By Mark Owen - © 2010
Chapter 13 - Divisions abound
We are not divided,John Calvin was but one of the figures thrown up by the Protestant Reformation, a major upheaval that saw the established Western Church rent asunder in the 16th century. As we have already seen, various dissident groups, some small and transitory, others large and longer-lasting, niggled away at the apparent solidarity and doctrinal integrity of the Church of Rome. But dissent was only kept in check while the Church relied upon the secular arm to defend its position and, as we have seen, the Church was not slack in calling down the full weight of the authorities upon any dissenters who dared raise their heads. If that support wavered then the Church was in deep trouble.
All one body we,
One in hope, in doctrine,
One in charity.
- Sabine Baring-Gould
On 31 October 1517, a German Augustinian monk, Martin Luther, nailed to a church door at Wittenberg a statement comprising 95 theses, chiefly directed against the sale of Indulgences, curious Catholic instruments that purported to remit 'temporal' penalties imposed because of so-called 'sin'. Such penalties began with penances imposed by the priest on the offending parishioner but might continue into Purgatory - another curious institution invented by the Catholic Church, a sort of halfway house between earth and Heaven (or Hell!).
Luther had made a disastrous mistake - he had visited Rome, the Holy City, and, like so many before him, had been deeply disturbed by what he had seen. The holy city was very far from holy. He had discovered the awful truth behind the façade and had returned to Germany to nurse his spiritual wounds. At that time, as in many other periods, Rome badly needed money and the sale of Indulgences seemed as good a way as any to raise funds. A clerical salesperson, Johann Tetzel, a Dominican monk, was hard at work raising funds from the good folk of Germany and it was this activity that was opposed by Luther, although in time Luther's concerns widened and he became the exponent of the doctrine that Christians should live by faith and not by performing good works.
It is doubtful if Luther's revolt would have succeeded had it not been that some of the German princes supported him. Like the Roman church itself, he too needed aid from the secular arm to defend his new flock. Indeed, for a time Luther suffered for his activities but eventually he gained sufficient support in his native land to establish the Lutheran Church on a permanent basis. But the great German reformer himself had a dark side, for he was a passionate anti-Semite, writing, for example: 'Know Christian that next to the Devil you have no enemy more cruel, more venomous and violent than a true Jew.' Adolf Hitler was fond of quoting Luther, this stalwart German patriot, on the subject of the Jews.
Meanwhile in England Henry 8th, who had been granted the title Fidei Defensor ('Defender of the Faith') by Pope Leo 10th, wanted to divorce his wife (one of many) Catherine of Aragon. When the Pope (himself a terrible womanizer!) refused permission, Henry now effectively separated the Church of England from the Roman fold. Cardinal Wolsey was tipped out of office and Archbishop Cranmer installed in his place and the marriage to Catherine conveniently declared invalid. Henry then secretly married Anne Boleyn (mother of Elizabeth 1st), although Anne was to come to an unhappy end, beheaded on her husband's orders. Meanwhile conflict continued with Rome so Henry obtained from Parliament the Act of Supremacy, creating a national church separated from the Papacy. Sir Thomas More objected and was executed in 1535. The King then set to work to suppress Catholic monasteries throughout the land and to confiscate their properties.
The very day after Anne was executed Henry married Jane Seymour (mother of Edward 6th). Not long after she died and in 1540 he married Anne of Cleves but soon afterwards divorced her. He then married Catherine Howard but she was charged with adultery and was beheaded in 1542. He married Catherine Parr on 12 July 1543. Catherine survived the King upon his death in 1547. Henry might be Defender of the Faith but, for all his abilities and successes, he was in fact a monster.
Thus, in both Germany and England Protestantism began to flourish, supported in both places by the secular power, just as Catholicism was supported by the secular power in other places. Protestantism was soon to spread - in its myriad forms - to Scotland, The Netherlands, France, Switzerland and the Nordic countries and even to infect to some small degree such hotbeds of Catholicism as Italy, Spain and Portugal. The first Puritans arose in England in Elizabethan times. Like the Church of Rome and the Anglicans (and just about everyone else, for that matter), they believed they had divine authority to impose their views on all and sundry. As a result they developed a harsh, despotic and even cruel system of government wherever they held the reigns of power.
