It
has been recognized even from the very earliest times, during
the first gropings towards the essential conveniences of
social decency and social order, that witchcraft is an evil
thing, an enemy to light, an ally of the powers of darkness,
disruption, and decay. Sometimes, no doubt, primitive
communities were obliged to tolerate the witch and her works
owing to fear; in other words, witchcraft was a kind of
blackmail; but directly Cities were able to to co-ordinate,
and it became possible for Society to protect itself,
precautions were taken and safeguards were instituted against
this curse, this bane whose object seemed to blight all that
was fair, all that was just and good, and that was
well-appointed and honourable, in a word, whose aim proved to
be set up on high the red standard of revolution; to overwhelm
religion, existing order, and the comeliness of life in an
abyss of anarchy, nihilism, and despair. In his great treatise
De Ciutate Dei S. Augustine set forth the theory, or
rather the living fact, of the two Cities, the City of God,
and the opposing stronghold of all that is not for God, that
is to say, of all that is against Him.
This seems to be a
natural truth which the inspired Doctor has so eloquently
demonstrated in his mighty pages, and even before the era of
Christianity men recognized the verity, and nations who had
never heard the Divine command put into practice the
obligation of the Mosaic maxim: Thou shalt not suffer a witch
to live. (Vulgate: Maleficos non patieris uiuere. Douay:
Wizards thou shalt not suffer to live.
Exodus, xxii,
18.)
It is true that
both in the Greek and in the earlier Roman cults, worships
often directly derived from secret and sombre sources, ancient
gods, or rather demons, had their awful superstitions and
their horrid rites, powers whom men dreaded but out of very
terror placated; fanes men loathed but within whose shadowed
portals they bent and bowed the knee perforce in trembling
fear. Such deities were the Thracian Bendis, whose
manifestation was heralded by the howling of her fierce black
hounds, and Hecate the terrible “QUeen of the realm of
ghosts,” as Euripides calls her, and the vampire Mormo and
the dark Summanus who at midnight hurled loud thunderbolts and
launched the deadly levin through the starless sky. Pliny
tells us that the worship of this mysterious deity lasted
long, and dogs with their puppies were sacrificed to him with
atrocious cruelty, but S. Augustine says that in his day
“one could scarce find one within a while, that had heard,
nay more, that had read so much as the name of Summanus” (
De
Ciuitate Dei, iv, 23). Nevertheless there is only too much
reason to believe that this devil-god had his votaries,
although his liturgy was driven underground and his
supplicants were obliged to assemble in remote and secret
places. Towards the end of the fifth century, the Carthaginian
Martianus Capella boldly declares that Summanus is none other
than the lord of Hell, and he was writing, it may be
remembered, only a few years before the birth of S. Benedict;
some think that he was still alive when the Father of All
Monks was born.
Although in Greek
States the prosecution of witches was rare, in large measure
owing to the dread they inspired, yet cases were not unknown,
for Theoris, a woman of Lemnos, who is denounced by
Demosthenes, was publicly tried at Athens and burned for her
necromancy. It is perhaps not impertinent to observe that many
strange legends attached to the island of Lemnos, which is
situated in the Aegaean Sea, nearly midway between Mt. Athos
and the Hellespoint. It is one of the largest of the group,
having an area of some 147 square miles. Lemnos was sacred to
Hephaestus, who is said to have fallen here when hurled by
Zeus from Olympus. The workshops of the Smith-God in ancient
legend were supposed to be on the island, although recent
geologists deny that this area was ever volcanic, and the
fires which are spoken of as issuing from it must be
considered gaseous. Later the
officinae of Hephaestus
were placed in Sicily and the Lipari Islands, particularly
Hiera.
The worship of
Hephaestus in later days seems to have degenerated and to have
been identified with some of the secret cults of the evil
powers. This was probably due to his connexion with fire and
also to his extreme ugliness, for he was frequently
represented as a swarthy man of grim and forbidding aspect. It
should further be noted that the old Italian deity Volcanus,
with whom he was to be identified, is the god of destructive
fire - fire considered in its rage and terror, as contrasted
with fire which is a comfort to the human race, the kindly
blaze on the hearth, domestic fire, presided over by the
gracious lady Vesta. It is impossible not to think of the fall
of Lucifer when one considers the legend of Hephaestus. Our
Lord replied, when the disciples reported: Domine, etiam
daemonia subiiciuntur nobis in nomine tuo (Lord, the devils
also are subject to us in Thy Name), Uidebam Satanam sicut
fulgur de coelo cadentem (I saw Satan like lightning falling
from Heaven); and Isaias says: “Quomodo cecidisti de coelo,
Lucifer, qui mane oriebaris? Corruisti in terram qui
uulnerabas gentes?” (How art thou fallen from Heaven, O
Lucifer, who didst rise in the morning? How art thou fallen to
the earth, that didst wound the nations?) Milton also has the
following poetic allusion:
Nor was his name unheard or unador'd
In Ancient Greece; and in Ausonian land
Men called him Mulciber; and how he fell
From Heav'n, they fabl'd, thrown by angry Jove
Sheer o'er the Chrystal Battlements: from Morn
To Noon he fell, from Noon to dewy Eve,
A Summers day; and with the setting Sun
Dropt from the Zenith like a falling Star,
On Lemnos th' Ægæan Ile: thus they relate,
Erring; for he with his rebellious rout
Fell long before; nor aught avail'd him now
To have built in Heav'n high Towrs; nor did he scape
By all his Engins, but was headlong sent
With his industrious crew to build in hell.
Accordingly,
during the years 319-21 a number of laws were passed which
penalized and punished the craft of magic with the utmost
severity. A pagan diviner or haruspex could only follow his
vocation under very definite restrictions. He was not allowed
to be an intimate visitor at the house of any citizen, for
friendship with men of this kind must be avoided. “The
haruspex who frequents the houses of others shall die at the
stake,” such is the tenor of the code. It is hardly an
exaggeration to say that almost every year saw a more rigid
application of the laws; although even as to-day, when
fortune-telling and peering into the future are forbidden by
the Statute-Book, diviners and mediums abound, so then in
spite of every prohibition astrologers, clairvoyants, and
palmists had an enormous clientèle of rich and poor
alike. However, under Valens, owing to his discovery of the
damning fact that certain prominent courtiers had endeavoured
by means ot table-rapping to ascertain who should be his
successor upon the throne, in the year 367 a regular crusade,
which in its details recalls the heyday of Master Matthew
Hopkins, was instituted against the whole race of magicians,
soothsayers, mathematici, and theurgists, which perhaps was
the first general prosecution during the Christian era. Large
numbers of persons, including no doubt many innocent as well
as guilty, were put to death, and a veritable panic swept
through the Eastern world.
The early legal
codes of most European nations contain laws directed against
witchcraft. Thus, for example, the oldest document of Frankish
legislation, the Salic Law (Lex salica), which was
reduced to a written form and promulgated under Clovis, who
died 27 November, 511, mulcts (sic) those who practise magic
with various fines, especially when it could be proven that
the accused launched a deadly curse, or had tied the Witch's
Knot. This latter charm was usually a long cord tightly tied
up in elaborate loops, among whose reticulations it was
customary to insert the feathers of a black hen, a raven, or
some other bird which had, or was presumed to have, no speck
of white. This is one of the oldest instruments of witchcraft
and is known in all countries and among all nations. It was
put to various uses. The wizards of Finland, when they sold
wind in the three knots of a rope. If the first knot were
undone a gentle breeze sprang up; if the second, it blew a
mackerel gale; if the third, a hurricane. But the Witch's
Ladder, as it was often known, could be used with far more
baleful effects. The knots were tied with certain horrid
maledictions, and then the cord was hidden away in some secret
place, and unless it were found and the strands released the
person at whom the curse was directed would pine and die. This
charm continually occurs during the trials. Thus in the
celebrated Island-Magee case, March 1711, when a coven of
witches was discovered, it was remarked that an apron
belonging to Mary Dunbar, a visitor at the house of the
afflicted persons, had been abstracted. Miss Dunbar was
suddenly seized with fits and convulsions, and sickened almost
to death. After most diligent search the missing garment was
found carefully hidden away and covered over, and a curious
string which had nine knots in it had been so tied up with the
folds of the linen that it was beyond anything difficult to
separate them and loosen the ligatures. In 1886 in the old
belfry of a village church in England there were accidentally
discovered, pushed away in a dark corner, several yards of
incle braided with elaborate care and having a number of black
feathers thrust through the strands. It is said that for a
long while considerable wonder was caused as to what it might
be, but when it was exhibited and became known, one of the
local grandmothers recognized it was a Witch's Ladder, and,
what is extremely significant, when it was engraved in the Folk
Lore Journal an old Italian woman to whom the picture was
shown immediately identified it as la ghirlanda delle
streghe.
The laws of the
Visigoths, which were to some extent founded upon the Roman
law, punished witches who had killed any person by their
spells with death; whilst long-continued and obstinate
witchcraft, if fully proven, was visited with such severe
sentences as slavery for life. In 578, when a son of Queen
Fredegonde died, a number of witches who were accused of
having contrived the destruction of the Prince were executed.
It has been said in these matters that the ecclesiastical law
was tolerant, since for the most part it contented itself with
a sentence of excommunication. But those who consider this
spiritual outlawry lenient certainly do not appreciate what
such a doom entailed. Moreover, after a man had been condemned
to death by the civil courts it would have been somewhat
superfluous to have repeated the same sentence, and beyond the
exercise of her spiritual weapons, what else was there left
for the Church to do?
In 814, Louis le
Pieux upon his accession to the throne began to take very
active measures against all sorcerers and necromancers, and it
was owing to his influence and authority that the Council of
Paris in 829 appealed to the secular courts to carry out any
such sentences as the Bishops might pronounce. The consequence
was that from this time forward the penalty of witchcraft was
death, and there is evidence that if the constituted
authority, either ecclesiastical or civil, seemed to slacken
in their efforts the populace took the law into their own
hands with far more fearful results.
In England the
early Penitentials are greatly concerned with the repression
of pagan ceremonies, which under the cover of Christian
festivities were very largely practised at Christmas and on
New Year's Day. These rites were closely connected with
witchcraft, and especially do S. Theodore, S. Aldhelm,
Ecgberht of York, and other prelates prohibit the masquerade
as a horned animal, a stag, or a bull, which S. Caesarius of
Arles had denounced as a “foul tradition,” an “evil
custom,” a “most heinous abomination.” These and even
stronger expressions would not be used unless some very dark
and guilty secrets had been concealed beneath this mumming,
which, however foolish, might perhaps have been thought to be
nothing worse, so that to be so roundly denounced as devilish
and demoniacal they must certainly have had some very grim
signification which did not appear upon the surface. The laws
of King Athelstan (924-40), corresponsive with the early
French laws, punished any person casting a spell which
resulted in death by extracting the extreme penalty. During
the eleventh and twelfth centuries there are few cases of
witchcraft in England, and such accusations as were made
appeared to have been brought before the ecclesiastical court.
It may be remarked, however, that among the laws attributed to
King Kenneth I of Scotland, who ruled from 844 to 860, and
under whom the Scots of Dalriada and the Pictish peoples may
be said to have been united in one kingdom, is an important
statute which enacts that all sorcerers and witches, and such
as invoke spirits, “and use to seek upon them for helpe, let
them be burned to death.” Even then this was obviously no
new penalty, but the statutory confirmation of a
long-established punishment. So the witches of Forres who
attempted the life of King Duffus in the year 968 by the old
bane of slowly melting a wax image, when discovered, were
according to the law burned at the stake.
