A History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages; volume III

by Henry Charles Lea

While Bishop Ledrede was busy at this good work a trial occurred in England which illustrates the difference in efficiency between the ecclesiastical methods of trial by torture and those of the common law. Twenty-eight persons were accused of employing John of Nottingham and his assistant, Richard Marshall of Leicester, to make wax figures for the destruction of Edward II., the two Despensers, and the Prior of Coventry, with two of his officials who had tyrannized over the people and had been sustained by the royal favorites. Richard Marshall turned accuser, and the evidence was complete. The enormous sums of twenty pounds to Master John and fifteen pounds to Richard had been promised, and they had been furnished with seven pounds of wax and two ells of canvas. From September 27, 1324, until June 2, 1325, the two magicians labored at their work. They made seven images, the extra one being experimental, to be tried on Richard de Sowe. On April 27 they commenced operating with this by thrusting a piece of lead into its forehead, when at once Richard de Sowe lost his reason and cried in misery until May 20, when the lead was transferred to his breast, and he died May 23. The accused pleaded not guilty and put themselves on the country. An ordinary jury trial followed, with the result that they were all acquitted. A similar case came to light at Toulouse in June, 1326, when some sorcerers were discovered who had undertaken to make way with King Charles le Bel by means of figurines. They were promptly despatched to Paris, and the matter was taken in hand by the secular court of the Châtelet. It had all the resources of torture at its command, and its speedy and vigorous justice undoubtedly soon consigned them to the stake, although Pierre de Vic, a favored nephew of John XXII., who had been inculpated in their confessions, was pronounced innocent. It was probably not long after this that a similar attempt was made on the life of John XXII., though the culprits escaped until 1337, when they were tried and executed by Benedict XII. To shield themselves they implicated the Bishop of Béziers as their instigator.[499]

Yet organized persecution seems to have died away with the withdrawal of sorcery from the jurisdiction of the Inquisition by John XXII. in 1330, while the stimulus which his proclamations had given to the trade of the magician continued to extend it and render it profitable. The tendency of popular thought is shown by the attribution, in some places, of the Black Death to the incantations as well as to the poisons of the Jews. Such an expedient as that of the Council of Chartres in 1366, which ordered sorcerers to be excommunicated in mass every Sunday in all parish churches, would only serve to impress the popular mind with the reality and importance of their powers. During this period the study and practice of magic arts were pursued with avidity, and in many cases almost without concealment. Miguel de Urrea, who was Bishop of Tarazona from 1309 to 1316, was honored with the title of el Nigromantico, and his portrait in the archiepiscopal palace of Tarragona bears an inscription describing him as a most skilful necromancer, who even deluded the devil with his own arts. Gerard Groot himself, claimed by the Brethren of the Common Life as their revered founder, was in his youth an earnest student of the occult sciences, but during an illness he solemnly abandoned them before a priest and burned his books. Many years later he turned his knowledge to account by exposing a certain John Heyden, who had long practised on the credulity of the people of Amsterdam and its vicinity. On his coming to Deventer, Groot examined him and found him ignorant of necromancy and its allied arts, and concluded that he operated through a compact with Satan. Not willing to incur the irregularity of shedding blood, Groot contented himself with driving him away, and then, on learning that he had settled at Harderwick, wrote to the brethren there giving them an account of him; but the whole affair shows that such persons could count on practical toleration unless some zealot chose to set the laws in motion. The extent to which this toleration was carried, and the limitless credulity to which the popular mind had been trained are shown in the accounts given by grave historians of the feats of Zyto, the favorite magician of the Emperor Wenceslas, who, in spite of the repeated condemnation of magic by the Councils of Prague during the latter half of the century, reckoned among his evil qualities a fondness for forbidden arts. When, in 1389, he married Sophia, daughter of the Elector of Bavaria, the latter, knowing his proclivities, brought to Prague a wagon-load of skilful conjurers and jugglers. While the chief of these was giving an exhibition of his marvels Zyto quietly walked up to him, opened his mouth, and swallowed him entire, spitting out his muddy boots, and then evacuated him into a vessel of water and exhibited him dripping to the admiring crowd. At the royal banquets Zyto would bother the guests by changing their hands into the hoofs of horses or oxen so that they could not handle their food; if something attracted them to look out of the window he would adorn them with branching antlers, so that they could not withdraw their heads, while he would leisurely eat their delicacies and drink their wine. On one occasion he changed a handful of corn into a drove of fat hogs which he sold to a baker, with a caution not to let them go to the river, but the purchaser disregarded the warning and they suddenly became grains of corn floating on the water. Of course such a character could not end well, and Zyto, when his time came, was carried off by his demon. Not only are all these marvels recorded as unquestionable facts by the Bohemian chroniclers, but they are conscientiously copied by the papal historian Raynaldus.[500]

