Chapter II: Part 2

[26] “De maleficis et eorum deceptionibus.” This essay was early detached from the rest of the book and appended to the editions of the “Witch-Hammer,” and it became an inseparable addition to that work. The title-page of these reprints always calls Nider an inquisitor, and the statement has also the high authority of Trithemius. His latest German biographers deny (as do Quétif and Échard) that there is any evidence of his having been one. Mr. Lea, however, still thinks that he “seems sometimes to have acted as inquisitor”; and, in any case, all his sympathies were with this work of his order. Nider (according to Quétif and Échard) kept his book in hand for several years, and its various MSS. are of different dates; but that of 1437 seems to have been its last revision.

[27] How powerful this argument was to the men of that time may be inferred from the words of the eminent Italian theological professor Isolani, who in 1506 published an argument (“Libellus adversus magos,” etc.) to prove that men cannot be bewitched into taking religious vows, and who, though a Dominican, was not an inquisitor, and was by no means prone to superstition. “Querant qui haec vana fictaque judicaverint processus totis Cristiani imperii finibus apprime notos, quos virieruditissimi, omnium virtutum genere preclarissimi, reis narrantibus composuere. His minime assentiant, qui Demonas ... esse nequaquam opinantur.”

There are not wanting still good people who marvel at what they call the “agreement” in the testimony of the witches. To such may be commended the prescribed lists of interrogatories, which from more than one “Instruction to Judges” are now making their way to light. And, even where these were not used, leading questions were the rule, and the victim had little more to do than answer yes or no. Only here and there in the trials do we find some poor quivering woman begging her judges to tell her what she must confess. The confession was a criterion, not of the guilt of the witch, but of the learning of her inquisitors. It is rather a marvel that there should ever be disagreement, when the victim not only had such prompters, but must herself time and again have heard just such confessions read, as the custom was, to the crowd gathered about the stake.

And if any are puzzled that the confessions should be persisted in after the torture and in the face of death (which, in countless cases, they were _not_), they should remember that persistence in confession was long a condition of that “forbearance of the Court” which suffered the prisoner to be first strangled or beheaded, instead of being burned alive. Only the Church _always_ burned alive.

[28] Or Jacquier (Latin, _Jaquerius_ or _Jacquerius_).

[29] _I.e._, On the treading-under-foot of demons. (_Calcatio_, a mediæval word, means usually threshing, _i.e._, by treading out; but Jaquier must have had in view its literal sense.) The book has never been printed, but exists in MS. (according to Quétif and Échard) at Louvain and elsewhere. A copy at St. Omer is entitled: “De calcatione malignorum spirituum.” The book begins: “Duo magna incommoda inter caetera incurrit genus humanum.”

[30] The rod (_flagellum_) was meant to scourge out of God’s temple, the Church, certain “perverse dogmas and stolid assertions,” to wit: that witches are victims of delusion. Jaquier tells us himself (pp. 39, 56, of the first printed ed., of 1581) the year in which he writes.

[31] Mr. Lea writes “Alonso,” and I defer to his high authority, though I have not else met that form. As “Alphonsus à Spina” he is known to his Latin-writing contemporaries.

[32] In his book itself the name is spelled _Viueti_; but Quétif and Échard, who know of him from other sources, write Vineti, and the other may well be a misprint, though Viveti has been adopted by the few bibliographers who know of the book. The impression is undated; but Quétif and Échard ascribe it to 1483. V. was inquisitor at Carcassonne from 1450 to about 1475.

[33] His “Tractatus de magicis artibus ac magorum maleficiis.” According to the title of an edition described by Hain, it was written by Basin in 1482 “in suis vesperis,” and the first dated impression is of Paris, 1483; but it is quite clear from his opening words that it was an address, on some formal occasion, before a theological faculty--doubtless at Paris, where Basin was a doctor of theology,--and there is an undated Paris impression (put first by Hain), which was very probably printed at once. Basin was a speaker of some note, for we find him in 1481 (according to Burchard’s “Diarium”) preaching before the cardinals at Rome.

[34] His “Flagellum maleficorum,” written probably soon after the middle of the century (he mentions nothing later than 1453), but not printed till about 1490.

