A History of The Inquisition of The Middle Ages Volume III Part 16

Yet the belief in the night-riders with Diana and Herodias continued, until the latter part of the fifteenth century, to be denounced as a heresy, and any one who persisted in retaining it after learning the truth was declared to be an infidel and worse than a pagan.[545] It was too thoroughly implanted, however, in ancestral popular superst.i.tion to be eradicated. In the middle of the thirteenth century the orthodox Dominican, Thomas of Cantimpre, speaks of the demons who, like Diana, transport men from one region to another and delude them into wors.h.i.+pping mortals as G.o.ds. Others, he says, carry away women, replacing them with insensible images, who are sometimes buried as though dead. Thus, when the peasant wise-women came to be examined as to their dealings with Satan, they could hardly help, under intolerable torture, from satisfying their examiners with accounts of their nocturnal flights. Between judge and victim it was easy to build up a coherent story, combining the ancient popular belief with the heretical conventicles, and the time soon came when the confession of a witch was regarded as incomplete without an account of her attendance at the Sabbat, which was the final test of her abandonment to Satan. These stories became so universal and so complete in all their details that they could not be rejected without discrediting the whole structure of witchcraft. The theory of illusion was manifestly untenable, and demonologists and inquisitors were sadly at a loss to reconcile the incontrovertible facts with the denunciations by the Church of such beliefs as heresy. A warm controversy arose. Some held to the old doctrine that the devil cannot transport a human body or make it pa.s.s through a disproportionate opening, but they endeavored to explain the admitted facts by enlarging on his powers of creating illusions. The witch consecrated herself to him with words and with anointing, when he would take her figure or phantasm and lead it where she wished, while her body remained insensible and covered with a diabolical shadow, rendering it invisible; when the object had been accomplished, he brought back the phantasm, reunited it to the body, and removed the shadow. The question turned upon the ability of the devil to carry off human beings, and this was hotly debated. A case adduced by Albertus Magnus, in a disputation on the subject before the Bishop of Paris, and recorded by Thomas of Cantimpre, in which the daughter of the Count of Schwalenberg was regularly carried away every night for several hours, gave immense satisfaction to the adherents of the new doctrine, and eventually an ample store of more modern instances was acc.u.mulated to confirm Satan in his enlarged privileges.[546]

In 1458 the Inquisitor Nicholas Jaquerius. .h.i.t upon the true solution of the difficulty by arguing that the existing sect of witches was wholly different from the heretics alluded to in the _Cap. Episcopi_, and adduced in evidence of their bodily presence in the Sabbat numberless cases which had come before him in his official capacity, including one of a man who, as a child, fifty-five years before, had been carried thither by his mother in company with an infant brother, and presented to Satan wearing the form of a goat, who with his hoofs had imprinted on them an indelible mark--the _stigma diabolic.u.m_. Jaquerius, however, adds, reasonably enough, that even if the affair is an illusion, it is none the less heretical, as the followers of Diana and Herodias are necessarily heretics in their waking hours. These speculations of Jaquerius attracted little attention at the time. Thirty years later, Sprenger, who did so much to formulate belief and organize persecution, found the _Cap. Episcopi_ a constant stumbling-block in his path, as sceptics were apt to argue that, if the Sabbat was an illusion, all witchcraft was illusory. He endeavored, therefore, to argue it away, a.s.suming that, while the devil undoubtedly possessed the power of transportation, the presence of the witch frequently was only mental. In such case she lay down on the left side and invoked the devil, when a whitish vapor would issue from her mouth, and she saw all that occurred.

If she went personally, and had a husband, an accommodating demon would a.s.sume her shape and take her place to conceal her absence.

Gianfrancesco Pico della Mirandola takes the same ground, that presence at the Sabbat was sometimes real and sometimes imaginary; the place of a.s.semblage was beyond the river Jordan, and transportation thither took place instantaneously. He avoids the definition of the _Cap. Episcopi_ by a.s.suming that the Decretum of Gratian had not the authority of law, and was corrupt in many places. The Inquisitor Bernardo di Como, about 1500, in addition to these arguments, had triumphantly adduced the fact that numerous persons had been burned for attending the Sabbat, which could not have been done without the a.s.sent of the pope, and this was sufficient proof that the heresy was real, for the Church punishes only manifest crimes.[547]

About this time the learned jurist, Gianfrancesco Ponzinibio, wrote a tract on the subject of witchcraft in which he upheld the doctrine of the _Cap. Episcopi_ and boldly applied it to all magic and sorcery, which he treated as delusions. With a vast array of authorities he proved his case; he exposed the baldness of the pretence that existing witches belonged to a different sect; he argued that their confessions are not to be received, as they confess what is illusory and impossible, and that their evidence as to their a.s.sociates is to be rejected, as they are deluded and can only delude others. Lawyers, he added, ought to take part in trials before the Inquisition, as they are trained to deal with criminal cases. This aroused the learned theologian, Silvestro Mozzolino of Prierio, Master of the Sacred Palace and subsequently Dominican General, who, in 1521, responded in a voluminous treatise devoted to the disputed canon. As the utterance of the Council of Anquira, presumably confirmed by the Holy See, he does not dare to deny its authority, but he adopts the same reasoning as Jaquerius, and laboriously argues that the heretics to whom it refers had disappeared, that the existing witches are a new sect, originating in 1404, and that the definitions of the canon are, therefore, obsolete and inapplicable to existing circ.u.mstances. To deny the bodily presence of witches at the Sabbat, he says, is to discredit the infinite number of cases tried by the Inquisition, and consequently to discredit the laws themselves.[548]

He was followed by his successor in the masters.h.i.+p of the Sacred Palace, Bartolomeo de Spina, who devoted three tracts to the annihilation of Ponzinibio. The latter had suggested, logically enough, though maliciously, that as the _Cap. Episcopi_ had defined as a heresy the belief that witches are corporally carried to the Sabbat, inquisitors in administering abjuration to their penitents ought to make them abjure this heresy among others. The absurd position in which this placed the Inquisition aroused Spina's indignation to the utmost. "O wonderful presumption! O detestable insanity!" he exclaimed. "Only heretics abjure, only heresies are abjured before inquisitors. Is then that belief a heresy which inquisitors defend, and according to which they judge the enemies of the faith to be worthy of extreme d.a.m.nation?--that opinion which ill.u.s.trious theologians and canonists prove to be true and catholic? O the extreme stolidity of the man! Must, then, all theologians and judges, the inquisitors themselves, of all Italy, France, Germany, and Spain, holding this opinion abjure before the Inquisition?"--and he concludes by calling upon the Inquisition to proceed against Ponzinibio as vehemently suspect of heresy, as a fautor and defender of heretics, and as an impeder of the Holy Office.[549]

This sufficiently shows that the new beliefs had completely conquered the old. The question had pa.s.sed beyond the range of reason and argument, and everywhere throughout Europe the Witches' Sabbat was accepted as an established fact, which it was dangerous to dispute.

