ASTROLOGY
It therefore manifests no little determination of purpose that,before Sixtus V, in his bull of 1585, had ordered the suppression of astrology by the Inquisition, the Suprema, in 1582, attacked it in its stronghold, the University of Salamanca, sending thither in March the Valladolid inquisitor, Juan de Arrese, with an edict condemning all the practices of the so-called science. In a letter of the 10th, Arrese says that he had been there for eight days, without having had an opportunity of publishing the edict, but he expects to do so the next day. Then, on the 20th, he reports that he is obtaining the first results and is overwhelmed with them; there are many who teach judicial astrology, both genethliacal, in casting nativities, and in answering all questions put to them, and they excuse themselves by saying that they only teach what is in the books that are permitted. Those inculpated under the edict are so numerous that it would be an infinite affair to punish them, and to overlook them would be worse, for they expect to be allowed to continue. Meanwhile he has taken testimony as to some and has suspended others till he receives orders, to which the reply was to go on taking testimony and report the results. Then, on March 31st he writes that he is still gathering evidence against the teachers of astrology, among whom are some who treat of invocation of demons and necromancy, especially Diego Pérez de Messa, who had been banished for other offences by themaestre escuelaand is in hiding, but Arrese had ordered his arrest. Then, on April 24th, Arrese forwards a declaration drawn up by Maestre Muñoz, professor of astrology, for such action as the Suprema may please to take. At the same time he says that all those occupied in making astrological predictions excuse themselves on the ground that, under the statutes of the university, this is ordered to be taught; he suggests that the Suprema shall prohibit teaching from such books, and also judicial astrology, except as regards weather, but there are also indications of magic, about which he promises further information.[426]The documents before me fail to state what action the Suprema took with the professors and teachers, but that this was the condition in the foremost Spanish seat of learning indicates the magnitude of the task of eradicating beliefs so widely spread and so firmly established. That it forthwith suppressed the public teaching of astrology is indicated by the Prohibitory Index, which appeared the following year, 1583. This proscribed all books and writings that treat of the science ofpredicting the future by the stars, and it forbade all persons from forming forecasts as to matters dependent on free-will or fortune. Yet it conceded the influence of the stars by permitting the astrology which pertained to the weather and the general events of the world, agriculture, navigation and medicine, and also that which indicated at birth the inclinations and bodily qualities of the infant.[427]
This half-hearted condemnation was not calculated to overthrow the belief of ages, and astrology maintained its hold on popular credulity. It is said that, on the birth of Philip IV, in 1605, Philip III consulted the celebrated Argoli, master of astrology in Padua, as to his son’s horoscope, and was told that the stars threatened the child with so many disasters that he would certainly die in misery if he had not for his inheritance the wide dominions of Spain—a prophecy which seems to have been suggested by the event.[428]However this may be, the Inquisition maintained its position and was active in prosecuting the practitioners of the science as a means of divination. An experienced writer, about 1640, states that, since 1612, astrologers had been rigorously punished. Judicial astrology was permitted only in so far as it related to commerce, agriculture and medicine. The casting of horoscopes to predict the future, especially with regard to the death of individuals—a frequent practice, productive of much evil—was punishable by appearance in a public auto, abjuration de levi, exile and fine proportioned to the means of the delinquent, while even further severity was due to its employment for the detection of thieves and finding things lost.[429]A clause was introduced, in the Edicts of Faith, requiring the denunciation of all engaged in such practices, with a careful accumulation of details that reveals how wide was the sphere of influence ascribed to the stars.[430]
PROCEDURE
