CHAPTER VI - THE MAGIC ARTS
(i) Sorcery
If such phenomena as the Flagellant and dancing manias, the acceptance of such persons as Guglielma and Segarelli as divine incarnations is evidence of the depth of credulous superstition among the ignorant lower orders, the great witchcraft and sorcery craze, especially in the fifteenth century, is proof of a much wider diffusion of such a spirit in mediæval society. Christianity early accepted the belief in magic arts unquestioningly. The story of the Witch of Endor would have been sufficient evidence, even had it stood alone: which it was far from doing, for the Bible was full of references to magicians, demoniacs, and soothsayers. Thus it was in disbelief in such things, not in belief, that heresy lay. Incredulity challenged the authority of Scripture. Nor was it to be argued that the existence of evil spirits in Old Testament history was no warrant of their existence now. The mediæval world was profoundly conscious of the powers of Satan being abroad in the earth. It discerned the clear sign of their presence in the frequent occurrence of disaster to the undeserving, in the fits of the epileptic; it discerned them in the wizened features of the shrivelled old woman who muttered inarticulately as she gathered her herbs. Given the combination of an ignorant and wondering fear of the bewildering riddles of nature and the cold strangeness of the stars with a sincere conviction of the reality of that evil potentate who is at war with God, causing disaster among men and having subtle communion with the human heart, inspiring to wicked deeds and hideous thoughts, it is small wonder that imagination peopled the world with sorcerers, magicians and witches.
And the evidence was so extraordinarily sound. No reasonable man could resist the force of it. It was not only the proverbially superstitious Middle Ages that believed in occult arts; no one had a more wholesome faith in these matters than Luther, and no country surpassed Protestant Scotland in the savage cruelty of its witch-trials. Richard Baxter, in his ‘The Certainty of the World of Spirits,’ was able to give numerous well authenticated cases from his own lifetime; and the sceptical man of science, Glanvill, showed that unreason, not reason, rejected the evidence for witchcraft. All history was full of the exploits of these instruments of darkness, and not ‘the easily deceivable vulgar only,’ but ‘wise and grave discerners’ were first-hand witnesses, who had no interest ‘to agree together in a common lie.’[190]
The magicians and witches being almost universally believed in, it followed as a corollary that they were punished for their nefarious practices; but whereas in the pagan Roman world they had been punished simply on politic grounds, the magician being punished ‘because he injured man, not because he offended God,’[191] in the Christian era the offence was regarded as a much more heinous sin. In days of polytheism the state could be tolerant of certain magic practices; not so Christianity, which regarded all pagan deities as emanations of the Devil. The punishments, save under the apostate Julian, were usually of a most ferocious character, reputed magicians being crucified or flung to wild beasts.[192] But while thus zealous in punishing the magician, there is no doubt that Christianity itself became contaminated, and in the Dark Ages thaumaturgy became rife within the Church. On the other hand, while in the Eastern Empire sorcery continued to be punished with severity, the Teutonic tribes in the west, who in their pagan days had been thoroughly imbued with magic beliefs, were more or less tolerant. During the epoch of the Carolingian empire ecclesiastical lenience, tempered by occasional mob violence, was the rule; and such lenience or indifference continued in western Europe till the end of the twelfth century.[193] Roger Bacon, unlike learned philosophers of later and presumably more enlightened periods, gave it as his opinion that reputed sorcery was either fraudulent or a delusion. There are instances of severity on the part of the secular authority in Spain, and the first mediæval legislation against sorcery was introduced in Venice in the twelfth century; yet the Church remained apparently indifferent. And when the Inquisition came into being, it was not given authority in cases of witchcraft and sorcery. A change is to be traced from Alexander IV’s bull, Quod super nonnullis, issued in 1257, which laid it down that inquisitors were not to be distracted from their all-important duties by other business and were to leave cases of simple sorcery to the ordinary ecclesiastical tribunals; on the other hand, in sorcery cases where heresy was clearly involved, they were to take cognizance. This became the Canon law under Boniface VIII.[194]
Now, when did sorcery clearly involve heresy? It was not difficult to argue that it invariably did. Sorcery was invoking demons, trafficking with Satan, and to do this a man must surely entertain heretical ideas about Satan and demons. Certainly, if a man dealt in such trafficking, holding it to be not sinful, he was a manifest heretic.[195] Again, to seek to acquire knowledge of the future from Satan, the future depending solely on the Almighty, involved heresy. Under the title, sorcery, there came to be included astronomy’s parent, astrology.