Jurists and canonists might amuse themselves with debating it theoretically; practically it had become the veriest commonplace of the courts, both secular and ecclesiastical.

That the details of the Sabbat varied but little throughout Europe is doubtless to be ascribed to the leading questions habitually put by judges, and to the desire of the tortured culprits to satisfy their examiners, yet this consentaneity at the time was an irrefragable proof of truth. The first step of the witch was to secure a consecrated wafer by pretending to receive communion, and carrying the sacrament home. On this was fed a toad, which was then burned, and the ashes were mixed with the blood of an infant, unbaptized if possible, powdered bone of a man who had been hanged, and certain herbs. With this mixture the witch anointed the palms of her hands, or her wrist, and a stick or stool which she placed between her legs, and she was at once transported to the place of meeting. As a variant of this the ride was sometimes made on a demon in the shape of a horse, or goat, or dog. The a.s.sembly might be held anywhere, but there were certain spots specially resorted to--in Germany the Brocken, in Italy an oak-tree near Benevento, and there was, besides, the unknown place beyond the Jordan. At all these they gathered in thousands. Thursday night was the one generally selected. They feasted at tables loaded with meat and wine which rose from the earth at the command of the presiding demon, and they paid homage to the devil, who was present, usually in the form of a goat, dog, or ape. To him they offered themselves, body and soul, and kissed him under the tail, holding a lighted candle. They trampled and spat upon the cross and turned up their backs to heaven in derision of G.o.d. The devil preached to them, sometimes commencing with a parody of the ma.s.s; he told them that they had no souls and that there was no future life; they were not to go to church or confession, or to use holy water, or, if they did so to avoid suspicion, they must say "By leave of our Master," and they were to bring him as many converts as they could, and work all possible evil to their neighbors. There was usually a dance, which was unlike any seen at honest gatherings. At Como and Brescia a number of children from eight to twelve years of age, who had frequented the Sabbat, and had been reconverted by the inquisitors, gave exhibitions in which their skill showed that they had not been taught by human art. The woman was held behind her partner and they danced backwards, and when they paid reverence to the presiding demon they bent themselves backwards, lifting a foot in the air forwards. The rites ended with indiscriminate intercourse, obliging demons serving as incubi or succubi as required.

The reality of all this did not depend alone upon the confessions of the accused, for there was a well-known case occurring about the year 1450, when the Inquisitor of Como, Bartolomeo de Homate, the podesta Lorenzo da Concorezzo, and the notary Giovanni da Fossato, either out of curiosity or because they doubted the witches whom they were trying, went to a place of a.s.sembly at Mendrisio and witnessed the scene from a hiding-place. The presiding demon pretended not to know their presence, and in due course dismissed the a.s.sembly, but suddenly recalled his followers and set them on the officials, who were so beaten that they died within fifteen days.[550]

All this was, of course, well fitted to excite the horror of the faithful and stimulate the zeal of the inquisitor, but it was only the pastime of the witch, and the reward given to her by her master for her labors and her allegiance. Her serious occupation was in works of evil.

She was abandoned, body and soul, to Satan, and was the instrument which he used to effect his malignant purposes. The demonologists argued that the witch was as necessary to the demon as the demon to the witch, and that neither could operate without the other. She was not like the magicians and sorcerers, who merely earned their livelihood by selling their services, sometimes for good purposes and sometimes for bad, but she was a being wholly evil, delighting in the exercise of her powers for the destruction of her neighbors, and constantly exhorted to activity by her master. Those powers, moreover, were sufficient to justify the terror in which she was held by the people. Sprenger divides witches into three cla.s.ses, those who can injure and not cure, those who can cure and not injure, and those who can do both, and the worst are those who unite these faculties, for the more they insult and offend G.o.d, the greater power of evil he gives them. They kill and eat children, or devote them to the devil if unbaptized. They cause abortion by merely laying a hand upon a woman, or dry up her milk if she is nursing. By twirling a moistened broom, or casting flints behind them towards the east, or boiling hogs' bristles in a pot, or stirring a pool with a finger, they raise tempests and hail-storms which devastate whole regions; they bring the plagues of locusts and caterpillars which devour the harvests; they render men impotent and women barren, and cause horses to become suddenly mad under their riders. They can make hidden things known and predict the future, bring about love or hatred at will, cause mortal sickness, slay men with lightning, or even with their looks alone, or turn them into beasts. We have the unquestioned authority of Eugenius IV. that by a simple word or touch or sign they can bewitch whom they please, cause or cure sickness, and regulate the weather.

Sometimes they scattered over the fields powders which destroyed the cattle. They constantly entered houses at night, and, sprinkling a powder on the pillows of the parents which rendered them insensible, would touch the children with fingers smeared with a poisonous unguent causing death in a few days; or they would thrust needles under the nails of an infant and suck the blood, which was partly swallowed and partly spit into a vessel to serve in the confection of their infernal ointments; or the child would be put upon the fire and its fat be collected for the same purpose. Witches, moreover, could transform themselves into cats and other beasts, and Bernardo di Como gravely cites the case of the companions of Ulysses, as adduced by St. Augustin, to prove the reality of such illusions. Ludicrous as all this may seem, every one of these details has served as the basis of charges under which countless human beings have perished in the flames.[551]

One very peculiar power ascribed to witches was that of banqueting in the Sabbat on infants and cattle, and then restoring them to life. We have seen the belief in early times, and among races far apart, that sorceresses could gnaw and eat men internally, which probably arose from painful gastric maladies ascribed to sorcery. In the genesis of the Sabbat this took the shape, as described by Bishop Burchard in the eleventh century, that in the nocturnal meetings under the guidance of Holda men would be slain without weapons, their flesh cooked and eaten, and then they would be brought to life again, with straw or a piece of wood subst.i.tuted for their hearts. The Church was not as yet ready to accept these marvels, and Burchard penances belief in them with fasting on bread and water for seven Lents. In the next century John of Salisbury ascribes to the illusion of dreams the popular superst.i.tion that lamiae tore children to pieces, devoured them, and returned them to their cradles; and about 1240 Guillaume d'Auvergne speaks of the superst.i.tion spread by old women of the "ladies of the night" or "good women" who appear to tear children to pieces, or to cook them on the fire. Of course this formed part of the perfected stories of the Sabbat.