The severity visited upon astrologers shows the determination of the Inquisition, and its estimate of the difficulty of the task. Ecclesiastics, as we have seen, except when relaxed, were spared appearance in public autos in order to avert scandal, but astrology was made an exception and the penalties were extreme. Thus, in the Toledo auto of October 7, 1663, there appeared Don PedroZacome Pramosellas, arch-priest of Brimano (Cremona) sentenced to abjurede leviand perpetual banishment from Spain, after three years of galley-service, besides prohibition to practice astrology or to read books on the subject. So, in the Toledo auto of October 30, 1667, the Licentiate Pedro López Camarena Montesinos, a beneficed priest of San Lorenzo of Valencia, for judicial astrology and searching for treasures, was condemned to abjurede levi, to four years in an African presidio, followed by six years’ exile from Madrid and Toledo, suspension from Orders and deprivation of all ecclesiastical revenues.[431]This severity, doubtless, did much to aid advancing intelligence in outgrowing the ancient beliefs but, as late as 1796, we find Fray Miguel Alberola, a lay-brother of San Pedro de Alcántara, prosecuted in Valencia for using the “wheel of Beda”—evidently thePetosiris, a device by which the motions of the moon were used in place of the multitudinous and complex details of the stars and planets.[432]
Procedure in cases of sorcery had little to distinguish it from that in ordinary heresy, except that, as a rule, torture was not employed. One authority, indeed, tells that, although in Italy torture was used in cases of heretical sorcery, it was never used in Spain, but another assumes that in certain cases it was at the discretion of the tribunal.[433]That this discretion was used is seen in the Mexican case of Isabel de Montoya, a wretched old woman, in 1652, who freely confessed to numerous devices for procuring money—charms and philtres and conjurations. In addition to this was the evidence of her dupes, as to her stories of her relations with the demon, which required elucidation. She was tortured without extracting further confessions and then was sentenced to a hundred lashes, three years’ service in a hospital and perpetual exile from Puebla.[434]
As pact with the demon was the basis of inquisitorial jurisdiction over sorcery, it was important to obtain from the accused admission of its existence. To this end, in 1655, the Suprema issued special instructions as to examination in all cases dependent on pact—instructions which reveal implicit belief in the reality of the powersclaimed for sorcery. The accused was to be asked if the prayers, remedies and other things employed produced the expected results wholly or partially, and as they had not the natural virtues to effect this, what was the cause of the result. When, in the prayers or conjurations, certain demons were invoked, was it to make them appear and speak and in what mode or form. Whether the invocation was in virtue of a pact, express or tacit, with the demon and, if so, in what way had it been made. Whether the demon sometimes appeared in consequence of the prayers or conjurations and, if so, in what figure or guise, and what he said or did. With what faith or belief they did these things and framed the remedies, and whether it was with the intention and hope that the desired effect should be produced, and with the belief that they would attain it, and whether they held this for certain—with other similar interrogatories, suited for particular cases.[435]
PUNISHMENT
Based on these instructions a curious series of formulas was drawn up, adapted to all the different classes of offenders. As a sample of these we may take the one used in the examination of Zahories, who assumed to have a natural gift to see under the surface of the earth, involving no heresy, so that they were subject to the Inquisition only through an arbitrary assumption that their work must necessarily require the aid of the demon, in which there was noparvitas materiœ, and that it was a mortal sin to employ them. The Zahori is to be asked whether it is true that he can see clearly and distinctly what is hidden under the earth and to what distance his vision penetrates; whether this power is confined to buried treasure, or extends to other things; at what age and on what occasion he first recognized the possession of this power; whether it is continuous, or stronger at times than at others; whether he has exerted this power and has found it effective; whether he has thus obtained treasures and, if so, of what kind or amount; who assisted him and whether the treasures were divided and what then happened; whether to reach the treasure, either in preparation or at the time of raising it, anything else was done, such as masses, prayers, conjurations, fumigations, invocations of saints or of other unknown names, or use was made of holy water, blessed palms, lights, genuflections, reading from a book or paper or other similar means; whether some treasures are more difficult to obtain than others and, if so, from what cause, such asenchantment; whether Zahories have any sign by which this power is recognized, and whether they recognize each other; in what principally does this power consist; whether money has been paid to him for pointing out a place where treasure was hidden and, if so, where he received it and what was the spot designated.[436]We can readily see how apt would be such an interrogatory, followed up by a trained examiner, to lead to admissions justifying implied pact, especially as there was a craze for finding buried treasure, and a wide-spread belief that stores of it were hidden underground, awaiting the coming of Antichrist, and guarded by demons, who must be placated or subdued before the gold could be secured.
