The Project Gutenberg eBook ofThe Witchcraft Delusion in Colonial Connecticut (1647-1697)This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: The Witchcraft Delusion in Colonial Connecticut (1647-1697)Author: John M. TaylorRelease date: May 1, 2004 [eBook #12288]Most recently updated: October 28, 2024Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Suzanne Shell, Sjaani and the Online DistributedProofreading Team.*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WITCHCRAFT DELUSION IN COLONIAL CONNECTICUT (1647-1697) ***
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
Title: The Witchcraft Delusion in Colonial Connecticut (1647-1697)Author: John M. TaylorRelease date: May 1, 2004 [eBook #12288]Most recently updated: October 28, 2024Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Suzanne Shell, Sjaani and the Online DistributedProofreading Team.
Title: The Witchcraft Delusion in Colonial Connecticut (1647-1697)
Author: John M. Taylor
Author: John M. Taylor
Release date: May 1, 2004 [eBook #12288]Most recently updated: October 28, 2024
Language: English
Credits: Produced by Suzanne Shell, Sjaani and the Online DistributedProofreading Team.
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WITCHCRAFT DELUSION IN COLONIAL CONNECTICUT (1647-1697) ***
Grand Jury Presentment
[Illustration: A Grand Jury Presentment for Witchcraft Reproduced from the original in the Connecticut Historical Society, Hartford
May it please yr Honble Court, we the Grand inquest now setting for the County of Fairefeild, being made sensable, not only by Common fame (but by testamonies duly billed to us) that the widow Mary Staple, Mary Harvey ye wife of Josiah Harvey & Hannah Harvey the daughter of the saide Josiah, all of Fairefeild, remain under the susspition of useing witchecraft, which is abomanable both in ye sight of God & man and ought to be witnessed against. we doe therefore (in complyance to our duty, the discharge of our oathes and that trust reposed in us) presente the above mentioned pssons to the Honble Court of Assistants now setting in Fairefeild, that they may be taken in to Custody & proceeded against according to their demerits.
Fairefeild, Fby, 1692 in behalfe of the Grnd Jury JOSEPH BASTARD, foreman]
"Connecticut can well afford to
let her records go to the world."
Blue Laws: True and False(p. 47).
J. HAMMOND TRUMBULL.
FOREWORDThe true story of witchcraft in old Connecticut has never been told. It has been hidden in the ancient records and in manuscripts in private collections, and those most conversant with the facts have not made them known, for one reason or another. It is herein written from authoritative sources, and should prove of interest and value as a present-day interpretation of that strange delusion, which for a half century darkened the lives of the forefathers and foremothers of the colonial days.J.M.T.Hartford, Connecticut.
TWO INDICTMENTS FOR WITCHCRAFT
"John Carrington thou art indited by the name of John Carrington of Wethersfield—carpenter—, that not hauing the feare of God before thine eyes thou hast interteined ffamilliarity with Sattan the great enemye of God and mankinde and by his helpe hast done workes aboue the course of nature for wch both according to the lawe of God and the established lawe of this Commonwealth thou deseruest to dye."
Record Particular Court, 2: 17, 1650-51.
"Hugh Crotia, Thou Standest here presented by the name of Hugh Crotia of Stratford in the Colony of Connecticut in New England; for that not haueing the fear of God before thine Eyes, through the Instigation of the Devill, thou hast forsaken thy God & covenanted with the Devill, and by his help hast in a preternaturall way afflicted the bodys of Sundry of his Majesties good Subjects, for which according to the Law of God, and the Law of this Colony, thou deseruest to dye."
Record Court of Assistants, 2: 16, 1693.