In some witch-trials in the Tyrol, in 1506, there are frequent allusions to children and domestic animals carried to the feast and devoured, and though they remained alive, they were doomed to die soon afterwards. The witches of the Canavese confessed that their practice was to select fat cattle from a neighboring farmer, slaughter and eat them, and then, collecting the bones and hides, resuscitate them with the simple formula "_Sorge, Ranzola_." In one case a farmer of Levone, named Perino Pasquale, killed a sick ox and skinned it, and, naturally enough, himself died within a week, as well as his dog, which lapped some of the blood; and the occurrence, according to custom, was subsequently explained by a witch on trial, who confessed that the ox was one which had thus been eaten and resuscitated, when the a.s.sembled witches resolved that whoever killed it, and the first who should eat of it, should perish. Such feats as these, it is true, gave the opponents of witchcraft the advantage of arguing that they attributed to Satan the power of G.o.d in resuscitating and recreating the dead, and the demonologists, thus hard pushed, were obliged to admit that this portion of the Sabbat was illusory, but they triumphantly added that this only proved the empire of Satan over his dupes.[552]

The killing of unbaptized children was one of the special duties imposed by Satan on his servants, which the theologians explained by the fact that they were thus d.a.m.ned for original sin, and, therefore, the Day of Judgment was postponed, as the number of the elect requisite before the destruction of the world is thus more tardily completed. At a little town near Basle a witch who was burned confessed that while acting as midwife she had killed more than forty infants by thrusting a needle into the superior fontanelle. Another, of the diocese of Stra.s.sburg, had thus disposed of innumerable children, when she was detected by accidentally letting fall the arm of a new-born child while pa.s.sing the gate of a town in which she had been performing her functions. Witch midwives, when they abstained from this, were in the habit of dedicating to Satan the babes whom they delivered. It was doubtful whether the infants were thus in reality surrendered to Satan, but at least they were subjected to his influence, and likely to grow up witches. This, and dedication by witch mothers, explain the fact that girls even of eight and ten years of age were able to bewitch people and to raise tempests of hail and rain. In Swabia a case occurred of one who, at the age of eight, innocently revealed her power to her father, in consequence of which her mother, who had thus dedicated her, was burned.

The witch midwives were so numerous that there was scarce a hamlet without them.[553]

There was apparently no limit to the evil wrought by Satan through the instrumentality of those who had thus surrendered themselves to him.

Sprenger relates that one of his colleagues on a tour of duty reached a town almost depopulated on account of pestilence. Hearing a report that a woman lately buried was swallowing her winding-sheet, and that the mortality would not cease until she had accomplished the deglut.i.tion, he caused the grave to be opened and the sheet was found half swallowed.

The mayor of the town drew his sword and cut off the head of the corpse and threw it out of the grave, when the pest ceased at once. An inquisition was held and the woman was found to have long been a witch.

Sprenger might well deplore the threatened devastation of Christendom arising from the neglect of the authorities to suppress these crimes with due severity.[554]

To understand the credulity which accepted these marvels as the most portentous and dreadful of realities, it must be borne in mind that they were not the wild inventions of the demonologists, but were facts substantiated by evidence irrefragable according to the system of jurisprudence. Torture by this time had long been used universally in criminal trials when necessary; no jurist conceived that the truth could be elicited in doubtful cases without it. The criminal whom endless repet.i.tion of torment had reduced to stolid despair naturally sought to make his confession square with the requirements of his judge; the confession once made he was doomed, and knew that retraction, in place of saving him, would only bring a renewal and prolongation of his sufferings. He therefore adhered to his confession, and when it was read to him in public at his condemnation he admitted its truth.[555] In many cases, moreover, torture and prolonged imprisonment in the foulest of dungeons doubtless produced partial derangement, leading to belief that he had committed the acts so persistently imputed to him. In either case, desire to obtain the last sacrament, which was essential to salvation and which was only administered to contrite and repentant sinners, would induce him to maintain to the last the truth of his confession. No proof more unquestionable than this could be had of any of the events of life, and belief in the figments of witchcraft was therefore unhesitating. To doubt, moreover, if not heresy, was cause for vehement suspicion. The Church lent its overpowering authority to enforce belief on the souls of men. The malignant powers of the witch were repeatedly set forth in the bulls of successive popes for the implicit credence of the faithful, and the University of Cologne, in 1487, when expressing its approval of the _Malleus Maleficarum_ of Sprenger, warned every one that to argue against the reality of witchcraft was to incur the guilt of impeding the Inquisition.[556]

What rendered the powers of the witch peculiarly dreadful was the deplorable fact that the Church had no remedy for the evils which she so recklessly wrought. It is true that the sign of the cross, and holy water, and blessed oil, and palms, and candles, and wax and salt, and the strict observance of religious rites were in some sense a safeguard and a preventive. A witch confessed that she had been employed to kill a certain man, but when she invoked the devil for the purpose he replied that he could not do it, as the intended victim kept himself protected by the sign of the cross, and that the utmost injury that could be inflicted on him was the destruction of one eleventh of his harvests; and another one stated that on their nocturnal rounds to destroy children they were unable to enter houses in which were kept palms and blessed bread or crosses of palms or olive, or to injure those who habitually protected themselves with the sign of the cross. But it was acknowledged that, when once the spell had been cast, the victim could find no relief on earth or in heaven--human means were useless, and exorcism and the invocation of saints were powerless except in demoniacal possession. The only cure was from the devil through other witches. Curative sorcery had long been a subject of debate in theologic ethics, but it had been formally condemned as inadmissible. It not only was a pact, tacit or expressed, with Satan, but it was ascertained that one of his leading objects in urging his acolytes to injure their neighbors was to force the sufferer in despair to have recourse to sorcery and thus be drawn into evil ways. This was ill.u.s.trated by a case, celebrated among demonographers, of a German bishop who, in Rome, fell madly in love with a young girl and induced her to accompany him home. During the journey she undertook to kill him by sorcery, that she might make off with the jewels with which he had loaded her, and he was nightly attacked with a burning pain in his chest which resisted all the resources of his physicians. His life was despaired of, when recourse was had to an old woman who recognized the source of his affection and told him he could only be saved by the same methods, involving the death of the bewitcher. His conscience would not allow him to a.s.sent to this without permission; he applied to Pope Nicholas V., who kindly granted him a dispensation, and then he ordered the old woman to do what she proposed. That night he was perfectly well, and word was brought him that his young paramour was dying. He went to console her, but she naturally received him with maledictions, and died devoting her soul to Satan. As Bodin admiringly remarks, the devil was cunning enough to make a pope, a bishop, and a witch all obey him, and all become accomplices in a homicide.[557]