When the Puritans gained the ascendancy in England after the triumph of Oliver Cromwell a terrible pall of gloom fell upon the country and their influence remains with us even today in the form of puritanical right-wing Christian fundamentalist groups. Well did Storm Jameson title her study of this era, The Decline of Merry England (London, Cassell and Co Ltd, 1930).
The English Puritans, not content with shutting down all manner of entertainments and destroying beautiful works of art as they vandalized the holy places of other Christians, turned to murder to further the cause of righteousness as they perceived it. Even an Archbishop, William Laud was struck down, being beheaded in 1645. Others were banished and suffered in many ways. In 1783 the Chief Justice, Lord Loughborough, a Presbyterian (the Scottish wing of Puritanism) defended such aspects of the penal code as the dissection of bodies after execution and the burning at the stake of women found guilty of coining (counterfeiting). 'The spectacle [of the women burning],' he intoned, 'is likely to make a more lasting impression upon the beholders than mere hanging; and, in fact, no greater degree of personal pain is thus inflicted, the criminal being always strangled before the flames are suffered to approach the body.' (Sometimes this did not occur.)
The Puritans who emigrated to America took with them the same harsh system of government and strict moral code. In the New World the lash fell upon the bodies of men and women alike for trivial infractions of 'divine' law. In the State of Delaware, one of the earliest Puritan settlements, the whip was freely employed against 'sinners', even women. The whipping was carried out in public, the culprit being bound by the wrists to a post in the town square at Wilmington, the capital. Sufficient clothing was stripped from the person's back to allow the whip to strike bare flesh. This posture often resulted in the woman revealing more than just her back, no doubt to the delight of some of the crowd that inevitably gathered to watch! It is not known how many lashes was the normal sentence but in some other parts of America at this time as many as 40 was the punishment not uncommonly applied to a woman. Interestingly this state was the last to abandon the pillory, which it did only in 1905, and the last to abandon the flogging of criminals. In 1952 the last whipping took place when a man was flogged as punishment after he broke into a home and beat a woman. In 1972 whipping was officially abandoned.
Both Protestant or Catholic Christians were united in one thing - they believed in the reality of witchcraft and the power of the witch. And the Protestants, so often sufferers in the fires of the Inquisition, were perhaps even more zealous than Catholics in pursuit of this evil. The persecuted had taken to persecution with a will. They were backed in their belief by the very doubtful authority of the Old Testament. The witch-hunters of the Middle Ages were quick to seize upon the words of Exodus 22:18 - 'Thou shalt not suffer a sorceress [witch] to live' - to justify this new outburst of cruelty. Certainly the first Christian Emperor, Constantine, believed in the reality of this evil force. As he began his rule he distinguished between black and white magic and persecuted those engaged in the black arts. From time to time during successive centuries witches were persecuted but only sporadically until the onset of mania.
Witchcraft was always regarded with suspicion by the medieval Church, which paid regard to the Biblical injunction and, besides, 'practising witchcraft' was a common and very convenient charge levelled against heretics of various stripes and hues. In 1227 Pope Gregory 7th sent Conrad of Marburg, a dedicated sadist, on an organized witch-hunt to Germany. It was this same Conrad who had, as confessor to Elizabeth of Thuringia, persuaded the lady that she dearly needed corporal punishment for the good of her soul, applied to her naked body (why - of course)! And on a number of occasions! Conrad made full use of torture to extract confessions and was pleased to announce the success of his mission. Those who, in agony of body, admitted consorting with evil were committed to the fires, those who did not were tortured until they did, and then burnt. There was thus no escape from suffering and death for any who fell into Conrad's hands. A later Pope, Boniface 8th, neatly summed up the Church's attitude: those who were accused of witchcraft were to be dealt with 'simply and squarely' without the trouble of engaging lawyers and judges. Justice, Catholic style.