A WARRANT FOR THE EXECUTION OF A WITCH[A]AND THE SHERIFF'S RETURN THEREON
To George Corwin Gentlm high Sheriff of the County of Essex Greeting
Whereas Bridgett Bishop als Olliver the wife of Edward Bishop of Salem in the County of Essex Sawyer at a special Court of Oyer and Terminer ---- (held at?)[B]Salem this second Day of this instant month of June for the Countyes of Essex Middlesex and Suffolk before William Stoughton Esqe. and his Associates Justices of the said Court was Indicted and arraigned upon five several Indictments for useing practising & exercising on the ----[B] last past and divers others days ---- witchcraft in and upon the bodyes of Abigail Williams Ann puttnam Jr Mercy Lewis Mary Walcott and Elizabeth Hubbard of Salem Village single women; whereby their bodyes were hurt afflicted pined consumed wasted & tormented contrary to the forme of the statute in that case made and provided To which Indictmts the said Bridgett Bishop pleaded not guilty and for Tryall thereof put herselfe upon God and her Country ---- she was found guilty of the ffelonyes and Witchcrafts whereof she stood Indicted and sentence of death accordingly passed agt her as the Law directs execution whereof yet remaines to be done These are therefore in the name of their Majties William & Mary now King & Queen over England & to will and command you that upon Fryday next being the fourth day of this instant month of June between the hours of Eight and twelve in the aforenoon of the same day you safely conduct the sd Bridgett Bishop als Olliver from their Majties Goale in Salem aforesd to the place of execution and there cause her to be hanged by the neck until she be dead and of your doings herein make returne to the Clerk of the sd Court and precept And hereof you are not to faile at your peril And this shall be sufficient warrant Given under my hand & seal at Boston the Eighth of June in the ffourth year of the reigne of our Sovereigne Lords William & Mary now King & Queen over England Annoque Dm 1692 Wm. Stoughton
[A]Original in office of Clerk of the Courts at Salem, Massachusetts. Said to be the only one extant in American archives.
[B]Some of the words in the warrant are illegible.
June 16 1692
According to the within written precept I have taken the Bodye of the within named Bridgett Bishop out of their Majties Goale in Salem & Safely Conueighd her to the place provided for her Execution & Caused ye sd Bridgett to be hanged by the neck till Shee was dead all which was according to the time within Required & So I make returne by me George Corwin Sheriff
CHAPTER IPerkins' definition—Burr's "Servants of Satan"—The monkish idea—The ancientness of witchcraft—Its universality—Its regulation—What it was—Its oldest record—The Babylonian Stele—Its discovery—King Hammurabi's Code, 2250 B.C.—Its character and importance—Hebraic resemblances—Its witchcraft law—The test of guilt—The water test. . . .1-5
CHAPTER IIOpinions of Blackstone and Lecky—Witchcraft nomenclature—Its earlier and later phases—Common superstitions—Monna Sidonia's invocation—Leland's Sea Song—Witchcraft's diverse literature—Its untold history— The modern Satanic idea—Exploitation by the Inquisitors—The chief authorities—The witch belief—Its recognition in drama and romance—The Weird Sisters—Other characters. . . .6-14
CHAPTER IIIFundamentals—The scriptural citations—Old and New Testament—Josephus—Ancient and modern witchcraft—The distinction—The arch enemy Satan—Action of the Church—The later definition—The NewEngland indictments—Satan's recognition—Persecutions in Italy, Germany and France—Slow spread to England—Statute of Henry VIII—Cranmer's injunction—Jewell's sermon—Statute James I—His Demonologie—Executions in Eastern England—Witch finder Hopkins—Howell's statement—John Lowes—Witchcraft in Scotland—Commissions—Instruments of torture—Forbes' definition—Colonial beliefs. . . .15-22