Thus a very profitable trade sprang up in counteracting witchcraft, and many witches confined themselves to this branch of the profession, although they were as liable as their adversaries to condemnation for compact with the devil, for it was an incontrovertible fact that they could only relieve a sufferer by transferring his disease to some one else or by performing some equivalent evil act. Sprenger tells us that they were to be found every German mile or two. At Reichshofen was one whose business was so large that the lord of the place levied a toll of a penny on every one who came to her for relief, and used to boast of the large revenue which he derived from this source. A man named Hengst, at Eningen, near Constance, had more applicants than any shrine of the Virgin--even than that at Aix--and in winter, when the highways were blocked with snow, those which led to his house were trampled smooth by the crowds of his patients.[558]

When once the belief was fairly started in the existence of beings possessed of the powers which I have described, and actuated by motives purely malignant, it was destined to inevitable extension under the stimulus afforded by persecution. Every misfortune and every accident that occurred in a hamlet would be attributed to witchcraft. Suspicion would gradually attach to some ill-tempered crone, and she would be seized, for inquisitors held that a single careless threat, such as "You will be sorry for this," if followed by a piece of ill-luck, was sufficient to justify arrest and trial.[559] All the neighbors would flock in as accusers--this one had lost a cow, that one's vintage had been ruined by hail, another's garden-patch had been ravaged by caterpillars, one mother had suffered an abortion, another's milk had suddenly dried, another had lost a promising child, two lovers had quarrelled, a man had fallen from an apple-tree and had broken his neck--and under the persuasive influence of starvation or of the rack the unfortunate woman would invent some story to account for each occurrence, would name her accomplices in each, and tell whom she had met in the Sabbats, which she attended regularly. No one can read the evidence adduced at a witch-trial, or the confessions of the accused, without seeing how every accident and every misfortune and every case of sickness or death which had occurred in the vicinage for years was thus explained, and how the circle of suspicion widened so that every conviction brought new victims; burnings multiplied, and the terrified community was ready to believe that a half or more of its members were slaves of Satan, and that it would never be free from their malignant vengeance until they should all be exterminated. For more than two centuries this craze was perpetually breaking out in one part of Europe after another, carefully nursed and stimulated by popes and inquisitors like Innocent VIII. and Leo X., Sprenger and Inst.i.toris, Bernard of Como and Bishop Binsfeld, and the amount of human misery thence arising is simply incomputable.

Fortunately on one side there was a limitation upon the otherwise illimitable powers of the witch. The contrast was so absurd between the faculties attributed to her and her utter inability to protect herself against those who tortured and burned her with impunity, that some explanation of the inconsistency was requisite. The demonologists therefore invented the comforting theory that through the goodness of G.o.d the witch instantaneously lost her power as soon as the hand of an officer of justice was laid upon her. But for this, indeed, it might have been difficult to find men hardy enough to seize, imprison, try, and execute these delegates of Satan, whose slightest ill-will was so dangerous. Judges and their officials thus were encouraged to perform their functions and were told that they need dread no reprisals. It was true that, like all theories framed to meet artificial conditions, this one was not always reconcilable to the facts. The strange fort.i.tude with which the culprits occasionally endured the severest and most prolonged tortures, so far from being a proof of innocence, was regarded as showing that even in the hands of justice the devil was sometimes able to protect his servants by endowing them with what was called the gift of taciturnity, and the ingenuity of the inquisitors was taxed to the utmost to overcome his wiles. When this was once admitted it was difficult to deny that he could a.s.sist them in other ways, and it was recommended to the officers charged with the arrest that when they seized a witch they should on no account allow her to enter her chamber, lest she should secure some charm that would enable her to endure the torture. Such charms might be secreted about her person, or under the skin, or even in accessible cavities of the body, so the first thing to be done was to shave the prisoner from head to foot and subject her to the most indecent examination. It was on record that in Ratisbon some heretics condemned to be burned remained unhurt in the flames; vainly were they submerged in the river and roasted again. A three days' fast was ordered for the whole city, when it was revealed that they had charms concealed in a certain spot under the skin, and after the removal of these there was no further trouble in reducing them to ashes. Charms could also be used from a distance. At Innsbruck a witch boasted that if she had a single thread of a prisoner's garment she could cause him to endure torture to the death without confessing. Some inquisitors, to break the spell of taciturnity, were wont to try sacred magic by administering to the prisoner, on an empty stomach, after invoking the Trinity, three drinks of holy water in which blessed wax had been melted. In one case the most excruciating torture, continued through two whole days, failed to elicit confession, but the third day chanced to be the feast of the Virgin, and during the celebration of the holy rites the devil lost the power with which he had thus far sustained the prisoner, who revealed a plot to make way with the implacable judge, Peter of Berne, by means of sorcery. These were simple devices; a more elaborate one was to take a strip of paper of the length of the body of Christ, and write on it the seven words uttered on the cross; on a holy day, at the hour of ma.s.s, this was to be bound around the waist of the witch with relics, she was to be made to drink holy water, and be at once placed on the rack. When all these efforts failed it was a mooted question whether the Church in her extremity could have recourse to the devil by calling in other magicians to break the spell, and Prierias succeeds by ingenious casuistry in proving that she could. One precaution, held indispensable by some experienced pract.i.tioners, was that the witch on arrest was to be placed immediately in a basket and thus be carried to prison, without allowing her feet to touch the earth, for if she were permitted to do so she could slay her captors with lightning and escape.[560]

There was another comfortable theory that those who exercised public functions for the suppression of witchcraft were not subject to the influence of witches or demons. Sprenger tells us that he and his colleagues had been many times a.s.sailed by devils in the shape of monkeys, dogs, and goats, but by the aid of G.o.d they had always been able to overcome the enemy. Yet there were exceptions to this, as we have seen in the case of the unlucky inquisitor and podesta of Como; and the lenity of some judges was explained by the fact that the witch was sometimes able so to affect their minds that they were unable to convict. This steeled the heart of the conscientious inquisitor, who repressed all sentiments of compa.s.sion in the belief that they were prompted by Satan. The witch was specially able to exert this power over her judge when she looked upon him before he saw her, and it was a wise precaution to make her enter the court backwards, so that the judge had the advantage of the first glance. He and his a.s.sistants were also advised to be very careful not to let a witch touch them, especially on the wrist or other joint, and to wear around the neck a bag containing salt exorcised on Palm Sunday, with consecrated herbs enclosed in blessed wax, besides constantly protecting themselves with the sign of the cross. It was doubtless through neglect of these salutary precautions that at a witch-burning in the Black Forest, as the executioner was lifting the convict on the pile she blew in his face, saying, "I will reward you," whereupon a horrible leprosy broke out which spread over his body, and in a few days he was dead. Occasionally, moreover, the familiar demon of the witch, in the shape of a raven, would accompany her to the place of execution and prevent the wood from burning until he was driven off.[561]

