, but Nu remberg expelled a “Doctor Fa u s t u s” in 1528 and
they provided a source for other continental themes in 1532, re s p e c t i ve l y, as a necromancer and sodomite.
that influenced other later groups. Fa u s t’s historical existence is beyond doubt. Du r i n g
At the end of the sixteenth century, Familism disap- his lifetime he was mentioned by Abbot Jo h a n n e s
peared in the Netherlands with the deaths of Niclaes in Trithemius in 1507, by Conrad Mutianus in 1513,
1580, Plantin in 1589, and Hendrik Jansen va n Abbot Kilian Leib in 1528, Joachim Camerarius in
Barrefelt after 1594. Most of its confraternities tended 1536, Philip Be g a rdi in 1539, and by Philip vo n
to Protestantism. In the Netherlands, a new movement, Hutten, writing to his brother Moritz from Ve n ez u e l a
Arminianism, a moderate form of Calvinism, attracted in 1540.
similar individuals, while in England the birth of the Faust apparently sought the reputation of a
Fraternity of the Rose Cross gathered in some ex-Fa m i l i s t s Renaissance philosopher who was familiar with natur-
( Hamilton 1981).While it is difficult to define the her- al magic, but his negative image was already shaped by
itage of Familistic experience, it seems clear that the the ferocious attack of Trithemius in May 1506. T h e
Enlightenment became the ultimate heir of that kind of abbot, invo l ved in a dispute with Faust near the impe-
thought. The underground culture of the Family of rial city of Gelnhausen, suggested that Faust had
L ove pre p a red the way for the Ro s i c rucian bro t h e r- claimed to perform wonders superior to those of Je s u s .
hood, and in some ways for the eighteenth-century In his demonology An t i p a l u s Ma l e fic o rum (Te s t i m o n y
Enlightenment, the philosophical fraternity. Its heritage of Witches, 1507), Trithemius constructs Faust after
is found in its desire to cut through existing creeds, and the image of Simon Magus, the sorc e rer in the Acts of
in its claim of freedom to explore a personal mystical t h e Ap o s t l e s (8: 9–24) who aspired to supernatural
faith. p owe r.
Because Trithemius was extremely well connected in
MICHAELA VALENTE
both humanist and political circles, his enmity toward
See also:ENLIGHTENMENT;SKEPTICISM. Faust was readily transmitted to prominent intellectuals
References and further reading: of his day (Trithemius 1536, 312). The example of Dr.
Bécares Botas, Vincente. 1999. Arias Montano y Plantino. El libro
Faust was presumably used in sermons, since the prolif-
flamenco en la España de Felipe II.León: Secretariado de
eration of Faust narratives can hardly be explained oth-
Publicaciones de la Universidad de León.
erwise. Already during Faust’s lifetime, the constructed
Hamilton, Alastair. 1981. The Family of Love. Cambridge, UK:
fig u re of “Fa u s t” acquired characteristics from earlier
J. Clarke.
magicians or fig u res like Theophilus who had made
———, ed. 1988.Cronica ordo sacerdotis. Acta HN. Three texts on
the Family of Love,Leiden: Brill. pacts with the Devil. Such authors as Ma rtin Lu t h e r
———, ed. 2003. The Family of Love; 1. Hendrik Niclaes.Volume and Philipp Melanchthon and various chronicles (for
22 in Bibliotheca dissidentium: répertoire des non-conformistes example, the Zimmerische Chro n i k or Wa l d e c k i s c h e
religieux des seizième et dix-septième siècles. André Seguenny Chronik) referred to Faust as an almost mythical or leg-
and Jean Rott, series editors. Baden-Baden: Koerner. endary figure.
Marsh, Christopher W. 1994. The Family of Love in English Folk tales of Faust remained popular in the
Society: 1550–1630.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
mid-sixteenth century and we re amplified with details
Mout, Nicolette. 1981. “The Family of Love(Huis der Liefde) and
b o r rowed from such better-known historical magician/
the Dutch Revolt.”Pp. 76–93 in Britain and the Netherlands,
scientists as Paracelsus or Cornelius Agrippa vo n
Vol. VII, Church and State Since the Reformation.Edited by
Nettesheim, Johann Weyer’s teacher at Bonn. Quoting
A. C. Duke and C. A. Tamse. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff.
Luther (and indirectly defending Agrippa), Weyer men-
Wotton, David. 2001, “Reginald Scot/ Abraham Fleming / The
Family of Love.” Pp. 119–138 in Languages of Witchcraft. tioned Faust as a magician who had a close relationship
Edited by Stuart Clark. London: Macmillan. with the Devil. Johann Fischart, the translator of Jean
Bodin’s demonology, subsequently turned the tables by
Faust, Johann Georg modeling Agrippa on the figure of Dr. Faustus, imply-
(ca. 1480–1540) ing that Weyer was numbered among the Devil’s min-
An almost mythical fig u re (f a u s t u s means the lucky ions. Like Fischart, most later sixteenth-century demo-
one), Fa u s t’s dates of birth and death and even his nologists, including some opponents of witch beliefs,
Christian name remain in dispute (Johann or like Hermann Witekind in 1585, refer to Faust as a
Georg?). Howe ve r, the historical Faust was pro b a b l y quintessential diabolical sorcerer.
born at Knittlingen (southwestern Germany) and By then Faust had become a literary fig u re. He
studied theology at the university of Heidelberg after a l ready appeared, for instance, on the front cover of
1507. He has left traces in local re c o rds at Erf u rt Ludovicus Milichius’sDer Zauber Teuffel(The Devil of
352 Faust, Johann Georg |
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international audiences. Inspired primarily by Goethe’s
masterpiece, the theme of Faust was subsequently
s p read through nineteenth-century operatic adapta-
tions by such major composers as Giacomo Meyerbeer,
Franz Liszt, and Hector Berlioz.
WOLFGANG BEHRINGER
See also: AGRIPPAVONNETTESHEIM,HEINRICHCORNELIUS;
FISCHART,JOHANN;PARACELSUS,THEOPHRASTUSBOMBASTUS
VONHOHENHEIM;RENAISSANCEDRAMA,ENGLAND;SIMON
MAGUS;THEOPHILUS;TRITHEMIUS,JOHANNES;WEYER,JOHANN;
WITEKIND,HERMANN.
References and further reading:
Baron, Frank. 1978. Doctor Faustus from History to Legend.
Munich: Fink.
Dédéyan, Charles. 1954–1967. Le thème de Faust dans la littéra-
ture européenne.4 vols. Paris: Lettres modernes.
Mahal, Günther. 1980. Faust: Die Spuren eines geheimnisvollen
Lebens.Bern: Scherz.
Roberts, Gareth. 1996. “Necromantic Books: Christopher
Marlowe, Dr. Faustusand Agrippa of Nettesheim.”
Pp. 148–171 in Christopher Marlow and English Renaissance
Culture.Edited by Darryll Grantley and Peter Roberts.
Aldershot, UK: Scolar.
Trithemius, Johannes. 1536. Epistolae familiares.Hagenau.
Faversham Witches
On September 29, 1645, three women, Joan Williford,
Joan Cariden, and Jane Hott were executed for witch-
craft at Faversham in Kent (a fourth woman, Elizabeth
Harris, was also investigated, but apparently not
Faust and the Devil make their pact. (Bettmann/Corbis)
hanged). Although there is no direct link, the timing
and content of these trials suggest that they were very
Magic) in 1563, subsequently incorporated into the strongly influenced by the mass witch hunts, presided
first edition of the T h e a t rum Diaboloru m (Theater of over by Matthew Hopkins, which had broken out that
Devils, Frankfurt am Main, 1569) and all later editions. summer in eastern England. Faversham was one of the
The Historia von D. Johann Fausten, the first book pur- English Cinque Ports, a borough with its own rights of
porting to describe Faust and his deeds, was printed in jail delivery, and some of the irregularities that occurred
Fr a n k f u rt in 1587. The anonymous author assembles during these trials probably resulted from their being
c o n t e m p o r a ry narratives on Faust, arranging them in presided over by the mayor and jurats of the town
c h ronological ord e r, and placing the magician’s com- rather than trained judges. In particular, this is one of
pact with the Devil at the center of his story. By con- the few English witchcraft trials in which the swim-
structing Faust as a male witch, his moral was a warning ming test was used with official approval. The trials
about human curiosity, a deadly sin leading Christians should also be placed in their local economic, religious,
to hell. The publisher Johann Spies threw this pam- and political context. In particular, there had long been
phlet, presumably compiled by a Lutheran author, on ill feeling between Joan Cariden and Fa ve r s h a m’s
the market when the witch hunts in southern Germany mayor, Robert Greenstreat—in 1635, when he had
first climaxed in the late 1580s. held the office previously, Cariden had cursed him in
The subject proved to be unusually successful eve n the course of a dispute. Joan Williford testifed that
b e yond Ge r m a n y. The English writer Christopher Greenstreat had never prospered after that curse, and it
Marlowe composed the first of many subsequent plays is significant that his wife had died in the summer of
on the subject, Dr.Faustus,in 1588. There were numer- 1645, shortly before these trials.
ous adaptations of the Faust legend during the early The Devil, sometimes in animal form, fig u red pro m i-
modern period. Long afterward it continued to inspire nently in the confessions of the Fa versham witches. Jo a n
such famous authors as Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Wi l l i f o rd told how the Devil appeared to her in the shape
Paul Valéry,Thomas Mann, and Michael Bulgakov, all of a little dog and promised to help her re venge herself
of whom produced major adaptations that re a c h e d on her enemies. She then gave him some of her blood,
Faversham Witches 353 |
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which he used to write the covenant between them. Fear
Elizabeth Harris repeated the story of the covenant writ- From the modern perspective, the world before 1800
ten in blood, and confessed that she scratched her bre a s t seems to have been dominated by fear and anxiety; the
to get the blood she used. Joan Cariden told of a gre a t very term “witch panic” suggests this. Scholars such as
meeting of witches at the house of a woman called H. R. Trevor-Roper (1967), Denis Crouzet (1990), and
Pa n t re y, at which the Devil sat at the head of the table. As especially Jean Delumeau (1978) have made much of
e ve r, the Devil proved to be an unreliable friend. In a the turmoil accompanying witch hunts and confession-
graphic image, Jane Hott told how when she underwe n t al conflict. It is often asserted that apocalypticism and
the swimming test, the Devil assured her that she would millennial expectations were high in these societies and
sink, that is, that she would be proved innocent. But she cultures, with people’s lives deeply troubled by uncer-
floated, and when she was in the water the Devil sat on a tainty. On one level this might well be true, but seeing
c rossbeam and laughed at her. fear as the paramount feature of the age would be as
The Fa versham witches’ confessions also included misleading as using tabloids and conspiracy theorists to
the standard matters of revenge and maleficium (harm- characterize the modern age.
ful magic), but the intrusion of the Devil, the covenants What role then did fear play in the Eu rope of
written in blood, and the suggestion of a Sabbat are 1400–1800? Clearly, there we re numerous sources of
unusual, and demonstrate how English witchcraft concern for any community (especially urban environ-
beliefs we re becoming diabolized in the mid-seve n- ments). The response to witches and witchcraft was, in
teenth century. In a well-documented case of 1586, some ways, ve ry different from fears of pestilence or
Faversham had held another trial that led to the execu- w a rf a re that periodically gripped such communities—
tion of a woman named Joan Cason. Here, too, the lack but, in the long term, they we re re l a t i vely similar. Fo r
of legal training on the part of borough authorities example, fire in confined cities containing many timber
affected her conviction, this time because they proceed- buildings was a serious threat. However, people did not
ed under the mistaken impression that they were con- run howling into the night. Rather, they instituted reg-
victing her on a noncapital charge. ulations about the use of fire meant greatly to decrease
Concentrating on the neighboring county of Essex its danger. In this they were largely successful and dev-
has led to a relative neglect of scholarly study of witch- astating fires (in an age without any real means to stop a
craft in early modern Kent (but see Gaskill 2000). fire once it had started) were remarkably rare. The dan-
Because Kent was home to the skeptical writers ger of plague was very real and very present: most urban
Reginald Scot and Sir Robert Filmer, witchcraft trials in e n v i ronments we re swept by pestilence eve ry fif t e e n
this county may well show some peculiarities. years and nearly a quarter of the population carried
Certainly, despite the numerous cases coming through away each time. Indeed, in western Eu ro p e’s last out-
the county’s ecclesiastical courts in the early years of break (Marseilles in 1722), half the city’s populace per-
Elizabeth’s reign, Kent never experienced such relatively ished. Despite the horrific danger posed by plague,
high levels of endemic prosecutions as Essex in the late most people did not abandon their homes. Rather they
sixteenth century. However, they continued even longer developed extensive systems of monitoring, prevention,
in Kent: after the 1645 Faversham trials, Kent put eigh- containment, and purification designed to lessen the
teen suspected witches on trial in 1652, and six of them f requency and virulence of plague outbreaks. W h i l e
were hanged. these we re largely ineffective against the disease, they
p rovided psychological immunization against the fear
JAMES SHARPE and panic accompanying a pestilential attack. Invasion
and siege were also major threats, but these were, like-
See also: DEVIL;ENGLAND;ESSEX;FILMER,SIRROBERT;HOPKINS,
wise, dealt with by practical and levelheaded means.
MATTHEW;SCOT,REGINALD;SWIMMINGTEST.
References and further reading: Fo rt i fications we re built at tremendous expense.
Anon. 1645. The Examination, Confession, Triall, and Execution, of C i t i zens we re drilled in defending the tow n .
Joane Williford, Joan Cariden, and Jane Hott: who were executed Preparation, as with fire and plague, was the watch-
at Feversham in Kent, for being Witches, on Munday the 29 of word. And, in this context, preparation meant bureau-
September, 1645.London. cratic development and increasing governmental con-
Gaskill, Malcolm. 2000. “Witches and Witchcraft Prosecutions, t rol over wide areas of private activity. So c i e t i e s
1560–1660.” Pp. 245–276 in Early Modern Kent 1540–1640.
responded to those things that threatened and fright-
Edited by Michael Zell. Woodbridge: Boydell Press and Kent
ened them by preparing themselves against a future
County Council.
onslaught and ensuring that every defense possible was
H. F. 1652. A Prodigious & Tragicall History of the Arraigment,
ready to bring into play.
Tryall, Confession, and Condemnation of Six Witches at
The response to the fear of witches was, in one key
Maidstone in Kent.London.
Sharpe, James. 1996. Instruments of Darkness: Witchcraft in w a y, ve ry different from responses to fears of fire ,
England 1550–1750.London: Hamish Hamilton. pestilence, or warfare. Everyone agreed at every level of
354 Fear |
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society, that spirits, demons, and angels existed. There b l a s p h e m y. In both cases, the use of magical powers or
was no doubt that there we re powers in the cre a t e d witchcraft was ideally suited to terrify people. One could
world that lay beyond the material and natural, but not immediately tell if an individual had been dabbling
which could be accessed and used by mortals. T h e s e in such things. One could not tell if they we re in con-
p owers and beings existed in the preternatural re a l m . t rol or being controlled. Of all the things besetting pre-
While this belief no longer prevails throughout modern modern Eu rope and its colonies, these unseen forc e s
Western society, it is important to realize that our reac- we re the most terrifying. Even re g a rding the use of mag-
tions to accusations of “Satanic” sexual abuse and pro- ical powers by a learned man, there was always the ve ry
grams or books that “p ro m o t e” witchcraft and sorc e ry real possibility that the magician had been duped or
imply that these views are not so archaic as one might seduced into becoming a tool of Satan. The greater the
suppose. The important point, though, is the unanimi- seeming success of the magician, the greater the malev-
ty of belief about the ubiquity of the spiritual and olence of the witch, the more likely it was that Satan was
preternatural in the early modern period. Such powers the true master. For the less learned practitioners, access
were everywhere and could be used. But, who could use to this power focused on some of the key fears of this
them? By what means did an individual gain access to world: the demonic pact, the Sabbat, and Satan. In rit-
them? For what purposes we re they being used? How u a l i zed gatherings (stereotypically mocking or inve rt i n g
might one guard against people using these powe r s ? n o r m a t i ve Christian religious rites) the witches wor-
Clearly, bureaucratic and governmental responses were shipped Satan, renounced Jesus, engaged in frenzied and
largely impotent. Powers beyond the natural we re not immoral acts (such as sex with demons and cannibal-
subject to edicts and civil servants. They were invisible ism), pledged themselves to the Devil and evil deeds,
and dangerous. and, in the end, submitted to (often sodomitical) sex
with Satan and kissed his anus. This horrific gathering
Who Could Use This Power? combined eve ry fear and broke eve ry taboo. It both dis-
There was universal agreement that the powers of the gusted and terrified—and, it has to be said, fascinated.
world inhabited by demons and angels were accessible The true evilness and fearfulness of a witch was evident
to mere mortals. However, there was more than one not so much in the malevolent acts perpetrated by the
way to make use of this power.The wise could, through witch but by the witch’s participation is these vile con-
study and piety, gain control over powers from this g regations. The fear of the Sabbat and concourse with
realm. These magicians and alchemists made use of Satan was both the fear of true unbridled evil and the
these powers for good or ill. Dabbling in such things, h o r ror of seeing evil run rampant.
even for the wisest and most pious, was extremely dan-
gerous. There was always the potential to misuse these How Was the Power Being Used?
powers or to be seduced by Satan and his minions into A constant source of fear and anxiety was the inability
delving too deeply and, thereby, coming under his con- to know with certainty where, when, or how magical
trol. The key point in the approach of the learned to powers were being employed. Every chance disaster or
these powers and this realm was the possibility of a calamity might be a symptom of the use of magic or
mortal to use and maintain control over these danger- signal the presence of a witch. A passing glance, a mut-
ous, frightening powers. Such men (and they were tered oath, or a sour relationship might involve the use
almost only men) were feared and often fell under sus- of magic and witchcraft. The more annoying or dis-
picion. Nevertheless, they offered the possibility of turbing an individual, the greater the possibility that his
taming this region and its powerful forces by examina- or (more often) her neighbors might suspect witchcraft.
tion, experimentation, and the application of education Most frightening of all, there was no real way to know
and piety. Others, less learned and usually female, that magic and witchcraft were being employed until it
would also use these powers. However, their access to was too late, or without recourse to another practition-
these powers differed dramatically. They did not gain er of the same terrifying arts.
entry into this realm by means of knowledge and piety
but by seduction, delusion, and the renunciation of How Might One Guard Against Those
true religion for demonic worship. They were not in Using These Powers?
control of the situation; rather they were in the thrall of In e v i t a b l y, the best defense was to denounce a suspected
Satan because they had entered into a pact with him to witch and to allow the courts to deal with the person.
serve him in return for magical power. This was re l a t i vely infrequent and often ineffective. Ma n y
people we re acquitted, or refused to leave if ord e red ban-
By What Means Did an Individual Gain ished. Howe ve r, there is eve ry reason to assume that the
Access to This Power? i n t e rvention of the state put the accused (and his or her
Thus, one might access these dangerous and frightening behavior) on notice and greatly reduced fear in the spe-
p owers by means of careful training and piety, or by c i fic community by showing that something was being
Fear 355 |
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done. Over time, public authorities came to the conclu- b e t ween 1570 and 1680 the ove rwhelming majority
sion that no conviction was legally justifiable. Once the of those executed we re women, some 71–92 perc e n t
state stopped being invo l ved, prosecutions ceased though ( Monter 1977, 132). Witchcraft was the most impor-
the belief in witches and magicians, and the fear of them, tant capital crime for women in early modern
did not (nor has it). In effect, the unseen, undergro u n d Eu rope. Mo re women we re executed for this alleged
danger that caused so much fear and panic had been offense than for all other crimes put together.
joined in the realm of the largely unseen and under- Estimates of the number of people accused and exe-
g round by the fear of it. cuted for witchcraft have been vastly reduced fro m
What then did these societies and cultures really fear? earlier estimates, such as the ludicrous fig u re of nine
The great dangers were not the obvious ones like war, million. Even Brian Leva c k’s much smaller estimate
famine, or disease. These we re chronic, but could be of 110,000 witchcraft trials and some 60,000 exe c u-
dealt with (albeit with little actual success) by positive tions (Levack 1995, 24–25) has been further cut by a
action. Real danger came from the unseen and the t h i rd. Because many judicial re c o rds have been
s e c ret. Groups that met apart (Jews, Anabaptists, d e s t royed or are missing for much of western, south-
English Recusants) could be suspected of anything ern, and eastern Eu rope, it is impossible to arrive at
(cannibalism, sedition, sexual deviance). Individuals on exact fig u res. Monter (2002, 13) estimates that
the margin of society, individuals who seemed at odds a p p roximately 35,000 witches we re executed, 29,000
with all their neighbors, the malevolent and of whom we re women, while other historians assert
mean-spirited, and the disturbed, were viewed as inher- the number of witches killed to be higher, but sure l y
ently suspicious and their every action and word open not above 50,000. The epicenter of Eu ropean witch
to multiple misinterpretations. Fear came from the hunting lay in the Germanic core of the Holy Ro m a n
unseen, the secret, and the magical. Em p i re, where it is estimated that betwe e n
20,000–25,000 executions occurre d .
WILLIAM G. NAPHY
During the early modern period, the stereotype of
See also: COMMUNALPERSECUTION;DISEASE;MAGIC,LEARNED; the witch was significantly altered. W h e re pre v i o u s l y
PACTWITHTHEDEVIL;PANICS;PLAGUE;SABBAT;SEXUALACTIVI- witches had possessed their own magical powers, now
TY,DIABOLIC;TREVOR-ROPER,HUGH(LORDDACREOFGLAN-
they we re entirely dependent on the Devil, and they
TON); WARFARE.
c o n g regated at obscene Sabbats, where they wor-
References and further reading:
shipped the Devil and engaged in perverse antisocial
Bouwsma, William J. 1980. “Anxiety and the Formation of Early
activities: promiscuous sexuality; obscene dancing; and
Modern Culture.” Pp. 215–246 in After the Reformation: Essays
cannibalism, especially of children. The witches’
in Honor of J. H. Hexter.Edited by Barbara C. Malament.
Manchester: Manchester University Press. Sabbat did not exist in the Middle Ages; it was an
Camporesi, Piero. 1990. The Fear of Hell: Images of Damnation i n vention of early modern demonologists. In the view
and Salvation in Early Modern Europe.Translated by L. Byatt. of some historians, it re p resented an increased fear of
Cambridge: Polity. d i s o rder and a prurient fascination with female sexual-
Clark, Stuart. 1997. Thinking with Demons. The Idea of Witchcraft i t y. Historians question how deeply this new, learned
in Early Modern Europe.Oxford: Oxford University Press. s t e reotype of the witch as the De v i l’s disciple penetrat-
Crouzet, Denis. 1990. Les Guerriers de Dieu. La violence au temps
ed into popular culture, where a witch was still primar-
des troubles de religion (vers 1525–vers 1610). 2 vols. Paris:
ily thought of as performing harmful magic (m a l e fic i-
Champ Vallon.
u m); but it is generally agreed that witchcraft trials and
Delumeau, Jean. 1978. La peur en Occident (XIVe–XVIIIe siècles).
the publicity accompanying them spread the new
Paris: Fayard.
s t e re o t y p e .
———. 1990. Sin and Fear: The Emergence of a Western Guilt
Culture, 13th–18th Centuries. Translated by E. Nicholson. New Most historians agree that poor, middle-aged, wid-
York: St Martin’s. owed, or single women were most likely to be accused
Moore, R. I. 1987. The Formation of a Persecuting Society: Power of witchcraft, although younger women charged with
and Deviance in Western Europe, 950–1250.Oxford: Blackwell. sexual crimes (fornication, adultery, abortion, infanti-
Naphy,William, and Penny Roberts, eds. 1997. Fear in Early cide) we re also targeted. In New England, female
Modern Society.Manchester: Manchester University. heiresses without male kin were prominent among the
Roper, Lyndal. 1994. Oedipus and the Devil. Witchcraft, Sexuality
accused. However, it is important to note that in some
and Religion in Early Modern Europe.London: Routledge.
parts of Europe, such as in Estonia, Iceland, and Russia,
Trevor-Roper, Hugh R. 1967. The European Witch-Craze of the
the majority of indicted and executed witches we re
16th and 17th Centuries.Harmondsworth: Penguin.
men.
The question why women we re dispro p o rt i o n a t e l y
Female Witches targeted as witches only became an issue in the 1970s
The significance of witchcraft in the history of with the rise of feminism and the legitimatization of
Eu ropean and American women lies in the fact that w o m e n’s studies in academia. Earlier historians fro m
356 Female Witches |
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Four English women hanged as witches, while other women mourn and male officials supervise. The witch hunter at the right is being paid for his
work. (TopFoto.co.uk)
Wallace Notestein to H. R. Tre vo r - Roper failed to see Although H. C. Erik Mi d e l f o rt did not think the
anything unusual in the fact that witches were primari- sixteenth century was unusually misogynistic, he
ly women, concluding that witches were either “failed” acknowledged misogyny as a factor in witch hunts, but
women beyond the age of re p roduction or hysterical w o n d e red why “women seemed . . . to provo k e” it
and sexually deprived. Even after the 1970s, major his- (1972, 183).
torians of witchcraft continued to ignore the issue of By 1977 there had been a sea change in witchcraft
g e n d e r, attributing the increase in witchcraft pro s e c u- studies. Most historians recognized gender and gender
tions variously to religious conflict, the growth of the c o n flict as important factors in witch hunts. Wi l l i a m
nation-state, demographic changes leading to an Monter concluded that witch accusations we re sex
i n c reased number of single women, community ten- linked and part of a campaign to control women’s bod-
sions, emerging capitalism, and changes in the judicial ies and sexuality. In 1981 Mi d e l f o rt re versed his posi-
system. Alan Macfarlane rejected sexism as a factor in tion and acknowledged that early modern witch hunts
Essex witchcraft trials, although 92 percent of the we re accompanied by “a burst of misogyny without
accused were women. Keith Thomas also excluded gen- parallel in Western history.” During the 1980s and
der as a factor on the grounds that women were as like- 1990s more direct correlations we re made betwe e n
ly to accuse other women as men. Macfarlane and witch and woman hunting. A number of historians
Thomas did, however, discuss the economic and social argued that because of their close connection with folk
changes that led poor, old women to be marginalize d medicine, folk magic, and popular religion, women
and resented in an emerging capitalist economy. we re particularly vulnerable to witchcraft accusations.
Female Witches 357 |
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A Sicilian fairy cult, the donas de fuera (women fro m benevolence of God, the existence of spirits and souls,
outside), offers an example of the popular religious and and the efficacy of the sacraments.
magical beliefs associated primarily with women and Clark and Stephens represent a new phase of witch-
interpreted by the Inquisition as heretical and demoni- craft scholarship that has come full circle, minimizing
cal. The Malleus Ma l e fic a ru m (The Hammer of the importance of gender conflict. The fact that women
Witches, 1486) considered midwives particularly likely accused other women has been taken as evidence that
to be witches, although this connection is not borne witchcraft accusations we re strategies used by women
out in actual trial re c o rds (Harley 1990). Mo re re c e n t for their own purposes. While these offer welcome cor-
evidence suggests, however, that women who cared for re c t i ves to the view of witches as passive victims, it is
newborn children were vulnerable to witchcraft accusa- also important to recognize the ways that women inter-
tions because of high mortality rates combined with an n a l i zed patriarchal values. It is equally important to
unprecedented emphasis on motherhood (Roper 1994, consider evidence of increasing misogyny and sexual
chap. 9; Demos 1982). violence against women during the early modern peri-
A characteristic of newly emerging political regimes od and the way witch hunts reflected both.
and religious authorities was their demand for a high The sixteenth century has been seen as one of the
level of control and conformity. Fear of disorder was a most bitterly misogynistic periods in Western history.
prevalent theme in early modern thought, and histori- L i t e r a ry and fictional discussions of obstre p e rous, dis-
ans have re c o g n i zed the special place that “d i s o rd e r l y” obedient wives and illustrations of women attacking
women (prostitutes; women without male supervision; and killing men proliferated. While historians have
scolds) played in witch hunts. For male authorities, argued that Protestantism enhanced the position of
chaste, obedient, and, most important, married women women, others see this as a factor promoting witch
we re synonymous with a strong we l l - o rd e red state, hunts. By granting women responsibility for their own
while disobedient, rebellious women we re suspect salvation, by emphasizing their importance as spiritual
witches. Legal systems were increasingly used to punish leaders in the home, and by making marriage the norm
wayward behavior (especially sexual) as well as wayward for eve ryone, Protestantism increased male anxieties
thought, and in this regard it is significant that witch- and exacerbated gender conflict. The idea that
craft first became a criminal offense in the early modern Protestant attitudes tow a rd women contributed to
period. witch hunts is significant in light of research document-
This fear of disorder reflected the very real disorders ing the lenient treatment of witches by the inquisitions.
in the early modern Eu ropean world, where re l i g i o u s This leniency has been attributed to the fact that
wars, plagues, famines, peasant rebellions, banditry, and Catholic authorities, all male, devalued women to such
vagabondage were endemic, and new ways of thinking an extent that even witches posed no threat.
threatened established systems of thought. The climate While gender conflict is generally acknowledged as
of fear engendered by political, social, and intellectual one of many factors in generating witch hunts, its ro l e
turmoil led many people to embrace a pessimistic form in the decline of witchcraft prosecutions remains pro b-
of apocalyptic millenarianism, in which the De v i l lematic. Carolyn Me rchant offers the most sustained
assumed a position of unparalleled importance. “Devil e f f o rt of gender analysis in this re g a rd. She attributes
b o o k s” became a new genre of literature in Ge r m a n y the end of witch hunts to the emergence of a new
during the second half of the sixteenth century, and p a t r i a rchal, hierarchical, and scientific social ord e r,
witches gained new prominence as the De v i l’s most which reduced disorderly female nature to inanimate
faithful and obedient servants. Millenarian and apoca- matter and robbed middle- and upper-class women of
lyptic thought encouraged a black and white view of their independent economic roles. With both nature
the world and the demonization of one’s enemies. and women tamed, the climate of fear and uncert a i n t y
Stuart Clark (1997) provides numerous examples of the in which the witch hunts flourished declined. T h e
way in which notions of “contrariety” come to pervade p roblem with this analysis is that the mechanical phi-
early modern thought in all its branches—physics, nat- losophy was not accepted until after the decline of
ural magic, medicine, psyc h o l o g y, ethics, politics, and witch hunts had already begun. Mo re ove r, it was possi-
theology. In his view, the polarity between the genders ble to subscribe to the mechanical philosophy and still
was so firmly established in the early modern period b e l i e ve in witchcraft. Fu rt h e r m o re, a number of histo-
that demonologists and witch theorists had no choice rians reject the idea that women’s economic ro l e s
but to view witches as women. Consequently, witch changed radically in the late sixteenth and seve n t e e n t h
theorists and demonologists we re no more misogynist centuries, suggesting that the decline was more gradual
or prurient than their male contemporaries. This view and began earlier.
is seconded by Stephens (2002): witch theorists we re A more persuasive argument for the decline of witch
not women haters, but tormented skeptics trying to hunting is that it was the result of judicial skepticism.
re s o l ve the conflicts in Christian doctrine about the The acrimonious controversies of the Reformation and
358 Female Witches |
Wicca | Richard M.Golden - Encyclopedia of Witchcraft - The Western Tradition | 396 | 46049 Golden Chap.E av First Pages 08/25/2005 p.359 Application File
C o u n t e r - Reformation period contributed to an Roper, Lyndal. 1994.Oedipus & the Devil: Witchcraft, Sexuality,
i n c reasingly critical attitude tow a rd evidence and to the and Religion in Early Modern Europe.NewYork: Routledge.
s e a rch for new methods of establishing truth. Judges and Stephens, Walter. 2002. Demon Lovers: Witchcraft, Sex, and the
Crisis of Belief.Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
l a w yers exhibited a growing concern with the cre d i b i l i t y
Thomas, Keith. 1971. Religion and the Decline of Magic.
of witnesses and the probability of events. Judges did
NewYork: Charles Scribner’s Sons.
not stop hunting witches out of disbelief but because
they no longer knew where to find them (Mi d e l f o rt
1972, 6). At a certain point—a point usually re a c h e d Feminism
w h e n e ver men became a significant portion of accused Feminism has done much to put the study of witch-
witches—the exc e s s i ve nature of the witch hunts made craft in all ages on the historical agenda, and some of
magistrates and judges have second thoughts. the finest work on witchcraft comes from feminist
Although an analysis of the witch hunts in terms of scholars. And yet some feminist scholars have fulfil l e d
gender cannot by itself answer the question of why the worst apprehensions of their opponents by insist-
witch hunts proliferated in the early modern period or ing on elevating political polemic over historical
why they ended, it has contributed significantly to a s c h o l a r s h i p.
vastly more nuanced and comprehensive understanding Feminism is not a single monolithic entity, but
of women’s history in the early modern period. encompasses a diverse set of positions and ideas. A cer-
tain strand of feminism has unfortunately been respon-
ALLISON COUDERT sible for systematically misleading and confusing the
public on the subject of witchcraft. In English, this mis-
See also: APOCALYPSE;CLARK,STUART;DECLINEOFTHEWITCH
HUNTS;DEMONOLOGY;DEVILBOOKS;EVIDENCE;FEAR;FEMI- guided narrative began with the American suffragette
NISM;GENDER;HISTORIOGRAPHY;MACFARLANE,ALAN;MALE Matilda Joslyn Gage, who made the absurdly overinflat-
WITCHES;MALLEUSMALEFICARUM;MECHANICALPHILOSOPHY; ed claim that 13 million women had died in the era of
MIDELFORT,H.C.ERIK;MIDWIVES;MILLENARIANISM;MONTER, witchcraft persecution (a more plausible fig u re —
WILLIAM;MOTHERHOOD;NUMBEROFWITCHES;SABBAT;SKEPTI- including thousands of men—is somew h e re betwe e n
CISM;THOMAS,KEITH;TREVOR-ROPER,HUGH(LORDDACREOF 35,000 and 50,000). Later feminists, particularly from
GLANTON).
the strand called radical feminism, identified stro n g l y
References and further reading:
with the figure of the witch.
Ankarloo, Bengt, and Stuart Clark, eds. 2002. Witchcraft and
They were not the first people to use the witch polit-
Magic in Europe. The Period of the Witch Trials.Philadelphia:
ically.The witch/enchantress/sorceress had at first been
University of Pennsylvania Press.
g l a m o r i zed by the combined efforts of Romantic and
Barstow, Anne L. 1994. Witchcraze: A New History of the European
Witch Hunts.San Francisco: Pandora. Pre-Raphaelite artists, who equated witchcraft and
Clark, Stuart. 1997. Thinking with Demons: The Idea of Witchcraft magic with sexual knowledge. They we re the first to
in Early Modern Europe.Oxford: Clarendon. suggest that witches we re in search of sexual gratific a-
Demos, John P. 1982. Entertaining Satan: Witchcraft and the tion, and the witch/sorceress herself became eroticized.
Culture of Early New England.NewYork: Oxford University Later, poets and writers of the 1940s and 1950s, partic-
Press. ularly Arthur Miller, used the Salem witchcraft trials as
Harley, David. 1990. “Historians as Demonologists: The Myth of
a metaphor for Mc C a rthyism and hence for illiberal
the Midwife-Witch.” The Journal for the Society for the Social
repression. Because everyone could agree that only silly
History of Medicine3: 1–26.
superstitious persons could possibly believe in magic,
Levack, Brian. 1995. The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe.
the witchcraft prosecutions became a handy and ve ry
2nd ed. London and NewYork: Longman.
o bvious metaphor for moral panic, false accusation,
Macfarlane, Alan. 1970. Witchcraft in Tudor and Stuart England.
A Regional and Comparative Study.NewYork: Harper and Row. and injustice. Stigmatizing the persecutors of witchcraft
Merchant, Carolyn. 1980. The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology, as unnatural and even lunatic gave a comforting boost
and the Scientific Revolution.San Francisco: Harper and Row. to modern self-esteem; it told a story of “our enlighten-
Midelfort, H. C. Erik. 1972. Witch-Hunting in South Western m e n t” versus “their backward n e s s” that deformed
Germany, 1562–1684: The Social and Intellectual Foundations. attempts to understand exactly why the pro s e c u t i o n s
Stanford: Stanford University Press. had taken place at all. Instead, mainstream historians
———. 1981. “Heartland of the Witchcraze: Central and
and amateurs sought bizarre explanations (such as the
Northern Europe.” HistoryToday21: 27–31.
use of hallucinogenic drugs, ergotism, collective mad-
Monter, E. William. 1977. “The Pedestal and the Stake: Courtly
ness) to explain beliefs that had simply become symbols
Love and the Witchcraze.” Pp. 119–136 in Becoming Visible.
for all that was bad about the past. This could be gener-
Edited by R. Bridenthal and C. Koonz. Boston: Houghton
a l i zed and often became an attack on organized re l i-
Mifflin.
———. 2002. “Witch Trials in Continental Europe.” Pp. 1–52 in gion, and particularly on the Roman Catholic Church,
Witchcraft and Magic in Europe. The Period of the Witch Trials. which was often said to be behind the prosecutions on
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. the strength largely of the Malleus Ma l e fic a rum (T h e
Feminism 359 |
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Hammer of Witches, 1486), which also stood for what felt able to risk tackling witchcraft, and the result has
was seen as an unacceptably superstitious past. been a new burst of creative and important interpreta-
Women writers eagerly and uncritically accepted this tions that take gender fully into account without
almost entirely male creation of the witch as victim, and embracing witches as naively as earlier popular feminist
embraced it as a political and personal symbol. Anne histories. More mature and sophisticated feminist work
Sexton began her personal appearances with an impas- has sought to address the question of the gender of the
sioned reading of a poem about herself as a witch flying witch in a nuanced and carefully conceptualized fash-
sensually through the night. For Sexton, and for her ion, focusing especially on the question of why most
contemporaries Sylvia Plath and Adrienne Rich, the witches in most areas we re women, particularly in
witch represented untamed female sexuality, and hence, England. Some seek answers primarily in anxieties gen-
they assumed that the witchcraft prosecutions we re erated by the perceptions of the female body while oth-
aimed at controlling that sexual expression. T h i s ers see the primary cause in women’s relative powerless-
involved some complicity with less obviously protofem- ness both socially and in the legal system. Still others
inist representations of witches’ sexuality. Liberal repre- s t ress psychoanalytic factors, especially the strains of
sentations of witches as sexual beings constrained by motherhood and the relations between mistresses and
p a t r i a rchy we re prone to collapse into the pornotro p- s e rvants, mothers and children. Recent feminist work
ing, the reduction to flesh, of witches as young, beauti- has placed considerable emphasis on the fact that most
ful, and objects of desire by their interrogators in fiction accusersas well as the accused, were female. And, femi-
and films such as Wi t c h finder Ge n e ra l ( 1 9 6 8 ) and T h e nist scholars have been among those pointing out the
Devils (1970). Yet fundamentally the same narrative re l a t i ve neglect of the male witch-fig u re in historical
was adopted by Barbara Eh re n reich and De i rd re accounts of the causes of witchcraft beliefs. T h e re has
English, who in 1974, at the height of radical femi- been a fruitful dialogue between historians and literary
nism, argued that witches had been single, fre e - l i v i n g critics in this area, with literary critics contributing the
m i d w i ves and herbalists disliked by the male medical possibility that witchcraft was women’s business
p rofession for their knowledge of women’s bodies. because it ultimately came, and was perceived to come,
Their ideas we re taken up by the Dianic or feminist f rom folklore and storytelling, which we re primarily
pagan movement, which borrowed from Ma r g a re t women’s realms. Some of the best work of this kind has
Murray the notion that witches were pagans persecuted drawn, –judiciously, –on psychoanalysis as a theory of
for their beliefs, and coupled that with the feminist nar- how the irrational desires of human beings come to per-
rative to create a composite figure of the witch as a sex- meate their acts and beliefs.
ual and empowered single or lesbian woman disliked by Feminists we re drawn to the material because it
puritanical Christians and persecuted by the Church. A a p p e a red to contain so many women’s stories. Now
key figure among many in inscribing and promulgating they have been among the first to discuss pamphlets
this narrative was the witch Starhawk, whose literary and trial records as historical texts, and emphasize how
ability made it ve ry seductive to many women in and difficult it is to reconstruct real people from such texts.
outside feminism. Marion Bradley absorbed her work They also began to call into question assumptions
in her rewriting of Arthurian legend as a story of Dianic about the gender of witches by researching male witch-
witchcraft, The Mists of Ava l o n . T h e re was never ve ry es. This indicates how ve ry far feminist histories of
much evidence to support any part of this narrative , witchcraft have come since the rather simpleminded
and there is much evidence against it, but it continues tales of “gynocide” once in circulation. Male historians
to inspire reams of genre fiction for children and adults. too are now much more interested in, and aware of,
Because witchcraft was tarnished by contact with gender dynamics in witchcraft trials.
such popular and inaccurate histories, and because ear-
DIANE PURKISS
ly academic feminist history tended to focus on nine-
teenth- and twentieth-century women, academic femi- See also: ACCUSATIONS;ARTANDVISUALIMAGES;BODYOFTHE
nist historians neglected the witchcraft trials for some WITCH;BURNINGTIMES;CONTEMPORARYWITCHCRAFT(POST
time. This meant that many accepted the explanation 1800); DIANA(ARTEMIS); DRUGSANDHALLUCINOGENS;
p roposed by Keith Thomas and Alan Macfarlane for ERGOTISM;FEMALEWITCHES;FILM(CINEMA); GENDER;HISTORI-
the witchcraft prosecutions, an explanation that did not OGRAPHY;MACFARLANE,ALAN;MALEWITCHES;MALLEUS
address gender at all, but explained the witch figure in
MALEFICARUM;MILLER,ARTHUR;MOTHERHOOD;MURRAY,MAR-
terms of class. This theory fitted well with early acade-
GARETALICE;NUMBEROFWITCHES;PAMPHLETSAND
NEWSPAPERS;PSYCHOANALYSIS;SEXUALACTIVITY,DIABOLIC;
mic feminist historians’ Ma rxist leanings, and spare d
SOURCESFORWITCHCRAFTTRIALS;THOMAS,KEITH;WITCH
them the embarrassment of engagement with what
HUNTS,MODERNPOLITICALUSAGE.
could be seen as a lunatic fringe of victims and mad-
References and further reading:
men. Howe ve r, as the place of feminist history within Apps, Lara, and Andrew Gow. 2003. Male Witches in Early
the discipline became more secure, feminist historians Modern Europe.Manchester: Manchester University Press.
360 Feminism |
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Briggs, Robin. 2002. Witches and Neighbours: The Social and Graz, which ran the recently founded university. Only
Cultural Context of European Witchcraft.2d ed. Oxford: because three of his cousins—emperors Ru d o l f,
Blackwell. Mathias, and Archduke Maximilian—lacked legitimate
Purkiss, Diane. 1996.The Witch in History.London: Routledge.
sons (whether by coincidence or as a consequence of
Roper, Lyndal. 1994. Oedipus and the Devil: Witchcraft, Sexuality
their rigid Counter-Reformation morals), Fe rd i n a n d
and Religion in Early Modern Europe.London, Routledge.
was first elected king of Bohemia in June 1617, then
Willis, Deborah. 1995. Malevolent Nurture: Witch-Hunting and
king of Hungary in May 1618, and finally Holy Roman
Maternal Power in Early Modern England. Ithaca, NY: Cornell
e m p e ror in August 1619. After Fe rdinand fla g r a n t l y
University Press.
violated the liberties of the Bohemian Estates in 1618,
Ferdinand II, Holy Roman the estates decided to review their decision and elected
Emperor (1578–1637, ruled 1619–1637) instead the Calvinist prince-elector of the Pa l a t i n a t e ,
During Ferdinand’s reign, more witches were burned in Frederick V, the son-in-law of King James I of England.
the Holy Roman Empire than anywhere else in Europe Aided by the Catholic League headed by Du k e
at any time. Although the T h i rty Ye a r s’ Wa r Maximilian I of Ba varia, whose sister Maria Anna
(1618–1648) had started during the reign of his prede- (1574–1622) had married Ferdinand, the new emperor
cessor Em p e ror Mathias (1557–1619, ru l e d c rushed the Protestant armies in 1619 at the Battle at
1612–1618), Ferdinand II set the stage for this first the White Mountain near Prague and soon introduced
pan-European War, which eventually involved all major a rigid Counter-Reformation in Bohemia as well.
continental powers from Spain to Sweden, turning cen- Despite Fe rd i n a n d’s obvious zeal and inclination
tral Europe into an international battleground. The t ow a rd radical solutions, there is no evidence that he
main reason for this escalation was Ferdinand’s distinc- ever promoted witch hunts, either in Austria, Bohemia,
tive Catholic agenda and his readiness to overturn the or in the Holy Roman Empire. As they had under his
privileges of the Estates of Austria and Bohemia. In par- Habsburg predecessors in Austria, Bohemia, or
ticular, the scene was set with his later bold attempt of Hu n g a ry, the number of re c o rded witchcraft trials
1629 to re - C a t h o l i c i ze eve ry ecclesiastical territory remained low throughout Fe rd i n a n d’s territories, and
alienated by Protestant princes since 1555 in the Holy the number of burnings even lower. Almost inevitably,
Roman Empire by decreeing the Edict of Restitution. t h e re we re a number of such trials; but since his va s t
Whereas foreign powers like England, the northern estates, kingdoms, archduchies, duchies, earldoms, and
Netherlands, or France had been involved only indi- lordships were only loosely connected and by no means
rectly in the first decade of the war, this deadly threat to comparable to a modern state with a central adminis-
Protestantism provoked the Swedish invasion, and sub- tration, it is impossible to argue that this suzerain stim-
sequently French and Spanish intervention in ulated any such persecutions.
Germany. At about the same time, the witchcraft per- Meanwhile, howe ve r, witchcraft persecutions cli-
secutions climaxed. m a xed in the Holy Roman Em p i re in the late 1620s
Fe rdinand, the son of Archduke Charles of In n e r outside the empero r’s own territories. Many suspects
Austria (1540–1590) and his wife Maria of Ba va r i a and relatives of imprisoned “witches” fled to Prague and
(1551–1608), was born in 1578 at Graz in Styria. At Vienna, the empero r’s capitals, particularly from the
the time of his birth—during the rule of his cousin, Franconian prince-bishoprics, to rally support for their
Emperor Rudolf II—he seemed unlikely to ever inherit cause. T h e re are no signs either that Em p e ro r
anything other than a small part of Habsburg, Austria; Ferdinand was interested in their cries for help, or that
his father’s lands comprised roughly modern Sl ove n i a he discouraged imperial institutions from acting on
plus the Austrian lands of Styria and Carinthia. Fro m their behalf. He may have learned through his second
1590 to 1595, Fe rdinand was educated together with wife, Eleonora Gonzaga, princess of Mantua, that the
his Bavarian cousins, the future dukes Maximilian and Roman Inquisition was not interested in burning
Ferdinand, at the University of Ingolstadt, then domi- witches. The empero r’s Jesuit confessor, Wi l l i a m
nated by two Jesuits, Gre g o ry of Valencia and Ja c o b Lamormaini, was apparently disgusted by the persecu-
Gretser.The Jesuits at Ingolstadt introduced Ferdinand tions, and several other imperial advisers and lawye r s
to witchcraft trials in 1590–1591, as they did his cousin we re embarrassed by the invo l vement of Catholic
Maximilian. After becoming archduke of Inner Austria prince-bishops in such activities. T h e
in 1596, Ferdinand was the first Austrian ruler to intro- Re i c h s k a m m e r g e r i c h t (imperial chamber court) inter-
duce a rigid Counter-Reformation regime. In violation vened in a number of prominent cases (e.g.,
of his state’s constitutions, all Protestants (including Bu rc k h a rdt, Cr a m e r, Haan, Henot, Mahler) and
such celebrities as the astronomer Johannes Ke p l e r ) threatened the worst persecutors, the prince-bishops of
were exiled, while the internationally renowned demo- Bamberg, Cologne, and W ü rzburg, with sanctions if
nologist Ma rtín Del Rio became the most famous they failed to stop their witch hunts. The emperor nei-
member of the Jesuit College at Fe rd i n a n d’s capital in ther supported nor pre vented these interventions, and
Ferdinand II, Holy Roman Emperor 361 |
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may have appeared to his subjects as an Im p e ra t o r impressed that, in 1591, when still a student, he partic-
absconditus (a “hidden empero r,” comparable to the ipated in organizing witchcraft trials at In g o l s t a d t .
s e ve n t e e n t h - c e n t u ry French philosopher Blaise Pa s c a l’s Do u b t l e s s l y, Gre g o ry of Valencia had a considerable
hidden God, whose silence was frightening). influence on young Ferdinand.
At age eighteen, Ferdinand was elected coadjutor for
WOLFGANG BEHRINGER
his uncle Ernst of Wittelsbach, the archbishop of
See also:AGRARIANCRISES;AUSTRIA;BAMBERG,PRINCE-BISHOPRIC Cologne. Because of many other commitments, his
OF;BAVARIA,DUCHYOF;BOHEMIA;COLOGNE;DELRIO,MARTÍN; uncle could not fulfill the requirements of his office as
GERMANY;GREGORYOFVALENCIA;GRETSER,JACOB,SJ;HOLY
archbishop and secular ruler. After the war of Cologne
ROMANEMPIRE;INGOLSTADT,UNIVERSITYOF;INQUISITION,
(1583–1589), a religious conflict won for the Catholic
ROMAN;ITALY;JESUITS(SOCIETYOFJESUS); KEPLER,JOHANNES;
side by Bavarian troops, the house of Wittelsbach had
LITTLEICEAGE;PALATINATE,ELECTORATEOF;REICHSKAMMERG-
established de facto hegemony in the electorate of
ERICHT(IMPERIALCHAMBERCOURT); RUDOLFII,HOLYROMAN
Cologne. Of fic i a l l y, Ernst remained archbishop until
EMPEROR;SWEDEN;WÜRZBURG,PRINCE-BISHOPRICOF.
References and further reading: his death in 1612, but in reality his young nephew
Albrecht, Dieter. 1990. “Ferdinand II.” Pp. 125–141 in DieKaiser Fe rdinand governed the electorate of Cologne.
der Neuzeit.Edited by Anton Schindling and Walter Ziegler. Operating at first under the strict control of his father,
Munich: C. H. Beck. the duke of Ba varia, and of the papal nuncio in
Behringer,Wolfgang. 2004. Witches and Witch Hunts.Cambridge: Cologne, Fe rdinand tried to establish Tr i d e n t i n e
Polity. reforms in his archdiocese, as well as in all the other
Bireley, Robert. 1981. Religion and Politics in the Age of the
prince-bishoprics that he soon acquired. Most of his
Counterreformation. Emperor Ferdinand II, William Lamormaini
actions in his fifty-five years of rule can only be under-
SJ and the Formation of Imperial Policy.Chapel Hill: University
stood in light of his deep Catholic faith and equally
of North Carolina Press.
deep concern for its re n ewal and reformation. He
Oestmann, Peter. 1997. Hexenprozesse am Reichskammergericht.
maintained a strict anti-Protestant policy in all his terri-
Cologne: Böhlau.
tories and a firm control over all religious institutions.
The first years of Ferdinand’s government in the elec-
Ferdinand of Cologne torate of Cologne saw few witchcraft trials. The Court
(Wittelsbach, 1577–1650) Council of Cologne, the highest governmental office of
Under Ferdinand’s rule as archbishop and elector of the electorate, was skeptical of the crime of witchcraft
Cologne, more than 2,000 people were executed for and tended to refuse petitions to prosecute witches,
witchcraft, but, while there is no doubt about his stern while Fe rd i n a n d’s attention was concentrated on
and regid attitude tow a rd witchcraft, Fe rd i n a n d’s Catholic reform and on restoring the finances that had
degree of personal responsibility for the persecution of been shattered by the war of Cologne.
witches in his various lands is still debated. Ferdinand In 1604, Ferdinand received a request from Bavaria
governed a group of ecclesiastical principalities in the to re p o rt about legislation and jurisdiction in cases of
northwestern Holy Roman Empire, some for more witchcraft accusations in the electorate. This re q u e s t
than fifty years. Besides the electorate of Cologne, his a p p a rently provided the impetus for the coadjutor to
territories included the prince-bishoprics of Liège, re q u i re the Court Council of Cologne to formulate
Münster, Paderborn, and Hildesheim. rules of procedure for witchcraft trials in the electorate
Fe rdinand of Wittelsbach was born on October 7, of Cologne. But, for reasons that are not yet clear, the
1577, the second son of Wilhelm V, Duke of Bavaria, council took three years to promulgate a witchcraft
and his wife, Elisabeth Renate. It was common practice criminal procedure. The 1607 Cologne witchcraft trial
that the younger sons of the duke pursued an ecclesias- regulations, based on Em p e ror Charles V’s criminal
tical care e r. So Fe rdinand re c e i ved benefices in seve r a l code (the Constitutio Criminalis Ca rolina, or Caro l i n a
cathedrals from the age of seven. From his childhood Code)of 1532, denied the crimen exceptum(the except-
onward, he was very pious, and it seems that he never ed crime) theory and allowed torture only in the case of
resisted his fate to become a churchman. clear evidence of m a l e fic i u m (harmful magic). Be c a u s e
Fe rd i n a n d’s first encounter with the doctrine of such evidence was hard to find, two clauses were added:
witchcraft came in his school days. In 1589, at age one was the identification of a person by a convicted
twelve, he was sent to the Jesuit university in Ingolstadt, witch (Be s a g u n g); the other was a De v i l’s mark, found
together with his elder brother Maximilian, the future by pricking the suspect’s skin with a needle. A peculiar-
duke of Bavaria, and his younger brother Philipp. His ity of this procedure was that all local courts of justice
p rofessor and tutor, the Jesuit theologian Gre g o ry of we re re q u i red to employ an impartial lawye r, called
Valencia, was a relentless proponent of witch persecu- “witch commissioner,” whenever a witchcraft case
tions who once brought Maximilian with him to watch e xceeded its legal knowledge. The edict of 1607 was
the tort u re of an accused witch. Maximilian was so n e ver printed, which helps explain why no great wave
362 Ferdinand of Cologne |
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of witchcraft trials followed the edict’s pro m u l g a t i o n . shows that he did not initiate the witch persecutions in
Fe rd i n a n d’s influence on its formulation is uncert a i n . his territories but rather reacted to them. Claims about
But it is certain that his attitude toward witchcraft had his attitude toward witchcraft diverge. But this is typi-
not changed from his early days as a student or as coad- cal of Ferdinand, because similar contradictions can be
jutor after he succeeded his uncle Ernst as arc h b i s h o p found in his most important concerns, the repression of
and elector in 1612, and in all the other prince-bishoprics Protestantism and the reformation of the Catholic
that Ernst had held. But witchcraft trials in Ferdinand’s Church.
territories remained unsystematic and rare.
THOMAS P. BECKER
In 1626, a great persecution wave started, which
would cost hundreds of lives within six ye a r s . See also:BAVARIA,DUCHYOF;BUIRMANN,FRANZ;CAROLINACODE
Ac c o rding to Ge r h a rd Schormann (1991), El e c t o r (CONSTITIOCRIMINALISCAROLINA); COLOGNE;ECCLESIASTICAL
Fe rdinand initiated the whole extirpation program by
TERRITORIES(HOLYROMANEMPIRE); GREGORYOFVALENCIA;
sending witch commissioners to the small towns and
INGOLSTADT,UNIVERSITYOF;LAWSONWITCHCRAFT(EARLY
MODERN); MÜNSTER,PRINCE-BISHOPRICOF;PADERBORN,
villages of his electorate for a systematic eradication of
BISHOPRICOF;SPEE,FRIEDRICH.
a n yone suspected of witchcraft. Although there is no
References and further reading:
doubt that Ferdinand truly believed in the danger ema-
Ennen, Edith. 1961. “Kurfürst Ferdinand von Köln (1577–2650).
nating from the witches, there is no demonstrable proof Ein rheinischer Landesfürst zur Zeit des Dreissigjaehringen
for any such program. It is more likely that Ferdinand Krieges.” Annalen des Historischen Vereins für den Niederrhein
did not initiate the great persecution wave of 163: 5–40.