In all this it is evident that the inquisitor, if conscientious, must himself have been firmly convinced of the truth that all the arts of sorcery, simple as many of them were, were based on demonic aid. Yet the occasional use of the termembusteroshows that it was sometimes recognized that there was imposture as well as pact. Thus, in the Córdova auto of December 21, 1627, three women appeared, Ana de Jodar, sentenced to two hundred lashes in Córdova and one hundred in Villanueva del Arzobispo, with six years of exile; María de San Leon, to a hundred lashes and four years of exile and Francisca Méndez to vergüenza and exile. Now all these were declared to be sorceresses, invokers of demons with whom they had pacts, and their feats, as detailed in the sentences, showed them to be adepts and yet they were all stigmatized in addition asembusteras.[437]So, in the Saragossa auto of June 6, 1723, Sebastian Gómez is described assupersticioso y embustero, though his sentence of two hundred lashes and perpetual service in a hospital with shackles on his feet shows that his offence was not regarded as mere imposture.[438]
Severe as may seem some of the sentences alluded to, there is no question that, in most cases, the delinquents were fortunate in having the Inquisition as a judge rather than the secular courts, which everywhere showed themselves merciless where sorcery was concerned. We have seen the demand, in 1598, for the revival of the savage law of 1414, and this rigor had the support not only of popular opinion but of the learned. Ciruelo taught that all vain superstitions and sorcery were inventions of the devil, whereforethose who learned and practised them were disciples of the devil and enemies of God. There was no distinction between classes of offenders; all were to be persecuted with unsparing rigor. Thieves, he argued were properly hanged or beheaded, because every thief is presumed to be a homicide, and much more should it thus be with every sorcerer, as his efforts were directed rather against persons than property.[439]Torreblanca tells us that Huss and Wickliffe and Luther and almost all heretics contend against the punishment of sorcerers, but this is heretical, detestable and scandalous, and all orthodox authorities teach that they should be unsparingly put to death and be persecuted by both the spiritual and temporal swords.[440]It is well to bear in mind this consensus of opinion when considering the practice of the Inquisition. In the tribunals there was nothing to control the discretion of the judges save the Suprema, and that discretion showed itself in a leniency difficult to understand, more often than in undue harshness, and even their harshness was less to be dreaded than the mercy of the secular law. The systematic writers lay down the rule that, if the culprit confesses to pact with the demon, he is presumably an apostate; if he begs mercy he is to be admitted to reconciliation in an auto, with confiscation and a hundred lashes or vergüenza; if he is not an apostate, the reconciliation is modified to abjurationde leviand the scourging to vergüenza.[441]These rules, however, were not observed; reconciliation was exceedingly rare, abjurationde vehementiwas unusual, abjurationde levialmost universal, and the tribunals exercised wide discretion in the infliction of the most diverse penalties.
PUNISHMENT
A few cases will illustrate how completely the temper of the tribunal influenced the sentences. In 1604, Valencia seems to have had exceptionally lenient inquisitors. Alonso Verlango, desiring to compromise a suit, hired a woman to perform the conjuration of theampolletasor vials, placing in them wine, sulphur and other things, and throwing them into the fire, with the adjuration that as they burnt so might the hearts of men come to an agreement. There was also the conjuration of the oranges, cutting nine of them and placing in them oil, soap, salt and other things, with the formula that, as oil gives flavor, so might it be with the men;also driving a nail into each and saying that the nails were driven into their hearts. In both of these conjurations were invoked Bersabu, Satanas and other demons, the great and the crippled, along with St. Peter, St. Paul and other saints. There was also a long conjuration with a virgin child by which one could learn whatever was desired. Verlango himself, moreover, used conjurations to discover treasures and possessed the Dream-book of Solomon, “Vaquerio” and Cardande Proprietatibus Rerum. For all this he escaped with a reprimand and hearing mass in the audience chamber, abjurationde leviand two years of exile. Another case was that of Fray Miguel Rexaque, a priest of the Order of Montesa, who denounced himself for going with an Italian fraile, a virgin girl and some others, to discover treasure. They dug a hole; the Italian with an olive wand made a circle, in which was lighted a blessed candle; incense was burnt and the angels were summoned to drive away the demons guarding the treasure for the coming of Antichrist, and there was also a response from a