To combat an evil so widespread and all-pervading required the combined exertions of Church and State. The secular and episcopal courts both had undoubted jurisdiction over it; the action of John XXII., in 1330, may have caused some question as to the Inquisition, but if so it was settled in 1374, when the Inquisitor of France was proceeding against some sorcerers and his competence was disputed, and Gregory XI., to whom the matter was referred, instructed him to prosecute them with the full severity of the laws. Commissions issued in 1409 and 1418 to Pons Feugeyron, Inquisitor of Provence, enumerate sorcerers, conjurers, and invokers of demons among those whom he is to suppress. As the growth of witchcraft became more alarming, Eugenius IV., in 1437, stimulated the inquisitors everywhere to greater activity against it, and these instructions were repeated in 1445. In 1451 Nicholas V. even enlarged the powers of Hugues le Noir, Inquisitor of France, by granting him jurisdiction over divination, even when it did not savor of heresy.

There was occasional clas.h.i.+ng, of course, between the episcopal officials and the inquisitors, but the rule seems to have been generally observed that either could proceed separately, while the Clementine regulation should be observed which prescribed their co-operation in the use of torture and punitive imprisonment and when rendering final sentence. The bishops, moreover, a.s.sumed that their a.s.sent was necessary to the action of the secular courts. In the case of Guillaume Edeline, condemned to perpetual imprisonment at Evreux in 1453, when the sentence was read by the episcopal official the bishop added "We retain our power of pardon," but the inquisitor at once entered a formal protest that the prisoner should not be released without the consent of the Inquisition.[562]

Yet in France at this period the royal jurisdiction, as embodied in the Parlement, was, as we have seen in a former chapter, successfully exerting its superiority over both bishops and inquisitors. A curious case occurring in 1460 ill.u.s.trates both this and the superst.i.tions current at the time. A priest of the diocese of Soissons named Yves Favins brought a suit for t.i.thes against a husbandman named Jean Rogier, who held of the Hospitallers. These, like the Templars, were exempt from t.i.thes; Favins lost his case, was condemned in the expenses, which were heavy, and was eager for revenge. A poor woman of the village who had come from Merville in Hainault, had quarrelled with the wife of Rogier over the price of some spinning, and to her Yves had recourse. She gave him a great toad which she kept in a pot, and told him to baptize it and feed it on a consecrated wafer, which he did, giving it the name of John. The woman then killed it and made of it a "_sorceron_," which her daughter took to Rogier's house under pretence of demanding the money in dispute, and cast it under the table at which Rogier, his wife, and his son were dining. They all died within three days; suspicion was aroused, and the two women were arrested and confessed. The mother was burned, but the daughter obtained a respite on the plea of pregnancy, escaped from jail and fled to Hainault, but was brought back and was carried on appeal to Paris. Yves was rich and well-connected. He was arrested and confined in the prison of the Bishop of Paris, but he obtained counsel and appealed to the Parlement; the Parlement allowed the appeal, tried him, and acquitted him.[563]

All secular tribunals were not as enlightened as the Parlement of Paris, but there seems to have been at least sometimes an effort to administer even-handed justice. About this time a case occurred at Constance in which an accuser formally inscribed himself against a peasant whom he had met riding on a wolf, and had immediately become crippled. He applied to the peasant, who cured him, but observing that the wizard bewitched others, he felt it his duty to prosecute him. The case was exhaustively argued before the magistrates, for the prosecution and the defence, by two eloquent advocates, Conrad Schatz and Ulric Blaser.

Torture was not used, but the accused was condemned and burned on the testimony of witnesses.[564]

In the ecclesiastical tribunals offenders had not the same chance. We have seen in a former chapter how skilfully the inquisitorial process was framed to secure conviction, and when, after a prolonged period of comparative inactivity, the Inquisition was aroused to renewed exertion in combating the legions of Satan, it sharpened its rusted weapons to a yet keener edge. The old hesitation about p.r.o.nouncing a sentence of acquittal was no longer entertained, for though the accused might be dismissed with a verdict of not proven, the inquisitor was formally instructed never to declare him innocent. Yet few there were upon whom even this doubtful clemency was exercised, for all the resources of fraud and force, of guile and torment, were exhausted to secure conviction with even less reserve than of old. Engaged in a personal combat with Satan, the inquisitor was convinced in advance of the guilt of those brought before him as defamed for sorcery, and the ancient expedients were refined upon and improved. Formerly endurance of torture might be regarded as an evidence of innocence, now it was only an additional proof of guilt, for it showed that Satan was endeavoring to save his servitor, and the duty to defeat him was plain, even though, as Sprenger tells us was frequently the case, the witch would allow herself to be torn in pieces before she would confess. Though, as formerly, torture could not be repeated, it could be "continued" indefinitely, with prolonged periods of intervening imprisonment in dungeons of which the squalor was purposely heightened to exhaust the mental and physical forces of the victim. It is true that confession was not absolutely requisite, for when the evidence was sufficient the accused could be convicted without it, but it was held that common justice required that the criminal should avow his guilt, and therefore the use of torture was universal when confession could not be otherwise secured. Yet in view of the satanic gift of taciturnity it was desirable to avoid recourse to it, and therefore promises of pardon, not indefinitely veiled under a juggle of words as of old, but positive and specifying a moderate penance or exile, were to be freely made. If the fraud was successful, the inquisitor could let the sentence be p.r.o.nounced by some one else, or allow a decent interval to elapse before himself sending his deluded victim to the stake. All the other devices to entrap or seduce the prisoner to confession which we have seen employed by the older inquisitors were also still recommended. One new and infallible sign was the inability of the witch to shed tears during torture and before the judges, though she could do so freely elsewhere. In such a case the inquisitor was instructed to adjure her to weep by the loving tears shed for the world by Christ on the cross, but the more she was adjured, we are told, the drier she would become. Still, with the usual logic of the demonologist, if she did weep it was a device of the devil and was not to be reckoned in her favor.[565]

The most significant change, however, between the old procedure and the new regarded the death-penalty. We have seen that with the heretic the object was held to be the salvation of his soul, and, except in case of relapse, he could always purchase life by recantation, at the expense of lifelong imprisonment, with the prospect that in time submission might win him release. At what period the rule changed with respect to witches is uncertain. When convicted by the secular courts they were invariably burned, and the Inquisition came to adopt the same practice. In 1445 the Council of Rouen still treats them with singular mildness. Invokers of demons were to be publicly preached with mitres on their heads, when, if they abjured, the bishop was empowered to release them after performance of appropriate penance; after this, if they relapsed, clerks were to be perpetually imprisoned, and laymen abandoned to the secular arm, while for minor superst.i.tions and incantations a month's prison and fasting were sufficient, with heavier penance for relapse. In 1448 the Council of Lisieux contented itself with ordering priests on all Sundays and festivals to denounce as excommunicate all usurers, sorcerers, and diviners. In 1453 Guillaume Edeline escaped with abjuration and prison.

