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Malleus Maleficarum, in German the Hexenhammer, in plain English the Witch-hammer, expresses admirably in each language the nature of the instrument. A hammer is made for striking; it crushes what it strikes. Here was the hammer for the heretics, who were held to be synonymous with evil-doers; and indeed, as the book expressed, maleficarum. Thus the witches were the wicked, heretical women (haereticae pravitatis) whom the hammer was to demolish, and which we must examine more closely.
This ominous book appeared first, probably, in 1489, and consisted of 625 pages in quarto. This was the original edition as quoted by Hauber. There were subsequent editions, but they were never translated into German.
The Hexenhammer was, in fact, the codex, in which everything was clearly and fully set forth which belonged to witchcraft. Jacobus Sprenger and his assistants have reduced witchcraft into a regular system, which raised on the foundation of the papal command, and placed under the legal protection of the secular magistracy, must be carried into execution by a few cunning witch-judges, against whom neither reason nor innocence, neither honour nor rank, may utter a syllable of disapprobation; nay, was not allowed any appeal to the keys of St. Peter at Rome, so that all rescue should be utterly impossible, and no bounds be set to the career of destruction.
In the Hexenhammer, the idea of witchcraft is systematically determined. Witches, sorcerers, and sorceresses, are people who deny God, and renounce him and his grace; who have made a league with the devil; have given themselves up to him body and soul: who attend his assemblies and sabbaths, and receive from him poison-powder, and, as his subjects, receive command from him to injure and to destroy men and animals; who, through devilish arts, stir up storms, damage the corn, the meadows, and the fields, and confound the powers of nature. The sorcerers were called Malefici, according to Isidorus, on account of their malignity, because they, with the help of the devil, bring even the elements into confusion. As the witches are more especially the objects of his attention, and as they carry on more feminine avocations, such as milking the neighbours' cows, making witch-butter, fortune-telling, etc., they are the more numerous offenders; yet are the wizards not to be overlooked in the Hexenhammer; for these have it in their nature to be more engaged in maiming, stabbing, striking and shooting dead.
The Hexenhammer is, according to the prefixed apology, divided into three principal parts, containing various chapters and episodes, but very confused and full of contradictions. I can here only give a cursory view of it, referring for a more extended one to Horst's "Daemonomagie."
The first division contains eighteen queries on all that presents itself under the head of sorcery; namely, 1st. the devil; 2nd. the sorcerer or witch; and 3rd. the divine permission. The devil is the chief person, through whose aid sorcery takes place by the divine permission. The belief in this is orthodox; the assertion of the contrary is heresy. This is the great principle, which is fortified by a multitude of quotations: to show the power of the devil in natural and bodily things, yet with the profound addition, that it is heresy to believe that God is not the stronger, and that nature is his own proper work. The devil has only power through God's permission; and he works either directly or by delusion. Sprenger admits, too, in his way, deceptions ofthe imagination, but asserts that they are more frequently the devil's work, though heresy is often to be attributed rather to the imagination than to the devil. If the witches believe that they are making their excursions through the air with Diana or Herodias, it is properly with the devil that they do it, who operates on the imagination, and then the witch, when she is in her trance, believes in the devil and in the excursion.
The second division contains the query respecting the essential characteristics of witchcraft over station and knowledge. Ignorance is not wholly excusable, because people should conquer their ignorance.
On the question, how the devil acts in witches, it is answered: "The devil operates, in fact, alone, as in the case of Job; but the witches are necessary instruments for his corporal actions, because the devil being a spiritual being, needs a vehicle through which to exercise his power. Many have greenish eyes, the glance of which injures. Natural things have all sorts of secret properties, which the witches know, and therewith perform various wonders; for instance, they lay something under the door-sills and bewitch men and beasts—nay, even destroy them, the devil being actually present on the occasions. The witches bewitch; and sometimes by their bleared eyes. These bleared eyes are inflamed eyes; these inflame the air, and even sound eyes, but especially when these bleared eyes fix themselves in a direct line with the healthy ones."
The third most beautiful and highly important question is, whether in the connections with the devil real children are begotten? This question is often asked in the witchtrials. The question is answered succinctly in the affirmative; to doubt it were heresy.
The fifth question treats of the influence of stars on plants, animals, and men, of course by the help of the devil, whose names, as Diabolus, Belial, Beelzebub, the god of flies, are etymologically thence derived.
