From the fourteenth to the sixteenth century, supernatural beliefs exerted a great influence on the people. One of the most celebrated trials of the time was that of the Duchess of Gloucester, who was accused of bewitching Henry VI. It transpired at the trial that she had instructed a priest, named Bolingbroke who practised necromancy, to bewitch the king; a sorceress named Marie Gardimain being also implicated. An effigy of the king in wax was discovered half-melted in front of a fire of dry plants, which had been gathered by moonlight in a graveyard. Bolingbroke the necromancer was hanged, Gardimain burnt, and the Duchess of Gloucester condemned to imprisonment for life.
The “evil eye” was another form of witchcraft, mostly practised by women. Visions or apparitions in the sky, foretelling some war or disaster, were firmly believed in by the Church, and caused great consternation. Fiery dragons appearing in the heavens were said to predict civil war; and we also read of pigs bearing royal crowns, and gory stars, all of which were doubtless caused by ordinary phenomena not understood at that time.
The appearance of the devil presiding at a sabbath or meeting of sorcerers is thus described by De Lancre: “He is seated in a black chair with a crown of black horns, two horns in his neck, and one on the forehead, which sheds light on the assembly; the hair bristling, the face pale and exhibiting signs of uneasiness, the eyes round, large, and fully opened, inflamed and hideous, with a goat’s beard. The neck and the rest of the body deformed, and in the shape of a man and a goat; the hands and the feet of a human being.”
The word witch is thought by some authorities to be derived from chausaph, which means a user of pharmaceutic enchantments, or an applier of drugs to magical purposes.
Witches sent storms and barrenness, drowned children, brought on ague, could kill with evil eye, slay with lightning, pass through key-holes, ride through the air on broom-sticks, and perform many other weird and wondrous things.
“They were generally old, blear-eyed, wrinkled dames,” says Scott, “ugly and crippled, frequently papists, and sometimes atheists; of cross-grained tempers and cynical dispositions.” They were often poisoners, and generally monomaniacs. Epilepsy and all diseases not understood by the physicians were set down to the influence of witches. They were said to make two covenants with the devil, one public and one private. Then the novices were presented to the devil in person, and instructed to renounce the Christian faith, tread on the Cross, break the fasts, joining hands with Satan, paying him homage, and yielding him body and soul. Some witches sold themselves for a term of years, and some for ever; then they kissed the devil, and signed their bond with blood, and a banquet ended the meeting; their dances being accompanied with shouts of “Ha, ha! devil, devil! Dance here, dance here! Play here, play here! Sabbath, sabbath!” Before they departed the devil was said to give them philtres and amulets. These women were usually hypochondriacs, often driven by despair and misfortune to confess any charge made against them.
CHAPTER XI.
SUPERSTITION AND ITS INFLUENCE ON MEDICINE.
Superstition is a belief in what is wholly opposite to the laws of the physical and moral world, and yet supposed to be attainable by supernatural agency.
The words incantation and charm seem to have been derived from the ancient practice of curing diseases by poetry and music. Democritus says that many diseases are capable of being cured by the sound of a flute when properly played. Marianus Capellus assures us also that fevers may be cured by suitable songs. Galen believed the sound of the flute efficacious in gout and epilepsy. Asclepiades actually employed the trumpet for the relief of sciatica, and tells us it is to be continued until the fibres of the part begin to palpitate, when the pain will vanish. What terrible visions might be conjured up if such remedies were used to-day.