[1]That the New Englanders brought their views on demonology and witchcraft with them from the Mother Country is a self-evident proposition, but it may be worth while to refer to a striking instance of the kind. TheRev.John Higginson, writing from Salem to Increase Mather in 1683, sends him two cases for his Illustrious Providences,—both of which he “believes to be certain.” The first is an account of how a mysterious stranger, thought to be the devil, once lent a conjuring book to “godly Mr. [Samuel] Sharp, who was Ruling Elder of the Church of Salem allmost 30 years.” The incident took place when Sharp was a young man in London. The second narrative Mr. Higginson “heard at Gilford from a godly old man yet living. He came from Essex, and hath been in N. E. about 50 years.” It is a powerfully interesting legend of the Faust type, localised in Essex. In a postscript Mr. Higginson adds, “I had credible information of one in Leicestershire, in the time of the Long Parliament, that gave his soul to the Divel, upon condition to be a Famous Preacher, which he was for a time, &c., but I am imperfect in the story.” (Mather Papers,Mass. Hist. Soc.Collections, 4th Series,VIII, 285-287). See also the cases of witchcraft before 1692 collected in S. G. Drake’s Annals of Witchcraft in New England. Dr. Poole is far nearer the truth in saying that “the New-England colonists had no views concerning witchcraft and diabolical agency which they did not bring with them from the Old World” (Witchcraft in Boston, in Winsor, Memorial History of Boston,II, 131) than President White is when he remarks that “the life of the early colonists in New England was such as to give rapid growth to the germs of the doctrine of possession brought from the mother country” (Warfare of Science with Theology,II, 145).[2]A masterly short account of the various elements which made up the fully developed doctrine of witchcraft as it was held during the three centuries of especial prosecution (1400-1700), and of the sources from which these elements were derived, may be found in the first chapter of Joseph Hansen’s Zauberwahn, Inquisition und Hexenprozess im Mittelalter (Munich and Leipzig, 1900). A learned and able essay by Professor George L. Burr, The Literature of Witchcraft, reprinted from the Papers of the American Historical Association, New York, 1890, should also be consulted. Professor Burr emphasises the sound and necessary distinction between witchcraft and magic. But he seems to go too far in his insistence on this distinction as vital in the history of witchcraft: “Magic itself is actual and universal. But witchcraft never was. It was but a shadow, a nightmare: the nightmare of a religion, the shadow of a dogma. Less than five centuries saw its birth, its vigor, its decay” (p.238;p.38 of reprint). This statement is true if by witchcraft is meant (and this is Professor Burr’s sense) the fully developed and highly complicated system set forth in the Malleus Maleficarum and in Del Rio’s Disquisitiones Magicae—what Hansen (p.35) calls“der verhängnisvolle Sammelbegriff des Hexenwesens,”—which was not possible until scholasticism had schematised the diversified elements of belief in magic and demonology and sorcery and devil-worship which Christian theology and Christian superstition had derived from the most various sources—from Judaism, classical antiquity, Neo-Platonism, and the thousand-and-one beliefs of pagan converts. But, important as this fully developed system was—and true though it may be that without the schematising influence of scholastic philosophy the witch-prosecution which was epidemic in Europe from 1400 to 1700 could hardly have taken place—we should never forget that the essential element in witchcraft ismaleficium—the working of harm to the bodies and goods of one’s fellow-men by means of evil spirits or of strange powers derived from intercourse with such spirits. This belief inmaleficiumwas once universal; it was rooted and grounded in the minds of the people before they became Christians; it is still the creed of most savages and of millions of so-called civilised men. Throughout the history of witchcraft (in whatever sense we understand that word), it remained the ineradicable thing,—the solid foundation, unshakably established in popular belief, for whatever superstructure might be reared by the ingenuity of jurisconsults, philosophers, theologians, or inquisitors. Without this popular belief inmaleficium, the initial suspicions and complaints which form the basis and starting-point of all prosecutions would have been impossible and inconceivable.Withthis popular belief, the rest was easy. The error into which Professor Burr has fallen is due, no doubt, to his keeping his eye too exclusively on the Continent, where the prosecutions were most extensive, where, in truth, the fully developed system was most prevalent, and where the inquisitorial methods of procedure give to the witch-trials a peculiar air of uniformity and theological schematism. Thus he has been led, like many other historians, to over-emphasise the learned or literary side of the question. For us, however, as the descendants of Englishmen and as students of the history of English colonies in America, it is necessary to fix our attention primarily on the Mother Country. And, if we do this, we cannot fail to perceive that the obstinate belief of the common people inmaleficium—a belief which, it cannot be too often repeated, is not the work of theologians but the universal and quasi-primitive creed of the human race—is the root of the whole matter. (On savage witchcraft see the anthropologistspassim. Good examples may be found in Karl von den Steinen,Unter den Naturvölkern Brasiliens, 1894,pp.339ff.)Onmaleficiumsee especially Hansen,pp.9ff.Nothing could be truer than his words:—“Wie viel auch immer im Laufe der Zeit in den Begriff der Zauberei und Hexerei hineingetragen worden ist, so ist doch sein Kern stets das Maleficium geblieben. Aus dieser Vorstellung erwächst die angstvolle Furcht der Menschen und das Verlangen nach gesetzlichem Schutze und blutig strenger Strafe; von ihr hat die strafrechtliche Behandlung dieses Wahns ihren Ausgang genommen”(p.9).“Das Maleficium, mit Ausnahme des Wettermachens, ist ohne alle Unterbrechung von der kirchlichen und bis in das 17. Jahrhundert auch von der staatlichen Autorität als Realität angenommen, seine Kraft ist nie ernstlich in Abrede gestellt worden; es bildet den roten Faden auch durch die Geschichte der strafrechtlichen Verfolgung”(p.13). Everybody knows that the most convincing evidence of witchcraft—short of confession or of denunciation by a confederate—was held to be thedamnum minatumand themalum secutum.The difference between England and the Continent in the development of the witchcraft idea and in the history of prosecution is recognised by Hansen (p.34, note 1). President White, like Professor Burr, has his eye primarily on the Continent (Warfare of Science with Theology, 1896, I, 350ff.). His treatment of demoniacal possession, however, is much to our purpose (II, 97ff., 135ff.).[3]King James’s connection with the history of witchcraft almost deserves a monograph for it has never been adequately discussed, and various misconceptions on the subject are afloat. Thus Mr. H. M. Doughty, in an interesting but one-sided essay on Witchcraft and Christianity (Blackwood’s Magazine, March, 1898,CLXIII, 388), remarks that “the new King James had long lived in abject fear of witches”—an assertion that he would find it impossible to prove, even if it were true, as it seems not to be.[4]The act of 5Eliz. c.16 (after reciting that 33 Henr.VIII. c. 8 had been repealed by 1Edw. VI. c.12) prescribes the penalty of death for witchcraft which destroys life, imprisonment for that which causes bodily injury (death for the second offence); in certain harmless kinds of sorcery (such as accompanied the search for treasure or stolen goods) the second offence is punished by imprisonment for life. 1Jac. I. c.12 follows 5Eliz. c.16 in the main. Its chief differences are,—greater detail in defining witchcraft; the insertion of a passage about digging up dead bodies for purposes of sorcery; death for the first offence in cases of witchcraft which causes bodily injury; death for the second offence in treasure-seeking sorcery and the like. Before one pronounces the new statute much severer than the old, it would be well to examine the practical operation of the two. In particular, one ought to determine how many witches were executed under the law of JamesI.who would not have been subject to the death penalty under the law of Elizabeth. This is not the place for such an examination. On treasure-seeking sorcery see the learned and entertaining essay of Dr. Augustus Jessopp, Hill-Digging and Magic (in his Random Roaming and Other Papers, 1893).[5]Seep.64 below. Strictly speaking, the Commonwealth did not begin until 1649, but this point need not be pressed.[6]See F. Legge, Witchcraft in Scotland (Scottish Review,XVIII, 267); Thomas Wright, Narratives of Sorcery and Witchcraft,Chap. xxv.Whitelocke, under date ofOct.4, 1652, notes “Letters that sixty Persons Men and Women were accused before the Commissioners for Administration of Justice inScotlandat the last Circuit for Witches; but they found so much Malice and so little Proof against them that none were condemned” (Memorials, 1732,p.545).Cf.also his very important entry on the same subject underOct.29, 1652 (pp.547-548).[7]Epistolæ Ho-Elianæ, Familiar Letters, edited by Joseph Jacobs, 1890, bookii, letter 76,p.506: “To my Honourable Friend, Mr. E. P., at Paris” (cf.Jacobs’s notespp.783-784). The letter is dated “Fleet, 3Feb.1646.” This is certainly Old Style. Howell is a queer dater, but a reference in this letter to the departure of the Scottish army (p.505) proves that the letter was written afterDec.21, 1646. There is a similar passage about witches in book iii, letter 2,p.515 (also to Porter), dated “Fleet, 20Feb.1646.”