One of the most entertaining chapters is the answer to the sixth query, why women are more given to sorcery than men. Here there is no lack of merry monkish wit. "The holy fathers of the church," it says, "always assert that three things, whether for good or for evil, know no bounds; namely, the tongue, a priest, and a woman. As to the tongue, it is quite clear that the Holy Ghost conferred fiery tongues on the apostles: amongst preachers the tongue is like the tongues of the dogs which licked the sores of Lazarus. So there are amongst all men, amongst the clergy as well as others, wicked and unwholesome tongues; for as the holy Bernard says:—'Nostri praelati facti sunt Pilati, nostri pastores facti sunt tonsores.' (Our shepherds are become sheep-shearers.) As to women, it is also very clear; for the wise Solomon gives his experience of them, and what St. Chrysostom says does not sound very flattering:— 'Marriage is a very doubtful thing; for what is a woman but an enemy to friendship, an unavoidable punishment, a necessary evil, a natural temptation, a desirable misfortune, a domestic danger, a perpetual fountain of tears, a mischief of nature overlaid with a glittering varnish?' Seneca says: 'A woman loves or hates; there is no third course. If she weeps there is deceit afloat, for two sorts of tears bedew the eyes of women: the one kind are evidences of their pain, the other of their deceit and their cunning.' But of good wives the fame also is unbounded; and men, and indeed whole countries, have been saved by them." But the Witch-hammer turns quickly from this subject, and draws this immediate conclusion—that women are more addicted to sorcery than men—from these causes: 1st. from their easiness of faith; 2nd. from the weakness of their constitutions, by which they become more susceptible to revelations (thus, a weakness and yet a higher endowment from God are attributed to them); 3rd. on account of their slippery tongues, and their inquisitive wits, by which they tempt the devil, i. e., put questions to him,—get too far with him to get back again. A whole host of crimes are then enumerated against the female sex, as squabbling, envy, stiffneckedness (because they were made out of Adam's crooked rib). Already in Paradise Eve practised deceit, and showed a want of faith, for femina comes from fe— faith, and minus—less.
The eighth and ninth queries are a sort of continuation; the tenth query is, whether it be deception or reality when men appear to be turned into beasts by the witches? Here truth precedes falsehood in order to make the apparent more imposing. "An actual metamorphosis," it says, "appears impossible, for two creatures of different natures cannot exist in the same subject, as St. Augustin says. But the devil can so dispose the imagination, that a man may seem, both to himself and others, to be a beast. In this case a bodily change does take place, namely, that of the countenance; which the pagan Circe accomplished on the comrades of Ulysses, which, was, however, only a change to the eye. A brave girl rejected the advances of a dissipated young man steadfastly; and he went away, highly excited, to a Jew, and had her bewitched, and the poor thing was turned into a horse; but it was no real change, but only a jugglery of the devil, who so blinded the eyes of the maiden and of others that she seemed to be a horse. They took her to St. Macarius, over whose eyes the devil had no power. He immediately knew her for a real maiden, and not a horse, and relieved her happily from the witchcraft." (How naive and pious!)
When wolves sometimes fall on men and carry children away out of their cradles (wehrwolf, lykanthropy, kynanthropy—possession and metamorphosis into the nature of dogs and wolves), they sometimes are real wolves, but in others they are only delusions of the devil. The Lord God formerly menaced the people with wild beasts, through Moses. The devil also disposes the imagination to a wolfmania; and in the first case the devil can enter into real wolves as into real swine; in the other case it is only appearance. (The Witch-hammer becomes philosophical too!)
The twelfth question treats of witch-midwives, who injure the fruits, produce untimely births, and carry children under the chimneys or into the open air, and dedicate them to the devil. The twelfth and thirteenth questions treat of the permission of God—an edifying argument! The fourteenth question is, "What must we think of witches, and what shall we preach about them?" The witches are fallen from God, are heretics and apostates, and thus deserve condign punishment more than all other criminals whatever. As heretics, they are deserving the ban of the church, confiscation of goods, and death. Is the heretic a layman, and declines to abjure his error, he must be burnt. If a coiner is punishable with death, how much more a coiner of false faith! Ecclesiastics were either condemned to death, or cast for life into prison. But the witches, as apostates, were not to escape with life, even if they confessed their sins, and repented of them. (Very full of Christian love!)
The fifteenth query or chapter: Innocent, and otherwise not dangerous people, were sometimes bewitched, partly through their own sins, and partly through the sins of the sorcerer. The sixteenth chapter: Explanation and comparison of the preceding with other kinds of crimes and superstition.
