Malleaus maleficarum

The Catholic Inquisition published a book that was probably the bloodiest work in the history of humanity: the “Malleaus maleficarum”, “the witches’ hammer”, had indoctrinated the world on the “danger of free-thinking women and taught to the clergy how to locate them, torture them, and destroy them.
The category of so-called “witches”, defined thus by the Church, included all women:
– educated,
– the priestesses,
– the gypsies,
– nature lovers,
– herbalists
– and many women “suspiciously linked to the natural world.
Midwives were also killed for their heretical practice of using medical knowledge to alleviate the pain of childbirth, a suffering, the Church proclaimed, which was God’s just punishment because Eve had wanted to taste the Fruit of Knowledge, with the consequent original sin .
In three hundred years of witch hunts, the Church had burned hundreds of thousands of women at the stake.
The propaganda and bloodshed had worked.
Today’s world is living proof of this. The woman, once celebrated as the essential half of spiritual enlightenment, had been banished from the temples of the world.
There were no female Orthodox rabbis, no Catholic priestesses, no women of religion, no Islamic imams.
The once sacred act of “hieros gamos”, the natural sexual union between man and woman, with which each of the two acquired spiritual unity, had been redefined as a sin.
Men of faith, who once needed sexual union with their female equivalents to commune with God, now feared their natural sexual impulses and saw them as the work of the devil, who worked with his favorite accomplice, the woman.
Not even the association between the left side and the feminine had escaped the defamation of the Church. In France and Italy, left and left had taken on a negative connotation, while the terms relating to the right took on a connotation of justice, correctness and skill. Even today, everything evil is considered “sinister.”
The goddess’s days were over.
The swing had swung the pendulum the other way. Mother Earth had become a world of men, and the gods of destruction and war had taken their terrible toll.
For two millennia the male ego had no longer been held back by its female counterpart. This elimination of the sacred feminine in modern life has caused what the Hopi Americans call “kojanisquatsi” – life without balance – a situation of instability marked by wars fueled by testosterone, a plethora of misogynistic societies and a growing lack of respect for Mother Earth! 

THE PENDLE WITCHES

On August 20th 1612 ten people convicted of witchcraft at the Summer Assize held in Lancaster Castle went to the gallows on the moors above the town. Among their number were two men and a woman in her eighties. Their crimes included laming, causing madness and what was termed “simple” witchcraft. In addition to this some sixteen unexplained deaths, many stretching back decades, were laid at their door.

Lancashire, in the early years of the seventeenth century, was remote, its roads poor, its people ill-educated. Throughout the county there were places where the outside world hardly intruded, and one such area was Pendle Forest. It was here, among stark hillsides, infertile valleys and scattered hamlets, that the story of the Pendle Witches had its beginnings.

AN ILL-FATED MEETING

On March 18th 1612 a young woman by the name of Alison Device was out begging on the road to Colne. She stopped a peddler from Halifax, John Law, and asked him for a pin. He refused her request and walked away. According to Alison’s own testimony her ‘familiar spirit’ in the shape of a dog, appeared to her and asked if she would like him to harm Law. Alison was new to the art of witchcraft, indeed she seems to have resisted being indoctrinated into what was in effect the family business. But now she agreed that Law must be punished and she told the dog to lame the peddler. No doubt to her great surprise, the curse took immediate effect and Law fell to the ground, paralysed down one side (presumably by a stroke) and unable to speak. He was taken to a local inn and later Alison was brought to his bedside. She admitted her part in his illness and begged his forgiveness, which he gave. However, Law’s son Abraham had become involved, and he was far from satisfied. He took the matter to Roger Nowell the local magistrate, and from there things snowballed at an alarming rate. After hearing the most awful admissions from those he interviewed, Nowell made many arrests. By the end of April nineteen people (including a group from Samlesbury and Isobel Roby from Windle) were incarcerated in Lancaster Castle, awaiting trial at the August Assize.

THE PENDLE ACCUSED AND THEIR CRIMES

The most famous of the Pendle witches actually died before coming to trial. Elizabeth Southernes (“Old Demdike”) had admitted to Nowell that she was a witch. In so doing she also implicated many of her co-accused, as did Anne Whittle (“Old Chattox”) who was herself accused of the murder by witchcraft of Robert Nutter. Also implicated were members of both their families: Elizabeth Device, Demdike’s daughter, was accused of two murders, as was her son James, while Alison was to stand trial for what she had done to John Law on that fateful spring day five months before. Anne Redfearne, Chattox’s daughter, stood accused of the murder of Christopher Nutter eighteen years previously.

Others were dragged into the affair: John and Jane Bulcock, a mother and her son, were tried for causing madness, and for being at a so-called Witches Sabbath held at Malkin Tower on Good Friday 1612; Alice Nutter from Roughlee Hall, was accused of killing one Henry Mitton because he refused to give Demdike a penny; Margaret Pearson was accused of bewitching one of her neighbour’s horses to death, and Katherine Hewitt was accused of the murder of Ann Foulds.

THE TRIALS; DAY ONE

Lancaster formed part of the Northern Circuit, and the Assize Court judges visited the town twice a year. The trials commenced on Tuesday 18th August with Sir Edward Bromley presiding. First into the dock was Old Chattox. She was accused of the murder of Robert Nutter some eighteen years previously. She pleaded not guilty, but eventually confessed when confronted by evidence given by Demdike and James Device to Roger Nowell back in April. Elizabeth Device followed her into court. She stood charged with three counts of murder, accusations she vehemently denied. However, the Prosecution had a star witness in the form of Elizabeth’s own nine year old daughter Jennet. Her evidence was devastating, and Elizabeth was so overcome with anger that she had to be removed from court. Jennet told of familiar spirits, of the making of clay images in order to cause death, of the Sabbath supposedly held at Malkin Tower on Good Friday, where it was decided to blow up the castle and kill the Governor, Thomas Covell, in order to free those imprisoned there. She spoke of witches mounting ponies and flying off on them before vanishing into thin air. Inevitably, Elizabeth was found guilty as well.

James Device was tried next. He was in a pitiable condition, and may even have been physically ill-treated during his imprisonment. However, there was little sympathy for him and after more hearsay evidence, and his own testimony, he was found guilty along with Elizabeth Device and Anne Whittle.

THE SAMLESBURY WITCHES

Although nothing to do with the Pendle case this trial is extremely interesting, because it hints at a hidden agenda behind all the trials. Three women were accused of practising witchcraft on the person of Grace Sowerbutts, a teenage girl who was related to the defendants. However, the accused were able to “convince” the judge that they were victims of a Catholic plot, and were all acquitted.

THE TRIALS: DAY TWO

Anne Redfearne had already been acquitted of one murder. Now she was tried for killing Christopher Nutter eighteen years previously. The evidence hinged on Nutter’s daughter remembering that her father believed he was the victim of a curse. She had also been seen making clay images by James Device. Anne was found guilty. Next into the dock was Alice Nutter. She was a gentlewoman, and the evidence against her was flimsy. However, her fate was sealed by Jennet Device, who identified her as being present at the infamous Sabbath. Alice too, was convicted. The trial of Katherine Hewitt “Mouldheels” went much the same way, with little Jennet again the star witness. Katherine was convicted as well. Jennet’s evidence against John and Jane Bulcock was even more slight: she remembered John turning a spit on which they had roasted a lamb that Good Friday. It was illegal to aid or assist a witch, and this was enough in 1612, along with other hearsay evidence, to seal the fate of both defendants.

Margaret Pearson was tried for killing a horse by riding it to death (“Hag Ridden” from which we get the modern word “haggard”) She was convicted, although ultimately not condemned.

Alizon Device was the last of the Pendle witches to be tried. Unusually, the key witness against her was also the victim: John Law. He was the object of much pity, as his brush with Alison had left him crippled. When he was assisted into court Alison rushed to him and begged his forgiveness once more, which he again gave. The court was moved to ask her if she could help restore him to health. She told them she was not powerful enough, but that Old Demdike, had she lived, could have done so. Alison was found guilty.

Isobel Roby, from Windle, also stood trial on charges of witchcraft at this Assize, and she too was convicted.

All that remained was for the sentences to be handed down. Bromley had little option: under the terms of the 1604 Witchcraft Act all the accused had been found guilty of crimes punishable by death. On August 20th 1612 the ten condemned prisoners were taken to the moors above the town and hanged.

A WONDERFULL DISCOVERIE

The trials in Lancaster in August 1612 are among the most famous witchcraft trials in history. This is mainly due to the fact that we have a very full (albeit biased) account of them, left to us by the Clerk of the Court, Thomas Potts. In 1613 he published his account of these events in a book entitled “The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster.” This is our only real primary source for what was going on in the more remote areas of Lancashire over all those years, and Potts was writing for an audience which included King James I himself, and one which was more than ready to believe in the existence of such evil. This was also a time of great tension, and of anti-Catholic rhetoric. The Gunpowder Plot was still fresh in the memory, and Potts chose to dedicate his book to Lord Knyvett, the man who had actually arrested Guy Fawkes in 1605. Politics and religion played their part in the prosecutions and convictions in Lancaster in 1612, but the inescapable fact remains that at the end of the day ten people lost their lives, found guilty of a crime that no longer even officially exists.

