The method by which they profess
their sacrilege through an open pact of fidelity to devils varies according to
the several practices to which different witches are addicted. And to
understand this it first must be noted that there are, as was shown in the
First Part of this treatise, three kinds of witches; namely, those who injure
but cannot cure; those who cure but, through some strange pact with the devil,
cannot injure; and those who both injure and cure. And among those who injure,
one class in particular stands out, which can perform every sort of witchcraft
and spell, comprehending all that all the others individually can do.
Wherefore, if we describe the method of profession in their case, it will
suffice also for all the other kinds. And this class is made up of those who,
against every instinct of human or animal nature, are in the habit of eating
and devouring the children of their own species.
And this is the most powerful class
of witches, who practise innumerable other harms also. For they raise
hailstorms and hurtful tempests and lightnings; cause sterility in men and
animals; offer to devils, or otherwise kill, the children whom they do not
devour. But these are only the children who have not been re-born by baptism
at the font, for they cannot devour those who have been baptized, nor any
without God's permission. They can also, before the eyes of their parents, and
when no one is in sight, throw into the water children walking by the water
side; they make horses go mad under their riders; they can transport
themselves from place to place through the air, either in body or in
imagination; they can affect Judges and Magistrates so that they cannot hurt
them; they can cause themselves and other to keep silence under torture; they
can bring about a great trembling in the hands and horror in the minds of
those who would arrest them; they can show to others occult things and certain
future events, by the information of devils, though this may sometimes have a
natural cause (see the question: Whether devils can foretell the future,
in the Second Book of Sentences); they can see absent things as if they
were present; they can turn the minds of men to inordinate love or hatred;
they can at times strike whom they will with lightning, and even kill some men
and animals; they can make of no effect the generative desires, and even the
power of copulation, cause abortion, kill infants in the mother's womb by a
mere exterior touch; they can at time bewitch men and animals with a mere
look, without touching them, and cause death; they dedicate their own children
to devils; and in short, as has been said, they can cause all the plagues
which other witches can only cause in part, that is, when the Justice of God
permits such things to be. All these things this most powerful of all classes
of witches can do, but they cannot undo them.
But it is common to all of them to
practise carnal copulation with devils; therefore, if we show the method used
by this chief class in their profession of their sacrilege, anyone may easily
understand the method of the other classes.
There were such witches lately,
thirty years ago, in the district of Savoy, towards the State of Berne, as
Nider tells in his Formicarius. And there are now some in the country
of Lombardy, in the domains of the Duke of Austria, where the Inquisitor of
Como, as we told in the former Part, caused forty-one witches to be burned in
one year; and he was fifty-five years old, and still continues to labour in
the Inquisition.
Now the method of profession is
twofold. One is a solemn ceremony, like a solemn vow. The other is private,
and can be made to the devil at any hour alone. The first method is when
witches meet together in the conclave on a set day, and the devil appears to
them in the assumed body of a man, and urges them to keep faith with him,
promising them worldly prosperity and length of life; and they recommend a
novice to his acceptance. And the devil asks whether she will abjure the Faith,
and forsake the holy Christian religion and the worship of the Anomalous Woman
(for so they call the Most Blessed Virgin MARY), and never venerate the
Sacraments; and if he finds the novice or disciple willing, then the devil
stretches out his hand, and so does the novice, and she swears with upraised
hand to keep that covenant. And when this is done, the devil at once adds that
this is not enough; and when the disciple asks what more must be done, the
devil demands the following oath of homage to himself: that she give herself
to him, body and soul, for ever, and do her utmost to bring others of both
sexes into his power. He adds, finally, that she is to make certain unguents
from the bones and limbs of children, especially those who have been baptized;
by all which means she will be able to fulfil all her wishes with his help.
We Inquisitors had credible
experience of this method in the town of Breisach in the diocese of Basel,
receiving full information from a young girl witch who had been converted,
whose aunt also had been burned in the diocese of Strasburg. And she added
that she had become a witch by the method in which her aunt had first tried to
seduce her.
For one day her aunt ordered her to
go upstairs with her, and at her command to go into a room where she found
fifteen young men clothed in green garments after the manner of German knights.
And her aunt said to her: Choose whom you wish from these young men, and he
will take you for his wife. And when she said she did not wish or any of them,
she was sorely beaten and at last consented, and was initiated according to
the aforesaid ceremony. She said also that she was often transported by night
with her aunt over vast distances, even from Strasburg to Cologne.