Seventeenth chapter: Comparison of the devil's works with witches' works. The witches are worse than the devil himself. Eighteenth chapter: How you are to preach against the five proofs that God does not allow the devil so great power to bewitch men. Here the fifth objection gave the inquisitors a good deal to do; namely, why the judges, who prosecuted and burnt witches, were not bewitched by them before all other men ?—a question which the second part of the Witch-hammer answered, in which there are only two cardinal questions: 1st. How people are to defend themselves against sorcery,—treated in six chapters; and 2nd. How sorcery is again to be removed,—treated in eight chapters.
There are three kinds of men whom witchcraft cannot touch: magistrates, clergymen exercising the pious rites of the church, and saints who are under the immediate protection of the angels. Of course, inquisitors and judges stand first under the protection of God. Especial injuries done by the devil to the innocent, bodily and spiritual. The devil seduces pious young women through witches. Two were burnt by the authors at Eavensburg. One of them was of bad character; and she confessed that she had suffered much from having endeavoured to seduce a young maiden of the city to the devil's will. Once she had invited her on a festival day, when the devil, in the shape of a fine young gentleman, spoke with her. But the pious maiden constantly defended herself by making the sign of the cross whenever he approached her, till at length he was compelled to abandon his attempt, for which she, the witch, had to undergo much torment. Many such edifying stories the authors of the Witch-hammer give from their own experience.
The second chapter treats of the manner in which witchcraft is expelled; one of the most important and interesting chapters. It contains also a description of the belief in witches at the end of the fifteenth century. There are three kinds of witches, it states: the mischievous—maleficae, who cannot again disenchant you; those who hurt no one; and hurtful ones, who can, however, release their victims from their spells. Amongst the first kind, the most mischievous are the devourers of children. These are the most powerful of all, who occasion hail, thunder, and tempests, who fly through the air, and make themselves devoid of feeling on the rack; nay, they even sometimes bewitch the judges, and seek to confuse them with compassion. They rob both animals and men of their power of reproduction, and through help of the devil have revelations of future things, which they foretell distinctly. If they do not devour children, they yet persecute them in all manner of ways; plunge them into water, if they are playing by brooks; and make horses shy and start. The form of compact with the devil is minutely described, which either took place solemnly on a witch-sabbath, or in private. In the first, the devil takes the place of honour, as the grand master, though in the witch-trials he is usually styled the little master; and the old witches present the female candidates to the prince of hell. There then takes place an examination as to faith and abilities; and the novice swears truth and obedience. The devil, on the other hand, teaches them how to make magic ointment, and drinks, and powders, for the damage or destruction of men and cattle, from the bones and members of new-born infants, and still more efficacious ones from those of baptised children. All this the authors of the Witch-hammer have themselves experienced.
A child-eater related the following ceremonial before the tribunal of justice, which is important for a true estimate of the witch-trials. "We lie in wait," she said, "for children. These are often found dead by their parents; and the simple people believe that they have themselves overlain them, or that they died from natural causes; but it is we who have destroyed them. For that purpose we steal them out of the grave and boil them with lime, till all the flesh is loosed from the bones, and is reduced to one mass. We make out of the firm part an ointment, and fill a bottle with the fluid; and whoever drinks with due ceremonies of this, belongs to our league, and is already capable of bewitching."
A similar relation of the ceremonies of abjuration was made by a young man who was accused with his wife, and who was forced to this confession by the authors of the Witch-hammer themselves; but, spite of this confession, the two were delivered up to death by fire. The young man declared before his execution that his wife would rather suffer herself to be torn to pieces on the rack—nay, even burnt alive, than confess any such thing; and this she actually did; but the husband himself made the confession, and yet was put to death. "A woman in Basle," continues the Witch-hammer, "had for seven years intercourse with the devil; but God took pity on her poor soul, for very shortly before the completion of this time she was happily discovered by us, seized, and burned. She confessed her sins very penitently."
The third chapter treats of the manner in which they made their flights through the air. If people ascribe these flights merely to the imagination, that is directly contrary to the Word of God, "for the devil took the Lord Christ himself, and set him upon the pinnacle of the Temple, and showed him all the glory of the world." A good angel also took the pious Habakuk by the hair of the head, and bore him through the air. Before the flight, the witches smear a broom-stick, an oven-fork, or a piece of linen, with their ointment, and they are at once borne away; it may be by day, but much oftener by night. There are very edifying stories told of the way in which these women produce rain when it is wanted. From the fourth to the seventh chapters, the amorous affairs of the witches and the devil are treated of; in the eighth again the change of men into beasts. To doubt of that is heresy. "Was not Nebuchadnezzar changed into an ox and ate grass?" In the ninth chapter it says, "The devil in such metamorphoses secretes himself in the head or the body of the man. He causes a blinding of the outer and inner senses; and the seats of the various faculties are very phrenologically given, as, for instance, memory in the hinder part of the head up towards the middle above, where imagination has her organ. Sensus communis has its cell in the front part of the head, where the imagination presents, with lightning speed, the figure of a horse, so that the man swears that he sees such an one. The devil does this with such skill, that not even a head-ache occurs from it, such miracles does he work; but they are no real miracles; those only are wrought by God."
