Witchcraft in America. Charles Wentworth Upham
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were forced to confess just whatever their judges pleased, when those of the lower rank were inhumanly burnt. Some of the richer and more powerful ransomed themselves from this disgrace by dint of money; while others of the highest orders were remonstrated with, and seduced by their examiners into confession under a promise that if they would confess, they should not suffer either in person or property. Others, again, suffered the severest torments with the utmost patience and fortitude. The judges received very large sums of money from such as were able to pay them: others fled the country, or completely proved their innocence of the charges made against them, and remained unmolested. It must not be concealed (proceeds Monstrelet) that many persons of worth knew that these charges had been raked up by a set of wicked persons to harass and disgrace some of the principal inhabitants of Arras, whom they hated with the bitterest rancour, and from avarice were eager to possess themselves of their fortunes. They at first maliciously arrested some persons deserving of punishment for their crimes, whom they had so severely tormented, holding out promises of pardon, that they forced them to accuse whomsoever they were pleased to name. This matter was considered (it must have been an exceedingly ill-devised plot to provoke suspicion and even indignation in such a matter) by all men of sense and virtue as most abominable: and it was thought that those who had thus destroyed and disgraced so many persons of worth would put their souls in imminent danger at the last day.'71
Meanwhile the inquisitor, Jacques Dubois, doctor in theology, dean of Nôtre Dame at Arras, ordered the arrest of Levite the artist, and made him confess he had attended the 'Vauldine;' that he had seen there many people, men and women, burghers, ecclesiastics, whose names were specified. The bishops' vicars, overwhelmed by the number and quality of the involved, began to dread the consequence, and wished to stop the proceedings. But this did not satisfy the projects of two of the most active promoters, Jacques Dubois and the Bishop of Bayrut, who urged the Comte d'Estampes to use his authority with the vicars to proceed energetically against the prisoners. Soon afterwards the matter was brought to a crisis; the fate of the tortured convicts was decided, and amidst thousands of spectators from all parts, they were brought out, each with a mitre on his head, on which was painted the devil in the form in which he appeared at the general assemblies, and burned.
They admitted (under the severest torture, promises, and threats) the truth of their meetings at the sabbaths. They used a sort of ointment well known in witch-pharmacy for rubbing a small wooden rod and the palms of their hands, and by a very common mode of conveyance were borne away suddenly to the appointed rendezvous. Here their lord and master was expecting them in the shape of a goat with the face of a man and the tail of an ape. Homage was first done by his new vassals offering up their soul or some part of the body; afterwards in adoration kissing him on the back—the accustomed salutation.72 Next followed the different signs and ceremonies of the infernal vassalage, in particular treading and spitting upon the cross. Then to eating and drinking; after which the guests joined in acts of indescribable debauchery, when the devil took the form alternately of either sex. Dismissal was given by a mock sermon, forbidding to go to church, hear mass, or touch holy water. All these acts indicate schismatic offences which yet for the most part are the characteristics of the sabbaths in later Protestant witchcraft, excepting that the wicked apostates are there usually papistical instead of protestant. During nearly two years Arras was subjected to the arbitrary examinations and tortures of the inquisitors; and an appeal to the Parliament of Paris could alone stop the proceedings, 1461. The chance of acquittal by the verdict of the public was little: it was still less by the sentence of judicial tribunals.
64. A second bull enters into details. On the reception of a convert, a toad made its appearance, which was adored by the assembled crowd. On sitting down to the banquet a black cat comes upon the stage, double the size of an ordinary dog, advancing backwards with up-turned tail. The neophytes, one after another, kissed this feline demon, with due solemnity, on the back. Walter Mapes has given an account of the similar ceremonies of the Publicans (Paulicians). Heretical worship was of a most licentious as well as disgusting kind. The religious meetings terminate always in indiscriminate debauchery.
65. Pliny (Hist. Natur. xxx.) 'observes,' as Gibbon quotes him, 'that magic held mankind by the triple chain of religion, of physic, and of astronomy.'
66. Michelet, whose poetic-prose may appear hardly suitable to the philosophic dignity of history, relating the fate of two knights accused with a monk of having 'sinned' with the king's daughter-in-law 'even on the holiest days,' and who were castrated and flayed alive, truly enough infers that 'the pious confidence of the middle age which did not mistrust the immuring of a great lady along with her knights in the precincts of a castle, of a narrow tower; the vassalage which imposed on young men as a feudal duty the sweetest cares, was a dangerous trial to human nature.'
67. Shakspeare brings the fiends upon the stage: their work is done, and they now abandon the enchantress. In vain La Pucelle invokes in her extremity—
'Ye familiar spirits, that are cull'd
Out of the powerful regions under earth,
Help me this once, that France may get the field.
Oh, hold me not with silence over-long!
68. History of England, xx. Shakspeare (Henry VI. part ii. act i.) has furnished us with the charms and incantations employed about the same time in the case of the Duchess of Gloucester. Mother Jourdain is the representative witch-hag.
69. The historian of England justly reflects on this case that the nature of the crime, so opposite to all common sense, seems always to exempt the accusers from using the rules of common sense in their evidence.
70. This unfortunate woman was celebrated for her beauty and, with one important exception, for her virtues; and, if her vanity could not resist the fascination of a royal lover, her power had been often, it is said, exerted in the cause of humanity. Notwithstanding the neglect and ill-treatment experienced from the ingratitude of former fawning courtiers and people, she reached an advanced age, for she was living in the time of Sir Thomas More, who relates that 'when the Protector had awhile laid unto her, for the manner sake, that she went about to bewitch him, and that she was of counsel with the lord chamberlain to destroy him; in conclusion, when no colour could fasten upon this matter, then he laid heinously to her charge the thing that herself could not deny, that all the world wist was true, and that natheless every man laughed at to hear it then so suddenly so highly taken—that she was naught of her body.'—Reign of Richard III., quoted by Bishop Percy in Reliques of Old English Romance Poetry. The deformed prince fiercely attributes his proverbial misfortune to hostile witchcraft. He addresses his trembling council:
'Look how I am bewitch'd; behold mine arm
Is, like a blasted sapling, wither'd up:
And this is Edward's wife, that monstrous witch,
Consorted with that harlot, strumpet Shore,
That by their witchcraft thus have marked me.'
Richard III. act iii. sc. 4.
71. Enguerrand de Monstrelet's Chronicles, lib. iii. cap. 93, Johnes' Translation. Vaudoisie, which puzzles the annalist, seems to disclose the pretence, if not the motive, of the proceedings. Yet it is not easy to conceive so large a number of all classes involved in the proscribed heresy of the Vaudois in a single city in the north of France.