[196] Some men of unquestioned orthodoxy gave their sanction and support to it, notably Cardinal D’Ailly; and it was not apparently definitely forbidden during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries in ecclesiastical formularies. But clearly, although there was no question of invoking demons in connection with astrology, on the other hand, the astrologer by maintaining that a man’s destiny was controlled by the conjunction of stars and planets at his birth was denying the freedom of the will, questioning the omnipotence of God, consequently being guilty of manifest blasphemy and heresy. Accordingly, the astrologer was always liable to prosecution by the Inquisition. The best security lay in the fact that belief in astrology was extremely widespread among all classes of society, among clergy as well as laity, of whatever degree of education. In the fourteenth century there was a marked increase in sorcery. This was probably the direct consequence of persecution on the grounds of heresy—such persecution being in a way the highest possible testimony to its genuineness. For the Inquisition never dealt with a reputed magician as a charlatan; it dealt with him as one really in league with Satan. Otherwise there would have been no heresy involved. The attitude of the Church towards sorcery—its attribution of heresy to the magician—actually put a premium upon sorcery. The sorcerer was the more in request because people were more than ever convinced that his claims were well founded, and he was able to make more out of his calling because it had become precarious. For these reasons the extreme zeal of Pope John XXII against all workers of magic failed in its object. In 1317 he satisfied himself, on grounds good or bad, that several persons in his household had been plotting to take his life. Under torture they stated that they had first had recourse to poison, but that that ordinary humdrum method having failed, they had next invoked the assistance of demons to accomplish their purpose. The Pope was roused to thorough and energetic action, and started a resolute campaign against the accursed race of magicians. Dissatisfied with the ambiguous terms of Alexander IV’s directions to the Inquisition in matters of sorcery, he gave it direct authority in such cases and urged it to earnest efforts.[197] Ten years later, however, for some reason or other, he withdrew this jurisdiction from the Inquisition; and it is to be gathered that there ensued a period of comparative immunity for sorcery until 1374, when Gregory XI once more entrusted the task of prosecuting magicians to the Holy Office.
The two most remarkable men to fall into the hands of the Inquisition as sorcerers were Peter of Abano and the Maréchal Gilles de Rais.[198] The former, an astrologer, undoubtedly harboured speculations which were flagrantly heretical; but he escaped the stake by dying a natural death before his trial was concluded. The latter—the original of the Blue-beard of the fairy-tale—had been the constant and intimate companion of Jeanne d’Arc during her leadership of the French armies. Of such military distinction as to be made a [198] Marshal of France at the age of twenty-five, he was also a man of culture, of a restless curiosity and an intense love of things brilliant and beautiful, of rich colours and ornaments, of all that was costly, magnificent and ornate. But beneath all the gorgeous external trappings of this æsthete was something much more pernicious than mere vulgar ostentation. A depraved voluptuary, he found that the ordinary modes of satisfying his sensuality soon palled, and they were succeeded by the most horrible unnatural lusts and the slow torture leading to murder of his victims, in the watching of which this monster eventually came to find his chief delight. While he indulged himself in such enormities, de Rais’ other great interest in life was the practice of the necromantic art, by which he hoped eventually to discover the philosopher’s stone, which would place him in command of all the wealth of the world. Notwithstanding the character of his favourite pursuits, the Marshal was at the same time particularly devout, showing an even perfervid faith, and now and again resolving to make atonement for his sins by going on crusade, never doubting that by this means he would wipe out all the stain of his misdeeds and eventually attain to salvation. In spite of all this outward appearance of devotion, it is remarkable that de Rais succeeded in maintaining his abominable way so long without question. But secrecy and immunity could not last indefinitely. Stories came to be bruited about of strange and loathsome happenings within the castle of Tiffanges, of children being slain in order that with their blood the sensualist magician might write a book of necromantic art. Even then, owing to the Marshal’s high position, it was difficult to strike. But eventually the Bishop of Nantes took action, citing de Rais to appear before him on the charges of having gratified his lust on children, whom he had subsequently butchered, of having invoked a familiar spirit with atrocious rites, and of having committed other crimes also suggestive of heresy. The trial that ensued was abnormal in several respects, the most notable being its publicity, public opinion being deliberately called into play, the fathers and mothers of the children, who had been spirited away into the monster’s castle, being allowed to let loose their clamourings against the villain.[199] Action was taken in a civil court contemporaneously with the ecclesiastical proceedings before bishop and inquisitors. In the ecclesiastical court he was found guilty on both counts—first, unnatural lust and sacrilege; second, heresy and the invocation of demons; but his death-sentence was pronounced in the civil court. The extraordinary man underwent the final penalty with a contrition, an assurance of salvation and an enthusiasm for God which must have been strangely edifying.[200]