Although Gregory XI., in 1374, had authorized the Inquisition to prosecute in all cases of sorcery, in France the Parlement included the subject within its policy of encroachment upon the ecclesiastical jurisdiction. In 1390 an occurrence at Laon, where a secular official named Poulaillier arrested a number of sorcerers, gave it occasion to intervene. As Bodin says, at that time Satan managed to have it believed that the stories of sorcery were false, so the Parlement stopped the proceedings, and thus having its attention drawn to the matter, decreed that in future cognizance of such offences should be confined to the secular tribunals, to the exclusion of the spiritual courts.[501] Secular judges, however, were ready to treat these cases with abundant sharpness. A case occurring at the Paris Châtelet in 1390 has much interest as affording us an insight into the details of procedure, and as illustrating the efficacy of torture in securing conviction. Except as regards the use of this expedient, now universal in all criminal cases, we see that the process is much fairer to the accused than that of the Inquisition, and we observe once more the ineffaceable impression produced by torture, which leads the despairing victim to adhere to the self-condemnation conducting him inevitably to the stake. Marion l’Estalée was a young fille de folle vie, madly in love with a man named Hainsselin Planiete, who deserted her, and, about July 1, 1390, married a woman named Agnesot. Eager to prevent this, if her confession is to be believed, she had applied to an old procuress named Margot de la Barre, for a philtre to fix his wandering affection, and when this failed Margot made for her two enchanted chaplets of herbs, which she threw where the bride and groom would tread on them during the festivities of the wedding-day, assured that this would prevent the consummation of the marriage. The plot was unsuccessful, but Hainsselin and Agnesot fell sick, leading to the arrest of the two women.