demon obtained by the girl looking into a mirror. When the papers were submitted to the Suprema it ordered Rexaque to be reprimanded and the case to be suspended, while the girls who officiated had only a year’s exile and some spiritual penances. More serious was the ease of Francois Difor, a French priest, and Francisco Juseria, a student, for it involved sacrilege. They sought the advice of an adept, who told them to baptize three coins with certain names and the coins when paid out would return to their purses. Difor solemnly baptized three pesos; Juseria spent them for fritters and pastry, but they did not come back. Under instructions of a confessor, they denounced themselves; they were duly tried and sentenced to abjurede levi, to be severely reprimanded and to perform some slight spiritual penances.[442]
Valladolid furnishes similar examples of leniency. In 1629, Isabel García, a married woman, under trial confessed that to regain a lover she had invoked the demon, who appeared in human shape, when she entered into explicit pact with him and performed various other sorceries, yet she was sentenced only to abjurede leviand to four years’ exile from Valladolid and Astudilla. The next year Gabriel de Arroya, under pressure from a confessor, denounced himself and stated that, carried away by the passion of gambling, he had, during the last seven years, gone five timesinto the open fields, and invoked the demon to give him money for stakes, promising in return to devote his first child to the demon and offering to sign with his blood a pact to that effect. It is true that the demon never appeared, nor did he get money that seemed to come from such a source. In the consulta de fe, some of the members pronounced him to be vehemently suspect, others lightly, but it was finally voted to suspend the case without sentence and to reprimand him in the audience-chamber.[443]
PUNISHMENT
There is contrast between these and some cases, in 1641, gathered in by a Valladolid inquisitor during a visitation in Astorga. Eight old men and womencuranderos, whose offences consisted in superstitious cures of the most harmless character, were arrested and brought to Valladolid, where they were confined for months in the secret prison, to be finally sentenced to more or less prolonged exile, their simple ministrations being characterized as implicit pact with the demon. On the other hand, the Licentiate Pelayo de Ravanal, cura of Anicio, who charged twenty-three reales for blessing and ineffectually sprinkling with holy water a herd of sick cattle, and who failed in a superstitious cure of a husband and wife, was not arrested but was privately summoned and reprimanded in the apartments of the senior inquisitor. There were also two cases ofloberos—practitioners whose speciality consisted in preserving sheep from wolves. One was Macias Pérez, a shepherd of Medina del Campo, accused by ten witnesses of having the wolves at his command, and using them to injure whom he pleased; five testified that he had threatened them with the wolves and that consequently many of their sheep had been destroyed. The other, Juan Gutiérrez of Baradilla, speculated on his neighbors, who gave him grain, kids, sheep etc., to preserve their flocks. The calificadores held this to be implicit pact but, although both were arrested, both escaped with reprimands.[444]The same moderation was exhibited by the tribunal of Toledo, in a curious case, in 1659. Juan Severino de San Pablo, of Wilna in Lithuania, was living as a hermit in the Sierra Morena. He had a skull which he had laboriously inlaid with silver images; this he exhibited and gave certificates as cures for tertian fevers. After his trial had been carried to the accusation, it was suspended; he was severely reprimanded and threatened with a hundred lashes for relapse; theskull was buried in consecrated ground, but not until the silver had been carefully removed and given to the receiver in part settlement for the culprit’s maintenance in prison.[445]
There are two colonial cases which illustrate the capricious character of these judgements. In 1760, at Lima, a Guinea negro slave named Manuel Galiano, aged 70, was tried as acurandero. Several cases were in evidence in which he had cured swellings that had baffled the faculty, by making a small incision, inserting a hollow cane and sucking out blood, which would be accompanied with maggots, scorpions, lizards, snakes and the like, after which he would apply certain crushed herbs. It was decided that this inferred pact with the demon; he was arrested and freely admitted the cures, explaining that he hid the animals in the cane and blew them forth as though they had been drawn from the swelling; he had pronounced the patients to be bewitched and received four or five pesos for the cure; he had also pretended to give a charm to another slave. The case was simple enough but the trial was prolonged for three years, during which he lay in prison, to be finally sentenced to appear in an auto, with the insignia of sorcery and a halter, to vergüenza and to five years (counted from the time of his arrest) of service in a hospital.[446]