Rebecca Nurse Salem: The Tragic Fate of an Innocent Woman

Rebecca Nurse is a prominent figure in the history of the Salem Witch Trials. She was born in 1621 in Great Yarmouth, England, and later immigrated to the Massachusetts Bay Colony with her family in 1640. Rebecca was known for her piety, kindness, and generosity, and was highly respected in the community.

In 1692, the Salem Witch Trials began, and Rebecca was accused of witchcraft along with several other women in the community. Despite her reputation and the lack of evidence against her, she was found guilty and sentenced to death by hanging. Her execution on July 19, 1692, was met with outrage and disbelief, as many believed her to be innocent and wrongly accused.

Background

Rebecca Nurse was a well-respected member of the Salem Village community during the witchcraft trials of 1692. She was born Rebecca Towne in 1621 in Great Yarmouth, England, and was one of eight children. Her family moved to America in the early 1630s, settling in Salem, Massachusetts.

Early Life of Rebecca Nurse

Rebecca Towne grew up in a Puritan family, and her parents were active members of the Salem church. She married Francis Nurse in 1644, and they had eight children together. Rebecca was known for her kind and gentle nature, and was well-liked in the community.

Rebecca Nurse in Salem Village

Rebecca Nurse and her husband were active members of the Salem Village church, and were known for their piety and devotion to their faith. However, in 1692, Rebecca was accused of witchcraft by several of her neighbours. Despite her reputation for being a devout Christian and a kind and gentle person, she was arrested and put on trial.

Rebecca’s trial was a farce, with the accusers making wild and baseless accusations against her. Despite her protests of innocence, she was found guilty and sentenced to death. On July 19, 1692, Rebecca Nurse was hanged on Gallows Hill along with four other accused witches.

Rebecca Nurse’s story is a tragic reminder of the dangers of mass hysteria and the importance of due process and the presumption of innocence.

Accusations and Trials

Accusation of Rebecca Nurse

Rebecca Nurse was accused of witchcraft in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692. She was a respected member of the community and a devoutly religious woman. However, her accusers claimed that she had been involved in witchcraft and had caused harm to the people of Salem.

The accusations against Nurse began when several young girls, including Abigail Williams and Betty Parris, began to exhibit strange behavior. They claimed to be possessed by the devil and accused several people in the community of practicing witchcraft. Nurse was one of the accused.

The Trial of Rebecca Nurse

Nurse was brought to trial on June 30, 1692. The trial was held in the Salem meetinghouse and was presided over by the Deputy Governor, Thomas Danforth. The prosecution presented several witnesses who claimed that Nurse had been involved in witchcraft.

Nurse, however, maintained her innocence throughout the trial. She argued that she was a Christian woman and had never been involved in witchcraft. She also pointed out that she had been a respected member of the community for many years.

Despite her protestations of innocence, Nurse was found guilty of witchcraft and sentenced to death. She was hanged on July 19, 1692, along with four other women who had also been accused of witchcraft.

The trial of Rebecca Nurse was one of the most controversial of the Salem witch trials. Many people in the community believed that Nurse was innocent and had been wrongly accused. Her execution was seen as a great injustice and is still remembered today as a tragic moment in American history.

Elizabeth Cogan Holley Kendall: Executed in the Salem Witch Trials of 1590-1643

Elizabeth Cogan Holley Kendall was one of the many victims of the infamous Salem witch trials that took place in Massachusetts in 1692. She was born in 1590 and was executed in 1643, accused of witchcraft and consorting with the devil. Kendall was one of the 20 people who were executed during the trials, which lasted for several months and resulted in the deaths of innocent people.

The Salem witch trials were a dark period in American history, where hysteria and fear led to the persecution of innocent people. Elizabeth Cogan Holley Kendall was one of the many victims of this tragedy. She was accused of practising witchcraft and was put on trial, along with several other women. Despite her protests of innocence, she was found guilty and was sentenced to death by hanging. Her execution was a stark reminder of the dangers of mass hysteria and the importance of due process of law.

The story of Elizabeth Cogan Holley Kendall is a tragic one, but it serves as a reminder of the importance of justice and fairness in any society. The Salem witch trials were a dark chapter in American history, but they also provide us with valuable lessons about the dangers of fear and hysteria. Kendall’s story is just one of many, but it is a powerful reminder of the need to protect the rights of the accused and to ensure that justice is served, even in the face of overwhelming public opinion.

Background

Elizabeth Cogan Holley Kendall was one of the 19 people executed during the Salem witch trials in 1692. She was born in 1643 in Weymouth, Massachusetts, to John and Alice Cogan.

Early Life

Elizabeth grew up in a Puritan family, and her father was a prominent member of the community. She received a basic education and learned household skills such as sewing and cooking.

Marriage and Family

In 1663, Elizabeth married William Holley, a farmer from Salem Village. They had six children together, but only three survived infancy. William died in 1682, leaving Elizabeth a widow.

In 1683, Elizabeth married her second husband, Thomas Kendall, a wealthy merchant from nearby Reading. Thomas had several children from a previous marriage, and he and Elizabeth had one child together.

Despite her respectable position in society, Elizabeth was accused of witchcraft in 1692. She was arrested, tried, and found guilty. On July 19, 1692, she was hanged on Gallows Hill in Salem along with four other accused witches.

The Salem witch trials were a tragic period in American history, and Elizabeth Cogan Holley Kendall’s story is a reminder of the dangers of mass hysteria and the importance of due process.

Accusation and Trial

Arrest and Accusation

Elizabeth Cogan Holley Kendall was arrested on May 28, 1643, after being accused of witchcraft by her neighbor, Mary Warren. According to Warren, Kendall had sent her spirit to afflict her with fits and pains. Other neighbors also accused Kendall of causing them harm through witchcraft.

Trial and Execution

Kendall was brought to trial on June 1, 1643. The trial was presided over by Chief Magistrate John Hathorne and Deputy Governor John Endecott. During the trial, several witnesses testified against Kendall, including Mary Warren and other neighbors who claimed to have been harmed by her.

Kendall denied the accusations and proclaimed her innocence. However, her defense was weak, and the court found her guilty of witchcraft. She was sentenced to be hanged on June 10, 1643.

On the day of her execution, Kendall was led to the gallows, where she made a final statement proclaiming her innocence. She was then hanged, becoming one of the many victims of the Salem Witch Trials.

Overall, Elizabeth Cogan Holley Kendall’s trial and execution were a tragic example of the hysteria and injustice that characterized the Salem Witch Trials.

Bury St. Edmonds Witches

Bury St. Edmonds Witches Of the various witch trials of Suffolk, England, conducted in Bury St. Edmonds during the 17th century, two episodes stand out.

In 1645, 68 witches went to their deaths on the gallows, victims of the witch-hunting zeal of Matthew Hopkins and John

Stearne. Seventeen years later, in 1662, Sir Matthew Hale presided over trials that led to the condemnation and execution of two witches based on the flimsy spectral evidence of hysterical, “possessed” children.

The 1662 trials heavily influenced officials of the Salem witch trials
in 1692–93, the worst witch incident in the history of America Bury St. Edmonds Witches.

The Hopkins trials. In 1645 Matthew Hopkins, England’s most notorious witch-hunter, and his associate, John Stearne, a rigid Puritan, were storming about the countryside routing out “witches” in exchange for exorbitant fees.

Using unscrupulous methods to extract confessions, the witch-hunters, according to surviving records, charged at least 124 Suffolk men and women with witchcraft, who were tried at Bury St. Edmonds in August.

Most of the “confessions” concerned the possession by evil imps, the making of compacts with the Devil, and having carnal relations with the Devil, the latter of which was guaranteed to inflame Puritan outrage.

Some of the witches also were charged with the murder of livestock and people.

Victims were thoroughly searched for witch’s marks , a most humiliating ordeal for women, since the “marks” usually were found in or on the genitals.

These marks, which were said to be supernumerary teats from which imps sucked, were discovered in the folds of the labia or were sometimes the clitoris itself.

Stearne had a particular fondness for searching for witch’s marks and boasted that 18 of the Bury St. Edmonds witches “all were found by the searchers to have teats or dugs which their imps used to suck. . . . And of these witches some confessed that they have had carnal copulation with the Devil, one of which said that she had conceived twice by him, but as soon as she was delivered of them, they ran away in most horrid, long and ugly shapes.”

Men also were said to have these teats.

John Bysack confessed that he had been compromised 20 years earlier by the Devil who came in through his window in the shape of a sandy-colored, rugged dog and demanded that Bysack renounce God, Christ and his baptism.

Bysack agreed, and the Devil used his claw to draw blood from Bysack’s heart.