This is she who occasioned our
inquiry in the First Part into the question whether witches are truly and
bodily transported by devils from place to place: and this was on account of
the words of the Canon (6, q. 5, Episcopi), which seem to imply that
they are only so carried in imagination; whereas they are at times actually
and bodily transported.
For when she was asked whether it
was only in imagination and phantastically that they so rode, through an
illusion of devils, she answered that they did so in both ways; according to
the truth which we shall declare later of the manner in which they are
transferred from place to place. She said also that the greatest injuries were
inflicted by midwives, because they were under an obligation to kill or offer
to devils as many children as possible; and that she had been severely beaten
by her aunt because she had opened a secret pot and found the heads of a great
many children. And much more she told us, having first, as was proper, taken
an oath to speak the truth.
And he account of the method of
professing the devil's faith undoubtedly agrees with what has been written by
that most eminent Doctor, John Nider, who even in our times has written very
illuminatingly; and it may be especially remarked that he tells of the
following which he had from an Inquisitor of the diocese of Edua, who held
many inquisitions on witches in that diocese, and caused many to be burned.
For he says that this Inquisitor
told him that in the Duchy of Lausanne certain witches had cooked and eaten
their own children, and that the following was the method in which they became
initiated into such practices. The witches met together and, by their art,
summoned a devil in the form of a man, to whom the novice was compelled to
swear to deny the Christian religion, never to adore the Eucharist, and to
tread the Cross underfoot whenever she could do so secretly.
Here is another example from the
same source. There was lately a general report, brought to the notice of Peter
the Judge in Boltingen, that thirteen infants had been devoured in the State
of Berne; and the public justice exacted full vengeance on the murderers. And
when Peter asked one of the captive witches in what manner they ate children,
she replied: “This is the manner of it. We set our snares chiefly for
unbaptized children, and even for those that have been baptized, especially
when they have not been protected by the sign of the Cross and prayers” (Reader,
notice that, at the devil's command, they take the unbaptized chiefly, in
order that they may not be baptized), “and with our spells we kill them in
their cradles or even when they are sleeping by their parents' side, in such a
way that they afterwards are thought to have been overlain or to have died
some other natural death. Then we secretly take them from their graves, and
cook them in a cauldron, until the whole flesh comes away from the bones to
make a soup which may easily be drunk. Of the more solid matter we make an
unguent which is of virtue to help us in our arts and pleasures and our
transportations; and with the liquid we fill a flask or skin, whoever drinks
from which, with the addition of a few other ceremonies, immediately acquires
much knowledge and becomes a leader in our sect.”
Here is another very clear and
distinct example. A young man and his wife, both witches, were imprisoned in
Berne; and the man, shut up by himself apart from her in a separate tower,
said: “If I could obtain pardon for my sins, I would willingly declare all
that I know about witchcraft; for I see that I ought to die.” And when he
was told by the learned clerks who were there that he could obtain complete
pardon if he truly repented, he joyfully resigned himself to death, and laid
bare the method by which he had first been infected with his heresy. “The
following,” he said, “is the manner in which I was seduced. It is first
necessary that, on a Sunday before the consecration of Holy Water, the novice
should enter the church with the masters, and there in their presence deny
Christ, his Faith, baptism, and the whole Church. And then he must pay homage
to the Little Master, for so and not otherwise do they call the devil.” Here
it is to be noted that this method agrees with those that have been recounted;
for it is immaterial whether the devil is himself present or not, when homage
is offered to him. For this he does in his cunning, perceiving the temperament
of the novice, who might be frightened by his actual presence into retracting
his vows, whereas he would be more easily persuaded to consent by those who
are known to him. And therefore they call him the Little Master when he is
absent, that through seeming disparagement of his Master the novice may feel
less fear. “And then he drinks from the skin, which has been mentioned, and
immediately feels within himself a knowledge of all our arts and an
understanding of our rites and ceremonies. And in this manner was I seduced.
But I believe my wife to be so obstinate that she would rather go straight to
the fire than confess the smallest part of the truth; but, alas! we are both
guilty.” And as the young man said, so it happened in every respect. For the
young man confessed and was seen to die in the greatest contrition; but the
wife, though convicted by witnesses, would not confess any of the truth,
either under torture or in death itself; but when the fire had been prepared
by the gaoler, cursed him in the most terrible words, and so was burned. And
from these examples their method of initiation in solemn conclave is made
clear.