The conversion of
Germany to Christianity was late and very slow, for as late as
the eighth century, in spite of the heroic efforts of S.
Columbanus, S. Fridolin, S. Gall, S. Rupert, S. Willibrod, the
great S. Boniface, and many others, in spite of the headway
that had been made, various districts were always relapsing
into a primitive and savage heathenism. For example, it is
probably true to say that the Prussian tribles were not stable
in their conversion until the beginning of the thirteenth
century, when Bishop Albrecht reclaimed the people by a
crusade. However, throughout the eleventh and the twelfth
centuries there are continual instances of persons who had
practised witchcraft being put to death, and the Emperor
Frederick II, in spite of the fact that he was continually
quarrelling with the Papacy and utterly indifferent to any
religious obligation - indeed it has been said that he was
“a Christian ruler only in name,” and “throughout his
reign he remained virtually a Moslem free-thinker” -
declared that a law which he had enacted for Lombardy should
have force throughout the whole of his dominions.
“Henceforth,” Vacandard remarks, “all uncertainty was at
an end. The legal punishment for heresy throughout the empire
was death at the stake.” It must be borne in mind that
witchcraft and heresy were almost inextricably commingled. It
is quite plain that such a man as Frederick, whose whole
philosophy was entirely Oriental; who was always accompanied
by a retinue of Arabian ministers, courtiers, and officers;
who was perhaps not without reason suspected of being a
complete agnostic, recked little whether heresy and witchcraft
might be offences against the Church or not, but he was
sufficiently shrewd to see that they gravely threatened the
well-being of the State, imperilling the maintenance of
civilization and the foundations of society.
This brief summary
of early laws and ancient ordinances has been given in order
to show that the punishment of witchcraft certainly did not
originate in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and most
assuredly was not primarily the concern of the Inquisition. In
fact, curiously enough, Bernard Gui, the famous Inquisitor of
Toulouse, laid down in his Practica Inquisitionis that
sorcery itself did not fall within the cognizance of the Holy
Office, and in every case, unless there were other
circumstances of which his tribunal was bound to take notice
when witches came before him, he simply passed them on to the
episcopal courts.
It may be well here
very briefly to consider the somewhat complicated history of
the establishment of the Inquisition, which was, it must be
remembered, the result of the tendencies and growth of many
years, by no mens a judicial curia with cut-and-dried laws and
a compete procedure suddenly called into being by one stroke
of a Papal pen. In the first place, S. Dominic was in no sense
the founder of the Inquisition. Certainly during the crusade
in Languedoc he was present, reviving religion and reconciling
the lapsed, but he was doing no more than S. Paul or any of
the Apostles would have done. The work of S. Dominic was
preaching and the organization of his new Order, which
received Papal confirmation from Honorius III, and was
approved in the Bull Religiosam uitam, 22 December,
1216. S. Dominic died 6 August, 1221, and even if we take the
word in a very broad sense, the first Dominican Inquisitor
seems to have been Alberic, who in November, 1232, was
travelling through Lombardy with the official title of
“Inquisitor hereticae prauitatis.” The whole question of
the episcopal Inquisitors, who were really the local bishop,
his archdeacons, and his diocesan court, and their exact
relationship with the travelling Inquisitors, who were mainly
drawn from the two Orders of friars, the Franciscan and the
Dominican, is extremely nice and complicated; whilst the
gradual effacement of the episcopal courts with regard to
certain matters and the consequent prominence of the Holy
Office were circumstances and conditions which realized
themselves slowly enough in all countries, and almost
imperceptibly in some districts, as necessity required,
without any sudden break or sweeping changes. In fact we find
that the Franciscan or Dominican Inquisitor simply sat as an
assessor in the episcopal court so that he could be consulted
upon certain technicalities and deliver sentence conjointly
with the Bishop if these matters were involved. Thus at the
trial of Gilles de Rais in October, 1440, at Nantes, the
Bishop of Nantes presided over the court with the bishops of
Le Mans, Saint-Brieuc, and Saint-Lo as his coadjutors, whilst
Pierre de l’Hospital, Chencellor of Brittany, watched the
case on behalf of the civil authorities, and Frère Jean
Blouin was present as the delegate of the Holy Inquisition for
the city and district of Nantes. Owing to the multiplicity of
the crimes, which were proven and clearly confessed in
accordance with legal requirements, it was necessary to
pronounce two sentences. The first sentence was passed by the
Bishop of Nantes conjointly with the Inquisitor. By them
Gilles de Rais was declared guilty of Satanism, sorcery, and
apostasy, and there and then handed over to the civil arm to
receive the punishment due to such offences. The second
sentence, pronounced by the Bishop alone, declared the
prisoner convicted of sodomy, sacrilege, and violation of
ecclesiastical rights. The ban of excommunication was lifted
since the accused had made a clean breast of his crimes and
desired to be reconciled, but he was handed over to the
secular court, who sentenced him to death, on multiplied
charges of murder as well as on account of the aforesaid
offences.
It must be
continually borne in mind also, and this is a fact which is
very often slurred over and forgotten, that the heresies of
the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, to cope with which the
tribunal of the Inquisition was primarily organized and
regularized, were by no means mere theoretical speculations,
which, however erroneous and dangerous in the fields of
thought, practically and in action would have been arid and
utterly unfruitful. To-day the word “heresy” seems to be
as obsolete and as redolent of a Wardour-street vocabulary as
if one were to talk of a game of cards at Crimp or Incertain,
and to any save a dusty mediaevalist it would appear to be an
antiquarian term. It was far other in the twelfth century; the
wild fanatics who fostered the most subversive and abominable
ideas aimed to put these into actual practice, to establish
communities and to remodel whole territories according to the
programme which they had so carefully considered in every
detail with a view to obtaining and enforcing their own ends
and their own interests. The heretics were just as resolute
and just as practical, that is to say, just as determined to
bring about the domination of their absolutism as is any
revolutionary of to-day. The aim and objects of their leaders,
Tanchelin, Everwacher, the Jew Manasses, Peter Waldo, Pierre
Autier, Peter of Bruys, Arnold of Brescia, and the rest, were
exactly those of Lenin, Trotsky, Zinoviev, and their fellows.
There were, of course, minor differences and divergences in
their tenets, that is to say, some had sufficient cunning to
conceal and even to deny the extremer views which other were
bold enough or mad enough more openly to proclaim. But just
below the trappings, a little way beneath the surface, their
motives, their methods, their intentions, the goal to which
they pressed, were all the same. Their objects may be summed
up as the abolition of monarchy, the abolition of private
property and of inheritance, the abolition of marriage, the
abolition of order, the total abolition of all religion. It
was against this that the Inquisition had to fight, and who
can be surprised if, when faced with so vast a conspiracy, the
methods employed by the Holy Office may not seem - if the
terrible conditions are conveniently forgotten - a little
drastic, a little severe? There can be no doubt that had this
most excellent tribunal continued to enjoy its full
prerogative and the full exercise of its salutary powers, the
world at large would be in a far happier and far more orderly
position to-day. Historians may point out diversities and
dissimilarities between the teaching of the Waldenses, the
Albigenses, the Henricans, the Poor Men of Lyons, the Cathari,
the Vaudois, the Bogomiles, and the Manichees, but they were
in reality branches and variants of the same dark fraternity,
just as the Third International, the Anarchists, the
Nihilists, and the Bolsheviks are in every sense, save the
mere label, entirely identical.
In fact heresy
was one huge revolutionary body, exploiting its forces through
a hundred different channels and having as its object chaos
and corruption. The question may be asked - What was their
ultimate aim in wishing to destroy civilization? What did they
hope to gain by it? Precisely the same queries have been put
and are put to-day with regard to these political parties.
There is an apparent absence of motive in this seemingly
aimless campaign of destruction to extermination carried on by
the Bolsheviks in Russia, which has led many people to inquire
what the objective can possibly be. So unbridled are the
passions, so general the demolition, so terrible the havoc,
that hard-headed individuals argue that so complete a chaos
and such revolting outrages could only be affected by persons
who were enthusiasts in their own cause and who had some very
definite aims thus positively to pursue. The energizing forces
of this fanaticism, this fervent zeal, do not seem to be any
more apparent than the end, hence more than one person has
hesitated to accept accounts so alarming of massacres and
carnage, or wholesale imprisonments, tortures, and
persecutions, and has begun to suspect that the situation may
be grossly exaggerated in the overcharged reports of enemies
and the highly-coloured gossip of scare-mongers. Nay, more,
partisans have visited the country and returned with glowing
tales of a new Utopia. It cannot be denied that all this is a
very clever game. It is generally accepted that from very
policy neither an individual nor a junto or confederacy will
act even occasionally, much less continually and consistently,
in a most bloody and tyrannical way, without some very
well-arranged programme is being thus carried out and
determinate aim ensued, conditions and object which in the
present case it seems extremely difficult to guess at and
divine unless we are to attribute the revolution to causes the
modern mind is apt to dismiss with impatience and intolerance.
Nearly a century
and a half ago Anacharsis Clootz, “the personal enemy of
Jesus Christ” as he openly declared himself, was
vociferating “God is Evil,” “To me then Lucifer, Satan!
whoever you may be, the demon that the faith of my fathers
opposed to God and the Church.” This is the credo of the
witch.
Although it may not
be generally recognized, upon a close investigation it seems
plain that the witches were a vast political movement, an
organized society which was anti-social and anarchichal, a
world-wide plot against civilization. Naturally, although the
Masters were often individuals of high rank and deep learning,
that rank and file of the society, that is to say, those who
for the most part fell into the hands of justice, were
recruited from the least educated classes, the ignorant and
the poor. As one might suppose, many of the branches or covens
in remoter districts knew nothing and perhaps could have
understood nothing of the enormous system. Nevertheless, as
small cogs in a very small wheel, it might be, they were
carrying on the work and actively helping to spread the
infection. It is an extremely significant fact that the last
regularly official trial and execution for witchcraft in
Western Europe was that of Anna Goeldi, who was hanged at
Glaris in Switzerland, 17 June, 1782. Seven years before, in
1775, the villian Adam Weishaupt, who has been truly described
by Louis Blac as “the profoundest conspirator that has ever
existed,” formed his “terrible and formidable sect,” the
Illuminati. The code of this mysterious movement lays down:
“it is also necessary to gain the common people (das gemeine
Volk) to our Order. The great means to that end is influence
in the schools.” This is exactly the method of the
organizations of witches, and again and again do writers
lament and bewail the endless activities of this sect amongst
the young people and even the children of the district. So in
the prosecutions at Würzburg we find that there were
condemned boys of ten and eleven, two choir boys aged twelve,
“a boy of twelve years old in one of the lower forms of the
school,” “the two young sons of the Prince's cook, the
eldest fourteen, the younger twelve years old,” several
pages and seminarists, as well as a number of young girls,
amongst whom “a child of nine or ten years old and her
little sister” were involved.