[8]Letters, as above, bookiii, no.23,pp.547ff., dated “Fleet, 20Feb.1647,” i. e. doubtless 1648.[9]See Jacobs’s Introduction,pp. xlii-xliii. The question whether Howell’s letters were actually sent to the persons to whom they are addressed or whether they are to be regarded merely as literary exercises composed during his imprisonment (see Jacobs,pp. lxxiff.) does not affect, for our purposes, the value of the quotations here made, since the letters to which we now refer actually purport to have been written in the Fleet, and since they were first published in the second edition (1650) in the additional third volume and from the nature of things could not have appeared in the first edition (1645). They must, at all events, have been composed before 1650, and are doubtless dated correctly enough.[10]Seep.64, below.[11]Sermonxvii(Whole Works,ed.Heber and Eden, 1861,IV, 546).[12]Whole Works,III, 57;cf.Sermon vii (Works,IV. 412).[13]Seep.7, above, note 4.[14]A Tryal of Witches, at the Assizes held at Bury St. Edmonds ... 1664 (London, 1682),pp.55-56. This report is reprinted in Howell’s State Trials,VI, 647ff., and (in part) in H. L. Stephen’s State Trials Political and Social (1899),I, 209ff.See also Hutchinson, An Historical Essay concerning Witchcraft,chap. viii.(1718,pp.109ff.;2d ed., 1720,pp.139ff.); Thomas Wright, Narratives of Sorcery and Witchcraft,II., 261ff.Hale’s opinion was regarded as settling the law beyond peradventure. It is quoted, in A True and Impartial Relation of the Informations against Three Witches ... Assizes holden for the County of Devon at the Castle of Exon,Aug.14, 1682 (London, 1682), Address to the Reader. For Roger North’s comments on the Exeter case, seep.192, below. A Collection of Modern Relations of Matters of Fact, concerning Witches & Witchcraft, PartI(London, 1693), contains “A Discourse concerning the great Mercy of God, in preserving us from the Power and Malice ofEvil Angels.Written by SirMatt. Haleat Cambridge26Mar.1661.Upon occasion of a Tryal of certain Witches before him the Week before at St.Edmund’s Bury.” The date is wrong (1661 should be 1664), but the trial is identified with that which we are considering by the anonymous compiler of the Collection in the following words: “There is a Relation of it in print, written by his Marshal, which I suppose is very true, though to the best of my Memory, not so compleat, as to some observable Circumstances, as what he related to me at his return from that Circuit.” The date of the trial is given as “the Tenth day of March, 1664” on the title-page of the report (A Tryal of Witches) and on page 1 as “the Tenth day of March, in the Sixteenth Year of the Reign of ... CharlesII.” On page 57 the year is misprinted “1662.” Howell’s State Trials,VI, 647, 687, makes it 1665, but 16 CharlesII.corresponds to Jan. 30, 1664—Jan. 29, 1665: hence 1664 is right. The (unfinished) Discourse just mentioned must not be confused with Hale’s Motives to Watchfulness, in reference to the Good and Evil Angels, which may be found in his Contemplations Moral and Divine, London, 1682 (licensed 1675-6), PartII,pp.67ff.[15]Roger North, Life of the Lord Keeper Guilford,ed.1826,I, 121.[16]Wonders of the Invisible World (London, 1693),p.55. Mather also reproduces the substance of the report above referred to (note 14) in the same work. Bragge, too, reproduces it, in the main, in his tract, Witchcraft Farther Display’d, 1712, in support of the accusation against Jane Wenham.[17]Lives of the Chief Justices, 1849,I, 561ff., Chapterxvii. See also the criticism of Hale in a letter of George Onslow’s, 1770, 14th Report of the HistoricalMSS.Commission, Appendix, PartIX,p.480.[18]Published in 1682.[19]Edition of 1826,I, 117ff.[20]State Papers (Domestic), 1682,Aug.19, bundle 427,no.67, as quoted by Pike. History of Crime in England,II, 238.[21]A Tryal of Witches, as above,p.41.[22]That is,hysteria.[23]A Tryal, as above,p.42.Cf.the Supplementary Memoir, in Simon Wilkin’s edition of Browne’s Works, 1852,I, liv-lvi.[24]Anatomy of Melancholy, 1621, Part 1, section 2, member 1, subsection 3. I quote from the edition of 1624.[25]The following short character of Glanvill, by Bishop Kennet, may be quoted, not because it is just, but because it might conceivably be brought forward by somebody in rebuttal of this proposition:—“Mr.Joseph GlanvillofLincolnCollege,Oxon. Taking the Degree of M. A. in the beginning of 1658, was about that Time made Chaplain to oldFrancis Rous; one ofOliver’s Lords, and Provost ofEatonCollege.—He became a great Admirer of Mr.Richard Baxter, and a zealous Person for a Commonwealth. After his Majesty’s Restauration he turn’d about, became a Latitudinarian,—Rector ofBath, Prebendary ofWorcester, and Chaplain to the King” (White Kennet, An Historical Register, 1744,p.931).[26]See Dr. Ferris Greenslet’s Joseph Glanvill, A Study in English Thought and Letters of the Seventeenth Century, New York, 1900, especiallyChap. vi.For a bibliography of Glanvill, see Emanuel Green, Bibliotheca Somersetensis, Taunton (Eng.), 1902,I, 206ff.[27]More’s theories on the subject of apparitions, demons, and witches may also be read, at considerable length, in his Antidote against Atheism, Bookiii, Chaps.2-13 (Philosophical Writings,2d ed., 1662,pp.89ff.);cf.the Appendix to the Antidote,Chaps.12-13 (pp.181ff.) and The Immortality of the Soul, Chap. 16 (pp.129ff.).[28]A Modest Enquiry into the Nature of Witchcraft, Boston, 1702.[29]Dated 1697-8.[30]P.12.[31]Meric Casaubon was born in 1599 and died in 1671. His learned, lively, and vastly entertaining work, A Treatise concerning Enthusiasme, as it is an Effect of Nature: but is mistaken by many for either Divine Inspiration, or Diabolicall Possession, appeared in 1655, and in a “Second edition: revised, and enlarged” in 1656. It shows an open mind and a temper rather skeptical than credulous. Passages of interest in our present discussion may be found onpp.37-41, 44, 49, 94-95, 100, 118, 174 (Quakers), 286, of the second edition. Of particular significance is the Doctor’s account of his visit to a man who was thought to be possessed but whom he believed to be suffering from some bodily distemper (pp.97ff.). Casaubon’s treatise (in two parts) Of Credulity and Incredulity, in Things Natural, Civil, and Divine, came out in 1668, and was reissued, with a new title-page (as above), in 1672. A third part, Of Credulity and Incredulity in Things Divine and Spiritual, appeared in 1670. Webster’s assault upon Casaubon in his Displaying of Supposed Witchcraft was made in apparent ignorance of the fact that the venerable scholar had been dead for some years (seep.24, below).[32]Compare Reginald Scot’s chapter “Of Theurgie, with a Confutation thereof” (Discoverie of Witchcraft, bookxv, chap.42, 1584,p.466,ed.1665,p.280). See also Henry Hallywell, Melampronoea: or A Discourse of the Polity and Kingdom of Darkness. Together with a Solution of the Chiefest Objections brought against the Being of Witches, 1681,pp.50-51.[33]Cap.iv, §15,ed.Mosheim, 1773,I, 395-396.[34]Sadducismus Triumphatus,ed.1726,p.336; see James Crossley’s Introduction to Potts, Discovery of Witches in the County of Lancaster, reprinted from the Edition of 1613 (Chetham Society, 1845),p. vi, note 2. This experiment was twice tried as late as 1712, in the case of Jane Wenham, by theRev.Mr. Strutt, once in the presence of Sir Henry Chauncy, and again in the presence of theRev.Mr. Gardiner. Its ill success is recorded by a third Anglican clergyman,—Mr. Francis Bragge (A Full and Impartial Account of the Discovery of Sorcery and Witchcraft, Practis’d by Jane Wenham, London, 1712,pp.11, 15).[35]Letter to Glanvill,Sept.18, 1677, Works,ed.Birch,V, 244. Compare Dr. Samuel Collins’s letter to Boyle,Sept.1, 1663 (Boyle’s Works,V, 633-634).[36]In a letter to Glanvill (Works,V, 245).[37]SeeDemonologie ou Traitte des Demons et Sorciers ... Par Fr. Perreaud. Ensemble l’Antidemon de Mascon, ou Histoire Veritable de ce qu’un Demon a fait & dit, il y a quelques années, en la maison dudit Sʳ. Perreaud à Mascon.Geneva, 1653.[38]Theological Works,ed.1830,IV, 480-482.[39]In his Ravillae Redivivus, reprinted in the Somers Tracts,2d ed.,VIII, 510ff.(see especiallypp.546ff.). Weir, who was unquestionably insane, was executed in 1670.[40]Diary and Correspondence of Samuel Pepys, London, 1885,IV, 275. On elf-arrowscf.Pitcairn, Criminal Trials in Scotland,I, ii, 192, 198;III, 607, 609, 615; W. Henderson, Notes on the Folk-Lore of the Northern Counties, 1879,pp.185ff.[41]Evelyn may have derived his information from Sir William Phips’s letter to the home government (Oct.14, 1692), as Dr. G. H. Moore suggests (Final Notes on Witchcraft in Massachusetts,N. Y., 1885,p.66). For the letter see Goodell, Essex Institute Collections,2dSeries,I, ii, 86ff.Phips’s second letter (Feb.21, 1692-3, to the Earl of Nottingham) is printed by Moore,pp.90ff.[42]The remark, sometimes heard, that Calvinism was especially responsible for witch trials is a loose assertion which has to reckon with the fact that the last burning for witchcraft at Geneva took place in 1652 (see Paul Ladame,Procès criminel de la dernière Sorcière brulée à Genève, Paris, 1888).[43]Compare Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy, Part I, section 2, member 1, subsection 3:—“Many deny Witches at all, or if there be any, they can doe no harme: of this opinion isWierus,lib. 3. cap. 53, depræstig. dæm. Austin Lerchemer, a Dutch writer,Biarmanus,Ewichius,Euwaldus, our countrymanScot... but on the contrary are most Lawyers, Diuines, Physitians, Philosophers.”[44]Wier’s great work, De Praestigiis Dæmonum, was published in 1563, and was afterwards much enlarged. It went through many editions.