The other private method is
variously performed. For sometimes when men or women have been involved in
some bodily or temporal affliction, the devil comes to them speaking to them
in person, and at times speaking to them through the mouth of someone else;
and he promises that, if they will agree to his counsels, he will do for them
whatever they wish. But he starts from small things, as was said in the first
chapter, and leads gradually to the bigger things. We could mention many
examples which have come to our knowledge in the Inquisition, but, since this
matter presents no difficulty, it can briefly be included with the previous
matter.
A Few Points are to be Noticed in the Explanation of their Oath
of Homage.
Now there are certain points to
be noted concerning the homage which the devil exacts, as, namely, for what
reason and in what different ways he does this. It is obvious that his
principal motive is to offer the greater offence to the Divine Majesty by
usurping to himself a creature dedicated to God, and thus more certainly to
ensure his disciple's future damnation, which is his chief object.
Nevertheless, it is often found by us that he has received such homage for a
fixed term of years at the time of the profession of perfidy; and sometimes he
exacts the profession only, postponing the homage to a later day.
And let us declare that the
profession consists in a total or partial abnegation of the Faith: total, as
has been said before, when the Faith is entirely abjured; partial, when the
original pact makes it incumbent on the witch to observe certain ceremonies in
opposition to the decrees of the Church, such as fasting on Sundays, eating
meat on Fridays, concealing certain crimes at confession, or some such profane
thing. But let us declare that homage consists in the surrender of body and
soul.
And we can assign four reasons why
the devil requires the practice of such things. For we showed in the First
Part of this treatise, when we examined whether devils could turn the minds of
men to love or hatred, that they cannot enter the inner thoughts of the heart,
since this belongs to God alone. But the devil can arrive at a knowledge of
men's thoughts by conjecture, as will be shown later. Therefore, if that
cunning enemy sees that a novice will be hard to persuade, he approaches her
gently, exacting only small things that he may gradually lead her to greater
things.
Secondly, it must be believed that
there is some diversity among those who deny the Faith, since some do so with
their lips but not in their heart, and some both with their lips and in their
heart. Therefore the devil, wishing to know whether their profession comes
from the heart as well as from the lips, sets them a certain period, so that
he may understand their minds from their works and behaviour.
Thirdly, if after the lapse of a
set time he find that she is less willing to perform certain practices, and is
bound to him only by but not in her heart, he presumes that the Divine
Mercy has given her the guardianship of a good Angel, which he knows to be of
great power. Then he casts her off, and tries to expose her to temporal
afflictions, so that he gain some profit from her despair.
The truth of this is clear. For if it is asked why some witches will not
confess the truth under even the greatest tortures, while other readily
confess their crimes when they are questioned (and some of them, after they
have confessed, try to kill themselves by hanging), the reason is as follows.
It may truly be said that, when it is not due to a Divine impulse conveyed
through a holy Angel that a witch is made to confess the truth and abandon the
spell of silence, then it is due to the devil whether she preserves silence of
confesses her crimes. The former is the case with those whom he knows to have
denied the Faith both with their lips and in their hearts, and also to have
given him their homage; for he is sure of their constancy. But in the latter
case he withdraws his protection, since he knows that they are of no profit to
him.
We have often learned from the
confessions of those whom we have caused to be burned, that they have not been
willing agents of witchcraft. And they have not said this in the hope of
escaping damnation, for its truth is witnessed by the blows and stripes which
they have received from devils when they have been unwilling to perform their
orders, and we have often seen their swollen and livid faces. Similarly, after
they have confessed their crimes under torture they always try to hang
themselves; and this we know for a fact; for after the confession of their
crimes, guards are deputed to watch them all the time, and even then, when the
guards have been negligent, they have been found hanged with their shoe-laces
or garments. For, as we have said, they devil causes this, lest they should
obtain pardon through contrition or sacramental confession; and those whose
hearts he cannot seduce from finding grace with God, he tries to lead into
despair through worldly loss and a horrible death. However, through the great
grace of God, as it is pious to believe, they can obtain forgiveness by true
contrition and pure confession, when they have not been willing participators
in those foul and filthy practices.
This is exemplified by certain
events which took place hardly three years ago in the dioceses of Strasburg
and Constance, and in the towns of Hagenau and Ratisbon. For in the first town
one hanged herself with a trifling and flimsy garment. Another, named
Walpurgis, was notorious for her power of preserving silence, and used to
teach other women how to achieve a like quality of silence by cooking their
first-born sons in an oven. Many such examples are to our hand, as they are
also in the case of others burned in the second town, some of which will be
related.
