After all, how could even Old Nick himself be any worse than the Inquisition? Who wouldn't be tempted to side with the opposition as the madness circled ever closer and you could almost feel the sparks of the great fires on your skin? Despite rumours to the contrary, Satan might, just might, prove a loyal master, rewarding the faithful with material support - and even the all-important magical release from jail, rack and pyre.
No one will ever know exactly how many of the recentlyestimated 100,000 accused were genuine witches and who was merely in the wrong place at the wrong time - although the records of individual cases make it horribly, pitifully clear that most were just victims. Their own confessions to even the most heinous and blatant Devil worship meant absolutely nothing.
One eyewitness, Weyer, wrote that the condemned `were slaughtered with the most refined tortures that tyrants could invent, beyond human endurance. And this cruelty is continued until the most innocent are forced to confess themselves guilty.'74 At Eichstatt in 1637 a woman who was arrested on charges of dealings with the Devil initially `laughed heartily', declaring she had rather die than admit to any such nonsense, and that she had lived a decent life with her husband and eight children for over twenty years. `Three weeks later she died under torture, confessing that she was in love with the devil, that she killed one of her children at his bidding, and that at least 45 of her neighbours were fellow Satanists' 75
Usually the poorer heretics were killed off first, while - as ever - the rich accused could usually buy their way out of trouble, as the following contemporary account of the persecution in France in 1459 makes clear:
In this year, in the town of Arras and country of Artois, arose, through a terrible and melancholy chance, an opinion called, I know not why, the Religion of Vaudoise. This sect consisted, it is said, of certain persons, both men and women, who, under cloud of night, by the power of the devil, repaired to some solitary spot, amid woods and deserts, where the devil appeared before them in human form - save that his visage is never perfectly visible to them - read to the assembly a book of his ordinances, informing them how he could be obeyed; distributed a very little money and a plentiful meal, which was concluded by a scene of general profligacy; after which each one of the party was conveyed home to her or his own habitation.
On accusations of access to such acts of madness, several creditable persons of the town of Arras were seized and imprisoned along with some foolish women and persons of little consequence. These were so horribly tortured that some of them admitted the truth of the whole accusation, and said, besides, that they had seen and recognized in their nocturnal assembly many persons of rank, prelates, seigneurs, and governors of bailliages and cities, being such names as the examiners had suggested to the persons examined, while they constrained them by torture to impeach the persons to whom they belonged. Several of those who had been thus informed against were arrested, thrown into prison, and tortured for so long a time that they also were obliged to confess what was charged against them. After this those of mean condition were executed and inhumanly burnt, while the richer and more powerful of the accused ransomed themselves by sums of money, to avoid the punishment and the shame attending to it. Many even of those also confessed being persuaded to take that course by the interrogators, who promised them indemnity for life and fortune. Some there were, of a truth, who suffered with marvellous patience and constancy the torments inflicted on them, and would confess nothing imputed to their charge; but they, too, had to give large sums to the judges, who exacted that such of them as, notwithstanding their mishandling, were still able to move, should banish themselves from that part of the country ... It ought not to be concealed that the whole accusation was a strategem of wicked men for their own covetous purposes, and in order, by these false accusations and forced confessions, to destroy the life, fame [good reputation], and fortune of wealthy persons .76
The possibilities for blackmail must have been particularly tempting when the Inquisitors arrived in one's neighbourhood. To demand money rather than make a formal charge of witchcraft would no doubt have occurred to a great many during the witch craze - although it is unlikely that such transactions were recorded.