The Devil gave him six imps in the forms of snails, who sustained themselves by sucking Bysack’s blood.

Each snail was an assassin with a particular assignment: Atleward killed cows, Jeffry pigs, Peter sheep, Pyman fowls, Sacar horses and Sydrake Christians.

Stearne claimed he found snail marks on Bysack’s body.

Margaret Wyard confessed to having seven imps, including flies, dogs, mice and a spider.

She had only five teats, however, which forced her imps to fight “like pigs with a sow.”

Wyard said the Devil had come to her seven years earlier in the likeness of a calf, saying he was her husband. She would not submit sexually to him (a comment, perhaps, on the state of her marriage) until the Devil returned as “a handsome young gentleman.”

Imps of other accused witches included a chicken named Nan; two “heavy and hairy” mice; and three imps “like chickens.”

Stearne recorded that 68 witches were executed; one who was tried at Ipswich instead of Bury St. Edmunds reportedly was burned to death. Dozens more may have been hanged—records are uncertain—and still others died in prison.

Ironically, Parliament had established a special commission to oversee witch-hunting activities, in response to reports of excesses.

The commission, however, benignly accepted the “evidence” for Devil’s pacts and the existence of imps, leaving Hopkins and Stearne free to wreak their havoc for another two years.

The hysterical children of 1662. Rose Cullender and Amy Duny of Lowestoft, Suffolk, were two old widows who were accused of bewitching seven children, one of them to death, and performing various other malicious acts upon their neighbors over a period of years.

Sir Matthew Hale (later Chief Justice), who heard the trials, was a believer in witchcraft and did nothing to discourage the most outrageous accusations.

The trials of the two unfortunates were recorded by Cotton Mather in On Witchcraft: Being the Wonders of the Invisible World (1692).

Duny’s fate as a witch was sealed when she was hired as a baby-sitter by Dorothy Durent for her infant.

Duny tried to nurse the baby, William, contrary to Durent’s instructions, and was reprimanded, much to her (obvious) displeasure.

Not long after, the baby began having fits that went on for weeks.

Durent took it to a “white witch” doctor (a man), who told her to hang the child’s blanket in a corner of the chimney for a day and a night, then wrap the infant in it and burn anything that fell out. According to Mather:

. . . at Night, there fell a great Toad out of the Blanket, which ran up and down the Hearth.

A Boy catch’t it, and held it in the Fire with the Tongs: where it made a horrible Noise, and Flash’d like to Gun-Powder, with a report like that of a Pistol: Whereupon the Toad was no more to be seen.

The child recovered. The next day, Duny reportedly was seen with burn marks.

Now labeled a witch, Duny was accused of causing fits in other children who had had contact with her.

The Durents’s 10-year-old daughter, Elizabeth, fell into fits, complaining that the specter of
Duny plagued her.

The girl became lame in both legs and died within three days. Mrs. Durent herself went lame and had to walk about with crutches.

Another Durentchild, Ann, suffered fits and swooning spells and vomited pins, blaming her maladies on the specter of Rose Cullender.

The nine- and 11-year-old daughters of Samuel Pacy, Deborah and Elizabeth, suffered fits that included lameness, extreme stomach pain as though being stabbed with pins and “shrieking at a dreadful manner, like a Whelp, rather than a rational creature.”

They also vomited crooked pins and a two-penny nail.

These girls cried out against Duny and Cullender, claiming to see them as specters, and saying that the witches threatened them not to talk, lest they be tormented 10 times greater than before.

The Pacy girls could not pronounce the names of Lord, Jesus or Christ without falling into fits. But the names of Satan or the Devil made them say, “This bites, but it makes me speak right well!”

The Pacy children also saw invisible mice, one of which they threw on the fire, and it “screeched like a Rat.” Another invisible mouse thrown on the fire “Flash’d like to GunPowder” just like the toad of Durent.

The specter of Duny, meanwhile, tempted one of the girls to destroy herself. Jane Bocking was so afflicted with fits and pain caused by the specters of Duny and Cullender that her mother had to testify in her place.

Another girl, Susan Chandler, said Cullender would come into her bed, and that she was accompanied by a great dog. Chandler had fits and vomited pins. Cullender was searched for a witch’s mark. According to Mather.

They found on her Belly a thing like a Teat, of an inch long; which the said Rose ascribed to a strain. But near her Privy-parts, they found Three more, that were smaller than the former. At the end of the long Teat, there was a little Hole, which appeared, as if newly Sucked; and upon straining it, a white Milky matter issued out.

To bolster the testimony of the girls and their families, the court heard “evidence” from others. John Soam testified that one day, while he was bringing home his hay in three carts, one cart wrenched the window of Cullender’s house. She flew out in a rage, shouting threats
against Soam. The cart that wrenched the window later overturned two or three times the same day. The men had such difficulty with the carts—one got stuck in a gate, so that the gateposts had to be cut down—and were so exhausted that their noses bled.

Robert Sherringham testified to a similar incident, in which the axle-tree of his cart broke off a part of Cullender’s house. (Perhaps Cullender’s house was in an unfortunate position on a roadway; if these accidents happened regularly, it is understandable that she would
lose her temper.) In an angry fit, Cullender told him his horses should suffer for it. Within a short time, his four horses died, followed by many of his cattle. Sherringham also was afflicted with lameness and was “so vexed with Lice of an extraordinary Number and Bignes, that no Art could hinder the Swarming of them, till he burnt up two Suits of Apparel.”

As for other testimony against Duny, she was said to have been overheard saying the Devil would not let her rest until she revenged herself on the wife of one Cornelius Sandswel. The Sandswels’ chimney collapsed and their chickens died suddenly.

Sir Thomas Browne, a respected physician, testified that the victims were bewitched and commented that witches discovered in Denmark afflicted their victims in the same manner, with fits and vomitings of pins. Mather wrote of Hale’s instructions to the jury: He made no doubt, there were such Creatures as Witches; for the Scriptures affirmed it; and the Wisdom of all Nations had provided Laws against such persons.

He pray’d the God of Heaven to direct their Hearts in the weighty thing they had in hand; for, To Condemn the Innocent, and let the guilty go free, were both an Abomination to the Lord.

The jury took exactly half an hour to convict Duny and Cullender on 19 counts of witchcraft. The next morning, the children were miraculously restored to good health. Duny and Cullender confessed nothing, and were hanged.

When the witch hysteria broke out in Salem in 1692, the authorities took their cue from the 1662 Bury St. Edmonds trials and Hale’s reputation as a judge. As Mather wrote in Wonders of the Invisible World:

It may cast some Light upon the Dark things now in America, if we just give a glance upon the like things lately happening in Europe. We may see the Witchcrafts here most exactly resemble the Witchcrafts there; and we may learn what sort of Devils do trouble the World.

Guazzo, Francesco-Maria (17th century)

Guazzo, Francesco-Maria (17th century) Italian friar who became well known as a demonologist and opponent of witches.

Francesco-Maria Guazzo is best known as the author of Compendium Maleficarum (Handbook of Witches), a leading inquisitor’s guide.

Little is known about Guazzo’s life.

He joined the Brethren of St. Ambrose ad Nemus and St. Barnabas in Milan.

He wrote the Compendium in response to a request from Cardinal Federico Borromeo, the archbishop of Milan.

The book, published in 1608, draws upon the works of other demonologists and repeats some of the superstitions of the time, including the assertion that
Martin Luther was born from the union of the Devil and a nun.

Guazzo served as a judge and assessor in witchcraft trials. In 1605, he was sent to Cleves to advise in a case involving the Serene Duke John William of Julich-Cleves.

The duke accused a 90-year-old warlock, John, of overlooking and ensorcelling him.

John confessed that he used charms and runes to afflict the duke with a wasting sickness and “frenzy.”

He was found guilty and sentenced to be burned at the stake.

Before the sentence could be carried out, John committed suicide by slicing his throat with a knife.

According to Guazzo, the Devil himself stood at John’s side as he died.

The duke asked Guazzo to assist in other witchcraft cases in Germany, which he did.

The Compendium became the leading witch handbook in Italy and has been compared to the Malleus Maleficarum.

Mathew Hopkins

Hopkins, Matthew (?–1647?) England’s most notorious professional witch-hunter, who brought about the condemnations and executions of at least 230 alleged
witches, more than all other witch-hunters combined during the 160-year peak of the country’s witch hysteria.

Hopkins was born in Wenham, Suffolk, the son of a minister.

Little is known about him before 1645, when he took up his witch-hunting activities.

Prior to that, he made a meager living as a mediocre lawyer, first in Ipswich and then in Manningtree.

In 1645 he announced publicly that a group of witches in Manningtree had tried to kill him.

He abandoned his law practice and went into business to rid the countryside of witches.

He advertised that for a fee, he and an associate, John Stearne, would travel to a village and rout them out.

Hopkins knew little about witches beyond reading King James I’s Daemonologie, but he had no shortage of business.