And there is a forth reason why the
devil exacts a varying degree of homage, making it relatively small in some
cases because he is more skilful than Astronomers in knowing the length if
human life, and so can easily fix a term which he knows will be preceded by
death, or can, in the manner already told, forestall natural death with some
accident.
All this, in short, can be shown by
the actions and behaviour of witches. But first we can deduce the astuteness
of the devil in such things. For according to S. Augustine in the de Natura
Daemonis seven reasons are assigned why devils can conjecture probable
future events, though they cannot know them certainly. The first is that they
have a natural subtlety in their understanding, by which they arrive at their
knowledge without the process of reasoning which is necessary for us. Secondly,
by their long experience and by revelation of supernal spirits, they know more
than we do. For S. Isidore says that the Doctors have often affirmed that
devils derive their marvellous cunning from three sources, their natural
subtlety, their long experience, and the revelation of supernal spirits. The
third reason is their rapidity of motion, by which they can with miraculous
speed anticipate in the West things which are happening in the East. Fourthly,
just as they are able, with God's permission, to cause disease and famines, so
also they can predict them. Fifthly, they can more cunningly read the signs of
death than a physician can by looking at the urine or feeling the pulse. For
just as a physician sees signs in a sick man which a layman would not notice,
so the devil sees what no man can naturally see. Sixthly, they can by signs
which proceed from a man's mind conjecture more astutely than the wisest men
what is or will be in that man's mind. For they know what impulses, and
therefore what actions, will probably follow. Seventhly, they understand
better than men the acts and writings of the Prophets, and, since on these
much of the future depends, they can foretell from them much that will happen.
Therefore it is not wonderful that they can know the natural term of a man's
life; though it is different in the case of the accidental term when a witch
is burned; for this the devil ultimately causes when, as has been said, he
finds a witch reluctant, and fears for her conversion; whereas he protects
even up to their natural death others whom he knows to be his willing agents.
Let us give examples of both these
cases, which are known to us. There was in the diocese of Basel, in a town
called Oberweiler situated on the Rhine, an honest parish priest, who fondly
held the opinion, or rather error, that there was no witchcraft in the world,
but that it only existed in the imagination of men who attributed such things
to witches. And God wished so to purge him of this error that he might even be
made aware of the practice of devils in setting a term to the lives of witches.
For as he was hastening to cross a bridge, on some business that he had to do,
he met a certain old woman in his hurry, and would not give way to her, but
pressed on so that he thrust the old woman into the mud. She indignantly broke
into a flood of abuse, and said to him, “Father, you will not cross with
impunity.” And though he took small notice of those words, in the night,
when he wished to get out of his bed, he felt himself bewitched below the
waist, so that he always had to be supported by the arms of other men when he
wished to go to the church; and so he remained for three years, under the care
of his own mother. After that time the old woman fell sick, the hag whom he
had always suspected as being the cause of his witchcraft, owing to the
abusive words with which she had threatened him; and it happened that she sent
to him to hear her confession. And though the priest angrily said, “Let her
confess to the devil her master,” yet, at the instance of his mother, he
went to the house supported by two servants, and sat at the head of the bed
where the witch lay. And the two servants listened outside the window, so
eager were they to know whether she would confess that she had bewitched the
priest. Now it happened that, though she made no mention in her confession of
having been the cause of his malady, after the confession was finished, she
said, “Father, do you know who bewitched you?” And when he gently answered
that he did not, she added, “You suspect me, and with reason; for know that
I brought it upon you for this reason,” explaining as we have already told.
And when he begged to be liberated, she said, “Lo! the set time has come,
and I must die; but I will so cause it that in a few days, after my death, you
will be healed.” And so it happened. For she died at the time fixed by the
devil, and within thirty days the priest found himself completely healed in
one night. The name of that priest is Father Hässlin, and he lives yet in the
diocese of Strasburg.
Similarly in the diocese of Basel,
in the village called Buchel, near the town of Gewyll, this happened. A
certain woman was taken, and finally burned, who for six years had had an
Incubus devil, even when she was lying in bed by the side of her husband. And
this she did three times a week, on Sundays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays, and on
some of the other more holy nights. But the homage she had given to the devil
was of such a sort that she was bound to dedicate herself body and soul to him
for ever, after seven years. But God provided mercifully: for she was taken in
the sixth year and condemned to the fire, and having truly and completely
confessed, is believed to have obtained pardon from God. For she went most
willingly to her death, saying that she would gladly suffer an even more
terrible death, if only she could be set free from and escape the power of the
devil.