[45]See the extraordinary list in William Drage, Daimonomageia. A Small Treatise of Sicknesses and Diseases from Witchcraft, and Supernatural Causes, 1665. Webster considers this subject at length inChap. xiiof his Displaying of Supposed Witchcraft, 1677, with a full discussion of van Helmont’s views.Cf.Henry More, Antidote against Atheism,Chaps.4-5 (Philosophical Writings,2d ed., 1662,pp.97ff.).[46]“Ea dæmonis subtilitate uelocitateque imperceptibili, ori ingesta, nostris ad hæc oculis uel celeritate eius uictis, uel fascino delusis, uel interiecto corpore aereo aut aliter motis eo intus uel foris uel utrinque humoribus aut spiritu caligantibus.” De Præstigiis Dæmonum (Basileæ, 1568),iv, 2, pp.352-353.[47]Even Bekker (seep.35, below), who approaches the subject from the philosophical direction, and whose logical process is different from Wier’s, is greatly indebted to him.[48]Compare the fate of Bekker in 1692 (p.39).[49]A Treatise proving Spirits, Witches and Supernatural Operations, 1672,p.35.[50]The same,p.46.[51]Dæmonologie, Workes, 1616,p.92. On Wier in general, see Carl Binz, Doctor Johann Weyer,ein rheinischer Arst, der erste Bekämpfer des Hexenwahns, Berlin, 1896.[52]He expressly asserts his belief in their existence (A Discourse upon Divels and Spirits,chap.32,p.540;cf. chap.16,p.514).[53]Discoverie of Witchcraft,xiii, 22-34,ed.1584,pp.321ff.,ed.1665,pp.181-201 (with cuts). Most of the tricks which Scot describes are identical with feats of legerdemain that are the stock in trade of every modern juggler:—“To throwe a peece of monie awaie, and to find it againe where you list” (p.326); “To make a groat or a testor to sinke through a table, and to vanish out of a handkercher very strangelie” (p.327); “How to deliver out foure aces, and to convert them into foure knaves” (p.333); “To tell one without confederacie what card he thinketh” (p.334); “To burne a thred, and to make it whole againe with the ashes thereof” (p.341); “To cut off ones head, and to laie it in a platter, &c.: which the jugglers call the decollation of John Baptist” (p.349). The picture of the apparatus required for the last-mentioned trick is very curious indeed (p.353). The references to Scot, unless the contrary is stated, are to all the pages of the first (1584) edition, as reprinted by Dr. Brinsley Nicholson (London, 1886).[54]King James remarks, in the Preface to his Dæmonologie, that Scot “is not ashamed in publike Print to deny, that there can be such a thing as Witch-craft: and so maintaines the old errour of the Sadduces in denying of spirits” (Workes, 1616,pp.91-92).[55]In what an orderly way one may proceed from an admission of the doctrine of fallen angels to the final results of the witch dogma may be seen, for instance, in Henry Hallywell’s Melampronoea: or A Discourse of the Polity and Kingdom of Darkness, 1681. Hallywell had been a Fellow of Christ’s College, Cambridge.[56]Seep.9, above.[57]P.39. See Nicholson’s reprint of the 1584 edition,p. xlii.[58]Page 46.[59]Introduction to the Chetham Society reprint of Potts’s Discoverie of Witches,pp. xxxviii-xxxix.[60]Pages 202-215.[61]P.228. Perhaps Webster is merely “putting a case” here; but he certainly seems to be making an admission, at least in theory.[62]Page 230.[63]Pages 294ff.[64]Page 294.[65]Pages 297-298.[66]Pages 302-310.[67]P.308. On the astral spirit, see alsopp.312ff.[68]Page 310.[69]Pages 10-11.[70]See alsopp.267ff.[71]Page 73.[72]Page 231.[73]Pages 242-243.[74]Page 244.[75]Pages 245-246.[76]Page 247.[77]Page 260.[78]Page 267.[79]Note, however, that the upholders of the current beliefs on witchcraft are also many times emphatic enough in similar cautionary remarks. A first-rate example is the following characteristic passage from Dr. Casaubon, whom Webster calls a “witchmonger”:—“And indeed, that the denying ofWitches, to them that content themselves in the search of truth with a superficial view, is a very plausible cause; it cannot be denied. For if any thing in the world, (as we know all things in the world are) be liable to fraud, and imposture, and innocent mistake, through weakness and simplicity; this subject of Witches and Spirits is.... How ordinary is it to mistake natural melancholy (not to speak of other diseases) for a Devil? And how much, too frequently, is both the disease increased, or made incurable; and the mistake confirmed, by many ignorant Ministers, who take every wild motion, or phansie, for a suggestion of the Devil? Whereas, in such a case, it should be the care of wise friends, to apply themselves to the Physician of the body, and not to entertain the other, (I speak it ofnaturalmelancholy) who probably may do more hurt, than good; but as the learned Naturalist doth allow, and advise? Excellent is the advice and counsel in this kind, of the Author of the bookde morbo Sacroattributed toHippocrates, which I could wish all men were bound to read, before they take upon them to visit sick folks, that are troubled with melancholy diseases” (A Treatise proving Spirits, etc., 1672,pp.29-30:cf.p.14, note 31, above).[80]Pages 219, 220, 224.[81]Saducismus Triumphatus, PartII,ed.1682,p.4. (ed. 1726,pp.225-226). Glanvill is here replying to Webster, whose book, it will be remembered, appeared in 1677.[82]Increase Mather’s copy is in the Harvard College Library.[83]Lowell, New England Two Centuries Ago, Writings, Riverside edition,II, 73.[84]Leviathan,i, 2 (English Works,ed.Molesworth,III, 9). Compare Hobbes’s Dialogue between a Philosopher and a Student of the Common Law of England (English Works,VI, 96):—“L.I know not. Besides these crimes, there is conjuration, witchcraft, sorcery and enchantment; which are capital by the statute I James,c.12.—P.But I desire not to discourse of that subject. For though without doubt there is some great wickedness signified by those crimes; yet I have ever found myself too dull to conceive the nature of them, or how the devil hath power to do so many things which witches have been accused of.” Wier is far more humane, as well as more reasonable. If one holds, he writes, that witches are to be severely punished for their evil intent, let it be remembered that there is a great difference between sane and insane will.“Quod si quis contentiose uoluntatem seuerius puniendam defendat, is primum distinguat inter uoluntatem hominis sani perfectam, quae in actum uere dirigi coeperit: et inter uitiatae mentis sensum, uel (si uoles) corruptam amentis uoluntatem: cui suo opere, quasi alterius esset, colludit diabolus, nec alius insulse uolentem subsequitur effectus.” De Præstigiis Dæmonum,vi, 21,ed.1568,pp.641-642.[85]Table-Talk, 1689,p.59 (the first edition). Selden died in 1654.[86]Soldan,Geschichte der Hexenprozesse,ed.Heppe,II, 243.[87]A Candle in the Dark: or, A Treatise concerning the Nature of Witches & Witchcraft, 1656,p.41.[88]Sir Robert Filmer’s brief tract, An Advertisement to the Jury-men of England, touching Witches, was occasioned, according to the Preface, by “the late Execution of Witches at the Summer Assizes in Kent.” It was first published in 1652, and may be found annexed to the Free-holders Grand Inquest, 1679. The case which elicited Sir Robert’s little book is reported in A Prodigious & Tragicall History of the Arraignment, Tryall, Confession, and Condemnation of six Witches at Maidstone, in Kent, at the Assizes there held in July, Fryday 30, this present year, 1652 (London, 1652, reprinted 1837).[89]A. D. White, A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology, 1896,I, 362.[90]Wood, Athenæ Oxonienses,ed.Bliss,III, 1114.[91]Dr. Hutchinson’s admirable work, An Historical Essay concerning Witchcraft, which still remains one of the most valuable treatises on this subject that we have, was published in 1718. It appeared in a second edition in 1720, in which year he was appointed Bishop of Down and Connor.[92]I have used a copy of the French translation,—Le Monde Enchanté, Amsterdam, 1694. This was made by Bekker’s direction and revised by him. Each of the four volumes has a separate dedication, and each dedication (in the Harvard College copy) is authenticated by Bekker’s autograph signature.[93]This concludes Bekker’s First Book.[94]What precedes is, in substance, Bekker’s BookII.[95]This is the substance of Bekker’s Third Book.[96]“De Christelijke Synodus ... heeft, ... met eenparigheyd van stemmen, den selven Dr. Bekker verklaart intolerabel als Leeraar in de Gereformeerde Kerke; en vervolgens hem van sijn Predik-dienst geremoveert”(decree in W. P. C. Knuttel,Balthasar Bekker de Bestrijder van het Bijgeloof,the Hague, 1906,p.315).[97]Knuttel,p.319.[98]Knuttel,p.357. Strictly speaking, it was not for his denial of modern witchcraft that Bekker was punished, for it is in the last two books of his treatise that he deals particularly with this subject, and these did not appear until after he had been unfrocked. Still, his Second Book, which got him into trouble, contains all the essentials. It denies the power of the devil and wicked spirits to afflict men, and holds that the demoniacs of the New Testament were neither possessed nor obsessed, but merely sufferers from disease. For a full analysis of Bekker’s work and an account of the opposition which it roused, see Knuttel,chap. v, pp.188ff.; for the ecclesiastical proceedings against Bekker, seechap. vi, pp.270ff.The various editions and translations of De Betoverde Weereld are enumerated by van der Linde in his Balthasar Bekker, Bibliographie (the Hague, 1869), where may also be found a long list of the books and pamphlets which the work called forth. There is a good account of Bekker’s argument in Soldan’sGeschichte der Hexenprozesse, neu bearbeitet von Dr. Heinrich Heppe(Stuttgart, 1880),II, 233ff.See also Roskoff,Geschichte des Teufels, Leipzig, 1869,II, 445ff.