The Mysteries of All Nations Part 34

Before commencing the fight, the combatants were compelled to swear that neither of them would resort to sorcery or witchcraft. If the accused were slain, the judges regarded the fatal deed as proof of his guilt. If overpowered, but not killed, he was adjudged guilty, and sentenced to be immediately executed. Women, priests, infants, men sixty years of age, or lame or blind, had it in their option to refuse wager of battle, and were ent.i.tled to demand trial by jury.

An old author says: "If two neighbours dispute respecting the boundaries of their possessions, let a piece of turf of the contested land be dug up by the judge, and brought by him into the court, and the two parties shall touch it with the points of their swords, calling on the Most High to witness their claims. After this let them combat, and let victory prove who is right and who is wrong."

Sir Walter Scott gives a good ill.u.s.tration of the superst.i.tion of olden times, and of trial by battle, in _Ivanhoe_. We are told that after Ivanhoe was wounded at the tournament, Rebecca, the Jewess, lost no time in causing the patient to be removed to her father's dwelling, and with her own hands bound up his wounds. The Jews, both male and female, possessed and practised the medical science; and the monarchs and powerful barons of the time, says the novelist, frequently, when wounded or in sickness, committed themselves as patients to the charge of an experienced person among the despised people. A general belief prevailed among Christians that the Jewish rabbins were acquainted with the occult sciences, and particularly with the cabalistical art.

The rabbins did not disavow such acquaintance with supernatural arts.

Rebecca's knowledge of the healing art had been acquired under an aged Jewess, the daughter of a celebrated doctor. Miriam fell a sacrifice to the fanaticism of the times, but her secrets had survived in her apt pupil. The wounded knight, as might be expected, recovered under the medical treatment of Rebecca. For this she was accused of working cures by words, sigils, and other cabalistical mysteries.

"Nay, reverend and brave knight," answered Isaac, Rebecca's father, in reply to Beaumanoir, who brought the charge against the Jewess, "but in chief measure by a balsam of marvellous virtue;" and in reply to another question, Isaac reluctantly told that Rebecca had obtained her secret from Miriam, whom the Grand Master designated a witch and enchantress, whose body had been burned at a stake, and her ashes scattered to the four winds. "The laws of England," exclaimed Beaumanoir, "permit and enjoin each judge to execute justice within his own jurisdiction. The most petty baron may arrest, try, and condemn a witch found within his own domain.... The witch shall be taken out of the land, and the wickedness thereof shall be forgiven.

Prepare the castle-hall for the trial of the sorceress."

Poor Rebecca was brought before the Grand Master, charged with various crimes. "We have," said the Master, "summoned to our presence a Jewish woman, by name Rebecca, daughter of York--a woman infamous for sortileges and for witcheries; whereby she hath maddened the blood, and besotted the brain, not of a churl, but of a knight--not of a secular knight, but of one devoted to the service of the holy temple--not of a knight champion, but of a preceptor.... By means of charms and of spells, Satan had obtained dominion over the knight, perchance because he cast his eyes too lightly upon a damsel's beauty."

Witnesses being invited by the Grand Master, forward came a once bedridden man, whom the prisoner had restored to the perfect use of his limbs by a miraculous balsam. Unwillingly he testified to Rebecca curing him, giving him a pot of spicy smelling ointment, and supplying him with money to pay his expenses to his father's house, whither he wished to repair. Other witnesses deponed that Rebecca muttered to herself in an unknown tongue, that the songs she sang were peculiarly sweet, that her garments were of a strange mystic form, and that she had rings with cabalistic devices. A soldier testified that he had seen her cure a wounded man in a mysterious way. He said she made certain signs upon the wound, and repeated words he understood not.