1626–1632, but merely reacted to already ongoing per- Franken, Irnene, and Ina Hoerner. 2000. Hexen. Verfolgung in
secutions. In 1628, complaints from the family mem- Köln.Cologne: Hermann-Josef Emons Verlag.
bers of condemned witches led to an order (copying the Franzen, August. 1941. Der Wiederaufbau des kirchlichen Lebens im
Erzbistum Köln unter Ferdinand von Bayern, Erzbischof von Köln
example of the electorate of Mainz), by which, after
1612–1650.Münster: Verlag der Aschendorffschen
deducting the childre n’s inheritance, only half of the
Verlagsbuchhandlung.
remaining pro p e rty of a condemned witch was to be
Lennartz, Stephan, and Martin Thomé, eds. 1996.
c o n fiscated to cover expenses for trial and exe c u t i o n .
Hexenverfolgung im Rheinland. Ergebnisse neuerer Lokal- und
The witchcraft criminal pro c e d u re of 1607 was
Regionalstudien.Bergisch Gladbach: Thomas Morus Akademie.
re n ewed and promulgated together with this confis c a- Schormann, Gerhard. 1991. Der Krieg gegen die Hexen. Das
tion order. Neither suggests an extirpation program by Ausrottungsprogramm des Kurfürsten von Köln.Göttingen:
Ferdinand. Vandenhoek and Ruprecht.
Un s u r p r i s i n g l y, given his background, Fe rd i n a n d
took great interest in the process of juridical pro s e c u- Ferrer, Dominga (“La Coja”)
tion between 1629 and 1631. But afterward, we find a An inhabitant of Pozán de Vero (Huesca), a village in
m o re cautious judgment in his deeds and thoughts. the Aragonese Pyrenees, Ferrer was tried for witchcraft
This might owe something to the appearance of by both secular and inquisitorial courts in 1534 and
Friedrich Sp e e’s Cautio Criminalis (A Warning on 1535, respectively. Her fate exemplifies what happened
Criminal Justice) in 1631, but it might also owe some- to many other women from rural environments who
thing to the fact that in the imperial city of Cologne, a were condemned to death throughout the sixteenth and
c e rtain Christina Plum accused Fe rdinand of being a s e venteenth centuries by secular judges under the
sorcerer.When the city council of Cologne tried to end remarkably informal criminal procedures of the king-
its persecution wave with her execution in 1630, dom of Aragón. However, the inquisitorial documenta-
Ferdinand demanded to see the denunciations of other tion we possess (which includes both her previous sec-
witches burned with her. ular trial and the extralegal statutes that provoked it)
In the years following, smaller persecution waves or represents an extremely important source for Aragonese
isolated witchcraft trials occurred in parts of the elec- witchcraft. First, hers was the last known death sen-
torate of Cologne, but the huge numbers of victims tence for witchcraft ever carried out by the Inquisition
( a p p roximately 2,000) between 1626 and 1632 was in Aragón. Second, the documentation describes her
n e ver reached again. W h e re ver a witchcraft trial was different interrogations under torture with unique pre-
initiated, Ferdinand did not try to stop it. But when, as cision and fidelity. This document provides our only
in the prince-bishopric of Liège or the Ve s t clear evidence from Aragón where a witch confessed to
Recklinghausen, the local interest of a territory or the having killed both people and animals as an accomplice
mentality of the local judges and courts did not lead to of the Devil.
a prosecution, Fe rdinand accepted the attitude of the Once the pro s e c u t o r’s petition was read, accusing
local authorities. Dominga of being an “e v i l d o e r, witch, and sorc e re s s , ”
Fe rd i n a n d’s attitude tow a rd witchcraft neve r she was stripped and submitted to a visual inspection
changed, but the apparent ambivalence of his deeds (occularis inspectio) to discover any marks made by the
Ferrer, Dominga 363 |
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Devil after concluding a pact with her. After inspecting w i t c h e s’ gatherings, the person was presented before
the defendant, the local re p re s e n t a t i ves of justice con- Satan as a vassal and the newcomer paid homage by kiss-
cluded that Dominga had three marks “like the track of ing Sa t a n’s anus. In her case, this act was completed by
a cat’s paw” in different parts of her body (right arm fornicating with the Devil, who took her and mounted
and knee, and left leg). The fact that she had no hair h e r. The judge insisted upon asking her about the
under her arms and that her skin there was “of a color De v i l’s virile member; she responded that it was “m a d e
like dark violet” was also considered suspicious. Finally, of iron and ve ry sharp” and that around the middle
the judge ord e red to test “whether or not tears come t h e re was a palm with four fingers (Tausiet 2000, 227).
f rom [her] eyes . . . when she pretends to cry”; subse- Despite such detailed confessions, howe ve r, and
quently, it was cautiously noted that “no tear seems to repeated pressure from the judge, Dominga still refused
come forth from her eyes” (Tausiet 2000, 224–225). to admit that she had apostatized from God and taken
In view of Dominga’s refusal to confess to any of the the Devil as her lord, as the judges charged. At one
crimes of which she was accused (principally the deaths point, she apparently lost her voice, so she was sprin-
of people and livestock), the judge decided to submit kled with holy water and given holy water to drink.
her to torture. Customary Aragonese law explicitly pro- After this cere m o n y, Dominga began confessing that
hibited tort u re, and judges could not instigate trials she had apostatized from God, and had trampled “a
without a formal accusation from a particular person. c ross on the ground, in contempt for the Catholic
Ne ve rtheless, Aragón permitted d e s a f o ra m i e n t o s ( i . e ., faith.” After she named various accomplices, her judges
juridical suspensions of ordinary procedure) for crimes continued her purgative ordeals; Dominga now began
c o n s i d e red exceptional, including witchcraft. In such to acknowledge every accusation that had been formu-
instances, judges could order torture even without clear lated against her. By her own confessions, she had killed
proof of any crime. A startled Dominga stood up and four or five goats, a woman, four infants and a two-
exclaimed, “How can it be that matters have gone this year-old girl. Although her case was transferred to the
far, without anything having been proved!” Inquisition (which spared the lives of many other
Be f o re the tort u re began, Dominga was shown the women convicted of witchcraft by Aragonese secular
garrucha (the strappado, whereby the victim would be justice), next year the Holy Office ordered Dominga la
suspended by a pulley, with a rope tying her wrists with Coja (“the Lame”) to be “relegated to the secular arm,”
her arms behind her back) to see whether she could be that is, given capital punishment (Tausiet 2000, 230).
frightened into confessing some of the deaths attributed
MARÍA TAUSIET;
to her. This she did; but because she refused to admit
that she was a witch and had made a pact with the TRANSLATED BY THOMAS SIZGORICH
Devil, she was then suspended from the garruchawith a
See also: ARAGON;COURTS,INQUISITORIAL;DEVIL’SMARK;
stone tied to her feet. When she refused to confess EVIDENCE;FLIGHTOFWITCHES;KISSOFSHAME;LAWSON
e ve rything the judges wanted, she was taken dow n . WITCHCRAFT(EARLYMODERN); PACTWITHTHEDEVIL;SABBAT;
Then, as in an exorcism, her scalp was shaved, she was SPAIN;TORTURE.
given holy water to drink, more holy water was sprin- References and further reading:
kled on her head, and she was given a clean shirt before Monter,William. 1990. Frontiers of Heresy.The Spanish Inquisition
being put once again on the g a r ru c h a . This time from the Basque Lands to Sicily.Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Dominga confessed eve rything the judges wanted: she
Tausiet, María. 2000. Ponzoña en los ojos. Brujería y Superstición en
belonged to a company of witches who, after smearing
Aragón en el siglo XVI.Saragossa: Institución Fernando el
their armpits with certain ointments and riding on vine
Católico.
shoots, flew regularly to celebrate their Sabbat “in the
vicinity of To l o s a” (i.e., Toulouse, in southern Fr a n c e )
(Tausiet 2000, 226). Fertility Cults
Certain of Dominga’s willingness to confess anything In the narrow sense, fertility cults is a term used by
that the tribunal wanted to hear, the judge ordered her recent historical anthropological research to describe
untied, dressed, and led to another room, where she the rites (supposedly legacies of European shamanism)
could sit and warm herself by the fire. There her inter- performed by fertility magicians to attain a state of
rogation and confessions continued. Although eve ry- trance. In a wider sense, it applies to any magical or reli-
thing Dominga subsequently said was conditioned by gious rituals of traditional agricultural societies intend-
fear of re n ewed tort u re, her affirmations we re now ed to ensure vegetative fertility.
legally “outside torture” (confessio ex tortura).
Guided by the judge’s questions, Do m i n g a’s descrip- Change-of-Season Rites
tions fit closely with the demonological stere o t y p e s Since James Frazer, several anthropologists, folklorists,
common in northern Spain. The Devil resembled a man and historians of religion have associated va r i o u s
with horns; whenever somebody new attended the European agricultural rites with cults of dying and
364 Fertility Cults |
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reviving deities (e.g., the cults of Osiris, Adonis, and connecting the course of the sun with vegetable and
Demeter) presumably imported from the eastern animal fert i l i t y. The fertility aspect of lighting fires at
Mediterranean region during the Hellenistic age. the time of the winter solstice seems particularly clear in
These cults and myths associated the (re ) b i rth of the rites of the Christmas log in the Balkans and in cen-
deities at the start of the agricultural year with the tral Europe, which sometimes involves primitive meth-
emergence of new vegetation from the underw o r l d . ods of striking a fire and is often performed by the first
Such change-of-season rites preserve traces of the cults male visitor of the new year.
of Hellenistic deities within a Christianized medium;
for example, the widespread tradition in central and
Rain Magic
southern Europe of “Lucy’s wheat” (made to sprout in a
Fe rtility rites connected with dew or water also occur
dish during the period between Christmas and St .
t h roughout Eu rope, particularly around a spring or sum-
Lucia’s day and placed on the Christmas table) suppos-
mer festival. Some rites of rain magic invo l ve collecting
edly relates to Ad o n i s’s garden. The growth of the
d ew or immersing in water on Whitsun or May Da y, on
sprouts forecasts the fertility and harvest of the coming
St. Jo h n’s day, or on the day of the Russian Ivan “t h e
ye a r. Some scholars emphasize customs depicting the
Ba t h i n g” (Ivan Ku p a l a). These rites are to ensure that
s t ruggle of winter and spring, especially the carry i n g
rain brings fertility by collecting dew from other people’s
out of winter and bringing in the spring, which sym-
land (the pasture of the neighboring village) or by
bolically destroy winter, death, illnesses, or the old year:
bathing naked in lakes or rivers (which occasionally pro-
for example, the German To d a u s t ra g e n , Polish, Cze c h ,
voked orgiastic parties in some places in the Ba l k a n s ) .
Moravian, and Slovakian morena and related forms; in
the Hungarian t é l k i h o rd á s , usually held on the third
Sunday before Easter, or on Palm Sunday, a decorated Death Sacrifices
stick or straw man is re m oved from the village in a A rchaic images of the dead who support or protect liv-
chanting procession before being thrown into the water ing people abound in Eu ropean mythologies: the dead
or burned. Other rites symbolizing the stru g g l e return at the beginning of the year during special fes-
between the old and the new year through a ritual bat- tivities and secure the well-being of the community in
tle between two masked teams, or dramas of death and return for sacrificial offerings. Traces of such cults
resurrection performed at the beginning of the agricul- include offerings made at festivals surrounding the
tural year or during carnival (Serbian, Greek, Bulgarian winter solstice (according to the Julian and Gre g o r i a n
kukeri, kalandai, koledari,Hungarian borica)also come calendars: at St Lu c i a’s day or in the period betwe e n
under this heading. Christmas and Twelfth Night) to the dead who visit at
this time, to the unbaptized demons, or to non-Christian
Welcoming Rites of Fertility Magic or supernatural beings leading the host of the dead that
Procuring Bliss s u rv i ve in the mythology of several peoples
Almost everywhere in Europe, at some time between (Lu c i a / Lu c a in central Eu rope, south-German and
the winter solstice and Carnival, groups of masked Austrian Pe rc h t a , Sl ovenian Pe h rta Ba b a) and we re
marchers disguised as demons, dead people, or animals often impersonated in masked rites. The dead pre s u m-
engaged in fertility magic or expressed wishes for a ably secured health, fert i l i t y, and prosperity for the
good harvest and fertility. In most territories of the coming year in return for sacrificial offerings of food
Latin Church, Carnival was the usual date for such rit- (in the Balkans, bread-cakes put on the roof; in central
uals, while in Orthodox eastern Europe such rituals Eu rope, the l u c a p o g á c s a or St. Lu c y’s scone; in So u t h
were ordinarily held around the winter solstice. Besides Germany and Austria, Pe rc h t l m i l c h was offered; in
the dead or demons who supposedly bring fertility, n o rthern and central Eu rope, food was put on the table
masks depicting such animals as goats, bears, horses, or for the dead during the night before Christmas). On
deer figure frequently. Groups of players, going from these same festive days, all Eu ropean peoples con-
house to house, often performed magical rites specifi- sumed foods suitable for fertility magic (grain meal,
cally promoting the fertility of cereal crops (among the cabbage, pork, lentils, etc.) and baked symbolic swe e t-
Rutens, Bulgarians, Romanians, or Hungarians) scat- b reads that could also be used for fertility magic or car-
tering grains in a farmer’s courtyard or ritually pulling rying out divination about the coming harvest, love, or
the plough. death (e.g., St. Lu c y’s scone, Pe rc h t l m i l c h , or poppy
Spring or early summer rites of carrying a gre e n seed Christmas pasta). Certain features of the “g o o d
branch, widespread throughout Eu rope, celebrate the d e a d” surv i ve in the fairy mythology of a death-re l a t e d
birth of the new vegetation and symbolize the fertility character in areas from the Balkans to Ireland or
of the coming harvest. The custom of erecting a deco- Scandinavia even in ve ry recent times (e.g., Bu l g a r i a n
rated tree on May Day or at midsummer is well known, and Serbian beliefs about fairies who appear in the
as is lighting a fire during the summer solstice, thereby spring and bring fert i l i t y. )
Fertility Cults 365 |
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European Shamanism Serbian types, the magicians’ guardian spirits we re
The rites of so-called shamanistic magicians represent a thought to fight alongside them.
special branch of European fertility cults. These rites It was also a common belief that magicians born in a
may be connected to the cult of the “good dead,” the caul possessed werewolf qualities (benandanti,Livonian
good fairies who guarantee agricultural fert i l i t y, magicians, kresnik/krsnik, one type of zduhaè). The caul
Christian mythological beings, or the deities and seemed to play the same role as the “second skin” did in
demons of pre-Christian mythologies. Basic to these the werewolf’s ability to enter a trance. The enemies to
rituals are techniques of going into a trance and the be overcome in the soul battles included the dead who
related notion of the soul separating from the body. In had snatched the grain or the rain, storm demons who
other words, magicians use their ability for trance to brought hailstorms, and the storm dragon or the magic
fight soul battles in the other world in the interest of soul of the neighboring “foreign” tribe. The aim of the
their own community. Shamanistic magicians were battles was to bring back the grain that had been carried
active in various parts of early modern Europe, and in to hell or to a cave in the underworld or to vanquish the
some areas of central and southeastern Europe to the storm souls or storm dragon and thus send away the
twentieth century. To ensure good weather and suffi- hailstorm. The battles took place in the archaic other-
cient rain, and to avert hailstorms, shamans fought oth- world of the storm clouds, accompanied by lightening,
erworldly battles against hostile demons. Similar to the thunder, and other meteorological phenomena. Stuhas
Slavic types of magicians (South Slavic kresnik, stuha, were thought to tear out huge trees during these battles
zduhaè, zmej, western Slavic chmurnik, p3anetnyk) were in cooperation with the wind souls, and used these trees
the Italian benandantiin seventeenth-century Friuli and as weapons. Zmei took the form of fiery eagles or drag-
the Hungarian táltos. ons and fired arrows of lightening at the demons bring-
A European agricultural shamanism was tied to agri- ing hailstorms. These usually tumultuous battles to
cultural cycles, while some features show a similarity to re t r i e ve the grain (e.g., featuring certain types of
the myths and rites of deities that die and are resurrect- zduhaè, táltos, as well as the b e n a n d a n t i and Livo n i a n
ed. One type of agricultural shaman (usually male) was magicians) took place during festivities at the start of
a weather magician who fought battles of the soul in the the year or at the change of seasons (St. Lu c i a ,
otherworld for good harvests and weather.This battling Christmas, Whitsun, St. Ge o r g e’s Da y, Mi d s u m m e r )
type was the classic perpetrator of the fertility cult. when other rites aiming to assure the harvest or the rain
Magicians who were more predominantly female were we re as common as sacrificial death rites for
initiated by groups of the dead or by goddesses of death f e rt i l i t y. Farming and household tools (baking shove l ,
and we re usually invo l ved in healing, clairvoyance, or coal drag, field broom, scythe, etc.) we re used in
treasure seeking. Each type of weather magician had a these battles.
d i f f e rent guardian or calling spirit (good dead, storm Certain types of shamanistic magicians were record-
demons, storm dragons, heavenly fie ry eagle, such as ed as still active in the early twentieth century (particu-
the Hungarian t á l t o s , Bulgarian z m e i , Serbian and larly in Serbia and Bulgaria). These retained their
Cro a t i a n s t u h a / zd u h a è , western Slavic c h m u rn i k , important communal function in securing agricultural
p3a n e t n y k), the fairy queen, we rewolf demons, we l l - f e rtility: those Serbian villages that still had a zd u h a è
intentioned dead, or werewolves who support their clan c o n s i d e red themselves lucky. At a storm’s appro a c h ,
( Sl ovenian and Croatian k re s n i k , Hungarian t á l t o s , they would re t reat to a quiet nook, fall into a sponta-
another type of the stuha/zduhaè). Saint Elijah, angels, neous trance, and at the end of the storm awake,
the Christian creator god, and Jesus appeared as exhausted by the battle of souls.
“Christianized” guardian spirits. Another group of call- ÉVA PÓCS;
ing or initiating spirits was the demonic werewolf (who
also took the shape of a dog, wild boar, snake, or drag- TRANSLATED BY ORSOLYA FRANK
on). This notion hints at the clear werewolf character of See also: ANIMALS;ANIMISTICANDMAGICALTHINKING;BENANDAN-
c e rtain types of magicians, confirmed by magicians’ TI;CAUL;FAIRIES;HUNGARYANDSOUTHEASTERNEUROPE,
birth traits and marks. These magicians were often born LYCANTHROPHY;MAGIC;REVENANTS;SHAMANISM;TÁLTOS;
f rom an animal ancestor (e.g., the Bulgarian z m e i o r WEATHERMAGIC.
c e rtain types of the Hungarian t á l t o s descend from an References and further reading:
Ginzburg, Carlo. 1983. The Night Battles. Witchcraft and Agrarian
eagle, snake, or dragon father), and with animal traits
Cults in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries.Baltimore:
(tail, wing, tooth, in snakeskin, as a snake, or with bris-
Johns Hopkins University Press.
tles, etc.). These we rewolf magicians we re believed to
Klaniczay, Gábor. 1984. “Shamanistic Elements in Central
fight in the otherworld in an animal form correspond-
European Witchcraft.” Pp. 404–422 in Shamanism in Eurasia.
ing to that of their calling animal spirit and to their
Edited by Mihály Hoppál. Göttingen: Herodot.
birth traits (e.g., wild boar, eagle, dragon, snake, bull). Kretzenbacher, Leopold. 1959. Santa Lucia und die Lutzelfrau.
In the otherworld, in the case of some Bulgarian and Südosteuropäische Arbeiten. Munich: R. Oldenburg.
366 Fertility Cults |
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Liungmann, Waldemar. 1937–1938. Traditions-Wanderungen removal to the archbishop’s residence, and searches for
Euphrapt–Rein I–II. Folklore Fellows’ Communications spiritual remedies including St. Gre g o ry’s water (into
118–119. Helsinki: Suomalainen Tieideakatemia. which Féry’s head was plunged until she emerged splut-
Moszyñski, Kazimierz. 1967. Kultura ludowa s3owian II. Kultura
tering), and the Eucharist. Féry was also put in solitary
duchowa I.Warsaw: Ksi(cid:0)¿ka i Wiedza. [1st ed. Cracow, 1929].
c o n finement. Bu i s s e re t’s book emphasizes the gre a t
———. 1991. Ecstasies: Deciphering the Witches’ Sabbath.New
malice of demons, the many divine remedies for their
York: Random House.
attacks, and God’s great mercy and providence. Its pub-
Pócs, Éva. 1989. “Hungarian Táltos and His European Parallels.”
lication in Paris in 1586 coincided with the height of
Pp. 251–276 in Uralic Mythology and Folklore. Ethnologia
Uralica 1. Edited by Mihály Hoppál, and Juha Pentikäinen. the French Wars of Religion, when Catholic ze a l o t s
Budapest and Helsinki: Ethnographic Institute of the used rituals to maintain morale and win converts.
Hungarian Academy of Sciences–Finnish Literature Society. In this era, possessed women fascinated many senior
———. 1993. “Le sabbat et les mythologies Indo-Européennes.” churchmen, but Féry seems to have been an unusually
Pp. 23–31 in Le sabbat des sorciers en Europe. XVème-XVIIIème compelling fig u re. Her story is underpinned by an
siècles. Actes du Colloque international, Saint Cloud, nov. 1992. acute sense of pathos: she reportedly gave herself to dev-
Edited by Nicole Jacques-Chaquin and Maxime Préaud.
ils at age four in order not to feel the beatings she
Grenoble: J. Millon.
u n d e rwent at home. Much of the narrative depicts
———. 1999. Between the Living and the Dead. A Perspective on
ecclesiastics substituting for her family: one exo rc i s t
Witches and Seers in the Early Modern Age.Translated by Szilvia
became her “f a t h e r,” and the archbishop agreed to be
Rédey and Michael Webb. Budapest: Central European
her “grandfather.” Féry appears to have received careful
University Press.
Róheim, Géza. 1961. “Hungarian Shamanism.” Psychoanalysis and attention partly because a relative was Mother Superior
the Social Sciences.III: 131–169. of her convent.
Tolstoj, N. I. – Tolstaja, S. M. 1981. “Zametki po slavjanskomu For modern readers, Féry elicits more sympathy
jazyèestvu 5. Zasˇèita ot grada v Dragaèev i drugich serbskich than many other possessed people. Her story feature s
zonach.” Pp. 44–120 in Slavjanskij i Balkanskij folklor.Edited no scandalous accusations of witchcraft pursuing an
by L. I. Vinogradova and Ju. I. Smirnov. Moscow: Izdatel¥stvo e xecution; responsibility for her condition falls primar-
Nauka.
ily on her father’s neglect and abuse. The portrait of
her family, while it reads compellingly, given modern
Féry, Jeanne (1584) a w a reness of child abuse, cannot necessarily be taken at
Jeanne Féry was a demonically possessed nun, at Mons- face value: Church narratives at this time fre q u e n t l y
en-Hainaut in the Catholic Low Countries. e m p h a s i zed the failure of the family unit in order to
Jeanne Féry was a Soeurs Noires (Black Sisters) nun of make convent life seem preferable. Yet the validity of
twenty-five, whose demons, we are told, promised her such a claim by the Church was moot: religious vow s
g reat gifts, but tormented her when she tried to with- could call for an especially austere lifestyle. The actions
draw from them. Her story was recounted in the of exo rcists, or indeed of doctors, in many possession
Histoire admirable et veritable des choses advenves a l’en- cases make it hard to imagine that anywhere existed
d roict d’vne Religieuse ( Admirable and True Hi s t o ry of w h e re true care for a troubled individual was give n .
the Things Which Happened to a Nun), a book pro- And even beyond this, we are faced with the issue of
claiming the efficacy of Catholic ritual healing. T h i s s o u rces: how can we assume, from a pro p a g a n d a
case later attracted medical commentary in the nine- -oriented account that ends with a cure, that Féry’s sto-
teenth century from a colleague of Je a n - Ma rt i n ry took place as described? Mo re ove r, the account con-
Charcot (Bourneville 1886), confidently describing the siders Féry’s reconciliation with the Church as the fin a l
pathology he saw Féry as having experienced. sign of her cure, outside any improvement in her emo-
The Hi s t o i re admirable traced Féry’s affli c t i o n s tional life.
b e t ween April 1584 and May 1585, starting with her F é ry seems an articulate but re l a t i vely powe r l e s s
first visit to the archbishop of Cambrai, Loys de p o s t - Tridentine Catholic woman. Not only we re her
Berlaymont, who oversaw her spiritual and medical v i ews on doctrine trivialized by being demonized, but
treatment. While under his care, Féry was subjected by F é ry’s intellectual ability was also presented as coming
demons to violent wailing and writhing, and to actual from the Devil. The success of exorcism was claimed at
and attempted self-harm. At one point, she (thro u g h one point when she was reduced to a childlike state in
her demon) lashed out at the arc h b i s h o p, and she which she had to learn to read and write again. Féry
showed a tendency (diagnosed as diabolical) to dispute i n t e r n a l i zed the apparent shifts in her intellectual
points of Church doctrine. Together with several other capacities, and perhaps re vealed her ambitions, when
senior ecclesiastics, including the book’s author, she wrote that “wicked devils” used their knowledge to
a rchdeacon François Bu i s s e ret, the archbishop super- make her like a god, then took her knowledge away
vised a period of intense engagement with Féry, includ- from her. Against the vicissitudes of her misplaced trust
ing medical examination and treatments, physical in devils, the story sets the pacifying influence of Mary
Féry, Jeanne 367 |
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Magdalene, who, Féry said, comforted her, and who at assignments ever entrusted to an inquisitor (Si m o n s o h n
one point also spoke through her, when she was in 1991, 362). For such a large task, Fe u g e y ron re c e i ved an
ecstasy. annual income of 300 florins to cover his expenses and
those of his staff. His activities as inquisitor spanned
SARAH FERBER
almost thirty years; Popes Ma rtin V in 1418 and
See also: DEMONS;EXORCISM;FAMILY;POSSESSION,DEMONIC; Eugenius IV in 1435 re n ewed his mandate. Dr a w i n g
PSYCHOANALYSIS;WARSOFRELIGION(FRANCE). attention to the existence of new sects of Jews and
References and further reading:
Christians practicing magic and witchcraft constituted a
Bourneville, D. -M., ed. 1886. La Possession de Jeanne Féry,
n ove l t y. Although what is exactly meant remains unclear,
religieuse professe du Convent des Soeurs Noires de la Ville de
it seems likely that the pope and the inquisitor feare d
Mons (1584).Preface by D. -M. Bourneville. Bibliothèque
some dangers, real or imagined, from such practices,
Diabolique, Collection Bourneville IV. Paris: Aux Bureaux du
e ven though they did not clearly imply the presence of
Progrès médical.
[Buisseret, F.] 1586.Histoire admirable et veritable des choses demons. Twenty years before the elaboration of the
advenves a l’endroict d’vne Religieuse professe du conuent des w i t c h e s’ Sabbat, the idea of clandestine groups perpetrat-
Soeurs noires, de la ville de Mons en Hainaut, natifue de Sore sur ing nefarious deeds was gaining gro u n d .
Sambre, aagee de vingt cinq ans, possedee du maling esprit, & Feugeyron’s activities against Jews led him into some
depuis deliuree.Paris: Claude de Monstre-oeil. excesses, and Martin V attempted to curtail him twice,
Ferber, Sarah. 2004. Demon Possession and Exorcism in Early in 1418 and 1421. Supported by Avignon’s Christians,
Modern France.London and NewYork: Routledge.
its Jewish community complained that Fe u g e y ron tar-
Midelfort, H. C. Erik. 1989. “The Devil and the German People:
geted Jews and exceeded his powers. The pope ordered
Reflections on the Popularity of Demon Possession in
an adjunct to work with him in order to contro l
Sixteenth-Century Germany.” Pp. 98–119 in Religion and
Feugeyron (Simonsohn 1991, 362–363). With the sup-
Culture in the Renaissance and Reformation.Edited by Steven
port of Duke Amadeus VIII of Savoy, Feugeyron led a
Ozment. Ann Arbor: Sixteenth Century Essays & Studies, XI.
Roper, Lyndal. 1994. Oedipus and the Devil.London: Routledge. vast campaign in 1426 throughout Sa voy a rd lands
Van der Hart, Onno, Ruth Lierens, and Jean Goodwin. 1996. against Jewish books, especially the Talmud. After a
“Jeanne Féry: A Sixteenth-Century Case of Dissociative long inquiry, the Jewish community was again permit-
Identity Disorder.” Journal of Psychohistory24, no. 1: 18–35. ted to use its books—after it paid 300 florins and struck
Walker, Anita M., and Edmund H. Dickerman. 1996. out passages considered “heretical.”
“Magdeleine Des Aymards: Demonism or Child Abuse in Early In 1433, Fe u g e y ron was incorporated into the
Modern France?” Psychohistory Review24, no. 3: 239–264.
Council of Basel as procurator of the Franciscan prov i n c e
Walker, Daniel P. 1981. Unclean Spirits: Possession and Exorcism in
of Provence. Among others attending the council, he
France and England in the Late Sixteenth and Early Seventeenth
could have met the bishop of the Sa voy a rd Val d’ Ao s t a ,
Centuries. London: Scolar.
George de Saluces (1433–1440). This prelate, who was
t r a n s f e r red to the diocese of Lausanne in 1440, initiated
Feugeyron, Ponce the first witch hunts in Aosta and in the Pays de Va u d ,
An early fif t e e n t h - c e n t u ry Franciscan Master of both belonging to Sa voy. In 1434, probably as a conse-
Theology, Ponce Feugeyon (also known as Fougeyron, quence of their encounter, George de Saluces established
Frugeronis, Fergonis, Fongerons, or Sengeronis) was an an inquisitorial tribunal and appointed Fe u g e y ron to
inquisitor whose investigations successively involved begin proceedings against a witch. This is approx i m a t e l y
Jews, heretics (especially Waldensians), and witches. He the time when the anonymous Er ro res Ga z a r i o ru m w a s
worked an area covering nearly all of southeastern written in the Val d’ Aosta. The treatise, one of the first to
France, from Avignon through the Dauphiné to the describe the witches’ Sabbat, emphasizes the danger of
duchy of Savoy. Around 1437, he may have written one n ew sects of devil worshippers who practiced nefarious
of the very first texts to mention the witches’ Sabbat, rites and even cannibalism. Se veral arguments suggest
the Errores Gazariorum (Errors of the “Gazarii,” or that Ponce Fe u g e y ron is its author. First, the same fears
Cathars, an omnibus name ascribed to heretics). and anxieties run through the Er ro res Ga z a r i o ru m a n d
In a rescript dated August 1409, Pope Alexander V Alexander V’s rescript of 1409; second, the treatise was
commissioned Fe u g e y ron to proceed against Jews who composed in a region where Fe u g e y ron exe rcised his
taught the Talmud, against Judaizing conve rts, and activities. Mo re ove r, both surviving manuscripts of the
against anyone who asserted that usury was not sinful. Er ro res Ga z a r i o ru mh a ve direct links with the Council of
His mandate also concerned Christians and Jews who Basel, where Fe u g e y ron was invo l ved. Within thirt y
we re re p o rtedly inventing new sects with forbidden rites. years, the dangerous new sects of Jewish and Christian
The pope authorized him, with the support of local ord i- magicians had been transformed into the phantasm of
naries, to persecute Christians and Jews who practiced the witches’ Sabbat (Os t o re ro 2002).
witchcraft, divination, conjuration, and other magical
activities. This was one of the most compre h e n s i ve MARTINE OSTORERO
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See also: BASEL,COUNCILOF;DEVIL’SMARK;ERRORESGAZARIORUM; historical accuracy. This discussion concentrates
EUGENIUSIV,POPE;HERESY;LAUSANNE,DIOCESEOF;ORIGINSOF mainly on films made in the English-speaking world.
THEWITCHHUNTS;SABBAT;SAVOY,DUCHYOF. This, of course, should not diminish the aware n e s s
References and further reading:
that some excellent films with witchcraft themes have
Foa, Anna. 1996. “The Witch and the Jew: Two Alikes That Were
been made by filmmakers elsew h e re. It is notew o rt h y,
Not the Same.” Pp. 361–374 in From Witness to Witchcraft.
for example, that a French version of Arthur Mi l l e r’s
Jews and Judaism in Medieval Christian Thought.Edited by
The Cru c i b l e , entitled Les Sorc i è res de Sa l e m , d i re c t e d
Jeremy Cohen. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.
by Raymond Rouleau with a script by Je a n - Pa u l
Loeb, Isidore. 1885. “Un épisode de l’histoire des Juifs de Savoie.”
Revue des études juives 10/ 19–20: 32–59. Sa rt re, was released in 1957, nearly forty years before
Ostorero, Martine, Agostino Paravicini Bagliani, Kathrin Utz the American movie adaptation of Mi l l e r’s famous
Tremp, and Catherine Chène, eds. 1999.L’Imaginaire du dramatic work .
Sabbat. Edition critique des textes les plus anciens (1430 c.– Indeed, the nondocumentary movie probably near-
1440 c.).Lausanne: Université de Lausanne (Cahiers lausannois est to historical accuracy was Vredens Dag ( Day of
d’histoire médiévale, 26). Wrath), the product of the great Danish director Carl
———. 2002. “Itinéraire d’un inquisiteur gâté: Ponce Feugeyron,
Theodor Dre ye r. Dre yer made only fourteen films in a
les juifs et le sabbat des sorciers.” Médiévales 43: 103–118.
c a reer that stretched between 1918 and 1964, but his
Simonsohn, Shlomo. 1991. The Apostolic See and the Jews. History.
m ovies are among the most intensely made eve r, and
Vol. 7. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies
Vredens Da g was no exception. Set in a Danish village
(Studies and Texts, 109).
in 1623, the film was cast as a tale of fear, superstition,
Film (Cinema) religious bigotry, and interpersonal betrayal. T h e
Witchcraft has been treated extensively on fil m , h e roine is Anne, the wife of an elderly clergyman who
although rarely from a perspective that privileges has been invo l ved in a witchcraft trial. She fell in love
Scene from Ca rl Dre ye r’s Day of Wr a t h ,a Danish film that recounts the story of the No rwegian witch Anna Pe d e r s d o t t e r. (Pa l l a d i u m / Ko b a l
Film (Cinema) 369 |
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with her husband’s son and wished her husband dead. what happened at Salem that is laid before us, although,
The old man died a little later, and Anne was accused as with Russell’s version of the Loudun affair, the movie
as a witch by her mother-in-law and was subsequently of The Cru c i b l e p resented some powe rful images. T h e
burned. The story is based on that of Anne c o u rt room scenes we re generally well handled, while
Pedersdotter Absolan, the wife of a Lutheran minister Paul Scofield turned in an especially impressive perfor-
who was in fact executed in 1590. Obv i o u s l y, Dre ye r’s mance as the judge presiding over the trials. Despite the
re c o n s t ruction of the story, while attempting to catch film’s attempt to meet the demands of historical accura-
the mood of the period, was not totally accurate, but cy, we are left wondering how far a movie dealing with
it remains a moving and evo c a t i ve piece of cinema. a theme like witchcraft can ever provide a really satisfac-
The film was released in 1943, when De n m a rk was tory account of even a witchcraft episode as familiar as
under German occupation, and hence it is diffic u l t this one. The events at Salem provided the basis for an
not to read it as an allegory of Nazi rule. The standard underrated TV movie, T h ree Sove reigns for Sa ra h ,
British re f e rence work on the movies, Ha l l i we l l’s Fi l m d i rected by Philip Leacock and again starring Va n e s s a
Gu i d e , described Dre ye r’s great witchcraft film as a Redgrave (1985), and they also formed the background
“ h a r rowing, spellbinding melodrama with a message, for the older Maid of Salem (1937), in which a young
m oving in a series of Rembrandtesque compositions woman accused of witchcraft was saved by her love r.
f rom one horrifying sequence to another. De p re s s i n g , The critical consensus is that its leads, Claudette
but marve l l o u s” (1990, 253). C o l b e rt and Fred Ma c Mu r r a y, saved this part i c u l a r
Another film that dealt with an actual event and film.
made at least some pretense at historical accuracy was Other films based on real historical incidents are
Ken Ru s s e l l’s The Devils (1970). Based on Aldous c o m p a r a t i vely rare. One, which has acquired cult sta-
Hu x l e y’s re c o n s t ruction of the Loudun affair, T h e tus, is an older film, Witchfinder General(1968), direct-
Devils of Loudun it began by being history at one ed by Michael Reeves, that retold the story of Matthew
remove. The theme, as a number of reviews comment- Hopkins. This is a powe rful film, shot partly in loca-
ed, allowed the director to indulge his taste for the out- tions where Hopkins actually operated, but its connec-
rageous and the camp, while it is also possible to trace a tion with historical accuracy was sometimes shaky,
strain of misogyny in the film. Yet Ru s s e l l’s peculiar based as it was on a novel by Ronald Bassett. However,
genius allowed him to capture in a wonderfully spectac- this is somewhat offset by a splendidly villainous
ular fashion the atmosphere of what a nunnery full of Matthew Hopkins, played by Vincent Price, for whom
demonically possessed inmates must have been like, a suitably robust demise was invented. The film was
while the trial, tort u re, and eventual execution of noteworthy for its air of brooding evil, which in partic-
Urbain Grandier (Oliver Reed in one of his best roles) ular created a wonderful sense of how this bout of witch
was well handled. The Devils remains one of the most hunting operated against a background of more general
p owe rful cinematic re p resentations of early modern disruption. Although the English Civil War received lit-
witchcraft and demonic possession. In part i c u l a r, the tle direct treatment in the film, we are constantly
scenes depicting the possessed nuns conveyed the sheer reminded that it formed a necessary backdrop to
chaos and terror group possessions like that experienced Ho p k i n s’s witch-finding activities. Another film using
at Loudun must have engendered in re a l i t y, while if English witchcraft in a historical context, The Blood on
Oliver Reed’s performance as Grandier was striking, no Sa t a n’s Claw ( d i rector Piers Ha g g a rd, 1970) basically
less was that of Vanessa Re d g r a ve as Soeur Jeanne des interpreted historical witchcraft as a fertility religion in
Anges. It should not be forgotten, howe ve r, that the Ma r g a ret Murray mode. Other films on historical
Russell’s version of the events at Loudun was preceded themes did have witchcraft re f e rences, among them
by nearly a decade by Matka Joanna od An i o l ow The Last Valley (1970), an action-packed and intelligent
(Mother Joan of the Angels), a retelling of the Loudun m ovie set in the T h i rty Ye a r s’ Wa r, and In g m a r
story in which Grandier and Jeanne des Anges were pre- Bergman’sThe Seventh Seal (Det Sjunde Inseglet,1957),
sented as characters whose re p ressed love led to sup- w h e re the burning of a witch illustrated one of
posed demonic possession and witchcraft accusations. Be r g m a n’s central themes, the absurdities of medieva l
The film, released in 1961, was directed by the Polish C h r i s t i a n i t y. And, although not strictly an historical
filmmaker Je rzy Kawalerowicz, and despite initially m ovie, mention should be made here of the striking
attracting the opprobrium of Poland’s Catholic Church and detailed witchcraft scenes in Roman Po l a n s k i’s
went on to win a Special Jury Prize at the Cannes Film 1971 version of Macbeth.
Festival. Whether in movies set in the remote past or those set
Cu r i o u s l y, given the play’s popularity, no En g l i s h - in the present, witchcraft is a theme that lends itself to
language cinematic version of Arthur Mi l l e r’s T h e the horror film genre. Perhaps the most recent, and
Cru c i b l e a p p e a red until 1996 (director Ni c h o l a s most hyped, film in this tradition has been The Bl a i r
Hynter). Again, of course, it was Mi l l e r’s version of Witch Project, directed by Eduardo Sanchez and Daniel
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Myrick and released in 1999. This low-budget film fol- Witchcraft as a theme for horror movies has not
l owed three students who went into the Black Hi l l s been, of course, restricted to Anglo-American pro d u c-
Fo rest of Bu rkittsville, Ma ryland, to film a documen- tions. Indeed, one of the most successful films of this
t a ry about the infamous Blair Witch, an old woman type was Su s p i r i a , d i rected by the great Italian horro r
who lived in the woods and was accused of luring chil- m ovie director Dario Argento and released in 1977.
dren to her home and killing them dreadfully.The stu- The film, set in a fic t i o n a l i zed Black Fo rest region in
dents were caught up in the legend of the Blair Witch, Germany, opened with the arrival of the central charac-
and fell foul of her power, although the audience never t e r, the young American woman Susy Ba n yon (Je s s i c a
catches a glimpse of her.The Blair Witch Project was, of Harper), at a storm-lashed airport. She was set to enter
course, preceded by a string of films that used witch- a famous dance academy in the area, but rapidly discov-
craft as a means of horrifying their audiences. ered that what she had in fact enrolled in was a witches’
St a rting with British productions, we note c oven, presided over by Helene Ma rcos, a woman of
Wi t c h c ra f t , d i rected by Don Sharp (1964), in which a Greek origins who was the academy’s elusive head. The
family of witches revenged themselves on their enemies, film, in the best horror traditions, flitted between the
and The Wi t c h e s , a Hammer Film directed by Cy r i l real world and an imagined Gothic one, the latter being
Frankel (1966), in which a newly arrived village adequately symbolized by the building in which the
schoolmistress found herself surrounded by witchcraft. dance academy was based. This Gothic element (again
British horror movies using witchcraft themes also as is so often the case with horror movies) lent an
included adaptations of works by the once extre m e l y almost fairy tale quality to Suspiria,and one of the most
popular thriller writer, Dennis W h e a t e l y. Perhaps the sustained commentaries on the film, by Linda Schulte-
best known of these, The Devil Rides Out, a n o t h e r Sasse, made much of how Argento’s movie operated in a
Hammer Film (1967), failed to frighten, although To world that was like an inversion of a Disney story.The
the Devil a Da u g h t e r, a joint Br i t i s h / German pro d u c- same author also argued that some passages of Suspiria
tion (1975), at least had a pleasantly campy quality. could be construed as an allegory of fascism (K i n o e ye ,
Another British horror movie that is more likely to 2002). Whatever the value of these insights, it remains
amuse than terrify the modern viewer is The Curse of undeniable that this was a ve ry powe rful horror fil m ,
the Crimson Altar (1968: director Dennis Lewis). Here with a violent double-murder sequence at the fil m’s
the theme was one that cropped up in a number of commencement to set the mood.
films with witchcraft connections, the notion of the If witchcraft has served as a central theme for horror
descendants of an executed witch wreaking ve n g e a n c e movies, it has also, perhaps a little implausibly, done the
on the descendants of her accusers. This was set in the same for comedies. René Clair directed the delightful I
fictional English village of Greymarsh, where the vil- Married a Witch(1942), in which a Salem witch, played
lagers annually celebrated the anniversary of the burn- byVeronica Lake, and her father returned to haunt the
ing of Lavinia, the seventeenth-century Black Witch of descendants of the Puritans who had them exe c u t e d ,
Greymarsh. This film is memorable for the maladroit- only to have the witch fall in love with one of them.
ness of its attempts to we a ve in scenes depicting late The theme of love between a witch and a normal mem-
1960s permissiveness, and, more positively, for perfor- ber of society also fig u red in Bell, Book and Ca n d l e
mances by Christopher Lee and Boris Karloff. (1958, director Richard Quine), in which a New York
The U. S. film industry has provided some more sol- publisher (James St ew a rt) gradually re a l i zed that his
id horror, especially if we include two films on themes new girlfriend (Kim Novak) was a witch. Bell, Book and
that, while not quite on witchcraft, were closely related Ca n d l e p rovided an essentially benign portrayal of a
to it. These are Roman Po l a n s k i’s Ro s e m a ry’s Ba by modern coven, interestingly enough in the same sort of
(1968), in which a woman was impregnated by the way as many modern Wiccans would present them-
Devil, and The Exo rc i s t , d i rected by William Fr i e d k i n selves. One quasi-erudite reference to witchcraft history
(1975), which portrayed demonic possession as vividly in this film was that the witch’s pet cat was called
as any early modern possession narrative. Mo re mun- Pyewackett, the name of one of the familiars featured in
dane witchcraft horror movies originating from the the Ma t t h ew Hopkins witchcraft trials of mid-seve n-
United States included Ha l l oween T h ree: Season of the t e e n t h - c e n t u ry England. A better-known film among
Wi t c h , d i rected by Tommy Lee Wallace (1983), in modern readers was a rather darker comedy, T h e
which a malicious toy maker sought to use a forthcom- Witches of Eastwick, directed by George Miller (1987).
ing Ha l l oween as an occasion for a takeover of the In this movie, the Devil (played with panache by Jack
world by witches through the sale of magic masks made Nicholson) seduced, but was ultimately thwarted by,
at his Santa Mira factory. Perhaps the most significant t h ree divo rcées (played by Cher, Susan Sarandon, and
comment on this movie was that an Englishman, Nigel Michelle Pfeiffer). For the historian of witchcraft, one
Kneale, wrote the original script, but subsequently of the more enjoyable aspects of this film was that the
requested that his name be removed from the credits. Devil, just as early modern demonologists told us he
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would, won all three women by tempting them with Besides the English-speaking cinematic tradition,
things they wanted desperately. The theme of a non- others have produced a number of significant films on
witch falling in love with a witch in the modern world the re p resentation of the witch. Indeed, perhaps the
was also explored in a likable French film of 1997, Un most re m a rkable film dealing with witchcraft as a his-
Amour de Sorcière(director Rene Manzor). torical phenomenon was a silent Danish movie, Häxan,
There have been some films based around witchcraft d i rected by Benjamin Christensen, a key fig u re in the
that almost defy categorization. One such film was early Danish cinema, and released in Sweden in 1922.
Baba Ya g a , a Fr a n c o - Italian production released in This film began with something like a lecture on the
1973 and directed by Carrado Farina. The central char- h i s t o ry of witchcraft, but then passed rapidly into a
a c t e r, based on the heroine of a popular adult comic series of sometimes still ve ry effective re c o n s t ru c t i o n s ,
strip by Milan artist Guido Crepax, was Va l e n t i n a including what was (allowing for the quality of the spe-
(played by Isabelle De Funes), a fashion photographer. cial effects of the period) a compelling depiction of the
One night she met Baba Yaga (Carroll Baker), a myste- witches’ Sabbat.
rious older woman who gave her a ride home. A lesbian Witchcraft has figured in a wide variety of cinematic
relationship developed between the two women, while productions in a wide variety of ways. It is a theme that
a devil doll dressed in S&M clothing created mayhem. continues alternatively to scare us, amuse us, and pro-
The film was an odd production, weaving together vide an occasional shiver of horror for our children. So
themes of witchcraft and lesbianism, with undert o n e s f a r, howe ve r, there have been few films that have pro-
of sadism, 1960s pop art and kinkiness, eroticism in vided an accurate reconstruction of an historical witch-
general, and references to the earlier French avant-garde craft episode.
movies. Baba Yaga was, of course, the name of an evil
JAMES SHARPE
witch of Russian folklore, among whose attributes was a
set of steel teeth. Mention should also be made of See also:LOUDUNNUNS;MILLER,ARTHUR;PEDERSDOTTER,ANNA.
Damiano Damiani’s La Strega in Amore (The Witch in References and further reading:
Carney, Raymond. 1989. Speaking the Language of Desire: The
L ove) of 1966, an erotic horror movie that placed
Films of Carl Dreyer.Cambridge: Cambridge University.
witchcraft in a modern setting.
Halligan, Ben. 2003. Michael Reeves.Manchester: Manchester
If witches figured in comedy, so did they in children’s
University.
m ovies, including, of course, animated mov i e s .
Halliwell, Leslie. 1990. Halliwell’s Film Guide 7th Edition.
C h i l d ren can still be frightened by the ve ry potent
London. Palladin Grafton Books.
images of witches given in those two classic Wa l t Kinoeye: New Perspectives on European Film,2/11, June 2002
Disney cartoon films, SnowWhite and the Seven Dwarfs (special issue on the Cinema of Dario Argento).
(1937) and Sleeping Beauty (1959). Children’s films fea- Krzwynska, Tanya. 2000. A Skin for Dancing In: Possession,
turing witches and witchcraft have been too numerous Witchcraft and Voodoo in Film.London: Flicks Books.
to list, but mention must be made of The Wi t c h e s Monthly Film Bulletin:passim.
(1990, director Nicolas Roeg), a superb adaptation of Muchembled, Robert. 2003. A History of the Devil: From the
Middle Ages to the Present. Translated by Jean Birrell.
Roald Dahl’s novel, and, of course, of the more recent
Cambridge, UK: Polity.
adaptations of J. K. Row l i n g’s “Ha r ry Po t t e r” books,
Twitchell, James B. 1985. Dreadful Pleasures: An Anatomy of
although a purist might comment that what Rowling’s
Modern Horror.Oxford: Oxford University.
novels and the film adaptations of them have been con-
cerned with was the world of natural magic rather than
that of witchcraft pro p e r. But at the ve ry least, these Filmer, Sir Robert (ca. 1588–1653)
film versions of the Ha r ry Potter books provided ye t Filmer presents historians of witchcraft with an appar-
another reminder of the infinite adaptability of the ent contradiction: conservative in his defense of monar-
witchcraft theme, which in this case was transport e d chy, he seems provocatively modern in his attitudes
with re m a rkable success to the world of the En g l i s h toward the crime of witchcraft. After attending Trinity
boarding school. College, Cambridge, and studying law at Lincoln’s Inn,
But no treatment of the theme of witchcraft in the he was knighted and served as Justice of the Peace in his
children’s light entertainment fields would be complete native Kent. A virulent royalist during the English Civil
without a mention of that most successful of films, The Wa r, he was imprisoned in Leeds Castle, near
Wi z a rd of Oz . Di rected by Victor Fleming, adapted Maidstone, between 1643–1647. After his release, he
from the book by L. Frank Baum, and released in 1939, published, anonymously, many polemical pamphlets;
The Wi z a rd of Oz was most memorable for Ju d y the last one, An Advertisement to the Jury-Men of
Garland’s performance as Dorothy Gale. But there was England Touching Witches, was written shortly before
also a bravura performance by a re l a t i vely obscure his death in May 1653.
a c t ress, Ma r g a ret Hamilton, as the Wicked Witch of This pamphlet had been prompted by the harsh
the West. t reatment of several people tried for witchcraft at the
372 Filmer, Sir Robert |
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Maidstone Assizes in July 1652. Although several were done by the power of Nature, and what things cannot,
acquitted, others we re pilloried and six women we re for there be dayly many things found out, and dayly
sentenced to be hanged for causing the deaths of adults, more may be which our Fore-fathers never knew to be
c h i l d ren, horses, and cattle through diabolical magic. possible in Nature” (Filmer 1653, 8). Though Filmer’s
Howe ve r, the fury of the mob, which demanded that voice was largely ignored and prosecutions for witch-
those convicted should be burned rather than hanged, craft continued in the short term, his profoundly skep-
probably compelled Filmer to compose it. tical views gradually dominated elite culture by the late
He chose to attack the definition of witchcraft in the seventeenth century, rendering the chances of a success-
1604 English statute, arguing that it put judges and ful prosecution for witchcraft almost impossible
juries in an unenviable if not impossible position, in throughout England.
trying to decide what differentiated a witch from a con-
JOHN CALLOW
j u ro r, an enchanter, or a sorc e re r. Filmer chose two
opposed authors—a Jesuit, Ma rtín Del Rio, and a See also: DELRIO,MARTÍN;ENGLAND;LAWSONWITCHCRAFT
Puritan, William Pe rkins—for particular censure; they (EARLYMODERN); PACTWITHTHEDEVIL;PERKINS,WILLIAM;
exemplified opinions “which ignorance in the times of
SKEPTICISM.
References and further reading:
darknesse brought forth, and credulity in these days of
Filmer, Robert. 1653. An Advertisement to the Jury-Men of
light hath continued” (Filmer 1653, iv). Clearly sepa-
England, Touching Witches.London.
rating He b rew witchcraft in biblical times from sup-
———. 1991. Patriarcha and Other Writings.Edited by J. P.
posed manifestations of the crime in St u a rt En g l a n d ,
Sommerville. Cambridge: Cambridge University.
Filmer attacked the theological proofs for the existence Laslett, Peter. 1948. “Sir Robert Filmer: The Man Versus the Whig
of witchcraft. Although both Jesuit and Puritan agreed Myth.” William and Mary Quarterly5: 523–546.
that the contract with the Devil was the defining act of Sharpe, James. 1996. Instruments of Darkness. Witchcraft in
the witch, neither could find any examples in the New England, 1550–1750. London: Hamish Hamilton.
Testament; Pe rkins could only find one unconvincing Thomas, Keith. 1971. Religion and the Decline of Magic.New
example in the He b rew Bible (Psalm 58:5). Qu o t i n g York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.
