The crime of the witches exceeds all other. They unite in one person the heretic, the apostate, and the murderer. The “Witch-hammer” proves that they are worse than the devil himself, for he has fallen once for all, and Christ has not suffered for him. The devil sins therefore only against the Creator, but the witch both against the Creator and the Redeemer.
It is with these and similar questions that the first part of the “Witch-hammer” is occupied. The second part, describing the various kinds and effects of witchcraft and the celebration of the Witches’ Sabbath is prefaced with an account of the power of witches. They produce hail, thunder and storms whenever they wish; they fly through the air from one place to another; they can make themselves insensible on the rack; they often subdue the judge’s mind by charms, and confuse him through compassion; they deprive men and animals of reproductive power; they can see the absent, and predict coming events; they can fill, at their pleasure, human hearts with relentless hatred and passionate love; they destroy the fœtus in the womb, cause miscarriages, change themselves and others into cats and were-wolfs; nay, they are able to enchant and kill men and beasts by their very looks. Their strongest passion is to eat the flesh of children; still they eat only unchristened children: if at any time a baptized child is taken by them, it happens by special divine concession.
Their compact with the devil is of two kinds: either a solemn one entered into with all formalities, or a mere private contract. The former is concluded as follows: The witches assemble upon a day set apart by the devil. He appears in the assembly, exhorts them to faithfulness, and promises them glory, happiness and long life, and orders the older witches to introduce the novices whom he puts to the test and causes to take the oath of allegiance; whereupon he teaches them to prepare from the limbs of new-born babes witch-potions and witch-salves, and presents them with a powder, instructing them how it is to be used to the injury of men and beasts.[49] When then the novice has renewed the ceremony of allegiance on the next Witch Sabbath she is a genuine witch. The children needed for the witches’ kettles and the sabbath banquets are obtained as follows: The victims are killed by looks or by the above-mentioned powder, when they lie in their cradle or in bed with their mothers. Simple people will then believe that they have died from some natural cause,—from sickness or suffocation. Then when buried the witches steal them from the grave. It has happened that judges have opened, after similar confessions, the grave and found the child in it; but in such cases the judge must consider that the devil is a great taskmaster who may have cheated the eyes of the servants of justice, in order to protect his servants, and in such a case the confession of the witch (forced from her by torture) should prove more than the easily deluded vision of the judge. [What a triumph of supernaturalistic argumentation!]
The witch accomplishes her aerial voyages, says the “Witch-hammer,” by smearing a vessel, a broom and a rake, a broomstick and a piece of linen, with the witch-salve; then rising she moves forth through the air, visible or invisible, according to her choice. The “Witch-hammer” reminds those who doubt these air-voyages, of Matt. iv. 5, where it is related how the devil carried Jesus up through the air to the pinnacle of the temple.
We now proceed to the third part of the “Witch-hammer,” the criminal law of the witch-courts, which gives instructions how “sorcerers, witches and heretics are to be tried before spiritual as well as civil tribunals.”
In regard to preliminary forms of procedure, the “Witch-hammer” lays down first, “That the trial may commence without any previous accusation, and on the strength of a simple report that witches are found somewhere; for it is the duty of the judge in a case fraught with many dangers to the soul, not to wait for an informer or accuser, but, ex officio, to institute immediate inquiry.” When an inquisitor comes to a city or a village, he must exhort every body by means of proclamations nailed to the doors of churches and town-halls, and by threats of excommunication and punishment, to give information of all persons in any way suspected of the least connection with the practice of witchcraft, or otherwise of bad repute. The informers may be rewarded if the inquisitor thinks it well, by the blessing of the Church, and with money. A box to receive the statements of such informers as wish to be unknown should be placed in the Church.
Two or three witnesses are sufficient to prove guilt. In case so many do not present themselves, then the judge may take means to find and summon them, and force them to tell the truth under oath. He has also the right to examine witnesses previous to the actual trial. As for the qualifications necessary to appear as witnesses, the “Witch-hammer” declares that the excommunicate, accomplices, outlawed, runaway and dissolute women are irreproachable witnesses in cases where the faith is involved. A witch is allowed to testify against a witch, wife against husband, husband against wife, children against parents and so on, but if the testimonies of accomplices or relatives are to the advantage of the accused, then they are of no validity; for blood is of course thicker than water, and one raven does not willingly pick out the eyes of another.
The “Witch-hammer” allows an accused to have an advocate, but adds: “If the counsellor defends his suspected client too warmly, it is right and reasonable that he should be considered as far more criminal than the sorcerer or the witch herself; that is to say, as the protector of witches and heretics, he is more dangerous than the sorcerer. He should be looked upon with suspicion in the same degree as he makes a zealous defence.” But a trial may be difficult enough without being clogged and hampered by a cunning advocate. In order to confuse such a one and ensnare the accused, it is necessary, says the “Witch-hammer,” that a judge should remember the words of the apostle, “Being crafty I caught you with guile,” and show himself crafty. The “Witch-hammer” informs the judge of five “honest and apostolical tricks” (these are the very words of the book); one of them consists in embodying in the copy of the proceedings which is given to the defending lawyer, a number of facts that have not occurred in the trial, and in mixing the names of the witnesses. “By that means the accused and their lawyer may be so confused that they nowise know who has said any thing, or what has been said.”
Among the questions to be put to a person under accusation, the “Witch-hammer” recommends a number, the quality of which may be appreciated by reading the following examples: “Do you know that people hold you to be a witch? Why have you been observed upon the precincts of N. N.? Why have you touched N. N.’s child (or cow)? How did it happen that the child (or the cow) soon after fell sick? What was your business outside of your house when the storm broke forth? How can you explain that your cow yields three times as much milk as the cows of others?”
Sprenger’s work gives a detailed account of the treatment to which a person who is accused of sorcery and handed over to the judge must be subjected. Before the trial the accused must be put on the rack in order that his mind may be inclined to confession. Some, rather than confess their guilt, allow themselves to be torn asunder limb by limb; they are “the worst witches,” and their endurance is explained by the supposition “that the devil hardens them against their tortures.” Others who have been less faithful to him he abandons, and are thus easily induced to confess. “If no confession has been wrung from the witch during the first day”—we quote the “Witch-hammer” literally—“the torture is to be continued the second and the third day. The civil law forbids, to be sure, to repeat the torture, when no proof has been adduced, but it may be continued.”