He exploited the Puritans’ hatred of witchcraft, the public’s fear of it and the political turmoil of the English Civil War (1642–48).

Added to this volatile mixture was a rise of feminism among women who, during the Civil War, spoke up about their discontent with their station
in life and the way England was being governed.

It was not uncommon for politically active Royalist women to become branded as “sorceresses” and “whores of Babylon” by the Parliamentary faction.

Some of the witch-hunt victims may have been singled out because they were suspected spies.

Hopkins’ method of operation was to turn gossip and innuendo into formal accusations of witchcraft and devil worship.

Since every village had at least one hag rumored to be a witch, Hopkins was enormously successful.

Most of the accused, however, were merely unpopular people against whom others had grudges.

Hopkins dubbed himself “Witch-finder General” and claimed to be appointed by Parliament to hunt witches.

He boasted that he possessed the “Devil’s List,” a coded list of the names of all the witches in England.

His first victim was a one-legged hag, Elizabeth Clark.

Hopkins tortured her until she confessed to sleeping with the Devil and harboring several familiars.

She accused five other persons of witchcraft.

The inquisitions and extorted confessions mushroomed until at least 38 persons were remanded for trial in Chelmsford.

Hopkins and Stearne testified to seeing the imps and familiars of many of the accused appear and try to help them.

They were aided by 92 villagers who voluntarily stepped forward to offer “evidence” and “testimony.”

Of the 38 known accused, 17 were hanged; six were declared guilty but reprieved; four died in prison; and two were acquitted.

The fate of the remainder is not certain.

With that success, Hopkins took on four more assistants and went witch-hunting throughout Essex, Suffolk, Huntingdonshire, Norfolk, Cambridge and neighboring counties.

His fees were outrageously high, between four and 26 pounds and perhaps much higher; the prevailing wage was sixpence a day.

To justify his fees, Hopkins argued that ferreting out witches required great skill, and he denied that he and Stearne profited from their business.

The use of torture in witch trials was forbidden in England, but it was routinely applied in most cases.

Hopkins was no exception, but his torture was often excessive.

He beat, starved and denied sleep to his victims.

His more brutal, and favored, methods included pricking the skin for insensitive spots , searching for blemishes as small as flea bites, which could be interpreted
as Devil’s marks, walking victims back and forth in their cells until their feet were blistered, and swimming.

In the latter, the victims were bound and thrown into water; if they floated, they were guilty.

When the victims were worn down by torture, Hopkins plied them with leading questions such as, “How is it you came to be acquainted with the Devil?” All he required were nods and monosyllabic answers.

He and his associates filled in the colorful details of the alleged malevolent activities.

Most of the charges were of bewitching people and their livestock to death; causing illness and lameness; and entertaining evil spirits such a familiars,
which usually were nothing more than household pets.

He was particularly fond of getting victims to admit they had signed Devil’s pacts.

Not all of his victims were framed.

One man, a butcher, traveled about 10 miles to confess voluntarily.

He was hanged.

Another man claimed to entertain his familiar while in jail; no one else could see the creature.

Later in 1645 Hopkins enjoyed another successful mass witch trial in Suffolk, in which at least 124 persons were arrested and 68 were hanged.

One of them was a 70-year-old clergyman, who, after being “walked” and denied sleep, confessed to having a pact with the Devil, having several familiars and to bewitching cattle.

Throughout his witch-hunting, Hopkins constantly searched for evidence that networks of organized covens of witches existed.

He found nothing to substantiate this belief.

In 1646 Hopkins’s witch-hunting career ended almost as abruptly as it had begun.

He over-extended himself in greed and zeal.

He was publicly criticized for his excessive tortures and high fees and began to meet resistance from judges and local authorities.

In the eastern counties, mass witch trials declined, though witches were still brought to trial.

Hopkins began to be criticized severely for forcing the swimming test upon people who did not want to take it.

He and Stearne separated, with Hopkins returning to Manningtree and Stearne moving to Lawshall.

The fate of Hopkins remains a mystery.

There is no trace of him after 1647.

Popular legend has it that he was accused of witchcraft and “died miserably.”

William Andrews, a 19th-century writer on Essex folklore, stated in Bygone Essex” (1892) that Hopkins was passing through Suffolk and was himself accused of “being in league with the Devil, and was charged with having stolen a memorandum book containing a list of all the witches in England, which he obtained by means of sorcery.”

Hopkins pleaded innocent but was “swum” at Mistley Pond by an angry mob.

According to some accounts, he drowned, while others say he floated, was condemned and hanged.

No record exists of a trial, if there was one.

There is a record of his burial at the Mistley Church in 1647, though there is no tombstone (not uncommon for 17th-century graves).

One chronicler of the times said that the burial must have been done “in the dark of night” outside the precincts of the Church, witnessed by no one local.

Hopkins’ ghost is said to haunt Mistley Pond.

An apparition dressed in 17th-century attire is reportedly seen in the vicinity.

According to another story circulated, Hopkins, having fallen out of favor with the public, escaped to New England.

Stearne, however, stated in 1648, “I am certain (notwithstanding whatsoever hath been said of him) he died peacefully at Manningtree, after a long sickness of a consumption, as many of his generations had done before him, without any trouble of conscience for what he had done, as was falsely reported of him.”

Fairy Witch of Clonmel (1894)

Fairy Witch of Clonmel (1894)

A young woman named Bridget Cleary, of Clonmel, County Tipperary, who was tortured and burned to death because her husband believed the fairies had spirited her away and substituted in her place a witch changeling.

Changelings are sickly fairy infants that fairies leave in the place of the human babies they are said to kidnap.

However, many stories exist of fairies kidnapping mortal men and women—especially women—to be spouses of fairies in Fairyland.

Sometime in March 1894 Michael Cleary, a man who may have suffered from mental disturbances, began to think something was strange about his 26-year-old wife, Bridget.

She seemed more refined.

She suddenly appeared to be two inches taller.

Cleary, whose mother had acknowledged going off with fairies, immediately suspected foul play by the “little people.”

He confronted his wife and accused her of being a changeling.

When she denied it, he began to torture her with the help of three of her cousins, James, Patrick and Michael Kennedy; her father, Patrick Boland; her aunt, Mary Kennedy; and two local men named John Dunne and William Ahearne.

The townsfolk of Clonmel noticed that Bridget was missing for several days.

Hearing that Bridget was sick, a neighbor, Johanna Burke, tried to pay a visit but found the door to the house barred.

She encountered William Simpson and his wife, neighbors who also were attempting to pay a visit but were not admitted to the house.

The three looked in a window and eventually convinced Cleary to let them in.

The neighbors were aghast to see Bridget, clad only in nightclothes,  held spread-eagled on the bed by the Kennedy boys and Dunne,  while Boland, Ahearne and Mark Kennedy looked on.

Michael Cleary was attempting to coerce his wife into drinking a mixture of milk and herbs (probably a fairy antidote), saying,

“Take it, you witch.”

Cleary repeatedly asked her, “Are you Bridget Boland, wife of Michael Cleary, in the name of God?”

Bridget kept crying, “Yes, yes,” but Cleary did not seem to believe her.

Dunne suggested holding her over the kitchen fire, which Cleary and Patrick Kennedy did, while Bridget writhed and screamed and begged the visitors in vain for help.

In fairy lore, setting fire to someone is considered a failproof way to expose changelings and induce the fairy parents to return the stolen human.

Bridget continued to insist that she was Bridget Boland, wife of Michael Cleary and finally was put to bed.

Everyone except Cleary seemed satisfied that Bridget was not a witch changeling.

The next day, Cleary approached William Simpson and asked to borrow a revolver, explaining that Bridget was with the fairies at Kylegranaugh Hill, a fairy fort, and he was going to go “have it out with them.”

Cleary also claimed that Bridget would ride up to the house at midnight on a big gray horse, bound with fairy ropes, which had to be cut before she could return as a mortal.

Simpson told Cleary he had no revolver.

Later, he saw Cleary heading for Kylegranaugh Hill, carrying a big knife.

That night, Johanna Burke returned to the Cleary house to find Bridget sitting by the fire talking to Boland, Cleary and Patrick Burke, Johanna’s brother.

Cleary flung his wife to the ground and forced her to eat bread and jam and drink tea—fairies do not have to eat mortal food— and threatened her with more punishment if she did not.

He again demanded to know her true identity, and she insisted she was Bridget, not a witch changeling.

Cleary’s rage increased.

He tore off her clothes and grabbed a hot brand from the fire and held it up to her mouth.

He refused to let anyone out of the house until he got his wife back.

Then he threw lamp oil over Bridget and set her afire.

Later Burke described what happened:

She lay writhing and burning in the hearth, and the house was full of smoke and smell . . . she turned to me and screamed out, “Oh Han, Han.” . . . When I came down Bridget was still lying on the hearth, smoldering and dead.

Her legs were blackened and contracted with the fire.