The political
operations of the witches in many lands were at their trials
exposed time after time, and these activities are often
discernible even when they did not so publicly and prominently
come to light. A very few cases, to which we must make but
brief and inadequate reference, will stand for many. In
England in the year 1324 no less than twenty-seven defendants
were tried at the King's Bench for plotting against and
endeavouring to kill Edward II, together with many prominent
courtiers and officials, by the practice of magical arts. A
number of wealthy citizens of Coventry had hired a famous “nigromauncer,”
John of Nottingham, to slay not only the King, but also the
royal favourite, Hugh le Despenser, and his father; the Prior
of Coventry; the monastic steward; the manciple; and a number
of other important personages. A secluded old manor-house,
some two or three miles out of Coventry, was put at the
disposal of Master John, and there he and his servant, Robert
Marshall, promptly commenced business. They went to work in
the bad old-fashioned way of modelling wax dolls or mommets of
those whom they wished to destroy. Long pins were thrust
through the figures, and they were slowly melted before a
fire. The first unfortunate upon whom this experiment was
tried, Richard de Sowe, a prominent courtier and close friend
of the King, was suddenly taken with agonizing pains, and when
Marshall visited the house, as if casually, in order that he
might report the results of this sympathetic sorcery to the
wizard, he found their hapless victim in a high delirium. When
this state of things was promptly conveyed to him, Master John
struck a pin through the heart of the image, and in the
morning the news reached them that de Sowe had breathed his
last. Marshall, who was by now in an extremity of terror,
betook himself to a justice and laid bare all that was
happening and had happened, with the immediate result that
Master John and the gang of conspirators were arrested. It
must be remembered that in 1324 the final rebellion against
King Edward II had openly broken forth on all sides. A truce
of thirteen years had been arranged with Scotland, and though
the English might refuse Bruce his royal title he was
henceforward the warrior king of an independent country. It is
true that in May, 1322, the York Parliament had not only
reversed the exile of the Despensers, declaring the pardons
which had been granted their opponents null and void, as well
as voting for the repeal of the Ordinances of 1311, and the
Despensers were working for, and fully alive to the necessity
of, good and stable government, but none the less the
situation was something more than perilous; the Exchequer was
well-nigh drained; there was rioting and bloodshed in almost
every large town; and worst of all, in 1323 the younger Roger
Mortimer had escaped from the Tower and got away safely to the
Continent. There were French troubles to boot; Charles IV, who
in 1322 had succeeded to the throne, would accept no excuse
from Edward for any postponement of homage, and in this very
year, 1324, declaring the English possessions forfeited, he
proceeded to occupy the territory with an army, when it soon
became part of the French dominion. There can be not doubt
that the citizens of Coventry were political intriguers, and
since they were at the moment unable openly to rebel against
their sovran lord, taking advantage of the fact that he was
harassed and pressed at so critical a juncture, they proceeded
against him by the dark and tortuous ways of black magic.
Very many similar
conspiracies in which sorcery was mixed up with treasonable
practices and attempts might be cited, but only a few of the
most important must be mentioned. Rather more than a century
later than the reign of Edward II, in 1441, one of the
greatest and most influential ladies in all England, “the
Duchesse of Gloucestre, was arrested and put to holt, for she
was suspecte of treson.” This, of course, was purely a
political case, and the wife of Duke Humphrey had
unfortunately by her indiscretion and something worse given
her husband's enemies an opportunity to attack him by her
ruin. An astrologer, attached to the Duke's household, when
taken and charged with “werchyrye of sorcery against the
King,” confessed that he had often cast the horoscope of the
Duchess to find out if her husband would ever wear the English
crown, the way to which they had attempted to smooth by making
a wax image of Henry VI and melting it before a magic fire to
bring about the King's decease. A whole crowd of witches, male
and female, were involved in the case, and among these was
Margery Jourdemain, a known a notorious invoker of demons and
an old trafficker in evil charms. Eleanor Cobham was
incontinently brought before a court presided over by three
Bishops, London, Lincoln, and Norwich. She was found guilty
both of high treason and sorcery, and after having been
compelled to do public penance in the streets of London, she
was imprisoned for life, according to the more authoritative
account at Peel Castle in the Isle of Man. Her accomplices
were executed at London.
In the days of
Edward IV it was commonly gossiped that the Duchess of Bedford
was a witch, who by her spells had fascinated the King with
the beauty of her daughter Elizabeth, whom he made his bride,
in spite of the fact that he had plighted his troth to Eleanor
Butler, the heiress of the Earl of Shrewsbury. So open did the
scandal become that the Duchess of Bedford lodged an official
complaint with the Privy Council, and an inquiry was ordered,
but, as might have been suscepted, this completely cleared the
lady. Nevertheless, five years later the charges were renewed
by the Lord Protector, the Duke of Gloucester. Nor was this
the first time in English history that some fair dame was said
to have fascinated a monarch, not only by her beauty but also
by unlawful means. When the so-called “Good Parliament”
was convened in April, 1376, their first business seemed to be
to attack the royal favourite, Alice Perrers, and amongst the
multiplicity of charges which they brought against her, not
the least deadly was the accusation of witchcraft. Her
ascendancy over the King was attributed to the enchantments
and experiments of a Dominican friar, learned in many a
cantrip and cabala, whom she entertained in her house, and who
had fashioned two pictures of Edward and Alive which, when
suffumigated with the incense of mysterious herbs and gums,
mandrakes, sweet calamus, caryophylleae, storax, benzoin, and
other plants plucked beneath the full moon what time Venus was
in ascendant, caused the old King to dote upon this lovely
concubine. With great difficulty by a subtle ruse the friar
was arrested, and he thought himself lucky to escape with
relegation to a remote house under the strictest observance of
his Order, whence, however, he was soon to be recalled with
honour and reward, since the Good Parliament shortly came to
an end, and Alice Perrers, who now stood higher in favour than
ever, was not slow to heap lavish gifts upon her supporters,
and to visit her enemies with condign punishment.
It is often
forgotten that in the troublous days of Henry VIII the whole
country swarmed with astrologers and sorcerers, to whom high
and low alike made constant resort. The King himself, a prey
to the idlest superstitions, ever lent a credulous ear to the
most foolish prophecies and old wives' abracadabra. When, as
so speedily happened, he wearied of Anne Boleyn, he openly
gave it as his opinion that he had “made this marriage
seduced by witchcraft; and that this was evident because God
did not permit them to have any male issue.”
There was nobody
more thoroughly scared of witchcraft than Henry's daughter,
Elizabeth, and as John Jewel was preaching his famous sermon
before her in February, 1560, he described at length how
“this kind of people (I mean witches and sorcerers) within
these few last years are marvellously increased within this
Your Grace's realm;” he then related how owing to dark
spells he had known many “pine away even to death.” “I
pray God,” he unctuously cried, “they may never practise
further than upon the subjects!” This was certainly enough
to ensure that drastic laws should be passed particularly to
protect the Queen, who was probably both thrilled and
complimented to think that her life was in danger. It is
exceedingly doubtful, whether there was any conspiracy at all
which would have attempted Elizabeth's personal safety. There
were, of course, during the imprisonment of the Queen of
Scots, designs to liberate this unfortunate Princess, and
Walsingham with his fellows used to tickle the vanity of
Gloriana be regaling her with melodramatic accounts of dark
schemes and secret machinations which they had, with a very
shrewd knowledge of stagecraft, for the most part themselves
arranged and contrived, so we may regard the Act of 1581, 23
Eliz., Cap. II, as mere finesse and chicane. That there were
witches in England is very certain, but there seems no
evidence at all that there were attempts upon the life of
Elizabeth. None the less the point is important, since it
shows that in men's minds sorcery was inexplicably mixed up
with politics. The statute runs as follows: “That if any
person . . . during the life of our said Sovereign Lady the
Queen's Majesty that now is, either within her Highness'
dominions or without, shall be setting or erecting any figure
or by casting of nativities or by calculation or by any
prophesying, witchcraft, conjurations, or other like unlawful
means whatsoever, seek to know, and shall set forth by express
words, deeds, or writings, how long her Majesty shall live, or
who shall reign a king or queen of this realm of England after
her Highness' decease . . . that then every such offence shall
be felony, and every offender therein, and also all his aiders
(etc.), shall be judged as felons and shall suffer pain of
death and forfeit as in case of felony is used, without any
benefit of clergy or sanctuary.”
The famous
Scotch witch trial or 1590, when it was proved that upon 31
October in the preceding year, All Hallow E'en, a gang of more
than two hundred persons had assembled for their rites at the
old haunted church of North Berwick, where they consulted with
their Master, “the Devil,” how they might most
efficaciously kill King James, is too well known to require
more than a passing mention, but it may be remembered that
Agnes Sampson confessed that she had endeavoured to poison the
King in various ways, and that she was also avowed that she
had fashioned a wax mommet, saying with certain horrid
maledictions as she wrought the work: “This is King James
the sext, ordinit to be consumed at the instance of a noble
man Francis Erle of Bodowell.” The contriver of this
far-reaching conspiracy was indeed none other than Francis
Stewart, Earl of Bothwell, who, as common knowledge bruited,
almost overtly aspired to the throne and was perfectly
reckless how he compassed his ends. It was he, no doubt, who
figured as “the Devil” at the meeting in the deserted and
ill-omened kirkyard. In fact this is almost conclusively shown
by a statement of Barbara Napier when she was interrogated
with regard to their objects in the attempted murder of the
King. She gave as her reason “that another might have ruled
in his Majesty's place, and the Government might have gone to
the Devil.” That is to say, to Francis Bothwell. The birth
of Prince Henry at Stirling, 19 February, 1594, and further of
Prince Charles at Dunfermline, 19 November, 1600, must have
dashed all Bothwell's hopes to the ground. Moreover, the vast
organization of revolutionaries and witches had been
completely broken up, and accordingly there was nothing left
for him to do but to seek safety in some distant land. There
is an extremely significant reference to him in Sandys, who,
speaking of Calabria in the year 1610, writes: “Here a
certaine Calabrian hearing that I was an English
man, came to me, and would needs persuade me that I had
insight in magicke: for the Earl Bothel was my
countryman, who liues at Naples, and is in these parts
famous for suspected negromancie.”
In French history
even more notorious than the case of the Berwick witches were
the shocking scandals involving both poisoning and witchcraft
that came to light and were being investigated in 1679-82. At
least two hundred and fifty persons, of whom many were the
representatives and scions of the highest houses in the land,
were deeply implicated in these abominations, and it is no
matter for surprise that a vast number of the reports and
several entire dossiers and registers have completely
disappeared. The central figures were the Abbé Guibourg and
Catherine Deshayes, more generally known as La Voisin, whose
house in the Rue Beauregard was for years the rendezvous of a
host of inquirers drawn from all classes of societym from
palaces and prisons, from the lowest slums of the vilest
underworld. That it was a huge and far-reaching political
conspiracy is patent form the fact that the lives of Louis
XIV, the Queen, the Dauphin, Louise de la Vallière, and the
Duchesse de Fontanges had been attempted secretly again and
again, whilst as for Colbert, scores of his enemies were
constantly entreating for some swift sure poison, constantly
participating in unhallowed rites which might lay low the
all-powerful Minister. It soon came to light that Madame de
Montespan and the Comtesse de Soisson (Olympe Mancini) were
both deeply implicated, whilst the Comtesse de Rouse and
Madame de Polignac in particular, coveting a lodging in the
bed royal, had persistently sought to bring about the death of
Louise de la Vallière. It is curious indeed to recognize the
author of The Rehearsal in this train, but there flits
in and out among the witches and anarchists a figure who can
almost certainly be identified with George Villiers, Duke of
Buckingham. Yet this is the less surprising when we remember
how very nearly he stirred up a mutiny, if not an
insurrection, against the King who had so particularly
favoured and honoured him, but who, in the words of a
contemporary, “knew him to be capable of the blackest
designs.” Of Buckingham it has been written without
exaggeration: “As to his personal character it is impossible
to say anything in its vindication; for though his severest
enemies acknowledge him to have possessed great vivacity and a
quickness of parts peculiarly adapted to the purposes of
ridicule, yet his warmest advocates have never attributed to
him a single virtue. His generosity was profuseness, his wit
malevolence, the gratification of his passions his sole aim
through life.” When we consider the alliance of Buckingham
with the infamous Shaftesbury, we need hardly wonder that
whilst in Paris he frequented the haunts of this terrible
society, and was present at, nay, even participated in the
Satanic mass and other of their horrible mysteries. At the
house of La Voisin necromancy was continually practised,
poisons were brewed, the liturgy of hell was celebrated, and
it was undoubtedly the hub of every crime and ever infamy.
Other instances, and not a few, might be quoted from French
history to show how intimately politics were connected with
witchcraft. Here Madame de Montespan, aiming at the French
throne, an ambition which involved the death of the Queen,
Maria Theresa of Austria, at once resorts to black magic, and
attempts to effect her purpose by aid of those who were
infamous as past adepts in this horrid craft.
Even in the Papal
States themselves such abominations were not unknown, and in
1633 Rome was alarmed and confounded by an attempt upon the
life of Urban VIII. It seems that some charlatan had announced
to Giacinto Centini, nephew of the Cardinal d’Ascoli, that
his uncle would succeed the reigning Pontiff in the Chair of
S. Peter. The rash and foolish young man promptly attempted to
hasten the event, and did not hesitate to resort to certain
professors of occult arts to inquire when the next conclave
would take place. He was so incredibly foolish that, far from
attempting any subterfuge or disguise, he seems to have
resorted to the houses of astrologers and other persons, who
were already suspected of necromancy in the most open way, and
further to have boasted among his intimates of the high
honours which he expected his family would shortly enjoy. He
first applied to one Fra Pietro, a Sicilian, who belonged to
the Order of Augustinian Eremites. This occultist told him
that the Cardinal d’Ascoli would be elected at the next
conclave, but that the present Pope had many years to live.
Upon seeing the young man's bitter disappointment the cunning
mage whispered that it was in his power to bring about the
event much sooner than it would happen in the ordinary course
of affairs. Needless to say, the proposition was taken up with
alacrity, but it was necessary to employ the services of two
other diviners, and they accordingly selected for the task Fra
Cherubino of Ancona, a Franciscan, and Fra Domenico of the
Eremite monastery of S. Agostino at Fermo. The friars then
deligently set to work to carry out their murderous projects.
A number of ceremonies and incantations were performed which
entailed considerable expense, and for which it was needful to
procure exotic herbs and drugs and rare instruments of goetry
that could not readily be had without attracting considerable
curiosity. It appeared, however, as if all their charms and
spells, their demoniac eucharists and litanies, were quite
ineffective, since Urban at sixty-five years of age remained
perfectly hale and hearty and was indeed extraordinarily
active in his pontificate. Young Centini became manifestly
impatient and spurred the wizards on to greater efforts. It
really seems as if, vexed beyond measure and goaded to
exasperation by his importunities, they flung all caution to
the winds, whilst he himself proclaimed so magnificently what
he would do for his friends in a few weeks or months after he
had assumed the authority of Papal nephew, that it was hardly
a matter of surprise when the Holy Office suddenly descended
upon the four accomplices and brought them to the bar. Amongst
the many charges which were put forward was one of causing
“a statue of wax to be made of Urban VIII, in order that its
dissolution might ensure that of the Pope.” This in itself
would have been sufficiently damning, but there were many
other criminal accounts all tending to the same end, all
proven up to the hilt. The result was that Centini, Fra Pietro,
and Fra Cherubino were executed in the Campo di Fiore, on
Sunday, 22 April, 1634, whilst Fra Domenico, who was less
desperately involved, was relegated for life to the galleys.
These few instances
I have dwelt upon in detail and at some length in order to
show how constantly and continually in various countries and
at various times witchcraft and magical practices were mixed
up with political plots and anarchical agitation. There can be
no doubt - and this is a fact which is so often not recognized
(or it may be forgotten) that one cannot emphasize it too
frequently - that witchcraft in its myriad aspects and myriad
ramifications is a huge conspiracy against civilization. It
was as such that the Inquisitors knew it, and it was this
which gave rise to the extensive literature on the subject,
those treatises of which the Malleus Maleficarum is
perhaps the best known among the other writers. As early as
600 S. Gregory I had spoken in severest terms, enjoining the
punishment of sorcerers and those who trafficked in black
magic. It will be noted that he speaks of them as more often
belonging to that class termed serui, that is to say,
the very people from whom for the most part Nihilists and
Bolsheviks have sprung in modern days. Writing to Januarius,
Biship of Cagliari, the Pope says: “Contra idolorum cultores,
uel aruspices atque sortilegos, fraternitatem uestram
uehementius pastorali hortamur inuigilare custodia . . . et si
quidem serui sunt, uerberibus cruciatibusque, quibus ad
emendationem peruenire ualeant, castigare si uero sunt liberi,
inclusione digna districtaque sunt in poenitentiam redigendi.
. . .” But the first Papal ordinance directly dealing with
witchcraft may not unfairly be said to be the Bull addressed
in 1233 by Pope Gregory IX (Ugolino, Count of Segni) to the
famous Conrad of Marburg, bidding him proceed against the
Luciferians, who were overtly given over to Satanism. If this
ardent Dominican must not strictly be considered as having
introduced the Inquisition to Germany, he at any rate enjoyed
Inquisitorial methods. Generally, perhaps, he is best known as
the stern and unbending spiritual director of that gentle soul
S. Elizabeth of Hungary. Conrad of Marburg is certainly a type
of the strictest and most austere judge, but it should be
remembered that he spared himself no more than he spared
others, that he was swayed by no fear of persons of danger of
death, that even if he were inflexible and perhaps fanatical,
the terrible situation with which he had to deal demanded such
a man, and he was throughout supported by the supreme
authority of Gregory IX. That he was harsh and unlovable is,
perhaps, true enough, but it is more than doubtful whether a
man of gentler disposition could have faced the difficulties
that presented themselves on every side. Even his most
prejudiced critics have never denied the singleness of his
convictions and his courage. He was murdered on the highway,
30 July, 1233, in the pursuit of his duties, but it has been
well said that “it is, perhaps, significant that the Church
has never set the seal of canonization upon his martyrdom.”
On 13, December,
1258, Pope Alexander IV (Rinaldo Conti) issued a Bull to the
Franciscan Inquisitors bidding them refrain from judging any
cases of witchcraft unless there was some very strong reason
to suppose that heretical practice could also be amply proved.
On 10 January, 1260, the same Pontiff addressed a similar Bull
to the Dominicans. But it is clear that by now the two things
could not be disentangled.
The Bull Dudum
ad audientiam nostram peruenit of Boniface VIII (Benedetto
Gaetani) deals with the charges against Walter Langton, Bishop
of Conventry and Lichfield, but it may be classed as
individual rather than general.
Several Bulls were
published by John XXII (Jacques d’Euse) and by Benedict XII
(Jacques Fournier, O. Cist), both Avignon Popes, and these
weighty documents deal with witchcraft in the fullest detail,
anathematizing all such abominations. Gregory XI (Pierre Roger
de Beaufort); Alexander V (Petros Filartis, a Cretan), who
ruled but eleven months, from June 1409 to May 1410; and
Martin V (Ottone Colonna); each put forth one Bull on the
subject. To Eugenius IV (Gabriello Condulmaro) we owe four
Bulls which fulminate against sorcery and black magic. The
first of these, 24 February, 1434, is addressed from Florence
to the Franciscan Inquisitor, Pontius Fougeyron. On 1 August,
1451, the Dominican Inquisitor Hugo Niger received a Bull from
Nicholas V (Tomaso Parentucelli). Callistus III (Alfonso de
Borja) and Pius II (Enea Silvio de’ Piccolomini) each issued
one Bull denouncing the necromantic crew.
On 9 August, 1471,
the Franciscan friar, Francesco della Rovere, ascended the
throne of Peter as Sixtus IV. His Pontificate has been
severely criticized by those who forget that the Pope was a
temporal Prince and in justice bound to defend his territory
against the continual aggression of the Italian despots. His
private life was blameless, and the stories which were
circulated by such writers as Stefano Infessura in his Diarium
are entirely without foundation. Sixtus was an eminent
theologian, he is the author of an admirable treatise on the
Immaculate Conception, and it is significant that he took
strong measures to curb the judicial severities of Tomàs de
Torquemada, whom he had appointed Grand Inquisitor of Castile,
11 February, 1482. During his reign he published three Bulls
directly attacking sorcery, which he clearly identified with
heresy, an opinion of the deepest weight when pronounced by
one who had so penetrating a knowledge of the political
currents of the day. There can be no doubt that he saw the
society of witches to be nothing else than a vast
international of anti-social revolutionaries. The first Bull
is dated 17 June, 1473; the second 1 April. 1478; and the last
21 October, 1483.
It has been
necessarily thus briefly to review this important series of
Papal documents to show that the famous Bull Summis
desiderantes affectibus, 9 December, 1484, which Innocent
VIII addressed to the authors of the Malleus Maleficarum,
is no isolated and extraordinary document, but merely one in
the long and important record of Papal utterances. although at
the same time it is of the greatest importance and supremely
authoritative. It has, however, been very frequently asserted,
not only be prejudiced and unscrupulous chroniclers, but also
by scholars of standing and repute, that this Bull of Innocent
VIII, if not, as many appear to suppose, actually the prime
cause and origin of the crusade against witches, at any rate
gave the prosecution and energizing power and an authority
which hitherto they had not, and which save for this Bull they
could not ever have, commanded and possessed.
It will not be
impertinent then here very briefly to inquire what authority
Papal Bulls may be considered to enjoy in general, and what
weight was, and is, carried by this particular document of 9
December, 1484.
To enter into a
history of Bulls and Briefs would require a long and elaborate
monograph, so we must be content to remind ourselves that the
term bulla, which in classical Latin meant a
water-bubble, a bubble then came to mean a boss of metal, such
as the knob upon a door. (By transference it also implied a
certain kind of amulet, generally made of gold, which was worn
upon the neck, especially by noble youths). Hence in course of
time the word bulla indicated the leaden seals by which
Papal (and even royal) documents were authenticated, and by an
easy transition we recognize that towards the end of the
twelfth century a Bull is the document itself. Naturally very
many kinds of edicts are issued from the Cancellaria, but a
Bull is an instrument of especial weight and importance, and
it differs both in form and detail from constitutions,
encyclicals, briefs, decrees, privileges, and rescripts. It
should be remarked, however, that the term Bull has
conveniently been used to denote all these, especially if they
are Papal letters of any early date. By the fifteenth century
clearer distinctions were insisted upon and maintained.
A Bull was written
in Latin and as late as the death of Pope Pius IX, 1878, the scrittura
bollatica, an archaic and difficult type of Gothic
characters much contracted and wholly unpunctuated was
employed. This proved often well-nigh indecipherable to those
who were not trained to the script, and accordingly there
accompanied the Bull a transsumptum in an ordinary
plain hand. The seal, appended by red and yellow (sometimes
white) laces, generally bore on one side the figures of SS.
Peter and Paul; on the other a medallion or the name of the
reigning Pontiff.
A Bull begins thus:
“N. Episcopus Seruus seruorum Dei ad perpetuam rei
memoriam.” It is dated “Anno incarnationis Domini,” and
also “Pontificatus Nostri anno primo (uel secundom, tertio,
etc.).” Those Bulls which set forth and define some
particular statement will be found to add certain minatory
clauses directed against those who obstinately refuse to
accept the Papal decision.
It should be
remembered that, as has already been said, the famous Bull of
Pope Innocent VIII is only one in a long line of Apostolic
Letters dealing with the subject of witchcraft.
On 18 June, 1485,
the Pontiff again recommended the two Inquisitors to Berthold,
Archbishop of Mainz, in a Bull Pro causa fidei; upon
the same date a similar Bull was sent to the Archduke
Sigismund, and a Brief to Abbot John of Wingarten, who is
highly praised for his devotion and zeal. On 30 September,
1486, a Bull addressed to the Bishop of Brescia and to Antonio
di Brescia, O.P., Inquisitor for Lombardy, emphasizes the
close connexion, nay, the identity of witchcraft with heresy.
Alexander VI
published two Bulls upon the same theme, and in a Bull of
Julius II there is a solemn description of that abomination
the Black Mass, which is perhaps the central feature of the
worship of Satanists, and which is unhappily yet celebrated
to-day in Londin, in Paris, in Berlin, and in many another
great city.
Leo X, the great
Pope of Humanism, issued on Bull on the subject; but even more
important is the Bull Dudum uti nobis exponi fecisti,
20 July, 1523, which speaks of the horrible abuse of the
Sacrament in sorceries and the charms confuted by witches.
We have two briefs
of Clement VII; and on 5 January, 1586, was published that
long and weighty Constitution of Sixtus V, Coeli et Terrae
Creator Deus, which denounces all those who are devoted to
Judicial Astrology and kindred arts that are envenomed with
black magic and goetry. There is a Constitution of Gregory XV,
Omnipotentis Dei, 20 March, 1623; and a Constitution of
Urban VIII, Inscrutabilis iudiciorum Dei altitudo, 1
April, 1631, which - if we except the recent condemnation of
Spiritism in the nineteenth century - may be said to be the
last Apostolic document directed against these foul and
devilish practices.
We may now consider
the exact force of the Apostolic Bull Summis desiderantes
affectibus issed on 9 December, 1484, by Innocent VIII to
Fr. Henry Kramer and Fr. James Sprenger.
In the first place,
it is superflous to say that no Bull would have been published
without the utmost deliberation, long considering of phrases,
and above all earnest prayer. This document of Pope Innocent
commences with the set grave formula of a Bull of the greatest
weight and solemnity. “Innocentius Episcopus Seruus seruorum
Dei ad perpetuam rei memoriam.” It draws to its conclusion
with no brief and succinct prohibitory clauses but with a
solemn measured period: “Non obstantibus praemissis ac
constitutionibus et ordinationibus Apostolicis contrariis
quibuscunque. . . .” The noble and momentous sentences are
built up word by word, beat by beat, ever growing more and
more authoritative, more and more judicial, until they
culminate in the minatory and imprecatory clauses which are so
impressive, so definite, that no loophole is left for escape,
no turn for evasion. “Nulli ergo omnino hominum liceat hanc
paganim nostrae declarationis extentionis concessionis et
mandati infringere uel ei ausu temeraris contrarie Si qui
autem attentate praesumpserit indignationem omnipotentis Dei
ac beatorum Petri et Pauli Apostolorum eius se nouerit
incursurum.” If any man shall presume to go against the
tenor let him know that therein he will bring down upon
himself the wrath of Almighty God and of the Blessed Apostles
Peter and Paul.
Could words
weightier be found?
Are we then to
class this Bull with the Bulla dogmatica Ineffabilis Deus
wherein Pope Pius IX proclaimed the dogma of the Immaculate
Conception? Such a position is clearly tenable, but even if we
do not insist that the Bull of Innocent VIII is an infallible
utterance, since the Summis desiderantes affectibus
does not in set terms define a dogma although it does set
forth sure and certain truths, it must at the very least be
held to be a document of supreme and absolute authority, of
dogmatic force. It belongs to that class of ex cathedra
utterances “for which infallibility is claimed on the
ground, not indeed of the terms of the Vatican definition, but
of the constant practice of the Holy See, the consentient
teaching of the theologians, as well as the clearest
deductions of the principles of faith.” Accordingly the
opinion of a person who rashly impugns this Bull is manifestly
to be gravely censures as erronea, sapiens haeresim,
captiosa, subuersiua hierarchiae; erroneous, savouring of
heresy, captious, subversive of the hierarchy.
Without exception
non-Catholic historians have either in no measured language
denounced or else with sorrow deplored the Bull of Innocent
VIII as a most pernicious and unhappy document, a perpetual
and irrevocable manifesto of the unchanged and unchangeable
mind of the Papacy. From this point of view they are entirely
justified, and their attitude is undeniably logical and right.
The Summis desideranted affectibus is either a dogmatic
exposition by Christ's Vicar upon earth or it is altogether
abominable.
Hansen, either in
honest error or of intent, willfully misleads when he writes,
“it is perfectly obvious that the Bull pronounces no
dogmatic decision.” As has been pointed out, in one very
narrow and technical sense this may be correct - yet even here
the opposite is arguable and probably true - but such a
statement thrown forth without qualification is calculated to
create, and undoubtedly does create, an entirely false
impression. It is all the more amazing to find that the writer
of the article upon “Witchcraft” in the Catholic
Encyclopaedia quotes Hansen with complete approval and
gleefully adds with regard to the Bull of Innocent VIII,
“neither does the form suggest that the Pope wishes to bind
anyone to believe more about the reality of witchcraft than is
involved in the utterances of Holy Scripture,” a statement
which is essentially Protestant in its nature, and, as is
acknowledged by every historian of whatsoever colour or creed,
entirely untrue. By its appearance in a standard work of
reference, which is on the shelves of every library, this
article upon “Witchcraft” acquires a certain title to
consideration which upon its merits it might otherwise lack.
It is signed Herbert Thurston, and turning to the list of
“Contributors to the Fifteenth Volume” we duly see
“Thurston, Herbert, S.J., London.” Since a Jesuit Father
emphasizes in a well-known (and presumably authoritative)
Catholic work an opinion so derogatory to the Holy See and so
definitely opposed to all historians, one is entitled to
express curiosity concerning other writings which may not have
come from his pen. I find that for a considerable number of
years Fr. Thurston has been contributing to The Month a
series of articles upon mystical phenomena and upon various
aspects of mysticism, such as the Incorruption of the bodies
of Saints and Beati, the Stigmata, the Prophecies of holy
persons, the miracles of Crucifixes that bleed or pictures of
the Madonna which move, famous Sanctuaries, the inner life of
and wonderful events connected with persons still living who
have acquired a reputation for sanctity. This busy writer
directly or incidentally has dealt with that famous ecstatica
Anne Catherine Emmerich; the Crucifix of Limpias; Our Lady of
Campocavallo; S. Januarus; the Ven. Maria d’Agreda; Gemma
Galgani; Padre Pio Pietralcina; that gentle soul Teresa
Higginson, the beauty of whose life has attracted thousands,
but whom Fr. Thurston considers hysterical and masochistic and
whose devotions to him savour of the “snowball” prayer;
Pope Alexander VI; the origin of the Rosary; the Carmelite
scapular; and very many themes beside. Here was have a mass of
material, and even a casual glance through these pages will
suffice to show the ugly prejudice which informs the whole.
The intimate discussions on miracles, spiritual graces and
physical phenomena, which above all require faith, reverence,
sympathy, tact and understanding, are conducted with a
roughness and a rudeness infinitely regrettable. What is
worse, in every case Catholic tradition and loyal Catholic
feeling are thrust to one side; the note of scepticism, of
modernism, and even of rationalism is arrogantly dominant.
Tender miracles of healing wrought at some old sanctuary, the
records of some hidden life of holiness secretly lived amongst
us in the cloister or the home, these things seem to provoke
Fr. Thurston to such a pitch of annoyance that he cannot
refrain from venting his utmost spleen. The obsession is
certainly morbid. It is reasonable to suppose that a lengthy
series of papers all concentrating upon certain aspects of
mysticism would have collected in one volume, and it is
extremely significant that in the autumn of 1923 a leading
house announced among Forthcoming Books: “The Physical
Phenomena of Mysticism. By the Rev. Herbert Thurston, S.J.”
Although in active preparation, this has never seen the light.
I have heard upon good authority that the ecclesiastical
superiors took exception to such a publication. I may, of
course, be wrong, and there can be no question that there is
room for a different point of view, but I cannot divest my
mind of the idea that the exaggerated rationalization of
mystical phenomena conspicuous in the series of articles I
have just considered may be by no means unwelcome to the
Father of Lies. It really plays into his hands: first, because
it makes the Church ridiculous by creating the impression that
her mystics, particularly friars and nuns, are for the most
part sickly hysterical subjects, deceivers and deceived, who
would be fit inmates of Bedlam; that many of her most reverend
shrines, Limpias, Campocavallo, and the sanctuaries of Naples,
are frauds and conscious imposture; and, secondly, because it
condemns and brings into ridicule that note of holiness which
theologians declare is one of the distinctive marks of the
true Church.
There is also evil
speaking of dignities. In 1924 the Right Rev. Mgr. Oeter de
Roo published an historical work in five volumes, Materials
for a History of Pope Alexander VI, his Relatives and his Time,
wherein he demonstrates his thesis that Pope Alexander VI was
“a man of good moral character and an excellent Pope.”
This is quite enough for Fr. Thurston to assail him in the
most vulgar and ill-bred way. The historian is a “crank,”
“constitutionally incapable,” “extravagant,” and one
who writes in “queer English,” and by rehabilitating
Alexander VI has “wasted a good deal of his own time.”
“One would be loath to charge him with deliberate suggestio
falis,” smugly remarks Fr. Thurston, and of course
directly conveys that impression. As to Pope Alexander, the
most odious charges are one more hurled against the maligned
Pontiff, and Fr. Thurston for fifteen nauseating pages insists
upon “the evil example of his private life.” This is
unnecessary; it is untrue; it shows contempt of Christ's Vicar
on earth.
The most
disquieting of all Fr. Thurston's writings that I know is
without doubt his article upon the Holy House of Loreto, which
is to be found in the Catholic Encyclopaedia, Vol.
XIII, pp. 454-56, “Santa Casa di Loreto.” Here he
jubilantly proclaims that “the Lauretan tradition is beset
with difficulties of the gravest kind. These have been
skilfully presented in the much-discussed work of Canon
Chevalier, ‘Notre Dame de Lorette’ (Paris, 1906). . . .
His argument remains intact and has as yet found no adequate
reply.” This last assertion is simply incorrect, as Canon U.