Perkins’s own words, Filmer undermined the notion of
the witches’ covenant with the Devil. Furthermore, he Finland
obliquely opposed applying the death penalty for the It was long believed that very few witchcraft trials took
crime and denounced the notion that tort u re could place in Finland, but this was not the case. Unlike many
possibly secure reliable confessions. Ac c o rding to other countries where the number of accused witches
Filmer, the Devil and not the witch should be the target has diminished greatly after recent detailed studies, in
for scorn, hatred, and vigilance of every good Christian, Finland the number of persons indicted for witchcraft
for “the De v i l l” was unable to work miracles; he was and magic has increased considerably with every new
only “the worker of wonder, and the Witch but the study. Now we believe that probably over 2,000 persons
Counsellor, Perswader, or Commander of it.” Thus, the were charged with such crimes between 1520 and 1750
witch was deluded “and onely accessory before the Fact, (Nenonen 1992, 433; 1993, 83). Because the popula-
and the Devill onely principall” (Filmer 1653, 7). In tion of seventeenth-century Finland, which was then
English law at that time, an accessory to a criminal part of the Swedish kingdom, never exceeded much
offense could be convicted only if the principal felon more than half a million inhabitants—at the end of the
had already been charged and brought to justice. seventeenth century, before the Great Famine—scat-
Because the Devil could not be brought, bound and tered across a territory larger than the British Isles,
gagged, into court, Filmer was not only mocking the where provincial centers were hundreds of kilometers
notion of the reality and efficacy of witchcraft, but also apart, the number of those accused can be considered
attempting to establish that it was legally impossible to remarkable.
s e c u re convictions for this crime within the conve n-
tions of existing common law. Mythological Traits
Thus, although John Locke might have concluded of Finnish Magic
that, in his political writings, so much “glib nonsense Even when it was believed that few witchcraft trials
was never put together in well-sounding En g l i s h” occurred on Finnish territory, many tales circulated as
(DNB, 1908, VI: 1304–1305), Filmer deserves much early as the Middle Ages about the great power of
credit for introducing both humor and withering cyni- witches and shamans in Lapland and Finland. Later, in
cism into the scholarly debate on the nature of witch- 1555, a Catholic priest (nominally the last Catholic
craft. While his legal training served to pinpoint anom- archbishop in Sweden) named Olaus Magnus Gothus
alies in the prosecution of this crime, his enthusiasm for spread these stories among Europe’s learned elite by
scientific advance led him to declare that “it would pose publishing a book on the history and culture of
Aristotle himselfe, to tell us eve ry thing that can be Scandinavia and Finland, Historia de Ge n t i b u s
Finland 373 |
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Septentrionalibus (History of the Northern Peoples). Some cases of love magic can also be found from the
Since then the great fame of northern witches and c o u rt re c o rds. Various m a l e fic i a (harmful magic) we re
shamans has been well established in literature. p e rformed to bring about damage or harm people,
The Finnish wordnoita(witch) originally referred to although witches were very seldom accused of collective
one who employed the technique of falling into a lovi mischief, like crop failures. In Finland, simple threaten-
(trance), or an ecstasy ending in fainting. The term lovi, ing speech or “bad words” sufficed to cause malignant
which literally means a hole or a cut, referred to the gap effects. Singing incantations we re typically used in
b e t ween He a ven and the underworld. Ac c o rding to magical healing, but they could be used to cause harm
some Finnish mythology, this gap was the gateway to as well. In Finnish folk poems, “to sing” (laulaa) often
Hades (Tuonela, Ma n a l a). Falling into a trance meant refers to singing incantations (laulaa loitsuja). Casting
that the soul of the person traveled to the underworld salt often accompanied reciting spells.
to meet the souls of the dead, who offered wisdom Usually such magic was aimed at harming people or
unattainable otherwise. l i vestock, but it also could be employed to heal sick
The underworld was governed by a female goddess people and cattle. As in Estonia, interference with, and
called Louhi or Pohjolan Emäntä (Mistress of the North, d e s t ruction of, beer being brewed also appeared often
which was often a synonym for the underw o r l d ) . in court records. However, tar burning was very seldom
According to some folk poems, when the world began, damaged by magical means, although tar soon became
the Mi s t ress of the No rth, while fighting with other Finland’s most important export and figured among the
gods, created all of humanity’s adve r s i t i e s — i l l n e s s e s , most important subsidiary trades of peasants. In gener-
crop failures, and so on. Shamans and witch doctors, it al, magic was directed almost exclusively against tradi-
was believed, could fend off the evil spirits of Louhi.By tional means of livelihood.
conjuring or singing incantations, the seer sent the mis- Modern theories of witches worshipping Satan at the
f o rtunes back to the gloomy northern underw o r l d w i t c h e s’ Sabbat had little influence in Finland. Su c h
where they belonged. theories dominated only some trials in places under
Shamanism was part of the Finns’ and Lapps’ ancient particularly strong Swedish influence, like Ahvenanmaa
religion, although among the Finns the tradition seems (Åland), a group of islands located between Sweden and
to have almost entirely vanished before the time of the Finland, or Os t robothnia on the western coast. In the
witch hunts. Ve ry few shamans appeared in courts in interior of the country, or in eastern Finland, ideas of
Finnish Lapland, although shamanism was still a living diabolism were hardly known.
tradition and the area was famous for shamans and
witches. Shamanism was by no means the last Finnish Chronology of the
tradition of great witch doctors and seers. Fervent seers, Persecutions
who did not fall in trances or use a shaman dru m Countermagic was an everyday habit, and unofficial
(noitarumpu) in their rituals, were known as intomies or violence against witches took place in the Middle Ages
myrrysmies (enthusiasts or witch doctors). This type of and long afterwards; courts were not the only place to
seer dominated soothsaying and magical healing long attack witches. However, Finland’s first recorded witch-
b e f o re the time of the witch hunts. The shamanistic craft trials appeared in court documents from the
witch culture probably surv i ved alongside them until 1520s. The number of trials increased from the 1550s
well into the Middle Ages (Siikala 1986, 285–297). but decreased at the end of the century. In all, 93 per-
Many fragments of traditional incantations can be sons were accused before 1600, two-thirds of them (64)
found in court records, but we lack any contemporary between 1560 and 1590. Two-thirds of the accused
explanations of how and in what context to interpre t were men, and thirteen death sentences were passed
these spells. It seems likely that the old mythological (Nenonen and Kervinen 1994, 232–234, 277, note 5).
traits of magic were rarely prominent in the witchcraft Political turmoil in Finland, a long war against
trials of sixteenth- and seve n t e e n t h - c e n t u ry Fi n l a n d , Russia, and, soon after, a civil war between members of
although fervent seers are occasionally met in court the Swedish royal family help explain the decline in
records and some features of shamanism can be found witchcraft accusations between 1590 and 1620. Tr i a l s
even later. Professional healers were seldom accused of i n c reased after the 1620s, and the number of convic-
witchcraft during the sixteenth and seventeenth cen- tions increased rapidly. Fewer than forty persons are
turies—so far there are no detailed studies from the known to have been charged in the 1630s, but at least
eighteenth century—and this may explain why a mini- 150 persons we re accused of witchcraft and magic in
mum amount of material related to older mythological the 1650s. Most of the supposed witches we re men,
beliefs has been published from court records. though women now constituted almost half of them.
C o n ve r s e l y, the magical deeds described in these One group stands out sharply: some twenty notorious
re c o rds generally resemble the kind of acts know n witches—male and female—we re tried in we s t e r n
almost eve ry w h e re in Eu rope during the witch hunts. Finland from the 1640s until the late 1660s. De s p i t e
374 Finland |
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the fact that their numbers were few, they were greatly benevolent magic was a member of the clergy, often the
f e a red and widely blamed for misfortunes, sometimes parish minister, or a state official, usually a bailiff (kru-
by an entire parish. These witches we re itinerant beg- ununvouti or nimismies).
gars who lived by terrorizing ord i n a ry people; we can A third kind of witchcraft trial emerged in the mid-
call them beggar witches. 1660s, when some of the leading figures of the Finnish
During the 1660s, the number of trials rose. It elite, among them the bishop of Turku, Juhana Gezelius
i n c reased even further in the next decade, when 217 the El d e r, adopted continental theories about witches
persons were reportedly accused; the actual total proba- who worshipped Satan at the Sabbat. The first trials
bly exceeded 300. Fi n l a n d’s witch persecutions culmi- based on theories about flying witches and diabolism
nated in the 1670s and early 1680s. After 1690 witch- emerged in Ahvenanmaa (Åland) in Turku diocese dur-
craft trials declined. War and social turmoil at the ing 1666 (Heikkinen 1969, 204ff.). This occurred two
beginning of the eighteenth century may explain the years before the great Swedish mass hunts of northern
d e c rease, as Russian troops occupied Finland for ye a r s Dalarna. The impact came from Germany through the
during the Great No rthern War (1700–1721). Mi n o r Baltic; a judge who had attended the Swe d i s h
revivals of witchcraft trials took place later in the eigh- Un i versity of Ta rtu in Estonia was appointed to the
teenth century. Ahvenanmaa district.
Finland’s witchcraft trials differed from time to time Perhaps no more than eighty persons were accused of
and from place to place. One may ask whether Finland diabolical witchcraft in Finland. Most such trials took
f o l l owed any consistent patterns. Cu r re n t l y, three dif- place in the 1670s and early 1680s in Os t ro b o t h n i a ,
ferent phases of witchcraft trials can be clearly differen- located on Finland’s western coast some 300 kilometers
tiated (Nenonen 1992, 41–72, 223ff.; 1993, 88–90). north of Turku, then the capital of Finland. In these tri-
First, until the 1670s, mostly men we re accused of als, women dominated among the accused.
m a l e ficent magic, and at least two-thirds of the Ostrobothnian mass panics paralleled those in Sweden
accused we re acquitted. Most often, the accuser was a on the opposite shore of the Gulf of Bothnia; in both
p r i vate person who had some quarrels with the sup- places, women dominated among those accused of dia-
posed witch. The accuser believed that his or her ene- bolical witchcraft. The role of the government was
my had used malevolent magic to re venge some insult prominent in these cases, even though private accusers
or harm. had an important place as well. Howe ve r, most of the
Be n e volent magic was not considered an indictable supposed Sabbat-goers we re acquitted, and in the late
offense until the 1660s, even though some statutes 1680s the courts took a more critical attitude tow a rd
against white magic dated from the mid-sixteenth cen- Sabbat beliefs.
tury.The courts did not enforce these edicts, but based In addition to these different types of trials, some
their judgments instead on Swedish laws from the late m i d - s e venteenth century cases against men using
Middle Ages. Sometimes the Church punished per- demonic magic took place at the new Un i versity of
formers of benevolent magic. But during the 1660s, a Tu rku (established in 1640). Bishop Eskil Te r s e ru s ,
turn took place in witchcraft cases. It was so sharp and who came from Sweden, even blamed Finnish schools
swift that many courts had difficulties following the and the university for teaching magic (Heikkinen 1969,
n ew policy, according to which benevolent magic, 380).
including healing with suspicious pro c e d u res, became
an offense in secular courts. In the 1660s, men still Male and Female Witches
dominated among the accused. Howe ve r, during the Most of the accused were peasants or their wives, and in
next two decades, women formed the majority, most towns burghers or their wives; in both instances, most
often charged with benevolent magic. of those accused were married. More strikingly, the
Tw o - t h i rds of those accused of benevolent magic persons accused of witchcraft and magic were often of
we re convicted, and mostly given fines, because they considerable wealth, though many itinerant beggars
had indeed performed acts that were now seen as illegal a p p e a red in the courts as well (Nenonen 1992,
(healing by herbs and other natural means was however 201–220). Almost without exception, the supposed
still permissible). Moreover, benevolent magic was easy witch was an acquaintance who lived in the neighbor-
to verify as it usually had many witnesses, for example, hood and had been known for years by his or her
the sick person who had asked for help. Often, people accusers. Despite tales about great and famous witches
could not distinguish between their ordinary daily work dwelling somewhere in the far north, it was invariably
habits and the illegal magical means they we re said to someone from the neighborhood, rather than such ter-
have committed. “Our Father who art in Heaven” was rifying but distant enemies, who happened to be caught
fully appropriate for prayers, but when repeated nine and tried for witchcraft.
times in suspicious circumstances, its meaning could Very few (5 percent) of Finland’s accused witches are
appear doubtful. Most often, the accuser in trials of k n own to have been charged more than once with
Finland 375 |
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witchcraft or magic, and there is little evidence of be explained by this extremely strict policy of both state
accused witches coming from different generations and church opposing traditional magic in eve ryday life.
within the same family (Nenonen 1992, 200, People we re usually punished with a heavy fine; poor
218–219). All of this contradicts much of what has people who could not pay we re sentenced to the lash.
been believed about witches. Howe ve r, as pro f e s s i o n a l Howe ve r, the most sacrilegious practices—for instance,
healers were not often charged with illegal magic, noth- using a consecrated wafer for magical purposes, or utter-
ing can be said about their families. ing curses against Go d — re c e i ved a death sentence.
Ac c o rding to the court re c o rds, men seemed more Most such condemnations we re made in the re l a t i ve l y
inclined to use harmful magic, whereas women we re s h o rt period of time between 1649 and 1684.
m o re often accused of healing through illegal magical Jurisdictional practice in eastern Finland followed the
means. However, statistics based on court records give a same lines as in western Finland, and benevolent magic
one-dimensional picture (Nenonen 1992, 353–363). became a target for secular courts. Howe ve r, women
Because accusing women of any witchcraft and magic we re seldom charged with magic and witchcraft in east-
was uncommon in many areas before the 1670s, they ern Finland, and—unlike elsew h e re — e ven less so in
we re rarely charged with maleficent magic either. southern Karelia around Vyborg at the end of the seve n-
Conversely, because benevolent magic was not regularly teenth century, when only one-fifth of the accused we re
considered a crime before the 1660s, the men who pre- women. In general, the further from the west coast a tri-
dominated among Fi n l a n d’s earlier accused witches al was held, the more often men we re accused. This was
were not often charged with benevolent magic. i n versely pro p o rtional to the frequency of trials: far few-
C o n t r a ry to the statistics derived from the court er judicial proceedings took place in the inland areas and
records, it is evident that in everyday life, both men and eastern Finland than in western Finland, except for
women used malevolent magic, and both acted as heal- southern Karelia, where trials we re more frequent than
ers. Nevertheless, women probably dominated the vari- in other eastern areas. Most trials in northern Fi n l a n d
ous forms of benevolent magic employed in such every- took place on the shores of Os t robothnia, but not in the
day tasks as animal husbandry and healing. To a great i n t e r i o r.
extent, animal husbandry was women’s work in tradi- With few exceptions, Fi n l a n d’s judicial system did
tional agriculture, and informal healing may also have not yield to mass hysteria but retained traditional pro-
been more appropriate for them. The division of ordi- cedures and investigated witchcraft according to its best
n a ry tasks along gender lines may have dictated who understanding. To rt u re was illegal, though it was per-
used which kinds of magic in eve ryday life. Pe r h a p s mitted by the Court of Appeal, as happened a few times
men were less vulnerable. With the occurrence of a seri- during trials for diabolism in Ahvenanmaa. Ve ry rare
ous quarrel or disagreement between men, followed by traces of unofficial violence and injustice can be found
some sort of misfortune falling upon one or the other, in court cases. In all, 150 death sentences may have
suspicions of malevolent magic could be aroused. Bu t passed in lower courts; but the Turku Court of Appeal,
when men we re hunting or fishing, no one could established in 1623, confirmed fewer than half of them.
observe their use of magic.
Only during the 1670s and 1680s did women com-
MARKO NENONEN
prise most of Finland’s accused witches, reaching a peak
of 72 percent in some western areas. It is notew o rt h y
See also:MAGNUS,OLAUS;MALEWITCHES;SHAMANISM;SOCIAL
that the change in jurisdictional practice criminalizing
ANDECONOMICSTATUSOFWITCHES;SWEDEN.
References and further reading:
b e n e volent magic did not cause an immediate shift
Heikkinen, Antero. 1969. Paholaisen liittolaiset(Allies of the Devil).
f rom male to female witches; in the 1660s, men we re
Helsinki: Suomen historiallinen seura. English summary.
still charged more often than women. Howe ve r, the
——— and Timo Kervinen. 1990. “Finland: The Male
n ew theories about witches who flew to the Sabbat in Domination.” Pp. 319–338 in Early Modern European
order to worship Satan could have been the final cause Witchcraft.Edited by Bengt Ankarloo and Gustav Henningsen.
that broke the male stereotype of the Finnish witch in Oxford: Clarendon.
the 1670s. Nenonen, Marko. 1989. “Hexenglauben, Mensch und
Theories about the witches’ Sabbat had no impact on Gemeinschaft in Finnland. Spätmittelalter und frühe Neuzeit.”
either inland or eastern Finland. With some exc e p t i o n s , Pp. 58–74 in Medium Aevum Quotidianum 19. Quotidianum
Fennicum: Daily Life in Medieval Finland.Edited by Christian
Finnish clergy and secular authorities mostly re m a i n e d
Krötzl and Jaakko Masonen. Krems: Medium Aevum
critical tow a rd such new theories and never gave unqual-
Quotidianum.
i fied approval to such beliefs. Re g a rding the practice of
———. 1992. Noituus, taikuus ja noitavainot: Ala-Satakunnan,
b e n e volent magic, which was not harmful but highly
Pohjois-Pohjanmaan ja Viipurin Karjalan maaseudulla vuosina
o f f e n s i ve to the ort h o d ox Lutheran clergy, the authori-
1620–1700.Helsinki: Suomen historiallinen seura. English
ties we re quite seve re and would not tolerate such cus- summary: Witchcraft, magic and witch trials. Summary also,
toms. The high number of Finnish witchcraft trials can see www.chronicon.com/noita.
376 Finland |
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———. 1993. “Envious Are All the People, Witches Watch at appellate courts, that Fi s c h a rt became invo l ved in trans-
Every Gate. Finnish Witches and Witch Trials in the 17th lating and editing demonological texts. In 1581 he
Century.” in Scandinavian Journal of History18: 77–91. e m p l oyed his mastery of French to produce the fir s t
(Reprinted in New Perspectives on Witchcraft, Magic, and
German translation of Bodin’s demonology in 1581. A
Demonology.Edited by Brian P. Levack. Vol. 2. London:
telltale phrase about the “parliament of witches” show s
Routledge/Taylor and Francis: 2001).
that Fi s c h a rt’s translation of Bodin was employed later
———. 1995. “Noituus ja idän mies.” [Male Witches in Eastern
that decade for interrogating witches in the bishopric of
Finland.] Pp. 131–162 in Manaajista maalaisaateliin. Edited by
Augsburg (Behringer 1997, 125). In 1582 Fi s c h a rt pre-
Kimmo Katalaja. Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura.
———, and Timo Kervinen. 1994. Synnin palkka on kuolema. p a red an index for a reprinting of the infamous Ma l l e u s
Otava: Helsinki. Ma l e fic a ru m (The Hammer of Witches, 1486) by the
Siikala, Anna-Leena. 1986. “Shamanistic Themes in Finnish Epic Fr a n k f u rt printer Bassaeus. In 1586, Fi s c h a rt offered a
Poetry.” Pp. 223–233 in Traces of the Central Asian Culture in second edition of his German translation of Bodin, dedi-
the North.Mémoires de la Société Finno-ougrienne 194. cated to the son and successor of his patron vo n
Helsinki. Rapperstein (Hauffen 1921, I, 84); it was apparently the
———. 1992. Suomalainen sˇamanismi.Helsinki: Suomalaisen
last published book signed by this pro l i fic author.
Kirjallisuuden Seura.
Un f o rt u n a t e l y, Fi s c h a rt’s invo l vement with witch
hunting did not stop with modernizing the Ma l l e u s o r
Fischart, Johann (1546–1590) translating its demonological successor. Although no
Fischart was a late-Renaissance German humanist from legal re c o rds have surv i ved from Forbach, the Lorraine
Strasbourg significant in the history of European witch- district he administered, we know that at least four or
craft in two capacities: first, as the German translator of five witchcraft trials we re held there in August and
Bodin’s Démonomanie des sorciers (Demon-Mania of September 1587, probably resulting in death sentences.
Witches, 1580), and later as a witch-hunting official in The evidence comes from the demonology published in
the Germanophone part of the duchy of Lorraine. In 1595 by Lorraine’s chief pro s e c u t o r, Nicolas Rémy, who
the latter capacity, Fischart became an informant of included (with apparent precision) the names and re s i-
Lorraine’s homegrown demonologist, Nicolas Rémy. dences of many imprisoned witches and the dates of
Fischart is best known for his German translation and their sentencing. In Book I, chap. 12, Rémy says that “a s
adaptation of François Rabelais’s Ga r g a n t u a a n d I was writing these lines, I re c e i ved re p o rts from the
Pantagruel. i n t e r rogations of some witches at Forbach, a small tow n
Educated at Paris and Basel, where he earned a doc- located in the German part of the duchy of Lorraine. I
torate in law in 1574, Fischart published a remarkable learned something of which I had been unaware, about
variety of writings. In addition to his great Rabelais the witches methods for assuring that their husbands
translations, or Geschichtsklitterung,which he reworked noticed nothing when their wives left them in bed while
twice after its first version in 1575, Fi s c h a rt pro d u c e d p reparing to fly off to their re u n i o n s” (Rémy 1998,
n u m e rous anti-Catholic (especially anti-Je s u i t ) 108–109). Each of Fi s c h a rt’s three witches employed a
polemics, many poems (including a verse version of d i f f e rent technique: one put a child’s mattress in her
Till Eu l e n s p i e g e l), a misogynistic satire told from the place; a second used a straw broom (both after pro-
viewpoint of a flea, a treatise on laughter as a cure for nouncing their demon’s name); the third and most orig-
gout, and much else. His bro t h e r - i n - l a w, Be r n a rd inal rubbed her sleeping husband’s ears with the same
Jobin, one of St r a s b o u r g’s greatest printers, in whose magic grease that she used to anoint herself. Rémy pre-
house Fischart lived during the 1570s, published most sents other details from confessions by Fi s c h a rt’s
of them. In 1580 Fi s c h a rt moved to Sp e ye r, where he Forbach witches, telling us that two other suspects we re
practiced law at the imperial chamber court or a r rested for helping an arch-witch poison her own son;
Reichskammergerichtin Speyer. After marrying in 1583, one of them, a man, also dug up a newly buried child
he found a post in a Lorraine fief belonging to his and boiled him in order to make a diabolical unguent to
Protestant patron Egenolf von Rapperstein. During the s p read on trees (Rémy 1998, 184–185, 197).
last seven years of his life, the Protestant Fi s c h a rt
administered the solidly Catholic district of Forbach as WILLIAM MONTER
Am t m a n n ( b a i l i f f) in the service of its suzerain, Du k e
Charles III of Lorraine.
See also: BODIN,JEAN;LORRAINE,DUCHYOF;MALLEUSMALEFI-
CARUM;RÉMY,NICOLAS.
When translating Rabelais, Fi s c h a rt added some anti-
References and further reading:
Jewish asides to the original material and adopted a re a l-
Behringer,Wolfgang. 1997. Witchcraft Persecutions in Bavaria.
istic rather than jocular approach to diabolical magic
NewYork: Cambridge University.
(Weinberg 1986, 114–120). But it was only after start i n g
Hauffen, Adolf. 1921–1922. Johann Fischart: Ein Literaturbild aus
to work at the Reichskammergericht, which showe d t h e der Zeit derGegenreformation.2 vols. Berlin and Leipzig: Walter
same caution and skepticism about witchcraft as other de Gruyter.
Fischart, Johann 377 |
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Rémy, Nicolas. 1998.La démonolâtrie. Edited and translated by A large-scale regional witch hunt occurred when the
Jean Boës. Nancy: Presses universitaires de Nancy. whole archbishopric and electorate of Trier suffered a
Weinberg, Florence. 1986. Gargantua in a Convex Mirror: p rolonged and seve re subsistence crisis after 1580. By
Fischart’sView of Rabelais.NewYork, Bern, and Frankfurt:
1586, as witchcraft trials took place with increasing fre-
Peter Lang.
quency in the territories bordering Trier, accused witch-
es (under torture) began describing inhabitants of Trier
Flade, Dietrich (1534–1589) as leaders of the witches’ sect, who allegedly destroyed
Dr. Dietrich Flade, Stadtschultheiss (town bailiff) of crops with weather magic to profit from famine by sell-
Trier and the richest man in the city, was burned at the ing their private stocks of grain. Suspicion rapidly
stake as a convicted witch on September 18, 1589. His focused on Flade as a leader of these wealthy Tr i e r
trial aroused interest throughout the Holy Roman witches, alleging that he presided over the witches’
Empire; Peter Binsfeld, Cornelius Loos, and Martín Sabbats. Accused witches even alleged that Flade was
Del Rio mentioned it. Moreover, the complete trial involved in a plot devised by the witches to murder the
record has survived, along with other documents relat- archbishop of Trier. In the summer of 1587, denuncia-
ed to Flade’s case. tions against Flade increased, sometimes made by
The son of Tr i e r’s town clerk, Dietrich Flade was accused witches who were themselves his debtors. The
born in 1534. After studying law, he found serv i c e a rchbishop of Trier (who took the threat of witchcraft
with the elector-archbishops of Tr i e r. In the ensuing seriously) requested the Jesuit-led theology faculty of
years, he made a good marriage, accumulated va r i o u s Trier Un i versity to evaluate the allegations against
o f fices, and made many loans, gaining signific a n t Flade, and they incriminated him. Flade tried twice to
political influence while becoming the wealthiest man escape trial by fleeing the city; he offered to spend the
in Tr i e r. By 1559 he was already a k u rfürstlicher Ra t rest of his life in a monastery after giving all his money
(electoral councillor); by 1569, he combined the to the elector. Nothing worked. Dr. Flade was arrested
o f fices of S c h u l t h e i s s ( b a i l i f f) at the criminal court in on April 22, 1589. Rendered tractable through torture,
Tr i e r, Be i s i t zer (assessor) at the Ho f g e r i c h t ( e l e c t o r a l Flade soon confessed to all the acts of harmful magic of
c o u rt) of Koblenz (Coblenz), S c h u l t h e i s s of the cathe- which he had been accused. The pardon that he hoped
d r a l - d e a n e ry in Tr i e r, and Schöffe ( c o u rt assessor) of the for until the end of his trial never materialized, and on
criminal court of the imperial abbey of St. Ma x i m i n . September 18, 1589, he was strangled and then burned
As a faithful servant of the electors of Tr i e r, opposing at the stake.
attempts by the city of Trier to gain greater autonomy, The trial of Dr. Dietrich Flade must be seen in the
Flade approved the suppression of its Protestant fac- context of the history of the city of Trier.The city’s fail-
tion led by Caspar Olevian in 1559. Flade also sup- ure to gain autonomy within the Holy Roman Empire
p o rted Elector Jakob III von Eltz (died 1580) in the and the ensuing humiliating capitulation to the power
e x p e n s i ve legal suit brought by the municipal council- of the elector in 1580 meant that the standing and
lors before the Re i c h s h o f ra t (imperial aulic court ) , legitimacy of its governors were seriously compromised.
attempting to obtain confirmation of Tr i e r’s status as T h e y, and particularly people connected in any way
an imperial city and thus its independence from its ter- with its political and economic depression, were regard-
ritorial lord, the elector. The case ended in 1580 with a ed by most citizens as corrupt traitors, opportunists, or
c rushing defeat for the municipality, throwing the city easily became proofs of witchcraft, because individuals
of Trier into financial chaos, economic depression, and first fell into sins such as ambition and greed thro u g h
a crisis of political legitimacy. their seduction by the Devil. After 1585, municipal
Flade was rew a rded for his service by being appoint- authorities in Trier could no longer resist popular pres-
ed St a d t s c h u l t h e i s s and thus chairman of the city’s sure for witchcraft trials, now accompanied by riots and
administration and criminal court when the elector disturbances. The authorities’ hesitant, indecisive
reformed the city government. Until 1583, Flade also action in the matter only succeeded in raising the suspi-
acted as the electoral Statthalter ( v i c e - g overnor). He cion that they too belonged to the witches’ sect. T h e
was considered avaricious and ambitious, and was execution of Flade, pandering in part to popular anger
b e l i e ved to accept bribes in his role as judge. Flade had against witchcraft, dramatically shattered any assump-
not only made various loans totalling 40,000 florins to tion that high social and political rank protected indi-
c i t i zens, peasants, and vintners of Trier and its ru r a l viduals from being tried as witches. It acted as a catalyst
hinterland, but also loaned money to both the elector for subsequent trials against high-ranking men and
and the city, which owed him 9,000 and 4,000 flo r i n s , women, during which almost all those who had been
re s p e c t i ve l y. He also acted as judge in eight witchcraft i n vo l ved in the humiliating political defeat of the city
trials and sentenced eight female citizens of Trier to in 1580 were executed.
death, so Flade cannot be considered an opponent of
witchcraft trials. RITA VOLTMER
378 Flade, Dietrich |
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See also:BINSFELD,PETER;JESUITS(SOCIETYOFJESUS); LOOS,COR- Pagan Europe offers rich examples of magical flight,
NELIUS;ST.MAXIMIN,PRINCE-ABBEYOF;TRIER,ELECTORATEOF. particularly in Nordic tradition. The fourteenth-centu-
References and further reading: ry Icelandic sagas (whose manuscripts date from the fif-
Burr, George L. 1891. “The Fate of Dietrich Flade.” Papers of the teenth century) describe the idea of the gandreioN,usual-
American Historical Association 5: 189–243.
ly implying a witch going out, often in a noncorporeal
Dillinger, Johannes. 1998. “Richter als Angeklagte. Hexenprozesse
sense. The later manuscripts use the term for physical
gegen herrschaftliche Amtsträger in Kurtrier und Schwäbisch-
transvection to the site of an assembly or feast. But the
Österreich.” Pp. 124–169 in Vergleichende Perspektiven—
most suggestive testimony of all with respect to assem-
Perspektiven des Vergleichs. Studien zur europäischen Geschichte
von der Spätantike bis ins 20. Jahrhundert.Edited by Helga bly and transvection is the famous passage fro m
Schnabel-Schüle. Mainz: Philipp von Zabern. Hávamál in the Edda (ca. 1200).
Voltmer, Rita. 2001. “Zwischen Herrschaftskrise, Because such notions smacked of paganism and
Wirtschaftsdepression und Jesuitenpropaganda: i d o l a t ry, Christian theologians condemned women
Hexenverfolgungen in der Stadt Trier (15.–17. Jahrhundert).” who believed that they left their homes secretly at
Jahrbuch für westdeutsche Landesgeschichte27: 37–107. night to attend the court of a goddess or spirit (with
———. 2003. “Germany’s First ‘Superhunt’?”—Rezeption und
d i f f e rent local names, but often identified as Di a n a ) ,
Konstruktion der so genannten Trierer Verfolgungen (16.–21.
and rode with her on processions, traveling great dis-
Jahrhundert). Pp. 225–258 in Realität und Mythos.
tances. First condemned in the Canon Ep i s c o p i in the
Hexenverfolgung und Rezeptionsgeschichte.Edited by Katrin
early tenth-century penitential by Regino, abbot of
Moeller and Burghart Schmidt. Hamburg: DOBU.
Prüm, the condemnation was repeated in the follow i n g
Flight of Witches c e n t u ry by the we l l - k n own canonist, Bu rc h a rd of
Worms, who warned against such women in book
The belief that demons transport magicians and witches
nineteen of his De c re t o rum libri XX (The Twe n t y
t h rough the air simply inve rts the belief that angels carry
Books of Decisions), known as the C o r rector et Me d i c u s
saints and holy men. Both, known as transvection, have
( C o r re c t o r, or the Physician). Early medieval theolo-
been around since antiquity. In Grecian and Roman lore ,
gians we re convinced that such beliefs we re mere l y
s o rc e resses could transform themselves into birds, espe-
delusions of the Devil. Although the nocturnal pro c e s-
cially owls and ravens, as Apuleius of Madaura vividly
sions we re illusory, they we re neve rtheless linked to
describes in the Golden As s .The Eu ropean folk belief in
diabolical activities. The leader of the nocturnal host
the ecstatic flight of women as the entourage of a fairy
had many names: He rodias, Abundia, Satia, Ho l d a ,
queen was ascribed ca. 900 to the Roman goddess Di a n a .
and Pe rchta we re most common. In the thirteenth cen-
Me d i e val romances are full of beautiful fairies like
t u ry, William of Paris added Domina Ab u n d i a(Lady of
Morgan le Fa y, who had not only the ability to fly and
Abundance) and her ladies, who we re believed to enter
change her appearance but also the power to heal.
houses at night and bring riches when they found
Witches, who did harm rather than good, flew only
offerings. The poem Romance of the Ro s e (ca. 1270)
under cover of darkness and usually with the aid of
mentioned that sorc e rers believed they wandered with
b roomsticks, forks, or shovels. Or they might ride
“Lady Abundance.” Their souls left their bodies and
demons who had transformed themselves into such ani-
went with good ladies into strange places. Some schol-
mals as goats, horses, cows, or wolves; clerics claimed
ars have connected these nocturnal groups of women
the devils even had the power to pick people up and
to rural fairy beliefs.
whisk them through the air without any visible means
Soon, scholars failed to discriminate between differ-
of support or transport. Witches we re further accused
ent types of nocturnal ladies and their entourage. As
of using ointments consisting of fat boiled from unbap-
early as the thirteenth century, Stephen of Bourbon
t i zed infants to help them fly. Other magic ointments
w rote that the bonae re s (good women) rode on sticks
supposedly contained herbs and drugs that put witches
but that the malae res (evil women) or lamiae rode on
into hallucinatory states, causing them to believe that
w o l ves. The term l a m i a has a complex meaning;
they had actually flown, usually toward certain moun-
according to William of Auvergne (1180–1249), it is an
tains or remote places where Sabbats were performed.
evil spirit like the striga (screech owl—ancient Roman
History belief in a bird-like cre a t u re sucking childre n’s blood,
Two famous biblical stories involve magical flight. In but coming to mean an evil woman who practiced
the Hebrew Bible, angels carried Habakkuk from Judea magic). Often identified with the Bi b l e’s Lilith, the
to Chaldea almost instantaneously.The NewTestament lamia also has cannibalistic attributes; she is a complex
describes how Simon Magus, a Samarian magician, conflation of nightmare, fairy, and unholde. By the fif-
challenged St. Peter to a magical competition in Rome. teenth century, this conflation became general: theolo-
When Simon was able to fly with the aid of demons, gians intermingled the lamiae with the bonae res, subor-
Peter, observing the evil spirits carrying him, started to dinating the latter to the former, and nocturnal fli g h t
pray, thus forcing the demons to let Simon fall. became diabolized.
Flight of Witches 379 |
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Witch flies out from a house while others prepare to ascend the chimney. Flight (transvection) was essential if witches were to travel great distances to
attend their meetings, Sabbats. (TopFoto.co.uk)
The Er ro res Ga z a r i o ru m ( Er rors of the Gazars or a black ram; he added that if a boy we re born with a
Gazarii [Cathars—a common term for heretics and lat- caul, he could traverse great distances in a single night.
er witches]) ca. 1437 asserted that demons presented a King James VI of Scotland (later James I of En g l a n d )
stick with flying ointment to all new witches after they was generally skeptical about the flight of the witch in
had offered the “kiss of shame.” Paulo Grillando, writ- his Demonologie (1597), and thought it more likely that
ing in 1525 of the danger church bells posed to witch- witches flew in spirit than in their actual physical bod-
es, concluded that the speed of a witch’s flight “was gen- ies. (It is worth noting that English witches almost nev-
erally sufficient to obviate this peril.” But he also er flew; none of the various witchcraft acts in effect after
mentioned the confession of a woman named Lucrezia, 1542 ever prohibited flying.)
who claimed that when returning from a Sabbat in But could these women really fly? At the end of the
Be n e vento the ringing of the bells brought her dow n , Middle Ages, such clerics as Alphonso de Sp i n a ,
causing her to be captured and later burned (Ro b b i n s Nicholas of Cusa, or the bishop of Avila, Alonso de
1959, 512). Madrigal, accepted the experiences of women who fol-
Subsequent demonologists also pondered pro b l e m s lowed the bonae res as basically imaginary. Upon inves-
connected with flying witches. Jean Bodin, in his De la tigation, it was determined that while these women
démonomanie des sorciers ( On the De m o n - Mania of thought they we re traveling, they we re actually lying
Witches, 1580), affirmed that witches rode a broom or motionless in a trance, completely insensible to their
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s u r roundings and could not be awakened by shouts, Ginzburg (1983) was particularly interested in this type
heavy blows, or even by being burned. However, some of flight, not the physical forms of flight clearly implau-
years later Alonso de Madrigal had completely changed sible to the modern reader. It was precisely at this time
his mind, and he surely was not the only one. He now that Ginzburg found records in northeastern Italy
maintained that such women did not travel in their describing benandanti (good-doers) fighting witches at
imagination, nor were they in a trance, but they really night, but “in spirit,” to protect the fertility of the
did fly through the air at night, with demons carrying fields. While in trance it was quite dangerous, because,
them from place to place. if by chance, while they were out, someone came with
No rth of the Alps, Johannes Ni d e r’s Fo rm i c a r i u s a light and looked for a long time at the body, the spir-
(The Anthill, 1437/1438), which became a major it would never reenter it until there was no one left
s o u rce for fif t e e n t h - c e n t u ry witchcraft doctrine, around to see it that night. If the body, seeming to be
re p o rted the case of a woman who claimed to fly by dead, should be buried, the spirit would have to wan-
night. A Dominican monk persuaded her to let him der around the world until the fixed hour for the body
and others observe her. They saw her rub some salve on to die.
her body while saying a charm. At once she fell into a The spirit flight of the benandanti obviously was the
deep sleep, in which she thrashed around so forc e f u l l y same phenomenon many demonologists described. The
that she fell from the table and hit her head. When she d i f f e rence was that the b e n a n d a n t i’s flight was entire l y
woke up, she told the witnesses that she had flow n part of a coherent belief system, so they could explain it
with Venus, but they eventually convinced her that she to their inquisitors in the 1570s. In other parts of
had been dre a m i n g . Eu rope, re f e rences to this “t r a veling while asleep” are
Heinrich Kramer, in the Malleus Ma l e fic a ru m (T h e often encountered, but widely scattered, with the
Hammer of Witches, 1486) offered two possible expla- Sabbat aspect imposed, usually by the judiciary. In
nations of how witches could fly: either a devil could Friuli, it took roughly 100 years to impose the Sabbat
transport them, or, if that was inconvenient, they could aspect onto the people who practiced the flight, so
invoke the Devil and go to sleep. Both methods incor- strong was their folklore and knowledge of it. It could
porated characteristics of the bonae re s , as well as the be, as Ginzburg suggested, the case that this phenome-
evil lamiae,into the new concept. Night flight provided non or belief was once widespread and that in most of
a clear example of how Kramer could incorporate the Eu rope it vastly diminished, but that in Friuli it
trance-like dream state of women who rode with the remained re l a t i vely intact until the mid-seve n t e e n t h
b e n e volent bonae re s into his image of the witch by century.
adapting the popular concept of the soul leaving the Another notable example can be traced in the records
body.While the witches dreamed, a bluish vapor came of the Spanish Inquisition in Sicily from 1579 to 1651
f rom their mouths, which made them aware of eve ry- (almost exactly the same time-span as the b e n a n d a n t i)
thing that happened on their travels. associated with a sect known as donna di fuora ( t h e
In the second method of flying, the witches of the women from outside) (Henningsen 1990). Its members
Malleus Maleficarummade an ointment from murdered confessed to flying in spirit form to Be n e vento (a
c h i l d ren. Although they usually rubbed this salve on famous mainland gathering site for Italian witches) to
themselves, they might instead smear it over a chair or take part in a Sabbat. In 1560, another Italian witch
some other piece of wood, thus signaling an invisible said she rubbed herself with an ointment and entered a
demon to come, sometimes in animal form, and whisk trance; when coming out of it she found herself flying
them away. With this salve, the Ma l l e u s also managed over mountains and seas.
to integrate infanticide, an old characteristic of lamiae, It should also be noted that, precisely during this
with the night-flying women. If angels or demons time, Christian hagiographical re c o rds offer numero u s
t r a n s p o rted saints and magicians, and even Jesus had instances of ecstatic saints levitating corporeally
been carried by demons, the Malleus concluded, it was (e.g., St. Teresa of Avila).
much more likely for demons to carry women who
worshiped the Devil. Theories
Norman Cohn (1975) asserted that the picture of the
Fear of Flight Sabbat taking shape in the early fifteenth century was a
Henri Boguet, in Discours exécrable des sorc i e r s recent elaboration by lay and ecclesiastical judges and
(Execrable Speech of the Witches, 1602) quoted many demonologists of hostile stereotypes first applied by
conventional accounts of the physical flight of witches, Romans to the early Christians. Then the stereotype
using examples taken from certain witches whom he was applied by early medieval Christians to both Jews
had questioned himself. They confessed that while and heretical sects, and Cohn denied that this stereo-
remaining in their houses as dead for two or three type corresponded in any way to reality. Carlo Gi n z b u r g
hours, they were actually at the Sabbat in spirit. Carlo (1983) amended this argument by emphasizing that the
Flight of Witches 381 |
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s t e reotype underwent radical changes from the Broedel, Hans Peter. 2003. The Malleus Maleficarum and the
medieval period to the sixteenth and seventeenth cen- Construction of Witchcraft.Manchester, UK, and NewYork:
turies, under the influence of not only theologians, but Manchester University Press.
Buchholz, Peter. 1971. “Shamanism—Testimony of Old
also of folk rituals and beliefs: the myth of the Sabbat,
Icelanddic LiteraryTradition.” Miediaeval Scandinavia4: 7–20.
as Cohn described it, was not created solely by the elite,
Cohn, Norman. 1975. Europe’s Inner Demons: An Inquiry Inspired
because folklore also played a part. Cohn and Ginzburg
by the Great Witch Hunt. NewYork: Basic Books. Revised
agreed that when the Sabbat appeared in early modern
Edition 1993—Europe’s Inner Demons: The Demonization of
documents, the flight of the witch was an important
Christians in Medieval Christendom.London: Pimlico.
part of this myth. Ginzburg (1990) and his followers Ginzburg, Carlo. 1983. The Night Battles: Witchcraft and Agrarian
(e.g., Pócs 1992) emphasized the previously neglected Cults in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries.Baltimore: John
accounts of flight that occurred in folklore and shaman- Hopkins University Press.
ic culture throughout the world, rather than that it was ———. 1990. “Deciphering the Sabbat.” Pp. 121–137 in Early
an elaboration by elite mentalities during the witchcraft Modern European Witchcraft: Centers and Peripheries.Edited by
trials of the early modern period. In other words, they Bengt Ankarloo and Gustav Henningsen. Oxford: Clarendon.
Guiley, Rosemary Ellen. 1989. The Encyclopedia of Witches and
stressed that the flight of witches was not simply invent-
Witchcraft. NewYork and Oxford: Facts on File.
ed, or stolen from Roman antiquity, but also, in a sense,
Harner, Michael. 1973. “The Role of Hallucinogenic Plants in
discovered (or rediscovered). Ginzburg was particularly
European Witchcraft.” Pp. 125–150 in Hallucinogens and
concerned to show how and why the flight of witches
Shamanism. Edited by Michael Harner. London: Oxford
originated in folklore, believing that the benandanti
University Press.
provided vital clues to this. Ginzburg’s study about the Henningsen, Gustav. 1990. “The Ladies from Outside: An
benandanti clearly demonstrated that the notion of the Archaic Pattern of the Witches Sabbat.” Pp. 191–215 in Early
w i t c h’s Sabbat took shape around the middle of Modern European Witchcraft. Centres and Peripheries.Edited by
the fourteenth century, much earlier than was previous- Bengt Ankarloo and Gustav Henningsen. Oxford: Clarendon.
ly thought and clearly not in agreement with Cohn’s Mitchell, Stephen. 1997. “Blåkulla and Its Antecedents:
argument. Transvection and Conventicles in Nordic Witchcraft.”
Alvissmál 7: 81–100.
Although Cohn’s rationalist argument remains valid
Morris, Katherine. 1991. Sorceress or Witch.Lanham: University
insofar as witches did not actually fly, considerable evi-
Press of America.
dence about trance-like shamanistic states favo r s
Pócs, Eva. 1989. Fairies and Witches at the Boundary of South-Ea s t e rn
Gi n z b u r g’s explanation of the flight. When such
and Central Europe. Folklore Fellows Communications 243.
accounts are combined with the testimony of the
Helsinki: Suomalainen Tieideakatemia.
benandanti,Táltos,and Calusari—or indeed, compared ———. 1991–1992. “The Popular Foundations of the Witches’
with modern accounts of spirit flight—it appears that Sabbat and the Devil’s Pact in Central and Southeastern
there is something genuine occurring. Europe.” Acta Ethnographica37: 305–370.
Spirit flight is common today. Anywhere between 8 Robbins, Rossell Hope. 1959. Encyclopedia of Witchcraft and
and 34 percent of respondents in surveys claim to Demonology.Middlesex: Hamlyn.
h a ve had an out-of-body experience at some point in Tschacher,Werner. 1999. “Der Flug durch die Luft zwischen
Illusionstheorie und Realitätsbeweis.” InZeitschrift der Savigny-
their lives. Such testimony describes a completely sep-
Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte.Kanönistische Abteilung: 225–276.
arate phenomenon that appears to be an elaboration
Zaleski, Carol. 1987.Otherworld Journeys. Accounts of Near-Death
of folk belief in nighttime spirit flight of the type
Experience in Medieval and ModernTimes.NewYork: Oxford
described by Ginzburg. It is possible that spirit fli g h t
University Press.
was indeed once common throughout Eu rope. Its ori-
gins lay in early Eu ropean pagan practices, possibly
s h a m a n i s t i c . Folklore
Witchcraft, as a normative communal and behavior
CHRISTA TUCZAY
regulating institution, was endemic in most agricultur-
See also: ANIMALS;APULEIUSOFMADAURA;BENEVENTO,WALNUT al communities in medieval and early modern Europe.
TREEOF;BURCHARDOFWORMS;CANONEPISCOPI;DEMONS; The system required an ideology in which certain per-
DIANA(ARTEMIS); DRUGSANDHALLUCINOGENS;FAIRIES;FOLK- sons could cause damage to fellow creatures through
LORE;GINZBURG,CARLO;HOLDA;INFANTICIDE;JAMESVIANDI, occult means. This witchcraft ideology was mainly
KINGOFSCOTLANDANDENGLAND;LAMIA;LILITH;MALLEUS
passed down through oral transmission in these com-
MALEFICARUM;NIDER,JOHANNES;OINTMENTS;PEOPLEOFTHE
munities, gradually incorporating some elements from
NIGHT(NACHTVOLK);SABBAT;SHAMANISM;SIMONMAGUS;
elite demonology, until both strata merged into the
STICKS;STRIX,STRIGA,STRIA.
witchcraft folklore of present-day Europe. Because of
References and further reading:
local traditions, witchcraft folklore remains extremely
Briggs, Robin. 2002. Witches and Neighbours: The Social and
Cultural Context of European Witchcraft.2nd ed. Oxford: varied; nevertheless, there are many convergences and
Blackwell. identities all over Europe because witchcraft tradition is
382 Folklore |
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very ancient and because demonology has exercised a the local variations in witchcraft belief.They are known
unifying influence. even in places where witchcraft never existed as an insti-
tution or had died out. They are strongly influenced by
Reports of Experiences stereotypes of Christian demonology found in anti-
(Memorates) witchcraft manuals. Demonological notions of the
Memorates most directly reflect the beliefs and rites of witches’ Sabbat were thereby transported to a few areas
witchcraft. They suffice for projecting local beliefs onto of eastern Europe that were free of antiwitchcraft
a member of a given community who is momentarily purges. The similarity of these motifs, overarching sev-
accused of witchcraft, and they provide an ideological eral countries and languages, is clearly demonstrated by
background to the process of incrimination both in the international and national catalogs of legends, in which
village community and at the court recording the types of witchcraft legends form extremely rich chapters
witchcraft trial through eyewitness accounts. They offer throughout central, western, and northern Europe. The
pictures of stereotypical village witches and provide a situation is somewhat similar in south and southeastern
folkloric map of such figures almost everywhere in Europe, where similar legends are also associated with
Europe. The folklore motifs contained in them define demonic figures and magicians.
the character, capabilities, activities, methods of making The most important topics of international witch leg-
spells, and targets of the witch. The overall character ends include the unique circumstances of the witch’s
and main features of the witch figure vary from region b i rth (born of a demon, of a person without status, born
to region in accordance with their various demonic and with a sign or a bodily mark); the way witches acquire d
magical ancestors (e.g., the witch’s relations with Mahr, their knowledge, learning from spirits or the De v i l
mara, mora, Alp, Elb, fairy, and werewolf figures). t h rough denying God, with an oath sworn to or a pact
The most important motifs include the formal vari- made with the Devil. The De v i l’s pact is not necessarily
ants of witches (various animals according to local tra- a consequence of elite demonology: it was a we l l - k n ow n
dition such as cats, dogs, snakes, etc.). All over Europe, f o l k l o re motif across much of Ort h o d ox eastern Eu ro p e ,
s e veral attributes manifest their superhuman powe r s : re g a rdless of witchcraft belief. St e reotypes of m a l e fic i u m
witches are invisible; they can fly; their soul flies out in (harmful magic) associated with groups of witches are
a state of trance and so on. Their diabolical helpers, connected not to local and specific cases of bew i t c h i n g ,
allies or familiars, and their animal helpers present great but to a more general notion of witchcraft, part l y
regional diversions: cats in western and central Europe; i n s p i red by clerical demonology. Elements of this nature
rabbits in northern and western Europe; frogs in central include the special dates of communal malefaction
and eastern Eu rope; and snakes and dogs in eastern ( Matthias, Walpurgis night, Friday of the new moon,
Eu rope. Their harmful activities seem broadly similar Luca, Good Fr i d a y, St. Jo h n’s Da y, St. Ge o r g e’s Da y,
almost everywhere: witches damaged crops and domes- Christmas, and so forth, depending on the area) and the
tic animals, especially milk and dairy products. T h e recognition, detection, and surveillance of witches on
most important personal memories of nonwitches usu- these days (such legends, highly popular in central and
ally concern spells against themselves or their house- eastern Eu rope, usually concern initiation into demonic
holds, which mainly exist in the system of neighbor- k n owledge such as St. Lu c y’s stool in central Eu rope or
hood witchcraft as narratives based on noticing i d e n t i fication by a priest in Ort h o d ox areas). Group or
symptoms of illness. Counteraction is usually fit t e d communal methods of bewitching include taking the
into the same narrative. There are several local versions yield of the grain by picking dew (a predominantly cen-
for identifying a witch and avenging the damage, most- tral Eu ropean legend), Germanic or Slavic “wind witch-
ly involving divinatory methods for selecting the culprit e s” in central Eu rope, groups of witches raising hail-
and symbolic forms of punishment. Thus it was com- storms in western and central Eu rope (witches who
mon all over Eu rope that pricking, firing, or smoking “s t e a l” rain we re also known in the drier parts of central
milk provided methods for making the witch sick. An and eastern Eu rope), or groups of witches on the Ba l k a n
important group of memorates refer to the death of the peninsula who re m ove or eat people’s heart s .
witch and transmitting its legacy (a witch cannot die Legends about witches’ societies and parties range
b e f o re passing her knowledge on to somebody, some- f rom folklore narratives of demon and fairy groups to
times by shaking hands). the stereotypical demonological narrative of the witch-
es’ Sabbats. They contain motifs from legends of groups
Belief Legends of witches flying on tours of maleficiumor marching to
These are narratives of a higher aesthetic standard that orgies on the backs of animals. Sometimes these orgies
do not connect the stereotypes of witchcraft to a par- took place in mills and cellars, but usually they we re
ticular person or a personal experience. Although they held atop hills (the German Blocksberg, Hu n g a r i a n
may include local folklore motifs, these migrant legends Tokay Hill and Gellért Hill, Ukrainian and Polish Bold
seem highly unified all over Europe, mirroring few of Hill, Scandinavian Blåkulla, Croatian Klek, Medvenica,
Folklore 383 |
Wicca | Richard M.Golden - Encyclopedia of Witchcraft - The Western Tradition | 421 | 46049 Golden Chap.E av First Pages 08/25/2005 p.384 Application File
etc.); their contents (music and dance, feasting, per- See also: ANIMALS;CATS;COUNTERMAGIC;FAIRIES;FLIGHTOF
verse sexuality, Devil’s mass) are stereotypical and wide- WITCHES;PACTWITHTHEDEVIL;POPULARBELIEFSINWITCHES;
s p read. They are saturated with the conspiratorial SABBAT;SHAMANISM;WEATHERMAGIC.
References and further reading:
notions of witches’ gatherings and Devil’s masses prop-
Aarne, Antti, and Thompson, Stith. 1964. The Types of the
agated by ecclesiastical demonology, particularly in cen-
Folktale.Folklore Fellows’ Communications 184. Helsinki:
tral and western Europe where witchcraft manuals were
Suomalainen Tieideakatemia.
m o re commonly known. Legends about the witches’
Blécourt, Willem de. 1999. “The Witch, Her Victim, the
Sabbat were popular in the territories of several peoples.
Unwitcher and the Researcher: The Continued Existence of
Their motifs include spying on the witches spre a d i n g Traditional Witchcraft.” Pp. 141–219 in Witchcraft and Magic
ointment on their bodies (persons spying and copying in Europe. The Twentieth Century.Edited by Bengt Ankarloo
the witches experience harm); at the mention of God’s and Stuart Clark. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania
name the flying witch falls down; food or musical Press.
i n s t ruments become worthless or obscene objects; the Bosˇkoviæ-Stulli, Maja. 1991–1992. “Hexensagen und
victim dragged to the witches’ Sabbat is initiated, or Hexenprozesse in Kroatien.” Acta Ethnographica 37: 143–171.
Caro Baroja, Julio. 1964. The World of the Witches.London:
s wears membership, or makes a pact with the De v i l ;
Weidenfeld and Nicolson.
initiation by such methods as removing bones or boil-
Gerlach, Hildegard. 1990. “Hexe.” Pp. 960–992 in Encyclopedie
ing the person; turning people into horses or other ani-
des Märchens 6. Edited by Rolf Wilhelm Brednich. Berlin and
mals, then saddling or humiliating these animals.
NewYork: Walter de Gruyter.
Devices used to fly to these orgies va ry according to
Gijswijt-Hofstra, Marijke, and Willem Frijhoff, eds. 1991.
area: Romanian and Ukrainian witches use instruments Withcraft in the Netherlands from the Fourteenth to the Twentieth
of hemp work, while German witches use broomsticks, Century.Rotterdam: Universitaire Pers Rotterdam.
baking shovels, or milk churns. Ginzburg, Carlo. 1991. Ecstacies: Deciphering the Witches’ Sabbat.
In central and eastern Europe, narratives of witches’ NewYork: Random House.
Sabbats incorporate a great number of beliefs and rites Pócs, Éva. 1989. Fairies and Witches at the B o u n d a ry of South-Ea s t e rn
about such pre-Christian supernatural beings as and Central Europe. Folklore Fellows’ Communications 243.
Helsinki: Suomalainen Tieideakatemia.
demons, fairies, or we rew o l ves, and offer a large place
———. 1999. Between the Living and the Dead. A Perspective on
to “soul journeys” by shamanistic magicians, which
Witches and Seers in the Early Modern Age.Budapest: Central
we re integrated into the medieval system of village
European University.
witchcraft. For example, we can find both motifs of
Runeberg, Arne. 1947. Witches, Demons and Fertility Magic.
f a i ry feasts and battles by witches in storm clouds for
Analysis of Their Significance and Mutual Relations in West-
good weather and good harvests in Hu n g a r i a n , European Folk Religion. Helsingfors: Societas Scientiarum
Croatian, and Slovenian sources, and we can find bat- Fennica.
tles of Romanian witches to deter disease. Group gath- Vukanoviæ, T. P. 1989. “Witchcraft in the Central Balkans I:
erings of demons, magicians, and witches and their bat- Characteristics of Witches”; “Witchcraft in the Central Balkans
tles appear as the oldest and most persistent topos of II. Protection Against Witches.” Folklore100: 9–24, 221–236.
w i t c h e s’ Sabbat narratives before being re v i ved as part Weiser-Aall, Lily. 1930–1931. “Hexe.” Pp. 1027–1920 in
Handwörterbuch des Deutschen AberglaubensIII. Edited by
of European witchcraft beliefs in the Middle Ages.
Hanns Bächtold-Stäubli and Eduard Hoffmann-Krayer. Berlin
and Leipzig: Walter de Gruyter.
Fairy Tales
The witches of fairy tales have little in common with
Fourier, St. Pierre (1564–1641)
witchcraft belief and the functioning social institution
of witchcraft. The witch in these tales is a universal Among several post-Tridentine saints who we re
European figure, a vicious, demonic opponent who the involved in repressing witchcraft, including the famous
hero must defeat to attain his aim—usually, a happy St. Carlo Borromeo (who encouraged some prosecu-
marriage. In other cases, the witch is an ambivalent tions in his archdiocese of Milan), none had a more bit-
harming–helping being who sometimes helps the hero ter experience with this problem than Lorraine’s Pierre
in return for certain services or assistance. Witches in Fourier. This homegrown saint, canonized only in the
fairy tales can be influenced by the demonic beings of twentieth century, who both reformed his own monas-
local folklore or its stereotypical witch figure, as with tic order and founded a new religious order for women
the Holle and the man-eating witch of German tales, (both were approved at Rome in 1628), served from
the Russian Baba Yaga, or the Eastern Eu ropean 1597 to 1632 as parish priest in the large village of
“Iron-nosed witch” (see types AaTh 450, AaTh 327A, Mattaincourt, near his birthplace; he also became a
AaTh 709 in the international catalog of folktales). respected adviser to Lorraine’s rulers, especially Duke
Charles IV (1624–1675).