In wholesome contrast to this was a similar case in Mexico, in 1794. Juana Martínez was an Indian aged 40, married to a mulatto. She made her livelihood as acurandera, using a decoction of the root of a plant known aspalo de TexerorPeyote, which she gathered with invocation of the Trinity and three signs of the cross—ceremonies which she repeated when administering the remedy—and she said that her patients ejected, from mouth and nose, insects, flies etc., which was a sign that they had been bewitched. She also had an image of the Virgin, which she kept in a little reliquary and declared that it performed miracles. In short, she was an accomplishedembustera, and she richly earned the designation in the accusation of a simulator of miracles. Mariano de la Piedra Palacio, cura and ecclesiastical judge of their village, Temasunchale, arrested the pair and sequestrated their little property. By active threats of scourging he elicited a confession that she had invoked the devil who appeared and taught her the art, and that she operated by his power. It wasa clear case of sorcery and he handed them over to the Inquisition. The long journey to Mexico was performed handcuffed and they were consigned to the secret prison, July 22. A little skilful pressure brought Juana to admit that both the miracles of the Virgin and the insects voided by her patients were impostures. The fiscal chanced to be somewhat of a rationalist and, on August 4th he presented a report of a character not usual in the Inquisition.
He pointed out that the consummate ignorance of Cura Mariano had already caused these poor creatures sufficient suffering in tearing them from their home, defaming them, arresting them obstreperously and sending them to the prison of the tribunal without reason or justice. It was he who was to blame, for their ignorance was attributable to him, whose duty it was to instruct them. Assuming then that there was no legal basis for prosecution and that their lies were sufficiently punished by what they had endured, the fiscal suggested their discharge, with orders to abstain in future from cures and miracles, under pain of rigorous punishment, while the cura was to be warned to avoid future meddling with what pertained to the Inquisition. He should also be told to restore to them the mare and colt which he had unlawfully embargoed, to send at his own cost proper persons to conduct the prisoners comfortably home, and moreover that he and his vicars must see to the proper instruction of his flock. The tribunal was not prepared to rise to this height of justice, but it discharged the prisoners and notified Mariano to return to them the mare and colt and whatever else he had seized, without charging for their keep, and further to present himself to the tribunal on his first visit to the capital.[447]
PERSISTENT BELIEF
Yet, notwithstanding the sanity of the conclusions reached in this case, there was no surrender of belief in the reality of sorcery and of demonic influence. Far more effective for the suppression of sorcerers was the position assumed, in 1774, by the Inquisition of Portugal under the guidance of Pombal. In its reformed regulations it takes the ground that malignant spirits cannot, through pacts with sorcerers and magicians, change the immutable laws of Nature established by God for the preservation of the world; that the theological argument of cases in which God permits such spirits to torment men has no application to legislature or law. Those who believe that there are arts which teach how, by invocationsof demons, or imprecations, or signs, to work the wonders ascribed to sorcerers, fall into the absurdity of ascribing to the demon attributes belonging solely to God. Thus the two pacts, implicit and explicit, are equally incredible and there is no proof of them in the trials which for two centuries have been conducted by the Inquisition, save the unsupported confessions of the accused. From this it is deduced that all sorceries, divinations and witchcraft are manifest impostures, and the practical instructions, based on these premises, are that offenders are not to be convicted of heresy but of imposture, deceit and superstition, all of which is to be pointed out in the sentence, without giving the details as formerly. The penalties imposed are severe—scourging, the galleys and presidio, while if any one defends himself by asserting that these practices are legitimate, that a pact can be made with the demon, and that his operations are effective, he is to be confined, without more ado, in the Hospital Real de Todo os Santos—the insane hospital.[448]