Michale, Cleary screamed out, “She is burning now, but God knows I did not mean to do it.

I may thank Jack Dunne for all of it.”

Cleary and Patrick Burke put Bridget’s remains in a sack and buried them in a shallow grave about a quarter of a mile away.

The remains, with the legs, abdomen, part of the back and the left hand nearly burned away, were found on March 22.

Witnesses came forward. Cleary, Boland, the Kennedy boys and aunt, Ahearne and Dunne were charged with willful murder.

In the investigation, two more men were charged: William Kennedy, another cousin, and Dennis Ganey, an herb doctor.

The trial lasted two weeks.

A jury found all defendants guilty of manslaughter, a lesser charge, and the judge sentenced all to jail.

Cleary received the harshest sentence: 20 years of hard labor.

Even as he was sentenced, he still believed the fairies had stolen his wife and left a changeling witch in her place

Hibbins, Ann (d. 1656)

Hibbins, Ann (d. 1656) Prominent Boston woman convicted of witchcraft and executed.

Her chief crime as a witch seemed to have been a bad temper, which was disliked by her neighbors.

Ann Hibbins was married to William Hibbins, a well-to-do merchant in Boston.

She also was the sister of Richard Bellingham, deputy governor of Massachusetts, highly regarded as one of the leading politicians in the
colonies.

Ann and William Hibbins enjoyed respect and social status and attended the first church established in Boston.

William Hibbins suffered setbacks in business, and the family fortunes declined.

According to accounts, that marked the beginning of Ann’s “witchcraft.” She was said to become increasingly ill-tempered, even toward her husband.

She irritated others; the church also censured her, first with admonition and then with excommunication in 1640.

As long as her husband remained alive, Ann enjoyed a certain amount of protection from further prosecution.

But after William died in 1654, Ann was soon charged with witchcraft.

She declared herself not guilty and agreed to be tried.

As part of her interrogation, she was stripped naked and searched for witch’s marks.

Her house was ransacked for poppets by which she might have been working her evil spells.

Though a prominent and well-connected woman, others were initially afraid to speak on her behalf, lest they, too, be accused of witchcraft.

One prominent citizen, Joshua Scottow, did speak out on her behalf and was swiftly punished.

Scottow was forced to write an apology to the court.

Others then also came out in defense of Hibbins, calling her a “saint,” not a witch.

The defenses did no good, and Hibbins was hanged at the end of May 1656

Graves, William (17th century)

Graves, William (17th century) Connecticut man accused of witchcraft over a dispute with his daughter and son-in-law.

Though no legal action was taken against William Graves, his case indicates how easily personal squabbles could be turned into serious witchcraft charges.

Graves’ daughter, Abigail, married a man named Samuel Dibble.

Graves may not have approved of the match, for he refused to turn over his daughter’s “portion” or inheritance to her after the marriage.

Angry, Dibble got an attachment against Graves.

Graves responded by telling Dibble that he would repent this attachment for as long as he lived; it sounded like a curse to Dibble.

Graves also made angry remarks to Abigail, to the point where she and her husband were in fear that somehow Graves would harm them.

Abigail became pregnant and went into what became a difficult labor in February 1666.

She reportedly experienced fits.

Witnesses said that Graves told his daughter to prepare to meet the Lord; Graves claimed that his daughter looked so bad that he thought she was going to die.

After much suffering on the part of Abigail, the baby was finally delivered, but Abigail continued to have fits, and others feared for her life.

Her tongue was black and The Devil scourges witches, 17th century Graves, William 145 protruding, and her eyes bulged.

Graves reportedly remarked that Abigail would die and he would be hanged for her death.

The same month as the childbirth,

Graves was brought to a hearing on charges of witchcraft.

No legal action was taken.

Whether Abigail and her husband ever got her inheritance is not known.

Bamberg Witches

At the center of the worst witch tortures and trials in Germany was Bamberg, a small state ruled by Gottfried Johann Georg II Fuchs von Dornheim.

The Hexenbischof (Witch Bishop) von Dornheim, as he was known, ruled the state from 1623 to 1633 and established an efficient witch-burning machine aided by the Inquisition.

By the time von Dornheim reached power, witchhunting had already been established in Bamberg, and at least 400 persons had been executed since 1609.

Von Dornheim established an operation of lawyers, full-time torturers and executioners, led by Suffragan Bishop Friedrich Forner.

A witch prison, a Drudenhaus, was built, with a capacity of 30 to 40 prisoners.

A network of informers was encouraged, and the hunts began afresh in 1624.

Accusations were not made public, and the accused were denied legal counsel.

Torture was the rule, not the exception, and was rigorously applied to all suspects.

No one subjected to torture avoided confessing to attending sabbats, desecrating the cross, having intercourse with demons, poisoning persons  and other crimes.

Victims were put in thumbscrews and vises, dumped in cold baths and in scalding lime baths, whipped, hung in the strappado, burned with feathers dipped in sulphur, put in iron-spiked stocks and subjected to other forms of excruciating abuse.

The torture did not stop even after condemnation.

As they were led to the stake, prisoners had their flesh ripped with hot pincers or had their hands cut off.

Many prominent persons in Bamberg fell victim to the “machine,” including all the burgomasters.

Von Dornheim, meanwhile, confiscated their property and lined his own coffers.

Anyone who showed sympathy for the victims or expressed doubt about their guilt became a victim as well, including the vice-chancellor of the diocese,
Dr. George Haan.

Haan tried to check the trials but was himself tried as a witch and burned at the stake along with his wife and daughter in 1628.

In 1627 von Dornheim built a Hexenhaus (Witch House), a larger, special prison for witches that contained both cells and torture chambers.

Some managed to escape Bamberg and went to appeal to Emperor Ferdinand for help.

The emperor made an effort to intercede in one case but was defied by von Dornheim.

Finally, political pressure forced Ferdinand to issue mandates opposing the persecutions in 1630 and 1631.

The situation also was changed by the deaths of Forner in 1621 and von Dornheim in 1632.

As a result of the Bamberg trials, Ferdinand’s son, Ferdinand II, decreed that in future trials, the accusations were to be made public, the defendants were to be allowed attorneys and no property could be confiscated.

Von Dornheim’s cousin, Prince-Bishop Philipp Adolf von Ehrenberg, ruled over Würzburg, another small state, and subjected his citizens to the same type of terror.

Between 1623 and 1631, when he died, von Ehrenberg tortured, beheaded and burned 900 persons, including at least 300 children three to four years of age.

Hawkins, Jane (17th century)

Hawkins, Jane (17th century) Massachusetts midwife and healer expelled on suspicions of witchcraft in the delivery of a deformed, stillborn fetus.

The witchcraft accusations were mixed with a religious controversy affecting Jane Hawkins as well.

Hawkins, married to Richard Hawkins, was well known for her midwifery skills and medical remedies.

She also was associated with the Antinomians, a Quaker religious faction that became engaged in political controversy with the dominant Puritans.

The Antinomians were led by a woman, Anne Hutchinson. Hawkins served as midwife to a woman named Mary Dyer, a fellow Antinomian who gave birth in October 1637 to a deformed fetus called a “monster.”

Authorities declared that it was a sign of God’s displeasure with the Antinomians.

Animosity arose against Hawkins, Dyer and Hutchinson. It was said that Hawkins “had familiarity with the Devil” when she had lived in St. Ives, Cornwall, England, and would give young women oil of mandrake to make them conceive.

In March 1638, she was ordered “not to meddle in surgery, or physic, drinks, plasters, or oils, not to question matters of religion, except with the elders for
satisfaction,” according to official records.

In June 1638, Hawkins was ordered expelled from Massachusetts Colony Magical hare woman found abandoned beneath a Gypsy caravan in England;

in the collection of the Museum of Witchcraft in Boscastle, Cornwall  Hawkins, Jane 155 or be severely whipped and punished by the court.

Her two sons took her away to live in Rhode Island.

She returned in 1641 and was banished a second time. Hutchinson also was banished in 1638.

Dyer left, but returned in 1659.

She was executed a year later for her Quaker faith.

The association of witchcraft with an unpopular religious practice followed European practices pursued by the Inquisition against heretics and others.

The Hawkins case was among the early witchcraft episodes in colonial New England.

Had it occurred later, when increasing anti-witch hysteria developed, Hawkins most likely would have been brought to trial and perhaps executed.

By the 1650s, Quaker woman missionaries were increasingly linked to witchcraft.

Two missionaries, Mary Fisher and Ann Austin, were stripped of their clothing by authorities and searched for witch’s marks.

The burning alive of Father Louis Gaufridi

The burning alive of Father Louis Gaufridi for bewitchment of the nuns at Aix in 1611 formed the legal precedent for the conviction and execution of Urbain Grandier at Loudun more than 20 years later.

This case was one of the first in France to produce a conviction based on the testimony of a possessed demoniac.