ÉVA PÓCS;
In this baroque age, Fourier seems unpretentious and
TRANSLATED BY ORSOLYA FRANK l e velheaded. During his first thirty years at Ma t t a i n c o u rt ,
384 Fourier, St. Pierre |
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ten people from his parish we re tried for witchcraft, making it the single worst episode in the history of
although only one of them was burned, in 1598. T h e re is witch hunting in a strongly affected province. It cer-
no mention of any of them in Fo u r i e r’s abundant corre- tainly contributed to Fourier’s resigning his position in
spondence; his first re c o rded opinions on the subject 1632, but of course, it was never mentioned in the sub-
came when he witnessed some spectacular exo rcisms of a sequent hagiographic literature leading to his beatifica-
n o b l ewoman in Lorraine’s capital in 1621 and expre s s e d tion and eventual canonization.
thinly veiled skepticism about the authenticity of her
—WILLIAM MONTER
possession and her accusations that two prominent men
had bewitched her. Four years later, Fourier attended the See also:BORROMEO,ST.CARLO;CHILDREN;LORRAINE,DUCHYOF;
c e l e b r a t o ry banquet preceding the burning of Lorraine’s POSSESSION,DEMONIC;SALEM.
References and further reading:
most politically prominent witchcraft victim, the former
Derréal, Hélène, and Madeleine Cord’homme, eds. 1986–1991.
ducal councilor André des Bordes: not much skepticism
Pierre Fourier: correspondance1598–1640.5 vols. Nancy:
seems apparent here .
Presses universitaires.
It was deeply embarrassing to Fourier when Charles
Monter,William. Forthcoming. “The Catholic Salem; or, How
IV learned that a massive outbreak of demonic posses-
the Devil Destroyed a Saint’s Parish (Mattaincourt 1627–31).”
sion had struck Mattaincourt in 1627. Understandably InWitchcraft in Context: The ThirdYork Cultural History
preoccupied by the fate of his reforms at Rome, Fourier Conference.Edited byWolfgang Behringer and James Sharpe.
was absent from his parish for over a year, sending a few Manchester: Manchester University Press.
i n e f f e c t i ve exo rcists there while local secular offic i a l s ,
c o n fident that local witches we re behind this scandal, France
began arresting suspects. When he finally re a c h e d The kingdom of France is a key area for the study of
Mattaincourt in 1628, Fourier was aghast at the size of witchcraft trials, despite quite serious archival deficien-
the problem.“There are at least eighty-five people,” he cies. France had an unusual, highly sophisticated judi-
re p o rted, “either possessed by the Devil (l’ e n n e m i) or cial system, which exercised a high level of control over
tormented by various other kinds of bew i t c h m e n t s . local courts. There were serious disagreements among
Some of them grunt like pigs, others bark like dogs, and the elites about witchcraft, which gave rise to highly
all of them are unable to function normally. Nearly all illuminating disputes and discussions. While there were
of them are young girls and a few women; I know of probably several thousand trials in the country, and
only one man and one or two boys. When they are all numerous lynchings, the number of legal executions
together in the church for Mass, they make such was strikingly low, perhaps not more than a few hun-
strange noises that it is impossible to hear any music, dred over the century of general activity between 1570
any sermon, any other voices than theirs, which terrify and 1670. One exceptional feature is the high propor-
those in attendance. And when they are commanded by tion of men among the accused, around half of the
the vicar of the Franciscans from Toul (who has been known cases, and up to 75 percent in some regions.
working with them for five or six weeks), those who can Ultimately, in the face of some outbreaks of local witch
speak do nothing but shout, slander, curse, blaspheme, hunting led by self-proclaimed witch finders, the royal
screaming that such-and-such a one (whom they name government intervened to halt persecution after 1670,
by their full names) has sent them there, and that she and there were only a few sorcerers executed after this
must be burned before they will leave the poor creature. time.
It’s all extremely pitiful,” concluded Fourier (De r r é a l The departmental arc h i ves of the modern Fre n c h
and Cord’homme 1988, III, 127–128). state contain some extensive records of witchcraft trials,
The future saint had been victorious at Rome, but yet with rare exceptions these are from regions still out-
the Devil was handing him a humiliating defeat in his side the frontiers of the kingdom at the relevant time.
own parish, in a context that looks surprisingly like an Parts of the then Spanish Netherlands, Lorraine, Alsace,
early Catholic anticipation of events in Salem Vi l l a g e , Franche-Comté, Sa voy, and Na va r re all fall into this
Massachusetts, sixty years later. Fourier was not the category. A number of scholars have fallen into the trap
kind of man to attempt exorcisms himself, and none of of treating these border regions, many of them French
his imported experts could control the situation. T h e speaking, as mere extensions of the areas actually ruled
secular arm took over: Duke Charles IV named special by the Valois and Bourbon kings. The admittedly
commissioners to conduct the investigations. Be f o re defective evidence suggests that in most respects this is
the fires died out in 1631, almost thirty of Fo u r i e r’s u n j u s t i fiable, since the French kingdom proper fol-
parishioners had been burned as witches and eight lowed its own very distinctive pattern.
child-witches had to be quarantined indefinitely in a The most basic problem arises from the dismally
special home, which had been confiscated from the poor level of pre s e rvation of local judicial arc h i ve s
richest victim of this witch hunt. The panic spread to a c ross France, which are virtually nonexistent for
n e a r by regions; before it ended, fifty people had died, any first instance court before the later decades of the
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seventeenth century. It is not clear whether some histo- p a rl e m e n t , which would re v i ew the documentation,
rians are correct in asserting that trial records were com- question the defendant afresh, and perhaps ord e r
monly burned with the witch, a practice that would another session of torture. This often meant an expen-
naturally have worsened the situation. This cru c i a l s i ve process of transferring the prisoner long distances
a rc h i val gap seve rely limits the possibilities for close under guard, so that the superior court could confir m
analysis of the French case; it explains the otherw i s e or modify the original verdict. After the first decades of
b a f fling paucity of local monographs and published the seventeenth century, the Paris p a rl e m e n t , f o l l owe d
source materials. The haphazard survival of documents by some others, re q u i red automatic appeals in witch-
on a few cases suggests that rural witchcraft accusations craft cases. That clearly implied grave concerns about
in France closely resembled those across most of the operation of the previous system, which depended
Europe, a very unsurprising conclusion. The most strik- both on the accused being aware of their legal rights
ing discrepancy is the unusually high pro p o rtion of and on the lower courts respecting them. Because there
men among French suspects; but there also appears to is a presumption that accused witches would often have
h a ve been a significant difference in the way the legal been isolated figures, there was an obvious temptation
system handled the cases, albeit with significant local for local judges to evade the costly appeal pro c e s s .
variations, some of which we can only intuit. Worse still, evidence was accumulating for episodes of
France possessed a complex hierarchical assemblage virtual lynch law, with the community seizing suspects
of law courts (which was evidence for the slow process in order to subject them to wholly illegal tre a t m e n t
of state formation), within which royal justice and such as the swimming test, or just doing away with
l a w yers played a key role. In the sixteenth century, a them on the flimsiest grounds. In his famous demand
series of reforming ordinances, notably that of Villers- for harsher measures against witches, the Démonomanie
Cotterets (1539), reaffirmed and developed the proce- des Sorciers (On the Demon-Mania of Witches, 1580),
d u res to be followed in these courts. The standard Jean Bodin blamed excessive lenience by the judges for
inquisitorial procedure was coupled with the provision such abuses. His ingenious argument seems to have fall-
that appeals could be made through higher courts until en flat with the magistrates, who were far more inclined
they reached the top level of the p a rl e m e n t s , s ove re i g n to punish the perpetrators, as part of a general assertion
courts whose ressorts(jurisdictional areas) between them of their own higher rationality when this was set against
covered the whole kingdom. These prestigious institu- popular violence and credulity.
tions had wide re g u l a t o ry powers; while their central Another effect of the central position held by the
concern was with property law, they also maintained a p a rl e m e n t s was to restrict the judicial role of the
special chamber (the Tournelle) to hear appeals in crim- Church. France had never possessed a national inquisi-
inal cases (and occasionally to act as a first instance tri- tion, and the local inquisitorial tribunals around its
bunal). The vast re s s o rt of the Paris p a rl e m e n t c ove re d southern fringes had disappeared by the middle of the
around half the country; it was surrounded by a range sixteenth century. We now know that the hundreds of
of smaller districts supervised by regional parlements at trials supposedly carried out by the fourt e e n t h - c e n
Rouen, Rennes, Bordeaux, Pau, Toulouse, Aix- t u ryinquisitors at Carcassonne and Toulouse we re
e n - Provence, Grenoble, and Dijon. Once the jurisdic- complete fictions, invented by the pro l i fic novelist
tion of these skilled professionals had been established, Lamothe-Langon in the 1820s (Cohn 1975, 126–138).
the crown was apparently content to allow them to T h e re was a ve ry seve re early persecution in the
d e fine the law through practice, with a wide range of alpine regions of Dauphiné in the fifteenth century,
d i s c retion. Witchcraft was just one of many capital although this territory was still virtually autonomous at
offenses that remained undefined by any formal legisla- the time, after coming under the distant authority of
tion until the late seventeenth century.The underlying the crown in 1349. He re the ecclesiastical authorities
assumption appeared to be that the law came close to and the secular courts appear to have combined all too
being a mystical entity, a reflection of divine will as for- e f fic i e n t l y, probably inspired by preachers from the
mulated and re fined by the best legal minds since the mendicant orders. There were at least 300 trials in the
days of the Israelite kingdom and the Roman Republic. period from the 1420s to the 1460s, most of which
Such ideas would have reinforced the other motives of p robably ended with death sentences. Like the fif-
self-interest and prestige that drew the parlementairesto t e e n t h - c e n t u ry trials in neighboring Sw i t zerland and
assert themselves at the expense of lower courts, usually Savoy, these cases appear to have been remarkably simi-
in the name of ensuring higher judicial standards. lar in essentials to those from the major European per-
The standard pro c e d u re in a late sixteenth-century secutions that took place more than a century later,
French trial would be for a local court to collect witness with a combination of maleficium (harmful magic) and
t e s t i m o n y, interrogate the accused, if necessary under diabolism alleged against most of the accused. As with
t o rt u re, and then pronounce its sentence. Anyo n e its Swiss counterparts, it is easier to see how this epi-
convicted of a crime could then appeal to the relevant demic began than to understand why it receded by the
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late fifteenth century to a re l a t i ve handful of scattere d s o u rces allow a comparison between fig u res for witch-
local trials (Paravy 1993, 775–905). craft and other crimes. Some of the conclusions fro m
Ac ross the kingdom as a whole, there is little sign this data apply mainly to the jurisprudence of the par-
that witchcraft trials were anything but very rare events lement, and appear under that separate heading. T h e
before the mid-sixteenth century.They begin to appear overall curve is a wholly typical one for neighboring
in growing numbers at just that period, around the regions: a slow increase in annual numbers until 1580,
time when laws were being codified, new courts creat- a plateau at around 20 appeals a ye a r, dropping to 15
ed, and something of a repressive drive launched against a c ross the 1620s, and declining to negligible leve l s
many other forms of crime, with a particular concern thereafter. It seems probable that any cases not appealed
about highway robbery and the misdeeds of discharged would occur mainly in the earlier period, so the decades
soldiers. As elsewhere in Europe, the sixteenth century before 1600 may contain the highest aggregate figures,
in France saw a very sharp rise in capital sentences for a as they certainly did for death sentences. At no time did
variety of crimes, with service in the royal galleys as a the lower courts condemn significantly more than half
t h o roughly disagreeable second-rank form of deter- the accused to death, a fig u re that again dro p p e d
rence. These trends appear to correlate better with the sharply after 1620, while the parlement confirmed only
social and economic problems associated with a grow- a fraction of these sentences at any time. In conse-
ing population, most notably an increase in begging quence, only just over 100 of those who appealed were
and vagrancy, than with the highly disturbed era of the executed, and after 1625 it was effectively impossible to
Wars of Religion. The ruling classes might well have be legally put to death as a witch within Parisian juris-
become conscious of a general threat of disorder, calling diction (Soman 1992, passim).
for draconian preventive measures. At the level of fanta- The evidence from appeals to the higher courts, cou-
sy, at least witchcraft represented a summation of virtu- pled with the scattered local material, does allow some
ally all the greatest fears of the age, with the witches as general conclusions about the pattern of events in
the ultimate deviants, traitors both to God and to the France. Formal accusations and trials took off abruptly
rest of humanity. f rom a previously low level around 1575; within a
While a whole range of plausible links of this type can decade they had probably reached a plateau maintained
be suggested, the surviving evidence is so scanty that until about 1620. Over this period there was an under-
none can be properly tested. We have no reliable fig u re s lying pattern of scattered trials over wide areas of the
for the numbers of trials in the re s s o rt sof most prov i n c i a l kingdom, boosted by some local panics that promoted
p a rl e m e n t s , although the present consensus of opinion brief bursts of more intense activity. The nort h e a s t e r n
f a vors a ve ry modest fig u re. The Rouen p a rl e m e n t ,w h i c h p rovince of Champagne, and more specifically the
was unusually prone to convict witches, is known to have A rdennes region, stands out as a center of such witch
h e a rd a minimum of 380 cases between 1564 and 1660. hunts. They produced various abuses, including mur-
Samples from Aix-en-Provence show 103 cases, and fro m dering suspects and using the swimming test, which
Dijon 159, over shorter periods (Monter 1997, attracted strong disapproval from senior clerics, roy a l
564–567, 584). El s ew h e re, re c o rds have either been agents, and judges alike. T h e re was also the famous
d e s t royed (as at Bordeaux by fire), are currently unava i l- hunt at the southwestern extremity of the kingdom, in
able for consultation (one series at Toulouse), or have so the Basque pays de Labourd,led by the Bordeaux judge
far proved uncommunicative . Pi e r re de Lancre in 1609–1610, which seems to have
In relation to the population concerned, the Rouen embarrassed his colleagues. His claim to have executed
fig u re would not differ sharply from the other case 600 witches is now considered a gross exaggeration,
where a fairly convincing count is possible. This results with 80 as a more plausible fig u re, and only twe l ve
f rom the protracted labors of Alfred Soman in the (including three priests) known as certain.
archives of the Paris parlement, a triumph of paleogra- Our ve ry limited information about this and other
phy when dealing with some of the worst handwriting p rovincial p a rl e m e n t s suggests that their attitude
e ven this notorious period ever produced. A virt u a l l y e vo l ved in a broadly similar fashion to that of the
continuous re c o rd surv i ves for those prisoners held in Parisian judges; the most notable exception is the par-
Paris while their appeals we re decided over the period lementof Rouen. By the 1640s it was becoming evident
1565–1639, with obvious imperfections during the that there was a real divergence between the judges in
years of the Catholic League (1589–1594); with some Paris and Rouen, to the point that a tactless joke caused
other material, this produces a total of 1,288 know n t rouble at a meeting between leading members of the
appeals from convicted witches between 1540 and two courts during the Fronde. It is tempting to think
1670. Traces also exist of some 554 other cases known that the Norman judges we re trying to uphold tradi-
to have been heard in the inferior courts over the same tional Christian values as a way of asserting themselves
period, while the Paris records include rather summary against their haughty neighbors up the Seine. T h i s
i n t e r rogations of numerous individuals. The same might also have re flected the special character of the
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cases they heard, for no less than three-quarters of those The skepticism of many French lawyers, doctors, and
accused in Normandy were men. A high proportion of clergy was deepened by the scandalous possession trials
these we re shepherds, whose widespread practice of at Loudun and Louviers, then by a widespread popular
sympathetic magic to protect their animals was easily witch hunt in 1644–1645 that began in Languedoc and
c o n s t rued as witchcraft. Accusations against a signifi- affected Champagne, the Bourbonnais, Burgundy, and
cant number of priests may have been connected to the parts of Gascony. In some areas the catalyst was devas-
sacrilegious use of communion wafers for such purpos- tating summer frosts, but there we re numero u s
es (Monter 1997, 580–594). instances where traveling witch finders appeared to
Because the parlementsof Paris and Dijon also saw a o r g a n i ze the hunt for suspects, including a shepherd
slight majority of male witches, the French situation b oy in Burgundy known as the le petit pro p h è t e and a
was plainly an exceptional one, compared to that in any whole team in Languedoc whom the p a rlement o f
other major Eu ropean country. Although signific a n t Toulouse hunted down and hanged. The parlements of
numbers of shepherds, herdsmen, and priests are also Toulouse and Dijon were swamped by large numbers of
found in these other regions, on their own they do not cases sent up on appeal, to which they responded by a
seem a sufficient explanation for an anomaly historians handful of executions followed by hundreds of acquit-
have yet to explain; the lack of fully documented trials tals and reductions of sentences. Not surprisingly, we
is a major handicap here. Within the huge re s s o rt o f also hear of many summary executions and killings in
Paris there is a distinct gradient, from around 70 per- 1644 and 1645. For several years afterw a rd, the p a r-
cent men among the accused in the west to 70 percent l e m e n t s also took action against the witch finders and
women in the northeast. Aix-en-Provence had a 70/30 those who aided them, and numerous death sentences
p redominance of women, which was probably typical were handed down, mostly in absentiabecause the ring-
for the Midi as a whole. leaders fled (Mandrou 1969, 370–394).
The frequent cases where priests were discovered act- After a lengthy period of re l a t i ve quiescence, a new
ing as magicians and devins (cunning folk) also appear panic broke out in 1670, this time affecting both the
to have been something of a French speciality. T h e y southwest and Normandy.The parlements of Bordeaux
shaded off into the spectacular cases of demonic posses- and Pau had to deal with a renewal of the witch-finding
sion affecting convents in which priests allegedly acted phenomenon; while the former reacted stro n g l y, the
as the diabolical agents who brought about the affli c- commissioners sent out from Pau appear to have been
tion. In the cases of Louis Gaufridi at Aix in 1611 and both credulous and corrupt. Meanwhile, the Ro u e n
Urban Grandier at Loudun in 1634, their supposed vic- p a rlement was facing a wave of accusations in the
tims we re Ursuline nuns, while the less impre s s i ve Cotentin area, and First President Claude Pellot found
episode at Louviers in 1643 invo l ved a local order of himself at odds with a powerful group of senior magis-
Ho s p i t a l i è res and two priests (Ma n d rou 1969, trates who favored a traditional stance. As a relative and
195–341; Certeau 2000). T h e re we re also some client of the powe rful royal minister Je a n - Ba p t i s t e
instances of self-confessed werewolves, notably Jacques Colbert, Pellot was able to call royal authority to his aid
Roulet of Anjou (1598) and Jean Grenier from near with an order to suspend the proceedings. He also con-
Coutras (1603), both of whom the courts treated with sulted the chancellor of the Un i versity of Paris, Pi e r re
re m a rkable restraint (Ma n d rou 1969, 157, 185–188; Lalemant, who responded with a beautifully crafted
Ma n d rou 1979, 33–109). From the start there we re statement of the case for mitigated skepticism and judi-
evidently many men in authority who took a skeptical cial caution. Royal intervention also brought an end to
attitude toward witchcraft accusations set against other the troubles in Ga s c o n y. In 1672 a royal order forc e d
Frenchmen who displayed high levels of credulity or the Rouen magistrates into unwilling compliance,
persecuting zeal. The Devil’s actions in the world plain- while promising a decisive ordinance on the whole mat-
ly aroused wildly varying opinions and reactions among ter (Ma n d rou 1969, 425–466; Ma n d rou 1979,
the French elite, in a period when the Wars of Religion 219–230).
and the subsequent age of Catholic reform created a No new ordinance was promulgated until 1682; the
ve ry special context. Around the middle of the seve n- long delay can be partly imputed to the scandalous
teenth century there was a perceptible change in atmos- a f f a i re des poisons, in which numerous courtiers we re
phere as an austere and disciplined religious style gained found to have been dabbling in black magic and divina-
ascendancy over the more enthusiastic, supernatural tion. The royal decision only dealt with witchcraft in a
elements in French Catholicism. This crucial cultural curiously oblique fashion. It was merely listed among a
shift helped make belief in witchcraft incre a s i n g l y range of activities that invo l ved imposture and abuse,
unfashionable among the educated classes, a clear d e fined as “so-called magic,” la prétendue magie, w h i l e
majority of whom came to classify most manifestations at the same time emphasizing the heinous nature of sac-
as signs of popular superstition and unreason, even if rilege and poisoning. Its provisions even allowed the
they still accepted the theoretical possibility. parlementsof Paris and Rouen to approve the execution
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of some shepherds for prétendue magie in succeeding Franche-Comté
years (Mandrou 1969, 466–486, 499–512). B o rd e red on the north and east by the two worst
Ne ve rtheless, it is evident that the monarchy and most witch-hunting regions of Francophone Eu ro p e —
of its senior officials now saw witchcraft accusations as the Catholic Lorraine and the Swiss Protestant Pays de
kind of disorder they wished to eliminate, an attitude that Va u d — Franche-Comté was understandably affli c t e d
e n s u red there would be no more serious persecutions in with many trials and executions for witchcraft. To d a y
France. T h e re we re to be a few further cases of demonic a part of eastern France, this French-speaking prov i n c e
possession, mostly hushed up quite effective l y, while belonged to the Spanish Habsburgs during the age of
magicians continued to find gullible clients for love mag- Eu ropean witchcraft trials. Although its earliest trial,
ic and for locating buried tre a s u re. Witchcraft beliefs a l ready featuring flying broomsticks and ro a s t e d
would never be eradicated. Down into the late twe n t i e t h babies, dates from 1434, the province saw only five
c e n t u ry, they continued to motivate a scattering of mur- k n own cases before 1500. Perhaps inspired by the
ders and acts of violence in rural communities, and mod- imperial law code of 1532 (the Carolina Code), the
ern anthropologists have been able to study them as a liv- p rovincial appellate court wrested jurisdiction ove r
ing entity; in that sense, the history of witchcraft in witchcraft from the Inquisition in 1534. Howe ve r,
France remains unfinished business. Fr a n c h e - C o m t é ’s witchcraft trials remained rare after
1500. T h e re we re only eighteen known cases before
ROBIN BRIGGS 1549, and only fort y - s e ven more cases (one per ye a r )
until 1597 (Rochelandet 1997, 45–46). The va s t
See also: AFFAIROFTHEPOISONS;AIX-EN-PROVENCENUNS;
majority of Fr a n c h e - C o m t é ’s nearly 800 known trials
ARDENNES;BASQUECOUNTRY;BODIN,JEAN;BURGUNDY,DUCHY
we re held between 1600 and 1660, a generation later
OF;CUNNINGFOLK;DAUPHINÉ;INQUISITORIALPROCEDURE;
LAMOTHE-LANGON,ÉTIENNE-LÉONDE;LANCRE,PIERREDE; than in neighboring re g i o n s .
LANGUEDOC;LAWYERS;LOUDUNNUNS;LOUVIERSNUNS; Witchcraft legislation was minimal here. After the
LYCANTHROPY;LYNCHING;MALEWITCHES;MANDROU,ROBERT; province laicized this crime in the 1530s, nothing fur-
MUCHEMBLED,ROBERT;NORMANDY;PARLEMENTOFPARIS; ther occurred until 1604, when an ordinance from the
POISON;POSSESSION,DEMONIC;PROOF,PROBLEMOF;SWIMMING Spanish Netherlands permitting all local judges to
TEST;WARSOFRELIGION(FRANCE); WITCHFINDERS. impose the death penalty for m a l e fic i u m ( h a r m f u l
References and further reading:
magic) or for attending Sabbats was extended to
Briggs, Robin. 1989. Communities of Belief: Cultural and Social
Franche-Comté. Because the best predictor of whether
Tensions in Early Modern France. Oxford: Clarendon.
or not such a region would experience exc e p t i o n a l l y
Certeau, Michel de. 2000. The Possession at Loudun. Chicago:
s e ve re persecutions is the extent of its regulation by
University of Chicago Press.
appellate justice, it is important to realize that Franche-
Cohn, Norman. 1975. Europe’s Inner Demons.London: Chatto
Heinemann. Comté (except for its largest town, the imperial free city
Mandrou, Robert. 1969. Magistrats et sorciers en France au XVIIe of Besançon) had a sove reign provincial p a rl e m e n t ,
siècle.Paris: Librairie Plon. which acted much like its French counterparts when
———. 1979. Possession et sorcellerie au XVIIe siècle: textes inédits. judging appeals in witchcraft cases. Su rviving sourc e s ,
Paris: Librairie Arthème Fayard. c a refully explored (Rochelandet 1997), enable us to
Monter, E. William. 1976. Witchcraft in France and Switzerland. learn the outcomes of exactly 700 witchcraft trials in
Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Franche-Comté from the fifteenth century until the
———. 1997. “Toads and Eucharists: The Male Witches of
French conquest of 1668. Nearly 60 percent of them
Normandy, 1564–1660.” French Historical Studies20, no. 4:
ended with death sentences, but this fig u re masks the
563–595.
d i f f e rence between cases decided by local judges and
Muchembled, Robert. 1979. La Sorcière au village (XVe–XVIIIe siè-
never appealed, with 84 percent resulting in death sen-
cle).Paris: Editions Julliard/Gallimard.
———. 1992. Le Temps des supplices: de l’obéissance sous les rois tences, over half of which were carried out immediately,
absolus. XVe–XVIIIe siècle.Paris: Armand Colin. and cases judged on appeal by the provincial parlement,
Paravy, Pierrette. 1993. De la Chrétienté romaine à la Réforme en with 53 percent resulting in death sentences
Dauphiné: Evêques, fidèles et déviants (vers 1340–vers 1530). (Rochelandet 1997, 66–67).
Rome: Ecole française de Rome. Franche-Comté’s first major witch hunts, orchestrat-
Pearl, Jonathan L. 1999. The Crime of Crimes: Demonology and ed by the demonologist Henri Boguet at St. Claude
Politics in France, 1560–1620.Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfred
around 1600 and a generation later by his disciple Jean
Laurier University Press.
C l e rc, the bailli ( b a i l i f f, the king’s re p re s e n t a t i ve in a
Soman, Alfred. 1992. Sorcellerie et Justice Criminelle: le Parlement
bailiwick) of Luxeuil, both relied on testimony by chil-
de Paris (16e–18e siècles).Basingstoke: Ashgate Publishing
d ren and both occurred in lands belonging to gre a t
(includes some articles in English).
Benedictine abbeys. Neither episode, however, led to a
Somerset, Anne. 2003. The Affair of the Poisons: Murder,
Infanticide and Satanism at the Court of Louis XIV.London: great chain of trials and deaths. Boguet was responsible
Weidenfeld and Nicholson. for fewer than thirty executions in a decade; at Luxeuil,
Franche-Comté 389 |
Wicca | Richard M.Golden - Encyclopedia of Witchcraft - The Western Tradition | 427 | 46049 Golden Chap.E av First Pages 08/25/2005 p.390 Application File
while Clerc pronounced about forty death sentences. witchcraft trials per year after 1657, totals surpassed
Boguet’s career as both witch hunter and demonologist only by the 1627–1632 surge. However, only 25 of the
ended after the parlementoverturned some of his death 116 re c o rded witchcraft trials in Franche-Comté fro m
sentences early in 1612. Clerc’s situation seems similar 1658–1661 had any connection to this inquisitor
because the parlement,after confirming a few appeals of ( Rochelandet 1997, 58). At first, in 1658–1659, the
his early death sentences, upheld only four deaths in p a rlement upheld the vast majority of death sentences
nineteen witchcraft cases appealed from Lu xeuil after from those appealing to it. However, the appellate court
summer 1631, and we have no reports of further witch- then reversed itself and the counterattack was rapid and
craft trials there (Monter 1976, 77, 219). Fr a n c h e - e f f e c t i ve. A Besançon physician published the fir s t
Comté’sparlementjudged cases of witchcraft every year French translation of Friedrich Sp e e’s diatribe against
f rom 1591 until the T h i rty Ye a r s’ War devastated the t o rt u re, with the approval of local ecclesiastical digni-
p rovince after 1636 and destroyed a large part of its taries, in 1660. Complaints to Rome about Sy m a rd’s
population. The parlementrarely upheld more than five methods persuaded the papacy to re voke his appoint-
e xecutions for witchcraft per ye a r, and, even with ment as inquisitor by 1661. No more death sentences
Boguet or Clerc, no individual village generated more for witchcraft were carried out in Franche-Comté after
than five trials a year. 1661 and Louis XIV had no need to decriminalize this
Franche-Comté avoided both the excesses and the offense when he annexed this province in 1674.
a c h i e vements of its neighbors. The province had no
WILLIAM MONTER
major panics with dozens of executions at a time; there
we re no bewitched convents, no sorc e rer-priests, and See also: BOGUET,HENRI;BURGUNDY,DUCHYOF;FRANCE;LYCAN-
no famous cases apart from a peculiar fascination with THROPHY.
References and further reading:
we rew o l ves. If 136 suspects we re searched for the
Boguet, Henri. 1929. An Examen of Witches.Edited by Montague
De v i l’s mark in Franche-Comté and only two did not
Summers. London: Rodker.
h a ve one, it is also true that re l a t i vely few suspected
Monter,William. 1976. Witchcraft in France and Switzerland: The
witches we re tort u red (Rochelandet 1997, 31, 34).
Borderlands During the Reformation.Ithaca, NY, and London:
Howe ve r, its p a rl e m e n t n e ver saw fit to imitate the
Cornell University Press.
example of its western neighbors and institutional Oates, Caroline. 1989. “Metamorphosis and Lycanthrophy in
cousins in the duchy of Burgundy (at this time, people Franche-Comté 1521–1643.” Vol. 1. Pp. 305–363 in
spoke of the “two Burgundies”) by ordering automatic Fragments for a History of the Human Body.Edited by Michel
appeals of all death sentences for witchcraft. Feher. NewYork: Zone.
Lyc a n t h rophy was a local specialty in Fr a n c h e - Rochelandet, Brigitte. 1997. Sorcières, diables et bûchers en
Comté and seems particularly prominent among the Franche-Comté aux XVIe et XVIIe siècles.Besançon: Editions du
Cêtre.
p rov i n c e’s sixteenth-century witchcraft trials (Oa t e s
1989). “The people of this country ought to know as
much as anyone about we rew o l ves,” Boguet re m a rk s , Francken II, Frans (1585–1624)
“because they have always been known here” (Boguet Frans Francken II was a Flemish artist whose Antwe r p
1929, 140)—and they we re particularly feared for studio is primarily known for its altarpieces and small
attacking and killing children. Johann We yer knew cabinet paintings depicting religious and mythological
about the burning of three local we rew o l ves in 1521; themes and innova t i ve subject matter, such as an
their portraits decorated an important town church. A assembly of witches. Fr a n c k e n’s witch scenes are unique
hermit burned as a werewolf in 1574 was celebrated by for their encyclopedic display of witchcraft motifs,
a pamphlet. Boguet noted four we rew o l ves (three of p resumably based on a well-digested knowledge of va r i-
them women) among his first group of suspected ous demonological tracts. They depict old and yo u n g
witches in 1598 and complained that two other con- women engaged in various demonic activities: worship-
fessed werewolves had been executed before they could ping the Devil, anointing their bodies before flying up
satisfy his curiosity. Nevertheless, despite this tradition, the chimney and traversing the night skies, stirring a
Franche-Comté’s seventeenth-century witches included c a u l d ron, reading g r i m o i re s ,divining by twisting a sieve ,
few werewolves. a n dconjuring with a magic circle. They also show a daz-
After the province had lost much of its population zling array of attributes of sorc e ry—a mandragora, a
during the T h i rty Ye a r s’ Wa r, Franche-Comté experi- hand of glory, a waxen image, a priest’s stole—and mon-
enced a final flurry of witch hunting between 1658 and s t rous cre a t u re s .
1661. This late panic began when an inquisitor, Pierre Four surviving witchcraft paintings from his studio
Sy m a rd, encouraged witchcraft accusations thro u g h a re by his hand, including three versions of a witches’
m o n i t o i res (monitories—admonitions) in churc h kitchen (an indoor assembly of witches around a fire-
pulpits in 1657. Sy m a rd’s antiwitch crusade caused place) (London, Victoria and Albert Museum, signed
h u n d reds of arrests, and re c o rds show over twe n t y and dated 1606; Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Mu s e u m :
390 Francken II, Frans |
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ca. 1610; Munich, Alte Pinakothek: ca. 1610) and a
large outdoor night scene (Vienna, Ku n s t h i s t o r i s c h e s
Museum, signed and dated 1607). Two additional
paintings are mentioned in auction catalogs. On e
authentic drawing presents a witches’ scene (Vi e n n a ,
Albertina). (Härting 1989, # 405, 410, 409, 408, 406*,
407*, and ill. 67).
The Production of Frans Francken II’s
Witchcraft Paintings, Inside and
Outside His Workshop
As the head of a painters’ dynasty, Frans Francken II
e xcelled in not only painterly but also entre p re n e u r i a l
skills (Peeters 1999). The organization of his work s h o p
s h owed early features of an evolution tow a rd mass pro-
duction of paintings: collaboration between employe e s
and members of the Francken family and dive r s i fic a-
t i o n into genres. The production of witches’ scenes
e xe m p l i fies this new marketing policy. Fr a n c k e n’s
drawing shows color indications and must there f o re
h a ve circulated in his workshop to facilitate the rapid
completion of paintings by employees (Peeters 1999,
70–73). Most painted copies and variations date fro m
a round 1615. A Toverij ( s o rc e ry scene) by his bro t h e r
Hi e ronymus II, for example, is mentioned in the pro-
bate inve n t o ry of their father Frans Francken I (Pe e t e r s
f o rthcoming). Ursula Härting mentions seven actual
Frans Francken II, Witches Sabbath,or The Assembly of Witches
paintings, one by Hi e ronymous II (Prague, Na t i o n a l
(1607), with thirty witches, young and old, erotic and ugly, rich and
Ga l l e ry) (Härting 1983). At least nine more painted
poor. Demons serve as witches’ assistants or are worshipped. Witches
and drawn copies and variations of the witches’
perform amatory magic with charms and spells. (Stapleton
kitchen can be traced, all from outside his work s h o p.
Collection/Corbis)
An etching interpreting a Francken witches’ scene by
the Parisian printmaker Jaspar Isac (ca. 1654) is
accompanied by a French poem titled l’ Ab o m i n a t i o n
de sorc i e r s (The Abomination of Male Wi t c h e s ) , commit if they yield to such temptations. A (pierc e d )
although Francken depicted only females. Fr a n c k e n’s toad, for instance, reminds the beholder of the sin of
i n ventions directly inspired the witches’ kitchens of a varice, the result of a De v i l - i m p a rted delusion about
David Teniers the Yo u n g e r. the attraction of worldly possessions (Löwe n s t e y n ,
f o rt h c o m i n g ) .
Like his colleagues, Francken used witchcraft paint-
Iconography
ings to present some beautiful young, female nudes
Frans Francken II was probably familiar with some of
whose erotic qualities are enhanced by their contrast to
Jacques de Gheyn II’s witches’ scenes, for he appar-
ugly old hags acting as procuresses for the Devil. While
ently adopted several of his iconographic inve n t i o n s .
offering these nubile nudes to the Devil for his delecta-
Most important was the device of a picture within the
tion, the old hag also offers them to the beholders—and
witchcraft picture, showing a re ve l ry of naked witches
the young women gaze straight into (his) their eye s
o r, as in the much-copied Francken scenes, a churc h
while performing a striptease—certainly an audacious
building threatened by witches and demons, symbol-
contribution to the iconographic tradition. Even more
izing and advocating loyal constancy to the “Tru e
striking, howe ve r, is the fact that before they undre s s ,
Faith,” rather than yielding to “Temptation,” that is,
these seductive nudes are clothed as contemporary
a l l owing the senses to be deluded or deceived by the
bourgeois ladies of Antwe r p, subtly suggesting that
Devil. This moralizing message is also emphasized by
these young witches could be the viewe r s’ daughters,
some of the sorc e ry equipment and monstrous beings
sisters, spouses, or even perhaps, themselve s
in Fr a n c k e n’s witches’ scenes, which bear a secondary,
(Löwensteyn forthcoming).
allegorical re f e rence to devilish temptations or, more
s p e c i fic a l l y, to one of the various sins that people may MACHTELD LÖWENSTEYN
Francken II, Frans 391 |
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See also:ARTANDVISUALIMAGES;BRUEGHEL,PIETERTHEELDER; the culprit and found him in the person of the pre f e c t
DEMONOLOGY;GHEYNII,JACQUESDE;ROSA,SALVATORE;SABBAT; Mummolus, whom she hated. He had boasted of a cer-
TENIERSTHEYOUNGER,DAVID. tain herb in his possession that could cure T h e u d e r i c’s
References and further reading:
illness. As the queen could not attack this royal offic i a l
Davidson, Jane P. 1987. The Witch in Northern European Art,
d i re c t l y, she first had a number of Parisian women
1470–1750. Freren: Luca.
rounded up and tort u red. They we re forced to confess
Härting, Ursula Alice. 1983. Studien zur Kabinettbildmalerei des
“that they we re witches . . . and responsible for many
Frans Francken II. 1581–1642. Ein repräsentativer Werkkatalog.
deaths . . . ‘We sacrificed your son, O Queen, to save the
Hildesheim, Zürich, and NewYork: Georg Olms.
———. 1989. Frans Francken der Jüngere 1581–1642. Die life of Mu m m o l u s .’ Fredegunde then had these poor
Gemälde mit kritischem Oeuvrekatalog.Freren: Luca. w retches tort u red even more inhumanely, cutting off the
L ö wensteyn, Machteld. (forthcoming). The Witch in the Mi r ro r. heads of some, burning others alive, and breaking the
Images of Faith and Temptation in Ne t h e rlandish Art (1500–1650). bones of the rest on the wheel.” This was their punish-
Peeters, Natasja. 1999. “Marked for the Market? Continuity, ment for having used m a l e ficiis et incantationibus,m a g i c
Collaboration and the Mechanics of the Artistic Production of (or poison) and incantations, to murder T h e u d e r i c .
History Painting in the Francken Workshops in Counter-
Upon Fre d e g u n d e’s instigation, Chilperic I also had the
Reformation Antwerp.” Netherlands Yearbook for History of Art
p refect questioned similarly; but he denied all sorc e r i e s ,
50: 59–79.
admitting, howe ve r, to having used unguents and
———. (forthcoming). Tussen continuïteit en vernieuwing. De bij-
potions in order to bring him into the good favor of the
drage van Frans en Ambrosius Francken I, en de jonge generatie
king and his wife. Even after his torments, he boasted
Francken, tot de historieschilderkunst te Antwerpen ca
1570–1620. not to have felt the pain. Chilperic there f o re concluded
“it must be true, then, that he is a sorc e re r, if the pun-
Fredegunde (ca. 545–597) ishment which we are giving him does not hurt him.”
Fredegunde was a Frankish queen associated with two So he racked him again, and he did not surv i ve this for
cases of witchcraft. Of low origin, Fredegunde became long (Gre g o ry of Tours 1974, VI: 35).
one of the mistresses of the Merovingian king Chilperic For a number of reasons, these incidents are informa-
I of Neustria. She later married him after inducing him t i ve for the history of witchcraft during the Early
to strangle his wife Galswintha (ca. 567), a member of Middle Ages: T h rough them we learn that the applica-
the royal Gothic dynasty.This became a reason for the tion of magic, both to arouse love and to destroy life,
re n ewed war between the Frankish kingdoms of must have been quite common in sixth-century Ga u l .
Neustria and Austrasia. Following the murder in 584 of Though a man might be the instigator, women we re sus-
Chilperic (over whom she had exerted remarkable pected first and foremost of bewitching. To rt u re cre a t e d
power) and her order that several sons whom her hus- ( o r, at least, convicted) witches. Burning was a common
band had with other wives be killed, Fredegunde acted punishment for crimes of magic, in accordance with the
as regent for her son Clotaire II. Frankish historiogra- Lex Sa l i c a( Salic Law) 19, 1. In many respects, this situ-
phy portrays her as an extremely cruel and power-mad ation was comparable to the later Middle Ages and the
ruler, torturing and murdering many men and women, early modern era. Howe ve r, no special ecclesiastical or
even those of high standing, at her discretion; no source civil institutions existed for witch hunting, and there is
allows us to contradict that verdict. no hint of any suspicion of invo l vement by demonic
When her sons had died during a disease epidemic, f o rces. T h e re f o re, cases of persecution for sorc e ry
Fredegunde became convinced that one of her female remained re l a t i vely scarce before the fourteenth century.
s e rvants had bewitched them and intended to do the
PETER DINZELBACHER
same thing to her.This woman allegedly wanted to kill
the queen and her children because her daughter had See also: ORIGINSOFTHEWITCHHUNTS.
become the mistress of Chilperic’s son Clovis and might References and further reading:
Ewig, Eugen. 1976. Spätantikes und fränkisches Gallien:
become the future king’s spouse, if both Fre d e g u n d e
Gesammelte Schrifter (1952–1973).2 vols. Munich: Artemis I:
and her sons could be eliminated. The queen, therefore,
142–148.
had both the woman and her daughter captured and
Gregory of Tours. 1974. History of the Franks.Translated by Lewis
tortured. The servant confessed her use of magic arts or
Thorpe. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
poison (m a l e fic i i s) and blamed it on Clovis, whom
Thierry, Augustin. 1898. Récits des temps mérovingiens.2nd ed.
Fredegunde soon had murdered. The suspected sorcer- Paris: Garnier.
ess “was condemned to be burned alive. As she was Wood, Ian. 1994. The Merovingian Kingdoms, 450–751.London:
dragged off to the stake, the poor cre a t u re started to Longman.
admit that she had lied, but her confession availed her
nothing” (Gregory of Tours 1974, V: 39). Freud, Sigmund (1856–1939)
So m ewhat later, Fre d e g u n d e’s young son T h e u d e r i c Freud was the pioneer of modern psychoanalysis, with
also died, probably of dysentery. Again, she searched for an abiding interest in demonic possession and witch
392 Fredegunde |
Wicca | Richard M.Golden - Encyclopedia of Witchcraft - The Western Tradition | 430 | 46049 Golden Chap.E av First Pages 08/25/2005 p.393 Application File
persecutions. Born in Freiberg, Moravia (now Príbor, c o n fidently asserting the applicability of psyc h o a n a l y t i c
Czech Republic), Freud first became professionally method to historical study, Freud had literally written
interested in demonic possession while studying at the one of the first works of psyc h o h i s t o ry. Ul t i m a t e l y, how-
Salpêtrière hospital in Paris from 1885 to 1886 with the e ve r, given the ove rwhelming domination of Ge o r g
noted French neuropathologist, Jean Martin Charcot. Wilhelm So l d a n’s paradigm of possession and witchcraft
In his autobiographical Report on My Studies in Paris at the time, his works we re decidedly historicist.
and Berlin (1886), Freud praised Charcot for his astute T h e re was another side to Fre u d’s fascination with
comparisons of modern hysteria with the medieval phe- d e m o n o l o g y. The Devil appears over 120 times in his
nomenon of demonic possession, a method that writing, and he displayed a marked penchant for diabol-
became known among contemporaries as “retrospective ical literature. His favorite opera was Mo z a rt’s Do n
medicine.” Its followers eulogized the sixteenth-century Gi ova n n i . His favorite books included Fl a u b e rt’s
physician Johann Weyer as the harbinger of modern Temptation of St. An t h o n y,Mi l t o n’s Pa radise Lost,Hu g o’s
psychiatry. Thereafter, Freud continued to identify No t re Dame of Pa r i s ,and Da n t e’s In f e rn o,but there is no
himself closely with this highly romanticized notion of evidence that he ever read the more famous Ma d a m e
an enlightened and compassionate We yer fig h t i n g B ova ry,or Pa radise Regained, or Da n t e’s Pa ra d i s e .Fre u d ,
against popular ignorance. an avid cocaine user from 1884 to 1895, first experi-
Ap a rt from his personal association with Charc o t , mented with the drug on Walpurgis Night. This is espe-
there is evidence that early modern demonological ideas cially striking, when one considers the lengths Fre u d
i n fluenced both Fre u d’s psychoanalytic theory and his went to in order to purchase the drug from the chemist
practice. In his Studies on Hysteria (1893–1895), Freud Emanuel Me rck. As Freud knew, Me rck headed the
c h a r a c t e r i zed the psychoanalyst as “a father confessor, German pharmaceutical company founded by Jo h a n n
who gives absolution, as it were, by a continuance of his Heinrich Me rck—a close friend of Goethe and the
sympathy and respect after the confession has been model for Mephistopheles in Fa u s t .One psychiatrist has
m a d e” (S . E . 2: 282). He also described pro c e d u re s gone so far as to speculate that Freud (who was fascinat-
e m p l oyed to ove rcome the resistance of patients to ed by the works of Nietzsche at the time) was invo l ve d
depth therapy, such as the laying-on of hands and the in a neurotic fantasy pact with the Devil, and may have
pricking of insensitive parts of the body with needles— e ven contracted a written pact on the evening of his fir s t
methods curiously resembling those used by exo rc i s t s experiment with cocaine, before he met Charcot or
and witch hunters. In his correspondence with h e a rd of Haizmann (Vitz 1988, 149–157, 170f. ) .
Wilhelm Fliess in 1897, Freud went so far as to suggest
DAVID LEDERER
that the medieval theory of possession was i d e n t i c a l
with his own theory on the splitting of consciousness, See also:POSSESSION,DEMONIC;PSYCHOANALYSIS;SOLDAN,WIL-
that his own work on hysteria had already been HELMGOTTLIEB;WEYER,JOHANN.
References and further reading:
published “a hundred times ove r, though several cen-
Gay, Peter. 1988. Freud: A Life for Our Times.London: Dent.
turies ago,” and that he would study the Ma l l e u s
Jones, Ernest. 1953. The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud.London:
Ma l e fic a rum (The Hammer of Witches, 1486) “d i l i-
Hogarth Press for the Institute of Psychoanalysis.
g e n t l y” ( Masson 1985, 224–227). In the same corre-
Lederer, David. 2005. Madness, Religion and the State in Early
spondence, he admitted his awareness that “inquisitors
Modern Europe: A Bavarian Beacon.Cambridge: Cambridge
prick with needles to discover the devil’s stigmata” and University Press.
posited a close relationship between confessions about Masson, Jeffrey Moussaieff, ed. 1985. The Complete Letters of
sexual abuse by the Devil made by accused witches Sigmund Freud ToWilliam Fliess (1887–1904).Cambridge,
under tort u re and the communications of his ow n MA: Harvard University Press.
patients made during sessions of psychoanalysis con- Midlefort, H. C. Erik. 2002. “Charcot, Freud and the Demons.”
cerning their childhood sexual experiences. Pp. 199–216 in Witches, Werewolves and Wandering Spirits:
Traditional Belief and Folklore in Early Modern Europe.Edited
In 1920, a Viennese archivist brought a we l l - d o c u-
by Kathryn A. Edwards. Kirksville, MO: Truman State
mented case of demonic possession to Fre u d’s attention,
University Press.
leading him to try his hand at re t ro s p e c t i ve medicine.
Strachey, James, ed. 1966. The Standard Edition of the Complete
His Demonological Ne u ro s i s(1923) examined the posses-
Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud. London: Hogarth Press
sion experience of a seve n t e e n t h - c e n t u ry Ba varian art i s t ,
for the Institute of Psychoanalysis.
Johann Christoph Haizmann. Freud diagnosed Vitz, Paul C. 1988. Sigmund Freud’s Christian Unconscious. New
Haizmann as a long-time sufferer from ambivalent sexu- York: Guilford.
al identity and a castration complex whose full-blow n
possession followed the death of his father. He based this Freude, Michael (ca. 1620–1692)
i n t e r p retation on arc h i val documentation, including a A Lutheran pastor in Mecklenburg, Freude implement-
monastic attestation, two pacts with the Devil, and the ed confessionalism in the duchy of Mecklenburg-
a rt i s t’s own androgynous caricatures of Satan. By Güstrow with a campaign of puritanical discipline and
Freude, Michael 393 |
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rejection of superstitious beliefs. His experiences led Better to die pious, Freude claimed, than to use magic
him to examine the topics of witchcraft and possession or other illegal means of healing. The only individual
closely in his writings. It is due to his work, and the remedy against witchcraft he prescribed was the spiritu-
work of others like him, that the persecution of witch- al sword: true faith.
es finally ended in Mecklenburg-Güstrow. In addition to his strict rejection of superstition,
Freude was the son of a craftsman’s family in the Freude also criticized witchcraft trials, referring to legal
small Mecklenburg town of Plau. He studied theology d e ficiencies and charges brought against innocents in
and served as pastor of Kuppentin parish between 1645 proceedings he knew of. Unlike his early work of 1667,
and 1678. He decided to leave his position in 1678 he now quoted extensively from Friedrich Spee’sCautio
after long and intense disagreements with both the vil- criminalis (A Warning on Criminal Justice, 1631),
lage ove r l o rd and with many of his parishioners. He although Freude seemed less radical. His personal reser-
died in Lübeck in 1692. Freude was among the few vations about the use of torture were portrayed vividly
Mecklenburg pastors who actively supported the disci- to the reader, but did not lead to a radical criticism of
pline and denominational policies of Duke Gu s t a v the current system of proof. (Torture, however, was not
Adolf of Güstrow, who sought to wipe out folk magic necessarily conclusive pro o f.) His experience with the
and superstition. In 1667, Freude published the fir s t noble patron of his parish and the attempts of the
version of his Gewissens-Fragen von Processen wieder die G ü s t row government to place witchcraft trials under
He xen. In s o n d e rheit denen Richtern hochnötig zuwissen central control informed his call for strict control over
( Questions of Conscience Concerning Trials of local court officials by sovereign princes.
Witches. In Particular, Highly Necessary for the Judges Freude was committed to arguing for a cautious and
to Know). Its expanded 1671 version focused on the temperate approach to naming witches, accusations,
t h ree aspects: the social constructs of witchcraft; the and circumstantial evidence. As in 1667, his assessment
re p e rt o i re of remedies for bewitchment; and the legal of the legal basis for a trial remained vague, although
basis for trials against witches. In an appendix, he dis- this section was more extensive in 1671. He referred to
cussed the topic of possession in both its religious and witch crimes as crimen exceptum (the excepted crime),
legal contexts. but also thought that it should be standard pro c e d u re
The author re flected the theory and practice of witch- to give defendants legal counsel and to examine circum-
craft trials in Mecklenburg, but he also extended the dis- stantial evidence care f u l l y. Prompted by Güstrow,
cussion of determining witchcraft and the practice of tri- Freude condemned every form of testing for witchcraft
als. He determinedly followed the cautious opinion of and turned his attention tow a rd naming witches and
witchcraft typical of a large group of mostly Pro t e s t a n t confrontations. Although his views became obscured in
scholars, whose total opposition to superstition fin a l l y citations of pieces of documentary evidence, he dis-
led them to vanquish belief in witchcraft. This balance missed the idea of arresting on a single accusation and
b e t ween the freedom of the human will, divine permis- argued for cautious dealings with easily spread rumors.
sion, and the power of the Devil appears to be the com- After clarifying different special cases, pointing out
plete opposite of the Malleus Ma l e fic a rum (T h e that members of the upper classes should also be inves-
Hammer of Witches, 1486). As the Devil has hardly any tigated if under suspicion, and questioning the charac-
magical competence to perform destru c t i ve magic, the teristics of old age or youth in sentencing, Fre u d e
witches fall into his trap, in which Satan need only sug- returned to his original goal. Witchcraft, according to
gest the actual damage to be done. Freude did, howe ve r, him, could only be eradicated by fighting against the
consistently refer to the reality of pacts made with the unbelief and ignorance of the general population. It was
Devil, and to the De v i l’s persuasive methods. p recisely this combination of criticism of trials and of
The educational intentions of Fre u d e’s book superstition that characterized the Güstrow clergy.
stemmed from his everyday experience, and he consis- Only a decade after the publication of Questions of
tently emphasized the equality of the nondevout, the Conscience,the persecution of witches had ended there,
possessed, and witches. There were gradients of differ- because the belief in witches had in itself become a
ence between these three forms of sin, but doing active form of superstition.
or passive damage was one mark of a life without God
KATRIN MOELLER
or morals. The author constantly emphasized that sal-
vation can only be ensured through penance and con-
See also: BRENZ,JOHANN;DEMONOLOGY;GERMANY,NORTHEAST-
version, and he included witches in this. People who
ERN;MECKLENBURG,DUCHYOF;POSSESSION,DEMONIC.
References and further reading:
p a rticipated in persecuting witches because of damage
Clark, Stuart. 1997. Thinking with Demons. The Idea of Witchcraft
done to them were stigmatized just as radically as those
in Early Modern Europe.Oxford: Clarendon.
using any form of folk magic. A denunciation of witch-
Freude, Michael. 1667. Gewissens-Fragen von Processen wieder die
craft and folk magic would come at some pre d e s t i n e d Hexen. Insonderheit denen Richtern hochnötig zuwissen.Güstrow:
time, but may not be made by the victim himself. Scheippel.
394 Freude, Michael |
Wicca | Richard M.Golden - Encyclopedia of Witchcraft - The Western Tradition | 432 | 46049 Golden Chap.E av First Pages 08/25/2005 p.395 Application File
———. 1671. Gewissens-Fragen oder Gründlicher Bericht von Munich. After an examination of witnesses, the pos-
Zauberey und Zauberern.Frankfurt am Main: Wusts. sessed was tested. She screamed when an empty re l i-
Midelfort, H. C. Erik. 1972. Witch Hunting in Southwestern q u a ry was applied, but failed to notice the secret appli-
Germany 1562–1684. The Social and Intellectual Foundations.
cation of actual relics. Because she could not detect
Stanford: Stanford University Press.
things hidden or speak in foreign languages, Frey and
Sydney, Anglo, ed. 1977. The Damned Art. Essays in the Literature
the other theologians decided it was a case of either
of Witchcraft.London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
melancholy or fraud. Despite subsequent claims that she
could now speak Latin, Italian, and He b rew, Pu c h m a ye r
Frey, Bernhard, SJ (1609/1610–1685) was declared a victim of fevers and a madwoman and
As father confessor and advisor to the Bavarian Elector, remanded to the custody of the Holy Spirit Hospital in
Frey urged moderation in matters of witchcraft, Munich. Si m u l t a n e o u s l y, the demoniac Anna Ma ye r
demonic possession, and the insanity defense. He u n d e rwent literally hundreds of exo rcisms in Altötting
passed his early childhood in Oberstdorf in the after- and Benediktbeuern. Frey was convinced that all evi-
math of a severe witch hunt and a peasant revolt. In dence of possession was lacking and that her denuncia-
1621, Frey enrolled in the Jesuit lyceum in Dillingen, tions threatened a witch hunt. He recommended she be
became a novice in Landsberg in 1626, and studied remanded to a respectable family for Christian disci-
philosophy at Ingolstadt, where he took orders formal- pline, heavy work, and fasting. At Fre y’s urging, the elec-
ly in 1628. After teaching in Freiburg, he returned to tor officially dismissed her exo rcist, the Franciscan Lu c a s
Ingolstadt in 1633 to complete his studies in theology. Gl a s b e r g e r, from the case while Ma ye r, who physically
After being ordained in 1637, he taught at various assaulted the skeptical Jesuit rector in Altötting, was
Jesuit educational institutions in Augsburg, Ingolstadt, ultimately ord e red to return home and earn her live l i-
Innsbruck, Landshut, Munich, and Lucerne. During hood through honest toil. In 1668, Frey again discre d i t-
this period, he intensified his interest in casuistry and ed the relationship between the demoniac Katharina
moral theology (precursors of modern psychology and R i e d e r, who had signed a pact with the Devil, and her
psychiatry) and published numerous theses on his pri- e xo rcist, Willibald St a rck, SJ. His superiors had alre a d y
mary scholarly interests: the soul/mind/body relation- had St a rck transferred from Straubing to Munich after
s h i p, personal guilt, and mental culpability. In he disobediently performed embarrassing exo rc i s m s
1652–1653, he led a mission to re i n t ro d u c e t h e re on the demoniac Elisabeth Susanna de la Ha ye .