Thereafter a rising toll of innocent people fell victim. However, the active persecution of suspected witches did not begin until the late 15th and early 16th century, a time of religious ferment when the Protestant revolt was stirring. And these same Protestants, who sought to break from Rome and enjoy freedom of worship, were now just as active in persecuting another group of people who didn't worship as they did. It has ever been thus. In 1485 Pope Innocent 8th issued a bull directed at the extirpation of witchcraft and by the middle of the next century witch mania was in full swing, extending into the newly-emerging Protestant realms. Interestingly, in Germany, where the forces of Rome and of Luther were somewhat in balance, the witch persecutions probably saw their most ferocious manifestations. In England the avowedly Christian king, Henry 8th, issued a royal proclamation against witchcraft in 1542 and a further enactment, in Germany, in 1532, unleashed terrible persecution in that country.
Under Elizabeth 1st witchcraft was proscribed but the law, although harsh, was in effect milder than later when James 1st ascended the throne. Offenders not only faced death but the confiscation of their lands. Indeed, in many places, especially in France and Scotland, provision was made for the costs involved in torturing and executing the prisoner to be taken from his or her estate. There are lists extant detailing such costs. For example the execution of two witches, Janet Wishart and Isobel Crocker, at Aberdeen in February 1596 resulted in this grim bill:
20 loads of peat to burn them 40s.0p.
6 bushels of coal 24s.0p.
4 barrels of tar 26s.8p.
Fir and iron barrels 16s.8p.
Stake 16s.0p.
24 feet of hangman's rope 4s.0p.
Carrying peat, poles and barrels up hill 8s.4p.
Fee for justice 13s.4p.
One account rendered included a fee of an extra ten shillings added 'for dragging another witch through the town in a cart.' The accounts for the execution of William Coke and his wife, Alison Dick, at Kilcaldy, Fife, Scotland, indicate the grim nature of their deaths. Charges were listed for hempen coats and a tar barrel. In this part of the country it was normal to dress the witch in a hempen coat and put her inside a tar-lined barrel to ensure 'a good burning'. Some bills included a pricking fee (we shall return to this in due course) and fees were levied for guarding and feeding the prisoner.
Suspected witches, male or female, young or old, were invariably tortured to seek confirmation of commerce with the Devil. A number of manuals were published detailing the methods, i.e. the tortures and torments, whereby suspected witches could be tested. One of the earliest was Demonomania of Witches by a French monk, Jean Bodin, which appeared in 1480. Bodin was a jurist, who became a Carmelite monk (which should not surprise us one whit.) Soon after this came a notorious work by Henry Kramer and James (or Jacob) Sprenger, Malleus Maleficarum ('Hammer of Witches'), published in Italy in 1486 (English edition, translated by Montague Summers, issued at London in 1928). This book was a farrago of nonsense laced with sexual references, and very dangerous nonsense at that; people's lives hung in the balance because of it. Typical is the following passage, with its grim if perhaps unconscious touch of humour:
For a certain man tells that, when he had lost his member, he approached a known witch, to request that she restore it to him. She informed the afflicted man to climb up into a certain tree, and that he might take whatever he liked out of a nest in which there were several members. And when he attempted to take a large one the witch said: You must not take that one, adding, because it belonged to a parish priest.
The manual, as can be seen from this extract, reads more like pornography than a genuine manual of instruction, advises witch-finders to use dissimulation to attain their ends. The witch 'may be promised her life . . . provided she supply evidence which will lead to the conviction of other witches. She should be led to suppose that some other penance such as exile, will be imposed on her as punishment.' In fact, having extracted what they wanted from the poor woman, they then consigned her to life imprisonment, chained in a noisome dungeon on a bread-and-water diet. Others, promised leniency, found themselves hustled off to the stake as soon as they had passed on the required information. The manual was also quite specific in prescribing torture at every point in the proceedings. And, like those persecuted by Conrad, there was no escape from the inevitable pain and punishment, little possibility of anyone being found innocent.
