Perhaps the most memorable epoch in the annals of witchcraft is the date of the promulgation of the bull of Pope Innocent VIII., when its prosecution was formally sanctioned, enforced, and developed in the most explicit manner by the highest authority in the Church. It was in the year 1484 that Innocent VIII. issued his famous bull directed especially against the crime in Germany, whose inquisitors were empowered to seek out and burn the malefactors pro strigiatÛs hÆresi. The bull was as follows: 'Innocent, Bishop, servant of the servants of God, in order to the future memorial of the matter.... In truth it has come to our ears, not without immense trouble and grief to ourselves, that in some parts of Higher Germany ... very many persons of both sexes, deviating from the Catholic faith, abuse themselves with the demons, Incubus and Succubus; and by incantations, charms, conjurations, and other wicked superstitions, by criminal acts and offences have caused the offspring of women and of the lower animals, the fruits of the earth, the grape, and the products of various plants, men, women, and other animals of different kinds, vineyards, meadows, pasture land, corn, and other vegetables of the earth, to perish, be oppressed, and utterly destroyed; that they torture men and women with cruel pains and torments, internal as well as external; that they hinder the proper intercourse of the sexes, and the propagation of the human species. Moreover, they are in the habit of denying the very faith itself. We therefore, willing to provide by opportune remedies according as it falls to us by our office, by our apostolical authority, by the tenor of these presents do appoint and decree that they be convicted, imprisoned, punished, and mulcted according to their offences.... By the apostolic rescript given at Rome.'

This, in brief, is an outline of the proclamation of Innocent VIII., the principles of which were developed in the more voluminous work of the 'Malleus Maleficarum,'73 or Hammer of Witches, five years later. In the interval, the effect of so forcible an appeal from the Head of the Church was such as might be expected. Cumanus, one of the inquisitors in 1485, burned forty-one witches, first shaving them to search for 'marks.' Alciatus, a lawyer, tells us that another ecclesiastical officer burned one hundred witches in Piedmont, and was prevented in his plan of daily autos-da-fÉ only by a general uprising of the people, who at length drove him out of the country, when the archbishop succeeded to the vacant office. In several provinces, even the servile credulity of the populace could not tolerate the excesses of the judges; and the inhabitants rose en masse against their inquisitorial oppressors, dreading the entire depopulation of their neighbourhood. As a sort of apology for the bull of 1484 was published the 'Malleus'—a significantly expressive title.74 The authors appointed by the pope were Jacob Sprenger, of the Order of Preachers, and Professor of Theology in Cologne; John Gremper, priest, Master in Arts; and Henry Institor. The work is divisible, according to the title, into three parts—Things that pertain to Witchcraft; The Effects of Witchcraft; and The Remedies for Witchcraft.

In this apology the editors are careful to affirm that they collected, rather than furnished, their materials originally, and give as their venerable authorities the names of Dionysius the Areopagite, Chrysostom, Hilary, Augustin, Gregory I., Remigius, Thomas Aquinas, and others. The writers exult in the consciousness of security, in spite of the attempts of the demons, day and night, to deter them from completing their meritorious labours. Stratagems of every sort are employed in vain. In their judgment the worst species of human wickedness sink into nothing, compared with apostasy from the Church and, by consequence, alliance with hell. A genuine or pretended dread of sorcery, and an affected contempt for the female sex, with an extremely low estimate of its virtues (adopting the language of the Fathers), characterises the opinions of the compilers.

Ennemoser has made an abstract from the 'Demonomagie' of Horst (founded on Hauber's original work), of the 'Hexenhammer,' under its three principal divisions. The third part, which contains the Criminal Code, and consists of thirty-five questions, is the most important section. It is difficult to decide which is the more astonishing, the perfect folly or the perfect iniquity of the Code: it is easier to understand how so many thousands of victims were helplessly sacrificed. The arrest might take place on the simple rumour of a witch being found somewhere, without any previous denunciation. The most abandoned and the most infamous persons may be witnesses: no criminal is too bad. Even a witch or heretic (the worst criminal in the eye of ecclesiastical law) is capable of giving evidence. Husbands and wives may witness one against the other; and the testimony of children was received as good evidence.