[99]Theologians took infinite pains to distinguish between miracles (miracula), which could be wrought by divine power only, and the kind of wonders (mira) which Satan worked. See, for example, William Perkins, A Discourse of the Damned Art of Witchcraft, 1608,pp.12ff., 18ff.; Del Rio,Disquisitiones Magicæ,lib. ii, quæstio7,ed.1616,pp.103ff.Sir Robert Filmer, in An Advertisement to the Jurymen of England, Touching Witches (appended to The Free-holders Grand Inquest, 1679;cf.p.34, note 88, above), makes merry with such fine-spun distinctions. “Both [Perkins and Del Rio],” he says, “seem to agree in this, that he had need be an admirable or profound Philosopher, that can distinguish between a Wonder and a Miracle; it would poseAristotlehimself, to tell us every thing that can be done by the power of Nature, and what things cannot; for there be daily many things found out, and daily more may be, which our Fore-fathers never knew to be possible in Nature” (pp.322-323).Cf.Calef, More Wonders of the Invisible World, 1700,p.35.[100]Cf.Soldan,Geschichte der Hexenprozesse,ed.Heppe,II, 243:—“Zu derjenigen freieren Kritik der biblischen Schriften selbst sich zu erheben, welche das Vorhandensein gewisser, aus den Begriffen der Zeit geschöpfter dämonologischen Vorstellungen in der Bibel anerkennt, ohne daraus eine bindende Norm für den Glauben herzuleiten,—diese war freilich erst einem späteren Zeitalter vorbehalten. Bekker kannte, um seine sich ihm aufdringende philosophische Ueberzeugung mit der Bibel zu versöhnen, keinen andern Weg, als den der Üblichen Exegese, und daher kommt es, dass diese nicht überall eine ungezwungene ist.”It is instructive to note the pains which Sir Walter Scott takes, in his Second Letter on Demonology and Witchcraft, to harmonise the Bible with his views on these subjects.[101]To avoid all possibility of misapprehension I shall venture to express my own feelings. The two men who appeal to me most in the whole affair of witchcraft are Friedrich Spee, the Jesuit, and Balthasar Bekker, the “intolerable” pastor of Amsterdam. But what Ifeel, and what all of us feel, is not to the purpose. There has been too much feeling in modern discussions of witchcraft already.[102]Sigmund Riezler,Geschichte der Hexenprozessein Bayern, Stuttgart, 1896,p.143.[103]Ibid.[104]Soldan,Geschichte der Hexenprozesse, revised by Heppe,II, 37;cf.G. L. Burr, The Fate of Dietrich Flade, 1891 (reprinted from the Papers of the American Historical Association,V).[105]Jean d’Espaignet and Pierre de Lancre, the special commissioners, are said to have condemned more than 600 in four months (Soldan,ed.Heppe,II, 162;cf.Baissac,Les Grands Jours de la Sorcellerie, 1890,p.401). I have no certain evidence of the accuracy of these figures, for I have seen only one of de Lancre’s two books, and I find in it no distinct statement of the number of witches convicted. He makes various remarks, however, which seem to show that 600 is no exaggeration. Thus he says that the Parliament of Bordeaux, under whose authority he acted, condemned “an infinity” of sorcerers to death in 1609 (Tableau de l’Inconstance des Mauvais Anges et Demons, Paris, 1613,p.100).“On fait estat qu’il y a trente mille ames en ce pays de Labourt, contant ceux qui sont en voyage sur mer, & que parmy tout ce peuple, il y a bien peu de familles qui ne touchent au Sortilege par quelque bout”(p.38). The commission lasted from July to November (pp.66, 456, 470); besides those that the two commissioners tried during this period, they left behind them so many witches and wizards that the prisons of Bordeaux were crowded and it became necessary to lodge the defendants in the ruinedchâteau du Hâ(pp.144, 560).Cf.pp.35ff., 64, 92, 114, 546. The panic fear that witchcraft excites is described by de Lancre in a striking passage:—“Qu’il n’y ayt qu’vne seule sorciere dans vn grand village, dans peu de temps vous voyez tant d’enfans perdus, tant de femmes enceintes perdãs leur fruit, tant de haut mal donné à des pauures creatures, tant d’animaux perdus, tant de fruicts gastes, que le foudre ni autre fleau du ciel ne sont rien en comparaison”(pp.543-544).[106]An Account of what Happened in the Kingdom of Sweden, in the Years 1669, 1670 and Upwards, translated from the German by Anthony Horneck, and included in Glanvill’sSaducismus Triumphatus,ed.1682 (ed. 1726,pp.474ff.). Horneck’s version is from a tract entitled, Translation ...Der Königl. Herren Commissarien gehaltenes Protocol uber die entdeckte Zauberey in dem Dorff Mohra und umbliegenden Orten,the Hague, 1670.Cf.Thomas Wright, Narratives of Sorcery and Magic,II, 244ff.; Soldan,ed.Heppe,II, 175ff.;Vilhelm Bang, Hexevæsen og Hexeforfølgelser især i Danmark, Copenhagen, 1896,pp.48ff.This is what Mr. Upham calls Cotton Mather’s “favorite Swedish case” (Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather, Morrisania, 1869,p.20). It was, in a manner, “Leonato’s Hero, your Hero, every man’s Hero” toward the end of the seventeenth century, since it was one of the most recent instances of witchcraft on a large scale. The good angel in white who is one of the features of the Mohra case appears much earlier in England: see Potts, Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches, 1613, Chetham Society reprint, sig. L (a reference which may serve as a note to Mr. Upham’s essay, just cited,p.34).[107]Frans Volk,Hexen in der Landvogtei Ortenau und Reichsstadt Offenburg,Lahr, 1882,pp.24-25, 58ff.[108]Scot, Discoverie of Witchcraft, 1584,p.543; F. Hutchinson, Historical Essay,2d ed.,p.38; W. W., A True and Just Recorde, of the Information [etc.] of all the Witches, taken at S. Oses (London, 1582). For extracts from W. W.’s book I am indebted to Mr. Wallace Notestein, of Yale University.[109]F. Legge, The Scottish Review,XVIII, 261ff.[110]Thomas Potts, The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster (London, 1613), reprinted by the Chetham Society, 1845; Thomas Wright, Narratives of Sorcery and Magic,Chap. xxiii.[111]Whalley Lancashire, by Whitaker,pp.213ff.; Chetham Society reprint of Potts, as above,pp. lixff.; Wright, as above.Chap. xxiii; Heywood and Brome’s play, The Late Lancashire Witches, 1634; Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, 1634-1635,pp.77-79, 98, 129-130, 141, 152; Historical Manuscripts Commission, 10th Report, Appendix, PartIV,p.433; 12th Report, Appendix, PartII,p.53,cf.p.77; Notes and Queries,3dSeries,V, 259, 385.[112]Nichols, History and Antiquities of the County of Leicester,II, 471.[113]Seepp.7 and 58.[114]Whitelocke’s Memorials,Dec.13, 1649,ed.1732,p.434; Brand, Popular Antiquities,ed.Hazlitt,III, 80; Ralph Gardner, England’s Grievance Discovered, in Relation to the Coal-Trade, 1655 (reprinted, North Shields, 1849,Chap.53,pp.168ff.).[115]A Prodigious & Tragicall History of the Arraignment [etc.] of Six Witches at Maidstone.... Digested by H. F. Gent, 1652 (reprinted in an Account, etc., London, 1837).[116]A True and Impartial Relation of the Informations against Three Witches, 1682.[117]Sir J. H. Lefroy, Memorials of the Discovery and Early Settlement of the Bermudas or Somers Islands,II, 601ff.[118]A Full and True Relation of the Tryal (etc.) of Ann Foster, London, 1674 (Northampton, reprinted by Taylor & Son, 1878).Cf.W. Ruland,Steirische Hexenprozesse, in Steinhausen’s Zeitschrift für Kulturgeschichte, 2. Ergänzungsheft, Weimar, 1898,pp.46ff.[119]N. E. Hist. Gen.Register.XXIV, 382.[120]Letter ofOct.8, 1692,Mass. Hist. Soc.Collections,V, 65. Compare, on the whole question, the remarks of Professor Wendell in his interesting paper, Were the Salem Witches Guiltless? (Historical Collections of the Essex Institute,XXIX, republished in his Stelligeri and Other Essays concerning America, New York, 1893) and in his Cotton Mather,pp.93ff.[121]A long and curious list of cases of defamation may be seen in a volume of Depositions and other Ecclesiastical Proceedings from the County of Durham, extending from 1311 to the Reign of Elisabeth, edited by James Raine for the Surtees Society in 1845 (Publications,XXI). Thus, in 1566-67, Margaret Lambert accuses John Lawson of saying “that she was a chermer” (p.84); about 1569 Margaret Reed is charged with calling Margaret Howhett “a horse goodmother water wych” (p.91); in 1572, Thomas Fewler deposed that he “hard Elisabeth Anderson caull ... Anne Burden ‘crowket handyd wytch.’ He saith the words was spoken audiently there; ther might many have herd them, beinge spoken so neigh the cross and in the towne gait as they were” (p.247). So in 1691 Alice Bovill complained of a man who had said to her, “Thou bewitched my stot” (North Riding Record Society, Publications,IX, 6). See also Historical Manuscripts Commission, Report on Manuscripts in Various Collections,I, 283; Lefroy, Bermudas or Somers Islands,II, 629 (no.15).[122]See, for example, Mr. Noble’s edition of the Records of the Court of Assistants,II, 43, 72, 85, 94, 95, 104, 131, 136,—all between 1633 and 1644.[123]See Drake’s Annals of Witchcraft in New England; Noble’s Records, as above, 1, 11, 31, 33, 159, 188, 228, 229, 233.[124]“Quia vulgo creditum, multorum annorum continuatam sterilitatem à strigibus et maleficis diabolicâ invidiâ causari; tota patria in extictionem maleficarum insurrexit”(as quoted from the autographMS.in the Trier Stadt-Bibliothek by G. L. Burr, The Fate of Dietrich Flade,p.51, Papers of the American Historical Association,V).[125]“Incredibile vulgi apud Germanos, & maxime (quod pudet dicere) Catholicos superstitio, invidia, calumniæ, detractationes, susurrationes & similia, quæ nec Magistratus punit, nee concionatores arguunt, suspicionem magiæ primum excitant. Omnes divinaæ punitiones, quas in sacris literis Deus minatus est, à Sagis sunt. Nihil jam amplius Deus facit aut natura, sed Sagæ omnia. 2. Unde impetu omnes clamant ut igitur inquirat Magistratus in Sagas, quas non nisi ipsi suis linguis tot fecerunt” (Cautio Criminalis, seu de Processibus contra Sagas Liber,2d ed., 1695,pp.387-388;cf.Dubium xv,pp.67-68, Dubiumxxxiv, pp.231-232). Spee’s book came out anonymously in 1631, and, unlike most works on this side of the question, had immediate results. Spee had no doubt of the existence of witchcraft (Dubium i,pp.1ff., Dubium iii,pp.7-8); his experience, however, had taught him that most of those condemned were innocent.