One is reminded of the notorious trials of recent date in the courts of wartime Germany and Stalin's Soviet Union. But these travesties of justice, these scenes of lies and deceit, these outpourings of cruelty, were directed not by political dictators but by the representatives of the Christ-god. The Kramer and Sprenger manual had the full approval of the Pope, who described its authors as 'our dear sons'. It ran to at least 40 editions between its publication and the mid-17th century and appeared in a number of translations. As a result daily life in many places became overshadowed with the gallows and the stake. A priest named Duren who lived near Bonn, Germany, early in the 17th century, wrote in despair:
Half the city must be by now implicated, for already professors, law students, pastors, canons, vicars and monks have been arrested and burnt . . . The Chancellor and his wife and the Private Secretary's wife have already been seized and executed. On the Eve of Our Lady's Day there was executed a girl of 19 years who had the reputation of being the loveliest and most virtuous in all the city and who from her childhood had been brought up by the Prince Bishop himself. A canon from the Cathedral by the name of Rotensahe, I saw beheaded and burnt. Children of 3 and 4 years had devils as their paramours. Students and boys of noble birth, of 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, and 14 years of age, have been burnt. To sum up, things are in such a pitiful state that one does not know with what people one may talk and associate.
A later book, published at Amsterdam in 1725, described how both male and female suspects could be tested. An iron press was set up on the floor and the prisoner was laid down. The press had ridges where it touched the shin bones. It was now closed and the pressure on the shins caused intolerable pain to the person, with the bones being broken and blood flowing freely. The Christian inquisitors who employed this method usually recorded falsely that the accused had confessed 'without torture.' Lies and deceit meant nothing to these hypocritical pedlars of religious cant.
Then there was pricking - an activity which had both an erotic and a sadistic component. This was one of the devices whereby witches were supposedly revealed. It was particularly popular in England and Scotland in the 17th century. The object was to locate the so-called Devil's Mark on the suspect's body. The pricker consisted of a thin needle attached to a wooden handle which was forced into the flesh of the victim - stripped naked and held down by assistants - at various points. If the needle entered the flesh and showed no blood upon being withdrawn then this was taken as evidence of the person was a witch.
Men, women and even children were subjected to this ordeal, which was often conducted before an audience, sometimes in a court of law, the accused having the humiliation of appearing naked or semi-naked before the assembly as well as suffering the pain of the prickings. A law enacted by the Puritans in Massachusetts even provided that women suspected of witchcraft should be stripped naked and examined by a male witch-pricker. It was a cruel form of test as the suspects would be pricked and left bleeding in many places while the attempt was made to find the one spot which the Devil had claimed. All hair was removed from the head, the genitals and under the arms, and even eyebrows were sometimes shaved off. An interesting account of a witch-pricking that took place at Newcastle Upon Tyne in 1649 revealed another method of ensuring there was no blood on the needle:
Presently in sight of all the people, he laid her body naked to the waist, with all her clothes over her head, by which fright and shame all her blood contracted into one part of her body, and then he ran a pin into her thigh, and then suddenly let her coats fall, and then demanded she had nothing of him in her body but did not bleed, but she being much amazed replied little, and then he put his hand under her coats and pulled out the pin and set aside as a guilty person and child of the Devil.
The witch-finder was a Scotsman and already some 30 women had been condemned to death in this city as a result of his trickery, the man collecting 20/- apiece for his deadly work. But an observer, a Colonel Hobhouse, called the woman back and insisted the witch-finder prick her again at the same place and in full view of them all. When blood was drawn, the woman was released.
Torture was not always employed in England and elsewhere. The use of thumbscrews or whipping were not officially sanctioned but the investigators found many ways to torment the poor wretches in their power. Solitary confinement and starvation for a period would help bring a poor woman 'to her senses'. She might also be deliberately kept awake day and night for a lengthy period. These methods produced no telltale marks. There was also a curious form of binding, the thumb of the right hand being bound tightly to the big toe of the left foot and vice-versa. The victim would be left lying bound in this manner for days.