CHAPTER IVFiske's view—The forefathers' belief—Massachusetts, Connecticut and New Haven laws—Sporadic cases—The Salem tragedy—Statements of Hawthorne, Fiske, Lowell, Latimer—The victims—Upham's picture—The trial court—Sewall's confession—Cotton Mather—Calef and Upham—Poole—Mather's rules—Ministerial counsel—Longfellow's opinion—Mather's responsibility—His own evidence—Conspectus. . . .23-34
CHAPTER VThe Epidemic in Connecticut—Palfrey—Trumbulls—Winthrop's Journal—Treatment of witchcraft—Silence and evasion—The true story—How told—Witnesses—Testimony—All classes affected—The courts—Judges and jurors—The best evidence—The record—Grounds for examination of a witch—Jones' summary—Witch marks—What they were—How discovered—Dalton's Country Justice—The searchers—Searchers' report in Disborough and Clawson cases. . . .35-44
CHAPTER VIHamersley's and Morgan's comment—John Allyn's letter—The accusation—Its origin—Its victims—Many witnesses—Record evidence—The witnesses themselves—Memorials of their delusion—Notable depositions—Selected testimonies, and cases—Katherine Harrison—The court—The judge—The indictment—Grand jury's oath—Credulity of the court—Testimony—Its unique character—Bracy—Dickinson—Montague— Graves—Francis—Johnson—Hale—Smith—Verdict and sentence—Court's appeal to the ministers—Their answer—A remarkable document—Katherine's petition—"A Complaint of severall grieuances"—Katherine's reprieve— Dismissal from imprisonment—Removal. . . .45-61
CHAPTER VIIMercy Disborough—Cases at Fairfield, 1692—The special court—The indictment—Testimonies—Jesop—Barlow—Dunning—Halliberch—Benit— Grey—Godfree—Search for witch marks—Ordeal by water—Cateran Branch's accusation—Jury disagree—Later verdict of guilty—The governor's sentence—Reference to General Court—Afterthought—John Hale's conclusion—Courts call on the ministers—Their answer—General advice—Reasons for reprieve—Notable papers—Eliot and Woodbridge—Willis—Pitkin—Stanly—The pardon. . . .62-78
CHAPTER VIIIHawthorne—Latimer—Additional cases—Curious and vulgar testimony—All illustrative of opinion—Make it understandable—Elizabeth Seager—Witnesses—What they swore to—Garretts—Sterne—Hart—Willard— Pratt—Migat—"Staggerings" of the jury—Contradictions—Verdict— Elizabeth Godman—Governor Goodyear's dilemma—Strange doings—Ball's information—Imprisonment—Discharge—Nathaniel and Rebecca Greensmith— Character, Accusation—Rebecca's confession—Conviction—Double execution at Hartford. . . .79-100
CHAPTER IXElizabeth Clawson—The indictment—Witnesses—"Kateran" Branch—Garney— Kecham—Abigail and Nathaniel Cross—Bates—Sargent Wescot and Abigail— Finch—Bishop—Holly—Penoir—Slawson—Kateran's Antics—Acquittal. Hugh Crotia—The court—Grand jury—Indictment—Testimony—Confession— Acquittal—Gaol delivery—Elizabeth Garlick—A sick woman's fancies—"A black thing at the bed's featte"—Burning herbs—The sick child—The ox' broken leg—The dead ram and sow—The Tale burning. . . .101-121
CHAPTER XGoodwife Knapp—Her character—A notable case—Imprisonment—Harsh treatment—The inquisitors—Their urgency—Knapp's appeal—The postmortem desecration—Prominent people involved—Davenport and Ludlow—Staplies vs. Ludlow—The court—Confidential gossip—Cause of the suit—Testimony— Davenport—Sherwood—Tomson—Gould—Ward—Pell—Brewster—Lockwood—Hull— Brundish—Whitlock—Barlow—Lyon—Mistress Staplies—Her doings aforetime— Tashs' night ride—"A light woman"—Her character—Reparation suit—Her later indictment—Power of the delusion—Pertinent inquiry. . . .122-141
CHAPTER XIPresent opinions—J. Hammond Trumbull—Annie Eliot Trumbull—Review—Authenticity—Record evidence—Controversialists—Actual cases—Suspicions—Accusations—Acquittals—Flights—Executions—First complete roll—Changes in belief—Contrast—Edwards—Carter—"The Rogerenes"—Conclusion—Hathorne—Mather. . . .142-160
"First, because Witchcraft is a rife and common sinne in these our daies, and very many are intangled with it, beeing either practitioners thereof in their owne persons, or at the least, yielding to seeke for helpe and counsell of such as practise it."A Discovrse of the Damned Art of Witchcraft, PERKINS, 1610.