The Spanish Inquisition was too orthodox to accept so rationalistic a view of sorcery, and continued to prosecute it as a reality. In 1787, Madrid was excited by an auto in which an impostor named Coxo was sentenced to two hundred lashes and ten years of presidio. He had thrived by selling philtres to provoke love, formed indecently of the bones and skin of a man and a woman, for which he had numerous customers, including ladies of quality. The affair abounded in lascivious details, which, when inscribed on the insignia hung in the church caused no little scandal.[449]In 1800, Diego Garrigo, a boy of 13, was prosecuted by the Seville tribunal for superstitious cures when, probably on account of his tender years, he escaped with a warning.[450]In 1807 the trial in Valencia of Rosa Conejos shows how the insatiable credulity of the vulgar was fed by the inexhaustible ingenuity of the impostor. She had been giving instructions as to charms by which supernatural powers could be gained, for the character of which a single example will suffice. After 11 o’clock at night, place on the fire a vessel full of oil; when it boils, throw in a living cat and put on the lid; at the stroke of midnight remove it and inside the skull of the cat will be found a little bone, which will render the personcarrying it invisible and enable him to do whatever he pleases; the bone will ask “What do you want?” but if carried across running water it will lose its virtue.[451]
Under the Restoration, cases become less numerous than of old, but there is no change in the attitude of the Inquisition. In 1818, for instance, the Suprema on February 12th, ordered the arrest and imprisonment, by the Seville tribunal, of Ana Barbero, for superstition, blasphemy and pact with the demon and, for these offences, she was sentenced, October 15th, to abjurationde levi, spiritual exercises, six years of exile and two hundred lashes—the latter being humanely commuted by the Suprema to eight years’ reclusion in a reformatory for loose women. The same tribunal ordered, June 17th, Francisca Romero to be thrown in the secret prison, with embargo of property, as a superstitiouscuranderaand a year later, June 18, 1819, we find her sentenced to the ordinary penalties of exile and two hundred lashes, the latter of which were mercifully omitted by the Suprema.[452]Belief in the virtues of the consecrated wafer was as lively as ever and prosecutions were frequent for retaining it, as that of Doña Antonia de la Torre, in 1815, by the Granada tribunal, for taking repeated communions in a day, retaining the forms and converting them to an evil use.[453]Treasure-seeking was not forgotten. In 1816 the Santiago tribunal discovered a book of conjurations for the purpose, which was promptly prohibited by edict, all copies were to be seized, investigation was ordered into popular beliefs and Fray Juan Cuntin y Duran was prosecuted for using the conjurations. This probably led to the discovery, in 1817, at Tudela of a similar MS. work which the Suprema ordered to be suppressed.[454]
PERSISTENT BELIEF
It is easy to understand that the prosecution of sorcery constituted a not inconsiderable portion of the duties of the Inquisition, at least during the later stages of its career. Cases were comparatively few as long as only serious matters were held to fall within its jurisdiction but, with the extended definition of pact, they increased considerably and, as the business of prosecuting Moriscos and Judaizers declined, its energies were more largely directed to the wise-women and the sharpers who found a precarious livelihoodin the vulgar superstitions pervading the community. Thus, in the Toledo record, from 1575 to 1610, out of a total of 1172 cases, there are only eighteen of sorcery, or a trifle over one and a half per cent., while, in the same tribunal from 1648 to 1794 there are a hundred out of a total of 1205, or about eight and one-third per cent.[455]Occasionally they furnish the chief part of the business of a tribunal. In the Valencia auto of July 1, 1725, fifteen of the eighteen penitents were sorcerers and, in that of Córdova, December 5, 1745, there were five out of eight.[456]A record of the business of all the tribunals, from 1780 to the suppression in 1820, furnishes a total of four hundred and sixty-nine cases of which a hundred and sixteen may be classed as maleficent and three hundred and fifty-three as merely superstitious.[457]
Belief in the powers of sorcery had been too strongly inculcated to disappear with the cessation of persecution. A modern writer assures us that all the old superstitions flourish as vigorously as ever—conjurations and formulas to cure or to kill, to foretell the future, to create love or hatred, to render men impotent and women barren, to destroy the flocks and herds and harvests, to bring tempests and hail-storms. The wise-woman is as potent as of yore in her control of the forces of nature and the passions of man, and the profession is as well filled and as well paid as in the sixteenth century.[458]We can readily believe this when Padre Cappa, S. J., in his defence of the Inquisition, gravely assures us that communications and compacts with the demon are incontestable and are as frequent as formerly.[459]
We have still to consider a further development of the belief in the malignant power of the demon working through human instruments, in which the Inquisition of Spain rendered a service of no little magnitude.