But actual torture often did take place, in spite of regulations. For example, there were occasional cases reported where older women had their lips sewn up, a very painful torture. And in Scotland torture was commonplace, the thumbscrews and the fearsome boot being frequently employed. This implement took several forms but generally comprised pieces of iron in the shape of a boot which were fixed about the victim's leg. Wedges of iron or timber were then driven in between the structure and the flesh. The agony suffered as the wedges were hammered into place was enormous, and bones were splintered. Many a description of a witch's examination includes the information that the boot was clamped to her leg. Another torture involving binding the naked woman face-up lying across a small bench placed at the small of her back, hands and feet stretched out tight, then pouring water down her throat. All very gruesome, but then one must ensure that the truth of the Gospel triumphs over the forces of darkness, whatever the cost to suffering humanity.
The simplest of activities might be misconstrued by these superstitious Christians to bring about a witch's conviction. Thus a woman was one day washing her dress in a river and an observer noted that she turned the pockets inside out, the better to clean them. This action was reported to the authorities as evidence of witchcraft. It was claimed that 'no good Christian would wash what was not visible.' She had obviously carried out this activity to please her master the Devil. She was forthwith burnt at the stake.
In former times children as young as 5 and 6 were initiated into the covens by their parents so that they could pass on their 'hidden knowledge', or at least so it was believed. Thus children often became the targets of the witchfinders, as they were easily induced to tell all manner of fantastic stories about suspected witches. (Do I detect here a precursor to the Satanic cult scares of today?) On the Continent some of the alleged witches rounded up were as young as 8 years old. The largest group was of young girls from about 14 years of age and upwards. The youngest French witch to die was said to be an 11-year-old girl, Catherine Naguille, burnt at the stake in the 16th century, mentioned by Pierre de l'Ancre. Many young children, mainly girls, also died in England, by hanging and in Germany, by burning.
The executions themselves were usually cruel affairs. While some witches were hanged, the majority were burnt at the stake, especially on the Continent. This mode of execution normally involved the prisoner first being strangled, then the body being burnt. However, in many cases involving witches the prisoner was denied a swift end by strangulation and was instead burnt alive. And this could be a prolonged and cruel death, depending on how the fire was arranged. The jurist-monk Bodin, already mentioned, wrote: 'Whatever punishment we can order against witches by roasting and cooking them over a slow fire is not really very much.' This fine Christian's standards of justice were appalling. He advocated not only the use of torture but even admitting into trials the known false testimony of witnesses or taking note of anonymous accusations. He suggested that black boxes should be set up in churches where citizens could place such accusations without fear of anyone knowing who had made the statements.
Bodin was undoubtedly a sadist and took a keen interest in the tortures to be applied to prisoners and presided as a judge over many witch trials. One of his favoured methods of extracting confessions was to burn a red-hot iron into the prisoner's flesh, then cut out the burnt and damaged section. This delightful ex-priest paid particular regard to children. He thought they should be forced to testify against their parents and had no compunction in having children put to torture if necessary. Indeed, Bodin suggested that torture was best used on children and 'delicate' persons rather than on able-bodied adults. Children should also, he believed, be burnt at the stake if necessary. The only concession he would allow was for the child to be strangled at the last minute, before the fire was lit. Bodin died 1596, a victim of bubonic plague - surely a fitting end for such a fiend!
England experienced a major wave of witch mania during the Civil War, particularly under the influence of Matthew Hopkins, known as the Witch-Finder General. It is estimated that between 1563 and 1736, about 1,000 people lost their lives in England as alleged witches. In Scotland the persecution was greater and various estimates have been given of lives lost. The actual names of 1,800 witches were listed in 1938 by George F. Black, who had researched the subject, but it is generally believed that around 4,000 or more perished there. Contrast these figures with Europe where hundreds of thousands died.