The ninth and tenth chapters consider the question 'whether a defence was to be allowed; if an advocate defended his client beyond what was requisite, whether it was not reasonable that he too should be considered guilty; for he is a patron of witches and heretics.... Thirteenth chapter: What the judge has to notice in the torture-chamber. Witches who have given themselves up for years, body and soul, to the devil, are made by him so insensible to pain on the rack, that they rather allow themselves to be torn to pieces than confess. Fourteenth chapter: Upon torture and the mode of racking. In order to bring the accused to voluntary confession, you may promise her her life; which promise, however, may afterwards be withdrawn. If the witch does not confess the first day, the torture to be continued the second and third days. But here the difference between continuing and repeating is important. The torture may not be continued without fresh evidence, but it may be repeated according to judgment. Fifteenth chapter: Continuance of the discovery of a witch by her marks. Amongst other signs, weeping is one. It is a damning thing if the accused, on being brought up, cannot shed tears. The clergy and judges lay their hands on the head of the accused, and adjure her by the hot tears of the Most Glorified Virgin that in case of her innocence, she shed abundant tears in the name of God the Father.'75

The 'Bull' and 'Malleus' were the code and textbook of Witchcraft amongst the Catholics, as the Act and 'Demonologie' of James VI. were of the Protestants. Perhaps the most important result of the former was to withdraw entirely the authorised prosecution and punishment of the criminals from the civil to the ecclesiastical tribunals. Formerly they had a divided jurisdiction. At the same time the fury of popular and judicial fanaticism was greatly inflamed by this new sanction. Immediately, and almost simultaneously, in different parts of Europe, heretical witches were hunted up, tortured, burned, or hanged; and those parts of the Continent most infected with the widening heresy suffered most. The greater number in Germany seems to show that the dissentients from Catholic dogma there were rapidly increasing, some time before Luther thundered out his denunciations. An unusual storm of thunder and lightning in the neighbourhood of Constance was the occasion of burning two old women, Ann Mindelen and one 'Agnes.'76 One contemporary writer asserts that 1,000 persons were put to death in one year in the district of Como; and Remigius, one of the authorised inquisitores pravitatis hÆreticÆ, boasts of having burned 900 in the course of fifteen years. Martin del Rio states 500 were executed in Geneva in the short space of three months in 1515; and during the next five years 40 were burned at Ravensburgh. Great numbers suffered in France at the same period. At Calahorra, in Spain, in 1507, a vast auto-da-fÉ was exhibited, when 39 women, denounced as sorceresses, were committed to the flames—religious carnage attested by the unsuspected evidence of the judges and executioners themselves.

It is opportune here to examine the common beliefs of demonology and sorcery as they existed in Europe. Christian demonology is a confused mixture of pagan, Oriental, and Christian ideas. The Christian Scriptures have seemed to suggest and sanction a constant personal interference of the 'great adversary,' who is always traversing the earth 'seeking whom he may devour;' and his popular figure is represented as a union of the great dragon, the satyrs, and fauns. Nor does he often appear without one or other of his recognised marks—the cloven foot, the goat's horns, beard, and legs, or the dragon's tail. With young and good-looking witches he is careful to assume the recommendations of a young and handsome man, whilst it is not worth while to disguise so unprepossessing peculiarities in his incarnate manifestations to old women, the enjoyment of whose souls is the great purpose of seduction.

Sir Thomas Browne ('Vulgar Errors'), a man of much learning and still more superstitious fancy, speciously explains the phenomenon of the cloven foot. He suggests that 'the ground of this opinion at first might be his frequent appearing in the shape of a goat, which answers this description. This was the opinion of the ancient Christians concerning the apparitions of panites, fauns, and satyrs: and of this form we read of one that appeared to Anthony in the wilderness. The same is also confirmed from exposition of Holy Scripture. For whereas it is said "Thou shalt not offer unto devils," the original word is Seghuirim, i. e. rough and hairy goats; because in that shape the devil most often appeared, as is expounded by the rabbins, as Tremellius hath also explained; and as the word Ascimah, the God of Emath, is by some explained.' Dr. Joseph Mede, a pious and learned divine, author of the esteemed 'Key to the Apocalypse,' pronounces that 'the devil could not appear in human shape while man was in his integrity, because he was a spirit fallen from his first glorious perfection, and therefore must appear in such shape which might argue his imperfection and abasement, which was the shape of a beast; otherwise [he plausibly contends] no reason can be given why he should not rather have appeared to Eve in the shape of a woman than of a serpent. But since the fall of man the case is altered; now we know he can take upon him the shape of a man. He appears in the shape of man's imperfection rather for age or deformity, as like an old man (for so the witches say); and, perhaps, it is not altogether false, which is vulgarly affirmed, that the devil appearing in human shape has always a deformity of some uncouth member or other, as though he could not yet take upon him human shape entirely, for that man is not entirely and utterly fallen as he is.' Whatever form he may assume, the cloven foot must always be visible under every disguise; and Othello looks first for that fabulous but certain sign when he scrutinises his treacherous friend.