"And just as God has his human servants, his church on earth, so also the Devil has his—men and women sworn to his service and true to his bidding. To win such followers he can appear to men in any form he pleases, can deceive them, enter into compact with them, initiate them into his worship, make them his allies for the ruin of their fellows. Now it is these human allies and servants of Satan, thus postulated into existence by the brain of a monkish logician, whom history knows as witches."The Literature of Witchcraft, BURR.
Witchcraft in its generic sense is as old as human history. It has written its name in the oldest of human records. In all ages and among all peoples it has taken firm hold on the fears, convictions and consciences of men. Anchored in credulity and superstition, in the dread and love of mystery, in the hard and fast theologic doctrines and teachings of diabolism, and under the ban of the law from its beginning, it has borne a baleful fruitage in the lives of the learned and the unlearned, the wise and the simple.
King and prophet, prelate and priest, jurist and lawmaker, prince and peasant, scholars and men of affairshave felt and dreaded its subtle power, and sought relief in code and commandment, bull and anathema, decree and statute—entailing even the penalty of death—and all in vain until in the march of the races to a higher civilization, the centuries enthroned faith in the place of fear, wisdom in the place of ignorance, and sanity in the seat of delusion.
In its earlier historic conception witchcraft and its demonstrations centered in the claim of power to produce certain effects, "things beyond the course of nature," from supernatural causes, and under this general term all its occult manifestations were classified with magic and sorcery, until the time came when the Devil was identified and acknowledged both in church and state as the originator and sponsor of the mystery, sin and crime—the sole father of the Satanic compacts with men and women, and the law both canonical and civil took cognizance of his malevolent activities.
In the Acropolis mound at Susa in ancient Elam, in the winter of 1901-2, there was brought to light by the French expedition in charge of the eminent savant, M. de Morgan, one of the most remarkable memorials of early civilization ever recovered from the buried cities of the Orient.
It is a monolith—a stele of black diorite—bearing in bas-relief a likeness of Hammurabi (the Amrephel of the Old Testament; Genesis xiv, 1), and the sixth king of the first Babylonian dynasty, who reigned about 2250 B.C.; and there is also carved upon it, in archaic script in black letter cuneiform—used long after the cursive writing was invented—the longest Babylonian record discovered tothis day,—the oldest body of laws in existence and the basis of historical jurisprudence.
It is a remarkable code, quickly made available through translation and transliteration by the Assyrian scholars, and justly named, from its royal compiler, Hammurabi's code. He was an imperialist in purpose and action, and in the last of his reign of fifty-five years he annexed or assimilated the suzerainty of Elam, or Southern Persia, with Assyria to the north, and also Syria and Palestine, to the Mediterranean Sea.
This record in stone originally contained nineteen columns of inscriptions of four thousand three hundred and fourteen lines, arranged in two hundred and eighty sections, covering about two hundred separate decisions or edicts. There is substantial evidence that many of the laws were of greater antiquity than the code itself, which is a thousand years older than the Mosaic code, and there are many striking resemblances and parallels between its provisions, and the law of the covenant, and the deuteronomy laws of the Hebrews.
The code was based on personal responsibility. It protects the sanctity of an oath before God, provides among many other things for written evidence in legal matters, and is wonderfully comprehensive and rich in rules for the conduct of commercial, civic, financial, social, economic, and domestic affairs.
These sections are notably illustrative:
"If a man, in a case (pending judgment), utters threats against the witnesses (or), does not establish the testimony that he has given, if that case be a case involving life, that man shall be put to death.
"If a judge pronounces a judgment, renders a decision, delivers a verdict duly signed and sealed and afterwards alters his judgment, they shall call that judge to account for the alteration of the judgment which he had pronounced, and he shall pay twelvefold the penalty which was in the said judgment, and, in the assembly, they shall expel him from his seat of judgment, and he shall not return, and with the judges in a case he shall not take his seat.
