RAPPING NO NOVELTY; AND TABLE-TURNING.
(Vol. viii., pp. 512. 632.; Vol. ix., pp. 39. 88. 135.)
"There is a curious criminal process on record, manuscript 1770, noticed by Voltaire as in the library of the King of France, which was founded upon a remarkable set of visions said to have occurred to the monks of Orleans.
"The illustrious house of St. Memin had been very liberal to the convent, and had their family vault under the church. The wife of a Lord of St. Memin, Provost of Orleans, died, and was buried. The husband, thinking that his ancestors had given more than enough to the convent, sent the monks a present, which they thought too small. They formed a plan to have her body disinterred, and to force the widower to pay a second fee for depositing it again in holy ground.
"The soul of the lady first appeared to two of the brethren, and said to them, 'I am damned, like Judas, because my husband has not given sufficient.' They hoped to extort money for the repose of her soul. But the husband said, 'If she is really damned, all the money in the world won't save her,' and gave them nothing. Perceiving their mistake, they declared she appeared again, saying she was in Purgatory, and demanding to be disinterred. But this seemed a curious request, and excited suspicion, for it was not likely that a soul in purgatory would ask to have the body removed from holy ground, neither had any in purgatory ever been known to desire to be exhumed.
"The soul after this did not try speaking any more, but haunted everybody in the convent and church. Brother Peter of Arras adopted a very awkward manner of conjuring it. He said to it, 'If thou art the soul of the late Madame de St. Memin, strike four knocks,' and the four knocks were struck. 'If thou art damned, strike six knocks,' and the six knocks were struck. 'If thou art still tormented in hell, because thy body is buried in holy ground, knock six more times,' and the six knocks were heard still more distinctly. 'If we disinter thy body, wilt thou be less damned, certify to us by five knocks,' and the soul so certified. This statement was signed by twenty-two cordeliers. The father provincial asked the same questions and received the same answers. The Lord of St. Memin prosecuted the father cordeliers. Judges were appointed. The general of the commission required that they should be burned; but the sentence only condemned them to make the 'amende honorable,' with a torch in their bosom, and to be banished."
This sentence is of the 18th of February, 1535. Vide Abbé Langlet's History of Apparitions.
From the above extract, and from what your correspondents Mr. Jardine and R. I. R. have written, it is satisfactorily shown that rapping is no novelty, having been known in England and France some centuries ago. Mr. Jardine has given us an instance in 1584, and leads us to suppose that it was the earliest on record. I now give one as early as 1534; and it would be interesting to know if the monks of Orleans were the first to have practised this imposition, and to have been banished for their deception and fraud.
William Winthrop.
Malta.
In Ammianus Marcellinus, lib. XXIX. cap. i. p. 552. of a Paris edition, 1681, two persons, Patricius and Hilarius, charged with disseminating prophecies injurious to the Emperor Valens, were brought before a court of justice, and a tripod, which they were charged with using, was also produced. Hilarius then made the following acknowledgment:
"Construximus, magnifici judices, ad cortinæ similitudinem Delphicæ, diris auspiciis, de laureis virgulis infaustam hanc mensulam quam videtis; et imprecationibus carminum secretorum, choragiisque multis ac diuturnis ritualiter consecratam movimus tandem; movendi autem, quoties super rebus arcanis consulebatur, erat institutio talis. Collocabatur in medio domûs emaculatæ odoribus Arabicis undique, lance rotunda pure superposita, ex diversis metallicis materiis fabrefacta; cujus in ambitu rotunditatis extremo elementorum viginti quatuor scriptiles formæ incisæ perite, dijungebantur spatiis examinate dimensis. Hac linteis quidam indumentis amictus, calciatusque itidem linteis soccis, torulo capiti circumflexo, verbenas felicis arboris gestans, litato conceptis carminibus numine præscitionum auctore, cærimoniali scientia perstitit; cortinulis pensilem anulum librans, sartum ex carpathio filo perquam levi, mysticis disciplinis initiatum: qui per intervalla distincta retinentibus singulis litteris incidens saltuatim, heroos efficit versus interrogationibus consonos, ad numeros et modos plene conclusos; quales leguntur Pythici, vel ex oraculis editi Branchidarum. Ibi tum quærentibus nobis, qui præsenti succedet imperio, quoniam omni parte expolitus fore memorabatur et adsiliens anulus duas perstrinxerat syllabas, ΘΕΟ cum adjectione litteræ postrema, exclamavit præsentium quidem, Theodorum præscribente fatali necessitate portendi."
In lib. XXXI. cap. ii. p. 621. of same edition, a method of prognostication by the Alami is described; but there is no mention of tables there. The historian only says: