A SUPPOSED WITCH BEFORE THE TRIBUNAL OF THE INQUISITION.After a painting by H. Steinheil.
A SUPPOSED WITCH BEFORE THE TRIBUNAL OF THE INQUISITION.After a painting by H. Steinheil.
A SUPPOSED WITCH BEFORE THE TRIBUNAL OF THE INQUISITION.After a painting by H. Steinheil.
“Sometimes, when I read and think about these frightful things, it seems to me that I have suffered all these horrors myself. It seems sometimes, as though I had stood upon the shore of exile and gazed with tearful eyes toward home and native land; as though my nails had been torn from my hands, and into the bleeding quick needles had been thrust; as though my feet had been crushed in iron boots; as though I had been chained in the cell of the Inquisition and listened with dying ears for the coming footsteps of release; as though I had stood upon the scaffold and had seen the glittering axe fall upon me; as though I had been upon the rack and had seen, bending above me, the white faces of hypocrite priests; as though I had been taken from my fireside, from my wife and children, taken to the public square, chained, as though fagots had been piled about me; as though the flames had climbed around my limbs and scorched my eyes to blindness, and as though my ashes had been scattered to the four winds, by all the countless hands of hate.”
From the records of trials for witchcraft still preserved in the archives of many European cities, it appears that the majority of victims were aged women; very frequently they had reared families and spent their youth and beauty in this self-denying work. But there are also many cases of the torturing of mere children; in several such cases little girls of seven and nine years gave affirmative answers to questions, as to whether they had held sexual intercourse with the devil. They even admitted to have given birth to children in consequence of such intercourse. A record covering the years 1627, 1628 and January, 1629, states that during this period in Wurzburg, Bavaria, one hundred and sixty-three persons were tortured, and burnt at the stake. Among them were seventy-two women, and twenty-six children under fourteen years. Among the latter were little girls of nine years or less, and one was a little blind girl.
On March 7, 1679, in Heimfels, Tyrol, a poor woman, Emerencia Pichler, was brought before the inquisitors. In spite of her solemn pledges by God and the Virgin that she knew nothing about witchcraft she was submitted to torture. On the third day of her sufferings the inquisitors wrung from the unfortunate creature a confession, that Satan had visited her one day, wearing a blue jacket, a white vest and red socks. In his company she made a flight to a high mountain, both riding on the same oven-shovel. Here they took part in the witches-sabbath, during which several infants were killed and eaten. The remains were used in concocting allkinds of ointments and powders, to be used in the producing of thunderstorms and plagues. The most horrible part of these confessions was that the woman, when questioned about accomplices, in her agonies named twenty-four persons, among them her own four children. Of course the poor woman withdrew her confessions, when the tortures were interrupted. Nevertheless she was found guilty. On her way to the place of execution she was twitched with red-hot pincers and afterwards burnt at the stake.
Her two oldest children, a boy of fourteen and a girl of twelve, were beheaded and their bodies burnt to ashes on July 29, 1679. Their little brother Sebastian, nine years old, and his sister Maria, six years old, were terribly flogged and forced to attend the execution of their mother and playmates.
Of all the other “accomplices,” named by the woman, not one escaped the clutches of the inquisitors and death at the stake.
There are on record thousands and thousands of similar cases, many of them horrible beyond belief and defying description. No country in Europe escaped the visitation of such inquisitors, many of whom journeyed from place to place in search of victims. In numerous cities the arrival of these fiends was regarded with greater fear than famine or pestilence, especially by women, against whom their malice was chiefly directed. That there was cause for such fear, is proven by the fact that in Treves seven thousand women lost their lives. In Geneva five thousand were executed in a single month. And in Toulouse, France, four hundred witches were burnt in one day, dying the horrible death by fire for a crime which never existed save in the imagination of their benighted persecutors.—
Among the countless women burnt as witches was also Jeanette d’Arc, who to-day is glorified by the French nation asJeanne d’Arc, the Maid of Orleans, and who has been lately canonized. Born about 1411 at Dom-Remy, a small village in the Champagne, she witnessed the conquest of Northern France by the English. While brooding over this mishap, it became fixed in her mind that she was destined to deliver France from these invaders. This impression was strengthened by a number of visions, in which she believed to see St. Michael, the archangel of judgments and of battles, who commanded her to take up arms and hurry to the assistance of the king. In February, 1429, she set out on her perilous journey to the court of the Dauphin at Chinon. Here she succeeded in convincing the king of the divinity of her mission, so that she was permitted to start with an army of 5000 men for the relief of Orleans. Clothed like a man ina coat of mail, and carrying a white standard of her own design, embroidered with lilies and the image of God, she inspired her followers with a religious enthusiasm. Favored by good luck she entered the besieged city on the 29th of April, 1429, and by incessant attacks so discouraged the enemy that they withdrew on the 8th of May. However, in several other enterprises her luck failed, and on the 24th of May, after an unsuccessful sortie, she was taken prisoner through treachery, because, being pursued by the enemy, some Frenchmen shut the gates of the fortress into which she should have escaped.