Chevalier's theories have been answered and demolished both by
Father A. Eschbach, Procurator-General of the Congregation of
the Holy Ghost, in his exhaustive work La Vérité sur le
Fair de Lorette, and by the Rev. G. E. Phillips in his
excellent study Loreto and the Holy House. From a
careful reading of the article “Santa Casa di Loreto” it
is obvious that the writer does not accept the fact of the
Translation of the Holy House; at least that is the only
impression I can gather from his words as, ignoring an
unbroken tradition, the pronouncements of more than fifty
Popes, the devotion of innumerable saints, the piety of
countless writers, he gratuitously piles argument upon
argument and emphasizes objection after objection to reduce
the Translation of the House of Nazareth from Palestine to
Italy to the vague story of a picture of the Madonna brought
from Tersato in Illyria to Loreto. With reference to Canon
Chevalier's work, so highly applauded by Fr. Thurston, it is
well known that the late saintly Pontiff Pius X openly showed
his great displeasure at the book, and took care to let it be
widely understood that such an attack upon the Holy House
sorely vexed and grieved him. In a Decree, 12 April, 1916,
Benedict XV, ordering the Feast of the Translation of the Holy
House to be henceforward observed every year on the 10th
December, in all the Dioceses and Religious Congregations of
Italy and the adjacent Isles, solemnly and decisively declares
that the Sanctuary of Loreto is “the House itself -
translated from Palestine by the ministry of Angels - in which
was born the Blessed Virgin Mary, and in which the Word was
made Flesh.” In the face of this pronouncement it is hard to
see how any Catholic can regard the Translation of the Holy
House as a mere fairy tale to be classed with Jack and the
Beanstalk or Hop o’ my Thumb. It is certain that
Fr. Thurston's disedifying attack has given pain to thousands
of pious souls, and in Italy I have heard an eminent
theologian, an Archbishop, speak of these articles in terms of
unsparing condemnation.
Father Thurston is
the author of a paper upon the subject of Pope Joan, but I am
informed that it is no longer in print, and as I have not
thought it worth while to make acquaintance with this
lucubration I am unable to say whether he accepts the legend
of this mythical dame as true or no.
His bias evidently
makes him incapable of dealing impartially with any historical
fact, and even a sound and generally accepted theory would
gain nothing by the adherence of so prejudiced an advocate. It
has seemed worth while to utter a word of caution regarding
his extraordinary output, and especially in our present
connexion with reference to the article upon “Witchcraft,”
which appears to me so little qualified to furnish the
guidance readers may require in this difficult subject, and
which by its inclusion in a standard work of reference might
be deemed trustworthy and reliable.
It is very certain
then that the Bull of Innocent VIII, Summis desiderantes
affectibus, was at least a document of the highest
authority, and that the Pontiff herein clearly intended to set
forth dogmatic facts, although this can be distinguished from
the defining of a dogma. A dogmatic fact is not indeed a
doctrine of revelation, but it is so intimately connected with
a revealed doctrine that it would be impossible to deny the
dogmatic fact without contradicting or seriously impugning the
dogma. It would not be very difficult to show that any denial
of the teaching of Pope Innocent VIII must traverse the Gospel
accounts of demoniacs, the casting out of devils by Our
Saviour, and His Divine words upon the activities of evil
spirits.
Giovanni Battista
Cibò, the son of Arano Cibò and Teodorina de’ Mare, was
born at Genoa in 1432. His father, a high favourite with
Callistus III (Alfonso de Borja), who reigned from 8 April,
1455, to 6 August, 1458, had filled with distinction the
senatorial office at Rome in 1455, and under King René won
great honour as Viceroy of Naples. Having entered the
household of Cardinal Calandrini, Giovanni Battista Cibò was
in 1467 created Bisop of Savona by Paul II, in 1473 Bishop of
Molfetta by Sixtus IV, who raised him to the cardinalate in
the following year. In the conclave which followed the death
of this Pontiff, his great supporter proved to be Guiliano
della Rovere, and on 29 August, 1484, he ascended the Chair of
S. Peter, taking the name of Innocent VIII in memory, it is
said, of his countryman, the Genoese Innocent IV (Sinibaldo
de’ Fieschi), who reigned from 25 June, 1243, to 7 December,
1254. The new Pope had to deal with a most difficult political
situation, and before long found himself involved in a
conflict with Naples. Innocent VIII made the most earnest
endeavours to unite Christendom against the common enemy, the
Turk, but the unhappy indecision among various princes
unfortunately precluded any definite result, although the
Rhodians surrendered to the Holy Father. As for Djem, the
younger son of Mohammad II, this prince had fled for
protection to the Knights of S. John, and Sultan Bajazet
pledged himself to pay an annual allowance of 35,000 ducats
for the safe-keeping of his brother. The Grand Master handed
over Djem to the Pope and on 13 March, 1489, the Ottoman
entered Rome, where he was treated with signal respect and
assigned apartments in the Vatican itself.
Innocent VIII only
canonized one Saint, the Margrave Leopold of Austria, who was
raised to the Altar 6 January, 1485. However, on 31 May, 1492,
he received from Sultan Bajazet the precious Relic of the Most
Holy Lance with which Our Redeemer had been wounded by S.
Longinus upon the Cross. A Turkish emir brought the Relic to
Ancona, whence it was conveyed by the Bishop to Narni, when
two Cardinals took charge of it and carried it to Rome. On 31
May Cardinal Hiulino della Rovere solemnly handed it in a
crystal vessel to the Pope during a function at S. Maria del
Popolo. It was then borne in procession to S. Peter's, and
from the loggia of the protico the Holy Father bestowed his
blessing upon the crowds, whilst the Cardinal della Rovere
standing at his side exposed the Sacred Relic to the
veneration of the thronging piazza. The Holy Lance, which is
accounted one of the three great Relics of the Passion, is
shown together with the Piece of the True Cross and S.
Veronica's Veil at S. Peter's after Matins on Spy Wednesday
and on Good Friday evening; after High Mass on Easter Day, and
also several times during the course of Maundy Thursday and
Good Friday. The Relics are exposed from the balcony over the
statue of S. Veronica to the left of the Papal Altar. The
strepitaculum is sounded from the balcony and then all present
venerate the Lance, the Wood of the Cross, and the Volto
Santo.
One of the most
important exterior events which marked the reign of Innocent
was undoubtedly the fall of Granada, the last stronghold of
the Moors in Spain, which city surrendered to Ferdinand of
Aragon, who thereby with his Queen Isabella won the name of
“Catholic,” on 2 January, 1492. The conquest of Granada
was celebrated with public rejoicings and the most splendid fêtes
at Rome. Every house was brilliant with candles; the expulsion
of the Mohammedans was represented upon open stages in a kind
of pantomime; and long processions visited the national church
of Spain in the Piazza Navona, San Giacomo degli Spagnuoli,
which had been erected in 1450.
On 25 July, 1492,
Pope Innocent, who had long been sickly and ailing so that his
only nourishment for many weeks was woman's milk, passed away
in his sleep at the Vatican. They buried him in S. Peter's,
this great and noble Pontiff, and upon his tomb, a work in
bronze by Pollaiuolo, were inscribed the felicitous words: Ego
autem in Innocentia mea ingressus sum.
The chroniclers or
rather scandalmongers of the day, Burchard and Infessura, have
done their best to draw the character of Innocent VIII in very
black and shameful colours, and it is to be regretted that
more than one historian has not only taken his cure from their
odious insinuations and evil gossip, but yet further
elaborated the story by his own lurid imagination. When we add
thereto and retail as sober evidence the venom of contemporary
satirists such as Marullo and the fertile exaggerations of
melodramatic publicists such as Egidio of Viterbo, a very
sensational grotesque is the result. During his youth Giovanni
Battista Cibò had, it seems, become enamoured of a Neapolitan
lady, by whom he was the father of two children, Franceschetto
and Teodorina. As was proper, both son and daughter were
provided for in an ample and munificent manner; in 1488 his
father married Franceschetto to Maddalena, a daughter of
Lorenzo de’ Medici. The lady Teodorina became the bride of
Messer Gherardo Uso de’ Mare, a Genoese merchant of great
wealth, who was also Papal Treasurer. The capital that has
been made out of these circumstances is hardly to be believed.
It is admitted that this is contrary to strict morality and to
be reasonably blamed. But this intrigue has been taken as the
grounds for accusations of the most unbridled licentiousness,
the tale of a lewd and lustful life. So far as I am aware the
only other evidence for anything of the kind is the mud thrown
by obscure writers at a great and truly Christian, if not
wholly blameless, successor of S. Peter.
In spite of these
few faults Innocent VIII was a Pontiff who at a most difficult
time worthily filled his Apostolic dignity. In his public
office his constant endeavours for peace; his tireless efforts
to unite Christendom against their common foe, the Turk; his
opposition to the revolutionary Hussites in Bohemia and the
anarchical Waldenses, two sources of the gravest danger, must
be esteemed as worthy of the highest praise. Could he have
brought his labours to fruition Europe would in later ages
have been spared many a conflict and many a disaster.
Roscoe in reference
to Innocent remarks: “The urbanity and mildness of his
manners formed a striking contrast to the inflexible character
of his predecessor.” And again: “If the character of
Innocent were to be impartially weighed, the balance would
incline, but with no very rapid motion, to the favourable
side. His native disposition seems to have been mild and
placable; but the disputed claims of the Roman See, which he
conceived it to be his duty to enforce, led him into
embarassments, from which he was with difficulty extricated,
and which, without increasing his reputation, destroyed his
repose.” We have here the judgement of a historian who is
inclined to censure rather than to defend, and who certainly
did not recognize, because he was incapable of appreciating,
the almost overwhelming difficulties with which Innocent must
needs contend if he were, as in conscience bound, to act as
the chief Pastor of Christendom, a critical position which he
needs must face and endeavour to control, although he were
well aware that humanly speaking his efforts had no chance of
success, whilst they cost him health and repose and gained him
oppugnancy and misunderstanding.
Immediately upon
the receipt of the Bull, Summis desiderantes affectibus,
in 1485, Fr. Henry Kramer commenced his crusade against
witches at Innsbruck, but he was opposed on certain technical
grounds by the Bishop of Brixen, nor was Duke Sigismund so
ready to help the Inquisitors with the civil arm. In fact the
prosecutions were, if not actually directed, at least largely
controlled, by the episcopal authority; nor did the ordinary
courts, as is so often supposed, invariably carry out the full
sentence of the Holy Office. Not so very many years later,
indeed, the civil power took full cognizance of any charges of
witchcraft, and it was then that far more blood was spilled
and far more fires blazed than ever in the days when Kramer
and Sprenger were directing the trials. It should be borne in
mind too that frequent disturbances, conspiracies of
anarchists, and nascent Bolshevism showed that the district
was rotted to the core, and the severities of Kramer and
Sprenger were by no means so unwarranted as is generally
supposed.
On 6 June, 1474,
Sprenger (Mag. Jacobus Sprenger) is mentioned as Prior of the
Dominican house at Cologne, and on 8 February, 1479, he was
present, as the socius of Gerhard von Elten, at the trial of
John von Ruchratt of Wesel, who was found guilty of
propagating the most subversive doctrines, and was sentenced
to seclusion in the Augustinian monastery at Mainz, where he
died in 1481.
