Religion & Sex Part 14

"Peasants left their ploughs, mechanics their workshops, housewives their domestic duties, to join the wild revels. Secret desires were excited, and but too often found opportunities for wild enjoyment; and numerous beggars, stimulated by vice and misery, availed themselves of this new complaint to gain a temporary livelihood. Girls and boys quitted their parents, and servants their masters, to amuse themselves at the dances of those possessed, and greedily imbibed the poison of mental infection. Above a hundred unmarried women were seen raving about in consecrated and unconsecrated places, and the consequences were soon perceived."[185]

Once attacked, the hypnotic character of the complaint was shown by its annual recurrence. Again to quote Hecker:--

"Most of those affected were only annually visited by attacks; and the occasion of them was so manifestly referable to the prevailing notions of that period that, if the unqualified belief in the agency of saints could have been abolished, they would not have had any return of the complaint. Throughout the whole of June, prior to the festival of St.

John, patients felt a disquietude and restlessness which they were unable to overcome. They were dejected, timid, and anxious; wandered about in an unsettled state, being tormented with twitching pains, which seized them suddenly in different parts, and eagerly expected the eve of St. John's Day, in the confident hope that by dancing at the altars of this saint they would be freed from all their sufferings. This hope was not disappointed; and they remained, for the rest of the year, exempt from any further attack."[186]

In addition to John the Baptist, the dancing disease was also connected with another saint--St. Vitus. He is said to have been martyred about 303, and a body, reputed to be his, was transported to France in the ninth century. It is said that just before he was killed he prayed that all who would commemorate the day of his death should be protected from the dancing mania. Whereupon a voice from heaven was heard to say, "Vitus, thy prayer is accepted." The fact that the prayer was offered a thousand years before the dancing mania appeared is a circ.u.mstance that to the eye of faith merely heightened its value.

Within recent times epidemics of dancing have been more local, less persistent, and of necessity not so public in their display, but nearly always their appearance has been in connection with displays of religious fervour. In most cases the dancing has tended more to a species of 'jumping,' and--although this may be due to more careful observation--has been accompanied by actions of a clearly epileptoid nature. One of the most famous of these outbreaks was that of the French Convulsionnaires, which lasted from 1727 to the Revolution. In 1727, a popular, but half-crazy priest, Francois de Paris, died. During his life Paris had fasted and scourged himself, lived in a hut that was seldom or never cleansed, showed the same lack of cleanliness in his person, and often went about half naked. Very shortly after his death, it was said that miracles began to take place at his grave in the cemetery of St.

Medard. People gathered round the tomb day after day, and one young girl was seized with convulsions. (She is called a girl in the narrative, but she was a mature virgin of forty-two years of age.) Afterwards other miracles followed in rapid succession. Some fell in fits, others swallowed pieces of coal or flint, some were cured of diseases. From the description of the behaviour of some of these devotees there seems to have been a considerable amount of s.e.xual feeling mixed up with the display. Sometimes, we are told, those seized "bounded from the ground like fish out of water; this was so frequently imitated at a later period that the women and girls, when they expected such violent contortions, not wis.h.i.+ng to appear indecent, put on gowns made like sacks, closed at the feet. If they received any bruises by falling down, they were healed with earth taken from the grave of the uncanonised saint. They usually, however, showed great agility in this respect; and it is scarcely necessary to remark that the female s.e.x especially was distinguished by all kinds of leaping, and almost inconceivable contortions of body. Some spun round on their feet with incredible rapidity, as is related of the dervishes. Others ran with their heads against walls, or curved their bodies like rope dancers, so that their heels touched their shoulders."

Women figured very prominently among the Convulsionnaires, particularly when the epidemic pa.s.sed from convulsive dancing to prophecy, and thence to various forms of self-torture. Women stretched themselves on the floor, while other women, and even men, jumped upon their bodies. Others were beaten with clubs and bars of iron. Some actually underwent crucifixion on repeated occasions. They were stretched on wooden crosses, and nails three inches long driven through hands and feet. Some of the occurrences remind one of what is now seen to take place under hypnotic influence. People labouring under strong excitement, it is known, become insensible to pain.

