Pictures of German Life in the XVth, XVIth, and XVIIth Centuries, Vol. I.

by Gustav Freytag

"At the conclusion of the holy prayer, the Dean gave directions to us students whom alone he had employed as assistants, to place ourselves round the miserable woman; gave to one the book, to another the candle, to each one what he would need for this ceremonial, and then began in the name of God a modus conjurationis so lofty and so exceeding well grounded on the holy, godly Scripture, and with such assiduity and earnestness, (as he had in this a pure, strong, and undaunted Hon heart) that our hearts began to tremble and the hairs of our heads to stand erect. During this noble exorcism, which lasted some time, the evil spirit did not make any especial blustering, only, perceiving a boy showing his teeth in at the window, he desired to be allowed to break them; but this his desire could not be granted. During the ceremony the surrounding people, who could better observe, than one of us who had more to do, saw distinctly that the eyes of the woman, which were naturally dark, but in this misery had become gray and fiery like cats' eyes, gradually recovered their natural colour; that her limbs which were all distorted, returned to their right position, and that her colour, form, and whole nature, which had been totally altered, was restored delicate, fresh, and vigorous. Some who were standing by, testified and confirmed by oath, that they had seen during the process a black bird in the form of a thrush fly out of the mouth of the woman. We do not publish this as a truth, because we none of us saw it, for we do not wish to report anything but what we could in case of necessity confirm with a good conscience, and by our priestly dignity and the highest oath.

"This ceremony, God be praised, was throughout successfully performed, and the aforesaid Apollonia clasped her hands together. Then the Dean bent down towards her, took the stole out of her hands and asked her: 'Dear Apollonia, how are you now? do you now know me and the other people?' Then the restored one tried to spring up for joy in her little bed and throw her arms round the Dean's neck. This moistened many eyes. But her limbs and whole body were so much torn that she had not sufficient strength, so she clasped her hands over her head, looked up to heaven and exclaimed three times: 'Oh Almighty and Eternal God, to Thee be praise, honour, and glory, for ever and ever! Oh God, forgive and pardon me for I have sinned against Thee so grievously! Oh Lord, now will I gladly die!'"

Here concludes our extract from the pamphlet. The end of it is edifying; the valiant Dean reaped the reward of his dangerous work by winning the soul of Apollonia to his Church. She exhorted her husband, and vowed a pilgrimage; and it appears that after that, the quarrelsome couple lived together peaceably. What the religious zeal of the narrator has added to the spiritual examination of the devil, is more harmless than it is in many similar cases.

The tender care of both Churches for those possessed, and the pious interest with which they regarded these victims of the devil, made similar cases become a matter of speculation. Thus in Thuringia in 1560, a herdsman, Hans the father of Mellingen, made a great sensation. He pretended that he had been compelled by a man of ill repute, to eat some food which had brought him into the power of the devil; that he had been severely handled and beaten by the devil, and showed his stripes. He was on this account commended in pamphlets to the prayers of Christendom. But once when he made his appearance at Nuremberg with a bleeding ear, his hands tied behind his back with a three-coloured cord, and there praying and begging, related his old story, that the devil himself had thus fastened his hands, the Nurembergers, took the matter up in earnest, and the audacity of the man sank before the pressing cross-examination of the ecclesiastical and temporal authorities; he acknowledged that he was a deceiver; he was placed in the pillory, and then driven out of the town. The Nurembergers did not fail to make known their discovery in a pamphlet.