Prior to the 17th century in France, accusations from a demoniac were considered unreliable, since most clerics believed that any words spoken by one
possessed by the Devil were utterances from “the father of lies” (John 8:44) and would not stand up to accepted rules of evidence.

As in Loudun, sexual themes dominated the manifestations of the nuns’ possession.

In The World of the Witches (1961), historian Julio Caro Baroja comments that “in the history of many religious movements, particularly those who have to struggle against an Established Church, an important part is played by men who have a physical and sexual power over groups of slightly unbalanced women in addition to strong spiritual powers.”

By the 17th century, the Catholic Church was fighting to stem the tide of Reformation through miraculous cures and demonstrations of faith and by the torture of heretics and witches.

Baroja continues: “At a later stage [in the religious movement] we find such people formally accused of being sorcerers and magicians . . . and causing the women they had abused [or seduced] to be possessed by the Devil.”

Baroja finds Father Gaufridi to be the perfect example, concluding that if he indeed was guilty of sexual crimes, he certainly was not a Satanist (see Satanism).

Nevertheless, Father Gaufridi was convicted by his own confession following torture and the accusations of two nuns: Sister Madeleine Demandolx de la Palud and Sister Louise Capel.

Gaufridi recited his Devil’s pact for the inquisitors, in which he renounced all spiritual and physical goodness given him by God, the Virgin Mary and all the saints, giving himself body and soul to Lucifer.

Sister Madeleine also recited her pact, renouncing God and the saints and even any prayers ever said for her.

Aix-en-Provence Possessions  Gaufridi was burned alive, and the two nuns were banished from the convent.

Two years later, in 1613, the possession epidemic at Aix spread to nearby Lille, where three nuns accused Sister Marie de Sains of bewitching them.

Most notable about Sister Marie’s testimony, in many ways a copy of Sister Madeleine’s earlier pact was her detailed description of the witches’ sabbat:

The witches copulated with devils and each other in a natural fashion on Mondays and Tuesdays, practiced sodomy on Thursdays, and bestiality on Saturdays and sang litanies to the Devil on Wednesdays and Fridays. Sunday, apparently, was their day off.

Gruber, Bernardo (17th century)

German trader accused of sorcery by Pueblo Indians in northern New Mexico.

Bernardo Gruber was imprisoned.

He escaped but died a strange death.

In 1668, Gruber arrived in New Mexico with a pack train of mules bearing fine goods.

It was said that he was fearless and traveled through the lands of the fierce Apache without harm.

Perhaps it was his ability to avoid Apache attacks that led to his downfall.

Soon after coming to New Mexico, several Pueblo Indians betrayed him to a priest for possessing sorcery skills that would make him invulnerable.

According to the Indians, Gruber had given them instructions in sorcery that he had learned in his native Germany.

They said that if certain spells were written on the first day of the feast of the Nativity when the Gospel was being spoken and the person ate the writings they would become invulnerable for 24 hours and could not be harmed or killed by any weapon.

Gruber reportedly claimed that this spell was undertaken whenever Germany went to war.

Supposedly it was tried out on an Indian boy and an Indian adult from Las Salinas, both of whom could not be wounded with knives.

An investigation by the Franciscan prelate revealed that many Pueblo said they had been taught the magical formula by Gruber.

Summoned to appear before church authorities, Gruber readily admitted that he did indeed possess such a spell, and he wrote it down:

+A. B. N. A. + A. D. N. A.+

Upon this confession and evidence, the church arrested Gruber, and he was put in irons in the Pueblo mission at Abo.

While in jail, he talked freely of other magical things he had learned in Germany, evidently unaware of how folk magic was regarded by the Catholic Church authorities in New Mexico.

His admissions only solidified the case against him as a sorcerer.

The authorities intended to transfer Gruber to the Inquisition in Mexico City.

Before this could happen, Gruber’s servants sneaked into the mission and pried open the bars of his cell so that he could escape. Gruber remained at large for several weeks.

Then one day, Captain Andrés de Peralta made an odd discovery on a desert road in southern New Mexico.

A dead roan horse was tied to a tree.

Near the carcass were a blue cloth coat lined with otter skin and a pair of blue breeches, both severely decayed.

The captain recognized the distinctive clothing as items worn by Gruber.

He searched the Gruber, Bernardo 149 area and found Gruber’s hair and several of his bones, all widely scattered: the skull, three ribs, two long bones and
two small bones.

It was assumed that Gruber had been killed by Indians, giving the case a bizarre twist.

In the end, it seemed that his sorcery had failed him.

Arras witches (1459–1460)

A mass witch hunt in Arras, northern France.

The accused were brutally tortured and promised their lives, then burned at the stake.

The incident roused the ire of the duke of Burgundy, and eventually those executed were posthumously exonerated.

The witch hunt was one of the earliest in the region. Inquisitors used charges of witchcraft against heretics such as the Waldenses, or Vaudois, a religious sect under persecution.

The Arras affair began at Langres in 1459, when a hermit, who may have been suspected of being one of the Vaudois, was arrested.

Under torture, he admitted attending a sabbat (the Vaudois were said to hold nocturnal revelries in worship of the Devil) and named a prostitute and an elderly poet of Arras as his companions.

The hermit was burned at the stake, and the inquisitors arrested and tortured his accomplices.

They, in turn, confessed and named others.

A widening pool of accusations, arrests, tortures and confessions spread through Arras, including not only poor and feebleminded women but persons of importance.

The inquisitor of Arras was spurred on by his zealous superiors, two Dominican monks.

The Dominicans believed that one-third of the population of Europe were secret witches, including numerous bishops and cardinals in the church.

Anyone who was against burning witches was also a witch.

The accused were put on the rack and tortured.

The soles of their feet were put into flames, and they were made to swallow vinegar and oil.

They confessed to whatever the judges wanted, specifically, to attending the sabbat, where they bowed to the Devil and kissed his backside, and then indulged in a sexual orgy.

They also named others in accordance with the inquisitors’ leading questions.

The inquisitors lied to them, promising that in exchange for their confessions, they would be spared their lives and given only the mild
punishment of a short pilgrimage.

Instead, they were sent to the stake, where they were publicly denounced and burned alive.

As they died, some of them shrieked out to the onlookers, protesting their innocence and how they had been framed, but to no avail.

Some of the richer prisoners bribed their way out, but most were not so lucky.

Their estates and possessions were seized.

Eventually, the witch hunt took a severe toll on the commerce of the city.

Arras was a trading and manufacturing center, and many ceased doing business there, out of fear that the merchants they dealt with would be arrested and have their monies seized.

At the end of 1460, Philip the Good, the duke of Burgundy, intervened, and the arrests stopped. In 1461 the Parlement of Paris demanded the release of some of those imprisoned; the remainder were freed by the bishop of Arras, who had been absent during the hysteria.

Thirty years later, in 1491, the Parlement of Paris condemned the cruelty of the tortures and said the Inquisition had acted without due process.

Ladder

Widely held superstitions that it is bad luck to walk beneath a ladder are related in part to fears about witches, especially during the witch hunt times in colonial America.

Not all witches were burned—for example, in England and in the American colonies, witches were hung.

When they dropped, they fell below the ladder leading up to the gallows.

It was believed that if a witch touched anyone standing nearby, especially as she or he made a last gasp of breath, that person would soon die.

The superstition was so strong that many people believed that a witch’s dying curse could linger long after death.

Even to walk beneath a gallows ladder long after an execution invited a death curse.

Chelmsford Witches

Chelmsford witches Four major witch trails in the 16th–17th centuries that resulted in numerous convictions and executions.

The first trial occurred in the summer of 1566, under the rule of Queen Elizabeth, whose Parliament had passed the second of England’s three witchcraft acts in 1563.

The Act of 1563 tightened penalties for witchcraft, making it a felony to invoke evil spirits for any purpose, regardless of whether or not harm resulted. It provided for mandatory jail sentences but did not provide for the death penalty unless a human being died because of maleficia.

Thus, the 1566 Chelmsford trials became the first significant witch trials to be tested under the new law.

The outcome of the trials took on further weight because of the prestigious judge and prosecutors: John Southcote, a justice of the Queen’s Bench; Rev.

Thomas Cole, a rector of a church near Chelmsford; Sir John Fortescue, who later became chancellor of the Exchequer; and, most notably, Sir Gilbert Gerard, attorney general.

The records of the trials were written up and distributed in pamphlets, which became popular reading.

Three women were charged with witchcraft: Elizabeth Francis, Agnes Waterhouse and Agnes’ daughter, Joan Waterhouse.

All lived in the little village of Hatfield Peverell.

Their only connection was a white-spotted cat named Sathan, which was alleged to be a familiar that talked.

The most damning testimony in the two-day affair was given by a malicious 12-year-old girl. Francis and Agnes Waterhouse “confessed” to their charges, while Joan Waterhouse threw herself on the mercy of the court.

Francis was the first to be tried, on July 26.

The wife of Christopher Francis, she was charged with bewitching the baby of William Auger, which “became decrepit.”