[1]That the New Englanders brought their views on demonology and witchcraft with them from the Mother Country is a self-evident proposition, but it may be worth while to refer to a striking instance of the kind. TheRev.John Higginson, writing from Salem to Increase Mather in 1683, sends him two cases for his Illustrious Providences,—both of which he “believes to be certain.” The first is an account of how a mysterious stranger, thought to be the devil, once lent a conjuring book to “godly Mr. [Samuel] Sharp, who was Ruling Elder of the Church of Salem allmost 30 years.” The incident took place when Sharp was a young man in London. The second narrative Mr. Higginson “heard at Gilford from a godly old man yet living. He came from Essex, and hath been in N. E. about 50 years.” It is a powerfully interesting legend of the Faust type, localised in Essex. In a postscript Mr. Higginson adds, “I had credible information of one in Leicestershire, in the time of the Long Parliament, that gave his soul to the Divel, upon condition to be a Famous Preacher, which he was for a time, &c., but I am imperfect in the story.” (Mather Papers,Mass. Hist. Soc.Collections, 4th Series,VIII, 285-287). See also the cases of witchcraft before 1692 collected in S. G. Drake’s Annals of Witchcraft in New England. Dr. Poole is far nearer the truth in saying that “the New-England colonists had no views concerning witchcraft and diabolical agency which they did not bring with them from the Old World” (Witchcraft in Boston, in Winsor, Memorial History of Boston,II, 131) than President White is when he remarks that “the life of the early colonists in New England was such as to give rapid growth to the germs of the doctrine of possession brought from the mother country” (Warfare of Science with Theology,II, 145).
[2]A masterly short account of the various elements which made up the fully developed doctrine of witchcraft as it was held during the three centuries of especial prosecution (1400-1700), and of the sources from which these elements were derived, may be found in the first chapter of Joseph Hansen’s Zauberwahn, Inquisition und Hexenprozess im Mittelalter (Munich and Leipzig, 1900). A learned and able essay by Professor George L. Burr, The Literature of Witchcraft, reprinted from the Papers of the American Historical Association, New York, 1890, should also be consulted. Professor Burr emphasises the sound and necessary distinction between witchcraft and magic. But he seems to go too far in his insistence on this distinction as vital in the history of witchcraft: “Magic itself is actual and universal. But witchcraft never was. It was but a shadow, a nightmare: the nightmare of a religion, the shadow of a dogma. Less than five centuries saw its birth, its vigor, its decay” (p.238;p.38 of reprint). This statement is true if by witchcraft is meant (and this is Professor Burr’s sense) the fully developed and highly complicated system set forth in the Malleus Maleficarum and in Del Rio’s Disquisitiones Magicae—what Hansen (p.35) calls“der verhängnisvolle Sammelbegriff des Hexenwesens,”—which was not possible until scholasticism had schematised the diversified elements of belief in magic and demonology and sorcery and devil-worship which Christian theology and Christian superstition had derived from the most various sources—from Judaism, classical antiquity, Neo-Platonism, and the thousand-and-one beliefs of pagan converts. But, important as this fully developed system was—and true though it may be that without the schematising influence of scholastic philosophy the witch-prosecution which was epidemic in Europe from 1400 to 1700 could hardly have taken place—we should never forget that the essential element in witchcraft ismaleficium—the working of harm to the bodies and goods of one’s fellow-men by means of evil spirits or of strange powers derived from intercourse with such spirits. This belief inmaleficiumwas once universal; it was rooted and grounded in the minds of the people before they became Christians; it is still the creed of most savages and of millions of so-called civilised men. Throughout the history of witchcraft (in whatever sense we understand that word), it remained the ineradicable thing,—the solid foundation, unshakably established in popular belief, for whatever superstructure might be reared by the ingenuity of jurisconsults, philosophers, theologians, or inquisitors. Without this popular belief inmaleficium, the initial suspicions and complaints which form the basis and starting-point of all prosecutions would have been impossible and inconceivable.Withthis popular belief, the rest was easy. The error into which Professor Burr has fallen is due, no doubt, to his keeping his eye too exclusively on the Continent, where the prosecutions were most extensive, where, in truth, the fully developed system was most prevalent, and where the inquisitorial methods of procedure give to the witch-trials a peculiar air of uniformity and theological schematism. Thus he has been led, like many other historians, to over-emphasise the learned or literary side of the question. For us, however, as the descendants of Englishmen and as students of the history of English colonies in America, it is necessary to fix our attention primarily on the Mother Country. And, if we do this, we cannot fail to perceive that the obstinate belief of the common people inmaleficium—a belief which, it cannot be too often repeated, is not the work of theologians but the universal and quasi-primitive creed of the human race—is the root of the whole matter. (On savage witchcraft see the anthropologistspassim. Good examples may be found in Karl von den Steinen,Unter den Naturvölkern Brasiliens, 1894,pp.339ff.)
Onmaleficiumsee especially Hansen,pp.9ff.Nothing could be truer than his words:—“Wie viel auch immer im Laufe der Zeit in den Begriff der Zauberei und Hexerei hineingetragen worden ist, so ist doch sein Kern stets das Maleficium geblieben. Aus dieser Vorstellung erwächst die angstvolle Furcht der Menschen und das Verlangen nach gesetzlichem Schutze und blutig strenger Strafe; von ihr hat die strafrechtliche Behandlung dieses Wahns ihren Ausgang genommen”(p.9).“Das Maleficium, mit Ausnahme des Wettermachens, ist ohne alle Unterbrechung von der kirchlichen und bis in das 17. Jahrhundert auch von der staatlichen Autorität als Realität angenommen, seine Kraft ist nie ernstlich in Abrede gestellt worden; es bildet den roten Faden auch durch die Geschichte der strafrechtlichen Verfolgung”(p.13). Everybody knows that the most convincing evidence of witchcraft—short of confession or of denunciation by a confederate—was held to be thedamnum minatumand themalum secutum.
The difference between England and the Continent in the development of the witchcraft idea and in the history of prosecution is recognised by Hansen (p.34, note 1). President White, like Professor Burr, has his eye primarily on the Continent (Warfare of Science with Theology, 1896, I, 350ff.). His treatment of demoniacal possession, however, is much to our purpose (II, 97ff., 135ff.).
[3]King James’s connection with the history of witchcraft almost deserves a monograph for it has never been adequately discussed, and various misconceptions on the subject are afloat. Thus Mr. H. M. Doughty, in an interesting but one-sided essay on Witchcraft and Christianity (Blackwood’s Magazine, March, 1898,CLXIII, 388), remarks that “the new King James had long lived in abject fear of witches”—an assertion that he would find it impossible to prove, even if it were true, as it seems not to be.
[4]The act of 5Eliz. c.16 (after reciting that 33 Henr.VIII. c. 8 had been repealed by 1Edw. VI. c.12) prescribes the penalty of death for witchcraft which destroys life, imprisonment for that which causes bodily injury (death for the second offence); in certain harmless kinds of sorcery (such as accompanied the search for treasure or stolen goods) the second offence is punished by imprisonment for life. 1Jac. I. c.12 follows 5Eliz. c.16 in the main. Its chief differences are,—greater detail in defining witchcraft; the insertion of a passage about digging up dead bodies for purposes of sorcery; death for the first offence in cases of witchcraft which causes bodily injury; death for the second offence in treasure-seeking sorcery and the like. Before one pronounces the new statute much severer than the old, it would be well to examine the practical operation of the two. In particular, one ought to determine how many witches were executed under the law of JamesI.who would not have been subject to the death penalty under the law of Elizabeth. This is not the place for such an examination. On treasure-seeking sorcery see the learned and entertaining essay of Dr. Augustus Jessopp, Hill-Digging and Magic (in his Random Roaming and Other Papers, 1893).
[5]Seep.64 below. Strictly speaking, the Commonwealth did not begin until 1649, but this point need not be pressed.
[6]See F. Legge, Witchcraft in Scotland (Scottish Review,XVIII, 267); Thomas Wright, Narratives of Sorcery and Witchcraft,Chap. xxv.Whitelocke, under date ofOct.4, 1652, notes “Letters that sixty Persons Men and Women were accused before the Commissioners for Administration of Justice inScotlandat the last Circuit for Witches; but they found so much Malice and so little Proof against them that none were condemned” (Memorials, 1732,p.545).Cf.also his very important entry on the same subject underOct.29, 1652 (pp.547-548).
[7]Epistolæ Ho-Elianæ, Familiar Letters, edited by Joseph Jacobs, 1890, bookii, letter 76,p.506: “To my Honourable Friend, Mr. E. P., at Paris” (cf.Jacobs’s notespp.783-784). The letter is dated “Fleet, 3Feb.1646.” This is certainly Old Style. Howell is a queer dater, but a reference in this letter to the departure of the Scottish army (p.505) proves that the letter was written afterDec.21, 1646. There is a similar passage about witches in book iii, letter 2,p.515 (also to Porter), dated “Fleet, 20Feb.1646.”
[8]Letters, as above, bookiii, no.23,pp.547ff., dated “Fleet, 20Feb.1647,” i. e. doubtless 1648.
[9]See Jacobs’s Introduction,pp. xlii-xliii. The question whether Howell’s letters were actually sent to the persons to whom they are addressed or whether they are to be regarded merely as literary exercises composed during his imprisonment (see Jacobs,pp. lxxiff.) does not affect, for our purposes, the value of the quotations here made, since the letters to which we now refer actually purport to have been written in the Fleet, and since they were first published in the second edition (1650) in the additional third volume and from the nature of things could not have appeared in the first edition (1645). They must, at all events, have been composed before 1650, and are doubtless dated correctly enough.
[10]Seep.64, below.
[11]Sermonxvii(Whole Works,ed.Heber and Eden, 1861,IV, 546).
[12]Whole Works,III, 57;cf.Sermon vii (Works,IV. 412).
[13]Seep.7, above, note 4.