[35] His “Lamiarum sive strigarum opusculum,” printed in 1490. Quétif and Échard, who know it only in MS., give its title as “De lamiis et strigibus ad Franciscum Sfortiam Vicecomitem,” which would seem to prove it written before 1465, since Francesco Sforza died in that year. I hold in my hand a manuscript of what is perhaps the same, but is quite as possibly a different treatise by the same author. It is entitled: “Opusculu_m_ Mag_ist_ri Hieronymi Viceco_m_itis [_i.e._, Visconti--the inquisitor is said to have been a member of the great Milanese family of that name] ord_in_is _prae_dica_torum_ i_n_ quo p_ro_ba_tur_ Lamias e_sse_ h_aer_eticas et no_n_ laborare humore melancholico.” It is apparently contemporary, and may be the autograph of its author, though the marginal corrections and annotations are in differing hands of the same period. It is directed mainly against the canon _Episcopi_, and shows no knowledge either of witch-bull or of “Witch-Hammer.” Date it has none. The White Library is indebted for it to Dr. Hennen, of Düsseldorf, to whom it came from the collection of the musician Tosi.

[36] Of these I have already mentioned the books of Eymeric and Jaquier. Mr. Lea (“The Inquisition of the Middle Ages,” iii., 533) says that when (about 1460) certain witches were arrested at Tournay, Jean Taincture, a clerk, “wrote an elaborate treatise to prove their guilt,” which still exists in MS. in the National Library at Brussels. Mr. Lecky’s statement that the famous Spanish inquisitor-general Thomas of Torquemada wrote a book on witchcraft must, however, be a confusion of him with his namesake Antonio, who lived a century later. Still in MS. is also the “Buch von allerhand verbotenen Künsten, Unglauben und Zauberey” written about 1455, in a very different spirit--doubtless for the amusement of his ducal patrons--by the versatile Dr. Hartlieb, of Munich.

[37] So, at least, (according to Soldan-Heppe) replied Archbishop Johann of Trier.

[38] Better known by his Latin name of Institor, or Institoris.

[39] The statement, made by nearly all authorities on this subject, that the “Witch-Hammer” was first printed in 1489, is a manifest error. True, its first _dated_ edition is of that year. But Hain (“Repertorium Bibliographicum,” Nos. 9238-9241) chronicles no less than four undated (and presumably earlier) editions. All of these I have examined. One alone--that to which Hain wisely gives the first place--lacks both the Cologne theological faculty’s approval of May, 1487, and the commendatory letters of Maximilian of Austria, of 6 Nov., 1486, both of which appear in all other editions, and were not likely to be omitted when once obtained. The first impression can hardly, therefore, be of later date than 1486. That it is not earlier is clear from the evidence of the book itself. It begins with a commentary on the bull of 5 Dec., 1484 (the bull itself is not printed in this first edition), which must have required a little time to make. That the book was not completed in the year of its beginning may perhaps be inferred from the phrase “anno eodem quo hic liber est inchoatus,” used to date a certain anecdote. That at least a part of it was written in 1486 is sure from the fact that an incident (the burning of forty-one witches in a single year by the inquisitor Cumanus) is in one place (pars I., qu. 11) said to have happened “last year,” in another (pars II., qu. 1, cap. ii.) “in the year 1485,” and still again (pars III., qu. 15) “anno elapso, qui fuit 1485.” 1486, then, was almost unquestionably the year of its publication. The suggestion of Stanonik (“Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie,” _s. v._ Krämer) that it may have appeared in the same year with the bull is therefore untenable (the edition mentioned by Quétif and Échard, following Fontana, as of “Lugduni, Juntarum, 1484,” was probably printed in 1584); and 1486 was, almost unquestionably, the year of its publication. The copy of the _editio princeps_ examined by me is in the City Library of Trier; the White Library has what seems the second (Hain, 9239).

[40] “Haeresis est maxima, opera maleficarum non credere.”

[41] In his “History of the rise and influence of the spirit of rationalism in Europe,” i. It is by all odds the best survey of the field in English. Admirable in its insight, though less ambitious in its scope, is also Mr. Lowell’s essay on witchcraft (first published in the _North American Review_, then reprinted in the first series of his “Among my books”).

[42] Soldan’s “Geschichte der Hexenprozesse, neu bearbeitet von Heinrich Heppe,” Stuttgart, 1880.

[43] “Geschichte des Teufels,” Leipzig, 1869.

[44] “Religion und Hexenprozess,” Leipzig, 1888.

[45] Or Molitoris (Müller’s Ulrich?). In his “De lamiis et phitonicis [pythonicis] mulieribus,” Cologne, 1489.

[46] In his “Parerga juris” (to be found in his “Opera”).

[47] In his “De lamiis” (to be found in Ziletti).

[48] In his “De vanitate scientiarum”; but even more boldly in his fiery defence and rescue of a witch indicted by the Dominicans at Metz in 1519.

[49] Notably in his “Ein wunderlich gesprech von fünff unhulden,” 1531.

[50] Erasmus, alas, is hardly to be reckoned among them. The letter, of the year 1500, to Abbot Antonius à Bergis, in which he gives an account of a witch prosecution, and which has been too hastily cited by Soldan (and by so many on his authority) as showing his skepticism, is rather an evidence of his credulity. The “novum et inauditum portentum” at which he pretends to shudder is not the witch-trial, but the alleged crime itself. Nor is there any thing in his “Praise of Folly” that can prove him incredulous on this point. Yet, is Mr. Lecky quite right in thinking that “Erasmus was an equally firm believer in witchcraft” with Luther? Even in his letter to the Abbot he scores the meanness, the duplicity, and the vanity of the Dominican tale-bearer; if he does not share, he certainly does not censure, the hesitation of his friend the Official to believe the astounding things revealed under the torture; and the holy horror which he displays to his clerical patron has a factitious ring. Certainly he was as far from defending as from denying the inquisitorial theory; and the whole tenor of his pen toward monkish superstitions must have strengthened the courage of those who questioned this one also.

[51] In his “De strigiis,” written about 1510.

[52] In his “Tractatus declarans quam graviter peccent quaerentes auxilium a maleficiis,” Cologne, 1510.

[53] I know of these only through Quétif and Échard. Were their treatises ever printed?

[54] In his “Liber octo quaestionum ad Maximilianum Caesarem” (it was very probably his powerful advocacy that won the persecution the support of that prince, his pupil and friend), Oppenheim, 1515; and in his “Antipalus maleficiorum,” not printed till 1555.

[55] In his “Opus de magica superstitione,” Alcala, 1521, better known in its later Spanish version.

[56] _I.e._, Silvestro Mazolini, of Prierio. In his “De strigimagorum daemonumque mirandis,” Rome, 1521.

[57] In his “Quaestio de strigibus,” 1523; and in his “In Ponzinibium de lamiis apologia,” 1525.

[58] In his “Strix, seu de ludificatione daemonum,” Bologna, 1523.

[59] Not, of course, that there were in this time _no_ new books on witchcraft; but they were few and unimportant.

[60] As a crime in itself, independently of the material injury alleged to be caused by it. Thus, notably, the “Carolina” (the great new criminal code of the Empire, 1532), which became a model for all Europe. The first English statute (in 1541), more conservative, took cognizance of the intent of the witch, and the “Carolina” required proof of actual damage before inflicting death. But the courts were not fastidious as to sort or amount.

[61] Or Weier, Wier (Latin, Wierus or Piscinarius). As to Weyer, his opponents, and his followers, the scholarly and admirable biography by Professor Binz (“Doctor Johann Weyer,” Bonn, 1885), a model for others of its kind, has opened a whole new field.

[62] “De sagarum natura,” Bremen, 1584.

[63] “Exegesis expurgationis sagarum super aquam frigidam,” Helmstadt, 1584.

[64] “Christlich Bedencken und Erinnerung von Zauberey,” Heidelberg, 1585. He was a professor at Heidelberg, but wrote under the pseudonym of “Augustin Lercheimer of Steinfeld”; and so carefully was his secret kept that it has but just been ferreted out. A critically edited reprint of his book was last year published by Professors Binz and Birlinger, of Bonn.

[65] “De vera et falsa magia,” partially printed at Cologne, 1592. Loos’s book, long supposed to have been destroyed by the Inquisition at the time of his forced recantation, I had the good fortune, in 1886, to find in MS. (apparently his own copy) on the shelves of the City Library at Trier (see the _Nation_ for 11 Nov., 1886), and brought away a _fac-simile_. Since that time printed pages of it (so much as had been completed before its seizure) have been unearthed at the City Library of Cologne (see the _Centralblatt für Bibliothekswesen_, 1888, p. 455). The minutes of the trial of Loos’s compatriot and fellow-martyr, Dr. Dietrich Flade, of Trier, the most eminent victim of the persecution in Germany, which had also long been thought lost, are in the President White Library.

[66] “De magis, veneficis et lamiis,” Frankfurt a. M., 1591.

[67] “Γυναικόλουσις, seu mulierum lavatio, quam purgationem per aquam frigidam vocant; item vulgaris de potentia lamiarum opinio, quod utraque Deo, naturae omni juri et probatae consuetudini sit contraria. Candida, brevis et dilucida oratio,” Lubeck, 1590. The book is overlooked even by Binz.

[68] “The discoverie of witchcraft,” London, 1584. This first edition is so rare that the British Museum itself has not a perfect copy (our own collection is more fortunate); but there is now an admirable reprint (edited by Brinsley Nicholson, London, 1886). Scot is bolder and more rational than Weyer himself.

[69] “A discourse of the subtill practises of devilles by witches,” London, 1557. “A dialogue concerning witches and witchcrafts,” London, 1603.

[70] “A declaration of egregious popish impostures,” London, 1603. Harsnet, who at the time of writing this was only chaplain to the Bishop of London, but who became successively Master of Pembroke Hall, Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge, Bishop of Chichester, Bishop of Norwich, and Archbishop of York, was one of the most rational and outspoken men of his time. It was in 1599, as it seems, that he first took ground against the belief in demoniacal possession, in his book against the Anglican exorcist, John Darrell, whom he virtually drove from the realm. His “Declaration of popish impostures,” written against the Jesuit Edmunds, or Weston, and his exorcisms, appeared in 1603. In it Harsnet shows himself a thorough-going disciple of Reginald Scot (whom he cites), and scoffs openly at the whole body of witchcraft superstition, declaring it delusion and humbug.

[71] “The triall of witchcraft,” London, 1616.

[72] “Les sorciers,” 1574. In Latin, as “De veneficis,” in 1575.

[73] “De la démonomanie des sorciers,” Paris, 1580. More widely read in its Latin translation of the following year.

[74] “De la haine de Satan et malins esprits contre l’homme,” Paris, 1590.

[75] Or Lancre. “Tableau de l’inconstance des mauvais anges et démons, où il est ... traicté des sorciers,” Paris, 1612. “L’incrédulité et mescréance du sortilège,” Paris, 1622.

[76] “De lamiis, seu strigibus,” Basel, 1577.

[77] “De confessionibus maleficorum et sagarum,” Trier, 1589. “Commentarius in Tit. de Maleficis et Mathematicis,” Trier, 1592.

[78] “De examine et purgatione sagarum per aquam frigidam epistola,” [1583]. “De sagarum natura et potestate,” Marburg, 1588. “Responsio ad examen ignoti patroni veritatis de purgatione sagarum,” Frankfurt a. M., 1590.

[79] Latin, Remigius. “Daemonolatreia,” Lyons, 1595.

[80] “Discours exécrable des sorciers,” Paris, 1602.

[81] Or del Rio. “Disquisitiones magicae,” Louvain, 1599-1601. The edition ascribed by Grässe (and by others following him) to 1593 is a myth. If this were not abundantly proved by Delrio’s own prefaces and by the approbations of the censors, we have in the correspondence of Justus Lipsius (in his letters to Delrio) conclusive testimony. Lipsius himself suggested the title of the book, in whose progress he took the liveliest interest. In the National Library at Brussels (where I have examined it) is an earlier and much briefer draft of Delrio’s book, dated 1596 and bearing the title “De superstitione et malis artibus.”

[82] Or Villalpando. In his “Epitome delictorum, sive De magia,” Seville, 1618, and in his “Daemonologia,” Mainz, 1623.

[83] “A discourse of the damned art of witchcraft,” Cambridge, 1610.

[84] “Daemonologie,” Edinburgh, 1597. James was undoubtedly the prime author of the new and harsher English statute against witchcraft, which, with a fresh edition of his “Daemonologie,” appeared in the year (1603) of his accession to the English throne.

[85] It was the day of the “Theatrum diabolorum,” of the “Theatrum de veneficis,” of the “Mallei maleficarum”--now swollen by supplements to thrice the bulk of the original “Malleus,” and growing every year.

[86] True, there was still, in many quarters, an unreconciled public sentiment, and even now and then an open though unpublished deprecation. It has long struck the attention of historians that, even in witch-ridden Germany, the great imperial city of Nuremberg seems free from the persecution. Its criminal code was the Carolina; yet a contemporary manuscript copy of its executioner’s records, from 1600 to 1692, in the possession of the President White Library, shows not a single execution for witchcraft proper. I hold in my hand a document--so far as I know unprinted, and certainly unknown to the historians of witchcraft--which may partially explain this. It is a manuscript, in a sixteenth century hand, on whose cover I read, “Der Nürnbergischen Theologen Ainhellige Antwort, über etliche Puncten, die Unhulden betreffent”; and at the head of its first page, more explicitly, “Ainhellige Antwort der Hochgelerten Theologi unnd Predicanten zu Nürnberg: auff die Suplication des Raths zu Weisenburg an die Eltern herren dess geheimen Raths alhie zu Nürnberg: umb unterichtung: Wie sie sich mit iren Hexen undt Unhulden verhalden sollen, unnd wass in Göttlicher heiliger Schrifft darvon gegründett sey.” At the end are the signatures of the six pastors of Nuremberg, and the date--1590. Through thirty weary pages the city clergy wrestle with the problem set them; and superstitious enough seems their answer. They believe fully in witchcraft and in its punishment--nay, they establish both in all their horrible detail out of Holy Writ. And yet (the influence of the canon _Episcopi_ is clearly not dead, even for Protestants) they deny that the witches can transform themselves, or ride through the air, or cause wind or hail-storm; all this is mere illusion. And so do they fence about the prescribed procedure with their cautions against trusting the testimony of the witches themselves or the word of the executioner or charges against persons of else unblemished reputation; that, seeing the most prolific sources of the spread of the persecution thus cut off, one no longer wonders, if such were the spirit of even her theologians, at Nuremberg’s own immunity.

[87] “Instructio pro formandis processibus in causis strigum, sortilegiorum, et maleficiorum,” Rome, 1657.

[88] In his “Philosophical considerations touching witches and witchcraft,” 1666, which, enlarged, was reprinted (1668) as “A blow at modern sadducism,” and (1681) as “Sadducismus triumphatus.”

[89] In his “Select cases of conscience touching witches and witchcraft,” 1646. I have not seen the book, and copy its title from Wright (“Narratives of sorcery and witchcraft”).

[90] In his “An advertisement to the jurymen of England, touching witches,” London, 1653.

[91] In his “A candle in the dark; or, A treatise concerning the nature of witches and witchcraft,” London, 1656.

[92] In his “The question of witchcraft debated; or, A discourse against their opinion that affirm witches,” London, 1669.

[93] In his “The displaying of supposed witchcraft,” London, 1677.

[94] And if it surprise any that, in a paper before the American Historical Association, I say nothing of the literature of American witchcraft, I can reply only that it seemed to me a work of supererogation, if not an impertinence, to treat that literature in this presence with the brevity its place in the history of the delusion would demand.

[95] In his “Tribunal reformatum,” Hamburg, 1624.

[96] That Thomasius was himself their author was, indeed, clearly stated in a letter appended to the “Theses,” wherein he says to the respondent: ...“_In chartam conjeci breves has Theses, quae in perlectione prolixioris dissertationis Tuae in mentem venerunt._”... They were published the next year (and often thereafter) in German translation, under his own name, as “Kurtze Lehr-Sätze von dem Laster der Zauberey.” But this was only a beginning of Thomasius’ share in the crusade. He gathered, or led his students to gather, all that could be found written against the persecution (among the rest Spee’s book) and issued it afresh in German; he translated, with preface of his own, every new book upon it that appeared abroad; he encouraged his pupils to discuss it in their dissertations, or did so in their names; he assailed it in lecture and review and editorial; and he kept up the warfare till his death. An utterance of his even earlier than the “Theses” I find in his “Dissertatio ad Petri Poireti libros de Eruditione,” 1694 (reprinted in his “Programmata Thomasiana,” 1724), where he already takes strong ground against the persecution, though not wholly against the superstition.

[97] “Disputatio juris canonici de origine ac progressu processus inquisitorii contra sagas, quam ... praeside Dn. Christiano Thomasio ... subjicit ... Johannes Paulus Ipsen.” That Thomasius, and not Ipsen, is its author, is abundantly clear from internal evidence; and Thomasius himself claims it as his own in subsequent writings. We have, by the way, from Thomasius’s own lips (in his “Programma invitatorium” to “Dodecas quaestionum promiscuarum,” Halle, 1694--cited by A. Roquette in the _Centralblatt für Bibliothekswesen_, 1887), an ironical discussion of this prevalent fashion of writing for one’s pupils disputations which one afterward collected and published under one’s own name. “Neque falsum committitur,” he thinks, “dum quis se auctorem scribit disputationis, cujus nec lineam saepius elaboravit, saepius nec intelligit.”

[98] “An historical essay concerning witchcraft,” London, 1718.

[99] “Bibliotheca, acta et scripta magica: Gründliche Nachrichten und Urtheile von solchen Büchern und Handlungen, welche die Macht des Teufels in leiblichen Dingen betreffen,” Lemgo, 1739-45.

[100] “Versuch einer Geschichte der Hexenprozesse,” i., Berlin, 1784. It unfortunately remained a fragment--in fact, as the author himself calls it, only an introduction.

[101] In the “literarisch-kritischer Anhang über die Quellen und Bearbeitungen der Hexenprozesse,” appended to his little study on “Die gegenwärtige Wiederbelebung des Hexenglaubens” (Berlin, 1875).

Transcriber’s Note:

The footnotes have been relocated to the end of the main text and renumbered to better fit the ebook format.

Spelling and hyphenation in common use at the time of publication have been kept as is. Obvious typos have been corrected.

The following change has been made:

- In footnote 75: sortilége to sortilège