Outbreaks of jumping and dancing followed the introduction of Methodist preachers into country districts in the eighteenth century. In Wales, a sect of 'Jumpers' originated from this cause, and many of the American 'Jumpers' and 'Dancers' seem to have had their origin from this Welsh outbreak. In all such cases the spread of the mania was helped, if not made possible, by the preachers. They themselves looked upon these exhibitions as manifestations of the power of G.o.d, and so encouraged their hearers in their behaviour. Not every minister has the common sense of the Shetland preacher cited by Hecker. An epileptic woman had a fit in church, which a number of others hailed as a manifestation of the power of G.o.d. Sunday after Sunday the same thing occurred with other women, the number of the sufferers steadily increasing. The thing threatened to a.s.sume such proportions, and to become so great a nuisance, he announced that attendants would be at hand who would dip women in the lake who happened to be seized. This threat proved a most powerful form of exorcism. Not one woman was affected. Similar conduct might have been quite as efficacious in preventing many religious manifestations that have a.s.sumed epidemic proportions.

Unfortunately, the influence of preachers and religious teachers was most usually cast in the other direction. Very often, of course, they were no better informed than their congregations; at other times they undoubtedly encouraged the delusion for interested reasons. The most striking recent ill.u.s.tration of this latter behaviour was seen in the Welsh revival led by Evan Roberts. Of this man's mental condition there could be little doubt. Just as little doubt could there be that the behaviour of the congregations was wholly due to the power of suggestions upon weak and excitable natures. Yet scarcely a preacher in Britain said a word in disapproval. Hundreds of them used the outbreak to ill.u.s.trate the power of religion. Many prominent preachers travelled down to Wales and returned telling of the great manifestations of 'spiritual power' they had witnessed. How little removed such behaviour is from that of the savage watching with awe the actions of one suffering from epilepsy or insanity, readers of the foregoing pages will be in a position to judge.

From the middle of the third century onward, Europe had been subject to wave after wave of religious fanaticism. All along, religious belief had been verified and strengthened by the occurrence of phenomena that now admittedly fall within the purview of the pathologist. And from one point of view the secularisation of life served but to emphasise the dependence of religion upon the occurrence of these abnormal conditions.

For the more surely the phenomena of nature and of social life were brought within the scope of a scientific generalisation, the more people began to look for the life of religion in conditions that were removed from the normal. But, above all, this long succession of waves of fanaticism served to permeate the general mind with supernaturalism.

Each one cleared the way for a successor. And in the next chapter we have to deal with one that, in some respects, is the most remarkable of all, viz., that of the belief in witchcraft.

FOOTNOTES:

[176] It is estimated that 275,000 people formed the van of the first crusade.

[177] L. O. Pike, _History of Crime in England_, i. pp. 164-9.

[178] _History of Latin Christianity_, iv. p. 188.

[179] _History of the Holy War_, bk. iii.

[180] _Intellectual Development of Europe_, 1872, p. 425.

[181] Milman, iv. p. 199.

[182] _Holy Roman Empire_, p. 164.

[183] See Bloch, _s.e.xual Life of our Time_, pp. 568-74.

[184] _Epidemics of the Middle Ages_, pp. 87-8.

[185] Hecker, p. 91.

[186] _Epidemics_, p. 105.

CHAPTER TEN

THE WITCH MANIA

In all stages of religious history the witch and the wizard are familiar figures. It is of no importance to our present enquiry whether magic precedes religion or not. It is at all events certain that they are very closely connected, and that conditions which foster the belief in magic likewise serve to strengthen religious belief. Witchcraft, as Tylor says, is part and parcel of savage life. Death is very frequently attributed to the magical action of wizards, and the savage lives in perpetual fear lest some of his belongings, or some part of his person, should be bewitched by malevolent sorcerers. Sir Richard Burton says that in East Africa his experience taught him that among the negroes, what with slavery and what with black magic, no one, especially in old age, is safe from being burnt at a day's notice. When from savage life we mount to societies enjoying a higher culture, we still find the witch and the wizard in evidence. Both in Greece and Rome the belief in witchcraft existed. There were made direct laws against its practice, although neither the Greeks nor the Romans stained their civilisation with the judicial murder of thousands of victims such as occurred later in Christian Europe.