In the years 1590 to 1592 Dr John Fian was accused, with about 200 others, at North Berwick of using witchcraft against King James 6th of Scotland (James 1st of England), a superstitious Christian bigot if ever there was one. The suspicious activities of a servant-girl, Gilly (or Gellie) Duncan resulted in her being tortured and in her agony uttering the names of an older woman, Agnes Sampson, and a schoolmaster, Dr John Fian, as being involved in the craft. When the Sampson woman was tortured she poured out a tale of amazing happenings, with witches flying through the air in sieves and the Devil himself appearing in the local church. Dr Fian at first escaped his persecutors but was arrested again and tortured. The thumbscrews were used on him and the boot. Both legs were crushed into a pulp, and then needles were forced under his fingernails, which were then torn off. Eventually, and reluctantly, Dr Fian, now more dead than alive, confessed and was finally strangled and burnt.
The vengeance of this King, servant of the Christ-god, knew no bounds. Many others faced court, including an extremely wealthy woman, Dame Euphemia Maclean. A number of lawyers dared even to defend her but to no avail; she was burnt alive, denying to the end that she had participated in any way in the forbidden ceremonies. Then there was the case of Barbara Napier. When the jury found the defendant not guilty and dismissed the case the King ordered the court to reassemble and demanded that the accused be strangled and burnt forthwith, and all her property handed over to him. The jury were then tried on the King's orders, because they had let a witch go free. Thus was justice dispensed in this era.
Soon James enacted laws that superseded the previous milder ones carried over from Elizabeth's days, backing his action with his own book, Daemonologie, in which he demanded that all witches be put to death 'according to the law of God.' Any form of witchcraft was now to be punished by death. What followed was a massacre. In the short period between 1603 and 1682 over 70,000 people were hanged, burnt or drowned as witches. This immense figure included men, women and children, but chiefly it was women who suffered, especially, but not always, the elderly. Earlier Reginald Scot had published a book, The Discovery of Witchcraft, that cast grave doubts upon all claimed evidence of witchcraft. The superstitious - and bloodthirsty - King would have none of it; he ordered any copies of Scot's book that could be found to be seized and burnt and made sure new print runs of his own book were issued. Censorship by Christians has a long history!
There was little possibility of a fair trial in this era. On the Continent especially, as happened during the Inquisition, lawyers refused to defend a suspected witch as they might lay themselves open to the charge of defending heresy! Thus prisoners were left to defend themselves as best they could in the face of all manner of false accusations, often uttered by hysterical teenage girls, uncomprehending children, or vindictive neighbours. It was said of the tortures faced by the witches on the Continent that even the most courageous would confess to any crime and welcome death, if only they could be released from the terrible pains they suffered. In one area of France, at Piedmont, it was said that almost every family had lost at least one member to the fires.
The torments of the witch suspects on the Continent make grim reading. Wilhelm Pressel left a description of the torture of a woman accused of witchcraft in Germany in 1629. Early in the morning the woman was taken from her dungeon, stripped, and her hands bound. Then the hangman cut off her hair and threw alcohol over her head, setting it alight to burn the hair to the roots. He then placed strips containing sulphur under her armpits and lit them. The woman next had a rope attached to her bound hands and was hauled up close to the ceiling and left hanging there for three hours while her jailer enjoyed a lengthy breakfast. She was then lowered again and alcohol was thrown over her back and set alight.
Again she was suspended from the ceiling, this time with heavy weights attached to her feet. The woman still refusing to confess, she was hauled down again and was forced onto a plank, which had nail-points protruding from its surface, meanwhile having her thumbs and big toes squeezed in vises. The woman fainted several times in her agony but was again hauled to the ceiling. Then her legs were squeezed in a vise and the jailer flogged her with a rawhide whip. By now it was midday and the jailer, before going off to his lunch, put the vises back on the woman's thumbs and toes and left her for the next three hours. Upon returning he set to work with the whip again. She confessed in the end and named 20 other women who, she said, went with her on night flights to sabbats. And this is merely one story in tens of thousands.
The Puritan Christians of America were also deeply involved in the outbreak of witch mania, especially in the city which had the doubtful distinction of becoming synonymous with this craze - Salem. The Puritans had settled in the State of Massachusetts, of which Salem was the chief town, and their preachers, Increase Mather and his son Cotton - who flourished towards the end of the 17th century - often warned the people in their sermons of the unseen forces of the Devil working in the world. Their preaching resulted in many innocent people suffering miserably, religious superstition once again triumphing over rationality.