On July 30 Margot was examined and denied all complicity. She was promptly tortured on le petit et le grand tresteau—which I conjecture to mean, the former, pouring water down the throat till the stomach was distended and then forcing it out by paddling the belly; the latter, the rack. This reduplicated torture produced no confession, and she was remanded for further hearing. August 17 Marion was taken in hand, when she denied, and was similarly tortured without result. On the 3d she was again examined and denied, and on being again ordered to the torture, she appealed to the Parlement; the appeal was promptly heard and rejected, and she was tortured as before, then taken to the kitchen and warmed, after which she was tortured a third time, but to no effect. On the 4th she was brought in and refused to confess, but the indefinite repetition of torment without prospect of cessation had produced its effect on body and mind; the torture had been pitiless, for she is subsequently alluded to as much crippled and weakened by it, and when she was again bound on the tresteau, and the executioner was about to commence his work, she yielded and agreed to confess. On being unbound she detailed the whole story, and in the afternoon, on being brought in again, she confirmed it “sans aucune force ou constrainte.” Then Margot was introduced, and Marion repeated her confession, which Margot denied and offered the wager of battle, of which no notice was taken. Margot then asserted her ability to prove an alibi on the day when she was said to have made the chaplets. The parties whom she named as witnesses were looked up for her and brought in the next day, when the evidence proved rather incriminating than otherwise. Marion was then made to repeat her confession, and not till then was Margot tortured a second time, but still without result. On the 6th Marion was again made to repeat her confession, after which Margot was brought in and bound to the tresteau. Marion’s youthful vigor had enabled her to endure the torture thrice. Margot’s age had diminished her power of resistance, and the two applications sufficed. Her resolution gave way, and before the torture commenced she promised to confess. Her story agreed with that of Marion, except in some embellishments, which serve to show how thoroughly untrustworthy were all such confessions, of which the sole object was to satisfy the merciless ministers of justice. When she enchanted the chaplets she invoked the demon by thrice repeating “Ennemi je te conjures au nom du Père, du Fils et du Saint Esperit que tu viegnes a moy icy;” then an “ennemi,” or demon, promptly appeared, like those she had seen in the Passion-play, and after she had instructed him to enter into the bodies of Hainsselin and Agnesot he flew out of the window in a whirlwind, making a great noise and throwing her into mortal fear. The evidence was thus complete, and there would seem to be nothing left but prompt sentence, yet the tribunal manifested commendable desire to avoid precipitate judgment. Assessors and experts were called in. On August 7, 8, and 9 Marion was thrice made to repeat her confession, and Margot twice. On the latter day a consultation was held, and the decision was unanimous against Margot, who was pilloried and burned the same day; but three of the experts thought that the pillory and banishment would suffice for Marion. Her case was postponed till the 23d, when another consultation was held; opinions remained unaltered, and as the majority was in favor of condemnation theprévôt condemned her, and she was burned the next day. Both the victims may have been innocent, and the whole story may have been invented to avoid the repetition of the intolerable torture; but, inevitable as was the result under the conditions of the trial, the judges manifested every disposition to deal fairly with the unfortunates in their hands, and could entertain no possible doubt as to the reality of the offence and of the apparition of the demon as described by Margot.[502] It is necessary to bear this in mind when estimating the conduct of the judges and inquisitors who sent thousands of unfortunates to the stake in the next two centuries, for offences which to a modern mind are purely chimerical, for, according to the jurisprudence of the age, no evidence could be more absolute than that on which rested the cruelly punished absurdities of witchcraft.

Simultaneous with this case was the burning of a sorceress named Jeanette Neuve or Revergade, August 6, 1390, in Velay. Although she was tried and executed by the court of the Abbey of Saint-Chaffre, this was in its capacity as haut-justicier, and not as a spiritual tribunal. A century later we should have found the case embroidered with full accounts of the Sabbat and of demon-worship, but the time had not yet arrived for this. Jeanette was a poor wandering crone who had come to Chadron, within the abbatial jurisdiction, and earned a livelihood by curing diseases with charms, to which she usually added the prescription of a pilgrimage to some shrine of local renown. She must have gained reputation as a wise-woman, for the Sire de Burzet, quarrelling with his wife and desiring reconciliation, came to her for a philtre. She gave him a potion of which he died, and her fate was sealed.[503]

About this period may be dated a fresh impulse given to the belief in sorcery, whose continued growth during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries was destined to produce results so deplorable, and to present one of the most curious problems in the history of human error. The first indication of this new development is found in the action of the University of Paris. September 19, 1398, the theological faculty held a general congregation in the Church of St. Mathurin, and adopted a series of twenty-eight articles which thenceforth became a standard for all demonologists, and were regarded as an unanswerable argument to sceptics who questioned the reality of the wickedness of the arts of magic. The preamble recites that action was necessary in view of the active emergence of ancient errors which threatened to infect society; the old evils, which had been well-nigh forgotten, were reviving with renewed vigor, and some positive definition was required to guard the faithful from the snares of the enemy. The University then proceeded to declare that there was an implied contract with Satan in every superstitious observance, of which the expected result was not reasonably to be anticipated from God and from Nature, and it condemned as erroneous the assertion that it was permissible to invoke the aid of demons or to seek their friendship, or to enter into compacts with them, or to imprison them in stones, rings, mirrors, and images, or to use sorcery for good purposes or for the cure of sorcery, or that God could be induced by magic arts to compel demons to obey invocations, or that the celebration of masses or other good works used in some forms of thaumaturgy was permissible, or that the prophets and saints of old performed their miracles by these means which were taught by God, or that by certain magic arts we can attain to the sight of the divine essence. These latter clauses point to a dangerous tendency of coalescence between the arts of the sorcerer and of the theurgist, and indicate that in the higher magic of the day there was a claim to be considered as penetrating to the ineffable mysteries which surrounded the throne of God; in fact, these adepts declared that their arts were lawful, and they sought to prove their origin in God by pointing out that good flowed from them, and that the wishes and prophecies of those using them were fulfilled. All this the University condemned, and while on the one hand it denied that images of lead or gold or wax, when baptized, exorcised, and consecrated on certain days, possessed the powers ascribed to them in the books of magic, on the other hand it was equally emphatic in animadverting on the incredulity of those who denied that sorcery, incantations, and the invocation of demons possessed the powers claimed for them by sorcerers.[504]