[14]A Tryal of Witches, at the Assizes held at Bury St. Edmonds ... 1664 (London, 1682),pp.55-56. This report is reprinted in Howell’s State Trials,VI, 647ff., and (in part) in H. L. Stephen’s State Trials Political and Social (1899),I, 209ff.See also Hutchinson, An Historical Essay concerning Witchcraft,chap. viii.(1718,pp.109ff.;2d ed., 1720,pp.139ff.); Thomas Wright, Narratives of Sorcery and Witchcraft,II., 261ff.Hale’s opinion was regarded as settling the law beyond peradventure. It is quoted, in A True and Impartial Relation of the Informations against Three Witches ... Assizes holden for the County of Devon at the Castle of Exon,Aug.14, 1682 (London, 1682), Address to the Reader. For Roger North’s comments on the Exeter case, seep.192, below. A Collection of Modern Relations of Matters of Fact, concerning Witches & Witchcraft, PartI(London, 1693), contains “A Discourse concerning the great Mercy of God, in preserving us from the Power and Malice ofEvil Angels.Written by SirMatt. Haleat Cambridge26Mar.1661.Upon occasion of a Tryal of certain Witches before him the Week before at St.Edmund’s Bury.” The date is wrong (1661 should be 1664), but the trial is identified with that which we are considering by the anonymous compiler of the Collection in the following words: “There is a Relation of it in print, written by his Marshal, which I suppose is very true, though to the best of my Memory, not so compleat, as to some observable Circumstances, as what he related to me at his return from that Circuit.” The date of the trial is given as “the Tenth day of March, 1664” on the title-page of the report (A Tryal of Witches) and on page 1 as “the Tenth day of March, in the Sixteenth Year of the Reign of ... CharlesII.” On page 57 the year is misprinted “1662.” Howell’s State Trials,VI, 647, 687, makes it 1665, but 16 CharlesII.corresponds to Jan. 30, 1664—Jan. 29, 1665: hence 1664 is right. The (unfinished) Discourse just mentioned must not be confused with Hale’s Motives to Watchfulness, in reference to the Good and Evil Angels, which may be found in his Contemplations Moral and Divine, London, 1682 (licensed 1675-6), PartII,pp.67ff.
[15]Roger North, Life of the Lord Keeper Guilford,ed.1826,I, 121.
[16]Wonders of the Invisible World (London, 1693),p.55. Mather also reproduces the substance of the report above referred to (note 14) in the same work. Bragge, too, reproduces it, in the main, in his tract, Witchcraft Farther Display’d, 1712, in support of the accusation against Jane Wenham.
[17]Lives of the Chief Justices, 1849,I, 561ff., Chapterxvii. See also the criticism of Hale in a letter of George Onslow’s, 1770, 14th Report of the HistoricalMSS.Commission, Appendix, PartIX,p.480.
[18]Published in 1682.
[19]Edition of 1826,I, 117ff.
[20]State Papers (Domestic), 1682,Aug.19, bundle 427,no.67, as quoted by Pike. History of Crime in England,II, 238.
[21]A Tryal of Witches, as above,p.41.
[22]That is,hysteria.
[23]A Tryal, as above,p.42.Cf.the Supplementary Memoir, in Simon Wilkin’s edition of Browne’s Works, 1852,I, liv-lvi.
[24]Anatomy of Melancholy, 1621, Part 1, section 2, member 1, subsection 3. I quote from the edition of 1624.
[25]The following short character of Glanvill, by Bishop Kennet, may be quoted, not because it is just, but because it might conceivably be brought forward by somebody in rebuttal of this proposition:—“Mr.Joseph GlanvillofLincolnCollege,Oxon. Taking the Degree of M. A. in the beginning of 1658, was about that Time made Chaplain to oldFrancis Rous; one ofOliver’s Lords, and Provost ofEatonCollege.—He became a great Admirer of Mr.Richard Baxter, and a zealous Person for a Commonwealth. After his Majesty’s Restauration he turn’d about, became a Latitudinarian,—Rector ofBath, Prebendary ofWorcester, and Chaplain to the King” (White Kennet, An Historical Register, 1744,p.931).
[26]See Dr. Ferris Greenslet’s Joseph Glanvill, A Study in English Thought and Letters of the Seventeenth Century, New York, 1900, especiallyChap. vi.For a bibliography of Glanvill, see Emanuel Green, Bibliotheca Somersetensis, Taunton (Eng.), 1902,I, 206ff.
[27]More’s theories on the subject of apparitions, demons, and witches may also be read, at considerable length, in his Antidote against Atheism, Bookiii, Chaps.2-13 (Philosophical Writings,2d ed., 1662,pp.89ff.);cf.the Appendix to the Antidote,Chaps.12-13 (pp.181ff.) and The Immortality of the Soul, Chap. 16 (pp.129ff.).
[28]A Modest Enquiry into the Nature of Witchcraft, Boston, 1702.
[29]Dated 1697-8.
[30]P.12.
[31]Meric Casaubon was born in 1599 and died in 1671. His learned, lively, and vastly entertaining work, A Treatise concerning Enthusiasme, as it is an Effect of Nature: but is mistaken by many for either Divine Inspiration, or Diabolicall Possession, appeared in 1655, and in a “Second edition: revised, and enlarged” in 1656. It shows an open mind and a temper rather skeptical than credulous. Passages of interest in our present discussion may be found onpp.37-41, 44, 49, 94-95, 100, 118, 174 (Quakers), 286, of the second edition. Of particular significance is the Doctor’s account of his visit to a man who was thought to be possessed but whom he believed to be suffering from some bodily distemper (pp.97ff.). Casaubon’s treatise (in two parts) Of Credulity and Incredulity, in Things Natural, Civil, and Divine, came out in 1668, and was reissued, with a new title-page (as above), in 1672. A third part, Of Credulity and Incredulity in Things Divine and Spiritual, appeared in 1670. Webster’s assault upon Casaubon in his Displaying of Supposed Witchcraft was made in apparent ignorance of the fact that the venerable scholar had been dead for some years (seep.24, below).
[32]Compare Reginald Scot’s chapter “Of Theurgie, with a Confutation thereof” (Discoverie of Witchcraft, bookxv, chap.42, 1584,p.466,ed.1665,p.280). See also Henry Hallywell, Melampronoea: or A Discourse of the Polity and Kingdom of Darkness. Together with a Solution of the Chiefest Objections brought against the Being of Witches, 1681,pp.50-51.
[33]Cap.iv, §15,ed.Mosheim, 1773,I, 395-396.
[34]Sadducismus Triumphatus,ed.1726,p.336; see James Crossley’s Introduction to Potts, Discovery of Witches in the County of Lancaster, reprinted from the Edition of 1613 (Chetham Society, 1845),p. vi, note 2. This experiment was twice tried as late as 1712, in the case of Jane Wenham, by theRev.Mr. Strutt, once in the presence of Sir Henry Chauncy, and again in the presence of theRev.Mr. Gardiner. Its ill success is recorded by a third Anglican clergyman,—Mr. Francis Bragge (A Full and Impartial Account of the Discovery of Sorcery and Witchcraft, Practis’d by Jane Wenham, London, 1712,pp.11, 15).
[35]Letter to Glanvill,Sept.18, 1677, Works,ed.Birch,V, 244. Compare Dr. Samuel Collins’s letter to Boyle,Sept.1, 1663 (Boyle’s Works,V, 633-634).
[36]In a letter to Glanvill (Works,V, 245).
[37]SeeDemonologie ou Traitte des Demons et Sorciers ... Par Fr. Perreaud. Ensemble l’Antidemon de Mascon, ou Histoire Veritable de ce qu’un Demon a fait & dit, il y a quelques années, en la maison dudit Sʳ. Perreaud à Mascon.Geneva, 1653.
[38]Theological Works,ed.1830,IV, 480-482.
[39]In his Ravillae Redivivus, reprinted in the Somers Tracts,2d ed.,VIII, 510ff.(see especiallypp.546ff.). Weir, who was unquestionably insane, was executed in 1670.
[40]Diary and Correspondence of Samuel Pepys, London, 1885,IV, 275. On elf-arrowscf.Pitcairn, Criminal Trials in Scotland,I, ii, 192, 198;III, 607, 609, 615; W. Henderson, Notes on the Folk-Lore of the Northern Counties, 1879,pp.185ff.
[41]Evelyn may have derived his information from Sir William Phips’s letter to the home government (Oct.14, 1692), as Dr. G. H. Moore suggests (Final Notes on Witchcraft in Massachusetts,N. Y., 1885,p.66). For the letter see Goodell, Essex Institute Collections,2dSeries,I, ii, 86ff.Phips’s second letter (Feb.21, 1692-3, to the Earl of Nottingham) is printed by Moore,pp.90ff.
[42]The remark, sometimes heard, that Calvinism was especially responsible for witch trials is a loose assertion which has to reckon with the fact that the last burning for witchcraft at Geneva took place in 1652 (see Paul Ladame,Procès criminel de la dernière Sorcière brulée à Genève, Paris, 1888).
[43]Compare Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy, Part I, section 2, member 1, subsection 3:—“Many deny Witches at all, or if there be any, they can doe no harme: of this opinion isWierus,lib. 3. cap. 53, depræstig. dæm. Austin Lerchemer, a Dutch writer,Biarmanus,Ewichius,Euwaldus, our countrymanScot... but on the contrary are most Lawyers, Diuines, Physitians, Philosophers.”
[44]Wier’s great work, De Praestigiis Dæmonum, was published in 1563, and was afterwards much enlarged. It went through many editions.
[45]See the extraordinary list in William Drage, Daimonomageia. A Small Treatise of Sicknesses and Diseases from Witchcraft, and Supernatural Causes, 1665. Webster considers this subject at length inChap. xiiof his Displaying of Supposed Witchcraft, 1677, with a full discussion of van Helmont’s views.Cf.Henry More, Antidote against Atheism,Chaps.4-5 (Philosophical Writings,2d ed., 1662,pp.97ff.).
[46]“Ea dæmonis subtilitate uelocitateque imperceptibili, ori ingesta, nostris ad hæc oculis uel celeritate eius uictis, uel fascino delusis, uel interiecto corpore aereo aut aliter motis eo intus uel foris uel utrinque humoribus aut spiritu caligantibus.” De Præstigiis Dæmonum (Basileæ, 1568),iv, 2, pp.352-353.
[47]Even Bekker (seep.35, below), who approaches the subject from the philosophical direction, and whose logical process is different from Wier’s, is greatly indebted to him.