"If a man practices brigandage and is captured, that man shall be put to death.
"If a woman hates her husband, and says: 'thou shalt not have me,' they shall inquire into her antecedents for her defects; and if she has been a careful mistress and is without reproach and her husband has been going about and greatly belittling her, that woman has no blame. She shall receive her presents and shall go to her father's house.
"If she has not been a careful mistress, has gadded about, has neglected her house and has belittled her husband, they shall throw that woman into the water.
"If a physician operates on a man for a severe wound with a bronze lancet and causes the man's death, or opens an abscess (in the eye) of a man with a bronze lancet and destroys the man's eye, they shall cut off his fingers.
"If a builder builds a house for a man and does not make its construction firm and the house, which he has built, collapses and causes the death of the owner of the house, that builder shall be put to death."
It is, however, with only one of King Hammurabi's wise laws that this inquiry has to do, and it is this:
"If a man has placed an enchantment upon a man, and has not justified himself, he upon whom the enchantment is placed to the Holy River (Euphrates) shall go; into the Holy River he shall plunge. If the Holy River holds (drowns) him he who enchanted him shall take his house. If on the contrary, the man is safe and thus is innocent, the wizard loses his life, and his house."
Or, as another translation has it:
"If a man ban a man and cast a spell on him—if he cannot justify it he who has banned shall be killed."
"If a man has cast a spell on a man and has not justified it, he on whom the spell has been thrown shall go to the River God, and plunge into the river. If the River God takes him he who has banned him shall be saved. If the River God show him to be innocent, and he be saved, he who banned him shall be killed, and he who plunged into the river shall take the house of him who banned him."
There can be no more convincing evidence of the presence and power of the great witchcraft superstition among the primitive races than this earliest law; and it is to be especially noted that it prescribes one of the very tests of guilt—the proof by water—which was used in another form centuries later, on the continent, in England and New England, at Wurzburg and Bonn, at Rouen, in Suffolk, Essex and Devon, and at Salem and Hartford and Fairfield, when "the Devil starteth himself up in the pulpit, like a meikle black man, and calling the row (roll) everyone answered, Here!"
"To deny the possibility, nay actual evidence of witchcraft and sorcery, is at once to flatly contradict the revealed word of God in various passages both of the Old and New Testaments."Blackstone's Commentaries(Vol. 4, ch. 4, p. 60).
"It was simply the natural result of Puritanical teaching acting on the mind, predisposing men to see Satanic influence in life, and consequently eliciting the phenomena of witchcraft." LECKY'sRationalism in Europe(Vol. I, p. 123).
Witchcraft's reign in many lands and among many peoples is also attested in its remarkable nomenclature. Consider its range in ancient, medieval and modern thought as shown in some of its definitions: Magic, sorcery, soothsaying, necromancy, astrology, wizardry, mysticism, occultism, and conjuring, of the early and middle ages; compacts with Satan, consorting with evil spirits, and familiarity with the Devil, of later times; all at last ripening into an epidemic demonopathy with its countless victims of fanaticism and error, malevolence and terror, of persecution and ruthless sacrifices.
It is still most potent in its evil, grotesque, and barbaric forms, in Fetichism, Voodooism, Bundooism, Obeahism, and Kahunaism, in the devil and animal ghost worship of the black races, completely exemplified in the arts of the Fetich wizard on the Congo; in the "Uchawi" of the Wasequhha mentioned by Stanley; in the marriage customs of the Soudan devil worshipers; in the practices ofthe Obeah men and women in the Caribbees—notably their power in matters of love and business, religion and war—in Jamaica; in the incantations of the kahuna in Hawaii; and in the devices of the voodoo or conjure doctor in the southern states; in the fiendish rites and ceremonies of the red men,—the Hoch-e-ayum of the Plains Indians, the medicine dances of the Cheyennes and Arapahoes, the fire dance of the Navajos, the snake dance of the Moquis, the sun dance of the Sioux, in the myths and tales of the Cherokees; and it rings in many tribal chants and songs of the East and West.