According to the Inquisitors' handbook, the Hammer of the Witches by one of the most nightmarish partnerships of all time, Heinrich Kramer (1430-1505) and Jakob Sprenger (1436-95) - of whom Summers, their only English translator to date,' heartily approves as `erudite' - torture was to be known as `the Question'. It was to be used `lightly' at first to extract a confession - sometimes, indeed, merely showing the accused the instruments of torture succeeded in this - although what the Inquisitors meant by `light torture' is not what the victims would have understood. A woman from Constance admitted to causing storms by pouring water into a hole after she `had first been exposed to the very gentlest questions, being suspended hardly clear of the ground by her thumbs.'78
Records often claimed that confessions were given freely, without recourse to torture - sine tortura et extra locum torturae - 'without torture and even out of sight of the instruments of torture'. But what this meant in practice was that the victims were simply taken into another room and given the choice of confessing there and then or being returned to the torture chamber and put to `the Question' without mercy.
One Rebecca Lemp wrote heartrending letters to her husband both before and after torture, revealing that even in extremis she had fears for her soul. At first, as she languished in the dungeons, she seemed confident, writing
My dearly beloved Husband, be not troubled. Were I to be charged by thousands of accusations, I am innocent, else may all the demons in hell come and tear me to pieces. Were they to pulverize me, cut me in a thousand pieces, I could not confess anything. Therefore do not be alarmed; before my conscience and before my soul I am innocent. Will I be tortured? I don't believe it, since I am not guilty of anything.79
She was tortured, five times, after which she wrote,
O thou, chosen of my heart, must I be parted from thee, though entirely innocent? If so, may God be followed throughout eternity by my reproaches. They force one and make one confess, they have so tortured me ... Husband, send me something that I may die, or I must expire under the torture ... Send me something, else I may peril even my soul x0
Note that to this poor soul the greater sin would be to confess to crimes of witchcraft, though wholly innocent, than to commit suicide. We do not know her fate, but almost certainly we can guess what happened to her, unless somehow her husband did manage to smuggle her the means with which to end her agonies.
Prisoners of the Inquisition who did kill themselves, died of their injuries or of being eaten alive by rats in the dungeons - which happened often, as their suppurating wounds attracted vermin - were said to have been killed by the Devil, `for so did Divine justice dispose'.' For their part, the Inquisitors were absolved from all sin and culpability: when a victim died under torture, Pope Urban IV urged the Inquisitors to absolve each other. He declared they were innocent in the sight of God.82
Although on the whole most `witches' were women, and poor women at that, some rich men were arraigned, especially in areas where the Inquisition rapidly spiralled out of control, with each successive confession implicating another dozen or so people, and so on.
Elsewhere the richer you were the more likely you were to escape. However, the following extract is from the letter of Burgomaster Johannes Junius, a wealthy man whose property was seized. The note, which was smuggled out of Bamberg prison in 1628, while familiar enough to researchers, never fails to be heartrendingly poignant:
Many hundred thousand good-nights, dearly beloved daughter Veronica. Innocent have I come into prison, innocent have I been tortured, innocent I must die. For whoever comes into the witch prison must become a witch or be tortured until he invents something out of his head and - God pity him - bethinks himself of something. I will tell you how it has gone with me ... The executioner put the thumb screw on me, both hands bound together, so that the blood ran out at the nails and everywhere, so that for four weeks I could not use my hands, as you can see from the writing ... Thereafter they first stripped me, bound my hands behind me, and drew me up in the torture [strappadol. Then I thought heaven and earth were at an end; eight times did they draw me up and let me fall again, so that I suffered terrible agony. The executioner said, `Sir, I beg of you, for God's sake confess something, whether it be true or not. Invent something, for you cannot endure the torture which you will be put to, and even if you bear it all, yet you will not escape' . . . Now, dear child, here you have all my confession, for which I must die. And they are sheer lies and made-up things, so help me God. For all this I was forced to say through the fear of the torture which was threatened beyond what I had already endured. For they never leave off with the torture till one confesses something; be he never so good, he must be a witch. Nobody escapes ... Dear child, keep this letter secret so that people do not find it, else I shall be tortured most piteously and the jailers beheaded. So strictly is it forbidden ... I have taken several days to write this; my hands are both lame. I am in a sad plight. Good night, for your father Johannes Junius will never see you more ... Dear child, six have confessed against me at once ... all false, through compulsion, as they told me, and begged my forgiveness in God's name before they were