[48]Compare the fate of Bekker in 1692 (p.39).
[49]A Treatise proving Spirits, Witches and Supernatural Operations, 1672,p.35.
[50]The same,p.46.
[51]Dæmonologie, Workes, 1616,p.92. On Wier in general, see Carl Binz, Doctor Johann Weyer,ein rheinischer Arst, der erste Bekämpfer des Hexenwahns, Berlin, 1896.
[52]He expressly asserts his belief in their existence (A Discourse upon Divels and Spirits,chap.32,p.540;cf. chap.16,p.514).
[53]Discoverie of Witchcraft,xiii, 22-34,ed.1584,pp.321ff.,ed.1665,pp.181-201 (with cuts). Most of the tricks which Scot describes are identical with feats of legerdemain that are the stock in trade of every modern juggler:—“To throwe a peece of monie awaie, and to find it againe where you list” (p.326); “To make a groat or a testor to sinke through a table, and to vanish out of a handkercher very strangelie” (p.327); “How to deliver out foure aces, and to convert them into foure knaves” (p.333); “To tell one without confederacie what card he thinketh” (p.334); “To burne a thred, and to make it whole againe with the ashes thereof” (p.341); “To cut off ones head, and to laie it in a platter, &c.: which the jugglers call the decollation of John Baptist” (p.349). The picture of the apparatus required for the last-mentioned trick is very curious indeed (p.353). The references to Scot, unless the contrary is stated, are to all the pages of the first (1584) edition, as reprinted by Dr. Brinsley Nicholson (London, 1886).
[54]King James remarks, in the Preface to his Dæmonologie, that Scot “is not ashamed in publike Print to deny, that there can be such a thing as Witch-craft: and so maintaines the old errour of the Sadduces in denying of spirits” (Workes, 1616,pp.91-92).
[55]In what an orderly way one may proceed from an admission of the doctrine of fallen angels to the final results of the witch dogma may be seen, for instance, in Henry Hallywell’s Melampronoea: or A Discourse of the Polity and Kingdom of Darkness, 1681. Hallywell had been a Fellow of Christ’s College, Cambridge.
[56]Seep.9, above.
[57]P.39. See Nicholson’s reprint of the 1584 edition,p. xlii.
[58]Page 46.
[59]Introduction to the Chetham Society reprint of Potts’s Discoverie of Witches,pp. xxxviii-xxxix.
[60]Pages 202-215.
[61]P.228. Perhaps Webster is merely “putting a case” here; but he certainly seems to be making an admission, at least in theory.
[62]Page 230.
[63]Pages 294ff.
[64]Page 294.
[65]Pages 297-298.
[66]Pages 302-310.
[67]P.308. On the astral spirit, see alsopp.312ff.
[68]Page 310.
[69]Pages 10-11.
[70]See alsopp.267ff.
[71]Page 73.
[72]Page 231.
[73]Pages 242-243.
[74]Page 244.
[75]Pages 245-246.
[76]Page 247.
[77]Page 260.
[78]Page 267.
[79]Note, however, that the upholders of the current beliefs on witchcraft are also many times emphatic enough in similar cautionary remarks. A first-rate example is the following characteristic passage from Dr. Casaubon, whom Webster calls a “witchmonger”:—
“And indeed, that the denying ofWitches, to them that content themselves in the search of truth with a superficial view, is a very plausible cause; it cannot be denied. For if any thing in the world, (as we know all things in the world are) be liable to fraud, and imposture, and innocent mistake, through weakness and simplicity; this subject of Witches and Spirits is.... How ordinary is it to mistake natural melancholy (not to speak of other diseases) for a Devil? And how much, too frequently, is both the disease increased, or made incurable; and the mistake confirmed, by many ignorant Ministers, who take every wild motion, or phansie, for a suggestion of the Devil? Whereas, in such a case, it should be the care of wise friends, to apply themselves to the Physician of the body, and not to entertain the other, (I speak it ofnaturalmelancholy) who probably may do more hurt, than good; but as the learned Naturalist doth allow, and advise? Excellent is the advice and counsel in this kind, of the Author of the bookde morbo Sacroattributed toHippocrates, which I could wish all men were bound to read, before they take upon them to visit sick folks, that are troubled with melancholy diseases” (A Treatise proving Spirits, etc., 1672,pp.29-30:cf.p.14, note 31, above).
[80]Pages 219, 220, 224.
[81]Saducismus Triumphatus, PartII,ed.1682,p.4. (ed. 1726,pp.225-226). Glanvill is here replying to Webster, whose book, it will be remembered, appeared in 1677.
[82]Increase Mather’s copy is in the Harvard College Library.
[83]Lowell, New England Two Centuries Ago, Writings, Riverside edition,II, 73.
[84]Leviathan,i, 2 (English Works,ed.Molesworth,III, 9). Compare Hobbes’s Dialogue between a Philosopher and a Student of the Common Law of England (English Works,VI, 96):—“L.I know not. Besides these crimes, there is conjuration, witchcraft, sorcery and enchantment; which are capital by the statute I James,c.12.—P.But I desire not to discourse of that subject. For though without doubt there is some great wickedness signified by those crimes; yet I have ever found myself too dull to conceive the nature of them, or how the devil hath power to do so many things which witches have been accused of.” Wier is far more humane, as well as more reasonable. If one holds, he writes, that witches are to be severely punished for their evil intent, let it be remembered that there is a great difference between sane and insane will.“Quod si quis contentiose uoluntatem seuerius puniendam defendat, is primum distinguat inter uoluntatem hominis sani perfectam, quae in actum uere dirigi coeperit: et inter uitiatae mentis sensum, uel (si uoles) corruptam amentis uoluntatem: cui suo opere, quasi alterius esset, colludit diabolus, nec alius insulse uolentem subsequitur effectus.” De Præstigiis Dæmonum,vi, 21,ed.1568,pp.641-642.
[85]Table-Talk, 1689,p.59 (the first edition). Selden died in 1654.
[86]Soldan,Geschichte der Hexenprozesse,ed.Heppe,II, 243.
[87]A Candle in the Dark: or, A Treatise concerning the Nature of Witches & Witchcraft, 1656,p.41.
[88]Sir Robert Filmer’s brief tract, An Advertisement to the Jury-men of England, touching Witches, was occasioned, according to the Preface, by “the late Execution of Witches at the Summer Assizes in Kent.” It was first published in 1652, and may be found annexed to the Free-holders Grand Inquest, 1679. The case which elicited Sir Robert’s little book is reported in A Prodigious & Tragicall History of the Arraignment, Tryall, Confession, and Condemnation of six Witches at Maidstone, in Kent, at the Assizes there held in July, Fryday 30, this present year, 1652 (London, 1652, reprinted 1837).
[89]A. D. White, A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology, 1896,I, 362.
[90]Wood, Athenæ Oxonienses,ed.Bliss,III, 1114.
[91]Dr. Hutchinson’s admirable work, An Historical Essay concerning Witchcraft, which still remains one of the most valuable treatises on this subject that we have, was published in 1718. It appeared in a second edition in 1720, in which year he was appointed Bishop of Down and Connor.
[92]I have used a copy of the French translation,—Le Monde Enchanté, Amsterdam, 1694. This was made by Bekker’s direction and revised by him. Each of the four volumes has a separate dedication, and each dedication (in the Harvard College copy) is authenticated by Bekker’s autograph signature.
[93]This concludes Bekker’s First Book.
[94]What precedes is, in substance, Bekker’s BookII.
[95]This is the substance of Bekker’s Third Book.
[96]“De Christelijke Synodus ... heeft, ... met eenparigheyd van stemmen, den selven Dr. Bekker verklaart intolerabel als Leeraar in de Gereformeerde Kerke; en vervolgens hem van sijn Predik-dienst geremoveert”(decree in W. P. C. Knuttel,Balthasar Bekker de Bestrijder van het Bijgeloof,the Hague, 1906,p.315).
[97]Knuttel,p.319.
[98]Knuttel,p.357. Strictly speaking, it was not for his denial of modern witchcraft that Bekker was punished, for it is in the last two books of his treatise that he deals particularly with this subject, and these did not appear until after he had been unfrocked. Still, his Second Book, which got him into trouble, contains all the essentials. It denies the power of the devil and wicked spirits to afflict men, and holds that the demoniacs of the New Testament were neither possessed nor obsessed, but merely sufferers from disease. For a full analysis of Bekker’s work and an account of the opposition which it roused, see Knuttel,chap. v, pp.188ff.; for the ecclesiastical proceedings against Bekker, seechap. vi, pp.270ff.The various editions and translations of De Betoverde Weereld are enumerated by van der Linde in his Balthasar Bekker, Bibliographie (the Hague, 1869), where may also be found a long list of the books and pamphlets which the work called forth. There is a good account of Bekker’s argument in Soldan’sGeschichte der Hexenprozesse, neu bearbeitet von Dr. Heinrich Heppe(Stuttgart, 1880),II, 233ff.See also Roskoff,Geschichte des Teufels, Leipzig, 1869,II, 445ff.
[99]Theologians took infinite pains to distinguish between miracles (miracula), which could be wrought by divine power only, and the kind of wonders (mira) which Satan worked. See, for example, William Perkins, A Discourse of the Damned Art of Witchcraft, 1608,pp.12ff., 18ff.; Del Rio,Disquisitiones Magicæ,lib. ii, quæstio7,ed.1616,pp.103ff.Sir Robert Filmer, in An Advertisement to the Jurymen of England, Touching Witches (appended to The Free-holders Grand Inquest, 1679;cf.p.34, note 88, above), makes merry with such fine-spun distinctions. “Both [Perkins and Del Rio],” he says, “seem to agree in this, that he had need be an admirable or profound Philosopher, that can distinguish between a Wonder and a Miracle; it would poseAristotlehimself, to tell us every thing that can be done by the power of Nature, and what things cannot; for there be daily many things found out, and daily more may be, which our Fore-fathers never knew to be possible in Nature” (pp.322-323).Cf.Calef, More Wonders of the Invisible World, 1700,p.35.