But the belief in witchcraft is continuous. So also are the methods practised, and the modes of detection. The proofs offered in support of sorcery in the seventeenth century are precisely similar to those credited by savages in the lowest stage of human culture. The power of transformation possessed by the accused, the ability to bewitch through the possession of hairs belonging to the afflicted person, the making of little effigies and driving sharp instruments into them, and so affecting the corresponding parts of people, transportation through the air, etc., all belong to the belief in and practice of witchcraft wherever found. Had a Fijian been transported to a seat on the judicial bench by the side of Sir Matthew Hale, when that judge condemned two old women to death for witchcraft, he would have found himself in a quite congenial atmosphere. Allowing for difference in language, he would have found the evidence similar to that with which he was familiar, and he would have been able to endorse the judge's remarks with tales of his own experience. On this point, the level of culture attained by savages, and that of the inhabitants of the overwhelming majority of European countries little more than two hundred years ago, were substantially the same. Even to-day cases are continually occurring which prove that advances in knowledge and civilisation have not left this ancient superst.i.tion without supporters.

In subscribing to the belief in witchcraft, the Christian Church thus fell into line with earlier forms of religious belief. The peculiar feature it represents is that it came into existence when the belief in witchcraft was losing its hold on the more cultured cla.s.ses. Had it not allied itself with this tendency, no such thing as the witch mania of the medieval period could have existed. In sober truth, it brought about a veritable renaissance of the cruder theories of demonism, while its intolerance of opposition succeeded in stifling the voice of criticism for centuries. The primitive theory which holds that man is surrounded by hosts of spiritual agencies, mostly of a malevolent nature, was revived and fully endorsed by all Christian teachers. In the commonest, as well as in the rarest events of life, this supernatural activity was manifest. In both the Old and New Testament the belief in demoniacal agency was endorsed. Moreover, the fact that Christianity was not a creed seeking to live as one of many others, but a religion struggling for complete mastery, gave further impetus to the belief. An easy explanation for the miracles and marvels that occurred in connection with non-Christian beliefs was that they were the work of demons. The Christian felt himself to be fighting not so much human antagonists as so many embodiments of satanic power. And after the establishment of Christianity it is probable that much that went on under cover of witch a.s.semblies, a more detailed knowledge than we possess would prove to be really the clandestine exercise of prescribed forms of faith. The old saying, "The sin of witchcraft is as the sin of rebellion," has more in it than meets the eye. There is little real difference between the magic that appears as piety and the magic that is denounced as sorcery, except that one is permitted and the other is not. And it is almost a law of religious development that the G.o.ds of one religion become the demons of its successor.

But while witchcraft has existed in all ages, it existed in a much milder form than that which we find in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. First of all, there is the fact to which attention has already been directed, namely, the concentration of the public mind upon various forms of supernaturalism. Every aspect of life was more or less under the direct influence of the Church, and no teaching was tolerated that conflicted with her doctrines. And it was to the interest of the Church perpetually to emphasise the reality of either angelic or diabolic activity. Even in the case of those who showed a tendency to revolt against Church rule there was no exception to this. If anything, the belief was more p.r.o.nounced. Next, the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries saw a rising tide of heresy against which the Church was compelled to battle; and to ascribe this alleged perversion of Christian doctrines to the malevolence of Satan offered the line of least resistance--just as the heretics attributed the power of the Church itself to the same source. Whatever diminution ensued in the general flood of superst.i.tion, as a consequence of the quarrel between Protestant and Catholic, was, so far as the disputants were concerned, incidental and even undesired. On the one point of demonism there existed complete unanimity, and the sceptic fared equally hard with both parties. In such an environment the wildest tales of sorcery became credible; and nothing ill.u.s.trates this more forcibly than the fact that many of those tortured and condemned for sorcery actually believed themselves capable of performing the marvels laid to their charge. Added to these factors, we have to note that social conditions were also extremely favourable. Moral ties were as loose as they could reasonably be; and the att.i.tude of the Church towards the s.e.xual relation had forced both the religious and the non-religious mind into wholly unhealthy channels. This last aspect of the subject has been little dealt with, but it is unquestionably a very real one. A German writer says:--