Unfortunately full
biographies of these two remarkable men, James Sprenger and
Henry Kramer, have not been transmitted to us, but as many
details have been succinctly collected in the Scriptores
Ordinis Praedicatorum of Quétif and Echard, Paris, 1719,
I have thought it convenient to transcribe the following
accounts from that monumental work.
F. Jacobus Sprenger
(sub anno 1494). Fr. James Sprenger, a German by birth
and a member of the community of the Dominican house at
Cologne, greatly distinguished himself in his academic career
at the University of that city. His name was widely known in
the year 1468, when at the Chapter General of the Order which
was held at Rome he was appointed Regent of Studies at the
Formal House of Studies at Cologne, and the following is
recorded in the statutes: Fr. James Sprenger is officially
appointed to study and lecture upon the Sentences so that he
may proceed to the degree of Master. A few years later,
although he was yet quite a young man, since he had already
proceeded Master, he was elected Prior and Regent of this same
house, which important offices he held in the year 1475, and a
little after, we are told, he was elected Provincial of the
whole German Province. It was about this date that he was
named by Sixtus IV General Inquisitor for Germany, and
especially for the dioceses of Cologne and Mainz. He coadjutor
was a Master of Sacred Theology, of the Cologne Convent, by
name Fr. Gerard von Elten, who unfortunately died within a
year or two. Pope Innocent VIII confirmed Fr. Sprenger in this
office, and appointed Fr. Henry Kramer as his socius. Fr.
Sprenger was especially distinguished on account of his
burning and fearless zeal for the old faith, his vigilance,
his constancy, his singleness and patience in correcting novel
abuses and errors. We know that he was living in our house at
Cologne at least as late as the year 1494, since the famous
Benedictine Abbot John Trithemus refers to him in this year.
It is most probable that he died and was buried among his
brethren at Cologne. The following works are the fruit of his
pen:
1. The
Paradoxes of John of Westphalia, which he preached from the
pulpit at Worms, disproved and utterly refuted by two Masters
of Sacred Theology, Fr. Gerard von Elten of Cologne and Fr.
James Sprenger. Printed at Mainz, 1479.
2. Malleus
Maleficarum Maleficat & earum haeresim, ut framea
potentissima conterens per F. Henricum Institoris &
Jacobum Sprengerum Ord. Praedic. Inquisitores, which has
run into many editions (see the notice of Fr. Henry Kramer).
This book was translated into French as Le Maillet des
Sorcières, Lyons, Stephanus Gueynard, 4to. See the Bibliothèque
Françoise du Verdier.
3. The
institution and approbation of the Society of Confraternity of
the Most Holy Rosary which was first erected at Cologne on 8
September in the year 1475, with an account of many graces and
Miracles, as also of the indulgences which have been granted
to this said Confraternity. I am uncertain whether he
wrote and issued this book in Latin or in German, since I have
never seen it, and it was certainly composed for the
instruction and edification of the people. Moreover, it is
reported that the following circumstances were the occasion of
the found of this Society. In the year 1475, when Nuess was
being besieged by Charles, Duke of Burgunday, with a vast
army, and the town was on the very point of surrender, the
magistrates and chief burghers of Cologne, fearing the danger
which threatened their city, resorted in a body to Fr. James,
who was then Prior of the Convent, and besought him that if he
knew of any plan or device which might haply ward off this
disaster, he would inform them of it and instruct them what
was best to be done. Fr. James, having seriously debated the
matter with the senior members of the house, replied that all
were agreed there could be no more unfailing and present
remedy than to fly to the help of the Blessed Virgin, and that
the very best way of effecting this would be if they were not
only to honour the Immaculate Mother of God by means of the
Holy Rosary which had been propagated several years ago by
Blessed Alan de la Roche, but that they should also institute
and erect a Society and Confraternity, in which every man
should enrol himself with the firm resolve of thenceforth
zealously and exactly fulfilling with a devout mind the
obligations that might be required by the rules of membership.
This excellent plan recommended itself to all. On the feast of
the Nativity of Our Lady (8 September) the Society was
inaugurated and High Mass was sung; there was a solemn
procession throughout the city; all enrolled themselves and
were inscribed on the Register; they fulfilled their duties
continually with the utmost fervor, and before long the reward
of their devotion was granted to them, since peace was made
between the Emperor Frederick IV and Charles the Bold, Duke of
Burgandy. In the following year, 1476, Alexander Nanni de
Maltesta, Bishop of Forli and legatus a latere from
Sixtus IV, who was then residing at Cologne, solemnly approved
the Confraternity and on 10 March enriched it with many
indulgences. And this is the first of those societies which
are known as the Rosary Confraternirty to be erected and
approved by the Apostolic authority. For in a short time,
being enriched with so many indulgences, and new privileges
and benefice being bestowed upon them almost daily, they have
spread everywhere and they are to be found in almost every
town and city throughout the whole of Christendom. It is
worthy of remark that on the very same day that this
Confraternity was erected at Cologne, Blessed Alan de la Roche
of blessed memory, the most eminent promoter of the devotion
of the Holy Rosary, died at Rostock; and his beloved disciple,
Fr. Michel François de l’Isle, who was sometime Master of
Sacred Theology at Cologne, gave Fr. Sprenger the most
valuable assistance when the Rosary was being established, as
we have related above. The works of Fr. James Sprenger are
well approved by many authors as well as Trithemius; since
amongst others who have praised him highly we may mention
Albert Leander, O.P.; Antony of Siena, O.P.; Fernandez in his Concert.
& Isto. del Rosar, Lib. 4, cap. 1, fol. 127; Fontana
in his Theatro & Monum. published at Altamura,
1481; and, of authors not belonging to our Order, Antonius
Possevinus, S.J., Miraeus, Aegidius Gelenius in his De
admirance Coloniae Agrippinae urbi Ubiorum Augustae
magnitudine sacra & ciuli, Coloniae, 1645, 4to, p.
430; Dupin, and very many more.
Of Henry Kramer,
Jacques Quétif and Echard, Scriptores Ordini Praedicatorum,
Paris, 1719, Vol. 1, pp. 896-97, sub anno 1500, give
the following account: Fr. Henry Kramer (F. Henricus
Institorus) was of German nationality and a member of the
German Province. It is definitely certain the he was a Master
of Sacred Theology, which holy science he publicly professed,
although we have not been able to discover either in what town
of Germany he was born, in what Universities he lectured, or
in what house of the Order he was professed. He was, however,
very greatly distinguished by he zeal for the Faith, which he
most bravely and most strenuously defended both by his
eloquence in the pulpit and on the printed page, and so when
in those dark days various errors had begun to penetrate
Germany, and witches with their horrid craft, foul sorceries,
and devilish commerce were increasing on every side, Pope
Innocent VIII, by Letters Apostolic which were given at Rome
at S. Peter's in the first year of his reign, 1484, appointed
Henry Kramer and James Sprenger, Professors of Sacred
Theology, general Inquisitors for all the dioceses of the five
metropolitan churches of Germany, that is to say, Mainz,
Cologne, Trèves, Salzburg, and Bremen. They showed themselves
most zealous in the work which they had to do, and especially
did they make inquisition for witches and for those who were
gravely suspect of sorcery, all of whom they prosecuted with
the extremest rigour of the law. Maximilian I, Emperor of
Germany and King of the Romans, by royal letters patent which
he signed at Brussels on 6 November, 1486, bestowed upon Fr.
Kramer and Fr. Sprenger the enjoyment of full civil powers in
the performance of their duties as Inquisitors, and he
commanded that throughout his dominions all should obey the
two delegates of the Holy Office in their business, and should
be ready and willing to help them upon every occasion. For
several years Fr. Henry Kramer was Spiritual Director attached
to our Church at Salzburg, which important office he fulfilled
with singular great commendation. Thence he was summoned in
the year 1495 to Venice by the Master-General of the Order,
Fr. Joaquin de Torres, in order that he might give public
lectures, and hold disputations concerning public worship and
the adoration of the Most Holy Sacrament. For there were some
theologians about this date who taught that the Blessed
Sacrament must only be worshipped conditionally, with an
implicit and intellectual reservation of adoring the Host in
the tabernacle only in so far as It had been duly and exactly
consecrated. Fr. Kramer, whose disputations were honoured by
the presence of the Patriarch of Venice, with the utmost
fervour publicly confronted those who maintained this view,
and not infrequently did he preach against them from the
pulpit. The whole question had recently arisen from a certain
circumstance which happened in the vicinity of Padua. When a
country fellow was collecting wood and dry leaves in a little
copse hard by the city he found, wrapped up in a linen cloth
beneath some dry brambles and bracken and dead branches of
trees, two pyxes or ciboria containing particles which some
three years before had been stolen from a neighbouring church,
the one of which was used to carry the Lord's Body to the
sick, the other being provided for the exposition of the
Sanctissimum on the feast of Corpus Christi. The rustic
immediately reported what he had discovered to the parish
priest of the chapel hard by the spinnery. The good Father
immediately hastened to the spot and saw that it was exactly
as had been told him. When he more closely examined the
vessels he found in one pyx a number of Hosts, and so fetching
thither from the church a consecrated altar-stone which it was
the custom to carry when the Viaticum was taken to the dying
in order that the ciborium might be decently set thereon, he
covered the stone with a corporal or a friar linen cloth and
reverently placed it beneath the pyx. He built all around a
little wooden baldaquin or shrine, and presently put devout
persons to watch the place so that no indignity might be done.
Meanwhile the incident had been noised abroad and vast throngs
of people made their way to the place where the thicket was;
candles were lighted all around; “Christ's Body,” they
cry, “is here”; and every knee bent in humblest adoration.
Before long news of the event was reported to the Bishop of
Padua, who, having sent thither tow or three priests, inquired
most carefully into every detail. Since in the other ciborium
they only found some corrupted particles of the Sacramental
Species, in the sight of the whole multitude the clerics who
had come from the Bishop broke down the tiny tabernacle that
had been improvised, scattered all the boughs and leafery
which were arranged about it, extinguished the tapers, and
carried the sacred vessels away with them. Immediately after
it was forbidden under severest penalties of ecclesiastical
censures and excommunication itself for anyone to visit that
spot or to offer devotions there. Moreover, upon this occasion
certain priests preached openly that the people who resorted
thither had committed idolatry, that they had worshipped
nothing else save brambles and decay, trees, nay, some went so
far as to declare that they had adored the devil himself. As
might be supposed, very grave contentions were set astir
between the parish priests and their flocks, and it was
sharply argued whether the people had sinned by their devotion
to Christ's Body, Which they sincerely believed to be there,
but Which (it seems) perhaps was not there: and the question
was then mooted whether a man ought not to worship the Blessed
Sacrament, ay, even when Christ's Body is consecrated in the
Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and elevated and carried as
Viaticum in procession to the sick, only conditionally, that
is to say, since he does not perhaps know if It is actually
Christ's Body (or whether some accident may not have
occurred), since no mane can claim to be individually
enlightened to by God on this point and desire to have the
Mystery demonstrated and proved to him. It was much about the
same thing that Fr. Kramer undertook to refute and utterly
disprove the bold and wicked theories put forward by another
preacher who at Augsburg dared to proclaim from the pulpit
that the Catholic Church had not definitely laid down that the
appearances of Christ in His human body, and sometimes
bleeding from His Sacred Wounds, in the Blessed Sacrament are
real and true manifestations of Our Saviour, but that it may
be disputed whether Our Lord is truly there and truly to be
worshipped by the people. This wretch even went so far as to
say that miracles of this kind should be left as it were to
the good judgement of God, inasmuch as with regard to these
miraculous appearances nothing had been strictly defined by
the Church, nor yet do the Holy Fathers or Doctors lay down
and sure and certain rule. These doctrines Fr. Kramer opposed
with the utmost zeal and learning, delivering many an eloquent
sermon against the innovator and utterly condemning the
theories which had been thus put forth and proclaimed. Nay,
more, by virtue of his position and his powers as delegate of
the Holy Office he forbade under the pain of excommunication
that anyone should ever again dare to preach such errors. Fr.