THEculmination of sorcery was witchcraft and yet it was not the same. In it there is no longer talk of pact with the demon, express or tacit, to obtain certain results, with the expectation of washing out the sin in the confessional and thus cheating the devil. The witch has abandoned Christianity, has renounced her baptism, has worshipped Satan as her God, has surrendered herself to him, body and soul, and exists only to be his instrument in working the evil to her fellow-creatures, which he cannot accomplish without a human agent. That such a being should excite universal detestation was inevitable, and that no effort should be spared for her extermination was the plainest duty of legislator and judge. There are no pages of European history more filled with horror than those which record the witch-madness of three centuries, from the fifteenth to the eighteenth. No land was more exposed to the contagion of this insanity than Spain where, for more than a hundred years, it was constantly threatening to break forth. That it was repressed and rendered comparatively harmless was due to the wisdom and firmness of the Inquisition.
THE SABBAT
This witch-madness was essentially a disease of the imagination, created and stimulated by the persecution of witchcraft. Whereever the inquisitor or civil magistrate went to destroy it by fire, a harvest of witches sprang up around his footsteps. If some old crone repaid ill-treatment with a curse, and the cow of the offender chanced to die or his child to fall sick, she was marked as a witch; the judge had no difficulty in compelling such confession as he desired and in obtaining a goodly list of accomplices; everyone who had met with ill-luck hurried forward with his suspicions and accusations. Every prosecution widened the circle, until nearly the whole population might become involved, to be followed by executions numbered, not by the score but by the hundred, in blind obedience to the scriptural injunction “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.” All destructive elemental disturbances—droughts or flood, tempests or hail-storms, famine or pestilence—were ascribed to witchcraft, and victims were sought, as though to offer propitiatory holocausts to the infernal gods or expiatory sacrifices to the Creator.
Belief in witchcraft was of comparatively recent origin, dating from the middle of the fourteenth century. Malignant sorcery had been known before, but the distinctive feature of the Sabbat first makes its appearance at this period—the midnight gathering to which the devotees of Satan were carried through the air, where they renounced Christ and worshipped their master, in the shape usually of a goat, but sometimes in that of a handsome or hideous man; where they feasted and danced and indulged in promiscuous intercourse, accommodating demons serving as incubi or succubi, and were conveyed back home, where other demons, assuming their shape, had protected their absence from observation.[460]
The development of this myth would seem ascribable to the increasing rigor of persecution towards the end of the fourteenth century, when, as we have seen, the University of Paris formulated the theory that pact with Satan was inherent in all magic, leading judges, in their eager exploration of cases brought before them, to connect this assumed pact with an old belief of night-riders through the air, who swept along in gathering hosts. With the methods in use, the judge or the inquisitor would have little difficulty in finding what he sought. When once such a belief was disseminated by trials and executions, the accused would seek to escape endless torture by framing confessions in accordance with leading questions and thus a tolerably coherent, though sometimes discordant, formula was developed, to which witches in every land were expected to conform. That this was a new development is shown by the demonologists of the fifteenth century—Nider and Jaquerius, Sprenger and Bernardo da Como—treating witches as a new sect, unknown before that age, and to this Innocent VIII impliedly gave the sanction of the Holy See in his well-known bull,Summis desiderantes, in 1484. This rapidly growingbelief in the power of witchcraft and the duty of its extermination were stimulated by nearly every pope for almost a hundred years—by Eugenius IV in 1437 and 1445, by Calixtus III in 1457, by Pius II in 1459, and, after the special utterance of Innocent VIII, by Alexander VI in 1494, by Julius II, by Leo X in 1521, by Adrian VI, in 1523 and by Clement VII in 1524.[461]
While, for the most part, the so-called confessions of witches under trial were the result of the torture so unsparingly employed, there can be little doubt that at least a portion were truthful accounts of illusions really entertained. Even as the trances and visions of the mystics, such as Santa Teresa and the Venerable María de Agreda, are attributable to auto-hypnotism and auto-suggestion so, when the details of the Sabbat were thoroughly established and became as much a part of popular belief as the glories seen in mystic ecstasy, it is easy to understand how certain temperaments, seeking escape from the sordid miseries of laborious poverty, might acquire the power of inducing trances in which the transport to the meeting-place, the devil-worship and the sensual delights that followed, were impressed upon the imagination as realities. The demonographers give us ample accounts of experiments in which the suspected witch was thrown into a trance by the inunction of her ointment and, on awaking, gave a detailed account of her attendance on the Sabbat and of what she did and saw there. This should be borne in mind when following the long debate between those who upheld the reality of the Sabbat and those who argued that it was generally or always a delusion.