"Whilst in the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth centuries, as those well acquainted with the state of morals during this period can all confirm, a most unbounded freedom was dominant in s.e.xual relations, the State and the Church were desirous of compelling the people to keep better order by the use of actual force, and by religious compulsion. So forced a transformation in so vital a matter necessarily resulted in a reaction of the worst kind, and forced into secret channels the impulse which it had attempted to suppress. This reaction occurred, moreover, with an elemental force. There resulted widespread s.e.xual violence and seduction, hesitating at nothing, often insanely daring, in which everywhere the devil was supposed to help; everyone's head was turned in this way; the uncontrolled l.u.s.t of debauchees found vent in secret baccha.n.a.lian a.s.sociations and orgies, wherein many, with or without masquerade, played the part of Satan; shameful deeds were perpetrated by excited women and by procuresses and prost.i.tutes ready for any kind of immoral abomination; add to these s.e.xual orgies the most widely diffused web of a completely developed theory of witchcraft, and the systematic strengthening of the widely prevalent belief in the devil--all these things, woven in a labyrinthine connection, made it possible for thousands upon thousands to be murdered by a disordered justice and to be sacrificed to delusion."[187]

To those who look closely into the subject of medieval witchcraft the presence of a strong s.e.xual element is undeniable. When we examine contemporary accounts of the 'Sabbath,' some of which are so gross as to be unprintable, we find a portion of the proceedings to be of a marked erotic character. The figure of Satan often enough reminds one of the pagan Priapus, and the ceremonies bear a strong resemblance to the ancient ones, with the mixture of Christian language and symbolism inevitable under such circ.u.mstances. Promiscuous intercourse between the s.e.xes was said to occur at the witches' gatherings; and, indeed, unless some sort of s.e.xual extravagance occurred, it is hard to account for both the persistency of the gatherings and of the reports concerning them. The most probable theory is, as I have just said, that these gatherings were covers for a continuance of the older s.e.x wors.h.i.+p. Many customs connected therewith lingered on in the Church itself, and it is not a wild a.s.sumption that they existed in a less adulterated and more extravagant form outside.

Universal as the belief in witchcraft has been, it was not until the close of the fifteenth century that it a.s.sumed what may be justly called an epidemic form. The famous Bull of Pope Innocent VIII. was not unconnected in its origin with the growth of heresy. This precious doc.u.ment, issued in 1484, declares:--

"It has come to our ears that very many persons of both s.e.xes, deviating from the Catholic Faith, abuse themselves with demons, Incubus and Succubus; and by incantations, charms, and conjurations, and other wicked superst.i.tions, 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 s.e.xes, 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 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."

It was this Pope who commissioned the inquisitor, Sprenger, to root out witches. Sprenger, with two others, acting on the authority of the Popes, drew up the famous work, _The Witch Hammer_, which provided the basis for all subsequent works on the detection and punishment of witches.[188] The folly and iniquity of the book is almost unbelievable, although it is quite matched by subsequent productions. It even provides for the silence of people under torture. If they confess when tortured, the case is complete. But if they do not confess, this diabolic production lays it down that this is because witches who have given themselves up to the devil are insensible to pain. Even the evidence of children was admitted. And although in ordinary trials the evidence of criminals was barred, it was to be freely allowed in trials for sorcery.

Everything that ingenuity could suggest or brutality execute was provided for.

From the issue of _The Witch Hammer_ until the middle of the seventeenth century, a period of about one hundred and fifty years, an epidemic of witchcraft raged. People of all ages and of all cla.s.ses of society became implicated, and for some time, at least, accusation meant conviction. An almost unbelievably large number were executed. Says Lecky:--

"In almost every province of Germany, but especially in those where clerical influence predominated, the persecution raged with a fearful intensity. Seven thousand witches are said to have been burned at Treves, six hundred by a single bishop in Bamberg, and nine hundred in a single year in the bishopric of Wurzburg.... At Toulouse, the seat of the Inquisition, four hundred persons perished for sorcery at a single execution, and fifty at Douay in a single year. Remy, a judge of Nancy, boasted that he put to death eight hundred witches in sixteen years....