In 1458 Jaquerius laboriously argues that the witch is not to be treated like other heretics, to be spared if she recants, showing that the change was still a novelty, requiring justification. In 1484 Sprenger says positively that while the recanting heretic is to be imprisoned, the sorcerer, even if penitent, is to be put to death, indicating that by this time there was no longer any question on the subject. There was, as usual, a pretence of s.h.i.+fting the responsibility of this upon the secular authorities, for Sprenger adds that the most the ecclesiastical judge can do is to absolve the penitent and converted witch from the _ipso facto_ excommunication under which she lies and let her go, to be apprehended by the lay courts and be burned for the evil which she has wrought. Silvester Prierias shows us how transparent was this juggle, when he instructs the inquisitor that if the witch confesses and is penitent she is to be received to mercy and not be delivered to the secular arm: she is to abjure, is absolved and sentenced to perpetual imprisonment in a black dress; the dress is put on her and she is led to the church-door--but not to prison. The Inquisition takes no further concern about her; if the secular court is content, well and good--if not, it does as it pleases. What the inquisitors would have said if it pleased the secular authorities to let the witch go free may be judged by the maledictions of Sprenger on the incredulous laity who disbelieved in the reality of witchcraft, and through whose supineness the secular arm had allowed the cursed sect to so increase that its extirpation appeared impossible.[566] Still more instructive, as we shall see hereafter, was the indignation of Leo X. when the Signory of Venice refused to burn the witches of Brescia condemned by the Inquisition.

Equally frivolous was the pretence that the punishment of burning was merely for the injuries wrought by the witch, for we shall see that in the case of the Vaudois of Arras the convicts were burned as a matter of course, although attendance upon the Sabbat was the only crime with which most of the sufferers were charged, and that they were delivered for the purpose by the ecclesiastical court to the magistrates, and even burned without such formality. Besides, Sprenger tells us that in the case of prominent and influential witches the death-penalty was frequently commuted to perpetual imprisonment on bread and water, as a reward for betraying their accomplices, which shows that the fate of the accused in reality rested with the inquisitor. Still, there appears to have been, in at least one case, a simulacrum of judgment by the secular court which I have rarely met where heretics were concerned. November 5, 1474, at Levone, in Piedmont, Francesca Viloni and Antonia d' Alberto were condemned by the acting inquisitor Francesco Chiabaudi. The sentence orders their delivery to the secular arm with a protest that no corporal punishment was thereby indicated, directly or indirectly, although the goods of the convicts were declared confiscated. The same day the a.s.sistant inquisitor, Fra Lorenzo Butini, delivered them to the podesta, Bartolomeo Pasquale, with the protest, to protect himself from "irregularity," that he did not intend to indicate for them any corporal punishment or to consent to it. The podesta allowed two days to elapse and then held, November 7, a solemn court to which the population was summoned by blast of trumpet. The convicts were brought before him, when his _consultore_, or legal adviser, Lorenzo di Front, addressed him to the effect that the women had been condemned by the Inquisition for witchcraft, heresy, and apostasy, and that, according to the laws, he must sentence them to the legal punishment of burning alive, which he incontinently did. It evidently was the merest formality, and possibly, as the death of two of the podesta's children had been attributed to one of the witches, he may have wished to magnify his share in the retribution.[567]

As of old, practically the sole defence of the accused lay in disabling the witnesses for enmity, and judges were reminded that the enmity must be of the most violent nature, for, with the wonted happy facility of a.s.suming guilt in advance, they were told that there was almost always some enmity involved, since witches were odious to everybody. At the same time all the old methods of reducing this slender chance to a minimum were followed, supplemented with such as additional experience had suggested. The names of the witnesses were generally suppressed, but if they were communicated they were so arranged as to mislead, and in advance effort was made to debar the accused from disabling the most damaging ones by enticing her to deny all knowledge of them or to declare them to be her friends. If she insisted on seeing the evidence, it might be given to her after interpolating in it extraneous matters and accusations to lead her astray.[568]

Appeals were always to be refused if possible. Outside of France the only one that could be made was to Rome for refusing counsel, for improper torture, and other unjust proceeding; and then, as we have seen, the inquisitor could either refuse "apostoli" or grant either reverential or negative ones. If conscious of injustice and aware that an appeal was coming, he could elude it by appointing some one to sit in his place. The danger of appeals was small, however, for if the accused insisted on having counsel she was not allowed to select him. The inquisitor appointed him; he was bound not to a.s.sume the defence if he knew it to be unjust; he was not allowed to know the names of the witnesses, and his functions were restricted to advising his client either to confess or to disable the witnesses. If he made difficulties and delays and interjected appeals he was subject to excommunication as a fautor of heresy, and was worse than the witches themselves--of all of which he was to be duly warned when accepting the case.[569]

The consequences of neglecting these salutary precautions are seen in two trials in 1474, at Rivara in Piedmont. A number of witches had been burned, and as usual they had implicated others. The matter had been conducted by Francesco Chiabaudi, a canon regular, commissioned by both the Bishop of Turin and Michele de' Valenti, the Inquisitor of Lombardy.