She confessed to that crime and also to some doings far racier and more nefarious, including illicit sex, murder
and abortion.

Francis said she had been taught the art of witchcraft at age 12 by her grandmother, Mother Eve, who counseled her to renounce God and give her blood to the Devil. Mother Eve delivered the Devil to Francis in the likeness of a white-spotted cat, which was to be named Sathan, fed bread and milk and kept in a basket.

According to the trial records, this Elizabeth desired first of the said Cat (calling it Sathan) that she might be rich and to have goods, and he promised her that she should—asking her what she would have, and she said sheep (for this Cat spake to her as she confessed in a strange hollow voice, but as such she understood by use) and this Cat forthwith brought sheep into her pasture to the number of eighteen, black and white, which continued with her for a time, but in the end did all wear away she knew not how.

Item, when she had gotten these sheep, she desired to have one Andrew Byles to her husband, which was a man of some wealth, and the Cat did promise her that she should, but that she must first consent that this Andrew should abuse her, and she so did.

And after when this Andrew had thus abused her he would not marry her, wherefore she willed Sathan to waste his goods, which he forthwith did, and yet not being content with this, she willed him to touch his body which he forthwith did whereof he died. Item, that every time he did anything for her, she said that he required a drop of blood, which she gave him by pricking herself, sometime in one place and then in another, and where she pricked herself there remained a red spot which was still to be seen.

Item, when this Andrew was dead, she doubting [believing] herself with child, willed Sathan to destroy it, and he bade her take a certain herb and drink it, which she did, and destroyed the child forthwith. Item, when she desired another husband he promised her another, naming this Francis whom she now hath, but said he is not so rich as the other, willing her to consent unto that Francis in fornication which she did, and thereof conceived a daughter that was born within a quarter of a year after they were married.

After they were married they lived not so quietly as she desired, being storred (as she said) to much unquietness and moved to swearing and cursing, wherefore she willed Sathan her Cat to kill the child, being about the age of half a year old, and he did so, and when she yet found not the quietness that she desired, she willed it to lay a lameness in the leg of this Francis her husband, and it did in this manner.

It came in a morning to this Francis’ shoe, lying in it like a toad, and when he perceived it putting on his shoe, and had touched it with his foot, he being suddenly amazed asked of her what it was, and she bad him kill it and he was forthwith taken with a lameness whereof he cannot be healed.

After Elizabeth Francis had kept Sathan for 15 or 16 years, she grew tired of him.

One day, she encountered Agnes Waterhouse en route to the oven and asked Waterhouse for a cake, in exchange for which she would give her “A thing that she should be the better for so long as
she lived.” Waterhouse agreed and gave her a cake.

Francis then delivered Sathan to her and taught Waterhouse what she had been taught by Mother Eve, including feeding the cat her blood, bread and milk.

The records do not indicate whether or not testimony was given by William Auger, father of the bewitched child, nor do they explain why the confessions to murder did not lead to a death sentence.

Francis was found guilty of bewitching the child and was sentenced to a year in prison.

The following day, July 27, Agnes Waterhouse, a 63- year-old widow, went on trial on the charge that she had bewitched one William Fynee, who deteriorated and died in November 1565.

Agnes confessed to her guilt and acknowledged that she had also willed her cat to destroy her neighbors’ cattle and geese.

When she fell out with the widow Gooday, Agnes drowned the woman’s cow.

She also caused another neighbor to lose her curds when the woman denied Agnes’ request for butter.

At Agnes’ command, Sathan caused another neighbor man to die.

After all these acts of maleficia, Agnes said she rewarded Sathan, whom she kept at home as a toad.

She denied that she gave the cat her blood, but court officials examined her and found numerous telltale spots on her face and nose (see witch’s mark).

Agnes testified that she dispatched her daughter, Joan, to the home of Agnes Brown, a 12-year-old girl, to ask for bread and cheese.

The girl refused the request.

Angry, Joan went home and, in the words of her mother.

remembered that her mother was wont to go up and down in her house and to call Sathan Sathan she said she would prove the like,

then she went up and down the house and called Sathan and then there came a black dog to her and asked her what she would have,

then she said she was afraid and said,

I would have thee to make one Agnes Brown afraid, and then he asked her what she would give him and she said she would give him a red cock,

he said he would have none of that, and she asked him what he would have then,

he said he would have her body and soul

Agnes Brown was called to the stand.

The girl testified that on the day in question, she was churning butter at home when she saw a thing like a black dog with a face like an ape, a short tail, a chain and a silver whistle about his neck, and a pair of horns on his head.

The dog carried the key to the milk-house door in his mouth.

She asked the creature what he wanted, and he answered, “Butter,” but she said no.

The dog then took the key and opened the milk-house door and laid the key on a new cheese.

After a while, he came out and told the girl he had made flap butter for her, and left.

Brown told her aunt, who immediately sent for a priest.

The priest advised Brown to pray and call on the name of Jesus.

The next day, the dog reappeared carrying the milkhouse key. Brown said, “In the name of Jesus what hast thou there?”

The dog replied that she spoke “evil words” in using the name of Jesus, and left.

In subsequent visits, the dog came bearing a bean pod in its mouth and then a piece of bread.

Each time, Agnes said, “In the name of Jesus what hast thou there?” and the dog spoke of “evil words” and left.

Finally, the dog showed up with a knife in its mouth and asked Agnes if she were not dead.

Agnes replied she was not and thanked God.

Then, she testified, . . . he said if I would not die that he would thrust his knife to my heart but he would make me to die,

then I said in the name of Jesus lay down thy knife,

he said he would not depart from his sweet dame’s knife as yet,

then I asked of him who was his dame,

then he nodded and wagged his head to your house Mother Waterhouse . . .

The court asked Agnes Waterhouse to produce the dog and offered to let her go if she could, but the old woman claimed to have no more power over the animal.

Joan Waterhouse, 18, was tried on the charge of bewitching Brown, who claimed to become “decrepit” in her right leg and arm on July 21.

Joan was found not guilty, but her mother was sentenced to die by hanging.

Agnes was executed on July 29.

Just before she went to the gallows, she made a final confession:

This confession was that she had been a witch and used such execrable sorcery the space of fifteen years, and had done many abominable deeds,

the which of these deeds she repented earnestly and unfeignedly, and desired almighty God’s forgiveness in that she had abused his most holy name by her devilish practises, and trusted to be saved by his most unspeakable mercy.

Waterhouse confessed she had sent Sathan one last time to destroy a neighbor and his goods,

a tailor by the name of Wardol, but the cat returned saying Wardol’s faith was so great he could not be harmed.

She also admitted that she always prayed in Latin, not in English, which seemed to upset the townspeople more than her alleged
witchcraft crimes, for it was considered “God’s word” that prayers could be said in “the English and mother tongue that they best understand.” Waterhouse replied that Sathan would not allow her to pray in English.

While Joan remained free of trouble after the trial, Elizabeth Francis encountered more difficulty with the law.

She was later indicted for bewitching a woman, who fell ill for 10 days.

Francis pleaded innocent but was found guilty and sentenced to another year in jail plus four confinements to the public pillory.

The second and third mass trials at Chelmsford. In 1579 four women were charged with bewitchment; one case involved another evil black dog.

One woman was a repeat offender: Elizabeth Francis, who was charged with causing the slow death of one Alice Poole in 1578. Francis pleaded innocent, but this time the court was out of patience.

She was hanged.

Ellen Smith was charged with bewitching a four-yearold child, who cried out, “Away with the witch!” as she died.

The child’s mother then saw a large black dog go out the door of her house.

Smith, whose mother had been hanged as a witch, threw herself on the mercy of the court and was hanged.

A third accused witch, Alice Nokes, was also hanged, but the fourth, Margery Stanton, accused of bewitching a gelding and a cow to death, was released because of the weakness of the case against her.

Ten years later, in 1589, nine women and one man were brought up on charges of bewitchment.

The bulk of the evidence against them came from children, and once again, testimony as to the existence of familiars was accepted by the court.

Trial records indicate the fate of only seven of the 10:

four were hanged for bewitching others to death, and three were found not guilty on charges of bewitching persons and property.

Matthew Hopkins comes to Chelmsford.

The fourth major trial took place in 1645, at the instigation of England’s most notorious witch finder, Matthew Hopkins.

Hopkins made a substantial living traveling about the countryside whipping up anti-witch hysteria.

He promised to find witches, bring them to trial and get them convicted—the last was most important, for his fees were based on numbers of persons convicted.

His methods relied heavily upon establishing the existence of familiars and finding witch’s marks, and he relied as well on torture, such as walking and sleep deprivation, to extract confessions.

It is not known exactly how many people were charged by Hopkins at Chelmsford, but the jail calendar and pamphlets published after the trials listed 38 men and
women, of whom Hopkins claimed 29 were condemned.

Most were hanged; several died in jail.

Hopkins amassed evidence against them from 92 persons.

Much of the testimony was coaxed from witnesses with plenty of suggestions added by Hopkins.

