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

by Henry Charles Lea

Thus a very profitable trade sprang up in counteracting witchcraft, and many witches confined themselves to this branch of the profession, although they were as liable as their adversaries to condemnation for compact with the devil, for it was an incontrovertible fact that they could only relieve a sufferer by transferring his disease to some one else or by performing some equivalent evil act. Sprenger tells us that they were to be found every German mile or two. At Reichshofen was one whose business was so large that the lord of the place levied a toll of a penny on every one who came to her for relief, and used to boast of the large revenue which he derived from this source. A man named Hengst, at Eningen, near Constance, had more applicants than any shrine of the Virgin—even than that at Aix—and in winter, when the highways were blocked with snow, those which led to his house were trampled smooth by the crowds of his patients.[558]

When once the belief was fairly started in the existence of beings possessed of the powers which I have described, and actuated by motives purely malignant, it was destined to inevitable extension under the stimulus afforded by persecution. Every misfortune and every accident that occurred in a hamlet would be attributed to witchcraft. Suspicion would gradually attach to some ill-tempered crone, and she would be seized, for inquisitors held that a single careless threat, such as “You will be sorry for this,” if followed by a piece of ill-luck, was sufficient to justify arrest and trial.[559] All the neighbors would flock in as accusers—this one had lost a cow, that one’s vintage had been ruined by hail, another’s garden-patch had been ravaged by caterpillars, one mother had suffered an abortion, another’s milk had suddenly dried, another had lost a promising child, two lovers had quarrelled, a man had fallen from an apple-tree and had broken his neck—and under the persuasive influence of starvation or of the rack the unfortunate woman would invent some story to account for each occurrence, would name her accomplices in each, and tell whom she had met in the Sabbats, which she attended regularly. No one can read the evidence adduced at a witch-trial, or the confessions of the accused, without seeing how every accident and every misfortune and every case of sickness or death which had occurred in the vicinage for years was thus explained, and how the circle of suspicion widened so that every conviction brought new victims; burnings multiplied, and the terrified community was ready to believe that a half or more of its members were slaves of Satan, and that it would never be free from their malignant vengeance until they should all be exterminated. For more than two centuries this craze was perpetually breaking out in one part of Europe after another, carefully nursed and stimulated by popes and inquisitors like Innocent VIII. and Leo X., Sprenger and Institoris, Bernard of Como and Bishop Binsfeld, and the amount of human misery thence arising is simply incomputable.

Fortunately on one side there was a limitation upon the otherwise illimitable powers of the witch. The contrast was so absurd between the faculties attributed to her and her utter inability to protect herself against those who tortured and burned her with impunity, that some explanation of the inconsistency was requisite. The demonologists therefore invented the comforting theory that through the goodness of God the witch instantaneously lost her power as soon as the hand of an officer of justice was laid upon her. But for this, indeed, it might have been difficult to find men hardy enough to seize, imprison, try, and execute these delegates of Satan, whose slightest ill-will was so dangerous. Judges and their officials thus were encouraged to perform their functions and were told that they need dread no reprisals. It was true that, like all theories framed to meet artificial conditions, this one was not always reconcilable to the facts. The strange fortitude with which the culprits occasionally endured the severest and most prolonged tortures, so far from being a proof of innocence, was regarded as showing that even in the hands of justice the devil was sometimes able to protect his servants by endowing them with what was called the gift of taciturnity, and the ingenuity of the inquisitors was taxed to the utmost to overcome his wiles. When this was once admitted it was difficult to deny that he could assist them in other ways, and it was recommended to the officers charged with the arrest that when they seized a witch they should on no account allow her to enter her chamber, lest she should secure some charm that would enable her to endure the torture. Such charms might be secreted about her person, or under the skin, or even in accessible cavities of the body, so the first thing to be done was to shave the prisoner from head to foot and subject her to the most indecent examination. It was on record that in Ratisbon some heretics condemned to be burned remained unhurt in the flames; vainly were they submerged in the river and roasted again. A three days’ fast was ordered for the whole city, when it was revealed that they had charms concealed in a certain spot under the skin, and after the removal of these there was no further trouble in reducing them to ashes. Charms could also be used from a distance. At Innsbruck a witch boasted that if she had a single thread of a prisoner’s garment she could cause him to endure torture to the death without confessing. Some inquisitors, to break the spell of taciturnity, were wont to try sacred magic by administering to the prisoner, on an empty stomach, after invoking the Trinity, three drinks of holy water in which blessed wax had been melted. In one case the most excruciating torture, continued through two whole days, failed to elicit confession, but the third day chanced to be the feast of the Virgin, and during the celebration of the holy rites the devil lost the power with which he had thus far sustained the prisoner, who revealed a plot to make way with the implacable judge, Peter of Berne, by means of sorcery. These were simple devices; a more elaborate one was to take a strip of paper of the length of the body of Christ, and write on it the seven words uttered on the cross; on a holy day, at the hour of mass, this was to be bound around the waist of the witch with relics, she was to be made to drink holy water, and be at once placed on the rack. When all these efforts failed it was a mooted question whether the Church in her extremity could have recourse to the devil by calling in other magicians to break the spell, and Prierias succeeds by ingenious casuistry in proving that she could. One precaution, held indispensable by some experienced practitioners, was that the witch on arrest was to be placed immediately in a basket and thus be carried to prison, without allowing her feet to touch the earth, for if she were permitted to do so she could slay her captors with lightning and escape.[560]