The result, he declared, was that the iron head of a cross-bow bolt disengaged itself from the wound, the bleeding was staunched, the wound closed, and the seemingly dying man was within a quarter of an hour walking upon the ramparts. Another soldier deponed that he had seen Rebecca perch herself upon a high turret, and there take the form of a white swan, under which appearance she flitted three times round the castle of Torquailstone. Again she settled on the turret, and once more a.s.sumed her womanly form. The evidence was considered more than enough to condemn the unhappy Jewess; and in a solemn tone the Grand Master demanded what she had to say against sentence of condemnation being p.r.o.nounced against her. Rebecca knew the law; she maintained her innocence, claimed the privilege of trial by combat, and offered to appear by a champion.

Brian de Bois-Gilbert was appointed to do battle on behalf of himself and the order of knights to which he belonged; and the day came when the die would be cast that was to decide the fate of Rebecca. At the castle of Templestowe everything was prepared by the prosecutor for the combat, but for poor Rebecca no champion appeared. Near the lists was a pile of f.a.ggots so arranged around a stake as to leave a s.p.a.ce for the accused to enter within the fatal circle, chained by fetters, in order to be ready for the fiery punishment. At the hour appointed for the champions to meet, the large bell of St. Michael tolled mournfully, the drawbridge fell, the gates opened, and a knight, bearing a great standard, sallied forth from the castle, preceded by six trumpeters, and followed by the knights preceptors, the Grand Master coming behind. Then came Brian de Bois-Gilbert, armed _cap-a-pie_, accompanied by two G.o.dfathers and many squires and pages.

After these followed a guard of warders, with the trembling Jewess, stripped of all her ornaments, lest there should be among them amulets, which Satan was supposed to bestow upon his victims, to deprive them of the power of confession, even when under torture.

While the Grand Master took his exalted seat, the unfortunate culprit was conducted to the black chair, near the ready prepared pile.

Everything being arranged, a loud and long flourish of trumpets announced that the proceedings of the court were to begin. Brian de Bois-Gilbert stood ready for the combat, but a champion was still wanting for the appellant. Lest Jew or Pagan should charge the court with injustice, the Grand Master declared his readiness to wait till the shadows were in the west, to see if a champion would appear for the culprit. But the general belief prevailed that no one would stand up for her; and the craven knights whispered to each other, when the day was far gone, that the time had come for declaring the pledge of Rebecca forfeited. At this instant, a knight, urging his horse forward, appeared on the plain advancing towards the lists. A hundred voices exclaimed, "A champion! a champion!" Yes, it was a champion, the renowned Wilfred of Ivanhoe. "Rebecca," said he, riding up to the black chair, "dost thou accept me for thy champion?" The answer was in the affirmative. Little time was now lost; the champions confronted each other. Trumpets sounded, and the knights charged in full career.

The wearied horse of Ivanhoe, and its no less exhausted rider, went down, as all had expected, before the well-aimed lance and vigorous steed of the Templar. This result all had foreseen; but although the spear of Ivanhoe did but lightly touch the s.h.i.+eld of Bois-Gilbert, that combatant reeled in his saddle, lost his stirrups, and fell in the lists. Ivanhoe, extricating himself from his fallen horse, was soon on foot, hastening to mend his fortune by the sword; but his antagonist rose not. Wilfred, placing his foot on his opponent's breast, and the sword's point to his throat, commanded him to yield, or die on the spot. Bois-Gilbert returned no answer. The fallen knight was unhelmed. His eyes were closed--he was dead, supposed to have died a victim to the violence of his own pa.s.sions. When the first moments of surprise were over, the Grand Master p.r.o.nounced the maiden free and guiltless.

The conclusion of this story is touching in the extreme. Soon after this Ivanhoe and the Lady Ravena were married. On the second morning after the nuptials, Rebecca waited on the Lady of Ivanhoe, and presented her with a small silver casket containing jewels of great value; and leaving a message to her champion, who never ceased to remember her, she hastened away to other lands, to tend the sick, feed the hungry, and relieve the distressed.

CURSES AND EVIL WISHES.

CHAPTER LII.