Inexperienced and unskilled, he had appointed Tommaso Balardi, parish priest of Rivara, to make the preliminary informations in five fresh accusations. The evidence, as usual, was overwhelming; Balardi arrested the culprits and gave them ten days to show cause why they should not be tortured. At the same time, with incredible ignorance of his duties, he allowed them to select defenders, when they chose their husbands or brothers or sons. In the case of three, these defenders did nothing and the trials were conducted as usual, though the fragmentary doc.u.ments remaining do not acquaint us with the result. The other two, Guglielmina Ferreri and Margherita Cortina, were more fortunate. They seem to have been rich peasants, and their families retained three able lawyers for their defence. When these were once admitted before the tribunal the prosecution went to pieces. Chiabaudi, unacquainted with the privileges of the inquisitorial process, was wholly unable to control them. He allowed them to enter protests against the initial informations for irregularity, and even permitted them, against all precedent, to introduce witnesses for the defence. They had the audacity to summon Balardi himself, and made him testify that the accused were regular in all religious observances; after which they poured in evidence that the so-called witches were eminently pious and charitable women, and that the rumors against them had only arisen a couple of years before, on the burning of three sisters who were said to have named them in their confessions. Chiabaudi sought refuge in appointing Antonio Valo, a local legal luminary, as procurator-fiscal, or prosecutor, an official unknown to the Inquisition of the period, whom the counsel for the accused speedily drove out of court. With each hearing they grew more aggressive. They boldly quoted the Digest and the rules of law and justice as though such things had not been expressly prohibited in inquisitorial trials. Finally they told Chiabaudi that he was himself suspect; that as a canon he had no right to leave his convent for such business, and that all his acts were null. The whole prosecution, they said, was merely an attempt to extort money and to divide the plunder of the accused, and they appealed to the episcopal vicar of Turin, with a threat, if necessary, to obtain the intervention of the Duke of Savoy himself. Chiabaudi yielded to the storm which he had imprudently allowed to gather strength, and in February, 1375, he permitted the transfer of the case to the episcopal court of Turin. Whether the unfortunate women fared better there will, doubtless, never be known, but the case shows the wisdom of the precautions adopted by the regular inquisitors of selecting counsel themselves and threatening them with excommunication if they defended their clients. It is interesting, moreover, as probably the only inquisitorial trial on record, save that of Gilles de Rais, in which the forbidden _litis contestatio_ was carried out.[570]

A much more typical and ill.u.s.trative case, of which we happen to have the details, is that of the "Vaudois,"[571] or witches of Arras, showing how witchcraft panics were developed and what could be accomplished by inquisitorial methods, even under the supreme jurisdiction of the Parlement of Paris. In 1459, while a general chapter of the Dominican Order was in session at Langres, there chanced to be burned there as a witch a hermit named Robinet de Vaulx. He was forced to name all whom he had seen in the Sabbat, and among them was a young _femme de folle vie_ of Douai, named Deniselle, and a resident of Arras, advanced in years, named Jean la Vitte--a painter and poet, who had written many beautiful ballads in honor of the Virgin, and who was a general favorite, though, as he was popularly known as the Abbe-de-peu-de-sens, he was probably not a very sedate character.[572] Pierre le Brousart, the Inquisitor of Arras, was present at the chapter, and on his return he lost no time in looking after the accused. Deniselle was soon arrested and thrown into the episcopal prison; Jean, Bishop of Arras, whom we have seen promoted to the cardinalate for his services in procuring the repeal of the Pragmatic Sanction, was then in Rome; his suffragan was a Dominican, Jean, t.i.tular Bishop of Beirut, formerly a papal penitentiary, and his vicars were Pierre du Hamel, Jean Thibault, Jean Pochon, and Mathieu du Hamel. These took up the matter warmly and were earnestly supported by Jacques du Boys, a doctor of laws and dean of the chapter, who thrust himself into the affair and pushed it with relentless vigor. After repeated torture, Deniselle confessed to have attended the Sabbat and named various persons seen there, among them Jean la Vitte. He had already been compromised by Robinet, and had gone into hiding, but the inquisitor hunted him up at Abbeville, arrested him, and brought him to Arras, when he was no sooner in prison than in despair he tried to cut out his tongue with a pocket-knife, so as to prevent himself from confessing. He did not succeed, but though he was long unable to speak, this did not save him from torture, for he could use the pen and was obliged to write out his confession. Forced to name all whom he had seen in the Sabbat, he implicated a large number, including n.o.bles, ecclesiastics, and common folk. Six more arrests were made among the latter, including several women of the town; the affair threatened to spread farther than had at first been expected; the vicars grew timid and concluded to discharge all the prisoners. Then Jacques du Boys and the Bishop of Beirut const.i.tuted themselves formal complainants; the latter, moreover, went to Peronne and brought to Arras the Comte d'Estampes, Captain-general of Picardy for Philippe le Bon of Burgundy, who ordered the vicars to do their duty under threats of prosecuting them.

Four women of the last batch of prisoners confessed under torture and implicated a large number of others. The vicars, uncertain as to their duty, sent the confessions to two notable clerks, Gilles Carlier, dean, and Gregoire Nicolai, official, of Cambrai, who replied that if the accused were not relapsed and if they would recant they were not to be put to death, provided they had not committed murder and abused the Eucharist. Here we recognize a transition period between the old practice with heretics and the new with sorcerers, but du Boys and the Bishop of Beirut were fully imbued with the new notions, and insisted that all should be burned. They declared that whoever disputed this was himself a sorcerer, that any one who should presume to aid or counsel the prisoners should share their fate. The welfare of Christendom was concerned, a full third of nominal Christians were secretly sorcerers, including many bishops, cardinals, and grand masters, and that if they could a.s.semble under a leader it would be difficult to estimate the destruction which they could inflict on religion and society. Possibly one of these worthies may be credited with the authors.h.i.+p of a tract upon the subject, a copy of which, formerly belonging to Philippe le Bon, is now in the Royal Library of Brussels. The anonymous writer, who describes himself as a priest, speaks of "Vauderie" as something new and unheard of, more execrable than all the detestable errors of paganism since the beginning of the world. He calls on the prelates to arise and purge Christendom of these abominable sectaries, and to excite the people by denouncing their most d.a.m.nable crimes, but his most burning eloquence is addressed to the princes. Not without significance is the sword borne before them, for it is to remind them that they are ministers and officers of G.o.d, whose duty it is to order unsparing vengeance on these criminals. If the sectaries are allowed to multiply the most fearful results are to be expected, and the King of Darkness is already rejoicing at the prospect. Wars and enmities will come; strife and sedition will rage in the fields, in the cities, and in the kingdoms. In mutual slaughter men will fall dead in heaps. Children will rise against their elders and the villeins will a.s.sail the n.o.bles. It was not only religion, but the whole social order, which was threatened by a few strumpets and the Abbe-de-peu-de-sens.[573]