With her capture the halo of supernatural power that had surrounded her, vanished. Accused of being a heretic and a witch, she was turned over to the Inquisition for trial. Her examination lasted six days. Among other insidious and indelicate questions on the subject of her visions she was asked whether, when St. Michael appeared to her, he was naked, and if she had entertained sexual intercourse with the devil. But no point seemed graver to the judges than the sin of having assumed male attire. The judges told her that according to the canons, those who thus change the habit of their sex, are abominable in the sight of God.
The decision to which the inquisitors finally came, was that the girl was wholly the devil’s; was impious in regard to her parents; had thirsted for Christian blood, adhered to a king who was a heretic and schismatic, and was herself a heretic, apostate and idolator. For all these crimes she was sentenced to death, and burnt alive on the market place of Rouen, May 30th, 1431.—
As has been stated already persecutions for witchcraft were not confined to European countries, but were also carried on by Christian priests and judges in all colonies established by Europeans on other continents. In the British colonies of North America the most sensational trial for witchcraft was that in Salem, Massachusetts, about which J. M. Buckley in an article written for the Century Magazine (Vol. XLIII, pp. 408–422) speaks as follows:
“The first settlers of New England brought across the Atlantic the sentiments which had been formed in their minds in Great Britain and on the Continent, as well as the tendencies which were the common heritage of such an ancestry. They were a very religious, and also a credulous people; having few books, no papers, little news, and virtually no science; removed by thousands of miles and months of time from Old-World civilization; living in the midst of an untamed wilderness, surrounded by Indians whom they believed to be under the control of the devil, and whose medicine-men they accounted wizards. Such a mental and moral soil was adapted to the growth of witchcraft, and to create an invincible determination to inflict the punishments pronounced against it in the Old Testament; but the co-operation of various exciting causes was necessary to a general agitation and a real epidemic.
WOMEN, CONDEMNED FOR WITCHCRAFT, BURNT AT THE STAKE.
WOMEN, CONDEMNED FOR WITCHCRAFT, BURNT AT THE STAKE.
WOMEN, CONDEMNED FOR WITCHCRAFT, BURNT AT THE STAKE.
“Salem witchcraft thus arose: The Reverend Mr. Parris, minister of the church in Salem village, had formerly lived in the West Indies, and brought some negro slaves back with him. These slaves talked with the children of the neighborhood, some of whom could not read, while the others had but little to read. In the winter of 1691–92 they formed a kind of circle which met at Mr. Parris’ house, probably unknown to him, to practice palmistry and fortune-telling, and learn what they could of magic and necromancy.
“Before the winter was over some of them fully believed that they were under the influence of spirits. Epidemic hysteria arose; physicians could not explain their state; the cry was raised that they were bewitched; and some began to make charges against those whom they disliked of having bewitched them. In the end those of a stronger mind among them became managers and plotters directing the rest at their will. By the time public attention was attracted Mr. Parris had come to the conclusion that they were bewitched and, having a theory to maintain, encouraged and flattered them, and by his questions made even those who had not believed themselves bewitched think that they were.
“From March, 1692, to May, 1693, about two hundred persons were imprisoned. Of these some escaped by the help of friends, some by bribing their jailors; a number died in prison, and one hundred and fifty were set free at the close of the excitement by the proclamation of the Governor. Nineteen were executed, among them George Burroughs, a minister of the Gospel.
“When it is remembered that a number of these persons were among the most pious and amiable of the people of Salem; that they were related by blood, marriage, friendship, and Christian fellowship to many who cried out against them, both as accusers and supporters of the prosecutions, the transaction must be classed among the darkest in human history.”
Several historians have made attempts to ascertain the number of men, women and children, who lost their lives through this abominable superstition. O. Waechter, who published a book about this subject, calculates that the number of victims must have been at least three millions! Imagine, what a terrible amount of sighs, tears, and physical and mental agonies this number represents!