There was another comfortable theory that those who exercised public functions for the suppression of witchcraft were not subject to the influence of witches or demons. Sprenger tells us that he and his colleagues had been many times assailed by devils in the shape of monkeys, dogs, and goats, but by the aid of God they had always been able to overcome the enemy. Yet there were exceptions to this, as we have seen in the case of the unlucky inquisitor and podestà of Como; and the lenity of some judges was explained by the fact that the witch was sometimes able so to affect their minds that they were unable to convict. This steeled the heart of the conscientious inquisitor, who repressed all sentiments of compassion in the belief that they were prompted by Satan. The witch was specially able to exert this power over her judge when she looked upon him before he saw her, and it was a wise precaution to make her enter the court backwards, so that the judge had the advantage of the first glance. He and his assistants were also advised to be very careful not to let a witch touch them, especially on the wrist or other joint, and to wear around the neck a bag containing salt exorcised on Palm Sunday, with consecrated herbs enclosed in blessed wax, besides constantly protecting themselves with the sign of the cross. It was doubtless through neglect of these salutary precautions that at a witch-burning in the Black Forest, as the executioner was lifting the convict on the pile she blew in his face, saying, “I will reward you,” whereupon a horrible leprosy broke out which spread over his body, and in a few days he was dead. Occasionally, moreover, the familiar demon of the witch, in the shape of a raven, would accompany her to the place of execution and prevent the wood from burning until he was driven off.[561]

To combat an evil so widespread and all-pervading required the combined exertions of Church and State. The secular and episcopal courts both had undoubted jurisdiction over it; the action of John XXII., in 1330, may have caused some question as to the Inquisition, but if so it was settled in 1374, when the Inquisitor of France was proceeding against some sorcerers and his competence was disputed, and Gregory XI., to whom the matter was referred, instructed him to prosecute them with the full severity of the laws. Commissions issued in 1409 and 1418 to Pons Feugeyron, Inquisitor of Provence, enumerate sorcerers, conjurers, and invokers of demons among those whom he is to suppress. As the growth of witchcraft became more alarming, Eugenius IV., in 1437, stimulated the inquisitors everywhere to greater activity against it, and these instructions were repeated in 1445. In 1451 Nicholas V. even enlarged the powers of Hugues le Noir, Inquisitor of France, by granting him jurisdiction over divination, even when it did not savor of heresy. There was occasional clashing, of course, between the episcopal officials and the inquisitors, but the rule seems to have been generally observed that either could proceed separately, while the Clementine regulation should be observed which prescribed their co-operation in the use of torture and punitive imprisonment and when rendering final sentence. The bishops, moreover, assumed that their assent was necessary to the action of the secular courts. In the case of Guillaume Edeline, condemned to perpetual imprisonment at Evreux in 1453, when the sentence was read by the episcopal official the bishop added “We retain our power of pardon,” but the inquisitor at once entered a formal protest that the prisoner should not be released without the consent of the Inquisition.[562]