The tenth chapter treats of the bodily possession of the devil; and contains a demonology in the spirit of the Witchhammer. The eleventh and twelfth are repetitions of the midwives, children-eaters, and child-offerings which were made to the devil. The thirteenth contains the conversation of a father with his eight-years'-old daughter on the drought which then prevailed; and the daughter declared that she was able to produce rain, on which the mother, witha threatening countenance, commanded her to keep quiet. Yes, she could produce thunder and hail. The inquisitors heard of this; the godless mother was arrested and burnt, but the maiden was saved.
The fourteenth chapter explains how the witches bewitch the cows. According to Sprenger, the witch-milking proceeds thus: The witch sticks a knife into a wall, takes a milk-pail between the knees, and cries to the devil to send them the milk of the cow that belongs to this or that person. The devil immediately milks the cow, and brings the milk to the witch, when it appears to run out of the knife-handle, by which the devil only deceives the witch, for he has brought the milk through the air. In a similar manner the witches supplied themselves with butter out of water that flowed by, and especially good May-butter; and the devil steals for them the wine of pious people, from their cellars. Cattle are bewitched by the touch, and even by looking at them. They make for such purposes all kinds of magical instruments, pictures, especially of toads, lizards, and snakes, etc., and lay them under the door-sills, and thereby they spoil milk, and produce diseases in the cattle.
The fifteenth chapter treats of witch thunder-storms, and damages to cattle and corn. As on one occasion terrible tempests laid waste the country from Eavensburg to Salzburg, the people cried loudly against the witches who occasioned it. "We caused,therefore," says Sprenger, "a few notorious old women to be arrested and tortured; and the event showed that we had hit on the chief offenders, for they all confessed." They were burnt as a matter of course. Sixteenth chapter: The witchery of men consists of three principal kinds:— Shooting with bows, the devil directing the arrows, so that they are sure to hit; the enchanting of swords, so as to sharpen those of friends and dull those of enemies, for which purpose they use magic songs, spells, and witch-knots. To the great trouble, however, of the wizards, such men were very frequently taken under the protection of the powerful nobles.
The second part consists of two chief questions, how witchcraft is to be done away with. The means are physical and spiritual. Of the first, smoke is a means; of the last, prayers and making the sign of the cross. This is followed by a diffuse inquiry of nearly a hundred pages, with learned treatment of bewitchings and freeing from witchery.
The third part contains the criminal code, which was to be used against the witches and heretics, in five-and-thirty questions, or items, in which the whole process of trial, from the arrest to the judgment, is fully detailed. It is necessary to the understanding of the whole spirit of the Witchhammer, that we should make ourselves acquainted with the penal laws, of which I give the following brief notice:—
The first chapter or query is, how a witch-prosecution is to be conducted. The arrest may take place on the simple rumour that a witch is to be found here or there, without any previous denunciation, since the duty of the judge is here to afford help. The second chapter is concerning the witnesses. Two or three are sufficient; and the judge may summon them, administer the oath, and frequently examine them. The witnesses, according to the chapters three and four, must have no high qualities. Excommunicated, infamous, runaway, and lewd scoundrels were fitting witnesses. Accomplices are admitted, in matters of faith of each kind, as evidence. Nay, in the absence of better witnesses, heretics and witches are taken as unexceptionable evidence against their fellows; the wife may witness against the husband, and vice versa, and the children against their parents. According to the fifth chapter, enemies, when they are not mortal enemies, that is, through attempts upon life, are admitted as half witnesses; and if they agree in their evidence wholly with another they two make a whole witness. For instance, Michael's Eliza says that Peter's Barbara has quarrelled with her, and bewitched her child— a half witness. Another man bears testimony that Peter's Barbara seven years before took away the milk of his cow —a whole witness. Barbara is convicted of witchcraft, and burnt.
The sixth chapter teaches how the prosecution was to be conducted. Here come all sorts of interesting and most important questions which are addressed to the accused. As, whether she confessed that she was a witch? Why she let herself be seen in the field or the stall? Why she touched the cow, which thereupon became ill? Why her cow gave more milk than three or four of other people's?