It lives as well, and thrives luxuriantly, ripe for the full vintage, in the minds of many people to whom this or that trivial incident or accident of life is an omen of good or evil fortune with a mysterious parentage. Its roots strike deep in that strange element in human nature which dreads whatsoever is weird and uncanny in common experiences, and sees strange portents and dire chimeras in all that is unexplainable to the senses. It is made most virile in the desire for knowledge of the invisible and intangible, that must ever elude the keenest inquiry, a phase of thought always to be reckoned with when imagination runs riot, and potent in its effect, though evanescent as a vision the brain sometimes retains of a dream, and as senseless in the cold light of reason as Monna Sidonia's invocation at the Witches' Sabbath: (Romance of Leonardo da Vinci, p. 97, MEREJKOWSKI.)
"Emen Hetan, Emen Hetan, Palu, Baalberi,
Astaroth help us Agora, Agora, Patrisa,
Come and help us."
"Garr-r: Garr-r, up: Don't knock
Your head: We fly: We fly:"
And who may count himself altogether free from the subtle power of the old mystery with its fantastic imageries, when the spirit of unrest is abroad? Who is not moved by it in the awesome stillness of night on the plains, or in the silence of the mountains or of the somber forest aisles; in wild winter nights when old tales are told; in fireside visions as tender memories come and go? And who, when listening to the echoes of the chambers of the restless sea when deep calleth unto deep, does not hear amid them some weird and haunting refrain like Leland's sea song?
"I saw three witches as the wind blew coldIn a red light to the lee;Bold they were and overboldAs they sailed over the sea;Calling for One Two Three;Calling for One Two Three;And I think I can hearIt a ringing in my ear,A-calling for the One, Two, Three."
Above all, in its literature does witchcraft exhibit the conclusive proof of its age, its hydra-headed forms, and its influence in the intellectual and spiritual development of the races of men.
What of this literature? Count in it all the works that treat of the subject in its many phases, and its correlatives, and it is limitless, a literature of all times and all lands.
Christian and pagan gave it place in their religions,dogmas, and articles of faith and discipline, and in their codes of law; and for four hundred years, from the appeal of Pope John XXII, in 1320, to extirpate the Devil-worshipers, to the repeal of the statute of James I in 1715, the delusion gave point and force to treatises, sermons, romances, and folk-lore, and invited, nay, compelled, recognition at the hands of the scientist and legist, the historian, the poet and the dramatist, the theologian and philosopher.
But the monographic literature of witchcraft, as it is here considered, is limited, in the opinion of a scholar versed in its lore, to fifteen hundred titles. There is a mass of unpublished materials in libraries and archives at home and abroad, and of information as to witchcraft and the witch trials, accessible in court records, depositions, and current accounts in public and private collections, all awaiting the coming of some master hand to transform them into an exhaustive history of the most grievous of human superstitions.
To this day, there has been no thorough investigation or complete analysis of the history of the witch persecutions. The true story has been distorted by partisanship and ignorance, and left to exploitation by the romancer, the empiric, and the sciolist.
"Of the origin and nature of the delusion we know perhaps enough; but of the causes and paths of its spread, of the extent of its ravages, of its exact bearing upon the intellectual and religious freedom of its times, of the soul-stirring details of the costly struggle by which it was overborne we are lamentably ill informed." (The Literature of Witchcraft, p. 66, BURR.)
It must serve in this brief narrative to merely note, within the centuries which marked the climax of the mania, some of the most authoritative and influential works in giving strength to its evil purpose and the modes of accusation, trial, and punishment.
Modern scholarship holds that witchcraft, with the Devil as the arch enemy of mankind for its cornerstone, was first exploited by the Dominicans of the Inquisition. They blazed the tortuous way for the scholastic theology which in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries gave new recognition to Satan and his satellites as the sworn enemies of God and his church, and the Holy Inquisition with its massive enginery, open and secret, turned its attention to the exposure and extirpation of the heretics and sinners who were enlisted in the Devil's service.