Reginald Scot's reminiscences of what was instilled into him in the nursery may possibly occur to some even at this day. 'In our childhood,' he complains, 'our mothers' maids have so terrified us with an ugly devil having horns on his head, fire in his mouth, a tail in his breech, eyes like a bison, fangs like a dog, a skin like a niger, a voice roaring like a lion, whereby we start and are afraid when we hear one cry Boh!' Chaucer has expressed the belief of his age on the subject. It seems to have been a proper duty of a parish priest to bring to the notice of his ecclesiastical superior, with other crimes, those of sorcery. The Friar describes his 'Erchedeken' as one—

This ecclesiastic employed in his service a subordinate 'sompnour,' who, in the course of his official duty, one day meets a devil, whose 'dwellynge is in Helle,' who condescends to enlighten the officer on the dark subject of demon-apparitions:—

To the question why they are not satisfied with one shape for all occasions, the devil answers at length:—

Jewish theology, expanded by their leading divines, includes a formidable array of various demons; and the whole of nature in Christian belief was peopled with every kind

Various opinions have been held concerning the nature of devils and demons. Some have maintained, with Tertullian, that they are 'the souls of baser men.' It is a disputed question whether they are mortal or immortal; subject to, or free from, pain. 'Psellus, a Christian, and sometime tutor to Michael Pompinatius, Emperor of Greece, a great observer of the nature of devils, holds they are corporeal, and live and die: ... that they feel pain if they be hurt (which Cardan confirms, and Scaliger justly laughs him to scorn for); and if their bodies be cut, with admirable celerity they come together again. Austin approves as much; so doth Hierome, Origen, Tertullian, Lactantius, and many eminent fathers of the Church; that in their fall their bodies were changed into a more aerial and gross substance.' The Platonists and some rabbis, Porphyrius, Plutarch, Zosimus, &c., hold this opinion, which is scornfully denied by some others, who assert that they only deceive the eyes of men, effecting no real change. Cardan believes 'they feed on men's souls, and so [a worthy origin] belike that we have so many battles fought in all ages, countries, is to make them a feast and their sole delight: but if displeased they fret and chafe (for they feed belike on the souls of beasts, as we do on their bodies) and send many plagues amongst us.'

Their exact numbers and orders are differently estimated by different authorities. It is certain that they fill the air, the earth, the water, as well as the subterranean globe. The air, according to Paracelsus, is not so full of flies in summer as it is at all times of invisible devils. Some writers, professing to follow Socrates and Plato, determine nine sorts. Whatever or wherever the supralunary may be, our world is more interested in the sublunary tribes. These are variously divided and subdivided. One authority computes six distinct kinds—Fiery, Aerial, Terrestrial, Watery, Subterranean and Central: these last inhabiting the central regions of the interior of the earth. The Fiery are those that work 'by blazing stars, fire-drakes; they counterfeit suns and moons, stars oftentimes. The Aerial live, for the most part, in the air, cause many tempests, thunder and lightning, tear oaks, fire steeples, houses; strike men and beasts; make it rain stones, as in Livy's time, wool, frogs, &c.; counterfeit armies in the air, strange noises ... all which Guil. Postellus useth as an argument (as, indeed, it is) to persuade them that will not believe there be spirits or devils. They cause whirlwinds on a sudden and tempestuous storms, which, though our meteorologists generally refer to natural causes, yet I am of Bodine's mind, they are more often caused by those aerial devils in their several quarters; for they ride on the storms as when a desperate man makes away with himself, which, by hanging or drowning, they frequently do, as Kormannus observes, tripudium agentes, dancing and rejoicing at the death of a sinner. These can corrupt the air, and cause sickness, plagues, storms, shipwrecks, fires, inundations.... Nothing so familiar (if we may believe those relations of Saxo Grammaticus, Olaus Magnus, &c.) as for witches and sorcerers in Lapland, Lithuania, and all over Scandia to sell winds to mariners and cause tempests, which Marcus Paulus, the Venetian, relates likewise of the Tartars.78