Seventh chapter:—Whether the accused was to be regarded as a witch? Eighth chapter:—How the witches were to be arrested? And in this particular it is most important to take care that the prisoner does not touch the ground, or she might, by her witchcraft, liberate herself. On this account witches at a later day, according to Horst, were suspended in the witch-tower at Lindheim, and there burnt. Ninth and tenth chapters:— Detail further proceedings with the prisoner. Whether a defence was to be allowed? What may happen under the circumstances — but the affair is delicate. If an advocate defended his client beyond what was requisite, whether it was not reasonable that he too should be considered guilty; for he is a patron of witches and heretics. (No wonder that there was no great zeal shown in defending those accused.) Eleventh and twelfth chapters:— Proceedings with unknown names, and by enemies. Here all sorts of cunning and juridical artifices were allowed. Thirteenth chapter: — What the judge has to notice in the audience of the torture-chamber. Witches who have given themselves up for years, body and soul, to the devil (who, in fact, have been afflicted with cramps and convulsions), are made by him so insensible to pain on the rack, that they rather allow themselves to be torn to pieces than confess. Others, who were not so true, he ceased to torture. Such were easy to bring to confession. (The unhappy sensitive ones preferred death to the rack.) Fourteenth chapter:— "Upon torture and the mode of racking; — very instructive! For instance: In order to bring the accused to voluntary confession, you may promise her her life; which promise, however, may afterwards be withdrawn. If the witch does not confess the first day, the torture to be continued the second and third days. But here the difference between continuing and repeating is important. The torture may not be continued without fresh evidence; but it may be repeated according to judgment. For instance, the judge announces after the first torture: "We condemn thee to be again tortured tomorrow." Fifteenth chapter:— Continuance of the discovery of a witch by her marks. Here, amongst other signs, weeping is one. It is a damning thing if an accused, on being brought up, cannot at once shed tears. The clergy and judges lay their hands on the head of the accused, and adjure her by the hot tears of the most glorified Virgin, that in case of her innocence she shed abundant tears in the name of God the Father. (Who now will only believe on God, and not on the devil too?) It was found by experience that the more a witch was adjured, the less she could weep. Further, the judge must be careful in touching the witch that he carry upon his person consecrated herbs and salt; and he must not look directly at her; for after looking at the accused, the judges lost all power of condemning them, and set them at liberty! The witches were, therefore, carried backwards into the room. The witches must also have all their hair shorn off; for without this foresight many cannot be brought to confession. In Germany this shaving was denounced as disgraceful, as the Witch-hammer complains. In other countries less resistance was made. When even pity was reduced to silence, indignation against the breach of morals and decency aroused the German breast, and became loud.
Sixteenth chapter:— Continuation. Seventeenth chapter:— Means of purification on the part of the witches, and the fire-proof. The fire-proof is opposed, because there are herbs which defend against the fire, which the witches knew; and the devil can make them insensible to the effect of hot iron. Eighteenth chapter:— On how many kinds of suspicion the judgment of death may be awarded. Twentieth chapter to the three-and-twentieth:— On questioning and judging notorious witches, of which sufficient has already been seen in the preceding chapters. Five-and-twentieth:— Here the grey witch-cloaks present themselves, in which the witches must, in all cases, do penance before the doors of the church. It was a wide, grey cloak, like a monk's cloak, only without a cape, with saffron-coloured crosses of three hands long and two broad. Six- and Seven-and-twentieth chapters:— The mode of proceeding with a heretic who has confessed, but afterwards has returned to the church. Twenty-eighth:— But how, when a repentant heretic again apostatises, he shall be dealt with. Twenty-ninth to the thirty-third chapter:— Similar questions as to confession, and the then denying of confession: of avoiding temptation. Of caution in the proceedings against persons who have been accused by witches already tried and burnt, because the devil often spoke out in them. (Nearly the only trace of humanity in the whole work.) Thirty-fourth chapter:— How to proceed with a witch who has actually employed magic means,—as midwives and shooters, finally, thirty-fifth chapter:— How sorcerers and witches are to be dealt with who appeal to a higher tribunal. This appeal must be opposed; and if it sometimes please the judge to allow of it, he is under no necessity to hasten the proceedings.
These brief indications of the contents of the Witchhammer are all of an essential character, and may serve us as a little abridgment of the history of the faith and legal practice of that time, and especially as it regards the witch-prosecutions, on which, therefore, we may be more concise.
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