In Italy, a thousand persons were executed in a single year in the province of Como; and in other parts of the country the severity of the inquisitors at last created an absolute rebellion.... In Geneva, which was then ruled by a bishop, five hundred alleged witches were executed in three months; forty-eight were burned at Constance or Ravensburg, and eighty in the little town of Valery in Saxony. In 1670, seventy persons were condemned in Sweden, and a large proportion of them burnt."[189]

In England, from 1603 to 1680, it is estimated that seventy thousand persons were put to death for sorcery.[190] Grey, the editor of _Hudibras_, says that he had himself seen a list of three thousand who were put to death during the Long Parliament. The celebrated witch-finder, Mathew Hopkins, hung sixty in one year in the county of Suffolk. In Scotland, for thirty-nine years, the number killed annually averaged about two hundred. This, of course, does not take into account the number who were hounded to death by persecution of a popular kind, or whose lives were made so wearisome that death must have come as a release. But the most remarkable, and the most horrible, of witchcraft executions occurred in Wurzburg in February 1629. No less than one hundred and sixty-two witches were burned in a succession of _autos-da-fe_. Among these, the reports disclose that there were actually thirty-four children. The following details give the actual ages of some of them:--

+----------+---------+---------------------------------+ | Burning. | Number. | Children. | +----------+---------+---------------------------------+ | 7th | 7 | 1 Girl, aged 12. | | 13th | 4 | 1 Girl of 10 and another. | | 15th | 2 | 1 Boy of 12. | | 18th | 6 | 2 Boys of 10, girl of 14. | | 19th | 6 | 2 Boys, 10 and 12. | | 20th | 6 | 2 Boys. | | 23rd | 9 | 3 Boys, 9, 10, and 14. | | 24th | 7 | 2 Boys, brought from hospital. | | 26th | 8 | Little boy and girl. | | 27th | 7 | 2 Boys, 8 and 9. | | 28th | 6 | Blind girl and infant.[191] | +----------+---------+---------------------------------+

The vast majority of those executed for sorcery were women. At all times witches have been more numerous than wizards, owing to their a.s.sumed closer connection with the world of supernatural beings. It was said, "For one sorcerer, ten thousand sorceresses," and Christian writers were ready to explain why. Woman had a greater affinity with the devil from the outset. It was through woman that Satan had seduced Adam, and it was only to be expected that he would employ the same instrument on subsequent occasions. _The Witch Hammer_ has a special chapter devoted to the consideration of why women are more given to sorcery than men, and quotes freely from the Fathers to prove that this follows from her nature. James I. in his _Demonologia_ follows Sprenger in accounting for the number of witches. "The reason is easy. For as that s.e.x is frailer than man is, so it is easier to be entrapped in the gross snares of the devil, as was over-well proved to be true by the serpent's deceiving of Eve at the beginning, which makes him the homelier with the s.e.x sensine." To be old, or ugly, or unpopular, to have any peculiar deformity or mark, was to invite persecution, and, in an overwhelming majority of instances, conviction followed accusation.

It is a significant comment upon the popular belief that Protestantism, as a form of religious belief, was the product of an enlightened rational life, that it was only with the advance of Protestantism that the belief in witchcraft a.s.sumed an epidemic form. This may be partly due to the greater direct dependence upon the Bible, in which satanic influence--particularly in the New Testament--plays so large a part. In the Roman Church, exorcism remained a regular part of the functions of the priest; the Church was filled with accounts of satanic conflicts, but diabolic intercourse seems to have been mainly limited to saintly characters and priests. Protestantism which, theoretically, made every man his own priest, raised the belief in satanic agency to an obsession.