Kramer wrote several works, of which some have been more than
once reprinted:
1. Malleus
Maleficarum Maleficas & earum haeresim, ut framea
potentissima conterens per F. Henricum Institorem &
Jacobum Sprengerem ord. Praed. Inquisitores, Lyons, Junta,
1484. This edition is highly praised by Fontana in his work De
Monumentis. Another edition was published at Paris, apud
Joannem Paruum, 8vo; also at Cologne, apud Joanem
Gymnicium, 8vo, 1520; and another edition apud Nicolaum
Bassaeum at Frankfort, 8vo, 1580 and 1582 (also two vols.,
12mo, 1588). The editions of 1520, 1580, and 1582 are to be
found in the Royal Library, Nos. 2882, 2883, and 2884. The
editions printed at Venice in 1576 and at Lyons in 1620 are
highly praised by Dupin. The latest edition is published at
Lyons, Sumptibus Claudi Bourgeat, 4 vols., 1669. The Malleus
Maleficarum, when submitted by the authors to the
University of Cologne was officially approved by all the
Doctors of the Theological Faculty on 9 May, 1487.
2. Several
Discourses and various sermons against the four errors which
have newly arisen with regard to the Most Holy Sacrament of
the Eucharist, now collected and brought together by the
Professor of Scripture of the Church of Salzburg, Brother
Henry Kramer, of the Order of Preachers, General Inquisitor of
heretical pravity. Published at Nuremburg by Antony
Joberger, 4to, 1496. This work is divided into three parts:
The First Part. A Tractate against the errors
of the preacher who taught that Christ was only to be
conditionally worshipped in the Blessed Sacrament: A
Reply to the objection raised by this preacher, and XI
sermons on the Blessed Sacrament.
The Second Part. XIX Sermons on the Blessed
Sacrament.
The Third Part.
- Further Six Sermons on the Sacrament.
- Advice and cautels for priests.
- A little Treatise concerning the miraculous Host
and the species of Blood which have been reserved for
the space of 300 years at Augsburg, or a sharp
confutation of the error which asserts that the
miraculous Sacrament if the Eucharist, whilst there is
the appearance in the Host of Blood or Human Flesh or
the form of a Figure, is not truly the Blessed
Sacrament, with the promulgation of the Ban of
Excommunication against all and sundry who dare to
entertain this opinion. A copy of this book may be
found at Paris in the library of our monastery of S.
Honorat.
3. Here
beginneth a Tractate confuting the errors of Master Antonio
degli Roselli of Padua, jurisconsult, concerning the plenary
power of the Supreme Pontiff and the power of a temporal
monarch. The conclusion is as follows: Here endeth the
Reply of the Inquisitor-General of Germany, Fr. Henry Kramer,
in answer to the erroneous and mistaken opinions of Antonio
degli Roselli. Printed at Venice, at the Press of Giacomo
de Lencho, at the charge of Peter Liechtenstein, 27 July,
1499.
4. The Shield of
Defence of the Holy Roman Church against the Picards and
Waldenses. This was published when Fr. Kramer was acting
as Censor of the Faith under Alexander VI in Bohemia and
Moldavia. This work is praised by the famous Dominican writer
Noel Alexandre in his Selecta historiae ecclesiasticae
capita et in loca eiusdem insignia dissertationes historicae,
criticae, dogmaticae. In dealing with the fifteenth
century he quotes passages from this work. The bibliographer
Beugheim catalogues an edition of this work among those
Incunabula the exact date of which cannot be traced. Georg
Simpler, who was Rector of the University of Pforzheim, and
afterwards Professor of Jurisprudence of Tubingen in the early
decades of the sixteenth century, also mentions this work with
commendation. Odorico Rinaldi quotes from this work in his Annales
under the year 1500. The Sermons of 1496 are highly
praised by Antony of Siena, O.P. Antonius Possevinus, S.J.,
speaks of a treatise Against the Errors of Witches.
This I have never seen, but I feel very well assured that it
is no other work than the Malleus Maleficarum, which
was written in collaboration with Fr. James Sprenger, and
which we have spoken above in some detail.
In what year Fr.
Henry Kramer died and to what house of the Order he was then
attached is not recorded, but it seems certain that he was
living at least as late as 1500.
Thus Quétif-Echard,
but we may not impertinently add a few, from several, formal
references which occur in Dominican registers and archives.
James Sprenger was born at Basel (he is called de Basilea
in a MS. belonging to the Library of Basel), probably about
1436038, and he was admitted as a Dominican novice in 1452 at
the convent of his native town. An extract “ex monumentis
contuent. Coloniens.” says that Sprenger “beatus anno 1495
obiit Argentinae ad S. Nicolaum in Undis in conuentu sororum
ordinis nostri.” Another account relates that he did not die
at Strasburg on 6 December, 1495, but at Verona, 3 February,
1503, and certainly Jacobus Magdalius in his Stichologia
has “In mortem magistri Iacobi Sprenger, sacri ordinis
praedicatorii per Theutoniam prouincialis, Elegia,” which
commences:
O utinam patrio
recubassent ossa sepulchro
Quae modo Zenonis
urbe sepulta iacent.
Henry Kramer, who appears in the Dominican registers as
“Fr. Henricus Institoris de Sletstat,” was born about
1430. His later years were distinguished by the fervour of his
apostolic missions in Bohemia, where he died in 1505.
Although, as we
have seeb, Fr. Henry Kramer and Fr. James Sprenger were men of
many activities, it is by the Malleus Maleficarum that
they will chiefly be remembered. There can be no doubt that
this work had in its day and for a full couple of centuries an
enormous influence. There are few demonologists and writers
upon witchcraft who do not refer to its pages as an ultimate
authority. It was continually quoted and appealed to in the
witch-trials of Germany, France, Italy, and England; whilst
the methods and examples of the two Inquisitors gained an even
more extensive credit and sanction owing to their reproduction
(sometimes without direct acknowledgement) in the works of
Bedin, De Lancre, Boguet, Remy, Tartarotti, Elich, Grilland,
Pons, Godelmann, de Moura, Oberlal, Cigogna, Peperni, Martinus
Aries, Anania, Binsfeld, Bernard Basin, Menghi, Stampa,
Clodius, Schelhammer, Wolf, Stegmann, Neissner, Voigt, Cattani,
Ricardus, and a hundred more. King James has drawn (probably
indirectly) much of his Daemonologie, in Forme of a
Dialogue, Divided into three Bookes from the pages of the Malleus;
and Thomas Shadwell, the Orance laureate, in his “Notes upon
the Magick” of his famous play, The Lancashire Witches,
continually quotes from the same source.
To some there may
seem much in the Malleus Maleficarum that is crude,
much that is difficult. For example, the etymology will
provoke a smile. The derivation of Femina from fe
minus is notorious, and hardly less awkward is the
statement that Diabolus comes “a Dia, quod est duo,
et bolus, quod est morsellus; quia duo occidit, scilicet
corpus et animam.” Yet I venture to say that these blemishes
- such gross blunders, of you will - do not affect the real
contexture and weight of this mighty treatise.
Possibly what will
seem even more amazing to modern readers is the misogynic
trend of various passages, and these not of the briefest nor
least pointed. However, exaggerated as these may be, I am not
altogether certain that they will not prove a wholesome and
needful antidote in this feministic age, when the sexes seem
confounded, and it appear to be the chief object of many
females to ape the man, an indecorum by which they not only
divest themselves of such charm as they might boast, but lay
themselves open to the sternest reprobation in the name of
sanity and common-sense. For the Apostle S. Peter says: “Let
wives be subject to their husbands: that if any believe not
the word, they may be won without the word, by the
conversation of the wives, considering your chaste
conversation with fear. Whose adorning let it not be the
outward plaiting of the hair, or the wearing of god, or the
putting on of apparel; but the hidden man of the heart is the
incorruptibility of a quiet and meek spirit, which is rich in
the sight of God. For after the manner heretofore the holy
women also, who trusted God, adorned themselves, being in
subjection to their own husbands: as Sara obeyed Abraham,
calling him lord: whose daughters you are, doing well, and not
fearing any disturbance.”
With regard to the
sentences pronounced upon witches and the course of their
trials, we may say that these things must be considered in
reference and in proportion to the legal code of the age.
Modern justice knows sentences of the most ferocious savagery,
punishments which can only be dealt out by brutal
vindictiveness, and these are often meted out to offences
concerning which we may sometimes ask ourselves whether they
are offences at all; they certainly do no harm to society, and
no harm to the person. Witches were the bane of all social
order; they injured not only persons but property. They were,
in fact, as has previously been emphasized, the active members
of a vast revolutionary body, a conspiracy against
civilization. Any other save the most thorough measures must
have been unavailing; worse, they must have but fanned the
flame.
And so in the years
to come, when the Malleus Maleficarum was used as a
standard text-book, supremely authoritative practice winnowed
the little chaff, the etymologies, from the wheat of wisdom.
Yet it is safe to say that the book is to-day scarcely known
save by name. It has become a legend. Writer after writer, who
had never turned the pages, felt himself at liberty to heap
ridicule and abuse upon this venerable volume. He could quote
- though he had never seen the text - an etymological
absurdity or two, or if in more serious vein he could prate
glibly enough of the publication of the Malleus Maleficarum
as a “most disastrous episode.” He did not know very
clearly what he meant, and the humbug trusted that nobody
would stop to inquire. For the most part his confidence was
respected; his word was taken.
We must approach
this great work - admirable in spite of its triffling
blemishes - with open minds and grave intent; if we duly
consider the world of confusion, of Bolshevism, of anarchy and
licentiousness all around to-day, it should be an easy task
for us to picture the difficulties, the hideous dangers with
which Henry Kramer and James Sprenger were called to combat
and to cope; we must be prepared to discount certain plain
faults, certain awkwardnesses, certain roughness and even
severities; and then shall we be in a position dispassionately
and calmy to pronounce opinion upon the value and the merit of
this famouse treatise.
As for myself, I do
not hesitate to record my judgement. Literary merits and
graces, strictly speaking, were not the aim of the authors of
the Malleus Maleficarum, although there are felicities
not a few to be found in their admirable pages. Yet I dare not
even hope that the flavour of Latinity is preserved in a
translation which can hardly avoid being jejune and bare. The
interest, then, lies in the subject-matter. And from this
point of view the Malleus Maleficarum is one of the
most pregnant and most interesting books I know in the library
of its kind - a kind which, as it deals with eternal things,
the eternal conflict of good and evil, must eternally capture
the attention of all men who think, all who see, or are
endeavouring to see, reality beyond the accidents of matter,
time, and space.
Montague Summers.
In Festo
Expectationis B.M.V.
1927.