Like all other efforts to repress sorcery, this of course only served to give it fresh significance and importance. The declaration that it was erroneous to doubt the reality of sorcery and its effects became a favorite argument of the demonologists. Gerson declared that to call in question the existence and activity of demons was not only impious and heretical, but destructive to all human and political society. Sprenger concludes that the denial of the existence of witchcraft is not in itself heresy, as it may proceed from ignorance, but such ignorance in an ecclesiastic is in itself highly culpable; such denial is sufficient to justify vehement suspicion of heresy, calling for prosecution, and we have seen what was the significance of “vehement suspicion” in inquisitorial practice.[505]

With popular credulity thus stimulated, the insanity of Charles VI. afforded a tempting opportunity for charlatans to market their wares. In 1397 the Maréchal de Sancerre sent to Paris from Guyenne two Augustinian hermits who had great reputation for skill in the occult sciences, and who promised relief. They pronounced the royal patient a victim of sorcery, and after some incantations he recovered his senses, but it proved only a lucid interval, and in a week he relapsed. This they charged upon the royal barber and a porter of the Duke of Orleans, who were arrested, but nothing could be proved against them, and they were discharged. For months the two impostors led a joyous life with ample fees, but at last they were compelled to name the author of the sorceries, and this time they had the audacity to pitch upon the king’s brother, Louis of Orleans himself. This grew serious, and on being threatened with torture they confessed themselves sorcerers, apostates, and invokers of demons. They were accordingly tried, condemned, degraded from the priesthood, and mercifully beheaded and quartered. Undeterred by this example, in 1403 a priest named Ives Gilemme, who boasted that he had three demons in his service, with some other invokers of demons, the Demoiselle Marie de Blansy, Perrin Hemery, a locksmith, and Guillaume Floret, a clerk, offered to cure the king, and were given a trial. They asked to have twelve men loaded with iron chains placed at their disposal; these they surrounded with an enclosure, and, after telling them not to be afraid, proceeded with all the invocations they could muster, but accomplished no results. They excused their failure by alleging that the men had crossed themselves, but this availed them nothing. Floret confessed to the Prévôt of Paris that the whole affair was a deception, and on March 24, 1404, they were all duly burned. It was probably this case which induced Cardinal Louis of Bourbon, in his provincial synod of Langres, in 1404, to prohibit strictly all sorcery and divination, and to warn his flock to place no trust in such arts, as their practitioners were mostly deceivers whose only object was to trick them out of their money. Priests, moreover, were strictly ordered, as had already been done by the Council of Soissons the year before, to report to the episcopal ordinaries all cases coming to their knowledge and all persons defamed for such practices. Had this policy been carried out, of treating sorcerers as sharpers, and of instituting an episcopal police to replace the Inquisition, at this time rapidly falling into desuetude, it might have averted the evils which followed, but the well-meant effort of Cardinal Louis was followed by no results. The belief in sorcery continued to strengthen, and when Jean Petit undertook to justify Jean sans Peur for the assassination of the Duke of Orleans, it was almost a matter of course that he should accuse the murdered prince of encompassing the king’s insanity by magic, of which the most minute details were given, including the names of the two demons, Hynars and Astramein, whose assistance had been successfully invoked.[506]