Catholicism to the Sulzbach region of Pfalz-Neuburg. Frey discredited St a rc k’s continued exo rcisms in Mu n i c h
After 1654, Frey spent his remaining years in as blatant repetitions of the previous incident in
Munich, first as head of the elite Marian congregation Straubing and again warned that he ran the danger of
and then, from 1673 to 1679, as the last in an unbro- inciting witchcraft accusations. Frey was already know n
ken, century-long chain of Jesuit father confessors at as an outspoken advocate of moderation in accusations
the court of the Wittelsbach dukes/electors. By this of witchcraft, basing his opinions largely on the earlier
time, a marked shift away from demonological to ideas of fellow Jesuits, above all Friedrich Spee and
pathological explanations of madness, suicide, and the Adam Ta n n e r. In 1670, he became the first Ba va r i a n
insanity defense was underway at court. As father con- o f ficial to refer publicly to the more radical Ca u t i o
fessor and trusted spiritual advisor to Elector Ferdinand Cr i m i n a l i s (A Warning on Criminal Justice, 1631) o n
Maria, Frey helped pave the way for this paradigm shift, the excesses of tort u re and the dangers of chain re a c t i o n
producing a number of seminal briefs in cases of insan- persecutions alongside Ta n n e r’s moderate admonitions
ity, demonic possession, and witchcraft. An incident in in an attempt to contain an isolated accusation of witch-
1679 clearly illustrated his stance. During a priva t e craft and to end a series of witch hunts he duly
meeting with the Ba varian chancellor, his personal condemned as “d a n g e rous and dreadful trials against
friend Johann Rottgner stormed into the room, pro- w i t c h e s” (Behringer 1997, 323, 356).
duced a pistol, shot and wounded Fre y, and assaulted
DAVID LEDERER
the chancellor with a knife. Although both escaped
with their lives, Rottgner was sentenced to the galleys. See also: EXORCISM;PACTWITHTHEDEVIL;POSSESSION,DEMONIC;
However, Frey interceded on his behalf with the elector, PSYCHOANALYSIS;SPEE,FRIEDRICH;STOECKHLIN,CHONRAD;
pleading for leniency on the basis of an insanity
TANNER,ADAM.
References and further reading:
defense.
Behringer,Wolfgang. 1997. Witchcraft Persecutions in Bavaria:
In his role as ecclesiastical advisor to the elector, he
Popular Magic, Religious Zealotry and Reason of State in Early
was called on to deliver expert testimony in seve r a l
Modern Europe.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
e x t r a o rd i n a ry cases of demonic possession. Be t we e n
Duhr, Bernhard. 1904–1907. “Zur Geschichte des Jesuitenordens.
1666 and 1668, Frey participated in a lengthy inve s t i g a- Aus Münchner Archiven und Bibliotheken.”Historisches Jahrbuch
tion into the activities of the demoniac, Anna der Görres-Gesellschaft25 (1904): 126–167; 26 (1905): 33ff.;
Pu c h m a ye r, who drew large crowds in Freising and 28 (1907): 61–83, 306–327.
Frey, Bernhard 395 |
Wicca | Richard M.Golden - Encyclopedia of Witchcraft - The Western Tradition | 433 | 46049 Golden Chap.E av First Pages 08/25/2005 p.396 Application File
———. 1907–1928. Geschichte der Jesuiten in den Ländern j ewel made by four dwarves known as the Br i s i n g s .
deutscher Zunge.Freiburg: Herder. When Freya saw the necklace, she agreed to spend a
———. 1917. “Eine Teufelsaustreibung in Altötting.” Pp. 63–76 in night with each of the four dwarves in return for own-
Beiträge zur Geschichte der Renaissance und Reformation:
ership.
Festschrift für Joseph Schlecht.Munich: Datterer.
Together with the Vanir hostages Njörd and Fre y r,
Lederer, David. 2005. Madness, Religion and the State in Early
she was brought to the Aesir, teaching them her magic,
Modern Europe:A Bavarian Beacon.Cambridge: Cambridge
as the Ynlingasaga(chap. 4) outlined. Freya’s association
University Press.
with cats may have stemmed from her links to the
Schaich, Michael. 1998. “Frey, Bernhard.” Pp. 130–132 in
Biographisches Lexikon der Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Volva, who practiced a sort of shaman-like trance div-
München.Berlin: Duncker and Humboldt. ination, known as “seidr,” that Freya reputedly invented
and then taught; the Vo l va dressed as animals, often
Freya (Freyja) cats. Freya had other connections with the arts of the
The goddess of fertility Freya is connected with the shaman: she was a shape-shifter, often assuming the
witch figure in many aspects: her shape-shifting abili- shape of a falcon in order to fly from Asgardr to all cor-
ties, her connections with magical healing, her lascivi- ners of the nine worlds.
ousness, and her ability to fly at night. She became so Pre-Christian Scandinavia already had the notion of
famous that all women of distinction were given the e n c h a n t resses riding or driving out at evening and
title “fru” (“lady”) in her honor. night, as the Ed d a states. The notion of the Fu r i o u s
In Norse mythology, Freya is the daughter of Njord Host is at some state intertwined with the notion of the
and Nerthus, or Skadi. She is Freyr’s sister and wife. She night flight. The female figures known as “ladies of the
is also the wife of Od, a sun god, and Ottar’s mistress. night” and those participating in the Furious Host are
The poet Snurri Sturluson claimed that with Od supernatural beings, goddesses. Theologians might have
( Odur) she had two daughters, Gersemi and Hnoss i d e n t i fied them with the Roman Diana or with
(both names are synonymous with“t re a s u re”). Freya is He rodias, but the populace never entirely forgot their
important to the Aesir, as well as the frost giants, who traditional native names. If Dame Holda, also known as
always seem to find a way to claim her. During the Freya or Ab u n d i a , had once led the round dance of
c o n s t ruction of Asgard r, the Aesir commanded one of e l ves, Christian theologians subsequently considere d
the frost giants to build the wall around their home. On her anunholde that is,an evil woman.
condition that he finish the wall within a certain time,
CHRISTA TUCZAY
he asked for and was promised Freya as his wife, in
addition to sun and moon as his payment. Another See also:DIANA(ARTEMIS); FLIGHTOFWITCHES;HOLDA;META-
time, the frost giant T h rymir stole T h o r’s hammer
MORPHOSIS;SHAMANISM;WALPURGIS(WALPURIGS)NIGHT.
References and further reading:
and held it ransom, demanding the hand of Freya as
Buchholz, Peter. 1971. “Shamanism—the Testimony of Old
payment.
Icelandic LiteraryTradition.” Mediaeval Scandinavia4: 7–20.
Freya was worshiped as a mother goddess, a bringer
Davidson, Hilda Roderick Ellis. 1964. Gods and Myths of Northern
of fertility and love. Women were thought to go to her
Europe.Harmondsworth: Penguin.
abode after their death. She was pictured in falcon garb Guiley, Rosemary Ellen. 1989. The Encyclopedia of Witches and
and moved over the earth in her feather dress. Together Witchcraft.NewYork and Oxford: Facts On File.
with her maids, she sat beneath the fruitful boughs of Page, Raymond Ian. 2000. Chronicles of the Vikings:Records,
Yggdrasil, from where Aurboda and Beli abducted her Memorials and Myths.London: British Museum.
and brought her to Jotunheim. It is obviously a Norse Simek, Rudolf. 1993.Dictionary of Northern Mythology.
fertility myth with similiarities to Persephone. Woodbridge, Suffolk: D.S. Brewer.
Sturluson, Snorri. 1995. Edda. Translated by Anthony Faulkes.
London: Everyman’s Library, J. M. Dent and Sons Ltd.
The Witch Figure
The Poetic Edda. 1996.Translated by Carolyne Larrington.
Freya is also known as a sorceress who introduced
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
magic among the Aesir. In this role, she was identified
as Heid. Some scholars saw her as a moon goddess, or
Frisius, Paulus (ca. 1555–?)
the goddess of the night who was drawn accross the
skies by two cats or boars. She is a spring goddess whose Author of the 1583 book Defss Teuffels Nebelkappen.
attributes include flowers, music, and the color green. Das ist: Kurzer Begriff den gantzen handel von der
Early Christians considered her a witch, banishing her Za u b e rey belangend zusammen gelesen (The De v i l’s
to the mountains, where she danced with demons on Hoodwink: A Short Summary of What Has Been
Walpurgis Night (Guiley 1989, 130). Compiled Concerning the Whole Business of
Freya is a lascivous woman, who gives her favo r s Witchcraft). Frisius [Paul Friese] has left few certain
quite freely to gods or mortals. This is clearly illustrated details about his life to posterity. Probably the son of
by the story of her necklace Br í s i n g a m e n , a marve l o u s Johannes Frisius, a pastor in Nagold, he matriculated at
396 Freya (Freyja) |
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the University of Heidelberg in 1575 and seems to have (The Ants), Geiler von Kaysersberg’s 1516 and 1517
signed the Lutheran Formula of Concord of 1580. sermon collection. The woodcut published in 1583 had
Because Frisius dedicated his work to Landgrave Georg been used twe l ve years previously in a pamphlet by a
I of Hesse-Darmstadt, and a number of his stories orig- Catholic priest from Schlettstadt, Re i n h a rd Lutz; a
inate in Hesse, he was probably a pastor in one of the slightly different version appeared in several editions of
Hessian territories in the 1580s. Johann We ye r’s De Praestigiis Daemonum ( On the
The De v i l’s Ho o d w i n k , published in Fr a n k f u rt by Tricks of Devils) and in a work by Abraham Sa u r,
Wendel Hum, belonged to the new literary genre of which argued for the reality of witchcraft and was pub-
Devil books (Teufelbücher) that appeared with increas- lished in Frankfurt in the previous year, 1582.
ing frequency in German cities from the 1550s, and The Devil’s Hoodwink had some themes in common
especially in Fr a n k f u rt am Main, which became the with Weyer’s seminal tract, insofar as it focused on dia-
principal center for their dissemination. Fr i s i u s’s work bolical illusion and trickery as fundamental to witch-
was republished in Frankfurt in 1586 in a collection of craft. Unlike We ye r, howe ve r, who partly attributed
nine books dealing with devils and witchcraft, the claims of witchcraft to the melancholic nature of old
Theatrum de Veneficis (Theater of Poisoners), published women, Frisius focused on their evil intentions and on
by Nicholas Bassé and edited by the Marburg lawye r, the diabolical pact that they willingly entered. Indeed,
Abraham Saur. Fr i s i u s’s dedication to Landgrave Georg I of He s s e -
Frisius structured his work around the popular folk- Darmstadt constituted a plea to eradicate the evil of
lore of the Nebelkappe,the large magical hood or cloak witchcraft; and because Frisius’s work appeared just one
(Kappe) that supposedly made its wearers invisible and year after the landgrave had established a new criminal
a l l owed them to carry out their deeds veiled in fog code that first stipulated specific punishments for
(Ne b e l). The motif had been used in this way by the witchcraft, its purpose may have been to support this
Nu remberg author and playwright, Hans Sachs, in a princely initiative.
play of 1559 about a country bumpkin with such a
CHARLES ZIKA
magic hood (Der Pa u renknecht mit der nebelkappen) .
Frisius appropriated the notion to express the complex See also:ARTANDVISUALIMAGES;DEVIL;DEVILBOOKS;FOLKLORE;
webs of diabolical deception and illusion within which GEILERVONKAYSERSBERG,JOHANN;HESSE;MAGIC,POPULAR;
the acts and perceptions of witchcraft needed to be
SIGHT,POWERSOF(SECONDSIGHT); WEYER,JOHANN.
References and further reading:
understood. In Frisius’s work, then, witchcraft became a
Zika, Charles. 1991. “The Devil’s Hoodwink: Seeing and
spectacular hoodwink perpetrated on humanity by the
Believing in the World of Sixteenth-CenturyWitchcraft.”
Devil, the master conjurer, arch-trickster, and father of
Pp. 153–198 in No Gods Except Me: Orthodoxy and Religious
all lies.
Practice in Europe 1200–1600.Edited by Charles Zika.
Frisius’s work seldom referred to theological or philo- Melbourne: The History Department.
sophical arguments, but was built on stories of mysteri- ———. 2002. Pp. 481–521 in Exorcising Our Demons: Magic,
ous and marvellous deeds drawn from the He b rew Witchcraft and Visual Culture in Early Modern Europe.Leiden
Bible, ecclesiastical authorities such as St. Au g u s t i n e , and Boston: Brill.
John Cassian, and Vincent of Be a u vais, and from six-
teenth-century collections of exempla.Its approach was Fründ, Hans (ca. 1400–1469)
that of the preacher, welding together accounts of com- Fründ was a Swiss chronicler famous for his report in
mon cultural experiences to display the compact old German about the witch hunt of 1428–1430 in the
between the witch and Devil. Frisius’s critical argument bilingual Swiss canton of Valais. Like Dauphiné and
was that the marvellous deeds of witches (“poor whores Savoy, Valais belongs to the Alpine regions where the
of the Devil,” as he repeatedly called them) did not earliest witch hunts have been found. For this reason,
depend on their own power or instruments, but only Fründ’s report of witches gathered around an “evil spir-
on the Devil’s power.The illusions created by the Devil, it” is a major source of the history of witchcraft.
the De v i l’s “blinding” or hoodwink, allowed witches Born in Lucerne at the beginning of the fif t e e n t h
and observers to be duped into thinking that witches century, Hans Fründ became chancellor (Landschreiber)
had such powe r, and to hide the De v i l’s true ro l e . of Schwyz (Schwiz) and wrote a “Chronicle of the
Witches we re no more than shadow puppets of the Ancient War of Zurich” covering the years 1436–1447
Devil, who manipulated the forces of nature, the (Marchal 1980, 992). His “witch-report,” written soon
human senses, and the human imagination. The witch’s after the events of 1428–1430, could have been his very
responsibility lay in her evil intention to participate in a first essay. In it, Fründ related how the “w i c k e d n e s s ,
pact with the Devil, an intention stimulated most com- crimes and heresy” of men and women called sortilegiin
monly in Frisius’s work by the vice of lust. Latin were uncovered in 1428. These sortilegi were first
The title-page woodcut for Frisius’s work was mod- found in the Val d’Anniviers and in the Val d’Hérens,
eled on an illustration that first appeared in Die Emeis two French-speaking valleys of Valais, and then in
Fründ, Hans 397 |
Wicca | Richard M.Golden - Encyclopedia of Witchcraft - The Western Tradition | 435 | 46049 Golden Chap.E av First Pages 08/25/2005 p.398 Application File
nearby German-speaking regions. Insisting on the nov- See also: LAUSANNE,DIOCESEOF;METAMORPHOSIS;ORIGINSOF
elty of the phenomenon, Fründ re p o rted at length THEWITCHHUNTS;SABBAT;SAVOY,DUCHYOF;VALAIS.
about the sorc e re r s’ practices and beliefs, using infor- References and further reading:
Blauert, Andreas. 1989. Frühe Hexenverfolgungen: Ketzer-,
mation gathered from trials and confessions, mostly
Zauberei- und Hexenprozesse des 15. Jahrhunderts.Hamburg:
made after tort u re. Ac c o rding to him, those persons
Sozialgeschichtliche Bibliothek bei Junius.
gathered in heretical “schools” directed by an evil spirit
Fründ, Hans. 1999. “Rapport sur la chasse aux sorciers et aux
(böse Geist: the words “d e v i l” or “d e m o n” we re neve r
sorcières menée dès 1428 dans le diocèse de Sion.” Pp. 23–98
mentioned), who appeared to them in the form of a
in L’imaginaire du sabbat. Edition critique des textes les plus
black animal, either a bear or a ram, or in some other anciens (1430 c.–1440 c.) Edited and translated by Martine
horrible form. If they were weak or envious or doubt- Ostorero, Agostino Paravicini Bagliani, Kathrin Utz Tremp,
ful, this evil spirit convinced them to reject Christianity and Catherine Chène.Lausanne: Université de Lausanne
by denying “God and all his Saints, Baptism, and Holy (Cahiers lausannois d’histoire médiévale, 26).
C h u rch.” The evil spirit perve rted the Mass: he Marchal, Guy P. 1980. “Fründ, Hans.” Pp. 992–993 in Die
p reached sermons against the Christian faith, forbid- deutsche Literatur des Mittelalters. Verfasserlexikon.Vol. 2. Berlin
and NewYork.
ding his audience to attend church or confess. They had
Weisz, Leo. 1934. “Aus einer Luzerner Handschrift.”Revue
to pay an annual fee, either a black sheep or a measure
d’Histoire Ecclésiastique suisse28: 241–255.
of oats, and promise to give him one of their limbs after
their death. Only then did the evil spirit teach them
how to make magical potions and ointments that could Fugger Family
make women sterile and men impotent, or make people In the first quarter of the sixteenth century, the Fugger
sick, or kill them (Fründ 1999, 53–62). family succeeded the Medici as the most important
Fründ believed in the reality of the night fli g h t . bankers in Europe. A half-century later, some members
According to him, the “evil spirit” taught the sorcerers of this family became outstanding supporters of the
how to anoint some chairs on which they flew from one Counter-Reformation, promoted by public exorcisms
mountain peak to another and visited whenever they and witch hunting.
wanted the castles with the best wine. There, they ban- Of humble rural origins, the Fuggers migrated to the
queted and feasted in the cellars, but the wine was mag- imperial city of Augsburg after the Black De a t h .
ically restored. The evil spirit also taught them how to A l ready in the fifteenth century the family rose to
become wolves, eating raw meat, or how to become i m p o rtance and divided into two branches, labeled
invisible by absorbing some herbs. During their gather- after their coat of arms as “Fugger vom Reh” (deer) and
ing or “s o c i e t y” ( Ge s e l l s c h a f t ) , they killed and ate their “Fugger von der Lilie” (lily), founded by Jacob I Fugger.
own children or those of their neighbors. His son Jakob II Fugger “the Rich” (1459–1525) man-
In the aftermath of the War of Raro g n e aged the Fugger company in In n s b ruck after 1485,
(1414–1420), which had deeply disturbed the political soon becoming chief banker to the Habsburg dynasty
climate in Valais, fears of an anti-Christian conspiracy under the Holy Roman emperor Maximilian I. Ja k o b
a c q u i red some plausibility. Even before 1428, some accumulated an enormous amount of wealth. T h e
people had been judged there for sorcery or magic spells Tyrolean Habsburgs had to pawn their silver mines to
( s o rt i l e g i u m ) , without mentioning the Sa b b a t . him. He also acquired copper mines in Spain, Austria,
According to Fründ, in one and a half years since 1428, and Hu n g a ry, and took over the financial transactions
more than 100 persons had been arrested, judged, and of the papacy concerning the sale of indulgences. As the
burned in Valais, with trials continuing as he was writ- leading European banker of his age, he provided crucial
ing. The new sect counted 700 members and was aid for the election of King Charles I of Spain, who
preparing to overcome the Christians, elect a king, and became Em p e ror Charles V in 1519. In return, the
set up new courts. Though Fr ü n d’s numbers—100 or Habsburgs showered the Fugger family with titles and
200 victims burned, 700 members—may be ove re s t i- land, on the basis of which the Fuggers became feudal
mated, the chronicler re p o rted true events in Va l a i s . l o rds, counts, and eventually princes of the Ho l y
Between approximately 1428 and 1436, numerous tri- Roman Em p i re. Raimund Fugger (1490–1535) and
als we re conducted in Valais, principally by secular Anton Fugger (1493–1560), who succeeded their
courts; between 1428 and 1434, secular authorities and childless uncle Jakob II as “ru l e r s” (Re g i e re r) of the
assemblies, such as the one in Leuk (Loèche) in 1428, Fugger company, maintained the policy of accumulat-
decreed new laws against witchcraft and sorcery. Valais ing feudal pro p e rty and thus managed to surv i ve the
witchcraft trials showed the Sabbat appearing aro u n d major losses contracted through loans to Charles V and
1429, which was very early in comparison to the rest of his son King Philip II of Spain. During Anton’s “reign,”
Europe (Fründ 1999, 63–93). the company had branches throughout Eu rope fro m
Poland to Spain, and in Spanish America. Raimund’s
—MARTINE OSTORERO grandsons, Philipp Ed u a rd and Octavian Se c u n d u s
398 Fugger Family |
Wicca | Richard M.Golden - Encyclopedia of Witchcraft - The Western Tradition | 436 | 46049 Golden Chap.E av First Pages 08/25/2005 p.399 Application File
Fugger (1549–1600), commissioned the most extensive demonstrate the superiority of Catholicism ove r
n ews collection of the sixteenth century, the “Fu g g e r Protestantism, but he also started witch hunting.
New s l e t t e r s” (Fu g g e r - Ze i t u n g e n), by employing corre- During the first wave of persecution in this re g i o n
spondents, postmasters, and news agents in cities all around 1590, witches were burned throughout his large
over Europe, from 1568 to 1605, when the printing of estates that stretched from the Danube in the north to
periodical newspapers started in the Holy Ro m a n Augsburg, around his small capitals Ob e r n d o rf and
Empire. No rd e n d o rf. As an unknown re p o rter put it, “Ma rx
The Fuggers remained a bulwark of Catholicity Fugger, the noble man, is also rooting out and punish-
within the largely Protestant imperial free city of ing the evil throughout his estates, eve ry w h e re” (Österre-
Augsburg, guided by their alliance with the Ha b s b u r g ichische Nationalbibliothek, Vienna, Fu g g e r - Ze i t u n g e n ,
dynasty and their business relations with the popes. Cod. 8963, fol. 751ff. ) .These persecutions have not yet
When Ma rtin Luther and his supporters we re alre a d y been adequately explored. The Fugger newsletters pro-
raging against so-called “works-righteousness,” in 1519 vide detailed re p o rts about witchcraft trials in the
Jakob II commissioned the construction of large blocks prince-bishopric of Augsburg, particularly at the dis-
of buildings (the Fu g g e re i) within one of the poore r trict court of Schwabmünchen, because of the nearby
suburbs of Augsburg, the Jakober Vo r s t a d t , d e voted to Fugger residence at Kirchheim.
his patron saint St. Ja k o b. T h e re the needy we re (and Howe ve r, in the long run, the Fuggers did not show
after almost 500 years still are) invited to live for a sym- outstanding zeal in persecuting witches or pro s e c u t i n g
bolic fee and the vow of regular prayers for the salvation witchcraft, neither as lords nor as politicians in
of Jakob Fugger. Although trying to maintain friendly Augsburg or in the Holy Roman Em p i re. It was eve n
relations with the Protestant fellow citizens, Anton claimed that one Alexius Fugger resigned as a ruling lord
Fugger established close links with the bishops of in 1590 because he felt unable to cope with pre s s u re
Augsburg, the Catholic dukes of Bavaria, and the new f rom both his peasants and neighboring lords demand-
Jesuit order. In particular, he supported Peter Canisius ing witch hunting in his lordship Randeck on the
as a Counter-Reformation missionary during his period Danube, because he could not reconcile the bloodshed
as cathedral preacher in Augsburg. Anton’s son Markus with his conscience. It was only from the 1640s to the
“ Ma rx” Fugger (1529–1597) continued this support , 1660s that further witchcraft trials are re p o rted from the
and during this “ru l e” the female members of the tiny Fugger lordship Wasserburg am Bodensee (Lake
Fugger family we re particularly closely related to Constance), with up to twenty executions between 1656
Canisius. Ma rx’s wife Si bylla von Eb e r s t e i n and 1664. Prince Anton Ignaz Joseph von Fugger vo n
(1527–1589) conve rted to Catholicism, as did Ur s u l a K i rchberg und Weissenhorn (1711–1787), prince-
von Lichtenstein (1542–1573), Georg Fugger’s wife. In bishop of Regensburg, invited the exo rcist Jo h a n n
return, both promoted the founding of the Je s u i t Joseph Gassner to cure his beginning blindness and oth-
College in Augsburg in 1582, like other Fuggers by er diseases in 1774. Gassner infamously explained all
donating large sums of money, estates in the city, and diseases by witchcraft, and the ve ry fact that this bishop
landed property in the countryside. o f f e red a stage to a man who had already been outlawe d
Members of the Fugger family, such as Anton’s son by Em p e ror Joseph II, Pr i n c e - Elector Max III Joseph of
Hans Fugger (1531–1598), we re outstanding art col- Ba varia, Archbishop Clemens We n zeslaus von Sa c h s e n ,
lectors and bibliophiles. They spent enormous amounts and other enlightened celebrities, seemed outrageous.
of time networking and sponsoring artists, were educat- The bishop surv i ved both witchcraft/exo rcism and pub-
ed or even learned, and succeeded as humanists. By lic opinion, commissioned a marvelous high altar still to
demonstrating taste or cultural hegemony, they gained be seen in Regensburg cathedral, and donated his pro p-
the attention and friendship of princes of the Ho l y e rty to the poor.
Roman Em p i re. Duke Albrecht V of Ba varia bought
WOLFGANG BEHRINGER
the famous library of Johann Jakob Fu g g e r
(1516–1575) as a basis of his own library (which even- See also: AUGSBURG,IMPERIALFREECITY;BAVARIA,DUCHYOF;
tually became the Bayrische St a a t s b i b l i o t h e k). Early on CANISIUS,ST.PETER;GASSNER,JOHANNJOSEPH;HOLYROMAN
the Fuggers celebrated their success as a dynasty by EMPIRE;INNSBRUCK;JESUITS(SOCIETYOFJESUS); MAXIMILIANI,
commissioning works like the “Fu g g e ro rum et HOLYROMANEMPEROR;TYROL,COUNTYOF.
References and further reading:
Fuggerarum imagines,” and the Fuggers have employed
Behringer,Wolfgang. 1997. Witchcraft Persecutions in Bavaria.
historians to the present day in order to celebrate their
Popular Magic, Religious Zealotry and Reason of State in Early
dynasty.
Modern Europe.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
The darker sides are usually excluded from Fu g g e r -
Klarwill, Victor von, ed. 1970. The Fugger News-letters, First Series;
s p o n s o red historiography. Ma rx Fugger not only
Being a Selection of Unpublished Letters from the Correspondents
a l l owed Canisius to use his female re l a t i ves and their of the House of Fugger During the Years 1568–1605.Translated
female servants for terrifying public exo rcisms to by Pauline de Chary. Freeport, NY: Books for Libraries.
Fugger Family 399 |
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———, ed. 1970. Fugger News-letters, Second Series; Being a then, bound by her hands and feet, was locked in a dog-
Further Selection from the Fugger Papers Specially Referring to stall, where she could only crawl on all fours. T h e
Queen Elizabeth and Matters Relating to England During the charges against her concerned elaborate witchcraft, par-
Years 1568–1605, Here Published for the First Time.Translated
ticularly taking part in witch dances and harming cows.
by L. S. R. Byrne. Freeport, NY: Books for Libraries.
Her husband lodged a protest against Nuss and his fel-
l ow-judges before the imperial appellate court in
Fulda, Prince-Abbey of
Sp e ye r, which ord e red that her trial be conducted in
Germany’s largest imperial prince-abbey, located in the strict accordance with the measures prescribed by the
former district of the Upper Rhine, Fulda experienced Carolina, and specifically forbade torture without ade-
major witch hunts during the interrupted reigns of quate circumstantial evidence. Nuss, howe ve r, forc e d
Pr i n c e - Abbot Balthasar of Dernbach (ru l e d Bien’s husband to withdraw his charges by threatening
1570–1576, re s t o red 1602–1606). An enthusiastic legal action. That ve ry same day, the court in Fu l d a
supporter of the Counter-Reformation, Dernbach had s t a rted torturing Merga Bien, who confessed and was
quarrelled with the Protestant estates and been expelled e xecuted. In the end, Blasius Bien had to pay for the
from Fulda in 1576. When he returned to Fulda after burning of his wife.
twenty-six years, following a decision by the imperial A second spectacular incident during Fu l d a’s witchcraft
privy councillor, he carried out a program of drastic re- trials was Nu s s’s attempt to try six women from Fu l d a’s
Catholization. Additionally, he appointed Balthasar upper class for witchcraft. All six had already left with
Nuss, an old confidant, as criminal judge for capital their families and thus never appeared before the M ü n t z
offenses. Nuss immediately began a large-scale witch in Fulda. Instead, they filed suit against Prince Ab b o t
hunt. In contrast to what earlier findings have suggest- Balthasar and his judges before the court of appeals (the
ed, this was not a calculated Counter-Reformation imperial chamber court, Re i c h s k a m m e r g e r i c h t) in Sp e ye r
measure, as both Catholics and Protestants were among for their unlawful conduct of witchcraft trials.
the victims. Nevertheless, many Protestant families left The witchcraft trials ended with Balthasar of
Fulda, starting in 1603. Among those persecuted at the De r n b a c h’s death on Ma rch 15, 1606. His successor,
very beginning of this wave of trials was the mother of Johann Friedrich of Schwalbach, dismissed and then
a Fulda alderman, Dr. Georg Haan. He soon moved to a r rested Balthasar Nuss, after hearing complaints that
Bamberg, where he later became chancellor, before he Nuss had administered his office improperly. Nuss was
too was executed as a sorcerer in 1628. imprisoned for twe l ve years on charges of unjustifie d
Be t ween early 1603 and 1606, at least 239 people profits, corruption, and embezzlement, and was finally
were executed for alleged witchcraft. Before the wave of executed in 1618. After 1606, no witchcraft trials ever
persecution started, the prince-abbey had asked the law took place in Fulda. In 1612, Friedrich Spee pro-
faculty in Würzburg to certify its methods of conduct- nounced his vow as a novice of the Jesuit order in
ing witchcraft trials. Howe ve r, Nuss ignored their Fulda. On this occasion, he probably learned about
rather persecution-friendly guidelines while dire c t i n g Fu l d a’s witch hunts and Nu s s’s arrest, which likely
his trials. His procedures thus complied with the con- strengthened his loathing for witchcraft trials.
cept of crimen exceptum (the excepted crime), but did
PETER OESTMANN;
not follow the processus ordinarius (ordinary procedure)
as provided for in the Carolina (the imperial law code, TRANSLATED BY JONATHAN STICKNEY
1532). This apparently caused friction with the abbot,
See also: BAMBERG,PRINCE-BISHOPRICOF;CAROLINACODE;
who advocated adhering to standard procedure and for-
GERMANY,WESTANDNORTHWEST;NUSS,BALTHASAR;REICH-
bade Nuss from pocketing part of the legal costs in
SKAMMERGERICHT(IMPERIALCHAMBERCOURT); SPEE,FRIEDRICH.
addition to his official pay. In the end, howe ve r, References and further reading:
Balthasar of Dernbach tolerated these witchcraft trials, Behringer,Wolfgang. 2000. Pp. 325, 377, 381 in Hexen und
supposedly because they implicated re l a t i ves of his Hexenprozesse in Deutschland.4th ed. Munich: Deutscher
political opponents. A special order put the city of Taschenbuch.
Fulda’s secular subcourt (the so-called Müntz) in charge Jäger, Berthold. 1997. “Zur Geschichte der Hexenprozesse im Stift
of carrying out the trials. Members of the M ü n t z Fulda.” Fuldaer Geschichtsblätter73: 7–64.
Oestmann, Peter. 1997. Pp. 438–446 in Hexenprozesse am
allowed to pass sentence included several lay assesors, as
Reichskammergericht.Cologne, Weimar, and Vienna: Böhlau.
well as Balthasar Nuss. This court convicted not only
Schormann, Gerhard. 1991. Pp. 115–120 in Der Krieg gegen die
inhabitants of Fulda, but also accused witches fro m
Hexen.Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht.
other places under the jurisdiction of the prince-abbot.
———. 1994. “Die Fuldaer Hexenprozesse und die Würzburger
The trial of Merga Bien in the summer of 1603
Juristenfakultät.” Pp. 311–323 in Hexenverfolgung und
became especially we l l - k n own. She was arrested solely Regionalgeschichte.Edited by Gisela Wilbertz et al. Bielefeld:
on the basis of denunciations by other suspects, and Verlag für Regionalgeschichte.
400 Fulda, Prince-Abbey of |
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G
Gappit, Perrissona Mutual distrust poisoned their relationships. Yet, what
The case of Perrissona Gappit, tried in 1465 in the aroused the suspicions of the third witness is unclear.
s e i g n e u ry of Châtel-Sa i n t - Denis (today in the Sw i s s The accused at first denied the charges bro u g h t
canton of Fribourg), offers exceptionally complete doc- against her. But when the commissioner confronted her
umentation. Unlike almost all fif t e e n t h - c e n t u ry witch- with what we re probably minor contradictions in her
craft cases, the re c o rds of her trial include not only the t e s t i m o n y, she broke down. In the end, she confessed
transcripts of the interrogations of the accused and the attending the “sect of the here t i c s” presided by a “big
ve rdict, but also extensive pretrial material. This allows a man in black.” Thus, at the final stage of her pre t r i a l
nearly complete re c o n s t ruction of the case; a critical edi- examination, the accusation had shifted from “domes-
tion of the whole corpus has been published (Mo d e s t i n tic” sorcery to diabolical witchcraft. Her subsequent tri-
1999, 276–317). First studied in 1909, the case has al focused exc l u s i vely on the latter, completely ove r-
been used subsequently by key scholars: one emphasize d s h a d owing the charges that had originally triggere d
the shift of the charges from sorc e ry to diabolical witch- Perrissona’s examination.
craft during the trial (Kieckhefer 1976, 32–33); another
highlighted the intrinsic interest of the case for studying The Trial
the backgrounds of individuals accused of witchcraft The actual trial, after which Perrissona was sentenced to
( Bl a u e rt 1989, 71–73). The latest discussion (Mo d e s t i n death and burned in public, was conducted by a vice-
2000, 120–128) stressed its political context—the inquisitor from the Dominican convent of Lausanne
unstable situation of Châtel in the 1460s. and required seven sessions between January 23 and
Fe b ru a ry 4. The accused confessed denying Go d ,
though with considerable reluctance. After undergoing
The Pretrial Examination
torture, she also admitted having had sexual intercourse
The trial began on January 11, 1465, when Claude
with the Devil.
Burritaz, a notary commissioned by the episcopal and
inquisitorial authorities of Lausanne, questioned three
The Political Context
witnesses, followed by Perrissona. (Burritaz had previ-
The social positions of the assessors of her trial suggest
ously served as clerk in a 1448 witch hunt near Vevey.)
that the local elite took considerable interest in
The first witness was the son-in-law of the accused; the
Perrissona Ga p p i t’s conviction. Her trial was pre c e d e d
second was his father, that is, Perrissona’s second hus-
by several other cases at Châtel-Sa i n t - Denis sometime
band. Both believed her to be a “heretic” rather than a
in the 1440s or 1450s, but we cannot link her case
“good Christian.” The reason they offered was
d i rectly with them. Howe ve r, in the 1460s, political
Perrissona’s character: she was alleged to be extremely
s ove reignty over the seigneury of Châtel was claimed
irascible—a feature that later became a stock piece pre-
both by its local lords and by the city of Fribourg, to
ceding an accusation of witchcraft. In addition, they
which it had been mortgaged. In Ma rch 1461, Fr i b o u r g
alleged, Perrissona had an intrinsic power to cause ill-
appointed a castellan to control Châtel; he re m a i n e d
ness: her son-in-law claimed to be paralyzed because of
until mid-1464, when the question of the debts was set-
her, and her husband had allegedly become mute—
tled. Châtel-Sa i n t - Denis changed hands several times in
which apparently did not prevent him from charging
the following months, before a Sa voy a rd nobleman,
his wife. The third witness, finally, suggested myths
Be r n a rd of Menthon, purchased it on Ja n u a ry 16,
about the witches’ Sabbat: a neighbor accused
1465. Thus Perrissona Ga p p i t’s trial was under way
Perrissona of attempting to abduct her newborn baby.
exactly when Châtel was changing hands. The chro n o l-
The first two accusations illustrated the daily diffi-
ogy of the events suggests that the local elite pro fit e d
culties between the two men and Perrissona within a
f rom the brief absence of ove r l o rdship to get rid of a
common household. Details in their depositions offer
p a rticular person by initiating a witchcraft trial.
insights into a microcosm into which Perrissona had
failed to integrate even after eighteen years of marriage. GEORG MODESTIN
Gappit, Perrissona 401 |
Wicca | Richard M.Golden - Encyclopedia of Witchcraft - The Western Tradition | 439 | 46049 Golden Chap. D av First Pages 08/25/2005 p.402 Application File
See also: ACCUSATIONS;FAMILY;LAUSANNE,DIOCESEOF;SWITZER- only be ascribed to human imbecility and stupidity.
LAND;WITNESSES. Gassendi dealt at length with the vanity of astro l o g e r s ,
References and further reading: denying vigorously that stars can influence humans. If
Bl a u e rt, Andreas. 1989. Frühe He xe n ve rfolgungen: Ke t zer-, Za u b e re i
a s t rological predictions seemed to come true, re a s o n s
und He xe n p ro zesse des 15. Ja h rh u n d e rt s .Hamburg: Ju n i u s .
other than astrology explained it: fortune or chance, the
Kieckhefer, Richard. 1976. European Witch Trials: Their
c h a r l a t a n’s cunning, and the ignorance and stupidity of
Foundations in Popular and Learned Culture, 1300–1500.
their clients. In the same way, he attacked alchemy. Like
London and Henley: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
René De s c a rtes, Gassendi attempted to reduce eve ry
Modestin, Georg. 1999. Le diable chez l’évêque: Chasse aux sorciers
dans le diocèse de Lausanne (vers 1460).Lausanne: Université de physical phenomenon to local motion, using no con-
Lauganne, Section d’histoire, Faculté des Lettres. cepts except atoms and their re c i p rocal collisions. T h u s ,
———. 2000. “Wozu braucht man Hexen? Herrschaft und his Sy n t a g m a completed Ga s s e n d i’s earlier polemics
Verfolgung in Châtel-Saint-Denis (1444–1465).” Freiburger against magic and astro l o g y, started in his Ep i s t o l i c a
Geschichtsblätter 77: 107–129. e xe rc i t a t i o against Fludd, with his atomistic and
Reymond, Maxime. 1909. “Cas de sorcellerie en pays fribourgeois mechanical explanations. Gassendi expressed skepticism
au quinzième siècle.” Archives suisses des traditions populaires13:
about diabolical and malevolent magic. Tales of long
81–94.
fasts, like those of possession by demons and bew i t c h-
ment, we re often based on imposture. Although he
Gassendi, Pierre (1592–1655) denied the power of imagination over other bodies, nev-
French theologian, philosopher, scientist, Catholic priest, e rtheless, this outspoken skeptic was inclined to accept
and provost at the cathedral of Digne, Gassendi was a something like the evil eye and tried to offer a mechanis-
pioneer of corpuscularianism (the theory that matter is tic explanation: a woman “f a s c i n a t o r,” her eyes and
made up of corpuscules—minute particles) and empiri- imagination focused on the tender body of an infant,
cism, famous for helping design a re volution in natural might throw off maleficent rays and injurious efflu v i a
p h i l o s o p h y. He advocated abandoning Aristotelianism and so affect the state of the baby’s health.
for a “t ruer and better” skeptical and empirical philoso- Ga s s e n d i’s polemics against astrology and magic we re
p h y. Without attacking witchcraft dire c t l y, Gassendi was ve ry influential in creating a mechanistic alternative to
one of the major seve n t e e n t h - c e n t u ry thinkers who Platonic naturalism and Renaissance Aristotelianism. In
undermined magic. His conviction was that an eclectic, 1634 Mersenne used Ga s s e n d i’s antiastrology polemic
C h r i s t i a n i zed epicureanism enabled philosophers to con- in his Préludes de l’ h a rmonie unive r s e l l e ( Preludes of
tribute to the pro g ress of the new experimental sciences Un i versial Harmony). Only one year after its publica-
while providing better support for the Christian faith. tion, the part of Ga s s e n d i’s Sy n t a g m aattacking astro l o g y
He distinguished “c l e a r” from “o b s c u re” philosophies, was translated into English: The Vanity of Ju d i c i a ry
with the latter including those that used fables or sym- As t ro l o gy Or Divination By The Stars: Lately Written In
bols to express mystical or occult concepts. Latin By That Great Scholar And Mathematician, T h e
At the request of Father Marin Me r s e n n e Illustrious Pe t rus Gassendus, Mathematical Professor In the
(1588–1648), in 1628 Gassendi became invo l ved in a King of France. Translated into English by a Person of
c o n t roversy with Ro b e rt Fludd (1574–1637), the Qu a l i t y (London: H. Mo s e l e y, 1659). Fi ve years earlier,
Engish hermeticist, cabbalist, chemist, and Ro s i c ru c i a n , Walter Charleton (1619–1707) had published his
and a spokesman for magical animism. Although he did Physiologia Ep i c u ro – Ga s s e n d o – C h a rltoniana or, a Fa b r i c k
not agree with Mersenne that Fludd was an evil magi- of science natural, upon the hypothesis of atoms, founded by
cian and an atheist, Gassendi judged Fl u d d’s version of Ep i c u rus, re p a i red by Pe t rus Gassendus, augmented by
the doctrine of the “Soul of the Wo r l d” to be pantheistic Walter Charl e t o n (London, 1654), which also used
and heretical because Gassendi believed it led inevitably Ga s s e n d i’s arguments opposing astrology and magic.
to the deification of cre a t u res including demons, to idol-
DRIES VANYSACKER
a t ry, to the conclusion that animal souls we re immort a l ,
and that eve rything done on earth, both good and bad, See also: ANIMISTICANDMAGICALTHINKING;ASTROLOGY;
was done by God (A Consideration of the Philosophy of DESCARTES,RENÉ;KABBALAH;MAGIC,NATURAL;MECHANICAL
Ro b e rt Fl u d d , 1630). In his later works, especially the PHILOSOPHY;SCIENCEANDMAGIC;SKEPTICISM.
References and further reading:
Syntagma philosophicum ( Philosophical Treatise), pre-
Brundell, Barry. 1987. Pierre Gassendi. From Aristotelianism to a
p a red between 1649 and 1655, Gassendi worked out a
New Natural Philosophy.Dordrecht, Boston, Tokyo: Reidel
clear alternative to such Neoplatonic magical-occult
Publishing.
philosophies. A proper understanding of mechanical
Gregory,Tullio. 1961. Scetticismo ed empirismo. Studio su Gassendi.
physics would eliminate fore ver the world of mysterious
Bari: Editori Laterza.
metaphysical causalities, sympathies, and antipathies. Jones, Howard. 1981. Pierre Gassendi 1592–1655. An Intellectual
He saw astrology as a “p u e r i l e” superstition that could Biography.Nieuwkoop: B. de Graaf.
402 Gassendi, Pierre |
Wicca | Richard M.Golden - Encyclopedia of Witchcraft - The Western Tradition | 440 | 46049 Golden Chap. D av First Pages 08/25/2005 p.403 Application File
Thorndike, Lynn. 1956. A History of Magic and Experimental attention the public gave Gassner at the height of his
Science.Vol VII: The Seventeenth Century.NewYork and fame can be seen not only by the numerous poems and
London: Columbia University Press. countless personal testimonies, but also by the re p o rt s
of the various commissions that investigated him and
Gassner, Johann Joseph (1727–1779) his methods. More than 100 publications for or against
Gassner became famous as an exorcist and miracle heal- the exorcist (Gassneriana) were published within a short
er who postulated that all illness was the work of time from 1775 onward and re v i ewed in the leading
demons and witches. After studies at Prague and periodicals of the time; the controversy about Gassner’s
Innsbruck, he was ordained as a priest at Chur in 1750 therapies electrified the entire German-speaking public.
and took over the pastoral care of two parishes, Dalaas In fact, this became one of the most important contro-
and Klösterle. While still at Klösterle, he successfully versies of the Enlightenment in southern Germany, and
tested his miracles cures, first on himself and later on one of the prominent debates in the Ge r m a n
his parishioners. Enlightenment as a whole.
His therapies always followed the same pattern. T h i s Enlightened Protestants re g a rded these cases of
is evident from the numerous publications, some by e xo rcism as yet more proof of darkest Catholic super-
Ga s s n e r, that amply document his methods. A patient stition, part of the belief in witchcraft and the De v i l .
would appear, and the miracle healer would in most Soon, howe ve r, critical voices could be discerned fro m
cases inquire about the patient’s complaints. Then he within the Catholic camp. In addition to Elector Ma x
would begin an invocation, after exhorting the suffere r III Joseph of Ba varia and Em p e ror Joseph II of Au s t r i a ,
to trust in Jesus and his help. The diagnosis of “p o s s e s- e ven Pope Pius VI eventually turned against Ga s s n e r,
s i o n” was, as a rule, a foregone conclusion; the patient’s especially as they feared disturbances of “peace and
medical history was mostly disre g a rded. Even if he con- o rd e r” from Ga s s n e r’s large following. The Ba va r i a n
ceded the existence of natural illnesses in theory, for Academy of Sciences played a leading role in the fig h t
Ga s s n e r, diseases we re almost without exception of an to contain the influence of this exo rcist, although it
unnatural and thus demonic origin. Still, the demons was undermined immediately after the end of the
or devils had to manifest some sign of their pre s e n c e Ba varian “witchcraft war.” When the Viennese doctor
first. This he tried to accomplish through a test exo r- Anton Mesmer seemed to be able to produce much the
cism, which official Church law did not permit. He same effects as Gassner by relying on his “animal mag-
would order the Devil to manifest some of the symp- netism,” the academy favo red Mesmer as the “lesser
toms that the diseased person had shown before, and evil,” although many contemporaries re g a rded him as
only after that would he begin the exo rcism pro p e r. h a rdly less doubtful than Ga s s n e r. After Pius VI con-
Howe ve r, the priest broke Church statutes again by demned Ga s s n e r’s teaching as heretical in a b re ve o f
teaching his patients a prayer with which they would be April 20, 1776, even his noble patrons we re no longer
able to ban the Devil on their own, even without his able to support his methods. The miracle healer spent
immediate invo l vement, which undermined the priest- his last years quietly as a parish priest under the
ly monopoly on spiritual affairs. The effects of his p a t ronage of his long-time support e r, Anton Ig n a z
c u res, quite successful in some cases, we re never lasting, Fu g g e r, at Po n d o rf, a village on the banks of the
and can today be partially explained by posthypnotic Da n u b e .
s u g g e s t i o n .
NILS FREYTAG
After some spectacular cures, this parish priest from
Vorarlberg gained a wide following that extended See also:B AVA R I A NWA RO FT H EW I TC H E S; E N L I G H T E N M E N T;
beyond southern Germany geographically, and into the E XO RC I S M; M E D I C I N EA N DM E D I C A LT H E O RY; P O S S E S S I O N,
highest circles socially. In particular, the upper nobility D E M O N I C.
and the bishops of Regensburg and Chur favored him. References and further reading:
Even though he was unable to heal Anton Ignaz Fugger, Darnton, Robert. 1968. Mesmerism and the End of the
the blind Pr i n c e - Bishop of Regensburg, Fugger gave Enlightenment in France.Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press.
Gassner official permission to perform exorcisms in his
Ego, Anneliese. 1991. Animalischer Magnetismus oder Aufklärung.
diocese. Even Protestants could be found among his
Eine mentalitätsgeschichtliche Studie zum Konflikt um ein
followers, first and foremost the duke of Württemberg
Heilkonzept im 18. Jahrhundert.Würzburg.
and Johann Caspar Lava t e r. After his initial success at
Freytag, Nils. 1996. “Exorzismus und Wunderglaube im späten
Klösterle, the miracle healer practiced with episcopal
18. Jahrhundert. Reaktionen auf die Teufelsbanner und
permission at Kempten, Regensburg, and then especial- Wunderheiler Johann Joseph Gassner und Adam Knoerzer.”
ly at Ellwangen. During his stay at Ellwangen alone, Pp. 89–105 in Regionales Prisma der Vergangenheit. Perspektiven
b e t ween November 1775 and June 1776, Ga s s n e r der modernen Regionalgeschichte (19./20. Jahrhundert).Edited by
reportedly treated 20,000 patients. The high degree of Edwin Dillmann. St. Ingbert: Röhrig.
Gassner, Johann Joseph 403 |
Wicca | Richard M.Golden - Encyclopedia of Witchcraft - The Western Tradition | 441 | 46049 Golden Chap. D av First Pages 08/25/2005 p.404 Application File
Gassner, Johann Joseph. 1782. Nützlicher Unterricht, wider den appear to us” (De potestate angelica,2: 414). That angels
Teufel zu streiten.12th ed. Kempten. have appeared to humans in bodily form (in corporibus)
Hanauer, Joseph. 1985. “Der Teufelsbanner und Wunderheiler was an article of faith, because Scripture recorded many
Johann Joseph Gassner.” Beiträge zur Geschichte des Bistums
such events. “Thus there is no diffic u l t y” concerning
Regensburg19: 303–547.
the f a c t of such apparitions. “But are angels shown to
Midelfort, H. C. Erik. 2005. Exorcism and Enlightenment: Johann
the external senses by means of true bodies, which can
Joseph Gassner and the Demons of Eighteenth-Century Germany.
be seen and touched, or . . . instead only thro u g h
New Haven, CT:Yale University Press.
deceiving our senses?” (De potestate angelica, 2: 416).
Pfeilschifter, Georg. 1932. “Des Exorzisten Gassner Tätigkeit in
der Konstanzer Diözese im Jahre 1774.” Historisches Jahrbuch Gastaldo required another 172 columns to answer these
52: 401–441. and related questions.
Distinction six showed the most influence of witch-
Gastaldo, Giovanni craft treatises. Like them, it revisited a problem that
Tommaso (d. 1655) worried Aquinas: did witchcraft (m a l e fic i u m) actually
An Italian Dominican angelologist and demonologist, exist? If it did not, then proof was scarce that demons
Gastaldo’s major work, De potestate angelica, sive de existed (De potestate angelica, 2: 502–503). Like the
potentia motrice ac mirandis operibus angelorum atque beginning of the Malleus Maleficarum (The Hammer of
daemonum (On Angelic Might, or, On the Locomotive Witches, 1486), Gastaldo quoted Aq u i n a s’s re b u t t a l :
Power and Wondrous Works of Angels and Demons), angels and demons were an article of faith, but the real-
published from 1650–1652 in three volumes, totals ity of maleficium demonstrated their reality empirically
2,110 large double-column pages. It summarized a (De potestate angelica, 2: 501–612). Demonic malefici-
half-millennium of systematic angelology and umindirectly guaranteed the immortality of the human
demonology since Peter Lombard’s Sententiarum libri soul (De potestate angelica, 2: 130–164). Mo re ove r,
quattuor ( Four Books of Sentences, ca. 1150). demons were necessary to theodicy: without their mal-
Gastaldo’s major debt was to his fellow Dominican, St. eficia (harmful acts), no satisfactory explanation existed
Thomas Aquinas, but he also exploited two centuries of for the death of baptized infants: either God seemed
witchcraft treatises. unjust or his sacrament appeared inefficacious (De
Though “s c i e n t i fic,” Ga s t a l d o’s treatise was polemi- potestate angelica, 2: 513–515). Ma l e fic i u m must be
cal. His preface declared his intention to refute skepti- defended against the objections of medical writers like
cism about the existence of angels and demons: “We Avicenna and Galen, who tried to assign natural causes
occasionally find persons so enslaved by their senses to eve ry disease, and against more recent skeptics like
that they consider nothing worthy of belief unless they Pietro Pomponazzi (De potestate angelica,2: 537).
can perceive it with their senses, as St. Augustine asserts Ga s t a l d o’s obsessive - c o m p u l s i ve defense of spiritual
in book 21, chapter 3 of his City of Go d” (Ga s t a l d o reality eloquently demonstrated the fragility of that
1650–1652, 1: vii). Gastaldo investigated whether concept by 1650, the time of Galileo and Re n é
angels and demons could interact corporeally with De s c a rtes. Despite its immensity, Ga s t a l d o’s tre a t i s e
human beings and give sensory proof of their re a l i t y. b rought little novelty to arguments current fro m
Verifiable interaction would provide empirical evidence Aquinas to Torquato Tasso: fictive (“assumed”) corpore-
for the validity of Christianity. a l i t y, locomotion, m a l e fic i u m , possession, and pro p h e-
The nine divisions of Ga s t a l d o’s treatise re h e a r s e d c y. Gastaldo depended heavily on the Ma l l e u s
and expanded the favorite contentions of fifteenth- and Ma l e fic a ru m to develop these ideas; he surpassed such
sixteenth-century witchcraft treatises: (1) on the might single-minded witchcraft treatises only through biblio-
(potentia) or locomotive power (potestas) of angels and graphical thoroughness and argumentative stamina.
demons; (2) on supernatural angelic power; (3) on
WALTER STEPHENS
angels’ power to move themselves; (4) on angels’ natur-
al power to accomplish marvels, especially demons’ See also: ANGELS;AQUINAS,THOMAS;AUGUSTINE,ST.; CORPOREALI-
p ower to produce the wonders of magicians; (5) on TY,ANGELICANDDEMONIC;DEMONS;IMAGINATION;MALLEUS
a n g e l s’ power to “a s s u m e” virtual bodies; (6) on MALEFICARUM;POSSESSION,DEMONIC;TASSO,TORQUATO.
d e m o n s’ power to effect sorc e ry (s o rt i l e g i a) and witch- References and further reading:
craft (m a l e fic i a); (7) on demons’ power over the pos- Augustine. 1950. The City of God.Translated by Marcus Dods,
George Wilson, and J. J. Smith. NewYork: Modern Library.
sessed; (8) on demons’ power to attack humans; and (9)
Gastaldo, Giovanni Tommaso. 1650–1652. De potestate angelica,
on angels’ power to foreknow and reveal future events
sive de potentia motrice ac mirandis operibus angelorum atque
(De potestate angelica,1: iv.).
daemonum. 3 vols. Rome: Francesco Cavallo.
Distinctions four through six polemically vindicated
Quétif, Jacques, and Jacques Echard. 1719–1723. “Johannes
the reality of angels and demons. Distinction five, the
Thomas Gastaldi.” Pp. 2, 582–583 in Scriptores Ordinis
center of the work, examined “whether angels, both Praedicatorum.2 vols. in 4 tomes. Paris: J-B-C. Ballard.
good and evil . . . can truly take on bodies, so as to (Reprinted NewYork: Burt Franklin, 1959–1961.)
404 Gastaldo, Giovanni Tommaso |
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Gaule, John (ca. 1604–1687) the white and the blacke witch: the good and the bad
An obscure clergyman, John Gaule’s claim to fame in witch,” arguing that “g o o d” witches we re worse than
witchcraft history rests on the publication, in 1646, of m a l e fic ones, and we re equally deserving of censure
his Select Cases of Conscience Touching Witches and (Gaule 1646, 30–31). Again like most English writers,
Witchcrafts, a skeptical work prompted by the author’s he clearly regarded some of the more extreme educated
hostility to the witch-finding activities of Matthew witch beliefs as nonsensical, dismissing the belief that
Hopkins. This book appeared shortly after Jo h n sexual congress between human beings and incubi or
Davenport’s The Witches of Huntingdon, Their Exami- succubi could result in the birth of offspring as “t h e
nations and Confessions; Exactly Taken by his Majesties height of all phantasticall delusions” (Gaule 1646, 49).