Curses, Excommunication, and Anathemas--Dirae, the Executioners of Vengeance--Curses and Anathemas not confined to the Vulgar--Excommunication generally accompanied by Anathema--Excommunicated Persons lost their Civil Rights--Heretics forfeited their Lives--Interment of Excommunicated Persons--Excommunication among the Hebrews--Different Degrees of Excommunication--Solemn Curses p.r.o.nounced against Impenitent Persons--Stone laid on an Accursed Person's Coffin--Last Degree of Excommunication sometimes followed by Banishment or Death--Form of Excommunication used by Ezra and Nehemiah when they cursed the Samaritans--Death upon the Cross, Sawing asunder, and other Punishments--Mode of Punishment among the Romans, Greeks, and Persians--The Greek Church annually excommunicated Roman Catholics--The Druids resorted to Excommunication--Whole Families excommunicated with Horrible Ceremonies and Dreadful Imprecations--Bishops excommunicating Rats, Mice, Caterpillars, and other Insects and Vermin--The Pope's Claim--Napoleon I. excommunicated--Victor Emmanuel excommunicated--Effects of Excommunication--The Inquisition and its Terrible Doings--The Pope's Fearful Curse--Mr. Donald Cargill excommunicating the King and n.o.bles--Indulgences, Pardons, and Penance.

Curses, excommunication, and anathemas have often been followed by sad consequences; but whether arising directly or indirectly from the denunciations, we do not say. Ancient nations had their G.o.ddesses Dirae, who were supposed to be the executioners of vengeance. They were called Furies on earth, and Eumenides in h.e.l.l. These G.o.ddesses were invoked with prayers and charms. Curses and anathemas were not in former ages confined to the vulgar cla.s.ses of persons, such as in the present time. Imprecations were hurled out by the priest and prophet, by the educated and uneducated, by professed Christian laymen, by the heathen, by the wandering gipsies, and the croaking crones.

Excommunication is generally accompanied by anathema, or ecclesiastical curse, and punishment, whereby a heretic is not only cut off from the society of the faithful, but is consigned to Satan, that condign punishment may follow. Sixty penalties have been reckoned as accruing upon excommunication. Major excommunication separates or cuts off the delinquent from all communion and fellows.h.i.+p with society--disables him from defending his civil rights. In more than one kingdom, a person who is not absolved from his excommunication in a year's time is deemed a heretic; and we know the punishment dealt out to such persons. Even in our own country, before the time of Charles II., a heretic forfeited his life, and generally expiated his guilt at the stake.

By law, an excommunicated person was not allowed to be interred according to the ordinary form and rites of burial, but the body was flung into a pit, or covered with a heap of stones called _imblocare corpus_. There was a time when the people believed that the bodies of excommunicated persons not absolved did not rot, but remained entire for ages, a horrible spectacle to posterity. This is attested by Matthew Paris and other writers. The Greeks, till recently, entertained the same opinion.

In the Hebrew republic the punishment of excommunication was devised by courts of justice, and inflicted by public sentence upon the offenders. There were three degrees of excommunication among the Jews: the first was a casting out of the synagogue, and implied a separation from all commerce and society, either with man or woman, for the distance of four cubits; also from eating or drinking with any one; from shaving, was.h.i.+ng, or the like, according to the pleasure of the judge and the seriousness of the offence. It was in force for thirty days, unless there was repentance expressed and forgiven.

If the sinner remained impenitent longer than thirty days, he was sentenced to more severe punishment, with the addition of a solemn curse. This is supposed to be the same as delivering over to Satan.

The offence was published in the synagogue, and, at the time of the publication of the curse, candles were lighted, and when it was extended they were extinguished, as a sign that the excommunicate was deprived of the light of heaven. His goods were confiscated; his male children were not permitted to be circ.u.mcised. If he died without repentance, a stone, according to judicial sentence, was cast upon his coffin or bier, to show that he deserved to be stoned. He was not mourned for with solemn lamentation, nor followed to the grave, nor buried with common burial.

