The devices of sorcerers.
That Arnald did not regard all sorceries as purely imaginary is further indicated by the long list of remedies against them collected in his Remedia contra maleficia. All but one or two of the suggestions made by Petrus Hispanus in the chapter on counteracting witchcraft and dispelling demons in the Thesaurus pauperum are found again in Arnald’s treatise. He also adds others and prefaces his list of cures by a description of the devices employed by sorcerers to impede conjugal relations. The sorcerer usually secretes in the mattress or pillow of the nuptial bed such objects as the two halves of an acorn, granulated beans, written characters, the filth of a bat, or the testicles of a live cock. Arnald recommends that such articles be searched for and removed, or preferably taken to a priest; or that the couple sleep in another bed or house.
Counter-magic against them.
In the case of the divided acorn he more explicitly recognizes the validity of the sorcerer’s sympathetic magic by prescribing an equally magical counter-ceremony. The husband and wife are each to take one-half of the nut and place the two halves together, and, after an interval of six days, eat them. Apparently Arnald believes that humans can be bewitched by use of natural substances and written characters, although in the other treatise he denied that demons could be so invoked. But now he goes farther and lists natural antidotes and preventives against demons as well as sorcery. Thus keeping the heart of a vulture or certain herbs in the house is said to cause demons to flee, although we have heard him deny that demons can be attracted by natural substances. Less surprising is the use of the sign of the cross, of holy water, masses, and the writing of the Tetragrammaton and other names. Interesting rites for the protection of newly married couples against witchcraft of unknown origin are suffumigations of the nuptial chamber with the gall of a certain fish, or the leaves and fruit of a bramble bush, or the pulverized tooth of a dead man.[2691]
Arnald’s works and the Inquisition again.
The Histoire Littéraire de la France, remarking that this treatise by Arnald was forbidden later by the Spanish Inquisition, adds, “No one will hold that decision against them” (On ne leur reprochera pas cette décision). But one wonders if the Inquisition also condemned the Thesaurus pauperum of Pope John XXI, which we have seen contained many of the same remedies against witchcraft. Only another proof that censors never know what is in the books that they condemn! But perhaps the medieval or papal inquisition would not have made such a slip. Certainly the Spanish Inquisition had grown very captious, if, as the Histoire Littéraire says, it also forbade Arnald’s treatise on astrological medicine and some alchemistic works ascribed to him.
Incantations.
Arnald’s attitude in the matter of incantations is as inconsistent as his position regarding the effect of natural substances on spirits. In one passage of his Breviarium[2692] he condemns the incantations employed in cases of childbirth by the old-wives of Salerno. Taking three grains of pepper, the enchantress would say over each a Lord’s prayer, substituting for the words, “Deliver us from evil,” the request, “Deliver this woman from the pangs of childbirth.” Then she would administer the grains one after another in wine or water so that they should not touch the patient’s teeth, and finally she would repeat thrice in the patient’s ear this incantation, accompanied each time by a Paternoster,
Bizomie lamion lamium azerai vachina deus deus sabaoth,
Benedictus qui venit in nomine domini, osanna in excelsis.