But fierce indeed was the hatred with which was regarded, in the last half of the century, that other connection with hell,--the old witchcraft. Even Luther believed in witches; he mentions incidentally that such a woman had injured his mother; and in another place was angry with the lawyers who did not punish similar sorceresses when they injured their fellow-creatures. But these expressions were not intended to be very severe; he on the whole troubled himself little with this phase of superstition. He, the copious writer, never considered it necessary to discourse to his people concerning it; in his sermons he only occasionally mentions witchcraft, and his whole nature was repugnant to the application of violence. But if happily for us, Luther's pure spirit preserved him from bitterness against the devil's helpmates, his scholars and successors had little of his high-mindedness. Young Protestantism was on this point little better than the old belief. In Protestant countries the ministers of God were by no means the only persecutors; the civil authorities were also willing to follow the example of the ecclesiastical courts of the Roman Catholics, and above all of the Jesuits. The victims were countless; they amount without doubt to hundreds of thousands. It was first in the domains of the ecclesiastical princes, that the contagion burst forth, which devastated whole provinces as in Eichstädt, Würtsburg and Cologne. In twenty villages in the vicinity of Treves, three hundred and sixty-eight persons were executed in seven years, besides many who were burnt in the city itself; in Brunswick the burnt stakes stood like a little forest on the place of execution. In every province hundreds and thousands might be counted. Every kind of baseness was practised by the ecclesiastical and temporal judges; the most contemptible grounds of suspicion sufficed to depopulate whole villages. No position and no age was a security; children and the aged, learned men and even councillors, were bound to the stake, but the greater part were women;--we shudder when we look at the method of these condemnations. It is not impossible, although it cannot be spoken of with certainty, that a victim here and there did live in the mad delusion that they were in union with the devil through magic arts; it is not impossible, although this cannot be certified, that hurtful mediums, intoxicating beverages and superstitious medicaments were in some cases used for the detriment of others. But it is the strongest proof of the infamy of the whole proceeding, that amidst the monstrous mass of old records concerning witches, we find no ground of belief that in any case the judgment was justified by the real misdeeds of the accused, though they were made the excuse for it; for so great was the degree of fanaticism, narrow-mindedness, or malice, that the mere accusation was almost certain to be fatal. Torture was applied on the most frivolous charges; the capability even of bearing pain was taken as evidence against those who held out under torture; and every kind of accidental symptom, disease of the body, outward appearance, or countless fortuitous circumstances, were also considered as evidence. The possessions of the condemned were confiscated; the greediness and covetousness of the judges were united with brutality and stupidity. This fearful disorder did not end with that century: through the whole of the sixteenth and up to the middle of the eighteenth century these horrible judicial murders continued. It was not till the time of the great Frederick that they ceased.

The literary activity of the few enlightened men who ventured to speak out in the interests of humanity against these trials for witchcraft, was pregnant with danger. They themselves had to fear imprisonment and the stake, and at least they incurred the hatred and the malice with which believing fanatics assailed their opponents. One name belongs to the sixteenth century which should ever be named with gratitude; that of the Protestant physician Johann Weier, physician in ordinary to Duke Wilhelm of Cleves, who in 1593 wrote his three volumes--'De præstigiis Dæmonum.' Even he believed in necromancers, who, by the help of the devil, wrought mischief, in which case they were to fall under the punishment of the laws; but the witches he considered as poor miserable beldames, who, in the worst cases, only imagined themselves to be doing the work of the devil, but were for the most part quite innocent. His warm heart for the oppressed, and his noble indignation against the brutality of the judges in the cases of witchcraft, made an immense sensation. Within his limited sphere of action Weier appears to us as a supplement to Luther. Against him also the raging orthodox crew upraised themselves. The good effect produced by Weier's book was in a great manner counteracted by a flood of opposition writings. But again amidst the horrors of the Thirty years' war, Friedrich Spee, the best of the German Jesuits, wrote secretly his 'Cautio Criminalis,' against the burning of heretics; he published this anonymously in a Protestant printing-press.

The various popular transformations of the devil did not end with the century in which Luther taught, and Weier endeavoured to banish the stake from the place of execution. The Thirty years' war brought forward another set of gloomy fantasies concerning him. Satan was considered by the wild troopers as a demon who made fortresses, and cast magic balls which could penetrate every kind of armour.

When the peace came, the war-devil withdrew into the woods, where he taught his arts to the wild huntsmen; and when there remained nothing in the land but an impoverished population devoid of faith and hope, the devil was sought after in his ancient and quiet occupation--only disturbed by the covetousness of men--as the guardian of hidden treasures. Much money and property had been buried during the long war, and was discovered by lucky accidents after the peace.

The poverty-stricken people lusting after gold, and unused to quiet labour, were powerfully excited by these treasure-troves, and the hopes of still greater. There had always been, from ancient times, treasure seekers, and magicians who were to conjure away the evil one from the treasure; and it is probable that this superstition had been imported into Germany from Rome.

Gradually the popular conception of the form and working of the devil became less vivid. In a more enlightened age it was thought wrong to speak mockingly of him, and the greatest poet of Germany gracefully idealized his image as it had been handed down from antiquity. Some of the musical composers also introduced him into their operas.