The last degree of excommunication was anathematising, which was inflicted when the offender had often refused to comply with the sentence of court, and was followed by corporal punishment, and often with banishment or death. Drusius gives a form of excommunication which, the Jews say, was used by Ezra and Nehemiah against the Samaritans, in this manner:--The whole congregation was a.s.sembled in the Temple, and there were brought three hundred priests, three hundred boys, three hundred trumpets, and three hundred books of the law, and the Levites, singing, cursed the Samaritans by all forms of excommunication, particularly with the curse of the superior house of judgment, and with the curse of the inferior house of judgment. At the same time it was commanded that no Israelite should partake of a Samaritan's food. Hence arose the saying in reference to the breaker of this commandment: "He who eats a Samaritan's bread is as he who eats swine's flesh." Moreover, it was decreed that the excommunicate should have no part in the resurrection of the dead.

There were other punishments introduced among the Hebrews in later times of their government, which were borrowed from other nations.

These were princ.i.p.ally, death upon the cross, sawing asunder, condemnation to fight with wild beasts, the wheel, drowning in the sea, beating to death with cudgels, and boating. The first and third punishments were properly Roman inflictions; the second was likewise used by the Romans, but whether it was originally taken from them is doubtful; the fourth and sixth were Grecian penalties; the fifth was, in substance, in use among the Hebrews, Greeks, and Romans, but in the manner of drowning they differed, for the Hebrews tied a mill-stone about the culprit's neck; the last punishment was derived from the Persians, and is thus described:--The condemned person was laid upon his back in a boat, with his hands tied to the sides thereof; another boat was put over him, covering all his body except the head. In this posture the unhappy person was fed with milk and honey till the worms ate his very bowels, and thereby ended his days in extreme pain.

Every year the Greek Church, at Constantinople, p.r.o.nounces excommunication against the Roman Catholic Church. Heathens as well as Christians resorted to excommunication. The Druids made use of excommunication against rebels, and interdicted the communication of their mysteries to such as refused to submit to their judgments.

In the Christian Church, excommunication has been practised in all ages, and ecclesiastics have had continual recourse to it as one of their spiritual weapons. Not only have they excommunicated individuals, but whole families and provinces have come under their law, with horrible ceremonies and dreadful imprecations. Even kings have not escaped the Church's maledictions. Fevret, writing of excommunications in the Romish Church, says that lighted torches were at times thrown on the ground, with curses and anathemas, and then trampled out while bells were rung. This is somewhat similar to part of the ceremony of excommunication by bell, book, and candle, to be afterwards more particularly described.

There are instances of bishops excommunicating caterpillars and other insects; and Fevret gives instances of excommunications going out against rats and mice. It sometimes happened that popes and churches excommunicated one another, each cutting off the other from the communication of the faithful, and delivering over the anathematised person or church to the devil. In 850 the synod of Pavia resolved that all who refused to submit to the discipline of the Church should be anathematised, and cut off from every Christian hope and consolation.

For fifteen centuries the Pope has claimed the power of disposing of men's souls as seems best to him. Whom he blesses, he says, are blessed; and whom he curses, he would make us believe, are cursed. He arrogates to himself the authority of holding the keys of heaven and h.e.l.l.

In 1809 the Pope excommunicated Napoleon I., and in 1860 his Holiness excommunicated Victor Emmanuel, king of Italy--sentences which implied spiritual condemnation, and deprivation of earthly power. The subjects of an excommunicated king were freed from allegiance to their sovereign. It is supposed the Pope's power extends so far that he may p.r.o.nounce excommunication against the dead, even to the debarring of deceased persons from being cleansed from their sins in purgatory, and the consigning of them to the place of eternal punishment.

Terror and amazement followed the footsteps of the inquisitionists.

They proceeded with the greatest secrecy and silence. When a heretic was seized, the world abandoned him; his nearest friends durst not say a word in his defence. The heretical criminals were generally arrested in the stillness of night, examined, tortured, and, unless they recanted, condemned and executed without seeing or knowing who were their accusers. Usually the accused persons were tortured until they condemned themselves; and although witnesses were sometimes examined, the form of procedure was a mockery of justice.