Like the agent of Conrad Tors in the days of Conrad of Marburg, the Bishop of Beirut boasted that he could recognize a Vaudois or sorcerer at sight. In conjunction with du Boys he procured another arrest, and induced the Comte d'Estampes to order the vicars to hasten their proceedings. Under this pressure, an a.s.sembly of all the princ.i.p.al ecclesiastics of Arras, with some jurists, was held on May 9, 1460, to consider the evidence. The deliberation was short, and the accused were condemned. The next day, on a scaffold in front of the episcopal palace, and in presence of a crowd which had gathered from twelve leagues around, the convicts were brought forward, together with the body of one of them, Jean le Febvre, who had been found hanging in his cell. Mitres were placed on their heads, with pictures representing them as wors.h.i.+pping the devil. The inquisitor preached the sermon, and read the description of the Sabbat and of their visits to it, and then asked them individually if it was true, to which they all a.s.sented. Then he read the sentence abandoning them to the secular arm, their property to be confiscated, the real estate to the seigneur and the movables to the bishop, and they were delivered to their several jurisdictions, Deniselle being handed over to the authorities of Douai who were present to receive her, and the rest to those of Arras. At once they began with shrieks to a.s.sert that they had been cruelly deceived--that they had been promised that if they would confess they would be discharged with a pilgrimage of ten or twelve leagues, and had been threatened with burning for persistence in denial. With one voice they declared that they had never been to the "Vauderie," that their confessions had been extorted under stress of torture and false promises and blandishments, and until they were silenced by the flames they begged the people to pray for them, and their friends to have ma.s.ses sung in their behalf.

The last words heard from the Abbe-de-peu-de-sens, were "_Jesus autem transiens per medium illorum_." Gilles Flameng, an advocate who had been active in the whole proceeding, was the especial object of their reproaches; they reviled him as a traitor who had been particularly earnest in the false promises which had lured them to destruction.

Appet.i.te grew by what it fed on. This execution was followed immediately by the arrest, on the requisition of the inquisitor, of thirteen persons, including six public women, who had been implicated by the confessions. The managers of the business, however, seemed to tire of the pursuit of such worthless game, and grew bold enough to strike higher. On June 22 Arras was startled by the arrest of Jean Tacquet, an eschevin and one of the richest citizens; on the next day by that of Pierre des Carieulx, equally wealthy and esteemed the best accountant in Artois; and on the next by that of the Chevalier Payen de Beauffort, a septuagenary and the head of one of the most ancient and richest houses in the province, who had manifested his piety by founding three convents. He had been warned that his name was on the list of accused, but had declared that if he were a thousand leagues away he would return to meet the charge, and in fact he had come to the city for the purpose.

In his hotel of la Chevrette his children and friends had entreated him to depart if he felt himself guilty, when with the most solemn oaths he a.s.serted his innocence. His arrest had not been ventured upon without the consent of Philippe le Bon, secured by Philippe de Saveuse; the Comte d'Estampes had come to Arras to insure it, and refused to see him when he begged an interview. This was followed, July 7, by an _auto de fe_ of seven of those arrested on May 9; five of these were burned, and, like their predecessors, a.s.serted that their confessions had been wrung from them by torture, and died begging the prayers of all good Christians. Two were sentenced to imprisonment for definite terms, the reason alleged being that they had not revoked after their first confession--a highly irregular proceeding of which the object was to facilitate further convictions.

The affair was now beginning to attract general attention and animadversion. Philippe le Bon was disturbed, for he heard that at Paris and elsewhere it was reported that he was seizing the rich men of his dominions to confiscate their property. Accordingly he sent to Arras, as supervisors, his confessor, a Dominican and t.i.tular Bishop of Selimbria, together with the Chevalier Baudoin de Noyelles, Governor of Peronne, while the Comte d'Estampes deputed his secretary, Jean Forme, together with Philippe de Saveuse, the Seigneur de Crevecur, who was bailly of Amiens, and his lieutenant, Guillaume de Berri. The first effort of these new-comers seems to have been to share in the spoils. On July 16 Baudoin de Noyelles arrested Antoine Sacquespee, an eschevin and one of the richest of the citizens, who had been urged to fly, but who, like de Beauffort, had declared that he would come a thousand leagues to face the accusation. The next day another eschevin, Jean Josset, was seized, and a sergent-de-ville named Henriet Royville, while three whose arrest was pending fled, two of them being wealthy men, Martin Cornille, and Willaume le Febvre, whom the Comte d'Estampes pursued as far as Paris without success. A panic terror by this time pervaded the community; no one knew when his turn would come, and men scarce dared to leave the city for fear they would be accused of flying through conscious guilt, while citizens who were absent were unwelcome guests everywhere, and could scarce find lodgings. Similarly, strangers would not venture to visit the city. Arras was a prosperous seat of manufactures, and its industries suffered enormously. Its merchants lost their credit; creditors importunately demanded settlement, for the risk of confiscation hung over every man, and we have seen how the rights of creditors in such cases were extinguished. The vicars endeavored to soothe the general alarm and distress by a proclamation that no one need fear arrest who was innocent, for none were arrested unless eight or ten witnesses swore to seeing them at the Sabbat--though it was afterwards found that many were seized on the evidence of only one or two.

At length, at the expense of the prisoners, the inquisitor, with the vicars and Gilles Flameng, was sent to the Duke of Burgundy at Brussels, to lay before him the evidence of the trials. The duke called a great a.s.sembly of clerks, including the doctors of Louvain, who gravely debated the matter. Some held, with the _Cap. Episcopi_, that it was all a delusion, others that it was a reality. No conclusion was reached, and the duke finally sent his herald, Toison d'Or (Lefebvre, Seigneur de Saint-Remy) in whom he had great confidence, back with the vicars, to be present at all examinations. They reached Arras August 14, after which there were no further arrests, although innumerable names were on the lists of accused. The prisoners were less inhumanly treated, and but four of the pending trials were pushed to a conclusion. Reports of these were sent to Brussels for the duke's consideration, and they were brought back, October 12, by the president of the ducal chamber, Adrien Collin, in whose presence the accused were again examined. Finally, on October 22, the customary a.s.sembly was held, immediately followed by the _auto de fe_, where the sermon was preached by the Inquisitor of Cambrai, and the sentences were read by the Inquisitor of Arras, and by Michael du Hamel, one of the vicars. The four convicts had different fates.

The Chevalier de Beauffort, it was recited, had confessed that he had thrice been to the Sabbat--twice on foot and once by flying on an anointed staff. He had refused to give his soul to Satan, but had given him four of his hairs. The inquisitor asked him if this was true, and he replied in the affirmative, begging for mercy. The inquisitor then announced that, as he had confessed without torture, and had never retracted, he should not be mitred and burned but be scourged (a penance inflicted by the inquisitor on the spot, but without removing the penitent's clothes), be imprisoned for seven years, and pay a long list of fines for pious purposes, amounting in all to eight thousand two hundred livres, including one thousand five hun