Justices of the Peace for the County (London, 1646), Ga u l e’s main aim, there f o re, was not to attack the
which described the trials of a number of witches, of belief in witchcraft, but rather to attack the exc e s s e s
whom about six we re executed. Select Cases of that were causing mass witch hunts in eastern England
Conscience apparently originated in a number of ser- at the time he wrote. Thus he criticized those who
mons against witch hunting that Gaule had preached to “conclude peremptorily (not from reason, but indiscre-
his parishioners at Great Staughton in Hu n t i n g- tion) that witches not only are, but are in every place”
donshire, and was dedicated to the local lord of the ( Gaule 1646, 4), and re s e rved special odium for
manor, colonel Valentine Walton, presumably the man “witch-searchers or witch-seekers,” whom he described
to whom Gaule owed his incumbency and who was also as practitioners of “a trade never taken up in En g l a n d
Oliver Cromwell’s brother-in-law. till now” (Gaule 1646, 6). Despite his acceptance of the
Little is known of Gaule’s life. He apparently attend- existence of witchcraft, and the conventional ways in
ed both Oxford and Cambridge universities without which he viewed it, Gaule’s work could clearly provide
taking a degree at either, and in the 1620s moved in ammunition for those opposed to the type of witch
aristocratic circles, possibly serving as chaplain to hunting indulged in by Matthew Hopkins. Written as
Ro b e rt Be rtie, first earl of Lindsey, and definitely as it was in the wake of Hopkins’s activities, it was a brave
chaplain to Baptist Hicks, Viscount Camden, upon book, although perhaps one that indicates clearly that
whose death Gaule published a “Fu n e b r i o u s attitudes tow a rd witchcraft we re not so monolithic at
Commemoration” in 1630. Gaule published a number this time as has sometimes been supposed.
of other works that undermine the British Dictionary of Later, in 1652, Gaule also published a major attack
National Bi o g ra p h y’s description of him as “a n on astro l o g y, The magistro - a s t rological Diviner posed,
unlearned and wearisome ranter.” In 1628, he preached and puzzled,a work dedicated to Oliver Cromwell.
one of the prestigious Paul’s Cross sermons in London,
JAMES SHARPE
an important honor for a young minister; in 1649, after
s e veral years as vicar of Great Staughton, he pre a c h e d See also: ENGLAND;HOPKINS,MATTHEW;SKEPTICISM.
an assize sermon at Huntingdon, proof of local recogni- References and further reading:
Gaule, John. 1646. Select Cases of Conscience Touching Witches and
tion of his competence.
Witchcrafts.London.
Ga u l e’s Select Cases of Conscience, like most “s k e p t i-
Sharpe, James. 1996. Instruments of Darkness: Witchcraft in Early
cal” works of the period, did not reject the possibility of
Modern England.London: Hamish Hamilton.
witchcraft, and contained much that was familiar in
English demonological works. Its underlying purpose
Geiler von Kaysersberg,
was to stress the need to bring people to a pro p e r
Johann (1455–1510)
understanding of witchcraft. In particular, this implied
persuading would-be accusers of witches both to accept A leading pre-Reformation theologian and preacher,
that most of the misfortunes they attributed to malefi- Geiler’s significance for European witchcraft rests on
cium (harmful magic) we re in fact the result of Go d’s the twenty-five sermons he preached on witchcraft in
p rovidence, and also to contemplate their own sinful 1509, from which the Franciscan author Johann Pauli
and uncharitable hearts. Gaule clearly did not deny the took notes that he published in Strasbourg as Die Emeis
existence of witches. He asserted “that as there have (The Ants) in 1516 and 1517. Born at Schaffhausen
been; so ther are & wil be witches unto the world’s end” but named for the town where his grandfather raised
(Gaule 1646, 9), and he insisted that witchcraft was a him, Geiler received his MA in Freiburg (1463) and his
g reat sin. In the best English Protestant tradition, he doctorate of theology in Basel (1475), before returning
also stressed the central importance of the demonic to Freiburg in 1476 to become professor of theology
pact, accepted the reality of familiars, and spent some and then rector. In 1478 Geiler became a preacher in
time discussing the Sabbat. Strasbourg, from 1486 in the cathedral, achieving wide-
Moreover, and again in common with all mainstream spread renown and delivering numerous sermon series
English Protestant demonologists, he attacked the “vul- over the next three decades, most of which were pub-
gar conceit” that “distinction is usually made betwixt lished posthumously.
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Anonymous drawing of a Sabbat from Johann Geiler von Kaysersberg’s sermons on witchcraft published as the Die Emeis (The Ants), 1516. The
illustration contains many elements common to such representations: weather magic, nudity, demons, bones, cauldron, serpent, and flowing hair.
An enchanted table moving with its front legs in the air is an unusual touch. (Cornell University Library)
The title Die Emeis was taken from the Formicarius was a woodcut accompanying the first of the sermons,
(Anthill), the influential work of the south Ge r m a n modeled on Hans Baldung [Grien]’s work of 1510, that
Dominican theologian, Johannes Ni d e r, from which appeared later in Hieronymous Braunschweig’sBook of
Geiler frequently quoted and drew his material. Geiler D i s t i l l a t i o n (1519) and in at least five editions of
c ove red topics such as the witches’ night rides, their Johann Pa u l i’s collection of moral tales, Schimpf und
powers of metamorphosis, the relationship between the Ern s t ( Humour and Se r i o u s n e s s , 1522), there by
female gender and witchcraft, the power of the evil eye, becoming a most influential example of the new witch-
and the capacity of witches to inflict harm. He also dis- craft iconography. The scene re p resented Ge i l e r’s
cussed the extent and limits of the De v i l’s powe r, the emphasis that many claims made by witches were mere-
licit and illicit means used to protect oneself against ly products of diabolical illusion. The woodcut illustrat-
witchcraft, as well as the relationship of witchcraft to ed a story from Ni d e r, in which a village woman
such aspects of folklore as wild people, werewolves, and claimed to ride out at night with other witches. T h e
the processions of the Furious Horde. artist supported the text’s conclusion that this was sim-
Geiler placed much emphasis on the Devil’s power to ply a diabolical fantasy by including the classical plane-
tamper with the human imagination to create fantasies t a ry god Saturn, a fig u re linked to contemporary
and illusion. This happened with the witches’ night notions of melancholic delusion.
rides, he argued, or with claims of shape shifting. And The second important figure was a woodcut illustrat-
when harm was caused by witchcraft, it was the Devil ing Geiler’s sermon on “How witches milk axe handles
who intervened to ensure its success. Geiler supported to pro c u re milk” that exe m p l i fied the common tech-
the death penalty for those who carried out serious sor- nique used by artists to identify traditional sorc e ry
c e ry, or alternatively for those who believed in their practices as witchcraft. It depicted a we l l - k n ow n
own power to either divine the future, harm by sorcery, method for stealing milk: an old woman kneels on the
or invoke the dead through necromancy. g round with an axe firmly wedged into a house post,
The Ants also provided a rich source for illustrations while milk pours into a pail from the end of the axe
of witchcraft. Three are especially significant. The first handle. The artist has also inserted two visual cues, a
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cauldron on a smoking fire and a hailstorm in the sky, executed for evil magic were men. On the other hand,
which had no connection with the subject but ensured in the Holy Roman Em p i re, including pre-1 6 4 8
an easy identification with witchcraft. Switzerland and modern eastern France, which saw by
The woodcuts accompanying Ge i l e r’s sermon on the far the worst persecutions and the greatest number of
Furious Ho rde (Wütisches He e r) we re especially mass trials, women predominated ove rw h e l m i n g l y ;
i n s t ru c t i ve for understanding contemporary re a d i n g s men occasionally comprised up to one-third of accused
of traditional folklore. This third significant illustra- witches, but some witchcraft trials invo l ved only
tion, a 1516 woodcut, depicted a procession of women. There were reports of German villages where
Bacchus, the god of wine, a drunken Silenus, the father every adult female inhabitant was accused and nearly all
of satyrs, and a satyr playing a bagpipe. The scene re p- of them executed.
resented the world of unbridled senses, a common tar- Links between gender and witchcraft we re not lim-
get of moralist preachers like Ge i l e r. In 1517 this ited to the witches themselves. Except for a few female
image was replaced with a woodcut previously pub- rulers, all of the authorities invo l ved in witch persecu-
lished in two 1497 editions of Sebastian Br a n t’s popu- t i o n s — o f ficials, rulers, judges, inquisitors, notaries,
l a rShip of Fo o l s(1494) and in a Geiler sermon series of e xe c u t i o n e r s — we re male. Rulers and officials intent
1512. It depicted a soldier standing on his head in a on finding and destroying witches consciously used
c a rt, which was being pulled by horses traveling back- p a t r i a rchy as a model, describing themselves as fir m
w a rds and led by a fool using the wrong end of his but just fathers, carrying out their investigations for
w h i p. This was an image of carnival inversion, in the protection of those under their authority just as
which all was upside-down and ruled by folly. As with responsible fathers protected their children fro m
i n t e r p retations of witchcraft, the folklore of the harm. This harm included physical injury at the hands
Furious Ho rde has been linked to fears of societal dis- of witches, or the spiritual danger that could come
integration and disord e r. f rom any woman, even their own mothers, teaching
them magical sayings or other superstitious practices.
CHARLES ZIKA
While investigating suspected witches in many part s
See also: ARTANDVISUALIMAGES;BALDUNG[GRIEN], HANS;CAUL- of Eu rope, judges and inquisitors routinely sought the
DRON;DEVIL;DÜRER,ALBRECHT;FOLKLORE;GENDER;IMAGINA- exact details of a female (but never a male) witch’s
TION;MAGIC,POPULAR;MELANCHOLY;MILK;NIDER,JOHANNES; demonic sexual contacts, ordering suspects to be
PEOPLEOFTHENIGHT(NACHTVOLK);SATURN;SORCERY;WEATH- stripped, shaved, and pricked with a needle for the
ERMAGIC. “ De v i l’s mark” (a wart or mole insensitive to pain) left
References and further reading: as a result of this contact. In England, searc h e r s
Douglass, E. Jane Dempsey. 1989. Justification in Late Medieval
(sometimes women) looked for the witch’s mark, a
Preaching: A Study of John Geiler of Keisersberg.2d ed. Leiden
p rotuberance or supernumerary nipple that a witch’s
and NewYork: Brill.
familiars (domesticated demons) sucked. Be c a u s e
Kors, Alan Charles, and Edward Peters, eds. 2001. Witchcraft in
these investigations we re generally carried out by male
Eu rope 400–1700. A Do c u m e n t a ry Hi s t o ry.2d ed. Ph i l a d e l p h i a :
o f ficials—judges, notaries who re c o rded the witch’s
University of Pennsylvania Press.
Stöber, August, ed. 1856. Zur Geschichte des Volks-Aberglaubens im a n s wers, the executioner who did the actual pricking
Anfange des XVI. Jahrhunderts. Aus Dr. Joh. Geilers von or other types of tort u re—with the witch at least par-
Kaisersberg Emeis.Basel: Schweighauser’sche tially naked, it is difficult not to view them as at least
Verlagsbuchhandlung. p a rtly motivated by sexual sadism.
Voltmer, Rita. 2004. Wie der Wächter auf dem Turm—ein Prediger Scholars of witchcraft have dealt with its gendere d
und seine Stadt. Johannes Geiler von Kaysersberg (1445–1510) n a t u re in various ways. Some of the earliest historical
und Strassburg.2 vols. Trier: Porta Alba.
studies of witchcraft ignored it, discussing demonology
Zika, Charles. 2003. Exorcising Our Demons. Magic, Witchcraft
or the development of witch persecutions in differe n t
and Visual Culture in Early Modern Europe.Leiden and Boston:
a reas without analyzing how ideas about witchcraft
Brill.
shaped, and we re shaped by, contemporary notions of
what it meant to be male or female. During the 1970s
Gender and 1980s, several authors asserted that the witch hunts
Like many other crimes in early modern society—or we re primarily an attempt by male authorities to sup-
today—witchcraft was gender related, though not gen- p ress independent women, especially those who had
der specific. Between 75 and 85 percent of those ques- spiritual knowledge or we re midwives, herbalists, or
tioned, tried, and executed for witchcraft after 1500 healers. This conclusion has been refuted by more
we re women, though this percentage varied signific a n t l y. recent studies, but it has gained acceptance among
In Finland and Estonia, half or more of those pro s e c u t e d some contemporary practitioners of witchcraft, who
for witchcraft cases were male; in seventeenth-century view “true” witchcraft as linked with nature and healing
Iceland or Muscovite Russia, the vast majority of those rather than with demonic forces.
Gender 407 |
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and western Europe, beginning in the fifteenth century,
particularly in the Malleus Maleficarum (The Hammer
of Witches, 1486), the most influential and also most
misogynous treatise on demonology and witch hunt-
ing. The authors of these works asserted that women
were more likely to be witches than men because they
we re impressionable, mentally weak, resentful of
authority, easily deceived by the Devil and likely to
deceive others, ambitious, vain, talkative, and vindic-
tive. This list of women’s negative qualities was based
on the writings of Aristotle, Church Fathers such as
Je rome, Augustine, and Te rtullian, and a host of
medieval Christian authors, all of whom provided
underlying intellectual concepts that supported the link
between women and witchcraft. These included the
dichotomies of order and disorder, culture and nature,
reason and emotion, mind and body—dichotomies in
which men were linked to the more positive first term
and both women and the Devil to the more negative
second one. In both the classical and Christian tradi-
tions, women were thought to be more disorderly than
men, and witches to be both disorderly and actively
bent on destroying order; witchcraft was often por-
trayed as an inversion of the normal order, as were situ-
ations in which women had authority over men.
Demonological theorists added two ideas to this intel-
lectual tradition, making the links between women and
witchcraft even stro n g e r. One was the notion that the
essence of witchcraft was the pact with the Devil, a pact
that re q u i red the witch to do the De v i l’s bidding. T h u s
witches we re no longer people who used magical powe r
A demon or the Devil takes away a female witch, while an executioner to get what they wanted, but people used by the Devil to
breaks the bones of a male witch. (TopFoto.co.uk) g e t what he wanted, a dependent position part i c u l a r l y
fitting for women. The second emphasized a sexual con-
nection between witches and the Devil that sealed their
Today most historians acknowledge the role of pact, combined with an emphasis on women’s gre a t e r
m i s o g y n y, asserting that hatred and suspicion of sexuality and the fact that the Devil was always port r a ye d
women were important factors in the witch beliefs and as male. This is a particular obsession in the Ma l l e u s ,
witchcraft trials of many parts of Europe and America. whose author stated plainly: “All witchcraft comes fro m
They note, howe ve r, that negative ideas about women carnal lust, which is in women insatiable.. .. W h e re f o re
had been part of Western culture long before the age of for the sake of fulfilling their lusts they [women] consort
the witch hunts, and that they were just as prevalent in e ven with devils” (Kramer 1486, 127). Howe ve r, the
areas that saw few trials, such as southern Europe, as in concept of the pact began in places where men we re
areas that saw many. It is therefore important to investi- heavily re p resented among accused witches and there f o re
gate why accusations of witchcraft developed out of was not always gendered. Demonologists—and most
misogyny only at certain times and places and not at other scholars—saw female sexual drive as incre a s i n g
others, thus integrating gender with other explanatory t h roughout a woman’s life, making the postmenopausal
factors. It is also important to make distinctions woman most vulnerable to the blandishments of a
b e t ween learned demonological theory, popular ideas, demonic suitor. Witches we re rarely accused of same-sex
and the actual course of witchcraft trials; though these relations: if the author of the Ma l l e u sthought that sexual
were often interwoven, gender figured quite differently i n t e rcourse with the Devil was limited to women, later
in each of them. French demonologists (who encountered many male
witches) thought the Devil took a female form when he
Demonological Theory had sexual relations with male witches.
The link between women and witchcraft became very The spread of demonological theory, and particular-
strong in the learned demonological theory of central ly the use of the Malleus as a guide to witch hunters,
408 Gender |
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stimulated a greater feminization of witchcraft, for Women who cared for women who had recently given
witches were now the dependent agents of a male devil, birth and their infants, known as lying-in maids, were
rather than independently directing demons them- especially vulnerable, for this was a particularly danger-
s e l ves. In some areas of Eu rope in which the demonic ous time for both the new mother and infant.
concept of witchcraft never took hold, such as Finland, The person initially accused in a witch hunt in most
Iceland, Estonia, and Russia, witchcraft did not become of Latin Christendom fit a stereotype that has been
f e m a l e - i d e n t i fied and there we re no large-scale hunts. remarkably resilient: she was an older woman, widowed
( England was an exception to this situation.) In these or single, poor, and in some way peculiar—someone
areas and in parts of Europe where the Malleus and sim- who looked or behaved oddly or was known for cursing
ilar books were not influential, including Scandinavia, or scolding or aberrant sexual behavior. She was often
sexual relations with the Devil we re not part of witch on the margins of village society and dependent on the
accusations. goodwill of others for her support, and was also suspect
because she was not under the direct control of a man.
Popular Ideas She might have had a reputation as a healer, a scold, or
While witchcraft theorists drew on classical and a worker of both good and bad magic, and was the
Christian writers in linking women and witchcraft, inversion of what people expected a “good woman” to
common people drew on their observations of the be: argumentative, willful, independent, aggressive, and
world around them and oral traditions. Women were sexual, rather than chaste, pious, silent, obedient, and
recognized as having less physical, economic, and polit- married. In some parts of Europe and North America,
ical power than men, making them more likely to use she might also have been suspected of other types of
magical assistance to gain what they wanted. A man crimes or have been troublesome to authorities.
could fight or take someone to court, but a woman One might assume that women would have done
could only scold, curse, or cast spells. Thus in popular e ve rything they could to avoid such a reputation, but in
notions of witchcraft, women’s physical and legal weak- actuality the stereotype could have protected a woman
ness was a contributing factor, with unmarried women for many years. Some women consciously cultiva t e d
and widows recognized as especially vulnerable because popular notions of their connection with the supernatur-
they did not have husbands to protect them. Because al, performing rituals of love magic with herbs, wax fig-
women often married at a younger age than men and u res, or written names designed to win a lover or hold a
female life expectancy may have been incre a s i n g , spouse. Neighbors would be less likely to refuse assis-
women frequently became widows. If they remarried, it tance, and the wood, grain, or milk that she needed to
was often to a widower with children, so that they s u rv i ve would be given to her or paid as fees for her mag-
became stepmothers; resentments about preferential ical services such as finding lost objects, attracting desir-
treatment were very common in families with stepsib- able suitors, or harming enemies. This can help explain
lings, and the evil stepmother became a stock figure in why some women apparently confessed to being witches
folk tales. If a woman’s second husband died, she might without the application or even threat of tort u re; after
have to spend her last years in the house of a stepchild decades of providing magical services, they we re as con-
who resented her demands but was legally bound to vinced as their neighbors of their own powe r s .
provide for her, and so old age became a standard
feature of the popular stereotype of the witch. Family Actual Witchcraft Trials
structure and living arrangements were different in east- Gender figured not only in learned and popular ideas
ern Eu rope, where extended families often live d about witchcraft, but also in the ways in which accusa-
together, so the resentment of older women may not tions and trials developed. The entire realm of sexual
have been as strong; this combined with the fact that relationships, for example, created the possibility of
Eastern Ort h o d oxy never developed an elaborate conflict that could easily have led to accusations of
demonology may explain why witchcraft was not asso- witchcraft. Choosing a spouse was an important and
ciated with women there, but remained the province of sometimes difficult business, and those whose
male sorcerers. courtships failed might search for someone to blame.
Women also had close connections with many areas Once a marriage occurred, sexual or reproductive dys-
of life in which magic or malevolence might have function on the part of either partner required an expla-
seemed the only explanation for events—they watched nation, and natural causes were often not evident or
over animals that could die mysteriously, prepared food s u f ficient. Extramarital relationships brought eve n
that could become spoiled unexplainably, nursed the ill greater possibilities of danger, uncertainty, and power-
of all ages who could die without warning, and care d ful feelings, with witchcraft used as an explanation for
for children who were even more subject to disease and both their beginning and their end.
death than adults in this era of poor hygiene and Relations within the family and kin group we re
u n k n own and uncontrollable childhood diseases. similarly fraught with tension and the possibility of
Gender 409 |
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conflict. Family members were expected to be loyal to Inquisitions, which generally simply dismissed the case
one another and to defend one another in times of or at most ordered punishments of public humiliation.
crisis, but tensions over pro p e rt y, stepchildren, or the Judges in the Inquisition regarded the women and men
public behavior of a re l a t i ve or in-law we re ve ry com- charged with witchcraft as pawns of the Devil, as misled
mon in early modern families. Women were in a more by the “Father of lies” into thinking they had magical
vulnerable position once such strains came out into the powers. They disagreed with the author of the Malleus,
open, for marriage had often separated them from their which they never used as a guidebook for questioning,
b i rth families and they we re dependent on their as secular and ecclesiastical judges did in central
h u s b a n d’s family to protect them. Women generally Europe, and asserted that most witches were simply stu-
married men who were older than they were, and, given pid or deluded old women suffering from depre s s i o n
high child mortality rates and the prevalence of disease, who needed spiritual retraining and (earthly) male
might have had no children who lived; thus betwe e n guidance. The testimony of such people was cert a i n l y
o n e - q u a rter and one-third of the older women in a not valid grounds to arrest anyone else, which meant
community might have had no direct descendants to there were almost no mass panics in southern Europe.
defend them against accusations. Studies in many parts In q u i s i t o r s’ attitudes tow a rd women we re thus more
of Eu rope indicate that when men we re accused, they condescending and patronizing than those of northern
were more likely to have family and friends who testi- judges, but the effects of this attitude on women’s lives
fied in their favor—and more likely to flee to avo i d were certainly more positive.
being executed. In Europe north of the Alps and Pyrenees, the initial
Neighborhood antagonisms also led to accusations, accusation might also be dismissed if the judges regard-
and because most adults spent the majority of their ed the evidence as questionable, or it might have led to
time with people of the same sex, women generally a wider round of questioning, which often included the
accused other women and men other men. Wo m e n relatives or neighbors of the first suspect, as well as peo-
accused other women of harming children or curdling ple whose lifestyle made them suspect or who had the
milk, while men accused other men of spoiling crops or reputation of being a witch. Most of those accused in
killing horses. The witnesses initially brought in we re such a hunt fit the stereotype—female, older, poor;
also of the same sex, and often those who knew the lives male suspects we re frequently re l a t i ves of the accused
of the alleged witch and the victim intimately, such as women. At this point, especially in central Europe, the
servants or close neighbors. Some scholars have particu- hunt might turn into a large-scale panic, in which the
larly addressed the question of why women would circle of suspects brought in for questioning continued
accuse other women in a process they knew might have to grow unchecked until it numbered in the hundreds.
deadly results, and have concluded that women gained Women continued to be the majority of those accused
economic and social security by conforming to the in such mass panics, but when such large numbers of
s t a n d a rd of the good wife and mother, and by con- people began to be accused, the stereotype also often
fronting women who deviated from it. broke down. Wives of honorable citizens were taken in,
Family and neighborhood tensions played a role in and the number of male suspects increased significantly,
many witch accusations, but aspects of gender relations though these were still often related to female suspects
that were important in one witch hunt might be invisi- and we re only rarely accused, of actions such as night
ble in others. For example, Carol Karlsen found in her flying or pacts with the Devil; male witnesses became
study of the New England witchcraft persecutions that more common as well.
many of the women accused of witchcraft were widows This breaking down of the stereotype helps explain
or unmarried women who had inherited pro p e rty or why any mass panic finally ended; it eventually became
might do so, and that older women re c e i ved harsher clear to legal authorities, or to the community, that the
sentences than younger. In many other groups of trials, people being questioned or executed we re not what
however, the women accused of witchcraft owned noth- they understood witches to be or that the scope of accu-
ing at all, and sentences were not affected by the age of sations defied cre d u l i t y. In many ways it was similar
the accused. All aspects of witchcraft re veal great geo- skepticism that led to the gradual end of the witch
graphic differences in terms of gender, both over large hunts in Europe. Gradually, the same religious and legal
areas and within one geographic area—from canton to authorities who had so vigorously persecuted witches
canton in Switzerland or town to town in Austria and began to doubt whether witches actually existed, or at
Germany. least whether the people brought before them actually
Geographic differences were even greater once a sus- we re witches. Older women who thought themselve s
pect was brought in for questioning by legal authorities, witches we re more likely to be re g a rded as deluded or
both in terms of the likely outcome and the way gender mentally defective, meriting pity rather then persecu-
shaped this outcome. In southern Eu rope, witchcraft tion, even by people who still firmly believed in the
was handled by the Spanish, Po rtuguese, or Ro m a n Devil.
410 Gender |
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It is clear that gender shaped witchcraft in both theory Whitney, Elspeth. 1995. “The Witch ‘She’/The Historian ‘He’:
and practice, but less clear exactly how the witch hunts Gender and the Historiography of the European Witch
shaped gender, though historians have offered some Hunts.” Journal of Women’s History 7:77–101.
hypotheses. The stereotypical older woman from the peri-
od before and during the hunts was bawd y, aggre s s i ve , Geneva
and domineering, while by the nineteenth century older The history of witchcraft trials in this independent
women we re seen as asexual, passive, and submissive . city-state, John Calvin’s adopted home, offers a few
St e reotypes are usually based on something, and some unexpected features. Because of Geneva’s location in
scholars have suggested that the witchcraft trials might the western Alpine region, home of the earliest witches’
h a ve convinced older women to act less “w i t c h - l i k e . ” Sabbats, we can find traces of diabolical pacts and spell
Other scholars have pointed out that along with witch- casting (sortilegium) in or near it shortly after 1400.
craft, accusations of women for other types of crimes also Between 1463 and 1500, more than fifty witches were
i n c reased during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, burned at Geneva (Binz 1997, 577–578). Witchcraft
p a rticularly gender-related ones such as prostitution or trials here, as in the neighboring Pays de Vaud, contin-
infanticide. They suggest that this general criminalization ued until and after the Reformation in a practically
of female behavior served as a means of contro l l i n g unbroken series; except for a few interruptions (1540–
women who did not fit with the more domestic and deli- 1543, 1550–1556, or the war years 1588–1593), the
cate ideals for women developing during this period. T h e Republic of Geneva held witchcraft trials virtually every
effects of the witchcraft trials on notions of masculinity or year from its creation in 1536 until 1662. The most
m e n’s behavior as men has yet to be explored systemati- complete tabulation (Broye 1990, 161–173) counted
c a l l y, but future re s e a rch in this new area of historical 336 witchcraft trials conducted by the Republic from
i n q u i ry will no doubt suggest some links. 1536 until 1681, resulting in sixty-nine deaths.
After Calvin settled in Ge n e va, he encouraged the
MERRY WIESNER-HANKS
re p u b l i c’s magistrates to “extirpate the race of witches”
See also: BODYOFTHEWITCH;DEMONOLOGY;EVE;FAMILY; f rom a nearby rural parish which they governed; in all,
FEMALEWITCHES;FEMINISM;HOMOSEXUALITY;MALEWITCHES; five people we re arrested and two killed in 1545. Tr i a l s
MALLEUSMALEFICARUM;MIDWIVES;MOTHERHOOD;PACTWITH
and executions multiplied rapidly after Calvin’s death;
THEDEVIL;PANICS;PERSONALITYOFWITCHES;SEXUALACTIVITY,
o n e - f o u rth of all Ge n e van executions for witchcraft
DIABOLIC;TRIALS;WITNESSES.
o c c u r red during two plague years in 1567 and 1568.
References and further reading:
Howe ve r, after Lambert Daneau published the fir s t
Barstow, Anne Llewellyn. 1994. Witchcraze: A New History of the
Calvinist discussion of witchcraft at Ge n e va in 1574,
European Witch Hunts.NewYork: Pandora.
Brauner, Sigrid. 1995. Fearless Wives and Frightened Shrews: The t h e re we re only two local executions for this crime in
Construction of the Witch in Early Modern Germany.Amherst: the next twenty-four years. Witchcraft trials re v i ve d
University of Massachusetts Press. a f t e rw a rds; between 1595 and 1624, with a popula-
Briggs, Robin. 2002. Witches and Neighbours: The Social and tion around 15,000, Ge n e va averaged about five
Cultural Context of European Witchcraft. London: Blackwell witchcraft trials and almost one execution
Publishers. per ye a r.
Clark, Stuart. 1997. Thinking with Demons: The Idea of Witchcraft
A regional peculiarity associated diabolical pacts
in Early Modern Europe. Oxford: Clarendon.
i n volving m a l e fic i u m (harmful magic) with persons
Hester, Marianne. 1992. LewdWomen and Wicked Witches: A
believed to spread the plague deliberately. Geneva’s par-
Study of the Dynamics of Male Domination.London: Routledge
ticular obsession with such plague-spreading “a n o i n t-
and Kegan Paul.
e r s” began in 1530, well before Calvin arrived. Tw o
Holmes, Clive. 1993. “Women: Witnesses and Witches.” Past and
Present 140: 45–78. subsequent local persecutions of anointers, in 1545 and
Karlsen, Carol. 1987. The Devil in the Shape of a Woman.New 1613, were triggered by confessions in smaller towns on
York: Norton. Lake Ge n e va, which coincided with attacks of the
Kivelson, Valerie. 1991. “Through the Prism of Witchcraft: plague. In the worst such episode (1571–1572), per-
Gender and Social Change in Seventeenth-Century Muscovy.” haps the only true panic related to witchcraft in
Pp. 74–94 in Russia’sWomen: Accommodation, Resistance, Ge n e van history, almost a hundred people, mostly
Transformation. Edited by Barbara Evans Clements et al.
immigrants, we re either killed or banished within
Berkeley: University of California Press.
twelve months (Monter 1976, 44–45, 115–118).
Kramer, Heinrich. 2001 (1486). Malleus Maleficarum.Pp.
Geneva’s overall average of executions for witchcraft
180–221 in Witchcraft in Europe, 400–1700: A Documentary
(21 percent) was dramatically lower than in any sur-
History.2d ed.Edited by Alan C. Kors and Edward Peters.
rounding region (Monter 1976). It fell steadily fro m
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Levack, Brian, ed. 1992. Witchcraft, Women, and Society.Vol. 10 of over 40 percent before 1550 to about 20 percent during
Articles on Witchcraft, Magic and Demonology.NewYork: the general peak of witch hunting in western Eu ro p e
Garland. b e t ween 1580 and 1630; only one witch died at
Geneva 411 |
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Ge n e va after 1626. Howe ve r, an unusually high share sketch the geographical contours of European witch
of Ge n e van defendants charged with witchcraft, hunting more precisely than before. Significant lacunae
including a large majority of those who withstood tor- still persist, however, and it remains extremely difficult
ture without confessing, were not simply released, but to agree on the most satisfactory method of measuring
banished. A survey of the legal opinions of Ge n e va’s the geographical distribution of trials and executions
most distinguished jurist during Geneva’s busiest peri- for witchcraft. The fullest account of current wisdom
od of such trials (1562–1570) revealed that he paid no on this topic, found in the most widely used general
attention to a prisoner’s kin and was cautious about introduction (Levack 1995, chap. 7), emphasized two
proof of a suspect’smaleficia (evil acts); instead, he was general factors affecting the very uneven geographical
p reoccupied with their attitudes tow a rd the reality of distribution of witch hunting: first, the extent to which
devils and witchcraft (Monter 1976, 51–54). In a state the cumulative concept of witchcraft was accepted in a
that subscribed to the Calvinist doctrine of original sin, particular European region; and second, geographical
such criteria usually created as much uncertainty about variations in judicial procedures and in degree of cen-
a suspect’s innocence as about her or his guilt. tral control over local legal systems. At the same time,
Doubting the value of torture to elicit truth, Genevan that account underplays such cultural factors as domi-
judges pre f e r red to export the problem by banishing nant religions, which greatly influenced the incidence
such people. of witchcraft trials in eastern, southeastern, and
The decline of witch hunting in seventeenth-century Mediterranean Europe.
Geneva—once again, far sooner than anywhere else in It seems necessary to recall that at the time of the
this region—was apparently related to problems with witch hunts and witchcraft trials, Eu ropean political
two issues: finding the Devil’s mark on suspected witch- boundaries were extremely different from what they are
es, and assessing testimony from diabolically possessed t o d a y. In general, there we re fewer states, several of
persons. After a particularly troublesome case in 1622, them multinational. To take some of the most obvious
p rofessional surgeons located the De v i l’s mark only examples, during the age of witchcraft trials, No rw a y
once among eight accused witches, and that woman (and Iceland) belonged to the crown of De n m a rk ;
became the last witch ever executed at Geneva, in 1652. Finland and Estonia, and the northern half of Latvia
Meanwhile, testimony from possessed women and chil- were parts of the crown of Sweden; Lithuania, Belarus,
d ren first became a serious issue in 1607 and 1610; it and the Ukraine all belonged to the crown of Po l a n d .
t h o roughly dominated the history of Ge n e va’s witch- Although half of Hu n g a ry (including Budapest) was
craft trials after 1625. Howe ve r, because their accusa- occupied by the Ottoman Empire during much of the
tions could not be corroborated by surgical searches for w i t c h-hunting age, the Hungarian crown also claimed
the mark, only one woman was executed for this reason to rule most of modern Croatia, Sl ovakia, and
after 1626. A decade after her death, virtually no one Romania; in fact, the capital of the kingdom of
was arrested for witchcraft. By the 1680s, some Hungary from 1550 to 1700 was a Danubian city that
“e n l i g h t e n e d” Ge n e vans we re already wondering why is today (under a different name) Slovakia’s capital. So
their native city had ever tolerated such “barbaro u s the first question is whether to use European geography
superstitions.” of the twenty-first century or that of the early modern
era when trying to map the incidence of its witchcraft
WILLIAM MONTER
trials. Each strategy presents particular advantages and
See also:CALVIN,JOHN;DANEAU,LAMBERT;DECLINEOFTHE drawbacks.
WITCHHUNTS;DEVIL’SMARK;PLAGUE;POSSESSION,DEMONIC; Mo re ove r, physical size should be correlated with
PROTESTANTREFORMATION;SWITZERLAND;TRIALS;VAUD,PAYS
re l a t i ve population; some of Eu ro p e’s largest states,
DE.
like Sweden, contain re l a t i vely few people, while some
References and further reading:
smaller ones like the Low Countries (three separate
Binz, Louis. 1997. “Les débuts de la chasse aux sorcières dans le
national governments today, but not then) have
diocèse de Genève.” Bibliothèque d’Humanisme et Renaissance
always been re l a t i vely densely populated. During the
59: 561–581.
Broye, Christian. 1990. Sorcellerie et superstitions à Genève age of the witch hunts, Eu ro p e’s population was not
(XVIe–XVIIe siècles).Geneva: Le concept moderne. only far smaller in absolute numbers than it is today
Monter,William. 1976. Witchcraft in France and Switzerland: The (for example, Germany alone held 80 percent as many
Borderlands During theReformation.Ithaca, NY, and London: people as all of Latin Christendom combined aro u n d
Cornell University Press. 1600), but it was also distributed differently: for
example, France was then more populous than
Geography of the Witch Hunts Ge r m a n y, while Renaissance Italy was almost thre e
With the help of many major advances in knowledge times as populous as Tudor England, although they
during the past generation, it has become possible to a re now roughly equal.
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Given these problems, it is understandable that lead- observation is that twenty-first-century prosperity cor-
ing contemporary historians, including several on the relates positively with intensive witch hunting in the
Editorial Board of this En c yclopedia of Wi t c h c raft: T h e early modern era: the two European nations with by far
We s t e rn Tra d i t i o n , h a ve found different ways to attack the highest per capita execution rates for witches,
the geographical distribution of witchcraft trials. On e Lu xemburg and Sw i t zerland, are also by far the two
a p p roach (Behringer 1998, 65–66, slightly revised by wealthiest continental Eu ropean nations today (con-
Henningsen 2003, 585) started with current political versely, Europe’s poorest nations per capita usually rank
boundaries and attempted to calculate the approximate among the lowest in per capita witchcraft executions).
number of executions per country, adjusting it by early One notes with relief that Ireland now ranks among
modern population estimates. Using entries from this Europe’s wealthiest nations.
En c yc l o p e d i a to further re fine their results creates the If the Behringer model manipulated some comparable
following picture of Latin Christian Europe: statistical measurements, it used twe n t y - fir s t-c e n t u ry
Eu ropean political boundaries and has not yet generated
any usable maps. On the other hand, a Briggs model
Table G-1 not only used early modern political boundaries but
e ven featured actual maps, including one covering all
Current Population 1600 Witches Executed
of Eu rope and another on the “He a rtlands of
Nation (thousands) (per thousand)
Pe r s e c u t i o n” (Briggs 2002, x, xi). But it employe d
Luxemburg 250 4.0 e x t remely vague standards of comparison, distinguish-
Switzerland 1,000 3.5
ing on a Eu ropean scale between “a reas of sustained
Germany 16,000 1.6
moderate persecution or significant local crises” fro m
Denmark 570 1.3
“a reas of re l a t i vely light but not insignificant persecu-
Norway 400 0.75
tion,” and distinguished in the heartlands among
Estonia 100 0.65
“a reas of intense witch-hunts,” “a reas of intensive but
Austria 2,000 0.5
Sweden 800 0.45 dispersed persecution,” “a reas of significant persecution,”
Iceland 50 0.44 and “a reas of lowe r - l e vel and patchy persecution.”
Poland 3,400 0.4 Many spaces, including places that we know experi-
Czech Republic 1,000 0.4 enced witchcraft prosecutions, remained blank: h i c
Belgium 1,200 0.35 sunt leones (lions roam here), as Renaissance cart o g r a-
Finland 350 0.31 phers used to say. In other words, each geographical
Slovakia 700 0.3
model had different, but perhaps equally serious, fla w s .
Hungary 3,000 0.28
With the help of the entries in this En c yc l o p e d i a , it is
France 20,000 0.25
possible to present useful (though certainly not com-
United Kingdom 6,500 0.2
p re h e n s i ve) statistical data on witchcraft trials and
Netherlands 1,500 0.12
e xecutions throughout early modern Eu rope cart o-
Spain 8,100 0.03
Italy 13,100 0.02 g r a p h i c a l l y, perhaps adopting the Briggs model of
Portugal 1,000 0.01 Eu ro p e’s political boundaries ca. 1600.
It is probably most helpful to begin with a re v i s e d
version of the Behringer model, and start at the bottom
rather than at the top of his witchcraft-persecution
These calculations obviously contain some margin of scale, taking a close look first at places that experi-
e r ro r, because early modern demography uses re c o rd s enced no legalized witch hunts in the early modern
not much richer or more reliable than legal re c o rd s . era. Ge o g r a p h i c a l l y, the largest zone free of institu-
Although some places are literally “off the map” — f o r tional witchcraft trials in early modern Eu rope coin-
instance, the Republic of Ireland (with only two known cided with the boundaries of the Ottoman Em p i re ,
trials), some Baltic republics, or all of southeastern which governed the Balkans from Eu ro p e’s largest
Eu rope (which was then mostly under Ottoman con- c i t y, Istanbul. Ne ve rtheless, there we re many witch
t rol)—a few conclusions emerge clearly from this list. lynchings, perhaps even popular witch hunts, in the
Perhaps the most remarkable one is that the 2004 offi- Ottoman Ba l k a n s .
cial boundary of the European Community (EC) close- The next geographical layer of Eu rope—the entire
ly coincides with the frontier between countries that far east—actually emerges more clearly against
executed witches in significant numbers and those that t we n t y-fir s t - c e n t u ry boundaries than against seve n t e e n t h -
did not; except for Ireland, Greece, little Cy p rus, and c e n t u ry boundaries. The key region, now as then, was the
tiny Malta, only witch-hunting countries have been Mu s c ovite Em p i re, which saw over a hundred know n
admitted to the EC. Another even more unsettling witchcraft executions, but a ridiculously small per capita
Geography of the Witch Hunts 413 |
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ratio given its immense size and vast population. T h e heaviest concentrations in the far north and some pro-
large zone between modern Russia and Poland also expe- longations in the Apennines. Mo re ove r, chro n o l o g y
rienced tiny totals of known executions (for example, seemed more important than geography, because most
e l e ven in the Ukraine or thirteen in Lithuania). Italian witchcraft executions occurred quite early,
One geographical conclusion emerges with dazzling before 1540.
clarity: the “witchcraft fro n t i e r” separating eastern Once again, although less clearly than in Ort h o d ox
Europe from east-central Europe coincided closely with Eu rope, geographical mapping points to religious fac-
the religious frontier separating Latin from Ort h o d ox tors. This was the most solidly Catholic region of early
Christendom and from the Islamic southeast. W h i l e modern Eu rope. But it also points to Leva c k’s second
the Ort h o d ox Church was extremely familiar with general geographical explanation through judicial and
demonic forces and m a l e ficium (harmful magic), for legal factors. It is now generally recognized that the fun-
several reasons (including the absence of liturgical refer- damental reason for the extremely low incidence of
ences and of medieval heretical movements), it neve r witchcraft executions in Mediterranean Europe was the
accepted the cumulative concept of witchcraft deve l- policy of the Spanish, Roman, and Po rt u g u e s e
oped in fif t e e n t h - c e n t u ry Latin Christendom. Inquisitions, all of which claimed (but did not always
Consequently, there were extremely few executions for e xe rcise) jurisdiction over this crime. After its re f o r m s
m a l e fic i u m in Ort h o d ox Eu rope, as there had been in of 1526, the Spanish Inquisition permitted the exe c u-
early medieval Latin Eu rope, and nothing re m o t e l y tion of fourteen witches; the Roman In q u i s i t i o n ,
a p p roaching a witch hunt. T h e re f o re, our first geo- founded in 1542, executed 36 witches; and the
graphical exploration of the absence of institutional Portuguese Inquisition executed only four (Henningsen
witch hunts in far southeastern Eu rope re veals the 2003, 582–583). It is one of the more important para-
importance of sixteenth-century political and religious doxes in European cultural history that, although a fif-
boundaries (the Ottoman Empire and Islam), while our t e e n t h - c e n t u ry papal inquisitor in northern Eu ro p e
next observation about its absurdly low incidence produced the most widely read guide to witchcraft tri-
t h roughout far eastern Eu rope emerges more clearly als, the Malleus Maleficarum (The Hammer of Witches,
through twenty-first-century political boundaries. Both 1486), a half-century later the governors of
explorations demonstrate vividly the dramatic impor- Mediterranean Europe’s highly centralized inquisitions
tance of religious boundaries—not those w i t h i n L a t i n had clearly rejected the Malleus in favor of an older
Christendom, which we normally explore carefully dur- model inherited from canon law.
ing the confessionalized early modern era, but instead The next lowest incidence of witchcraft exe c u t i o n s
those b e t we e n Latin and Ort h o d ox Christendom and occurred in a region that had emerged by 1600 as the
especially the political frontier between Christendom p ro g re s s i ve core of Atlantic Eu rope: England, Fr a n c e ,
and Islam—in determining the geography of early and the Netherlands. England and France, two neigh-
modern Eu ropean witchcraft, above all its “n e g a t i ve boring kingdoms with ve ry different procedural sys-
geography.” tems but a comparable degree of centralized judicial
The next remarkably low incidence of witchcraft exe- c o n t rols, both had re m a rkably low levels of per capita
cutions concerns Eu ro p e’s southernmost regions, the witchcraft executions. Their core districts, the Br i t i s h
Mediterranean zones of It a l y, Spain and Po rt u g a l . Home Circuit and the ressortor appellate district of the
Political boundaries in the Iberian peninsula are identi- Pa rlement ( s ove reign judicial court, with jurisdiction
cal in the sixteenth and twe n t y - first centuries, while over approximately one-half of France) of Paris, boasted
“ It a l y” remained a geographical notion until the nine- ratios well below national Spanish levels. Howe ve r, in
teenth century. Except for Portugal (where many more both England and France (or, for that matter, in Spain),
accused witches died in prison than were executed), this twenty-first-century national averages must also incor-
region showed slightly higher per capita totals than porate vastly higher ratios—often at least ten times
eastern Eu rope, although Mediterranean ratios neve r g re a t e r — f rom largely autonomous peripheral re g i o n s
e xceeded one execution per 4,000 people. Mo re ove r, like Scotland (which was in personal although not insti-
these executions were concentrated along the northern tutional union with England when it held 90 percent of
rim of “Me d i t e r r a n e a n” Eu rope, namely the southern its witchcraft trials) or Alsace and Lorraine (which held
slopes of the Alps and Py renees. If modern Spain had over 90 percent of their regional witchcraft trials before
hundreds of witchcraft executions, virtually all of them France acquired them). The northern Netherlands, a
o c c u r red in its northern provinces (Na va r re, Aragon, new state of early modern Europe created near the end
Catalonia). Henningsen has traced a “witchcraft fro n- of the sixteenth century, had a ru d i m e n t a ry re g i o n a l
tier” cutting east–west across the middle of the Iberian appellate court system, but here too the Hooge Ra a d
peninsula (see Knutsen 2004, 219); although no com- (High Court) of Holland played a role in ending witch-
parable frontier has yet been drawn for It a l y, it would craft executions sooner than any other corner of Latin
certainly run east–west across subalpine Italy, with the Europe. The obvious comparison here is with modern
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Belgium (the southern Netherlands), which also had a The key concept is the Holy Roman Em p i re of the
ru d i m e n t a ry appellate court and enjoyed a re l a t i ve l y German Nation, which included not only all of pre-
low execution rate—which was nevertheless three times sent-day Germany but a great deal more besides. Until
higher than its northern neighbor. 1648, it technically included modern Au s t r i a ,
Continuing up the per capita execution ladder, we Switzerland, Luxemburg, and the Low Countries, plus
encounter a re l a t i vely bunched situation among the Alsace-Lorraine. Experts disagree about the exact num-
solidly Protestant Scandinavian countries. Vi rtually all ber of truly autonomous governments within the Ol d
of them, from Iceland to Estonia, have been studied Reich before Napoleon destroyed it, but agree that
c a re f u l l y. A twe n t y - fir s t - c e n t u ry political map under- there were at least several hundred. Experts also disagree
lines the essential homogeneity of this region, because it about the exact number of trials and executions for
includes six countries instead of two early modern king- witchcraft within its ample borders, but they agree that
doms (Denmark-Norway-Iceland and Sweden-Finland- a large majority of the entire Eu ropean total occurre d
Estonia). On the Behringer scale, five of these six clus- h e re. Mo re ove r, they agree that witchcraft exe c u t i o n s
t e red between 0.3 and 0.7 executions per thousand, we re distributed extremely unevenly throughout the
that is, one for eve ry 1,500–3,000 inhabitants. empire. Therefore it becomes indispensable to map the
De n m a rk, the only Scandinavian country attached to old Holy Roman Em p i re, the true heartland of this
the European mainland and the first to experience the phenomenon, in such a way as to re veal the hot spots
c u m u l a t i ve concept of witchcraft, was an exc e p t i o n , among these hundreds of governments.
exceeding the threshold of one execution per thousand. The scale of the Behringer model must be refined at
The eastern outposts of Latin Christendom added to the upper end to adjust the Briggs model and highlight
the EC in 2004 (that is, Latvia, Poland, the Cze c h the centers of persecution within the Holy Ro m a n
Republic, Sl ovakia, Hu n g a ry, Sl ovenia) appeared to have Em p i re. One obvious threshold for regions with ove r
e xecution ratios broadly comparable to those fro m 100,000 people ca. 1600, like Lu xemburg, would be
Scandinavia. Although their rates seemed slightly lowe r, five executions per thousand. Few places this large
their executions came slightly later, and only one of reached this level. Ex t remely few territories appro a c h-
them (Hu n g a ry) has been studied care f u l l y. T h ro u g h o u t ing 100,000 people ca. 1600 reached the level of ten
these eastern edges of Latin Christendom, it was the witchcraft executions per thousand; the Pays de Vaud in
n u m e rous and widely scattered pockets of Ge r m a n modern Switzerland ranked among the rare exceptions
speakers, descendants of the medieval Ge r m a n attaining this dubious distinction. Howe ve r, a few of
Os t s i e d l u n g(the colonization of the east) scattered fro m the Empire’s hundreds of microstates (zwergstaaten) like
the Baltic to the southern Carpathians, that prov i d e d Vaduz-Lichtenstein saw fifty or more witchcraft execu-
the first and often the most intensive examples of witch tions per thousand population, and a handful of tiny
hunting in a region populated ove rwhelmingly by Sl a v i c ecclesiastical territories (for example, St. Ma x i m i n ,
speakers but governed mainly by Magyars or Au s t r i a n s . Mergentheim, Ellwangen) may have exceeded Vaduz in
At the upper end of our per capita execution scale we re re l a t i ve seve r i t y. But none of these autonomous states
countries with more than one witchcraft execution per ruled as many as five thousand subjects, and any map of
thousand population in 1600. Two small regions bord e r- west-central Eu ro p e’s “black holes” of witch burnings
ing modern Ge r m a n y — Sw i t zerland and Lu xe m b u r g — needs to emphasize this fact.
had Eu ro p e’s highest per capita ratios. Ne ve rtheless, on a Anther cartographical desideratum would be a map
national Eu ropean scale, the Behringer model neve r displaying the geographical spread of Eu ro p e’s witch-
reached five witchcraft executions per thousand people— craft executions from 1420 to 1500, noting every place
unless one counted the tiny principality of Lichtenstein, affected by the new cumulative concept and highlight-
w h e re this ratio easily surpassed fifty executions per thou- ing the handful of places with one or more executions
sand. Howe ve r, Lichtenstein was also the only modern per thousand (Dauphiné in France, Valais in
Eu ropean state to be created because of excesses in witch- Switzerland, the city of Arras, etc.). The excellent maps
craft trials by its previous rulers; after acquiring the showing the early spread of printing could be modified
County of Vaduz in the early eighteenth century, the to do this.
Lichtenstein princes carefully avoided witchcraft trials. At
the most superficial level, there f o re, it is apparent that WILLIAM MONTER
Eu ro p e’s witch-burning nations formed a contiguous
block centered on modern Ge r m a n y, which by itself
See also: BALKANS;ECCLESIASTICALCOURTS;GERMANY;HISTORIOG-
RAPHY;HOLYROMANEMPIRE;ISLAMICWITCHCRAFTANDMAGIC;
accounted for at least half of the entire Eu ropean total.
NUMBEROFWITCHES;ORTHODOXCHRISTIANITY;VADUZ,COUN-
And it is in explaining Eu ro p e’s highest per capita exe c u-
TYOF;VAUD,PAYSDE.
tions that the Briggs model finally becomes necessary ;
References and further reading:
h e re one must think exc l u s i vely in terms of sixteenth- and Behringer,Wolfgang. 1998. Hexen: Glaube, Verfolgung,
s e ve n t e e n t h-c e n t u ry political geography. Vermarktung.Munich: Beck.
Geography of the Witch Hunts 415 |
Wicca | Richard M.Golden - Encyclopedia of Witchcraft - The Western Tradition | 453 | 46049 Golden Chap. D av First Pages 08/25/2005 p.416 Application File
Briggs, Robin. 2002. Witches and Neighbors: The Social and Germanic dialects, like Lorraine or the Pays de Va u d ,
Cultural Context of EuropeanWitchcraft.2d ed. Oxford, UK, we re contiguous with regions that did. Linguistically,
and Malden, MA: Blackwell. Spee was completely correct: a ve ry large majority of
Golden, Richard M. 1997. “Satan in Europe: The Geography of
Eu ro p e’s witches we re Germanophone, but they we re
Witch Hunts.” Pp. 216–247 in Changing Identities in Early
not necessarily politically German.
Modern France.Edited by Michael Wolfe. Durham, NC, and
In the early modern period when witch hunting
London: Duke University Press.
o c c u r red, most contemporaries spoke of “t h e
Henningsen, Gustav. 2003: “La Inquisición y las brujas.” Pp.
Germanies” in the plural, rather than Germany. In fact,
567–605 in L’Inquisizione: Atti del Simposio internazionale,
Città del Vaticano, 29–31 ottobre 1998.Edited by Agostino using Lucien Febvre’s regressive method, we find that a
Borromeo.Vatican City: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana. German Em p i re (Deutsches Re i c h) existed as a unifie d
Knutsen, Gunnar. 2004. “Servants of Satan and Masters of state only from 1871. Be t ween 1815 and 1871, an
Demons.”Ph.D. diss., Oslo University. alliance of German territories (De u t s c h e r Bu n d) had
Levack, Brian. 1995. The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe. existed, with an inclination tow a rd state constru c t i o n
2d ed. London: Longmans. guided by nineteenth-century nationalism. After an
Summers, Montague. 1958 [1927]. The Geography of Witchcraft.
attempted unification from below failed in 1848, the
Evanston, IL: University Books.
German states we re forced into two unifying wars by
the Kingdom of Prussia, whose territory stre t c h e d
Germany a c ross parts of western and northern Germany and
“Germany, mother of so many witches!” cried Friedrich Poland from France to Russia. Afterward, the imperial
Spee in his famous Cautio Criminalis (A Warning on Habsburg monarchy—still ruling parts of nort h e r n
Criminal Justice, 1631), at the climax of central Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Hungary, Slovakia, and
European persecutions, and his despairing diagnosis is Bohemia—was excluded from the new Ge r m a n
confirmed by retrospective statistics. But we must keep Em p i re, which also soon annexed Alsace (largely
in mind that Germany as a national state did not exist Germanophone) from France. After World War I,
b e f o re 1871; instead, Spee used the Latin term Alsace returned to France and the Austrian monarc h y
Germania, referring to Germanophone areas. Most of disintegrated; but a German Republic, founded at
them belonged to the Holy Roman Empire of the Weimar after the re volution of 1918, still extended far
German Nation, to the nobility of which Luther into eastern Eu rope. Only after World War II we re the
addressed his famous diatribe in 1520, but many did eastern parts of former Prussia lost, with Königsberg,
not: the German-speaking parts of pre s e n t - d a y the home of Immanuel Kant, becoming Kaliningrad in
Sw i t zerland, De n m a rk (duchy of Schleswig), the the Soviet Union. In 1945, large parts of the former
Netherlands (Limburg), Luxemburg, Poland (Prussia Nazi state we re also annexed by Poland, which lost
and Silesia), and a number of towns in Estonia, Latvia, most of its former eastern territory to the Sov i e t
Hungary, and Romania (Transylvania). The elected Un i o n .
Holy Roman Emperors were moreover not German, It has also been claimed that witch hunting was con-
but rather—a legacy of the Middle Ages—were consid- centrated in Germanophone areas within the Ho l y
ered successors of the ancient Roman Emperors, and Roman Em p i re, as well as elsew h e re in eastern and
protectors of the Holy (Roman) Church; in 1519, the southeastern Eu rope. It is true that, since the tenth cen-
principal candidates for Holy Roman Emperor were the t u ry, the term “d e u t s c h” (German) described the lan-
kings of France, England, and Spain. Most emperors in guage of uneducated people, those who we re incapable
the early modern period were Habsburgs, a dynasty of of speaking Latin. In the nineteenth century, the
Swiss origin with their main dynastic lands in Austria, German language served as a pretext to forge a Ge r m a n
Hungary, Bohemia, Alsace, and northern Italy. nation-state; linguists like Jakob Grimm tried to pro-
Nevertheless, recent research has established the con- mote ideas of its continuity, and even called their lan-
cept that more witches were killed within the confines guage studies “Ge rm a n i s t i k .” Howe ve r, the concept
of present-day Germany than in the rest of Eu ro p e — seems anachronistic for the late medieval and early mod-
something between 25,000 and 30,000 victims, far ern periods. Around 1500, people from Ha m b u r g
m o re than half of all estimated victims thro u g h o u t understood Swedish or Danish more easily than
Europe. This observation is particularly helpful for the Ba varian or Austrian. “D u t c h” was not yet considere d
linguistic geography of witch hunting, especially when d i f f e rent from “De u t s c h” (German), since the dialects
one considers that even outside the boundaries of spoken in Amsterdam, Antwe r p, or At recht (today Arras
Germany (Deutschland) in its present form, most of the in France) we re not yet greatly different from those in
re c o rded witches in places like Austria, Sw i t ze r l a n d , Cologne or Münster in Westphalia. The Anabaptists of
Alsace, Lu xemburg, or even Hu n g a ry or Silesia also A m s t e rdam there f o re had no problem in choosing
spoke some dialect of German. Even the few parts of Münster as their new Je rusalem in 1533, and Jan va n
western Europe where numerous witches did not speak Leiden easily became the “king” of this Anabaptist
416 Germany |
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c o m m o n wealth. Johann We ye r, born in Gr a ve on the a p p ropriate to cut its current version into more
Meuse, later part of the Netherlands, had no pro b l e m digestible slices.
s e rving as an apprentice in the household of Cornelius
WOLFGANG BEHRINGER
Agrippa in Bonn, or working as court physician for the
dukes of Cleves at Düsseldorf, or with publishing his De See also: AGRIPPAVONNETTESHEIM,HEINRICHCORNELIUS;
p raestigiis daemonum ( On the Tricks of Devils) at Ba s e l ALCIATI,ANDREA;ANABAPTISTS;AUSTRIA;BAVARIA,DUCHYOF;
in 1563, of course in German. The concept of “Low
BOHEMIA;GEOGRAPHYOFTHEWITCHHUNTS;GRIMM,JACOB;
C o u n t r i e s” or “Ne t h e r l a n d s” relates to the geography of
HOLYROMANEMPIRE;HUNGARY;LUTHER,MARTIN;POLAND;
SPEE,FRIEDRICH;SWITZERLAND;WEYER,JOHANN.
the Rhine va l l e y, with “Upper Ge r m a n y” on the other
References and further reading:
end. Begun by Lu t h e r’s poetic Bible translations, which
Behringer,Wolfgang, ed. 2001: Hexen und Hexenprozesse in
first deliberately attempted to bridge the gulf betwe e n
Deutschland,5th ed. Munich: Deutsche Taschenbuch.