As a convincing proof of how dreadful the Romish Church's anathemas are, we give the Pope's fearful curse, taken from a form of excommunication copied from the "Leger Book" of the church of Rochester, long in the custody of the dean and chapter there:--

"By the authority of G.o.d Almighty, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and of the holy canons, and of the undefiled Virgin Mary, the mother and patroness of our Saviour, and of all the celestial virtues, angels, archangels, thrones, dominions, powers, cherubims and seraphims, and of the holy patriarchs, prophets, and of all the apostles and evangelists, and of the holy innocents who in the sight of the Holy Lamb are found worthy to sing the new song, of the holy martyrs and holy confessors, and of the holy virgins, and of all the saints, and together with all the holy and elect of G.o.d: we excommunicate and anathematise him or them, malefactor or malefactors, and from the threshold of the holy church of G.o.d Almighty we sequester them, that he or they may be tormented, disposed and delivered over with Dathan and Abiram, with those who say to the Lord G.o.d, Depart from us, we desire not Thy ways. And as fire is quenched with water, so let the light of him or them be put out for evermore, unless it shall repent him or them, and they make satisfaction. Amen. May the Father who created man, curse him or them. May the Son, who suffered for us, curse him or them. May the Holy Ghost, who was given to us in baptism, curse him or them. May the holy cross of Christ, for our salvation triumphing over his enemies, ascend and curse him or them. May the eternal and holy Virgin Mary, mother of G.o.d, curse him or them. May St. Michael, the advocate of holy souls, curse him or them. May all the angels and archangels, princ.i.p.alities and powers, and all the heavenly host, curse him or them. May the laudable number of patriarchs and prophets curse him or them. May St.

John, the chief forerunner and baptist of Christ, curse him or them. May St. Peter and St. Paul, and St.

Andrew, and all other Christ's apostles, together with the rest of his disciples and evangelists, who by their preaching converted the universal world, curse him or them. May the holy and wonderful company of martyrs and confessors, who by their holy works are found pleasing to G.o.d Almighty, curse him or them. May the holy choir of the holy virgins, who for the honour of Christ have despised the things of this world, curse him or them. May all the saints, who from the beginning of the world to everlasting ages are found to be the beloved of G.o.d, curse him or them. May the heavens and the earth, and all the holy things remaining thereon, curse him or them. May he or they be cursed wherever he or they be, whether in their house, or in their field, or in the highway, or in the path, or in the wood, or in the water, or in the church. May he or they be cursed in living, in dying, in eating, in drinking, in being hungry, in being thirsty, in fasting, in sleeping, in slumbering, in waking, in walking, in standing, in sitting, in lying, in working, in resting, in * * * * in * * * * and in blood-letting. May he or they be cursed in all the faculties of their body. May he or they be cursed inwardly and outwardly. May he or they be cursed in the hair of his or their head. May he or they be cursed in his or their brain. May he or they be cursed in the top of his or their head, in their temples, in their foreheads, in their ears, in their eyebrows, in their cheeks, in their jaw-bones, in their nostrils, in their teeth or grinders, in their lips, in their throat, in their shoulders, in their wrists, in their arms, in their hands, in their fingers, in their breast, in their heart, and in the interior parts to the very stomach, in their veins, in their groin, in their thighs, in their genitals, in the hips, in the knees, in the legs, in the feet, in the joints, and in the nails. May he or they be cursed in all their joints, from the top of the head to the sole of the foot. May there not be any soundness in him or them.

May the Son of the Living G.o.d, with all the glory of His Majesty, curse him or them; and may heaven, with all the powers which move therein, rise against him or them, to d.a.m.n him or them, unless he or they shall repent, or that he or they shall make satisfaction.

Amen, Amen. So be it."

The superst.i.tion connected with excommunication was not confined to the churches and nations already mentioned. It extended to the Reformed Churches, and indeed this form of superst.i.tion lingers among them still. A most enthusiastic Reformer (the Rev. Donald Cargill), eminent in his day for piety and learning, who suffered martyrdom in 1681, scrupled not, a year before his death, to excommunicate at Torwood, Stirlings.h.i.+re, several of the most notable and violent persecutors of the time--the King, the Dukes of York, Monmouth, Lauderdale, and Rothes, Sir George Mackenzie, and Sir Thomas Dalzell.