'These are they which Cardan thinks desire so much carnal copulation with witches (Incubi and Succubi), transform bodies, and are so very cold if they be touched, and that serve magicians.... Water devils are those naiads or water nymphs which have been heretofore conversant about waters and rivers. The water (as Paracelsus thinks) is their chaos, wherein they live ... appearing most part (saith Trithemius) in women's shapes. Paracelsus hath several stories of them that have lived and been married to mortal men, and so continued for certain years with them, and after, upon some dislike, have forsaken them. Such an one was Egeria, with whom Numa was so familiar, Diana, Ceres, &c.... Terrestrial devils are Lares, Genii, Fauns, Satyrs, Wood-nymphs, Foliots, Fairies, Robin Goodfellows, Trulli; which, as they are most conversant with men, so they do them most harm. Some think it was they alone that kept the heathen people in awe of old.... Subterranean devils are as common as the rest, and do as much harm. Olaus Magnus makes six kinds of them, some bigger, some less, commonly seen about mines of metals, and are some of them noxious; some again do no harm (they are guardians of treasure in the earth, and cause earthquakes). The last (sort) are conversant about the centre of the earth, to torture the souls of damned men to the day of judgment; their egress and ingress some suppose to be about Ætna, Lipari, Hecla, Vesuvius, Terra del Fuego, because many shrieks and fearful cries are continually heard thereabouts, and familiar apparitions of dead men, ghosts, and goblins.'

As for the particular offices and operations of those various tribes, 'Plato, in Critias, and after him his followers, gave out that they were men's governors and keepers, our lords and masters, as we are of our cattle. They govern provinces and kingdoms by oracles, auguries, dreams, rewards and punishments, prophecies, inspirations, sacrifices and religious superstitions, varied in as many forms as there be diversity of spirits; they send wars, plagues, peace, sickness, health, dearth, plenty, as appears by those histories of Thucydides, Livius, Dionysius Halicarnassensis, with many others, that are full of their wonderful stratagems.' They formerly devoted themselves, each one, to the service of particular individuals as familiar demons, 'private spirits.' Numa, Socrates, and many others were indebted to their Genius. The power of the devil is not limited to the body. 'Many think he can work upon the body, but not upon the mind. But experience pronounceth otherwise, that he can work both upon body and mind. Tertullian is of this opinion.'

The causes and inducements of 'possession' are many. One writer affirms that 'the devil being a slender, incomprehensible spirit can easily insinuate and wind himself into human bodies, and cunningly couched in our bowels, vitiate our healths, terrify our souls with fearful dreams, and shake our minds with furies. They go in and out of our bodies as bees do in a hive, and so provoke and tempt us as they perceive our temperature inclined of itself and most apt to be deluded.... Agrippa and Lavater are persuaded that this humour [the melancholy] invites the devil into it, wheresoever it is in extremity, and, of all other, melancholy persons are most subject to diabolical temptations and illusions, and most apt to entertain them, and the devil best able to work upon them. 'But whether,' declares Burton, 'by obsession, or possession, or otherwise, I will not determine; 'tis a difficult question.'79

The mediÆvalists believed themselves surrounded everywhere by spiritual beings; but unlike the ancients, they were convinced not so much that they were the peculiar care of heaven as that they were the miserable victims of hellish malice, ever seeking their temporal as well as eternal destruction; a fact apparent in the whole mediÆval literature and art.80

Glanvil's conjectures on the cause of the comparative rarity of demoniac and other spiritual apparitions in general may interest the credulous or curious reader. ''Tis very probable,' reasons the Doctor, 'that the state wherein they are will not easily permit palpable intercourses between the bad genii and mankind: since 'tis like enough their own laws and government do not allow their frequent excursions into the world. Or it may with great probability be supposed that 'tis a very hard and painful thing for them to force their thin and tenuious bodies into a visible consistence, and such shapes as are necessary for their designs in their correspondence with witches. For in this action their bodies must needs be exceedingly compressed, which cannot well be without a painful sense. And this is, perhaps, a reason why there are so few apparitions, and why appearing spirits are commonly in such a hurry to be gone, viz. that they may be delivered of the unnatural pressure of their tender vehicles,81 which I confess holds more in the apparition of good than evil spirits ... the reason of which probably is the greater subtlety and tenuity of the former, which will require far greater degrees of compression and consequently of pain to make them visible; whereas the latter are feculent and gross, and so nearer allied to palpable existences, and more easily reducible to appearance and visibility.'82

'Palpable intercourses between the bad genii and mankind' are more frequent than Dr. Glanvil was disposed to believe; and he must have been conversant with the acts of Incubus and Succubus. In the first age (orbe novo coeloque recenti) under the Saturnian regime, 'while yet there was no fear of Jove,'83 innocence prevailed undisturbed; but soon as the silver age was inaugurated by the usurpation of Jove, liaisons between gods and mortals became frequent. Love affairs between good or bad 'genii' and mankind are of common occurrence in the mythology of most peoples. In the romance-tales of the middle age lovers find themselves unexpectedly connected with some mysterious being of inhuman kind. The writers in defence of witchcraft quote Genesis vi. in proof of the reality of such intercourses; and Justin Martyr and Tertullian, the great apologists of Christianity, and others of the Fathers, interpret Filios Dei to be angels or evil spirits who, enamoured with the beauty of the women, begot the primeval giants.84