Just who is this Devil, or Satan as he is often called? Christians derived the idea of such a malevolent personage from early pre-Christian religion. Most faiths, including the ancient religion of Zoroastrianism, along with the Muslim, the Hindu, and the Jewish, believe in evil spirits, variously described as jinns, or devils. These are thought to be opposed to the deities. There is a perfectly understandable reason for the evolution of such an evil personage. It is the very convenient way religion counters the fact that human life, if it is created by a god at all, is clearly an imperfect creation. It is a case of 'the Devil made me do it' syndrome.
The name Satan is derived from Hebrew sources. Much superstitious belief surrounds the figure of the Devil. Monks in medieval times sometimes claimed that the Devil himself or his minions, the lesser devils, whipped them. The Abbé Boileau said: 'Devils would often lay hold of men and flog them.' The Church writers claimed that the 'Father of Lies', i.e. the Devil, was moved to anger because of the holy lives of the saints. Saint Anthony claimed that the Devil paid frequent visits to him and lashed him often. It is more likely that the monks and saints whipped themselves during periods of religious ecstasy! Curiously many Christians still today believe in the reality of this Devil whose antecedents can be traced back into the psyche of primitive man.
Cotton Mather certainly believed. He was a prolific writer and produced in his lifetime - so it is claimed - 382 books, some perhaps slight but one in particular destined to have a profound, if evil, influence upon people, Wonders of the Invisible World (1692). Mather was later to regret having authored this book for it served to stir up among the common people the fear of witches and their alleged powers. Men and women were ready to seize on the slightest reason for believing in witchcraft and the capacity of witches to cause their enemies to suffer. Indeed, it was thought by the pious - and racist - Christians that the Indians surrounding them were in league with Satan who had free reign in that part of the earth before the coming of the white man!
One summer's day in Salem in the year 1688, the eldest daughter of John Godwin accused an Irish maidservant of stealing some of her clothing. The servant, protesting her innocence, ran off to her home. Her mother, Hannah Glover, was a widow, and the girl was an only child. The mother, who already had something of a reputation for dabbling in occult practices, brooded over the affair and fashioned a small doll which she pricked during the early hours before dawn of the next day. In the Godwin household during those same hours the eldest daughter suddenly cried out. She was stricken with convulsions and her tongue had fallen back into her throat, nearly choking her. Soon her brothers and sisters were also seized with strange paroxysms, throwing themselves about convulsively. Or so the story goes.
A doctor was called but was unable to help. The family turned to Cotton Mather, who prayed, and observed the strange behaviour of the children. Eventually the youngest daughter recovered and told those about her that she had experienced a nightmare, with fiery eyes burning in the dark and had heard strange mutterings all around the room. The matter then came to the attention of the Boston magistrates and accusations of witchcraft were levelled against Hannah Glover, who was brought before the court. She did not deny commerce with Satan and was condemned to death by hanging. Before she was executed she assured her persecutors that the children's sufferings would continue after she had died.
In time, with the passing of Hannah Glover, the outbreak of hysteria died down but in 1892 two young girls, Elizabeth Parris, 9, and Abigail Williams, 11, daughter and niece respectively of a Puritan minister, the Reverend Samuel Parris, experimented with divination. These activities possibly arose as a result of the girls' contact with Tituba, a female West Indian slave who worked for Mr Parris. The girls had both fallen ill afterwards and other girls, mostly somewhat older, who had also experimented with divination, fell ill too. Like the children in the earlier case the girls continued to remain ill in spite of all efforts to aid them and witchcraft was suspected.