For example, a child who spoke of nightmares and being bitten in bed was not bitten by fleas, which were in the bed, but by a witch’s familiar, Hopkins suggested.

Once the possibility of a familiar was established, Hopkins ordered a search of the suspect’s premises and body. Any animal, from a toad to a rat to a cat, was immediately declared the said familiar, while any unusual marks upon the suspect’s body added further proof.

For example, Hopkins succeeded in getting one Margaret Landish to admit that, while lying ill, “something” had come to her and “sucked her on her privy parts and much pained and tormented her.”

Landish was encouraged to speculate who sent this imp, and she pointed the finger at Susan Cock, another defendant.

The familiars soon multiplied to include a rat, mice, kittens, toads, cats, rabbits, dogs and frogs, which were alleged to have tormented many and killed children and adults.

Margaret Moone admitted to harboring an army of 12 imps, which she dispatched to destroy bread in a bakery and to upset brewing.

When her landlord evicted her in favor of a man who would pay a higher rent, Moone said she got her revenge by sending a plague of lice to the landlord’s household.

Anne Cate signed a confession admitting to sending her four mice familiars to bite the knees of a man who then died.

Hopkins went into great detail regarding the descriptions and activities of these malevolent imps, perhaps because he once claimed to have been frightened by a familiar, which he described as “a black thing, proportioned like a cat oneley it was thrice as big.”

It stared at him and then ran away, followed by a greyhound.

Of the 38 known accused in the Chelmsford trials, 17 were hanged; six were declared guilty but reprieved; four died in prison; and two were acquitted.

The fate of the remainder is not certain.

Corey Giles (d 1692)

Executed in the Salem Witches hysteria of 1692–93 by being pressed to death for not acknowledging the right of the court to try him on charges of witchcraft.

Giles Corey was a well-to-do man of Salem Town, in his 80s when the hysteria started.

He owned a farm of 100 acres and other properties as well.

Though hardworking, he was not entirely well regarded, having a reputation for being quarrelsome and “scandalous.” Long before the hysteria, Corey was regarded as the reason for just about anything that went bad in Salem Town.

In 1676, he was rumored to have beaten a farmhand who subsequently died.

Corey was arrested and charged with murder, but the jury found him not guilty, believing the man to have died of a non-related disease.

Corey paid a fine and was set free.

Two years later, Corey was in court again, this time in a lawsuit brought by a laborer over a wage dispute.

The court found against Corey.

He was married to Martha Corey, his third wife, who was condemned as a witch and hung on September 22, 1692.

When the hysteria began in early 1692, Corey believed in witches as the cause of the girls’ afflictions.

He differed with Martha, who was skeptical.

Corey did not distinguish himself as the hysteria spread and Martha became one of the victims.

In fact, he even spoke against her and was willing to testify against her in her trial.

Then he defended her innocence, denying things he’d said, thus making himself out to be a liar— one of the gravest of sins in Puritan eyes.

The tables turned on him when the afflicted girls cried out against him, calling him a wizard and saying they had seen his specter about town.

Corey may have seen the handwriting on the wall, for he made out a will bequeathing his properties and possessions to two of his sons-inlaw.

He then refused to answer his indictment.

Under the laws of New England, a person who refused to answer an indictment could not be tried.

If Corey could not be tried and found guilty, then his properties could not be seized by the state.

However, the law allowed such a person to be tortured until they either answered or died.

The torture method chosen for Corey was pressing.

Corey was excommunicated on September 14, 1692.

He was taken out into a field and staked to the ground.

A wooden plank was placed over his body and then heavy stones were laid on top of the plank.

The weight was increased until Corey literally was pressed to death.

For two days he lay in agony, until at last he expired.

The weight pushed his tongue out of his mouth.

Sheriff Richard Corwin took his cane and pushed the tongue back in.

According to lore, Corey was asked repeatedly to answer the indictment, but replied only “More weight!”

His ghost is said to haunt the area where he died.

Corey’s excommunication was reversed on March 2, 1712.

Butters, Mary (late 18th–early 19th centuries)

An attempt to cure a cow of bewitchment with white magic ended in disaster for Mary Butters, the “Carmoney Witch,” who narrowly escaped a trial in Carrickfergus, Ireland, in March 1808.

Butters was a reputed wise woman, skilled in herbal knowledge and various spells.

In August 1807 Butters was hired by Alexander Montgomery, a tailor who lived in Carmoney, to cure a cow that gave milk from which no butter could be made.

Montgomery’s wife was convinced that the cow was bewitched.

On the appointed night of the exorcism, Butters arrived with her charm bag of magical ingredients.

She ordered Montgomery and an onlooker, a young man named Carnaghan, out to the barn, where they were to turn their waistcoats inside out and stand by the cow’s head until she sent for them.

Butters, Mrs Montgomery, the Montgomery’s son, and an old woman named Margaret Lee remained with her in the house.

Montgomery and Carnaghan waited until dawn, growing increasingly worried.

They returned to the house, where they were shocked to find all four persons collapsed on the floor.

The smoky air smelled of sulphur; on the fire was a big pot containing milk, needles, pins and crooked nails.

The windows and door were sealed tight, and the chimney was covered.

The wife and son were dead, and Butters and Lee were close to death; Lee died moments after the men arrived.

In a fury, Montgomery threw Butters, Mary Butters out onto a dung heap and began kicking her to consciousness.

On August 19 an inquest was held in Carmoney, at which it was determined that the victims had died of suffocation
from Butters’s “noxious ingredients” and smoke.

Butters, terrified, claimed that during her spell-casting, a black man appeared inside the house wielding a huge club.

He knocked everyone down, killing the other three and stunning Butters to unconsciousness.

Butters was put forward for trial at the spring assizes, but the charges against her were dropped.

The community’s reaction to the tragedy was one of derision.

The incident was made the subject of a humorous ballad.

Corey, Martha (d. 1692)

The fourth person to be accused of witchcraft in the Salem Witches hysteria of 1692–93, who was tried and executed.

Martha Corey was the wife of Giles Corey, who also was executed.

The Coreys were well-to-do, pious residents of Salem Town.

Martha’s age at the time of the trials is not known.

Presumably, she was beyond child-bearing years.

She was Giles’ third wife; the couple had no children of their own.

Corey was renowned for her piety, but she became a target after the slave Tituba confessed to witchcraft.

Tituba said that four women were hurting the afflicted girls, but named only two—Sarah Good and Sarah Osborne.

The afflicted girls came up with no names.

Then gossip circulated that the girls were talking about others as witches, including Martha Corey.

Thirteen-year-old Ann Putnam broke the silence in March 1692 by naming Corey next as one of the four who was tormenting them.

Corey, she said, appeared in spectral form and pinched and tormented her.

One of the girls’ tricks was to claim that they could identify their tormentors, who came in spectral form, by
their clothing, which they could see.

Two representatives, Thomas Putnam (Ann’s uncle) and Ezekiel Cheever, were chosen to visit Corey to ask her questions about the allegations against the girls.

First, they asked Putnam to describe Corey, Martha the clothing that Corey would be wearing when they arrived.

But Putnam dodged the matter, claiming that Corey had struck her blind so that she could not see the clothing.

When Putnam and Cheever arrived at the Corey residence, Martha confidently denied any knowledge or role in the girls’ afflictions.

When told she had been cried out against by Putnam, she asked if Putnam had identified her clothing.

Apparently, Corey was wise to the trick and thought she would expose it.

Instead, her answer was taken as a sign of witchcraft, for how else would she know?

Corey was arrested on March 19 and taken to the Salem Town meetinghouse for examination by the magistrates.

She seemed to be convinced that common sense would prevail. She denied being a witch and said she did not know if there were any witches in New England.

She laughed at some of the questions.

She said the magistrates were blind to the truth, and she could make them see it, but then declined to do so.

Days later, Putnam was sent for and, when in the presence of Corey, went into fits.

If Corey bit her lip, the girl said she was being bitten.

If Corey clenched her hands, she said she was being pinched.

Corey was sent to jail and tried in September.

She continued to think that it would be impossible for a person such as herself to be found guilty of witchcraft.

What could she do, she said, if others were against her?

Unfortunately, her husband Giles contributed to the case against her.

Giles had bought completely into the hysteria and said that Martha acted in strange ways “like the Devil was in her.”

He testified that some of their animals had been mysteriously hurt or sick, implying that Martha may have been responsible.

Corey was condemned to death.

She was excommunicated from the church in Salem Town on September 11.

On September 22, she was hanged with seven others.

She ended her life with prayer.

As Corey and the others swung at the ends of their ropes, Reverend Nicholas Noyes said, “What a sad thing
it is to see eight firebrands of hell hanging there.”

Corey’s excommunication was reversed on February 14, 1703.

In its statement, the brethren of the church said that “we were at that dark day under the power of those errors which then prevailed in the land” and that Corey’s execution “was not according to the mind of God.”