And wherever Protestantism established itself there was an immediate and marked increase in the number of cases of witchcraft. In England, if we omit a doubtful law of the tenth century, there existed no regular law against witchcraft until 1541. It remained a purely ecclesiastical offence. Seventeen years later, the year of Elizabeth's accession, Bishop Jewell, preaching before the Queen, drew attention to the increase of sorcery. "It may please Your Grace," he said, "to understand that witches and sorcerers, within these last few years, are marvellously increased within Your Grace's realm. Your Grace's subjects pine away even to the death, their colour fadeth, their flesh rotteth, their senses are bereft. I pray G.o.d they never practise further than upon the subject." And he added, "These eyes have seen most evident and manifest marks of their wickedness." A measure was pa.s.sed through Parliament the same year, making enchantments and witchcraft felony. The first year of James I. saw the pa.s.sing of the 'Witch Act,' under which subsequent executions took place, and which remained in force until nearly the middle of the eighteenth century.

With scarce an exception, the leaders of Protestantism encouraged the belief in witches and urged their extermination as a religious and civil duty. With Luther, in spite of the st.u.r.dy common sense he manifested in some directions, belief in the activity of Satan amounted to an obsession. He saw Satan everywhere in everything. The devil appeared to him while writing, disturbed his rest by the rattling of pans, and prevented his pursuing his studies by hammering on his skull. When a storm arose, Luther declared, "'Tis the devil who has done this; the winds are nothing else but good or bad spirits." Suicides, he said, were often those strangled by the devil. Moreover, "The devil can so completely a.s.sume the human form when he wants to deceive us, that we may very well lie with what seems to be a woman of real flesh and blood, and yet all the while 'tis only the devil in the shape of a woman." The devil could also become the father of children. Luther says that he knew of one such case, and added, "I would have that child thrown into the Moldau at the risk of being held its murderer."[192]

In America, Protestantism manifested the same influence. Of course, the settlers took the superst.i.tion of witchcraft with them, but it underwent no diminution in a new land. Increase Mather and his celebrated son, Cotton Mather, were the princ.i.p.al agents in stirring up the belief to frenzy point, and a commission was appointed to rout out witches and suppress their practices. There was soon a plentiful supply of victims.

One woman was charged with "giving a look towards the great meeting-house of Salem, and immediately a demon entered the house and tore down part of it." It seems that a bit of the wooden wainscotting had fallen down. In the case of Giles Corey, who refused to plead guilty, torture was used. He was pressed to death, and when his tongue protruded from his mouth the sheriff thrust it back with his walking-stick. Many people were executed, and the ministers of Boston and Charlestown drew up an address warmly thanking the commission for its zeal, and expressing the hope that it would never be relaxed.

Certainly the commission did what it could to earn the thanks given. A s.h.i.+pmaster making for Maryland with emigrants encountered unusually rough weather. An old woman, one Mary Lee, was accused of raising the storm, and drowned as a witch. A woman walked a long distance over muddy roads without soiling her dress. "I scorn to be drabbled," she said, and was hanged as a reward. George Burroughs could lift a barrel by inserting his finger in the bunghole. He was hanged for a wizard.

Bridget Bishop was charged with appearing before John Louder at midnight and grievously oppressing him. Louder's evidence against the woman also included the fact that he saw a black pig approach his door, and when he went to kick it the pig vanished. He was also tempted by a black thing with the body of a monkey, the feet of a c.o.c.k, and the face of a man. On going out of his back door he saw the said Bridget Bishop going towards her house. The evidence was deemed quite conclusive. Another witness said that being in bed on the Lord's Day, he saw a woman, Susanna Martin, come in at the window and jump down on the floor. She took hold of the witness's foot, and drawing his body into a heap, lay upon him for nearly two hours, so that he could neither move nor hear. In most of these cases torture was applied, and confessions were obtained. These confessions often implicated others, but when the witches took to accusing those in high places, and even ministers of religion, the need for discrimination was realised. Once a critical judgment was aroused, the mania began to subside--Cotton Mather fighting manfully for the belief to the end.

The impetus given by Protestantism to witch-hunting in Scotland was most marked. Scotch witchcraft, says Lecky, was the offspring of Scotch Puritanism, and faithfully reflected the character of its parent. The clergy nowhere possessed greater power, and nowhere used it more a.s.siduously to fan the flame against witchcraft. Buckle says:--