At this point some concerned neighbours approached the West Indian woman and her husband, without the minister knowing, and asked them to bake a 'witch cake,' using meal mixed with the children's urine, which was fed to the minister's dog, this, presumably, to effect a cure, the animal being thought a familiar. The girls all now recovered from their illness and began to accuse Tituba, along with two old women of the village, Sarah Good and Sarah Osburn, of bewitching them. The Reverend Mr Parris was furious at what had been done and predicted that now the Devil was loose and there would be great trouble. On 1 March 1692, the three women were brought before the magistrates. The hearing did not go well, Sarah Osburn's husband and 4-year-old daughter testifying against her and Sarah Good displaying 'malice and deceit'. And whenever during the trial the children were brought face to face with the suspected witches they experienced convenient fits.
The trial dragged on for days and eventually the three women were consigned to prison and locked in chains without the matter being settled. Shortly after this Sarah Osburn died as a result of the privations experienced in prison. As spring and summer blossomed so did new outbreaks of hysteria among the young girls of Salem. Soon more accusations were thrown about and another innocent woman, Martha Corey, known as a devout church member, was being accused of witchcraft. She was accused by Ann Putnam, who told the magistrates that Martha had put a spell on her so she could not see the Devil or his creatures but 'there is a smell of brimstone, and I heard a sound like the grunting of a hog,' and for a long time she was blind. Martha Corey, protesting her innocence, was thrown into prison too.
Others soon followed. Rebecca Nurse, an elderly lady known for her piety, was brought to trial and in her presence young girls writhed and screamed as if in torment. 'I see a black man beside her, whispering in her ear,' one cried. This was enough. She too was cast into prison. Soon many joined them and the torturers got to work, seeking confessions not only of the accuseds' own involvement but endeavouring to implicate others in commerce with the Devil. The hangman was very active on Gallows Hill. One man, Giles Corey, refused to answer any questions and was subjected to peine forte et dure or pressing, until, after two days of suffering, he died. His death served to worry sensible citizens and a halt was called to the executions.
Eventually those still in prison had their sentences suspended, but could not be released before they paid both for the cost of their imprisonment and of making the chains that bound them! Some were unable to do so and remained in jail until the end of their days. Others went free but were impoverished. Within a year the mania had subsided, leaving behind the memory of 20 innocent people executed because of an outbreak of hysteria. Only one of the accusers ever expressed regret over her actions - Ann Putnam. She had been expelled from the church but in 1706 was received back after she admitted her faults before the congregation.
By the end of the 17th century belief in witchcraft was beginning to weaken in England, even so, Lord Chief Justice Hale maintained his belief up to 1676. England's laws prescribing death for witchcraft were repealed early in the 18th century. The last execution in England probably occurred in Exeter on 25 August 1682, when three women died, although some authorities give later dates. Meanwhile, in Scotland, as late as 1722 (or 1727 in some accounts), one Janet Horne was found guilty of using her daughter as a flying horse whom the Devil had shod, making her permanently lame. She was burnt to death in a tar-barrel at Dornoch. Witchcraft trials lingered on in Germany where, in 1749, a sub-prioress of a convent near Wursburg, Maria Renata, was tortured and burnt. One of the last of the German murders occurred in Bavaria in 1775 when Anna Maria Schwagel, a servant-girl, was accused of being bewitched by a coachman, with whom he had fallen in love. Her confession to the court read more like a description of erotic love-play than witchcraft but it was enough to condemn her. She participated, she confessed, with the coachman in sabbats dancing naked with other revellers. Both girl and coachman were beheaded and their bodies burnt.
In France a priest accused of divination was burnt at Lyons in 1745 and as late as 1818 in Spain Ana Barbero suffered a penalty of 200 lashes for 'making a pact with the Devil'. In Ireland the law which made witchcraft a crime punishable by death was not repealed until 1821 and in that country towards the end of the 19th century superstitious country Christians believed an old woman had been responsible for the failure of their crops. They killed her. As late as 1773, the Associated Presbytery in Scotland passed a resolution declaring its firm belief in the reality of witchcraft! And so strong has been the belief in witchcraft among British Christians that it was not until 1951 that England's ancient Witchcraft Act was repealed. And in the United States and my own country today there are still many naïve Christians who believe in the reality and power of both Witch and Devil.