THE SABBAT
To appreciate the attitude of the Spanish Inquisition in this debate the origin of the myth must be understood. The flying by night of female sorcerers to places of assemblage was an ancient belief, entertained by Hindus, Jews and the classical nations. This was handed down through the middle ages, but was regarded by the Church as a relic of paganism to be suppressed. There was an utterance, not later than the ninth century, which denounced as an error, induced by the devil, the popular belief that wicked women ride through the air at night under the leadership of Diana and Herodias, wherefore priests everywhere were commanded todisabuse the faithful and to teach that those who professed to take part in these nocturnal excursions were deluded by dreams inspired by the demon, so that he who believed in their reality entertained the faith of the devil and not that of God. This utterance was ascribed to an otherwise unknown Council of Anquira; it passed through all the collections of canons—Regino, Burchard and Ivo—found a place finally in the authoritative Decretum of Gratian, where it became known to canonists as thecanon Episcopi.[462]
When, therefore, in the fifteenth century, there was formulated the perfected theory of the witches’ Sabbat, it had to struggle for existence. No theologian stood higher than St. Antonino, Archbishop of Florence, yet in his instructions to confessors, he requires them to ascertain from penitents whether they believe that women can be transformed into cats, can fly by night and suck the blood of children, all of which he says is impossible, and to believe it is folly. Nor was he alone in this, for similar instructions are given by Angelo da Chivasso and Bartolommeo de Chaimis in their authoritative manuals.[463]The new school could only meet the definitions of the can. Episcopi by asserting that witchcraft was the product of a new sect, more pernicious than all former inventions of the demon. This brought on a warm discussion between lawyers like Ponzinibio on the one side and papal theologians on the other, such as Silvester Prierias, Master of the Sacred Palace and his successor Bartolommeo Spina, and the authority of the Holy See triumphed over scepticism.
Spain, in the fifteenth century, lay somewhat out of the currents of European thought, and the new doctrine as to the Sabbat found only gradual acceptance there. Alfonso Tostado, Bishop of Avila, the most learned Spanish theologian of the time, in 1436, treats the Sabbat as a delusion caused by the inunction of drugs, but subsequently he argues away the can. Episcopi and says that the truth is proved by innumerable cases and by the judicial penalties inflicted.[464]Even so bigoted and credulous a writer as Alonso de Espina treats it as a delusion wrought by the demon to whomthe witch has given herself and so does Cardinal Torquemada, in his Commentary on the Decretum.[465]Martin de Arles, Canon of Pampeluna, speaks of theBroxæwho flourished principally in the Basque provinces, north of the Pyrenees; the belief in them he treats as a false opinion and quotes the can. Episcopi as authoritatively proving it to be a delusion. At the same time he admits that sorcerers can ligature married folk, can injure men and devastate their fields and harvests, which are works of the demon operating through them.[466]Bernardo Basin, of Saragossa, who had studied in Paris, took a middle ground; the Council of Anquira is not authoritative, in some cases there may be illusions sent by the demon, in others the Sabbat is a reality.[467]In 1494, the Repertorium Inquisitorum recognizes the existence of witches, who were popularly known asXorguinas; it quotes the essential portion of the can. Episcopi in answer to the question whether they are justiciable by the Inquisition, adding that such a belief is an illusion wrought by the demon but, although it is folly, it is infidelity worse than paganism, and can be prosecuted as heresy.[468]The Inquisition itself could have no doubt as to its powers; if the Sabbat was true, the witch was an apostate; if a delusion, she was a heretic and in either case subject to its jurisdiction.