In England, sorcery, as we have seen, had thus far attracted little attention. Even as late as 1372 a man was arrested in Southwark with the head and face of a corpse in his possession, and a book of magic was found in his trunk. Tried before the Inquisition he would infallibly have confessed under torture a series of misdeeds and have ended at the stake; but he was brought before Sir J. Knyvet, in the King’s Bench. No indictment even was found against him; he was simply sworn not to practise sorcery and was discharged, but the head and book were burned at Tothill at his expense. To the fair and open character of English law is doubtless to be attributed the comparative exemption of the island from the terror of sorcery, but when, at last, persecuting excitement arose in the Lollard troubles, the Church used its influence with the new Lancastrian dynasty to suppress the emissaries of Satan. In 1407 Henry IV. issued letters to his bishops reciting that sorcerers, magicians, conjurers, necromancers, and diviners abounded in their dioceses, perverting the people and perpetrating things horrible and detestable. The bishops, therefore, were commissioned to imprison all such malefactors, either with or without trial, until they should recant their errors or the king’s pleasure could be learned respecting them. The placing of the matter thus in the hands of the Church, and depriving the accused of all legal safeguards, is most significant as a recognition that the ordinary forms of English law were not to be depended upon in such cases, and that public opinion as yet was too unformed for juries to be trusted. Under the regency the royal council seems to have assumed jurisdiction over the matter. In 1432 a Dominican of Worcester, Thomas Northfield, suspected of sorcery, was summoned before it with all his books of magic. A few days later it heard the celebrated Witch of Eye, Margery Jourdemayne, with the Dominican John Ashewell and John Virby, a clerk, who had been confined at Windsor under charge of sorcery, but they were discharged on giving bonds for good behavior. The Witch of Eye did not fare so well when, in 1441, she was implicated in the accusation brought against the Duchess of Gloucester, of making and melting a wax figurine of Henry VI. The duchess confessed and escaped with the penance of walking bareheaded thrice through the streets with wax tapers of two pounds each, and offering them at the shrines of St. Paul’s, Christ Church, and St. Michael’s in Cornhill, after which she was imprisoned and finally banished to Chester. Her secretary, Roger, was hanged, drawn, and quartered, and Margery was burned—the whole affair being political. A similar endeavor to take political advantage of the belief in sorcery occurred in 1464, in connection with the marriage of Edward IV. and Elizabeth Woodville, when his constancy to her was attributed to the magic arts of her mother, Jacquette, widow of the Regent Bedford in first marriage. Jacquette did not wait to be attacked, but turned upon her accusers, Thomas Wake and John Daunger, who had talked about her using leaden images of the king and queen, and had shown one of them broken in two and wired together. They disclaimed responsibility, and endeavored to shift the burden each on the other; but in 1483 Richard III. did not fail to make the most of the matter, and in the act for the settlement of the crown described Edward’s “pretensed marriage” as brought about by “sorcerie and witchcraft committed by the said Elizabeth and her moder, Jacquette duchesse of Bedford.” Thus England was gradually prepared to share in the horrors of the witchcraft delusions.[507]

Perhaps the most remarkable trial for sorcery on record is that of the Maréchal de Rais, in 1440, which has long ranked as a cause celébre, although it is only of late that the publication of the records has enabled it to be properly understood. The popular belief at the time is indicated by Monstrelet, who tells us that the marshal was accustomed to put to death pregnant women and children in order with their blood to write the conjurations which secured him wealth and honors; Jean Chartier alludes to his putting children to death and performing strange things contrary to the faith to attain his ends, and in the next century Gaguin speaks of his slaying children in order with their blood to divine the future.[508] Curious as is the case in many aspects, perhaps its chief interest lies in the psychological study which it affords as an illustration of the extreme development of the current ecclesiastical teaching with regard to the remission of sins.