Some tremendous results of diabolic connections appear in the metrical romances of the twelfth or thirteenth century, as well as in those early Anglo-Norman chroniclers or fabulists, who have been at the pains to inform us of the pre-historic events of their country. The author of the romance-poem of the well-known Merlin—so famous in British prophecy—in introducing his hero, enters upon a long dissertation on the origin of the infernal arts. He informs us on the authority of 'David the prophet, and of Moses,' that the greater part of the angels who rebelled under the leadership of Lucifer, lost their former power and beauty, and became 'fiendes black:' that instead of being precipitated into 'helle-pit,' many remained in mid-air, where they still retain the faculty of seducing mortals by assuming whatever shape they please. These had been much concerned at the miraculous birth of Christ; but it was hoped to counteract the salutary effects of that event, by producing from some virgin a semi-demon, whose office it should be to disseminate sorcerers and wicked men. For this purpose the devil85 prepares to seduce three young sisters; and proceeds at once in proper disguise to an old woman, with whose avarice and cunning he was well acquainted. Her he engaged by liberal promises to be mediatrix in the seduction of the elder sister, whom he was prevented from attempting in person by the precautions of a holy hermit. Like 'the first that fell of womankind,' the young lady at length consented; was betrayed by the fictitious youth, and condemned by the law to be burnt alive.

The same fate, excepting the fearful penalty, awaited the second. And now, too late, the holy hermit became aware of his disastrous negligence. He strictly enjoined on the third and remaining sister a constant watch. Her security, however, was the cause of her betrayal. On one occasion, in a moment of remissness, she forgot her prayers and the sign of the cross, before retiring for the night. No longer excluded, the fiend, assuming human shape, effected his purpose. In due time a son was born, whose parentage was sufficiently evinced by an entire covering of black hair, although his limbs were well-formed, and his features fine. Fortunately, the careless guardian had exactly calculated the moment of the demon's birth; and no sooner was he informed of the event, than the new-born infant was borne off to the regenerating water, when he was christened by the name of Merlin; the fond hopes of the demons being for this time, at least, irretrievably disappointed. How Merlin, by superhuman prowess and knowledge, defeated the Saracens (Saxons) in many bloody battles; his magical achievements and favour at the court of King Vortigern and his successors, are fully exhibited by the author of the history.86 Geoffrey of Monmouth recounts them as matters of fact; and they are repeated by Vergil in the History of Britain, composed under the auspices of Henry VIII.

By the ancients, whole peoples were sometimes said to be derived from these unholy connections. Jornandes, the historian of the Goths, is glad to be able to relate their hated rivals, the Huns (of whom the Kalmuck Tartars are commonly said to be the modern representatives), to have owed their origin to an intercourse of the Scythian witches with infernal spirits. The extraordinary form and features of those dreaded emigrants from the steppes of Tartary, had suggested to the fear and hatred of their European subjects, a fable which Gibbon supposes might have been derived from a more pleasing one of the Greeks.87

The acts of Incubus assume an important part in witch-trials and confessions. Incubus is the visitor of females, Succubus of males. Chaucer satirises the gallantries of the vicarious Incubus by the mouth of the wife of Bath (that practical admirer of Solomon and the Samaritan woman),88 who prefaces her tale with the assurance:—

Reginald Scot has devoted several chapters of his work to a relation of the exploits of Incubus.89 But he honestly warns his readers 'whose chaste ears cannot well endure to hear of such lecheries (gathered out of the books of divinity of great authority) to turn over a few leaves wherein I have, like a groom, thrust their stuff, even that which I myself loath, as into a stinking corner: howbeit none otherwise, I hope, but that the other parts of my writing shall remain sweet.' He repeats a story from the 'Vita Hieronymi,' which seems to insinuate some suspicion of the character of a certain Bishop Sylvanus. It relates that one night Incubus invaded a certain lady's bedroom. Indignant at so unusual, or at least disguised, an apparition, the lady cried out loudly until the guests of the house came and found it under the bed in the likeness of the bishop; 'which holy man,' adds Scot, 'was much defamed thereby.' Another tradition or legend seems to reflect upon the chastity of the greatest saint of the Middle Ages.90 The superhuman oppression of Incubus is still remembered in the proverbial language of the present day. The horrors of the infernal compacts and leagues, as exhibited in the fates of wizards or magicians at the last hour, formed one of the most popular scenes on the theatrical stage. Christopher Marlow, in 'The Life and Death of Dr. Faustus,' and Robert Greene, in 'Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay,' in the Elizabethan age, dramatised the common, conception of the Compact.

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