If Mr. Cargill did not curse others whom he thought had done him and the cause of truth wrong, he predicted that evil would befall them; and what he foretold came to pa.s.s. He told James Irvine of Bonshaw, who apprehended him shortly before his execution, that his persecutor would not long escape a just judgment, not far from the place the arrest was made. This prediction was verified; for soon after Irvine had received 5000 merks as a reward for apprehending Mr. Cargill, he was killed in a duel near Lanark. One John Nesbet mockingly said one day to Mr. Cargill, "Will you not give us a word?" The reverend divine looked on the man with concern, while he said, "Wicked, poor man, mock not; ere you die you shall desire one word, but shall not have it."

Soon after, this man was struck dumb, and died in great terror. When Rothes, one of those whom Mr. Cargill excommunicated, threatened him with torture and a violent death, he said, "Forbear to threaten me; for, die what death I may, your eyes shall not see it." This prophecy also came to pa.s.s. Rothes died, as is well known, a few hours before the condemned divine and his fellow-martyrs suffered the last penalty of man's law--death temporal.

One can easily imagine the terror into which a weak-minded person would be cast by having the Pope's dire curses p.r.o.nounced against him, were it not known that he who is authorised to fulminate the ecclesiastical censure and bans, may, for a moderate pecuniary consideration, or by a mortification of the flesh, or good works, have the woes p.r.o.nounced against him mitigated, if not entirely removed.

Indulgences have been purchasable since the early centuries for this world, and for the remission of suffering in purgatory as well. Those most acquainted with the holy places in Rome are best able to make known the facilities with which indulgences are obtained. There is scarcely a church or a station, a convent or a holy place, neither is there hardly a service or a ceremony, which has not its own peculiar indulgences. Indulgences for hundreds of years may be secured by the exercises of a single day. The holy stairs, wherever they are situated, said to have belonged to the palace of Pontius Pilate, consisting of twenty-eight steps, possess peculiar virtue. Leo IV.

conceded nine years' indulgence for each step ascended by a devotee on his bare knees. Thus, he who reaches the highest step secures an indulgence of two hundred and fifty-two years, whether he remains here, or finds himself in purgatory. Whoever kisses a cross at one end of the Colosseum of Rome, acquires an indulgence of one year and forty days; and there is a wooden cross in the centre of the arena, which secures an indulgence of two hundred days to every one who kisses it.

Leo XII. conceded for ever an indulgence of forty years and one thousand six hundred days, applicable also to the dead, for every time a faithful believer visits, during Lent, the churches where there are prescribed stations. He also conceded a plenary indulgence to all who have made such visits three times in three distinct days. For the information of all good Catholics, a carefully prepared index has been drawn up, showing the churches and stations which should be visited, together with the most effectual times of repairing thither. In conclusion, we give the following examples, to ill.u.s.trate the system of procuring indulgences by pilgrimage to sacred places:--

Thus a visit "on January 1 to a station at S. Marie, in Transtevere, secures an indulgence of 30 years and 1200 days."

"On Ash Wednesday, to S. Tabina, an indulgence of 15 years and 600 days.

"On the following Thursday, to S. Georgio, in Velabro, an indulgence of 10 years and 400 days.

"On the fourth Sunday in Lent, to S. Croce, an indulgence of 15 years and 600 days.

"On Palm Sunday, to S. Giovanni, in the Laterno, an indulgence of 25 years and 1000 days.

"On holy Thursday, to S. Giovanni, a plenary indulgence.

"On holy Friday, to S. Croce, an indulgence of 30 years and 1200 days.

"On Easter Sunday, to S. Marie Maggiore, a plenary indulgence.

"On Easter Monday, to S. Pietro, in Vaticano, an indulgence of 30 years and 1200 days.