Take for adequate illustration these standard authorities in the early periods of the widespread and virulent epidemic:
Those of the Inquisitor General, Eymeric, in 1359, entitledTractatus contra dæmonum; the Formicarius or Ant Hill of the German Dominican Nider, 1337; theDe calcatione dæmonum, 1452; theFlagellum hæreticorum fascinariorumof the French Inquisitor Jaquier in 1458; and theFortalitium fideiof the Spanish Franciscan Alonso de Spina, in 1459; the famous and infamous manual of arguments and rules of procedure for the detection and punishment of witches, compiled by the German Inquisitors Krämer and Sprenger (Institor) in 1489, buttressed on the bull of Pope Innocent VIII; (this was the celebratedWitch Hammer, bearing on its title page the significantlegend, "Not to believe in witchcraft is the greatest of heresies"); the Canon Episcopi; the bulls of Popes John XXII, 1330, Innocent VIII, 1484, Alexander VI, 1494, Leo X, 1521, and Adrian VI, 1522; the Decretals of the canon law; the exorcisms of the Roman and Greek churches, all hinged on scriptural precedents; the Roman law, the Twelve Tables, and the Justinian Code, the last three imposing upon the crimes of conjuring, exorcising, magical arts, offering sacrifices to the injury of one's neighbors, sorcery, and witchcraft, the penalties of death by torture, fire, or crucifixion.
Add to these classics some of the later authorities: theDæmonologieof the royal inquisitor James I of England and Scotland, 1597; Mores'Antidote to Atheism; Fuller'sHoly and Profane State; Granvil'sSadducismus Triumphatus, 1681;Tryal of Witches at the Assizes for the County of Suffolk before Sir Matthew Hale, March, 1664(London, 1682); Baxter'sCertainty of the World of Spirits, 1691; Cotton Mather'sA Discourse on Witchcraft, 1689, hisLate Memorable Providences Relating to Witchcrafts and Possessions, 1684, and hisWonders of the Invisible World, 1692; and enough references have been made to this literature of delusion, to the precedents that seared the consciences of courts and juries in their sentences of men, women, and children to death by the rack, the wheel, the stake, and the gallows.
Where in history are the horrors of the curse more graphically told than in the words of Canon Linden, an eye witness of the demonic deeds at Trier (Treves) in 1589?
"And so, from court to court throughout the towns andvillages of all the diocese, scurried special accusers, inquisitors, notaries, jurors, judges, constables, dragging to trial and torture human beings of both sexes and burning them in great numbers. Scarcely any of those who were accused escaped punishment. Nor were there spared even the leading men in the city of Trier. For the Judge, with two Burgomasters, several Councilors and Associate Judges, canons of sundry collegiate churches, parish-priests, rural deans, were swept away in this ruin. So far, at length, did the madness of the furious populace and of the courts go in this thirst for blood and booty that there was scarcely anybody who was not smirched by some suspicion of this crime.
"Meanwhile notaries, copyists, and innkeepers grew rich. The executioner rode a blooded horse, like a noble of the court, and went clad in gold and silver; his wife vied with noble dames in the richness of her array. The children of those convicted and punished were sent into exile; their goods were confiscated; plowman and vintner failed." (The Witch Persecutions, pp. 13-14, BURR.)
Fanaticism did not rule and ruin without hindrance and remonstrance. Men of great learning and exalted position struck mighty blows at the root of the evil. They could not turn the tide but they stemmed it, and their attacks upon the whole theory of Satanic power and the methods of persecution were potent in the reaction to humanity and a reign of reason.
Always to be remembered among these men of power are Johann Wier, Friedrich Spee, and notably Reginald Scot, who in hisDiscovery of Witchcraft, in 1584, undertook to prove that "the contracts and compacts of witcheswith devils and all infernal spirits and familiars, are but erroneous novelties and erroneous conceptions."