High and Low German (Ho c h d e u t s c h and Pl a t t d e u t s c h ) , Behringer,Wolfgang. 2004. Witches and Witch Hunts. A Global
the modern German language took firmer shape after History.Cambridge: Polity.
the mid-seventeenth century, when the Holy Ro m a n Midelfort, H. C. Erik. 1981. “Heartland of the Witchcraze:
Em p i re was disintegrating after the T h i rty Ye a r s’ Wa r Central and Northern Europe.” HistoryToday31: 27–31.
and literary societies (Sp ra c h g e s e l l s c h a f t e n) we re cre a t e d Roper, Lyndal. 2004. Witch Craze: Terror and Fantasy in Baroque
to construct a new national language based on Lu t h e r’s Germany.New Haven, CT, and London: Yale University Press.
Schormann, Gerhard. 1981. Hexenprozesse in Deutschland.
vernacular Bible. By then, howe ve r, witch hunting was
Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Rupprecht.
a l ready in sharp decline.
When witch hunting was being attacked at the begin-
ning of the sixteenth century, the Italian jurist Andre a Germany, Northeastern
Alciati labeled the persecutions in the Italian Alps as To date, studies of witch persecution in northeastern
n ova holocausta, a “n ew holocaust,” referring to ancient Germany—the present-day states (L ä n d e r) of
human sacrifices to pagan gods. Mo re re c e n t l y, some Mecklenburg, Western Pomerania, Sa xo n y - A n h a l t ,
scholars have tried to correlate the modern Ho l o c a u s t Brandenburg, Thuringia, and Saxony, all formerly in
with the period of witch hunting, and (avoiding com- the German Democratic Republic (GDR)—are few
parisons with parts of contemporary Africa or Asia) and often quite out of date. After reunification in 1990,
attempted to interpret a politics of extinction as some- there was a push to conduct more research, from which
thing essentially “German.” Howe ve r, since politics and new publications should emerge; their results are par-
language are unlikely to provide sufficient evidence, tially reflected in this survey. Only a rough sketch of the
scholars maintaining this idea may be asked whether persecutions can therefore be offered. We can see, for
they imply that persecuting minorities is genetic. instance, that like the rest of the Holy Roman Empire,
Howe ve r, Germanophobia does not make more sense northern Germany also saw some west-to-east, as well
than a stereotyping hatred of any other linguistic or eth- as a smaller south-to-north differentiation in witchcraft
nic gro u p. Humanists invented the concept of persecutions. The rate of death penalties ranged from
Germania after the discove ry of Ta c i t u s’s ancient text a round 50 percent in Mecklenburg and El e c t o r a l
a round 1450, and a number of Germanophone human- Saxony to about 70 percent in Western Pomerania and
ists embarked on attempted constructions of ancient Thuringia. In most areas the persecutions reached their
p e d i g rees. Meanwhile, following the cultural phenome- peak between 1580 and 1630, with significant regional
non of lumping all foreigners together, the “Ge r m a n differences. From 1650 to 1670, a second large wave
n a t i o n” at Italian universities included Hungarian and affected some northeastern areas but apparently spared
Czech students—in fact, any Eu ropean from outside the the regions of Saxony-Anhalt and Brandenburg. All
Romance countries and Britain. In conclusion, the cul- regions possess enough records to document an appar-
tural concept of “Ge r m a n y” makes little sense during ent social spread of the accusations over time. At first
the period of witch hunting. they were aimed primarily at the lower classes, but there
For the convenience of the present-day re a d e r, and was a decided upward shift later. Although northeastern
with a bow tow a rd the ancient notion of “t h e Germany was mostly rural in nature, the highest con-
Germanies,” this En c yclopedia of Wi t c h c raft i n c l u d e s centration of witchcraft persecutions occurred in its
four separate entries on Germany—northeast, west and smaller cities.
n o rt h west, southwest, and southeast. The numero u s Persecutions of witches began later in the eastern
independent territories comprising the central regions of Germany than in the western regions. T h e
European Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation trials we re driven by the fully elaborated concept of
are rarely part of common knowledge today, and useful witchcraft, which became more embedded in the middle
d i rections are most easily provided through art i c l e s of the sixteenth century, after the crime of witchcraft
based on twe n t y - fir s t - c e n t u ry geography. Be c a u s e had been included among other legal transgre s s i o n s .
Germany did not exist in the early modern period, it is Once witchcraft had been re d e fined and criminalize d ,
Germany, Northeastern 417 |
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the number of trials increased dramatically throughout and massive persecution began in 1650, peaking
this ove rwhelmingly Lutheran area, creating a series b e t ween 1661 and 1675. The social range of suspects
of trials that already showed signs of the persecutions to was now much broader than before, and serial
come, such as the use of tort u re, the serialization of trials also began at this time. Both re g i o n s ,
trials, and the death penalty for witchcraft that resulted Me c k l e n b u r g-S c h werin and Me c k l e n b u r g - G ü s t row,
in serious harm or invo l ved Satanic activities. showed the same tendencies but developed very differ-
T h roughout the witch persecutions, these nort h e r n ently because of the way the trials were conducted.
leaders generally adhered to the pro c e d u res of the Me c k l e n b u r g - S c h we r i n’s ru l e r, Christian Louis I,
C a rolina Code (Constitutio Criminalis Ca rolina of spent most of his time abroad. He was a repeated and
1532), which called for a processus ordinarius (ordinary vocal proponent of stopping the trials. His offic i a l s ,
procedure) and defined witchcraft in the sense of dam- h owe ve r, encouraged by the creation of a separate
aging m a l e ficium (harmful magic), as in the Mi d d l e inquisitorial committee and supported by legal advis-
Ages. The southern states tended to lean toward stricter ers, tended to employ practices that came very close to
definitions, reflecting a complete reception of a cumu- redefining witchcraft as a crimen exceptum (the excepted
l a t i ve concept of witchcraft, as set down, for example, crime). Confiscation of property or additional taxation
in the 1572 criminal code of Electoral Saxony. helped expand witch hunts into large serial trials, which
were held primarily in this region. Even in cases with no
Mecklenburg clear verdict, the decision was usually to banish rather
The persecutions of witches in Mecklenburg, which than release the accused. Not until the last rabid propo-
divided into two duchies after 1621, rank among the nent of the death penalty had passed away in May 1700
most intensive in the Holy Roman Empire, or any- was this practice of sentencing in witchcraft trials
where in Europe. Nearly 4,000 trials were conducted in stopped. The crime of witchcraft, howe ve r, re m a i n e d
these sparsely populated lands between 1570 and 1700 on the books.
(Moeller 2002b, 38). They came in two waves of Witchcraft persecutions developed quite differe n t l y
roughly equal size and intensity, peaking fro m in Mecklenburg-Güstrow under the leadership of Duke
1599–1614 and again from 1661–1675. Gustav Ad o l f. He re the view of witchcraft and magi-
Fo l l owing the Carolina Code, Me c k l e n b u r g’s churc h cians formed the core of an intensive policy of Lutheran
o rdinances of 1552 and its police regulations of confessionalism, with widespread inquisition measure s
1562–1572 defined magic and witchcraft as criminal to investigate occurrences of suspected magic. Pa s t o r s ,
activities. At first there was a marked reluctance to pro s- local leaders, members of the judicial system, and
ecute witchcraft as a spiritual crime, evident in adher- c h u rch courts we re all parts of this control system,
ence to the p rocessus ord i n a r i u s and warnings against which considerably intensified investigations of witch-
using rumors as accusations. Two strong Lutheran vo i c- craft. At the same time, however, legal safeguards were
es, Johann Georg Goedelmann and Ernst Cothemann, increased. Therefore, sentences were much less severe in
c r i t i c i zed the new definition of witchcraft. The rapidly Güstrow after the first phase. The means of conducting
i n c reasing number of trials held in Mecklenburg re s u l t- trials, including meticulous appraisals and the require-
ed from government efforts to implement the new legal ment that impartial officials observe and obtain
codes in criminal cases, not only by applying pro c e d u re s a p p roval from state leaders, resulted in pro l o n g i n g
f rom Roman law, but also through increased pro f e s s i o n- them over many years. The Güstrow church, also
alism and discipline in local courts. The confessionaliz- involved in the whole process, maintained a rather crit-
ing and modernizing campaigns of the Re f o r m a t i o n ical view toward these trials, which eventually led to a
dukes helped increase witchcraft trials considerably, fundamental criticism of the terms defining witchcraft.
especially prosecutions of professional magicians. At the Prosecutions ended here between 1681 and 1683, as
same time, pre s s u res for prosecution came fro m witchcraft was demoted from a crime to a superstitious
beneath, from peasants clinging to the idea that harm- belief.
ful—and now criminal—witchcraft was used in neigh-
borhood conflicts. Mo re ove r, Me c k l e n b u r g’s first wave Western Pomerania
of prosecution between 1599 and 1614 followe d No recent research has been done on witch persecutions
epidemics and crop failures. St r i k i n g l y, many of the in Pomerania-Wolgast (including the Bogislav XIII
witchcraft trials conducted during this phase we re indi- region of 1569) or the regions that in 1648 became
vidual prosecutions taking place in courts under the Swedish and Prussian Western Pomerania.
complicated jurisdictions of the changing manor lord s . Prosecutions for performing magic appeared early
After these jurisdictions had been consolidated, most in the Pomeranian legal practice. T h e
manor lords lost interest in conducting witchcraft trials. “Wendisch-Ruganiarian regional practices,” written by
After a temporary standstill of witchcraft persecu- the District Of ficer Matthäus Norman fro m
tions during the Thirty Years’War, a new cycle of severe 1525–1541, stated that the normal punishment for
418 Germany, Northeastern |
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harmful magic was the death penalty; although it added The tendency at this time was also toward the expulsion
that cases of witchcraft crimes we re rather rare. In of the accused rather than release. Pro p e rty confis c a-
1566/1569 the re l e vant stipulations of the Caro l i n a tion, howe ve r, could not be conducted on a re g u l a r
Code were integrated into regional criminal codes (the basis by the consultants.
Ho f g e r i c h t s o rd n u n g). Subsequent versions of these The last death penalty handed down by the legal
police orders in 1663 and 1672/1681 retained these authorities in Greifswald was sent to the consuls of
rulings. Swedish Queen Christina’s orders to the city of Prussian or Western Pomerania in September 1714.
Verden in 1649 to stop persecutions of witches appar- Reacting to this decision, King Friedrich Wilhelm I
ently had no influence on Swedish Pomerania. issued a decree that December requiring that all parts of
A survey of the sentencing recorded at the law facul- the legal proceedings—namely the use of tort u re — a n d
ties of Rostock and Greifswald universities showed a sentencing in witchcraft trials must be approved by a
total of 567 people accused of witchcraft crimes in central instructional and certifying agency. As early as
these regions. The lay judges in Stettin, Br a n d e n b u r g , 1706, the Estates of Prussian or Western Po m e r a n i a
and Stargard were also of great importance in exchang- issued a mandate criticizing abuses in witchcraft trials
ing and dispatching documents. Altogether there must and calling for stricter control mechanisms. Reacting in
have been at least 1,000 cases brought to trial (Moeller an opposite vein, in 1723 Swedish Western Po m e r a n i a
2002a), making the western Pomeranian regions about issued a new version of the antique police order that
average in their percentage of witchcraft cases per thou- called for the death penalty in cases of witchcraft, exc e p t
sand population. The first “real” witchcraft trials can be in cases of harmless forms of popular magical practices.
situated around 1570; the last trials where torture was
used took place in 1709 and 1710. Roughly 60 percent Brandenburg
of the accused we re sentenced to death. T h ro u g h o u t Our knowledge of witchcraft trials in Brandenburg and
the eighteenth century, there were further accusations, the surrounding regions is incomplete and even older
all of which we re dismissed in light of the intensifie d research shows large gaps.
stipulations re g a rding investigation pro c e d u re s . At the beginning of the sixteenth century, El e c t o r
According to source material now available, the perse- Joachim I of Brandenburg asked the Benedictine abbot
cutions reached their highest points around 1610 or Trithemius to tell him about the new definition of
1620, and especially between 1650 and 1670. T h e re witchcraft. Magical acts we re condemned in early six-
was a slow and general transformation from late t e e n t h - c e n t u ry legal codes, but only with moderate
medieval trials dealing exclusively with harmful magic, restraints, and after 1534 the Carolina Code served as
into real witch persecutions. Only the mass persecu- the basis for criminal law.The decisions of lay judges in
tions in the second half of the seventeenth century Brandenburg show them always adhering to the prac-
established the cumulative definition of witchcraft. In tice of the processus ordinarius.The results suggest a rel-
Western Pomerania, an unusually high number of a t i vely early focus on investigating magicians, but no
witchcraft trials occurred in the ve ry smallest tow n s . early widespread concept of witchcraft. The majority of
On the other hand, the share of witchcraft trials judged trials dealt with harmful magic and simpler magical
by seigneurial courts was rather small. practices, sometimes with the Devil helping in destruc-
The practice of exchanging and dispatching docu- t i ve magic. Even though tort u re was probably used in
ments became part of set committee practice at the earliest witchcraft trials, we find no confessions of
Greifswald University that, in accordance with the state pacts with the Devil or participation in a witches’
laws, adhered to the processus ordinarius. Claims to jus- Sabbat. Not until the end of the 1550s do confessions
tify the use of tort u re through merely circ u m s t a n t i a l appear that resemble those in other north German ter-
evidence were dismissed. While investigations of accu- ritories, showing an elaborated view of witchcraft.
sations of witchcraft and other crimes we re given a The high point of the persecutions in Br a n d e n b u r g
rather free hand, the use of defense counsel was granted can be pinpointed between 1560 and 1590, when the
upon request. Greifswald’s law faculty was more accom- newer view of witchcraft became more widely accepted.
modating than Ro s t o c k’s in granting consultation Nearly 90 percent of the 266 cases of witchcraft and
requests, there by maintaining good client relations. In magic known in Prignitz took place before the start of
the second half of the seventeenth century, legal offi- the Thirty Years’War (Enders 1998, 23); a similar ten-
cials gave considerable leeway to their consultants by dency is evident from the surviving legal consultations
moving away from the older mild questioning methods for this region. Although there was an increase in witch
and developing searches for the De v i l’s mark which, persecutions after the Thirty Years’War, the numbers in
when proved, could shift directly to tort u re. If the Brandenburg seem quite small in comparison to its
accused did not shed tears or showed no emotions northern and southern neighboring regions. It is strik-
under torture, or made a revocation or retraction, such ing that efforts we re made to reach amicable settle-
behavior invariably served to justify repeating the tort u re . ments in accusations of witchcraft, as with other kinds
Germany, Northeastern 419 |
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of injury. In general, Protestant skepticism of witchcraft 1631, there was a larger wave with several breaks. Late
trials was evident in the maintenance of trial standards, 1629 seems to have marked the absolute apex of witch
such as the right to defense counsel or discounting persecutions in Thuringia, while 1631 saw a sudden
rumors as grounds for accusations. Only a few exc e p- end to the number of cases because of the Thirty Years’
tional cases from the second half of the seve n t e e n t h War. After 1648, there were a few quiet years, but the
c e n t u ry constitute genuine witchcraft trials, and eve n persecutions resumed in 1656 and built up to a second
these never turned into serial trials. The establishment massive wave by 1700. After that, one finds only a few
of a central supervisory office of trials in 1714 served as sporadic cases.
an effective measure to restrict witchcraft trials, O ver 60 percent of these cases took place in the
although by this time the persecution of witches played south and southwestern regions of Henneberg (750 cas-
a very small role in the region. Other witchcraft trials in es) and Coburg (roughly 230 cases). But Go t h i a n
1721 and 1728 do, howe ve r, serve as reminders that Georgenthal also saw a fair amount (50 cases), as did
witchcraft remained a criminal offense. the two imperial free cities of Mühlhausen (roughly 65
cases) and Nordhausen (roughly 30 cases). Seen from a
Saxony-Anhalt geographical perspective, the persecutions we re cen-
Even though the present-day state of Saxony-Anhalt is tered in the mountains of the Thuringian forest and the
famous for the mountain Brocken and the witches’ Rhone region; whereas there we re only a few persecu-
dancing square in Thale, very few studies of witchcraft tions in the Thuringia basin region.
have been done on the area. This may be because the The points of dispute and accusations clustere d
loss of source material is thought to have been relative- around homes and farms, usually involving illness and
ly high. Today we can find documentation for roughly death of people and livestock; there are records of only
200 trials in the region, nearly all of them between a few cases dealing with influencing the we a t h e r.
1550 and 1650 (Lücke 2001, 12). Just as in Despite the large number of different rulers in
Brandenburg, the trials peaked before the start of the Thuringia, the witchcraft inquisition was conducted in
Thirty Years’War, with most trials taking place between nearly identical ways throughout the region, with most
1575 and 1600 and another peak between 1615 and cases following the p rocessus ordinarius as outlined in
1620. A final cluster of trials in the mid-1660s did not the Carolina Code. Spokesmen and government repre-
match these earlier incidents in either numbers or s e n t a t i ves alike paid attention to this, and witchcraft
severity.The fully articulated concept of witchcraft was was not treated ascrimen exceptum.
embraced early on in some regional courts. A trial in Local courts did not decide Thuringian witchcraft
Luther’s hometown of Wittenberg in 1540 showed ele- cases on their own, but they relied on the rulings of
ments of the crime of making a pact with the Devil or Schöppenstühlen (learned jurists) and law faculties,
influencing the weather.This practice, however, did not which we re then confirmed through the state gove r n-
continue for long; the fifteen cases in 1540 and the six ment. The Schöppenstuhl of Jena was consulted in over
cases in 1544 remain exceptions. half of these cases, the Coburg jurists were consulted in
Two cities, Quedlinburg and Wernigerode, each sen- about 20 percent, and Leipzig’sSchöppenstuhlin rough-
tenced roughly forty accused witches. Howe ve r, no ly 15 percent. After electoral Sa xony promulgated its
s o u rces confirm the supposed mass executions men- criminal code in 1572, most Thuringian ru l e r s ,
tioned in older literature, claiming that no fewer than although not all, adopted it. The re c o rds show that
133 witches we re put to death in a single day at roughly 75 percent of the cases in Thuringia ended in
Quedlinburg. T h e re is, howe ve r, proof of occasional executions. Half of all those sentenced were executed by
confiscations. The idea of the Elbenzauberis typical for burning, with only 11 percent being “m e rc i f u l l y”
the region of the Harz Mountains. The accused is said decapitated beforehand. Other types of execution were
to have bewitched other people with El b e n or “bad rare. Eight percent of those accused of witchcraft died
things,” cre a t u res thought to be the children of the during the proceedings before a ve rdict was spoken,
Devil, and a witch that invaded a person’s body like suggesting a rather severe and intensive use of torture.
worms and caused damage.
Saxony
Thuringia The modern-day Land of Saxony is much smaller than
In the early modern era, the region of Thuringia (like electoral Saxony in the early modern era; parts of it now
Electoral Saxony) extended well north and south of the belong to Thuringia and Sa xony-Anhalt. El e c t o r a l
borders of the present-day Land. Over 1,500 cases of Saxony contained a number of ruling courts within a
witchcraft persecution can be documented in this relatively small area, which were often consulted in dif-
region between 1526 and 1731 (Füssel 2001, 89ff.). ficult criminal cases by lesser courts elsewhere. Not only
After a slow start earlier in the century, the number of the renowned legal faculties of Leipzig and Wittenberg
cases increased rapidly after 1590. Between 1598 and (now in Saxony-Anhalt), but also the central district
420 Germany, Northeastern |
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capital’s courts and lay judges were just as involved in 2003, 166). In a state with a population of roughly half
judging witchcraft and related matters as the actual top a million, this means that we cannot speak of mass per-
legal authorities in Dresden. Moreover, Saxon jurispru- secutions. Even at their peak, the total number of
dence was unusually rich. The early Sachsenspiegel witchcraft trials made up only about 5 to 7 percent of all
viewed crimes of illicit magic or Zauberei as heretical criminal trials, and there f o re never played a major ro l e .
and proposed the punishment of death by fire. When
electoral Saxony found it necessary to create not only a RONALD FÜSSEL AND KATRIN MOELLER
modern but also a unified law for itself after the
See also: BRANDENBURG,ELECTORATEOF;CAROLINACODE;CARP-
Reformation, it promulgated new criminal and proce-
ZOV,BENEDICT(II); CONFESSIONS;CRIMENEXCEPTUM;GERMANY;
dural codes in 1572.
GOEDELMANN,JOHANNGEORG;HOLYROMANEMPIRE;MECK-
These new codes we re epoch making in dealing with LENBURG,DUCHYOF;NAZIINTERESTINWITCHPERSECUTION;
witchcraft, because they did not share the view of the PROTESTANTREFORMATION;SAXONY,ELECTORATEOF;
C a rolina Code, which did not include witchcraft among THURINGIA;TORTURE;UNIVERSITIES.
its articles concerning here s y. Electoral Sa xo n y’s new References and further reading:
criminal codes set an important precedent by pro p o s i n g Ankarloo, Bengt, and Gustav Henningsen, eds. 1990. Early
to punish merely consorting with the Devil with death Modern European Witchcraft: Centres and Peripheries.Oxford:
Clarendon.
by fire, whether or not any intent to do damage could be
Enders, Lieselott. 1998. “Weise Frauen—böse Zauberinnen.
p roved. In contrast, even harmful witchcraft, if per-
Hexenverfolgung in der Prignitz im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert.”
formed without the invo l vement of the Devil, deserve d
Jahrbuch für brandenburgische Landesgeschichte49: 19–37.
the milder punishment of decapitation. In comparison
Füssel, Ronald. 2001. Hexen und Hexenverfolgung in Thüringen.
with the terms of the Carolina Code, this spiritualiza-
Erfurt: Frisch.
tion of witchcraft offenses meant that sentencing for Haas, Alfred. 1932. “Über das pommersche Hexenwesen im 16.
crimes of illicit magic became much stricter. This legisla- und 17. Jahrhundert.” Baltische Studien34: 158–202.
tion became known far beyond the borders of electoral Haustein, Jörg. 1990. Martin Luthers Stellung zum Zauber- und
Sa xony through the writings of re n owned Sa xon jurists, Hexenwesen (Münchner Kirchenhistorische Studien 2).Stuttgart,
a b ove all the famous Benedict Carpzov. Berlin, Cologne: Kohlhammer.
The effects of this “s t r i c t” legislation in electoral Lorenz, Sönke. 1982. Aktenversendung und Hexenprozess.
Dargestellt am Beispiel der Juristenfakultäten Rostock und
Sa xony seem to have been much less serious than one
Greifswald (1570/82–1630), (Studia philosophica et historica 1).
might have expected. Some ve ry old studies, supple-
Frankfurt: Lang.
mented by the re c o rds of the Nazi “SS Sp e c i a l
Lücke, Monika, ed. 2001. “Viele und manchfeldige böse
Commission on Witches,” show only a total of 200 cas-
Missethaten.” Hexenverfolgungen auf dem Territorium
es raised against witches and magicians, mainly in the
Sachsen-Anhalts vom 16.–18. Jahrhundert.Halle: Courage e.V.
years around 1540, 1580, and 1615. Between 1660 and Moeller, Katrin. 2002a. “Es ist ein überaus gerechtes Gesetz, dass
1690 there were a few further cases, but nothing indi- die Zauberinnen getötet werden,” Hexenverfolgung im protes-
cates any large wave of persecutions. Most trials we re tantischen Norddeutschland. Pp. 96–107 in Hexenwahn. Ängste
carried out in Dresden, Leipzig, and Wittenberg (now der Neuzeit, Begleitband zur gleichnamigen Ausstellung des
part of Saxony-Anhalt), since the central courts and rul- Deutschen Historischen Museums.Edited by Rosmarie Beier-de
ing courts were located in these cities. We hear of a trial Haan, Rita Voltmer, and Franz Irsigler. Berlin, Wolfratshausen:
Minerva Hermann Farnung.
for Zauberei,or magic, at Zwickau in 1424, but it can-
———. 2002b. “Das Willkür über Recht ginge.” Hexenverfolgung
not be seen as a precedent for the witchcraft trials.
im Mecklenburg des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts. Rostock:
A general regional study of witch persecutions in
University.
electoral Sa xony between the early fifteenth and the
Peters, Jan. 1998. “Hexerei vor Ort. Erfahrungen und Deutungen
mid-nineteenth centuries shed light on witchcraft per-
in einer Kleingesellschaft der Prignitz. Saldernherrschaft
secutions in one of Ge r m a n y’s largest territorial states Plattenburg-Wilsnack (1550–1700).” Jahrbuch für
and one of only four lay electorates in the empire brandenburgische Landesgeschichte49: 38–74.
(Wilde 2003). For the approximately 750 witchcraft Schmidt, Jürgen Michael. 2000. Das Hexereidelikt in den
trials, most originating in the Thuringian part of kursächsischen Konstitutionen von 1572.Pp. 111–135 in
Electoral Saxony, there were peaks of persecutions from Benedict Carpzov. Neue Perspektiven zu einem umstrittenen
1570 to 1630 and again from 1656 to 1670. Thus far, sächsischen Juristen, (Rothenburger Gespräche zur
Strafrechtsgeschichte Band 2). Edited byGünter Jerouschek,
no evidence has been found of any mass persecutions
Wolfgang Schild, and Walter Gropp.Tübingen: Diskord.
resulting from unsupervised accusations based on
Wilde, Manfred. 2001. Archiv zur Mailingliste Hexenforschung,
rumors. Most cases we re based on claims of m a l e fic i a ,
Manfred Wilde, “Hexenverfolgung in Kursachsen,” vom 17.
acts of harmful witchcraft, and stemmed from neigh-
April 2001, http://www.listserv.gmd.de/archives/
borhood squabbles. Of the roughly 300 cases that end-
hexenforschung.html (cited August 2002).
ed with the death penalty, approximately 200 came ———. 2003. Die Zauberei- und Hexenprozesse in Kursachsen.
f rom the Thuringian area of electoral Sa xony (Wi l d e Cologne, Weimar, and Vienna: Böhlau.
Germany, Northeastern 421 |
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Germany, Southeastern refers to the territory of the modern state of Bavaria,
Southeastern Germany refers to present-day political not to be confused with the historical duchy of Bavaria.
boundaries, which were meaningless during the period Southeastern Germany may serve as a test case for
of witch hunting. During the late medieval and early theories about witchcraft and the persecution of witch-
modern periods, southeastern Germany was a part of es, since until its unification under Ba varian rule this
the Holy Roman Empire, a patchwork of territories region was extremely heterogeneous, containing large
including dozens of prince-bishoprics, prince-abbeys, and small territories, rich urbanized capitals, and poor
imperial free cities, and scores of imperial lordships and b a c k w a rd regions, absolute rulers, and territories gov-
earldoms. The region generally supported the imperial erned by parliaments. Subsistence farming zones bor-
cause, being geographically close to the residential cap- d e red pro t o i n d u s t r i a l i zed regions, agrarian face-to-face
itals of the Habsburg emperors at Vienna and Prague, societies lay close to large towns where strangers could
and most of the territories needed protection against l i ve anonymously. The imperial free city of Au g s b u r g
expansive modernizing states. Nevertheless, during the was a major center of communications, where the
sixteenth century, the duchy of Bavaria became increas- Eu ropean postal routes between the Netherlands and
ingly dominant. In 1609, it annexed the imperial free Italy, France, and Bohemia met. It was a center of early
city of Donauwörth, and in 1623 the Upper Palatinate capitalism: contemporaries we re struck by the gap
(Oberpfalz). By 1803 or soon after, Bavaria had sacked b e t ween the extraord i n a ry wealth of the Fuggers, a
the prince-bishoprics of Augsburg, Bamberg, Eichstätt, banking dynasty, and the extreme pove rty in their
Freising, Passau, Regensburg, and Würzburg, as well as immediate neighborhood, where scores of people died
large parts of electoral Mainz and Salzburg, together of hunger during the subsistence crisis of 1570; one old
with the imperial abbeys of Be n e d i k t b e u re n , man froze to death on the Fuggers’ dung heap. In addi-
Berchtesgaden, Ebrach, Edelstetten, Elchingen, Irsee, tion to such economic and social discrepancies, the
Kaisheim, Kempten, Ot t o b e u ren, Ro g g e n b u r g , region had extreme political and religious tensions:
Söflingen, St. Ulrich and Afra, Ursberg, Waldsassen, Nu remberg was the first imperial city to embrace
Wengen, and Wettenhausen; and the imperial free cities Protestantism, while Ba varia founded the Catholic
of Augsburg, Bopfingen, Buchhorn, Di n k e l s b ü h l , League and assumed leadership over the prince-bish-
K a u f b e u ren, Kempten, Lindau, Me m m i n g e n , oprics. The Upper Palatinate belonged politically to the
N ö rdlingen, Nu remberg (Nürnberg), Re g e n s b u r g , electoral Palatinate and was therefore part of the major
Rothenburg, Schwe i n f u rt, Wangen, We i s s e n b u r g , Calvinist territory in central Eu rope. The region had
Windsheim, and Ulm, plus the imperial villages of C o u n t e r - Reformation post-Tridentine Catholic states;
Gochsheim and Sennfeld. Eventually Ba varia also moderate traditional Catholic ecclesiastical territories;
a n n e xed the territorial states of the Ma r g r a ves of ecclesiastical states split by confessional infig h t i n g ;
Burgau, Ansbach, and Bayreuth, of the Teutonic Order, Calvinist and Lutheran territories; Lutheran and
and of the Habsburgs in Swabia, not to mention dozens Zwinglian city republics; Catholic, Lutheran, and
of earldoms and hundreds of lordships of imperial Calvinist lordships; towns like Augsburg with mixe d
knights with their mostly tiny territories, mainly in confessions; and territories with Jewish, Anabaptist,
Swabia and Franconia. At the dissolution of the Holy Schwenckfelder, or Spiritualist minorities. Gypsies and
Roman Empire in 1806, almost all of the formerly travelers roamed through the region, together with dis-
independent territories in southeastern Germany had charged soldiers ready for violent attacks, adding to rur-
become part of the Kingdom of Bavaria. Now stretch- al insecurities. How did any of this affect the belief in
ing from the Alps north to Thuringia, the Bavarian witchcraft or the inclination to persecute witches?
m o n a rchy voluntarily joined the second Ge r m a n T h roughout southeastern Germany there was wide-
Empire in 1871. During the 1918 revolution, Bavaria s p read belief in the efficacy of magical cures, divination,
became a republic (Freistaat) and joined the Weimar s o rc e ry, and witchcraft. Wise women, herbalists, divin-
Republic in 1919. Bavaria remained intact until 1934, ers, and witch doctors we re sought after, as sources fro m
when the Nazi dictatorship wiped out all federal struc- the imperial cities of Augsburg, Memmingen, and
tures. After liberation by American troops, the republic Nu remberg demonstrate. Howe ve r, we cannot assume
(Fre i s t a a t Ba ye rn) was re s t o red, comprising six that the intensity of witchcraft beliefs was uniform, and
p rovinces: Upper and Lower Ba varia (Ober- und in several cases we encounter eminent contemporaries
Ni e d e r b a ye rn); the Upper Palatinate (Ob e r p f a l z) ; who did not believe in witches—particularly in
Swabia (S c h w a b e n); Upper-, Middle-, and Lowe r - Nu remberg, where humanists, artists, poets, and eve n
Franconia (Ober-, Mittel-, und Unterfranken). In 1949, l a w yers ridiculed belief in witchcraft. It is impossible
Bavaria became a member state of the Federal Republic to imagine Jacob Fugger the Rich fearing witches;
of Germany. Unlike France or Britain, Bavaria has t h roughout the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the
maintained its conquests in Swabia and Franconia to s e l f-c o n fident patricians of urbane centers like Au g s b u r g ,
the present day. Southeastern Germany in this sense Ulm, or Memmingen seem to have maintained a re l a xe d
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attitude tow a rd suspected witches. In such places, atti- number of regional executions was comparatively low,
tudes tow a rd witchcraft had consequences for the perse- just like in the neighboring southern states of Tyrol and
cution of witches. Urban courts prosecuted witchcraft, Austria, or the kingdom of Bohemia to the east.
because the populace expected such action, but they In contrast to such we l l - o rd e red police states, the
h a rdly eve r f o rced anyone suspected of witchcraft into p i c t u re in Swabia and Franconia is unbalanced. Sm a l l
confessing by means of tort u re, thus ensuring few death l o rdships, earldoms, or abbeys lacked the complex
sentences. Many smaller imperial cities we re satellites of system of checks and balances that existed in large terri-
the largest ones; all Franconian cities looked to torial states. Because the more important towns had
Nu remberg. Fo r example, Weissenburg asked for advice become independent before 1500, urban opposition
in 1590, and stopped its first witchcraft trials immedi- was generally absent; certainly there we re no unive r s i-
ately afterNu re m b e r g’s lawyers and theologians had giv- ties or a complex system of government. In many cases,
en their opinion. decisions depended simply on the ideas of the ru l i n g
Within centralized territories, legal tre a t m e n t l o rd or abbot. T h e re are cases where a bishop’s illness
depended on decisions by the central authorities. T h e caused witchcraft trials (e.g., p resumably in the
Calvinist government in Heidelberg rejected belief in p r i n c e-bishopric of Augsburg) or where demands by
witches and simply forbade their provincial gove r n- the peasants drove the local ruler into witch hunting.
ment at Amberg from conducting witchcraft trials in For example, the Catholic Hans von Rechberg permit-
any district court of the Upper Palatinate. After the ted burning witches in his tiny lordship of Il l e re i c h e n
Upper Palatinate was occupied by Ba varian troops in ( Swabia) in 1562 to calm his peasantry, while the
1623 and subsequently annexed, Protestantism was Calvinist lords von Kaltenthal conducted trials in their
suppressed. Nevertheless, even under Catholic Bavarian fief of Osterzell in 1590 for similar reasons. Large-scale
rule, the Upper Palatinate had few witchcraft trials and witch hunts with more than twenty burnings are
only a handful of executions. The duchy/electorate of re p o rted from the County of Oe t t i n g e n - Wa l l e r s t e i n
Ba varia also saw re l a t i vely few executions, except one a round 1590 and again around 1629, alongside witch
witch hunt around 1590, when witches were persecut- panics with several victims in Il l e reichen and in some
ed in several district courts. However, these trials were Swabian lordships of the Fuggers. The tiny principality
soon seen as a severe mistake and promptly stopped. As of Pfalz-Neuburg saw two witch hunts: one aro u n d
a relatively large territorial state, Bavaria’s complex sys- 1590, when it was Protestant, and another aro u n d
tem of institutions generated considerable re s i s t a n c e 1629, when it had become Catholic.
against witch hunting: Although most Jesuits and the On the other hand, considering the scores of small
Un i versity of Ingolstadt, as well as the duke and his territories in this region, most petty rulers seem to have
c o u rt council, had supported the witch hunt, many remained cool and obviously managed to defle c t
larger towns, the nobility, the Ba varian estates demands for persecution. The same seems to apply to
(L a n d s c h a f t), and the Privy Council opposed the idea most abbots and abbesses in southeastern Germany as
that witchcraft could be considered an extraord i n a ry well. Although not all sources have been scrutinized, we
crime that required extraordinary measures (a basically have no evidence that any of the many imperial abbeys
illegal court procedure). mentioned earlier ever conducted a witch hunt. It
This opposition won the struggle. Ba va r i a’s ro u g h l y seems more than unlikely that any major witch hunts
100 district courts were tightly controlled by the central h a ve escaped our attention, because they would be
government in Munich and the provincial governments mentioned in supralocal sources like legal opinions,
in Burghausen, Straubing, and Landshut (and, after b roadsheets, correspondence, travel re p o rts, diaries,
1623, in Amberg). District judges had to report imme- chronicles, or early modern publications on witchcraft.
diately after suspects were imprisoned and ask permis- The reasons ecclesiastical territories in this re g i o n
sion for any further steps. Within the duchy of Bavaria, (unlike those further west and north) avoided witch
only governments could impose tort u re, which they hunting we re multifold. Some had a re l a xed attitude
decided after reviewing a complete written record of all toward confessionalism, and therefore to the female sex;
i n t e r rogations of suspected witches and independent abbesses may even have felt some solidarity with perse-
witnesses. Because only the government could impose cuted women. Reason of state also played a role: for
t o rt u re and death sentences, Ba varian death sentences example, the Benedictine abbot of Be n e d i k t b e u e r n
for witchcraft were rare events, even if most councilors avoided dispensing death sentences because his right to
and certainly the princes believed in witchcraft. e n f o rce them was disputed by the dukes of Ba varia.
Avoiding witch panics in a large territory was a matter In his criminal re c o rds, all cases of homicide we re
of state policy, not religion. Because Ba varia and the mitigated into financial compensation to the victims’
Upper Palatinate we re by far the largest states in the families. This was done to avoid a decision of the
p resent-day southeastern German provinces of Up p e r Reichskammergericht (imperial chamber court) about
and Lower Ba varia and the Upper Palatinate, the the constitutional status of his territory and maintain
Germany, Southeastern 423 |
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the fiction that Be n e d i k t b e u ren was a free imperial tight control, ve ry much like Catholic Ba varia. St ro n g
abbey, not a Bavarian vassal. secular governments, whether Calvinist, Lutheran, or
Although it seems self-evident that most “w i t c h e s” Catholic, remained unaffected by popular demands.
were executed during witch hunts, it is also possible to But Germany’s prince-bishoprics were weak both polit-
substantiate this claim statistically. Of about 950 ically and structurally. In many ecclesiastical territories
known “witches” executed within the boundaries of the in Franconia and the Rhineland, self-confident peasants
modern provinces of Upper and Lower Bavaria, Swabia and burghers took action autonomously, forming vil-
and the Upper Palatinate, 51 percent died during lage committees and hunting witches, leaving the
14 large-scale witch hunts (those with more than 20 authorities with a choice between facing open rebellion
e xecutions), mostly conducted around 1590 or 1629; or accepting the illegal actions of their subjects. These
another 31 percent fell victim during 38 lesser panics committees often handed suspects to officials only after
(with between 4 and 19 executions), mostly betwe e n they had confessed. After 1600, the authorities tried to
1580 and 1630. And, between 1300 and 1800, only gain control by introducing witch commissioners, who
about one “witch” in six (18 percent) received a death spearheaded or even replaced the committees by taking
sentence in episodes involving three or fewer exe c u- fie rce action against anyone suspected. He re is where
tions. The fact that 82 percent of these victims we re denunciation and tort u re entered the picture: witch
e xecuted in clusters, after trials using “e x t r a o rd i n a ry” commissioners could act faster than village committees,
procedures, verifies the proverbial use of the term witch and their prince-bishops officially authorized them.
hunt. In southeastern Germany, convictions for witch- The rulers of these Franconian prince-bishoprics
craft were unlikely outside such panics or witch hunts; actively supported a militant Counter-Reformation and
in the long run, contextualized within the broader his- we re pre p a red to suppress any form of here s y. All of
t o ry of crime and punishment, the number of exe c u- them considered witchcraft primarily a form of heresy
tions for witchcraft was marginal. Witch hunts molded rather than a secular crime, as suggested by the Malleus
the perception of contemporaries, and large-scale witch Ma l e fic a rum (The Hammer of Witches, 1486).
hunts decisively distinguished this region fro m W h e n e ver the populace and the authorities work e d
Franconia, where several hundred witches we re burned t o g e t h e r, witchcraft trials grew into massive hunts.
in each of the prince-bishoprics of Bamberg, Ei c h s t ä t t , Obsessed by a desire to eradicate here s y, these
Mainz, and W ü rzburg, and hundreds more in the p r i n c e-bishops, like the prince-provost of El l w a n g e n ,
territories of the Teutonic Ord e r, and the prince-abbey of the prince-abbot of Fulda, or the master of the Teutonic
Ellwangen. He re even Protestant principalities like Sa xe - Order at Mergentheim, overlooked the dangers of shed-
Coburg hunted witches exc e s s i ve l y. Overall, more t h a n ding innocent blood. Such “p o l i t i c a l” considerations
4,000 “w i t c h e s” we re probably burned between 1590 we re considered Ma c h i a vellian by intransigent ecclesi-
and 1630 within the provinces of Up p e r, Middle, and astical members of the Catholic League around 1600,
L ower Franconia, presumably more than 90 percent of and there f o re implicitly atheist or heretical. W h e n
them in large-scale witch hunts. Ve ry few witches we re defending pure belief, no compromise was possible.
burned in this region either before or after these dates. These prince-bishops were not only ready to wage war
What caused such exc e s s i ve witch hunts in on the battlefield (which they were indeed about to do
Franconia? Like eve ry w h e re in early modern Eu ro p e , in the T h i rty Ye a r s’ War), but they we re also ready to
Franconia had a magical subculture and experienced wage war against all kinds of internal enemies, and as a
neighborhood conflicts, plus the characteristic subsis- Catholic historian (von Pölnitz 1934) remarked, even-
tence crises of the Little Ice Age. Clearly, its massive tually against themselves. Jesuits frequently advo c a t e d
witch hunts around 1600, between 1616–1618, and this kind of radicalism, and an American Jesuit (Bireley
b e t ween 1626–1630 we re linked to extreme climatic 1975) did not hesitate to label them extremists. T h e
events. In contrast to the Upper Palatinate, Bavaria, or remarkable ferocity of witch hunting in Franconia can
Swabia, its dominant cash cro p, viticulture, was eve n be best explained by a combination of extreme zealotry,
m o re vulnerable than cereals in these northern are a s . spiritual uncert a i n t y, and physical insecurity, which
Many areas with severe witch hunting, in Germany as drove the populace into scapegoating.
in France, Switzerland, or Austria, practiced viticulture We can sometimes see how moral entrepreneurs were
under marginal conditions. The loss of wine harve s t s d i rectly invo l ved in triggering a witch hunt. The only
t h rough hailstorms or late frosts apparently triggere d large-scale witch hunt in any imperial free city of south-
scapegoating. However, not all wine-producing territo- eastern Germany occurred after an ideologically moti-
ries succumbed to these demands from below; for vated lawyer gained power in Nördlingen. He exploited
instance, the government of the Palatinate, aided by the the case of a mentally disturbed maidservant working in
u n i versity of Heidelberg, discouraged accusations and a household where three little children had died myste-
punished accusers; Lutheran W ü rttemberg with its riously in 1589. In this witch hunt, thirt y - five people
u n i versity at Tübingen also kept accusations under we re burned within five years, despite considerable
424 Germany, Southeastern |
Wicca | Richard M.Golden - Encyclopedia of Witchcraft - The Western Tradition | 462 | 46049 Golden Chap. D av First Pages 08/25/2005 p.425 Application File
resistance from the Protestant superintendent. In many Kunstmann, Hartmut Heinrich. 1970. Zauberwahn und
witch hunts we find that individual agency played a Hexenprozess in der Reichsstadt Nürnberg.Erlangen:
decisive role in either starting, maintaining, or stopping Dissertations-Druckerei Hogl.
Merzbacher, Friedrich. 1970. Die Hexenprozesse in Franken, 2d
hunts. Although rural supporters usually appear as
ed. Munich: C. H. Beck.
unstructured crowds, one can sometimes identify lead-
Pölnitz, Götz Freiherr von. 1934. Julius Echter von Mespelbrunn,
ing individuals if the sources are sufficiently detailed.
Fürstbischof von Würzburg und Herzog von Franken
Some moral entre p reneurs we re driven by material
(1573–1617).Munich: der Kommission.
i n t e rests, some by anxieties, others by ideology, and
Schwillus, Harald. 1992. Kleriker im Hexenprozess. Geistliche als
many by varying mixtures of these ingredients. Opfer der Hexenprozesse des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts in
In this region, witch hunts started comparatively late Deutschland.Würzburg: Echter.
and peaked relatively early, with the persecutions of the
late 1580s. Afterw a rd, persecution declined sharply in Germany, Southwestern
the southeast, but gained momentum in Fr a n c o n i a Conceptions of the witch, originating in the early
until reaching unprecedented levels of cruelty in the 1400s in Dauphiné, Savoy, and western Switzerland,
late 1620s. After a whole generation of Catholic s p read extremely early into the southwe s t e r n
prince-bishops had been replaced, their successors obvi- German-language area, which long remained a central
ously repudiated their pre d e c e s s o r s’ conduct. Be t we e n witch-hunting zone. Recently, Oliver Landolt not only
1630 and 1700, death sentences for witchcraft in these found the insult Hex in the municipal Frevelbuch (reg-
ecclesiastical territories approached ze ro, while many ister of offenses) of Schaffhausen between 1367–1387,
Protestant imperial cities now held witchcraft trials, and but also located evidence of the burning of one or more
most saw a few executions. This picture re versed after hegsen from Beringen in its financial records from
1700, with no further executions recorded from the free 1402–1403, thereby obtaining the earliest known uses
cities, while Catholic territories resumed witch hunt- of the German term for witch, Hexe.
ing. Southern Germany saw chains of trials, particular- After the Council of Basel (1431–1449), the cumu-
ly linked to agrarian crises of 1709 and the 1720s. It lative witch concept expanded northward and eastward,
was clearly a sign of Catholic backwardness that only a with trials around Basel, in Alsace, and in the
late execution at Würzburg in 1749 triggered a public Palatinate. Rudolf von Baden, regional commander
debate, eventually leading to the Ba varian War of the (Ko m t u r ) of the houses of the Order of St. John of
Witches, the final debate on the subject in the Ho l y Jerusalem in Breisgau between 1456 and 1470, staged
Roman Em p i re, where supporters of witch hunting witch hunts in Freiburg, Neuenburg, and Heitersheim,
(mostly conservative theologians) were labeled supersti- all three in Breisgau. In a letter dated November 1484,
tious and inhumane in the late 1760s. Heinrich Kramer (Institoris), papal inquisitor for all of
upper Germany since 1478 and author of the Malleus
WOLFGANG BEHRINGER
Maleficarum (The Hammer of Witches, 1486), recom-
See also: AUGSBURG,IMPERIALFREECITY;AUGSBURG, mended Count Rudolf, now commander at Überlingen
PRINCE-BISHOPRICOF;AUSTRIA;BAMBERG,PRINCE-BISHOPRIC on Lake Constance, to Count Johann von Sonnenberg
OF;BAVARIA,DUCHYOF;BAVARIANWAROFTHEWITCHES; (d. 1510) as an expert in witch hunting. Kramer, an
BOHEMIA;ECCLESIASTICALTERRITORIES;EICHSTÄTT,
Alsatian Dominican, conducted large persecutions in
PRINCE-BISHOPRICOF;ELLWANGEN,PRINCE-ABBEYOF;FUGGER
the diocese of Constance during the early 1480s, where
FAMILY;FULDA,PRINCE-ABBEYOF;GERMANY;HOLYROMAN
he boasted of bringing forty-eight women to the stake,
EMPIRE;HUNGARY;INGOLSTADT,UNIVERSITYOF;KEMPTEN,
although no corroborative records survive.
P R I N C E-A B B EYO F; L I TT L EI C EAG E; M E RG E N T H E I M, E C C L E S I A S T I C A L
Howe ve r, after the appearance of Kramer’s Ma l l e u s ,
TERRITORYOF;NÖRDLINGEN,IMPERIALFREECITY;NUREMBERG,
IMPERIALFREECITY;PALATINATE,ELECTORATEOF;PANICS; regional witchcraft proceedings we re rare and mainly
POPULARPERSECUTION;WITCHHUNTS;WÜRZBURG, limited to the old concept of harmful sorcery practiced
PRINCE-BISHOPRICOF. by individuals. In 1562, this picture changed abruptly
References and further reading: when the great witch hunts began in southwe s t e r n
Behringer,Wolfgang. 1997. Witchcraft Persecutions in Bavaria. Ge r m a n y. The chronology of these persecutions
Popular Magic, Religious Zealotry and Reason of State in Early w a s m a rked by surges and lulls, with high points
Modern Europe.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
f ro m 1590–1600 and 1626–1630. In some re g i o n s ,
Bireley, Robert. 1975. Maximilian von Bayern, Adam Contzen SJ
another upsurge followed between 1650 and 1670,
und die Gegenreformation in Deutschland 1625–1635.
p receding a short phase of single trials that trickled
Göttingen: Vandenhoek and Ruprecht.
o f f a round 1700. In their regional and confessional
Gehm, Britta. 2000. Die Hexenverfolgungen des Hochstifts Bamberg
distribution, larger territories we re less affected
und das Eingreifen des Reichshofrates zu ihrer Beendigung.
Hildesheim: Georg Olms. than smaller, and Catholic regions more frequently and
Kretz, Hans-Jürgen. 1972. Der Schöppenstuhl zu Coburg. to a greater degree than Protestant regions, especially
Unpublished diss. jur., University of Würzburg. after 1600.
Germany, Southwestern 425 |
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Mo n o g r a p h i c a l l y, southwestern Ge r m a n y, has been territories in the empire. The desire to persecute witches
t reated only once, but in a fundamental and striking came mainly from ord i n a ry people, not officials. The trial
way that created a paradigm shift in German witch against Katharina Kepler was, there f o re, not an exc e p t i o n-
research (Midelfort 1972). The region Midelfort inves- al event: like her, over 60 percent of W ü rt t e m b e r g’s other
tigated, largely within the current L a n d (state) of accused witches surv i ved their trials.
Ba d e n - W ü rttemberg, was then splintered into more The ve ry divergent developments in the margrava t e
than 350 often minuscule and fully autonomous states, Baden, divided after 1535 between the houses of
including imperial free cities, cloisters, and abbeys as Baden-Durlach and Baden-Baden have also been inves-
well as a nearly unmanageable series of noble territories. tigated (Schneider 1994). A Reformed territory,
In southwestern Germany, without using serial sources, Ba d e n-Durlach ranked among the persecution-poor
Midelfort counted 3,229 witch burnings between 1561 territories of the Holy Roman Em p i re: between 1550
and 1670 through simple addition of substantiated cas- and 1670, only nineteen people we re implicated in
es. His methodological approach was based on criminal proceedings for sorc e ry or witchcraft. In
bundling various observational techniques to create a Ba d e n - Durlach, no witch hunt took place. Ma t t e r s
regional-historical approach, obtaining a maximum of were quite different in Baden-Baden, which underwent
vividness and differentiation through a combined con- a strong re-Catholicization after 1569. Here two waves
sideration of the political, legal, economic, social, cul- of persecution occurred. The first, between 1569 and
tural, religious, demographic, and settlement deve l o p- 1580, cost 43 women their lives; the second, betwe e n
ments within a clearly bounded geographical space. Its 1625 and 1631, included at least 244 arrests and 231
principal results have held up extremely well. e xecutions. Both waves of persecution coincided with
Gi ven the many questions that still face witchcraft phases of re-Catholicization; but, unlike during the first
researchers in southwestern Germany, witch hunts have w a ve, the attitude of the authorities became the forc e
been the object of historical seminars since 1992 at the driving the later trials.
Un i versity of T ü b i n g e n’s Institut für Ge s c h i c h t l i c h e An excellent dissertation on the imperial free city of
Landeskunde und Historische Hilfswissenschaften.On the Esslingen (Je rouschek 1992) combined legal expert i s e
basis of Midelfort’s study, congenially complemented to with psychoanalytical observation. A great storm of
the east by Be h r i n g e r’s 1987 work on Ba va r i a 1562, which laid waste to large stretches of inner
(Behringer 1997), several monographs have been pub- Swabia and apparently provided the impetus for a
lished that have deepened our earlier picture and clari- marked witch hunt in the region, also struck Esslingen
fied its outlines. In cooperation with the Ba d i s c h e n harshly. Its chief pastor,Thomas Naogeorgus, explained
Landesmuseum in Karlsruhe, a sizable exhibition about the storm from the pulpit as witchcraft and demanded
“Witches and Witchcraft Prosecutions in Southwestern punishment of the culprits. His insistence found popu-
Germany” opened in 1994, generating an extensive vol- lar approval and ultimately forced the city council to
ume of essays (Lorenz 1994). A revised and gre a t l y begin proceedings against three women. This re s u l t e d
expanded edition was offered as a Festschrift to Er i k in one execution, but also cost Esslingen’s head minister
Midelfort ten years later (Lorenz and Schmidt 2004). his office; henceforth, Esslingen’s clergy opposed such
Meanwhile, a series of projects on the history of witch- persecutions. Only in 1653, when Tobias Wa g n e r
craft trials in various southwest German territories have became chancellor of the Un i versity of Tübingen, did
a p p e a red. In vestigating the witchcraft trials in the duchy the situation change when the council lawyer Da n i e l
of W ü rttemberg, Anita Raith’s results differe n t i a t e d Hauff developed into a fanatical witch hunter. W h i l e
Mi d e l f o rt’s picture by clarifying the role of W ü rt t e m b e r g’s over fifty people in Esslingen and in the villages of
judicial system and exposing the decisive role of Möhringen and Vaihingen fell victim to his ze a l
t h e St u t t g a rt chancellery, under whose competent and b e t ween 1662 and 1665, Hauff made this bro a d l y
usually uncompromising supervision its local courts lay. planned and executed witch persecution a springboard
This ducal council, two-thirds legal experts, held strictly for accelerating his career within the hierarchy of
to the re q u i rements for legal proof in Charles V’s Caro l i n a municipal offices. The persecution fell apart after
Code (Constitutio Criminalis Ca rolina) of 1532, ensuring Hauff’s abrupt and ominous death at the end of 1665;
t h a t e ven in witchcraft trials, proceedings we re ord e r l y, no further deadly witchcraft trials took place in the ter-
that is, without legal abuses. While W ü rt t e m b e r g’s legisla- ritory of this imperial city.
tion of 1567 made it the first territory in the Ho l y T h ree regional studies informed another vo l u m e .