Yet in France at this period the royal jurisdiction, as embodied in the Parlement, was, as we have seen in a former chapter, successfully exerting its superiority over both bishops and inquisitors. A curious case occurring in 1460 illustrates both this and the superstitions current at the time. A priest of the diocese of Soissons named Yves Favins brought a suit for tithes against a husbandman named Jean Rogier, who held of the Hospitallers. These, like the Templars, were exempt from tithes; Favins lost his case, was condemned in the expenses, which were heavy, and was eager for revenge. A poor woman of the village who had come from Merville in Hainault, had quarrelled with the wife of Rogier over the price of some spinning, and to her Yves had recourse. She gave him a great toad which she kept in a pot, and told him to baptize it and feed it on a consecrated wafer, which he did, giving it the name of John. The woman then killed it and made of it a “sorceron,” which her daughter took to Rogier’s house under pretence of demanding the money in dispute, and cast it under the table at which Rogier, his wife, and his son were dining. They all died within three days; suspicion was aroused, and the two women were arrested and confessed. The mother was burned, but the daughter obtained a respite on the plea of pregnancy, escaped from jail and fled to Hainault, but was brought back and was carried on appeal to Paris. Yves was rich and well-connected. He was arrested and confined in the prison of the Bishop of Paris, but he obtained counsel and appealed to the Parlement; the Parlement allowed the appeal, tried him, and acquitted him.[563]

All secular tribunals were not as enlightened as the Parlement of Paris, but there seems to have been at least sometimes an effort to administer even-handed justice. About this time a case occurred at Constance in which an accuser formally inscribed himself against a peasant whom he had met riding on a wolf, and had immediately become crippled. He applied to the peasant, who cured him, but observing that the wizard bewitched others, he felt it his duty to prosecute him. The case was exhaustively argued before the magistrates, for the prosecution and the defence, by two eloquent advocates, Conrad Schatz and Ulric Blaser. Torture was not used, but the accused was condemned and burned on the testimony of witnesses.[564]

In the ecclesiastical tribunals offenders had not the same chance. We have seen in a former chapter how skilfully the inquisitorial process was framed to secure conviction, and when, after a prolonged period of comparative inactivity, the Inquisition was aroused to renewed exertion in combating the legions of Satan, it sharpened its rusted weapons to a yet keener edge. The old hesitation about pronouncing a sentence of acquittal was no longer entertained, for though the accused might be dismissed with a verdict of not proven, the inquisitor was formally instructed never to declare him innocent. Yet few there were upon whom even this doubtful clemency was exercised, for all the resources of fraud and force, of guile and torment, were exhausted to secure conviction with even less reserve than of old. Engaged in a personal combat with Satan, the inquisitor was convinced in advance of the guilt of those brought before him as defamed for sorcery, and the ancient expedients were refined upon and improved. Formerly endurance of torture might be regarded as an evidence of innocence, now it was only an additional proof of guilt, for it showed that Satan was endeavoring to save his servitor, and the duty to defeat him was plain, even though, as Sprenger tells us was frequently the case, the witch would allow herself to be torn in pieces before she would confess. Though, as formerly, torture could not be repeated, it could be “continued” indefinitely, with prolonged periods of intervening imprisonment in dungeons of which the squalor was purposely heightened to exhaust the mental and physical forces of the victim. It is true that confession was not absolutely requisite, for when the evidence was sufficient the accused could be convicted without it, but it was held that common justice required that the criminal should avow his guilt, and therefore the use of torture was universal when confession could not be otherwise secured. Yet in view of the satanic gift of taciturnity it was desirable to avoid recourse to it, and therefore promises of pardon, not indefinitely veiled under a juggle of words as of old, but positive and specifying a moderate penance or exile, were to be freely made. If the fraud was successful, the inquisitor could let the sentence be pronounced by some one else, or allow a decent interval to elapse before himself sending his deluded victim to the stake. All the other devices to entrap or seduce the prisoner to confession which we have seen employed by the older inquisitors were also still recommended. One new and infallible sign was the inability of the witch to shed tears during torture and before the judges, though she could do so freely elsewhere. In such a case the inquisitor was instructed to adjure her to weep by the loving tears shed for the world by Christ on the cross, but the more she was adjured, we are told, the drier she would become. Still, with the usual logic of the demonologist, if she did weep it was a device of the devil and was not to be reckoned in her favor.[565]