"After all it is setting a high value on our conjectures to roast a man alive on account of them." (MONTAIGNE.)
Who may measure in romance and the drama the presence, the cogent and undeniable power of those same abiding elements of mysticism and mystery, which underlie all human experience, and repeated in myriad forms find their classic expression in the queries of the "Weird Sisters," "those elemental avengers without sex or kin"?
"When shall we three meet again,
In thunder, lightning or in rain?
When the hurly burly's done,
When the battle's lost and won."
Are not the mummeries of the witches about the cauldron in Macbeth, and Talbot's threat pour la Pucelle,
"Blood will I draw on thee, thou art a witch,"
uttered so long ago, echoed in the wailing cry of La Meffraye in the forests of Machecoul, in the maledictions of Grio, and of the Saga of the Burning Fields?
Their vitality is also clearly shown in their constant use and exemplification by the romance and novel writers who appeal with certainty and success to the popular taste in the tales of spectral terrors. Witness: Farjeon'sThe Turn of the Screw; Bierce'sThe Damned Thing; Bulwer'sA Strange Story; Cranford'sWitch of Prague; Howells'The Shadow of a Dream; Winthrop'sCecil Dreeme; Grusot'sNight Side of Nature; Crockett'sBlack Douglas; andThe Red Axe, Francis'Lychgate Hall; Caine'sThe Shadow of a Crime; and countless other stories, traditions, tales, and legends, written and unwritten, that invite and receive a gracious hospitality on every hand.
"A belief in witchcraft had always existed; it was entertained by Coke, Bacon, Hale and even Blackstone. It was a misdemeanor at English common law and made a felony without benefit of clergy by 33 Henry VIII, c. 8, and 5 Eliz., c. 16, and the more severe statute of I Jas. 1, ch. 12."Connecticut—Origin of her Courts and Laws(N.E. States, Vol I, p. 487-488), HAMERSLEY.
"Selden took up a somewhat peculiar and characteristic position. He maintained that the law condemning women to death for witchcraft was perfectly just, but that it was quite unnecessary to ascertain whether witchcraft was a possibility. A woman might not be able to destroy the life of her neighbor by her incantations; but if she intended to do so, it was right that she should be hung."Rationalism in Europe(Vol. 1, p. 123) LECKY.
The fundamental authority for legislation, for the decrees of courts and councils as to witchcraft, from the days of the Witch of Endor to those of Mercy Disborough of Fairfield, and Giles Corey of Salem Farms, was the code of the Hebrews and its recognition in the Gospel dispensations. Thereon rest most of the historic precedents, legislative, ecclesiastical, and judicial.
"Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." Exodus xxii, 18.
What law embalmed in ancientry and honored as of divine origin has been more fruitful of sacrifice and suffering? Through the Scriptures, gathering potency as it goes, runs the same grim decree, with widening definitions.
"And the soul that turneth after such as have familiar spirits and after wizards ... I will even set my face against that soul and will cut him off from among his people." Deuteronomy xviii, 10-11.
"There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer." Deuteronomy xviii, 10-11.
"Saul had put away those that had familiar spirits, and the wizards out of the land." Samuel i, 3.
"Now Saul the king of the Hebrews, had cast out of the country the fortune tellers, and the necromancers, and all such as exercised the like arts, excepting the prophets.... Yet did he bid his servants to inquire out for him some woman that was a necromancer, and called up the souls of the dead, that so he might know whether his affairs would succeed to his mind; for this sort of necromantic women that bring up the souls of the dead, do by them foretell future events." Josephus, Book 6, ch. 14.
"For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft." Samuel i, 15-23.
"And I will cut off witchcraft out of the land." Micah v. 12.
"Many of them also which used curious arts brought their books together and burned them." Acts xix, 19.
"But there was a certain man called Simon which beforetime in the same city used sorcery and bewitched the people of Samaria." Acts viii, 9.