[100]Cf.Soldan,Geschichte der Hexenprozesse,ed.Heppe,II, 243:—“Zu derjenigen freieren Kritik der biblischen Schriften selbst sich zu erheben, welche das Vorhandensein gewisser, aus den Begriffen der Zeit geschöpfter dämonologischen Vorstellungen in der Bibel anerkennt, ohne daraus eine bindende Norm für den Glauben herzuleiten,—diese war freilich erst einem späteren Zeitalter vorbehalten. Bekker kannte, um seine sich ihm aufdringende philosophische Ueberzeugung mit der Bibel zu versöhnen, keinen andern Weg, als den der Üblichen Exegese, und daher kommt es, dass diese nicht überall eine ungezwungene ist.”It is instructive to note the pains which Sir Walter Scott takes, in his Second Letter on Demonology and Witchcraft, to harmonise the Bible with his views on these subjects.
[101]To avoid all possibility of misapprehension I shall venture to express my own feelings. The two men who appeal to me most in the whole affair of witchcraft are Friedrich Spee, the Jesuit, and Balthasar Bekker, the “intolerable” pastor of Amsterdam. But what Ifeel, and what all of us feel, is not to the purpose. There has been too much feeling in modern discussions of witchcraft already.
[102]Sigmund Riezler,Geschichte der Hexenprozessein Bayern, Stuttgart, 1896,p.143.
[103]Ibid.
[104]Soldan,Geschichte der Hexenprozesse, revised by Heppe,II, 37;cf.G. L. Burr, The Fate of Dietrich Flade, 1891 (reprinted from the Papers of the American Historical Association,V).
[105]Jean d’Espaignet and Pierre de Lancre, the special commissioners, are said to have condemned more than 600 in four months (Soldan,ed.Heppe,II, 162;cf.Baissac,Les Grands Jours de la Sorcellerie, 1890,p.401). I have no certain evidence of the accuracy of these figures, for I have seen only one of de Lancre’s two books, and I find in it no distinct statement of the number of witches convicted. He makes various remarks, however, which seem to show that 600 is no exaggeration. Thus he says that the Parliament of Bordeaux, under whose authority he acted, condemned “an infinity” of sorcerers to death in 1609 (Tableau de l’Inconstance des Mauvais Anges et Demons, Paris, 1613,p.100).“On fait estat qu’il y a trente mille ames en ce pays de Labourt, contant ceux qui sont en voyage sur mer, & que parmy tout ce peuple, il y a bien peu de familles qui ne touchent au Sortilege par quelque bout”(p.38). The commission lasted from July to November (pp.66, 456, 470); besides those that the two commissioners tried during this period, they left behind them so many witches and wizards that the prisons of Bordeaux were crowded and it became necessary to lodge the defendants in the ruinedchâteau du Hâ(pp.144, 560).Cf.pp.35ff., 64, 92, 114, 546. The panic fear that witchcraft excites is described by de Lancre in a striking passage:—“Qu’il n’y ayt qu’vne seule sorciere dans vn grand village, dans peu de temps vous voyez tant d’enfans perdus, tant de femmes enceintes perdãs leur fruit, tant de haut mal donné à des pauures creatures, tant d’animaux perdus, tant de fruicts gastes, que le foudre ni autre fleau du ciel ne sont rien en comparaison”(pp.543-544).
[106]An Account of what Happened in the Kingdom of Sweden, in the Years 1669, 1670 and Upwards, translated from the German by Anthony Horneck, and included in Glanvill’sSaducismus Triumphatus,ed.1682 (ed. 1726,pp.474ff.). Horneck’s version is from a tract entitled, Translation ...Der Königl. Herren Commissarien gehaltenes Protocol uber die entdeckte Zauberey in dem Dorff Mohra und umbliegenden Orten,the Hague, 1670.Cf.Thomas Wright, Narratives of Sorcery and Magic,II, 244ff.; Soldan,ed.Heppe,II, 175ff.;Vilhelm Bang, Hexevæsen og Hexeforfølgelser især i Danmark, Copenhagen, 1896,pp.48ff.This is what Mr. Upham calls Cotton Mather’s “favorite Swedish case” (Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather, Morrisania, 1869,p.20). It was, in a manner, “Leonato’s Hero, your Hero, every man’s Hero” toward the end of the seventeenth century, since it was one of the most recent instances of witchcraft on a large scale. The good angel in white who is one of the features of the Mohra case appears much earlier in England: see Potts, Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches, 1613, Chetham Society reprint, sig. L (a reference which may serve as a note to Mr. Upham’s essay, just cited,p.34).
[107]Frans Volk,Hexen in der Landvogtei Ortenau und Reichsstadt Offenburg,Lahr, 1882,pp.24-25, 58ff.
[108]Scot, Discoverie of Witchcraft, 1584,p.543; F. Hutchinson, Historical Essay,2d ed.,p.38; W. W., A True and Just Recorde, of the Information [etc.] of all the Witches, taken at S. Oses (London, 1582). For extracts from W. W.’s book I am indebted to Mr. Wallace Notestein, of Yale University.
[109]F. Legge, The Scottish Review,XVIII, 261ff.
[110]Thomas Potts, The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster (London, 1613), reprinted by the Chetham Society, 1845; Thomas Wright, Narratives of Sorcery and Magic,Chap. xxiii.
[111]Whalley Lancashire, by Whitaker,pp.213ff.; Chetham Society reprint of Potts, as above,pp. lixff.; Wright, as above.Chap. xxiii; Heywood and Brome’s play, The Late Lancashire Witches, 1634; Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, 1634-1635,pp.77-79, 98, 129-130, 141, 152; Historical Manuscripts Commission, 10th Report, Appendix, PartIV,p.433; 12th Report, Appendix, PartII,p.53,cf.p.77; Notes and Queries,3dSeries,V, 259, 385.
[112]Nichols, History and Antiquities of the County of Leicester,II, 471.
[113]Seepp.7 and 58.
[114]Whitelocke’s Memorials,Dec.13, 1649,ed.1732,p.434; Brand, Popular Antiquities,ed.Hazlitt,III, 80; Ralph Gardner, England’s Grievance Discovered, in Relation to the Coal-Trade, 1655 (reprinted, North Shields, 1849,Chap.53,pp.168ff.).
[115]A Prodigious & Tragicall History of the Arraignment [etc.] of Six Witches at Maidstone.... Digested by H. F. Gent, 1652 (reprinted in an Account, etc., London, 1837).
[116]A True and Impartial Relation of the Informations against Three Witches, 1682.
[117]Sir J. H. Lefroy, Memorials of the Discovery and Early Settlement of the Bermudas or Somers Islands,II, 601ff.
[118]A Full and True Relation of the Tryal (etc.) of Ann Foster, London, 1674 (Northampton, reprinted by Taylor & Son, 1878).Cf.W. Ruland,Steirische Hexenprozesse, in Steinhausen’s Zeitschrift für Kulturgeschichte, 2. Ergänzungsheft, Weimar, 1898,pp.46ff.
[119]N. E. Hist. Gen.Register.XXIV, 382.
[120]Letter ofOct.8, 1692,Mass. Hist. Soc.Collections,V, 65. Compare, on the whole question, the remarks of Professor Wendell in his interesting paper, Were the Salem Witches Guiltless? (Historical Collections of the Essex Institute,XXIX, republished in his Stelligeri and Other Essays concerning America, New York, 1893) and in his Cotton Mather,pp.93ff.
[121]A long and curious list of cases of defamation may be seen in a volume of Depositions and other Ecclesiastical Proceedings from the County of Durham, extending from 1311 to the Reign of Elisabeth, edited by James Raine for the Surtees Society in 1845 (Publications,XXI). Thus, in 1566-67, Margaret Lambert accuses John Lawson of saying “that she was a chermer” (p.84); about 1569 Margaret Reed is charged with calling Margaret Howhett “a horse goodmother water wych” (p.91); in 1572, Thomas Fewler deposed that he “hard Elisabeth Anderson caull ... Anne Burden ‘crowket handyd wytch.’ He saith the words was spoken audiently there; ther might many have herd them, beinge spoken so neigh the cross and in the towne gait as they were” (p.247). So in 1691 Alice Bovill complained of a man who had said to her, “Thou bewitched my stot” (North Riding Record Society, Publications,IX, 6). See also Historical Manuscripts Commission, Report on Manuscripts in Various Collections,I, 283; Lefroy, Bermudas or Somers Islands,II, 629 (no.15).
[122]See, for example, Mr. Noble’s edition of the Records of the Court of Assistants,II, 43, 72, 85, 94, 95, 104, 131, 136,—all between 1633 and 1644.
[123]See Drake’s Annals of Witchcraft in New England; Noble’s Records, as above, 1, 11, 31, 33, 159, 188, 228, 229, 233.
[124]“Quia vulgo creditum, multorum annorum continuatam sterilitatem à strigibus et maleficis diabolicâ invidiâ causari; tota patria in extictionem maleficarum insurrexit”(as quoted from the autographMS.in the Trier Stadt-Bibliothek by G. L. Burr, The Fate of Dietrich Flade,p.51, Papers of the American Historical Association,V).
[125]“Incredibile vulgi apud Germanos, & maxime (quod pudet dicere) Catholicos superstitio, invidia, calumniæ, detractationes, susurrationes & similia, quæ nec Magistratus punit, nee concionatores arguunt, suspicionem magiæ primum excitant. Omnes divinaæ punitiones, quas in sacris literis Deus minatus est, à Sagis sunt. Nihil jam amplius Deus facit aut natura, sed Sagæ omnia. 2. Unde impetu omnes clamant ut igitur inquirat Magistratus in Sagas, quas non nisi ipsi suis linguis tot fecerunt” (Cautio Criminalis, seu de Processibus contra Sagas Liber,2d ed., 1695,pp.387-388;cf.Dubium xv,pp.67-68, Dubiumxxxiv, pp.231-232). Spee’s book came out anonymously in 1631, and, unlike most works on this side of the question, had immediate results. Spee had no doubt of the existence of witchcraft (Dubium i,pp.1ff., Dubium iii,pp.7-8); his experience, however, had taught him that most of those condemned were innocent.