The most significant change, however, between the old procedure and the new regarded the death-penalty. We have seen that with the heretic the object was held to be the salvation of his soul, and, except in case of relapse, he could always purchase life by recantation, at the expense of lifelong imprisonment, with the prospect that in time submission might win him release. At what period the rule changed with respect to witches is uncertain. When convicted by the secular courts they were invariably burned, and the Inquisition came to adopt the same practice. In 1445 the Council of Rouen still treats them with singular mildness. Invokers of demons were to be publicly preached with mitres on their heads, when, if they abjured, the bishop was empowered to release them after performance of appropriate penance; after this, if they relapsed, clerks were to be perpetually imprisoned, and laymen abandoned to the secular arm, while for minor superstitions and incantations a month’s prison and fasting were sufficient, with heavier penance for relapse. In 1448 the Council of Lisieux contented itself with ordering priests on all Sundays and festivals to denounce as excommunicate all usurers, sorcerers, and diviners. In 1453 Guillaume Edeline escaped with abjuration and prison. In 1458 Jaquerius laboriously argues that the witch is not to be treated like other heretics, to be spared if she recants, showing that the change was still a novelty, requiring justification. In 1484 Sprenger says positively that while the recanting heretic is to be imprisoned, the sorcerer, even if penitent, is to be put to death, indicating that by this time there was no longer any question on the subject. There was, as usual, a pretence of shifting the responsibility of this upon the secular authorities, for Sprenger adds that the most the ecclesiastical judge can do is to absolve the penitent and converted witch from the ipso facto excommunication under which she lies and let her go, to be apprehended by the lay courts and be burned for the evil which she has wrought. Silvester Prierias shows us how transparent was this juggle, when he instructs the inquisitor that if the witch confesses and is penitent she is to be received to mercy and not be delivered to the secular arm: she is to abjure, is absolved and sentenced to perpetual imprisonment in a black dress; the dress is put on her and she is led to the church-door—but not to prison. The Inquisition takes no further concern about her; if the secular court is content, well and good—if not, it does as it pleases. What the inquisitors would have said if it pleased the secular authorities to let the witch go free may be judged by the maledictions of Sprenger on the incredulous laity who disbelieved in the reality of witchcraft, and through whose supineness the secular arm had allowed the cursed sect to so increase that its extirpation appeared impossible.[566] Still more instructive, as we shall see hereafter, was the indignation of Leo X. when the Signory of Venice refused to burn the witches of Brescia condemned by the Inquisition.

Equally frivolous was the pretence that the punishment of burning was merely for the injuries wrought by the witch, for we shall see that in the case of the Vaudois of Arras the convicts were burned as a matter of course, although attendance upon the Sabbat was the only crime with which most of the sufferers were charged, and that they were delivered for the purpose by the ecclesiastical court to the magistrates, and even burned without such formality. Besides, Sprenger tells us that in the case of prominent and influential witches the death-penalty was frequently commuted to perpetual imprisonment on bread and water, as a reward for betraying their accomplices, which shows that the fate of the accused in reality rested with the inquisitor. Still, there appears to have been, in at least one case, a simulacrum of judgment by the secular court which I have rarely met where heretics were concerned. November 5, 1474, at Levone, in Piedmont, Francesca Viloni and Antonia d’ Alberto were condemned by the acting inquisitor Francesco Chiabaudi. The sentence orders their delivery to the secular arm with a protest that no corporal punishment was thereby indicated, directly or indirectly, although the goods of the convicts were declared confiscated. The same day the assistant inquisitor, Frà Lorenzo Butini, delivered them to the podestà, Bartolomeo Pasquale, with the protest, to protect himself from “irregularity,” that he did not intend to indicate for them any corporal punishment or to consent to it. The podestà allowed two days to elapse and then held, November 7, a solemn court to which the population was summoned by blast of trumpet. The convicts were brought before him, when his consultore, or legal adviser, Lorenzo di Front, addressed him to the effect that the women had been condemned by the Inquisition for witchcraft, heresy, and apostasy, and that, according to the laws, he must sentence them to the legal punishment of burning alive, which he incontinently did. It evidently was the merest formality, and possibly, as the death of two of the podestà’s children had been attributed to one of the witches, he may have wished to magnify his share in the retribution.[567]