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During the pontificate of Julius II.—the first decade of the sixteenth century—a set of sorceresses was discovered in large numbers: a dispute between the civil and ecclesiastical authorities averted their otherwise certain destruction. The successors of Innocent VIII. repeated his anathemas. Alexander VI., Leo X., and Adrian VI. appointed special commissioners for hunting up sorcerers and heretics. In 1523, Adrian issued a bull against Hæresis Strigiatûs with power to excommunicate all who opposed those engaged in the inquisition. He characterises the obnoxious class as a sect deviating from the Catholic faith, denying their baptism, showing contempt for the sacraments, in particular for that of the Eucharist, treading crosses under foot, and taking the devil as their lord.93 How many suffered for the crime during the thirty or forty years following upon the bull of 1484, it is difficult exactly to ascertain: that some thousands perished is certain, on the testimony of the judges themselves. The often-quoted words of Florimond, author of a work 'On Antichrist,' as given by Del Rio the Jesuit ('De Magiâ'), are not hyperbolical. 'All those,' says he, 'who have afforded us some signs of the approach of antichrist agree that the increase of sorcery and witchcraft is to distinguish the melancholy period of his advent; and was ever age so afflicted with them as ours? The seats destined for criminals before our judicatories are blackened with persons accused of this guilt. There are not judges enough to try enough. Our dungeons are gorged with them. No day passes that we do not render our tribunals bloody by the dooms we pronounce, or in which we do not return to our homes discountenanced and terrified at the horrible contents of the confessions which it has been our duty to hear. And the devil is accounted so good a master that we cannot commit so great a number of his slaves to the flames but what there shall arise from their ashes a number sufficient to supply their place.'
It is within neither the design nor the limits of these pages to repeat all the witch-cases, which might fill several volumes; it is sufficient for the purpose to sketch a few of the most notorious and prominent, and to notice the most remarkable characteristics of the creed.
Maximilian I., Emperor of Germany, protected the inquisitorial executioners from the indignant vengeance of the inhabitants of the districts of Southern Germany, which would have been soon almost depopulated by an unsparing massacre and a ferocious zeal: while Sigismund, Prince of the Tyrol, is said to have been inclined to soften the severity of a persecution he was totally unable, if he had been disposed, to prevent. Ulric Molitor, under the auspices of this prince, however, published a treatise in Switzerland ('De Pythonicis Mulieribus') in the form of a dialogue, in which Sigismund, Molitor, and a citizen of Constance are the interlocutors. They argue as to the practice of witchcraft; and the argument is to establish that, although the practicers of the crime are worthy of death, much of the vulgar opinion on the subject is false. Even in the middle of the fifteenth century, and in Spain, could be found an assertor, in some degree, of common sense, whose sentiments might scandalise some Protestant divines. Alphonse de Spina was a native of Castile, of the order of St. Francis: his book was written against heretics and unbelievers, but there is a chapter in which some acts attributed to sorcerers, as transportation through the air, transformations, &c., are rejected as unreal.
From that time two parties were in existence, one of which advocated the entire reality of all the acts commonly imputed to witches; while the other maintained that many of their supposed crimes were mere delusions suggested by the Great Enemy. The former, as the orthodox party, were, from the nature of the case, most successful in the argument—a seeming paradox explained by the nature and course of the controversy. Only the received method of demoniacal possession was questioned by the adverse side, accepting without doubt the possibility—and, indeed, the actual existence—of the phenomenon. Thus the liberals, or pseudo-liberals, in that important controversy were placed in an illogical position. For (as their opponents might triumphantly argue) if the devil's power and possession could be manifested in one way, why not by any other method. Nor was it for them to determine the appointed methods of his schemes, as permitted by Providence, for the injury and ruin of mankind. The diabolic economy, as evidently set forth in the work of man's destruction, might require certain modes of acting quite above our reason and understanding. To the sceptics (or to the atheists, as they were termed) the orthodox could allege, 'Will you not believe in witches? The Scriptures aver their existence: to the jurisconsults will you dispute the existence of a crime against which our statute-book and the code of almost all civilised countries have attested by laws upon which hundreds and thousands have been convicted; many, or even most, of whom have, by their judicial confessions, acknowledged their guilt and the justice of their punishment? It is a strange scepticism, they might add, that rejects the evidence of Scripture, of human legislature, and of the accused persons themselves.'94 Reason was hopelessly oppressed by faith. In the presence of universal superstition, in the absence of the modern philosophy, escape seemed all but impossible.
If preeminence in this particular prejudice can be assigned to any single region or people, perhaps Germany more than any other land was subject to the demonological fever. A fact to be explained as well by its being the great theatre for more than a hundred years of the grand religious struggle between the opposing Catholics and Protestants, as by its natural fitness. The gloomy mountain ranges—the Hartz mountains are especially famous in the national legend—and forests with which it abounds rendered the imaginative minds of its peoples peculiarly susceptible to impressions of supernaturalism.95 France takes the next place in the fury of the persecution. Danæus ('Dialogue') speaks of an innumerable number of witches. England, Scotland, Spain, Italy perhaps come next in order.
Spain, the dominion of the Arabs for seven centuries, was naturally the land of magic. During the government of Ferdinand I., or of Isabella, the inquisition was firmly established. That numbers were sent from the dungeons and torture-chambers to the stake, with the added stigma of dealing in the 'black art,' is certain; but in that priest-dominated, servilely orthodox southern land, the Church was not perhaps so much interested in confounding the crimes of heresy and sorcery. The first was simply sufficient for provoking horror and hatred of the condemned. The South of France is famous for being the very nest of sorcery: the witch-sabbaths were frequently held there. It was the country of the Albigenses, which had been devastated by De Montfort, the executioner of Catholic vengeance, in the twelfth century, and was, with something of the same sort of savageness, ravaged by De Lanere in the seventeenth century. Scotland, before the religious revolution, exhibits a few remarkable cases of witch-persecution, as that of the Earl of Mar, brother of James III. He had been suspected of calling in the aid of sorcery to ascertain the term of the king's life: the earl was bled to death without trial, and his death was followed by the burning of twelve witches, and four wizards, at Edinburgh. Lady Glammis, sister of the Earl of Angus, of the family of Douglas, accused of conspiring the king's death in a similar way, was put to death in 1537. As in England, in the cases of the Duchess of Gloucester and others, the crime appears to be rather an adjunct than the principal charge itself; more political than popular. Protestant Scotland it is that has earned the reputation of being one of the most superstitious countries in Europe.
In 1541 two Acts of Parliament were passed in England—the first interference of Parliament in this kingdom—against false prophecies, conjurations, witchcraft, sorcery, pulling down crosses; crimes made felony without benefit of clergy. Both the last article in the list and the period (a few years after the separation from the Catholic world) appear to indicate the causes in operation. Lord Hungerford had recently been beheaded by the suspicious tyranny of Henry VIII., for consulting his death by conjuration. The preamble to the statute has these words: 'The persons that had done these things, had dug up and pulled down an infinite number of crosses.'96 The new head of the English Church, if he found his interest in assuming himself the spiritual supremacy, was, like a true despot, averse to any further revolution than was necessary to his purposes.