Ro m a n Em p i re to mention and punish pacts with the Johannes Dillinger’s study of witchcraft prosecutions in
Devil, it p rovoked no mass trials because of legal con- the Habsburg county of Hohenberg re vealed how
straints on the behavior of its judiciary. Of about 350 Austrian authorities in In n s b ruck found witchcraft
witchcraft trials in W ü rttemberg, only around 100 exe c u- trials objectionable and sought to forestall them. Often,
tions aredemonstrable. Considering its size and popula- i n t e r m e d i a ry authorities and officials successfully
tion, W ü rttemburg ranked among the least-persecuting o u t m a n e u ve red the Ty rolean government thro u g h
426 Germany, Southwestern |
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u n a u t h o r i zed decisions. In addition, a resolution of by Tridentine doctrine, El l w a n g e n’s prince-abbot
internal conflicts through witchcraft trials took place in Johann Christoph von Westerstetten re p resented this
Rottenberg, Hohenburg’s capital. Tensions were exacer- connection between confessionalization and witch
bated by difficulties in suppressing the Re f o r m a t i o n hunting. He carried out massive series of trials not only
amid a feeling of being surrounded by Lutheran territo- in Ellwangen but also in Eichstätt after becoming bish-
ries, and by economic difficulties resulting from storms op there in 1613. His persecutions claimed nearly 300
and exclusion from Protestant markets. The high point victims in Ellwangen in 1611 and 1612 alone. T h i s
of the prosecution fell between 1595 and 1602, when i n t e n s i t y, exceeding anything known pre v i o u s l y, appar-
the ineffectiveness of Habsburg authorities exacerbated ently resulted from a new form of witch judiciary that
weak leadership by local authorities, as magistrates re m oved competence from the ord i n a ry agencies of
yielded easily to popular demands to persecute witches. criminal justice; instead, a witch commission established
Ro t t e n b u r g’s witchcraft trials provoked fresh internal by the prince-abbot controlled the proceedings.
conflicts because of the city’s unequal treatment of sus- This commission, consisting of two councillors, effi-
pected witches. Its council was criticized for protecting ciently applied the prince-abbot’s desire to persecute.
rich and prominent citizens. The persecutions abated Procedural law changed to the disadvantage of the
after three inve s t i g a t i ve committees we re sent fro m accused, and no accused person escaped with his life
Innsbruck to Rottenburg to examine abuses in the local thereafter.This omnicompetent management of the tri-
j u d i c i a ry, administration, businesses, and in its local als by deputized councillors employed the idea of close
church. familial or social ties among the victims, stru c t u r i n g
Be t ween 1565 and 1667, witchcraft trials cost at these persecution waves by trials of entire witch families
least fifty-three people their lives in the imperial city of or households. Once the criterion of family relationship
Reutlingen. W h e reas an oligarchic city council con- or close social connection between the victims became
trolled Esslingen, a democratically elected council dom- a u t h o r i t a t i ve, the demonological stereotype of the old
inated Reutlingen. He re, the persecution waves corre- woman witch broke down completely, as persons of
lated more or less to council elections (Thomas Fritz, in nearly eve ry age, gender, and social position we re
L o renz 1998). New men striving to enter the council e xecuted. When the persecutions ended abruptly in
frequently echoed the persecution desires from below to 1618, they had caused a powe rful demographic cleft
earn votes from Reutlingen’s citizens. After a violent but throughout broad sections of the population, especially
s h o rt period of witchcraft trials, the council quickly in the capital city of Ellwangen, and had destroyed the
returned to a moderate stance; as a rule, it only yielded mutual trust that upholds society. In addition, the eco-
to these popular desires during a change of generations nomic dislocation resulting from the prince-abbot’s
in the city council. Like Daniel Hauff in Esslingen, c o n fiscation practices further destabilized the entire
Re u t l i n g e n’s Johann Philipp Laubenberger used witch local social system.
hunting as a springboard for his political care e r. Hi s It should be emphasized that only a few Catholic
popular prestige as a tough and sweeping witch com- territories were affected by such excessive witch hunts.
missioner catapulted Laubenberger into the mayo r a l The moderate and persecution-hindering attitude of
o f fice in the council elections of summer 1665. On c e the government in Ba varia (Behringer 1997) re a p-
s e c u rely in powe r, howe ve r, Laubenberger rapidly p e a red in the Habsburg territories. Likewise, many
developed doubts about the circumstances of witchcraft ecclesiastical territories, for example, the diocese of
trials (which he naturally knew better than anyone) and Constance (Zimmermann 1988), did not follow the
u n d e rwent a conversion “f rom Saul to Pa u l” on the pattern of Ellwangen. Be t ween 1570 and 1590, the
witchcraft question. diocese of Constance resembled neighboring territories,
The persecutions in the prince-abbey (F ü r s t p ro p s t e i) with executions at Meersburg and the Obervogtei(lord-
of Ellwangen we re unique within southwe s t e r n ship) of Reichenau accompanying persecutions in the
Germany (Wolfgang Mährle, in Lorenz 1998). Both the rest of the Lake Constance region. But in the first half
total of around 450 trial victims and the intensity of the of the seventeenth century, hardly any further convic-
p roceedings we re significantly higher than in other tions can be found in episcopal territory, although
s o u t h western territories, resembling the patterns of per- c o u rt re c o rds from the Ob e rvo g t e i of Reichenau show
secution in the trial series in the Franconian prince-bish- that witchcraft accusations remained part of eve ryd a y
oprics of W ü rzburg, Bamberg, and Eichstätt, and in the village life. The episcopal government, strengthened by
Teutonic Ord e r’s district of Mergentheim. Aside from a the formation of a secular council at the end of the
f ew single cases, El l w a n g e n’s witchcraft trials we re con- sixteenth century, hesitated to confirm petitions for
ducted exc l u s i vely in 1588 and from 1611 to 1618. T h e executions presented by communities; its reluctance to
second persecution wave was particularly meaningf u l , persecute witches forestalled trials and convictions.
because it re vealed the effects of an increasing confes- With twenty-seven villages spread across 220 square
sionalization in contemporary witch discourse. Mo l d e d kilometers, the Catholic imperial free city of Ro t t we i l
Germany, Southwestern 427 |
Wicca | Richard M.Golden - Encyclopedia of Witchcraft - The Western Tradition | 465 | 46049 Golden Chap. D av First Pages 08/25/2005 p.428 Application File
c o n t rolled one of the largest geographical territories and “c h u rch magic” into elements constituting an
(next to Ulm and Schwäbisch Hall) in southwe s t e r n explanatory model. The dispersed territories of Swabian
Ge r m a n y. He re at least 266 people fell victim during Austria, organized into four districts, we re sometimes
various waves of persecution (Zeck 2000). Ev i d e n c e i n e f ficiently administered from re l a t i vely re m o t e
suggests that Ro t t we i l’s witchcraft trials we re not pro- Innsbruck. At least 528 people fell victim to the perse-
moted by local authorities, but rather originated in its cutions in Swabian Austria.
urban and rural middle classes; neighborhood conflicts However, despite social and economic difficulties, no
often provoked trials. Rottweil’s witchcraft trials devel- p a rt of Swabian Austria was affected by the wave of
oped their dynamic through a blend of social, econom- witchcraft trials in southwestern Germany at the end of
ic, and legal struggles, strongly influenced by tradition- the 1620s. The impetus of the archducal administra-
al superstitions. tion at Innsbruck to persecute witches was never strong,
A methodologically superb study (Schmidt 2000) and after 1600 it was further weakened by the impact
illuminated the unique place of the Palatinate in the of the Jesuit Adam Ta n n e r’s opinion re g a rding the
history of witchcraft trials, both among the electorates relationship of the Devil and the witch. Tanner argued
and among other major territories of the Holy Roman that one should deprive demons of their human tools
Em p i re. This large territory substantially avoided the not through execution but through conversion. T h e
great western witch hunt. The most important explana- Habsburg officials at In n s b ruck increasingly re j e c t e d
tion was the reluctance of its elector and his high coun- witchcraft trials carried out by autonomous committees
cil to accept the new cumulative witchcraft concept. of subjects. As soon as the territorial overlordship, as a
Thus sorc e ry never turned into witchcraft in the superlocal powe r, was able to subjugate the organiza-
Palatinate, nor could such elements as night flight and tion of courts under their control and thereby delocal-
the witches’ Sabbat lead to witch hunts. The Palatinate’s ize it, the persecution system fell apart. Witchcraft trials
complete abstinence from witchcraft trials was an active not approved by higher authorities provoked the coa-
stance that its administration defended against both lescing territorial state to harsh countermeasures, justi-
external and internal threats. Its authorities steadfastly fied through the numerous victims of unsuperv i s e d
repelled accusations from witchcraft trials outside its proceedings.
borders and ignored local demands to instigate them. Other research has focused on smaller places in this
Schmidt (2000) provided an intricate analysis of the region. Using new sources, Ro b e rt Meier studied the
i n fluence of Calvinism, which dominated in the trials carried out in the county of We rtheim aro u n d
Palatinate, in provoking this result. Although the 1630. An investigation of sixteenth-century witchcraft
Heidelberg theologians initially counseled witchcraft trials in the Franconian margravates included the mar-
persecution, they began to follow the approach of the g r a vate of Ansbach, which occupied the nort h e a s t e r n
electors and their high council by the end of the six- corner of the current state of Ba d e n-W ü rt t e m b e r g
teenth century. However, the Reformed confession with (Kleinöder-Strobel 2002). Another work used surviving
its emphasis on the omnipotence of God appears to a rc h i val re c o rds of witchcraft trials in the imperial
hold a key to the position of the jurists of the high abbey of Marchtal on the Danube, which cost at least
council. If supernatural intervention by the De v i l sixty-one persons their lives between 1586 and 1757
was impossible, there could be no criminal proceedings ( St ö rk 2003). He re, under the rule of the
i n volving supernatural acts, which could never have Premonstratensians, trials we re concentrated in a few
o c c u r red. This critical stance tow a rd the crime of waves of persecution; the last, between 1745 and 1757,
witchcraft was reinforced by the electors’ and the high fell almost entirely outside the usual chro n o l o g i c a l
c o u n c i l’s engaged advocacy of the p rocessus ord i n a r i u s f r a m ew o rk. Other re s e a rch investigated the territory
( o rd i n a ry pro c e d u re), the criminal proceedings deve l- Bussen on the Danube, possessed by the
oped by jurists on the basis of the Carolina Code. Re i c h s e r b t ru c h s e s s e n of Waldburg but threatened by
Helped by an efficient defense (entirely unlike a heresy Habsburg attempts to take it over. Using the records of
trial), the accused was thus able to pick apart the the Re i c h s k a m m e r g e r i c h t (imperial chamber court) in
grotesque and absurd insinuations, which elsewhere in cases of crimen magiae(crime of magic) from the impe-
the empire generally led to an order for torture and thus rial free city of Offenburg illuminated the possibilities
usually to death. and limitations of its influence on witchcraft trials
Another new method of approach, likewise using a (Oestmann 1995).
regional-historical framew o rk, compared the witch Thus the impulse that southwestern German witch-
hunts in Swabian Austria and Electoral Tr i e r, seeking craft re s e a rch re c e i ved from Erik Mi d e l f o rt’s work in
commonalities, differences, and interactions for an 1972 has borne much fruit. Nonetheless, re s e a rchers still
integrated comparison (Dillinger 1999). This impre s- h a ve much to accomplish in order to blanket the area of
sive work offered a wealth of findings, especially note- s o u t h western German with regional studies, to say noth-
worthy for its convincing integration of popular magic ing of microstudies. Still missing are major studies of
428 Germany, Southwestern |
Wicca | Richard M.Golden - Encyclopedia of Witchcraft - The Western Tradition | 466 | 46049 Golden Chap. D av First Pages 08/25/2005 p.429 Application File
such southwestern German territories as the prince- Mailingliste zur Erforschung der historischen
bishoprics of Strasbourg and Sp e ye r, the counties of Hexenverfolgungen, 29.4.2004, www.listserv.dfn.de/cgi-
Fürstenberg or Limpurg, the dominions of the n/wa.exe?A2=ind0312&L=hexenforschung&P=R1169&I=–3.
Lorenz, Sönke, ed. 1994.Hexen und Hexenverfolgung im deutschen
Re i c h s e r b t ru c h s e s s e n of Waldburg, and the imperial fre e
Südwesten.Ostfildern: Cantz.
cities of Weil der Stadt and He i l b ronn, without ove r-
Lorenz, Sönke, and Jürgen Michael Schmidt, eds. 2004. Wider
looking the numerous upper Swabian imperial abbeys
alle Hexerei und Teufelswerk, Die europäische Hexenverfolgung
and noble domains with the right to judge capital cases.
und ihre Auswirkungen auf Südwestdeutschland.Ostfildern:
W h e reas most cloisters and abbeys have a rich arc h i va l
Thorbecke.
inheritance, written sources suitable for drawing a Midelfort, H. C. Erik. 1972. Witch-Hunting in Southwestern
p i c t u re of witchcraft trials can rarely be found for the Germany. 1562–1684: The Social and Intellectual Foundations.
smaller territories of the nobility, which we re mostly Stanford: Stanford University Press.
re o r g a n i zed at the end of the Old Regime. He re often Oestmann, Peter. 1995. “Die Offenburger Hexenprozesse im
only large-scale arc h i val re s e a rch accompanied by an Spannungsfeld zwischen Reichshofrat und
intimate knowledge of regional conditions and adminis- Reichskammergericht.” Die Ortenau75: 179–220.
Raith, Anita. 1995. “Hexenprozesse beim württembergischen
t r a t i ve stru c t u res allows a re p resentation of eve n t s .
Oberrat,” Pp. 101–121 in Hexenverfolgung: Beiträge zur
Un f o rt u n a t e l y, this is especially true for the highly signif-
Forschung, unter besonderer Berücksichtigung des südwestdeutschen
icant territory of Wiesensteig, where after the great storm
Raumes.Edited by Sönke Lorenz and Dieter R. Bauer.
of 1562 the Lutheran count of Helfenstein had ve ry large
Würzburg: Königshausen und Neumann.
numbers of women burned following short trials. T h e s e
Schmidt, Jürgen Michael. 2000. Glaube und Skepsis. Die Kurpfalz
e vents, sketched only hazily in arc h i val re c o rds of neigh- und die abendländische Hexenverfolgung, 1446–1685.Bielefeld:
boring territories, urgently need a reappraisal, because Verlag für Regionalgeschichte.
they apparently marked the beginning of the great witch Schneider, Corinna. 1994. “Die Hexenverfolgung in den badis-
hunt in southwestern Ge r m a n y, as contemporary chen Markgrafschaften.” Master’s thesis, University of
o b s e rvers also noted. Even in the distant Po m e r a n i a n Tübingen.
u n i versity of Greifswald, the rector noted with shock in ———. 1994. “Die Markgrafschaften Baden-Baden und
Baden-Durlach.” Pp. 187–196 in Hexen und Hexenverfolgung
his matriculation register of 1562 the news of the wide-
im deutschen Südwesten.Edited by Sönke Lorenz. Ostfildern:
s p read execution of witches in southwestern Ge r m a n y.
Cantz.
SÖNKE LORENZ; Störk, Constanze. 2003. “‘Mithin die natürliche Vernunnfft selbst
dictiert, das Es hexen gebe.’ Hexenverfolgung in der
TRANSLATED BY LAURA STOKES
Reichsabtei Marchtal 1586–1757.” Master’s thesis, University
See also: AUSTRIANWESTERNTERRITORIES;BADEN,MARGRAVATE of Tübingen.
OF;BAMBERG,PRINCE-BISHOPRICOF;BAVARIA,DUCHYOF;CAR- Zeck, Mario. 2000. “Im Rauch gehn geschüggt”:Hexenverfolgung in
OLINACODE(CONSTITIOCRIMINALISCAROLINA);EICHSTÄTT, der Reichsstadt Rottweill.Stuttgart: Ibidem.
PRINCE-BISHOPRICOF;ELLWANGEN,PRINCE-ABBEYOF;GERMANY; Zimmermann, Wolfgang. 1988. “Teufelsglaube und
HOLYROMANEMPIRE;KRAMER(INSTITORIS), HEINRICH;MALLEUS Hexenverfolgungen in Konstanz 1546–1548”. Schriften des
MALEFICARUM;MARCHTAL,IMPERIALABBEYOF;MERGENTHEIM, Vereins für Geschichte des Bodensees und seiner Umgebung106:
ECCLESIASTICALTERRITORYOF;MIDELFORT,H.C.ERIK;OFFEN- 29–57.
BURG,IMPERIALFREECITY;SOURCESFORWITCHCRAFTTRIALS;
TANNER,ADAM;WESTERSTETTEN,JOHANNCHRISTOPHVON; Germany, West and Northwest
WÜRTTEMBERG,DUCHYOF;WÜRZBURG,PRINCE-BISHOPRICOF.
Western and northwestern Germany, extending rough-
References and further reading:
ly from the Saar, Nahe, Mosel, and Middle Rhine
Behringer,Wolfgang. 1997. Witchcraft Persecutions in Bavaria:
regions in the south to the North Sea, encompassed a
Popular Magic, Religious Zealotry and Reason of State in Early
variety of territories of widely varying size, cohesive-
Modern Europe.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Dillinger, Johannes. 1999. “Bose Leute”: Hexenverfolgungen in ness, and importance. Divided confessionally as well as
Schwäbisch-Osterreich und Kurtrier im Verglecich. Trier: Spee. administratively, the western and northwestern portion
Dillinger, Johannes, Thomas Fritz, and Wolfgang Mährle, eds. of the Holy Roman Empire did not comprise a unified
1998.Zum Feuer verdammt, die Hexenverfolgungen in der area of persecution where witch hunts were consistent-
Grafschaft Hohenberg, der Reichsstadt Reutlingen und der ly and uniformly conducted in the early modern
Fürstpropstei Ellwangen.Stuttgart: Steiner. period. Nevertheless, certain common structures can be
Jerouschek, Günter. 1992. Die Hexen un ihr Prozess: die
discerned.
Hexenverfolgung in der Reichsstadt Esslingen.Esslingen am
Ba s i c a l l y, there we re five different zones of persecu-
Necker: Stadtarchiv.
tion. The first was the Saar, Nahe, Mosel, and Middle
Kleinöder-Strobel, Susanne. 2002. Die Verfolgung von Zauberei
Rhine region with the electorate of Trier and the Nassau
und Hexerei in den fränkischen Markgraftümern im 16.
counties. The second was the central Rhineland with
Jahrhundert.Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck.
Landolt, Oliver, and Klaus Graf. Schaffhauser Nachrichten, the counties of the Eifel region along with the electorate
Schaffhausen: früher Beleg für »Hexe«, 10.12.2003, in: of Cologne (including the duchy of Westphalia). In
Germany, West and Northwest 429 |
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these two zones, the mass witch hunts in whose course V in 1532, laid the formal foundation for the witchcraft
thousands of people were executed were concentrated. trials. It prescribed inquisitorial pro c e d u res, but re s t r i c t-
Intensive witch hunts also occurred in the third region, ed the use of testimony by a confessed “w i t c h” against
the more northern prince-bishopric of Münster, the accomplices “s e e n” at a witches’ Sabbat. In the first wave
county of Lippe, and the ecclesiastical territories of of persecutions between 1587 and 1596 in the electorate
Osnabrück, Verden, Bremen, and Minden. Here execu- of Tr i e r, hundreds of women and men met a fie ry death.
tion levels did not reach those of the first two zones, but The spectacular trials in the city, to which even highly
still took hundreds of lives. Moreover, in this zone, the placed citizens and members of the upper clergy fell vic-
witch hunts we re often concentrated in larger cities tim, we re widely noted at the time. They came to a rapid
instead of in villages and small towns. In the far north- end in 1596 because the many scandalous injustices
west, the fourth zone encompassed the united duchies finally brought the territorial governmental to exe rt con-
of Jülich-Berg and Cleves and the counties of t rol. A second wave of persecutions in the electorate
Oldenburg and Friesland, while the fifth, in the east- began in 1629, caused by witch hunts in the neighboring
ern-northwestern parts, included the Hessian counties, Eifel territories. Once again villages created local com-
the Brunswick principalities, the duchy of Schleswig, mittees that played a substantial role. In vasion by Fre n c h
and the duchy of Holstein. These last two zones experi- and Swedish troops brought this wave of persecutions to
enced more moderate persecutions that seldom led to a quick end. Isolated trials still occurred until
mass trials (the prince-abbey Fulda constituted an 1640–1641, and a third wave of persecutions took place
exception). a round 1650. Howe ve r, the new elector and arc h b i s h o p,
Carl Caspar von der Leyen (1652–1676), resisted the tri-
The Centers of Persecution als after his ascension, and after 1654 only small trials
took place in outlying areas and condominiums, lasting
The Saar, Nahe, Mosel, and Middle Rhine into the 1680s.
R e g ions, the Elector ate of Trier, and the Particularly severe persecutions occurred in the near-
N as s au Counties Under the influence of the by imperial abbey of St. Maximin. Between 1586 and
Malleus Ma l e fic a ru m (The Hammer of Witches, 1486) 1596, in 1637, and from 1641 to 1642, approximately
and its author, Heinrich Kramer, who was active aro u n d 500 people were burned, a fifth of all inhabitants.
1488 in the Mosel region, the Mosel and Middle Rhine The intense witch hunts in St. Maximin and Tr i e r
regions experienced their first witchcraft trials before i n fluenced the trials in the Saar and Nahe re g i o n s .
1500. Knowledge of the new teaching about the evil- Be t ween 1500 and 1700, at least 591 witchcraft trials
doing witch sect spread rapidly along the river systems took place in the jurisdictionally fragmented Sa a r
of the Rhine, Mosel, Maas, Nahe, and Sa a r. Howe ve r, region. The equally fragmented Nahe region experi-
the mass persecutions in the countryside around Tr i e r enced approximately 140 witch prosecutions betwe e n
and the territory of the imperial abbey of St. Ma x i m i n , 1534 and 1684. Howe ve r, while in the Mosel and
which gained empire-wide notoriety, came only after Middle Rhine regions members of village as well as city
1586. Economic crises caused the witch hysteria. elites, members of the upper clergy as well as parish
Witches we re held responsible for persistent periods of priests, government officials, and judges we re among
bad weather and harvest failures, and the rising prices, the victims even at the beginning of the trials. In the
h u n g e r, disease, and deaths of people and animals that Saar and Nahe regions, generally only members of the
f o l l owed. The shifting movement of witch fears and lower classes were executed, with rare exceptions. In the
accusations is also apparent, for parts of the electorate of Catholic territories (Trier and St. Maximin), at least
Trier we re infected by persecutions underway in the o n e-t h i rd of the victims we re men, while in the
neighboring duchy of Lu xembourg. Even at the begin- Protestant areas 80 percent of the executed we re
ning of these witch hunts, village communities formed women. (This was exactly the reverse in Protestant and
committees that stoked popular persecutory ze a l . Catholic parts of French Switzerland.)
Originally extra-legal, these committees conducted a In the Middle Rhine, Mosel, Saar, and Nahe regions,
good part of the pre l i m i n a ry investigations, consolidat- popular pressure for persecutions was especially strong,
ed witch accusations, and drove the persecutions, manifested in the creation of communal witch-hunting
e ventually working closely with officials. Local persecu- committees. Moreover, these witch hunts were concen-
t o ry zeal was so strong that the weak territorial lord , trated primarily in minor lordships that conducted
A rchbishop Johann VII (1581–1599), who stro n g l y witchcraft trials on their own to defend themselve s
f e a red witches himself, was hardly able to enforc e against the growing control of higher-level authorities.
h i s 1591 criminal ordinance regulating the witchcraft These petty religious and secular lords cooperated with
p ro s e c u t i o n s . the local commoners’ committees to create intensive
The imperial law code, the Carolina Code (C o n s t i t u t i o persecutory environments in which hundreds of execu-
Criminalis Ca ro l i n a ) , p romulgated by Em p e ror Charles tions might occur. Only with difficulty did major
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territorial governments assert control over the trials as make suspects confess, pricking for the De v i l’s mark
part of the state-building process. and the swimming test (the water ordeal) we re
Similar persecutory structures were also found in the e m p l oyed. Be t ween 1629 and 1632, 154 exe c u t i o n s
Nassau counties (Na s s a u - Idstein, Na s s a u - We i l s t e i n , and 9 deaths under tort u re occurred in Na s s a u -
Na s s a u - Saarbrücken, Na s s a u - Dillenburg, Na s s a u-Si e g e n , Dillenburg alone. In 1632, the Thirty Years’War inter-
Nassau-Beilstein, Nassau-Hadamar, and Nassau-Diez), rupted the trials.
a majority of which we re Calvinist. A total of 411 In Na s s a u - Di ez, fifteen witchcraft trials we re con-
witchcraft trials are known between 1573 to 1713, ducted in 1644–1645, while in 1651–1652 seve n t e e n
although there were undoubtedly many undocumented people fell victim to trials in Wehrheim, which was
cases. At least 264 people were executed and 17 died in a d m i n i s t e red collectively by Tr i e r, Na s s a u - Di ez, and
prison or from torture; 88 percent of the victims were Nassau-Dillenburg.
women. T h e re was another outbreak of witch hunting with
The Carolina Code provided the legal foundation for perhaps fort y - five trials and thirty-two executions in
the trials in the Nassau counties, so the re q u i red legal 1676 in Nassau-Idstein. Promoted by Count John, the
consultations we re made either with the count’s chan- w a ve of persecutions only ended with his death in
c e l l e ry or with the law faculties at the universities of 1677. Thereafter no more executions took place.
Marburg, Giessen, or Mainz. During the first wave of In 1644 in Na s s a u - Di ez and Na s s a u - Beilstein, the
persecutions under Count Johann VI of Na s s a u - tolerant Count Wilhelm Frederick, also the governor of
Dillenburg (1559–1606), who united many of the Friesland in the Netherlands, spoke out against the tri-
divided counties under his lordship, the convicted were als. Nevertheless, local judges still carried out trials until
mostly burned alive in straw huts. During the high 1645. Howe ve r, the moderate position to conve rt
points of persecution, around 1618 and 1629–1632, rather than to burn those suspected of magic won out,
when two of the territories (Na s s a u - Hamar and promoted particularly by Calvinist theologians. In gen-
Na s s a u - Siegen) re ve rted to Catholicism (1629), the eral, to assert their judicial power, the counts conducted
convicted we re beheaded first, and their corpses and even promoted witchcraft trials in the Na s s a u
burned. counties.
In the Nassau counties, the impetus for witch perse-
cutions also came from the populace. Nu m e ro u s Central Rhineland: The Eifel
appeals to the count’s chancellery demanded witch Counties Manderscheid-Kail,
p rosecutions under the threat of withholding taxe s . Manderscheid-Blankenheim,
Johann VI interpreted such demands from his subjects Manderscheid- Gerolstein, the
as an assault on his sove re i g n t y, so he only allowe d County Arenberg, and the Electorate
witchcraft trials after careful examination by his chan- of Cologne
cellery, imposed strict oversight on the local judges, and The Catholic counties Manderscheid-Kail, Ma n d e r s c h e i d -
accepted no communal action against suspected witch- Blankenheim, and Manderscheid-Gerolstein lay in the
es. Twenty people were executed in all. Eifel region, contained fewer than 5,000 inhabitants,
A substantial increase in witchcraft trials occurred in and at the turn of the seventeenth century conducted a
Na s s a u - Dillenburg and the other Nassau counties in m a s s i ve witch hunt. Be t ween 1580 and 1638, at least
1629–1632, when the creation of communal 260 trials ended in death. The consequences reached as
w i t c h-hunting committees was permitted if the vil- far as Cologne and Tr i e r. Excepting isolated trials
lagers agreed to bear the horrendous trial costs. around 1580 and 1590, the trials in these counties were
O ve rwhelmed by the volume of requests for legal almost always initiated and promoted by the counts
advice in witchcraft trials, the count’s chancellery themselves.
named several witch commissioners to provide on-site In Manderscheid-Kail, Count Diedrich II
consultations. The result was to decentralize the control (1577–1613) had at least thirty witch suspects executed
of local persecutions, and the close collaboration b e t ween 1590 and 1597. Popular initiative playe d
b e t ween the witch commissioners and the local almost no role. Diedrich II appears to have begun the
w i t c h-hunting committees produced an intense perse- prosecutions to discipline recalcitrant officials, threaten
cutory environment reinforced by savage torture. While a n n oying creditors, increase the financial exactions
the witch-hunting committees selected the suspects and from his subjects, and expand his powers. The Carolina
assembled the evidence against them, the witch com- Code did not constitute the legal foundation of the
missioners heard accusations, which we re mainly con- p rosecutions, but rather the criminal ordinances of
victed suspects’ re p o rts of who they had “s e e n” at Luxembourg, to which Kail was subordinate.
Sabbats, interrogated witnesses, imprisoned suspects, Arnold II became count of neighboring
conducted the hearings of the accused, and reported to Ma n d e r s c h e i d - Blankenheim in 1604. This former
the count about the process of the trial. In order to cathedral prior of Trier had once been suspected of
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witchcraft. Charges of various harms attributed to universities. In Cologne, the witch commissioners were
witchcraft led him to have the local parish priests ques- not sent as a result of a governmentally initiated witch
tion his subjects about witches. By the time of his death persecution, but rather on the basis of petitions fro m
in 1614, there had been at least eighteen executions for subjects who wanted witchcraft trials. Communal
witchcraft, and he planned a campaign to eradicate w i t c h-hunting committees we re established to work
witchcraft that his son Johann Arnold implemented with the witch commissioners. The trials in Cologne
after reaching majority. The new count invited the thus did not stem from a governmental program to
famous witch hunter Johann Möden to Bl a n k e n h e i m eradicate witches, but rather they concentrated in
to conduct prosecutions as an official witch commis- minor lordships as well as in small judicial and admin-
s i o n e r. Möden tyrannized the local judiciaries and ran i s t r a t i ve units where committees, local officials, witch
the prosecutions himself. Accusations concerning commissioners, and noble landlords jointly ran the per-
harmful magic played only a secondary role; testimony secutions. Ap p roximately 600 people in the southern
of convicted witches against people “seen” at the Sabbat portion of the electorate were executed. In the northern
sufficed to make an arrest. Möden obtained confessions p o rtion, hardly any trials took place. In the duchy of
through unmerciful torture. He worked as witch com- Westphalia, which had a similar stru c t u re of persecu-
missioner not only in Blankenheim, but also in tions as electoral Cologne, around 1,000 people we re
Ma n d e r s c h e i d - Ge rolstein. He re he faced opposition e xecuted between 1508 and 1732, peaking betwe e n
f rom a county official, Heinrich von Mühlheim, but 1626 and 1632.
Möden gained Count Karl’s (1611–1649) support for
m a s s i ve persecutions after casting suspicion on vo n The Prince-Bishoprics of Münster,
Mühlheim. Between 1627 and 1633, Möden had nine- Osnabrück, Verden, Bremen, and
ty-five people executed in Blankenheim and sixty-four Minden, and the County of Lippe
in Gerolstein, including, in 1629, von Mühlheim. This area presents a contrast between scattered witch-
The massive witch persecutions in the electorate of craft trials in rural areas and more extensive persecu-
Trier and in the Eifel influenced the county of tions in capital cities. Witchcraft prosecutions began in
A renberg, which lay to the north. He re the populace Münster after 1555. Be t ween 1580 and 1650, 177
complained about the great harm to people, animals, ended with an execution. The city of Münster conduct-
and harvests, as well as epidemics and famines, caused ed around thirty trials. The hunts we re concentrated
by witches. Hence, the populace created communal not in districts controlled directly by the prince-bishop
w i t c h-hunting committees in 1593, when there was a (only about twenty death sentences are known), but
c h a i n - reaction trial against thirteen accused witches. rather in the independent lordships created by a reorga-
Re n ewed witch prosecutions we re conducted in 1615 nization of the prince-bishopric that Bishop John vo n
and 1629–1630. While Arenberg’s trials were based on Hoya implemented in 1571. This re o r g a n i z a t i o n
the Caro l i n a C o d e , testimony of convicted suspects re q u i red that all criminal prosecutions follow the
about others they had “seen” at Sabbats was accepted as Carolina Code, which mandated written consultations,
sufficient evidence for prosecution. The total executed to better control the many minor noble jurisdictions by
in 1615 is not known, but in 1629–1630 fort y - o n e placing them under the territorial government’s super-
people we re charged and thirt y - t h ree burned (85 per- vision. The small, autonomous lordships resisted vo n
cent women). Hoya’s reforms by conducting witchcraft trials on their
In the neighboring electorate of Cologne, the prose- own. In contrast to the territorial government’s judges,
cutions began around 1592, inspired by the intense the nobles’ judges often used an abbreviated trial proce-
witch hunts in Trier. However, severe prosecutions only dure, not uncommonly arresting suspects after a single
started in 1626, probably influenced by hunts raging in denunciation. None conducted the re q u i red consulta-
the Eifel. Fu rther high points occurred in 1636 and tions, and one even used the swimming test (which the
1638. In Cologne, the local judges and juries we re territorial government had specifically forbidden), justi-
s u p e rvised by legally trained witch commissioners to fying it as a traditional legal practice.
guarantee that trials were conducted properly. However, The small county of Lippe, Calvinist after 1600,
the judicial counselors of the electorate’s central govern- became a center of the witch hunt in the nort h we s t
mental thereby gave control of the prosecutions to the although the number of executions remained low
commissioners, who took over the trials from the locals c o m p a red to Tr i e r, St. Maximin, Cologne, and
and often led cruel, exc e s s i ve persecutions comparable to Westphalia. Of the 40,000 rural Calvinist inhabitants,
Ma n d e r s c h e i d - Blankenheim, Ma n d e r s c h e i d-Ge ro l s t e i n , just 221 we re invo l ved in witchcraft trials betwe e n
and the Nassau counties. 1550 and 1686, but the Lutheran city of Lemgo
The practice of sending commissioners replaced the affirmed its autonomy from the count by pronouncing
usual practice, followed in other territories, of procur- ve rdicts in criminal trials, and conducted mass witch-
ing legal advice from higher levels of government or craft trials in 1565, 1583–1605, 1628–1637, and
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1653–1681. The testimony of convicted suspects suf- witchcraft. The accused’s re l a t i ves appealed to the
ficed to justify an indictment, and over 250 people were Swedish administrators, who insisted that they be freed
executed in this city with a population of 4,000. and all documents be turned over for examination.
Si m i l a r l y, in Osnabrück (perhaps the most confes- When Ve rden complained to Stockholm about this
sionally mixed state in all of Germany) the witch hunts infringement of its rights, Queen Christina of Sweden
in the city differed from those in the surro u n d i n g responded with the famous edict that curbed furt h e r
prince-bishoprics. The seven rural districts had ninety trials in Swedish-occupied territory. Sweden continued
trials between 1538 and 1638, with one last trial in to rule Verden after 1648 under the terms of the Peace
1691. Fi f t y - t h ree ended with an execution. Fifty of of Westphalia.
these trials took place during the sixteenth century. All Like Verden, Bremen turned Protestant in the 1530s,
concerned harmful magic and focused on individual occupied first by the Danes and then by the Swe d e s
suspects. The water test was only occasionally during the Thirty Years’War, and granted to Sweden in
e m p l oyed. Consultations with a law faculty we re rare , 1648. Only two known witchcraft trials occurred in the
for usually the princely council decided the outcome of rural territory, in 1550–1551 and 1559, involving indi-
the trials. One reason for the early end of the trials was vidual suspects. The city of Bremen experienced fort y
probably their high cost, which this relatively poor ter- trials for harmful magic between 1503 and 1603, when
ritory could not bear. an edict of the Protestant bishop Johann Friedrich von
The trials went differently in the city of Osnabrück, Waldeck (1596–1634) brought them to an end.
which strove for the greatest possible autonomy, and in The Protestant prince-bishopric of Minden experi-
the seventeenth century was able to achieve virt u a l enced an intensive witch hunt with at least eighty-two
independence. Of the approximately 4,000 inhabitants, e xecutions between 1651 and 1657. While no trial doc-
at least 276 were executed for witchcraft between 1561 uments have surv i ved, the duke of Brandenburg and
and 1638. By 1583 there had already been 121 execu- g overnor of Minden, Georg Friedrich, issued an edict
tions. Under Mayor Hammacher the total rose to 204 against exc e s s i ve accusations, and consultations we re
by 1592. Such massive witch hunts we re possible conducted with the legal faculty in Helmstedt and the
because of the exc e s s i ve use of the water test and tor- c o u rt of jurors (S c h ö f f e n s t u h l) in He rf o rd. In the city of
t u re. Testimony by confessed “w i t c h e s” against people Minden there is evidence of witch prosecutions in the
they accused (generally under tort u re) of being at sixteenth century, and 126 people are known to have
Sabbats fueled the persecutions. The second wave of been prosecuted for witchcraft between 1603 and 1684.
intense persecutions began in 1636 under Ma yo r
Wilhelm Peltzer, who used witchcraft trials to carry out Areas with Moderate
a local political power struggle as well as to defend the Persecutions
city’s autonomy against the prince-bishop’s chancellery The Lower Rhine Region with the Duchies Jülich,
and the Swedes (who had occupied Osnabrück in Cleves, and Berg, the County Oldenburg, and Imperial
1633). Peltzer undertook these witchcraft prosecutions County East Friesland were areas with moderate num-
despite the open opposition of Lutheran clerics. In bers of persecutions.
1639, the hunts, which had killed sixty-four people, Although the duchies Jülich, Cleves, and Be r g
ended, the last witch prosecutions to take place in the (which were united until 1609 and had a population of
city. Peltzer’s trials, which even targeted members of the almost 500,000, making it the largest state in
elite, earned him influential enemies. In 1640 he was n o rt h western Germany) appear to have seen re l a t i ve l y
re m oved from office; in 1650 he was extrajudicially little persecution in part because of the influence of
imprisoned; and in 1669 he died in custody, insane. Johann We ye r, physician of Duke Wilhelm III (V)
The bishopric of Ve rden fell under the administra- (1539–1592). Fears of a secret witch conspiracy as
tion of the duke of Bru n s w i c k - Wolffenbütel after it described in the Malleus Maleficarumhad spread in the
turned Lutheran in 1566. The only two know n L ower Rhine region along trade and communications
witchcraft prosecutions in the rural territory of Verden routes around the turn of the sixteenth century.
occurred in 1585. But in the city itself, forty-six witch- C o n s e q u e n t l y, the first trials in the united duchies,
craft trials are known to have taken place between 1564 which were clearly related to prosecutions in neighbor-
and 1647. They played an important role in the city’s ing districts of Cologne, took place before the Carolina
jurisdictional struggles for independence from the Code took effect in 1532. By 1540, fif t y - t h ree people
territorial government, evidenced in a 1617 hearing in had been executed in Jülich and Berg for harming ani-
the Re i c h s k a m m e r g e r i c h t (imperial chamber court ) . mals and bewitching milk. In Duisburg, part of Cleves,
During the Thirty Years’War, first the Danes and then trials are known from 1513 and 1514. Howe ve r, after
the Swedes occupied Ve rden. The last witchcraft trial 1533, witchcraft trials gave way to trials of Anabaptists,
took place in 1647, when a nine-year-old girl claimed and a series of wars in the region after 1543 further hin-
she had seen members of the city’s elite engaged in d e red witchcraft trials. Trials for magic there f o re died
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d own even before the appearance of the famous He s s e-Cassel, Wilhelm IV re g a rded witch fears as papist
antipersecution writings of Johann Weyer. A broadsheet superstition, and only one woman was executed for
published in Augsburg claiming that over eighty-five magic and murder by poison. The main phase of the
women in the neighborhood of the city of Jülich were witch persecutions in Hesse-Cassel occurred during the
e xecuted as we rew o l ves in 1591 appears to have been reigns of Wilhelm V (1627–1637), his widow Amalie
p u re invention, and while fifty to sixty trials of single Elisabeth (1637–1650), and his son Wilhelm V I
suspects are known to have taken place in Jülich and (1650–1663). Be t ween 1511 and 1710, 214 pro s e c u-
Berg between 1580 and 1650, witch hunting virtually tions for harmful magic and witchcraft we re conducted
ceased in Cleves. The final trial in the duchies took in Hesse-Cassel, but tort u re was administered in only in
place in 1737–1738 in Gerresheim, Berg. 20 percent of the cases, and only 60 people (less than 30
While there were only a few witchcraft trials in dis- p e rcent, of whom approximately 80 percent we re
tricts ruled directly by the duke, more intense persecu- women) re c e i ved death sentences. The trials neve r
tions occurred in minor lordships like Wi l d e n b u r g , b roadened into mass panics, and we re geographically
where eleven people were executed in 1627–1628. The limited to the jurisdictionally and confessionally frag-
territorial prince, Duke Wolfgang Wilhelm (1614– mented region of nort h western He s s e .
1653), attempted to curb these with a decree in 1631 An important reason for the moderation in He s s e
requiring lesser jurisdictional units to re c e i ve written was the tightly organized, centralized judicial pro c e-
consultations from the ducal chancellery before con- dures, based on the Carolina Code, which insured the
ducting witchcraft trials. supervision of local judges by higher judicial organs. In
Overall, witchcraft prosecutions in the Lower Rhine fact, the law faculty of Marburg Un i versity and the
region we re concentrated in the southern parts of count had to authorize any death sentence. Torture was
Jülich, Cleves, and Berg, near the areas of intense perse- e m p l oyed only moderately, and neither testimony by
cutions in Eifel and Cologne. Howe ve r, even though confessed “witches” nor denunciations from the popu-
the populace exerted pressure for prosecutions, they did lace carried much weight. Many accused of magic were
not form communal witch-hunting committees. not prosecuted because of insufficient evidence, and
No witch hunts appear to have taken place in the reconciliation between accuser and accused was sought.
county of Oldenburg, although mass trials did occur in Furthermore, it appears that the subjects did not press
two small autonomous lordships, Kniphausen and actively for witch prosecutions, for there is no record of
Jever. In Kniphausen, twenty women were executed for communal witch hunting committees in Hesse.
witchcraft in 1590, while in Jever 21 women were pros- Only one great witch hunt affected Hesse-Darmstadt
ecuted for magic in 1592, and three more were tried in during the reign of Georg I (1567–1596). Be t we e n
1615. In the large imperial county of East Fr i e s l a n d , 1582 and 1590, thirty-seven people, almost exclusively
f o rty-one people we re prosecuted for magic betwe e n women, we re executed there for witchcraft. A plague
1543 and 1592, while in the city of Aurich fifteen sus- epidemic and fear of poisoning may have been the caus-
pects were burned by 1543. es, and Count Georg I led the persecution himself and
ordered his district officials to seek out suspected peo-
The Counties of Hesse, the Prince- ple. His court preacher Johann Angelus took part in the
Abby Fulda, the Principalities of hearings and also brought new cases to the chancellery’s
Brunswick, and the Duchies of attention. In contrast to his skeptical brothers, Georg I
Schleswig and Holstein believed in magic. He exhibited all the characteristics of
Hesse was definitely among the areas of moderate perse- a fanatical witch hunter: uncompromising seve r i t y,
cution. The first Lutheran count, Philipp I (1518–1567; relentless self-discipline, ascetic austerity, and rigid
c o n ve rted 1524) opposed witch prosecutions during his m o r a l i t y. He sought to use the witchcraft trials politi-
reign. In 1544 he intervened in a trial in favor of a per- cally.This was particularly apparent when he stood up
son suspected of magic. Only during his imperial forcefully for a Hessian subject in 1571 who had been
imprisonment in 1550, when his court councilors, who i n c a rcerated and tort u red on suspicion of magic by
f a vo red persecutions, we re in charge, we re three exe c u- Count Wolfgang von Isenburg-Büdingen. Georg did
tions carried out. After Ph i l i p p’s death, his territory was this not from sympathy, but rather because he wanted
divided among his sons Ludwig IV (1567–1604), Ge o r g to defend his rights from an outsider. His decisive role
I (1567–1596), Wilhelm IV (1567–1592), and Ph i l i p p in the witch hunts from 1582 to 1590 is shown by the
the Younger (1567–1583) into the counties fact that after his death no more executions of witches
He s s e-Marburg, He s s e-Darmstadt, He s s e-Cassel, and occurred in Hesse-Darmstadt. Even a plague epidemic
He s s e-Rheinfels. Ludwig and Wilhelm retained their in 1597 did not cause a new wave of persecutions.
f a t h e r’s skeptical attitude. In He s s e - Marburg, a woman In the neighboring Catholic abbey of Fulda, at least
was executed for witchcraft in 1582, but other inve s t i g a- 239 people were executed for witchcraft between 1603
tions do not appear to have resulted in trials. In and 1606 during the reign of Pr i n c e - Abbot Ba l t h a s a r
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von Dernbach. He recruited the witch hunter Balthasar sations of harmful magic generated individual trials, so
Nuss, who led the witch hunt with unrelenting hard- the witch hunts remained endemic. Fu rt h e r m o re ,
ness and cruelty. Nuss patently sought financial profit, witchcraft trials did not occur evenly over the entire
illicitly pocketing part of the fines for judicial costs on region; instead they were concentrated in the splintered
top of his official salary. His scandalous activities, which judicial entities where ultimate judicial power lay in the
d i s re g a rded the Caro l i n a Code, led to numero u s hands of petty lords. The persecutions came to an end
charges before the imperial court. Catholics as well as as King Christian V of Denmark curbed the legal juris-
Protestants fell victim to his persecution, as did political diction of the minor nobles as part of a broader central-
opponents of the prince-abbot. After Dernbach’s death, ization of the state. As a proportion of the total popula-
Nuss was dismissed, imprisoned, and finally sentenced tion, executions in Schleswig and Holstein were around
to death by the new prince-abbot, and the witch perse- 0.12 percent of the inhabitants, in contrast to 20 per-
cutions in Fulda ended. cent in St. Maximin, 6 percent in Lemgo, and 6 percent
Older accounts often cite the reformed principalities in the Manderscheid counties. This northern extension
of Brunswick as an area of terrible persecutions. In par- of the Holy Roman Em p i re certainly belongs to the
t i c u l a r, Duke Heinrich Julius of Bru n s w i c k-Wo l f e n b ü t t e l areas of moderate persecution.
(1589–1613) is supposed to have been a relentless witch
h u n t e r. Howe ve r, trial re c o rds document only 114 trials Conclusion
for magic and 53 executions between 1590 and 1620. 1. In western and northwestern Germany, witch hunts
Little is known about the social historical background of were often concentrated in minor ecclesiastical and
these prosecutions, but many shepardesses we re appar- noble lordships, which wanted to defend their
ently prosecuted as witches. Re c o rds of only 21 more autonomous judicial rights against the encroach-
trials from 1620 to the end of the seventeenth century ments of centralizing regimes. Securing seigneurial
a re known, and between 1557 and 1670 a total of 225 autonomy from outside interference bolstered the
witchcraft trials, which ended in death for 88 people, legitimacy of governmental authority over subjects.
mainly women, can be confirmed. In the principality of Cities similarly used witchcraft trials against their
Brunswick-Calenberg, there was a sensational trial in territorial lords to demonstrate autonomy and to
1572–1573 against Duke Erich II’s wife Sidonie and solve local political conflicts. This phenomenon of
four female associates. Si m i l a r l y, the elite appear to have using witch persecutions to assert political and
initiated some large persecutions. In part i c u l a r, a mass administrative control was not confined to north-
trial in the Hitzacker district of Bru n s w i c k - L ü n e b u r g western Germany, but occurred in other parts of
took place in the context of a conflict between the sons Germany and Europe wherever central authority
of Heinrich of Brunswick-Lüneburg, Julius Ernst, and was sufficiently weak.
his younger brother August, over their father’s estate. 2. In minor lordships characterized by dense settle-
August claimed the district Hi t z a c k e r, and in 1610 initi- ment and close communications, witch fears, suspi-
ated witchcraft trials that lasted until 1615 and that cions, and denunciations were easily disseminated.
resulted in seventy executions. August had subjects of Consequently, no severe witch hunts occurred in
his brother incarcerated and tort u red, and only re l e a s e d the more thinly settled regions of the north German
them when threatened militarily. These witchcraft trials ecclesiastical territories, while their capital cities pre-
clearly served to demonstrate and expand lordship and sented a decidedly favorable environment for perse-
legal rights. Except for this interlude, howe ve r, the cutions.
Brunswick principalities experienced only moderate 3. Epidemics, agricultural crises caused by bad weath-
p e r s e c u t i o n . er, or witch hunts in neighboring territories often
De n m a rk ruled the linked Lutheran duchies of precipitated persecutions. However, no simple
Schleswig and Holstein (in all around 495,000 inhabi- causal relationship between local crises and witch
tants) after 1581. Holstein was part of the Holy Roman persecutions existed.
Em p i re, so trials there we re subject to the Caro l i n a 4. Popular pressure for witchcraft trials existed in all
Code, while trials in Schleswig we re judged accord i n g regions, although in different degrees. Weak central
to Danish law. From 1530 to 1735, 852 witchcraft tri- governments allowed communal witch-hunting
als can be identified, of which almost 90 percent were committees enormous leeway in selecting suspects
against women. Ap p roximately 600 people we re exe- and lodging accusations. When communal
cuted. Protestant clerics in Schleswig and Ho l s t e i n witch-hunting committees worked together with
believed in the power of witches and supported the per- cooperative minor lords, district officials, judges, or
secutions in sermons and tracts, but they questioned witch commissioners, the interplay created an
the reality of the Sabbat. Consequently, accusations of intensely persecutory environment.
people purportedly seen at Sabbats carried little weight, 5. Occasionally the elite initiated and conducted witch
hindering the development of mass trials. Instead, accu- hunts that whipped up the persecutory zeal of the
Germany, West and Northwest 435 |
Wicca | Richard M.Golden - Encyclopedia of Witchcraft - The Western Tradition | 473 | 46049 Golden Chap. D av First Pages 08/25/2005 p.436 Application File
populace. An ambitious, careerist, greedy, or fanati- See also: CAROLINACODE(CONSTITIOCRIMINALISCAROLINA);
cal witch hunter often led these hunts. CRIMENEXEPTUM;COLOGNE;COMMUNALPERSECUTION;
6. Individual prosecutions could only become mass DENMARK;ECCLESIASTICALTERRITORIES;FLADE,DIETRICH;
persecutions if the institutions conducting the trials
FULDA,PRINCE-ABBEYOF;GERMANY;HESSE;HOLYROMAN
accepted the reality of Sabbats. When combined
EMPIRE;IMPERIALFREECITIES;LIPPE,COUNTYOF;MÖDEN,
JOHANN(JAN); MÜNSTER,PRINCE-BISHOPRICOF;
with the classification of the witch offense as a
NASSAU-SAAR-BRÜCKEN,COUNTYOF;NUSS,BALTHASAR;
crimen exceptum (the excepted crime), justifying the
OSNABRÜCK,BI S H O P R I CO F; P FA L Z-Z W E I B R Ü C K E N, D U C H YO F;
unreserved use of torture, a long list of denuncia-
P O P U LA RPE R S E C U T I O N; P ROT E S TA N TR E F O R M AT I O N; S A A R
tions of people “observed” at the gatherings of R E G I O N; S C H L E S W I G-H O L S T E I N, D U C H I E SO F; S T. M A X I M I N,
witches could be compiled. Without these compo- P R I N C E-A B B EYO F; S W E D E N;SWIMMINGTEST;TRIER,ELECTORATE
nents, intense witch hunts did not develop regard- OF;WEYER,JOHANN;WILHELMV“THEPIOUS,” DUKEOF
less of popular pressure. Prosecutions involving only BAVARIA;WITCHHUNTS.
harmful magic therefore tended not to broaden into References and further reading:
mass witchcraft trials. Ankarloo, Bengt, andStuart Clark,eds.2002. Witchcraft and
Magic in Europe. The Middle Ages. Philadelphia: University of
7. A persecutory environment could only develop in
Pennsylvania Press.
the absence of centralized state control. Where a
Ankarloo, Bengt, and Gustav Henningsen,eds. 1990. Early
centrally organized judicial process had established
Modern European Witchcraft: Centres and Peripheries. Oxford:
or could establish firm standards of evidence and
Clarendon.
require the submission of documents, and where
Baumgarten, Achim R. 1987. Hexenwahn und Hexenverfolgung im
local judicial lords could no longer, or only with Naheraum. Ein Beitrag zur Sozial- und Kulturgeschichte.
state supervision, exercise capital jurisdiction, either Frankfurt: Peter Lang.
severe persecutions did not occur or they were Becker,Thomas Paul. 1996. “Hexenverfolgung im Erzstift Köln.”
quickly suppressed. In contrast, decentralized or Pp. 89–136 in Hexenverfolgung im Rheinland: Ergebnisse neuerer
weakly asserted government facilitated severe witch Lokal- und Regionalstudien.Edited byWolfgang Isenberg and
hunts. Georg Mölich. Bergisch-Gladbach: Thomas-Morus-Akademie
Bensberg.
8. In western and northwestern Germany, massive
Blécourt, Willem de, and Hans de Waardt. 1990. “Das Vordringen
witchcraft trials were not confined to rural areas,
der Zaubereiverfolgungen in die Niederlande, Rhein, Maas und
but were instead related to small-scale jurisdictions,
Schelde entlang.” Pp. 182–216 in Ketzer, Zauberer, Hexen. Die
dense settlement, and close communications,
Anfànge der europäischen Hexenverfolgungen. Edited by Andreas
combined with political conflicts. Consequently,
Blauert. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp.
there were few structural differences between the
Burr, George L. 1891. “The Fate of Dietrich Flade.” Papers of the
intensive witch hunts in smaller cities and those in American Historical Association 5: 189–243.
small but thickly populated noble or ecclesiastical Dillinger, Johannes. 1999. “Böse Leute.” Hexenverfolgungen in
lordships. Schwäbisch-Österreich und Kurtrier im Vergleich.Trier: Spee.
9. The witchcraft persecutions in western and north- Gersmann, Gudrun. 2001. “Der Kampf um die Gerichtsbarkeit.
western Germany came to an end generally because Adlige Hexenpolitik im frühneuzeitlichen Fürstbistum
an intensification of state control over the local trial Münster.” Pp. 369–376 in “Erfahrung” als Kategorie der
Frühneuzeitgeschichte.Edited by Paul Münch. Munich:
procedures made the conduct of witchcraft prosecu-
Oldenbourg.
tions significantly more difficult and limited scan-
Heuser, Peter Arnold. 1999. “Hexenverfolgung und
dalous judicial misconduct. In effect, tighter state
Volkskatechese. Beobachtungen am Beispiel der gefürsteten
control meant a prohibition of trials, even if this
Eifelgrafschaft Arenberg.” Rheinisch-westfàlische Zeitschrift für
was seldom stated explicitly. Such procedural cor-
Volkskunde 44: 95–142.
rections did not mean that territorial lords had sud- Kieckhefer, Richard. 1976. European Witch Trials. Their
denly become enlightened, but rather that they Foundations in Popular and Learned Culture, 1300–1500.
sought to unite all state functions, in particular, London: Routledge.
legal jurisdiction, in their own hands. In addition, Koppenhöfer, Johanna. 1995. Die mitleidlose Gesellschaft. Studien
the financial pressure of the often-astronomical trial zu Verdachtsgenese, Ausgrenzungsverhalten und Prozessproblematik
costs helped bring the prosecutions to an end. The im frühneuzeitlichen Hexenprozess in der alten Grafschaft Nassau
broadening of prosecutions to members of the social unter Johann VI. und der späteren Te i l g rafschaft Na s s a u - D i l l e n b u r g
(1559–1687).Frankfurt: Peter Lang.
elite played only a limited role, for in some cases
Labouvie, Eva. 1991. Zauberei und Hexenwerk. Ländlicher
members of the elite were executed at the beginning
Hexenglaube in der frühen Neuzeit.Frankfurt: Fischer.
of mass trials without causing them to cease.
Lange, Thomas, and Jürgen Rainer Wolf. 1994. “Hexenverfolgung
in Hessen-Darmstadt zur Zeit Georgs I. Mit einer Edition der
RITA VOLTMER; Briefwechsel zwischen Landgraf Georg I. und Wilhelm IV. über
Hexereifälle im Jahr 1582.” Archiv für hessische Geschichte und
TRANSLATED BY EDWARD BEVER Altertumskunde52: 139–198.
436 Germany, West and Northwest |
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