Malleus Maleficarum

above businesses each and all were being performed and were carried out, and to this I give my evidence with the aforenamed witnesses; and in accordance with what I saw and with what, as I have stated above, I heard upon the sworn testimony of the said Bedel, good man and true, I have written out fair with my own hand and engrossed the present public instrument, which I have subscribed, and have caused to be published since I have drawn it up in this official form for publication, and being requested and required so to do I have signed it and sealed it according to the wonted manner with my own name and my own seal, that it may be officially approved and may be a sufficient and legal testimony and probation of all and single that are herein set forth, rehearsed, and contained.

Endnotes

1. The influence of this Saint over the dark powers was very remarkable, and he is especially venerated as “effugator daemonum.” The Medal of S. Benedict has been found to be extremely potent against all evil spells. During a trial for witchcraft in 1647 at Nattenberg near the Abbey of Metten in Bavaria, the sorcerers acknowledged that their attempts against the monks were foiled by the holy Medal. The possessed boys of Illfurt (Alsace), 1864⁠–⁠69, exhibited the utmost dread of S. Benedict’s Medal. ↩

2. Homer, Iliad, I, 590, sqq. Cf. Ovid, Fasti, III, 82: “Uolcanum tellus Hypsipylea colit.” Upon which Paulus glosses: “Hoc est, Lemnos insula, at Hypsipyle Thoantis filia quae in ea regnauit.” ↩

3. Aeneid, VIII, 416⁠–⁠422:

   Insula Sicanium iuxta latus Aeoliamque
   erigitur Liparen, fumantibus ardua saxis,
   quam subter specus et Cyclopum exesa caminis
   antra Aetnaea tonant, ualidique incudubus ictus
   auditi referunt gemitus, striduntque cauernis
   stricturae Chalybum et fornacibus ignis anhelat,
   Uolcani domus, et Uolcania nomine tellus.

   ↩

4. S. Luke 10:17, 18. ↩

5. Isaias 14:12. ↩

6. Paradise Lost, I, 738⁠–⁠51. ↩

7. The Pedigree of the Devil, London, 1883, pp. 178⁠–⁠9. ↩

8. Aeschylus, Choephoroe, 631⁠–⁠38. ↩

9. IV, 50; XXV, 1; XXXIX, 16. ↩

10. Eunapius, Uitae sophistarum: Aedesius (ed. Didot, p. 463). ↩

11. The Darker Superstitions of Scotland: T. G. Dalyell (p. 248). ↩

12. Codex Theodosianus, Lib. IX, tit. XVI, 1, 1. ↩

13. Olaus Magnus, Gentium septentrionalium historiae, III, 15. A Stornoway woman sold a mariner such a cord with three knots. Our Highland Folklore Heritage, Alexander Polson, Inverness, 1926, p. 73. ↩

14. Practica Inquisitionis haereticae prauitatis. Document publié pour la première fois par le chanoine C. Douais. Paris, 4to, 1886. ↩

15. Guillotined in 1794. ↩

16. Proudhon, La Révolution au XIXième siècle, p. 290. ↩

17. The last trial and judicial execution in Europe itself was probably that of two aged beldames, Satanists, who were burned at the stake in Poland, 1793, the year of the Second Partition, during the reign of Stanislaus Augustus Poniatowski. ↩

18. This is certainly one of the oldest and most universal of spells. To effect the death of a man, or to injure him by making an image in his likeness, and mutilating or destroying this image, is a practice found throughout the whole wide world from its earliest years. It is common both in Babylon and in the Egypt of the Pharoahs, when magicians kneaded puppets of clay or pitch moistened with honey. If it were possible to mingle therewith a drop of a man’s blood, the parings of his nails, a few hairs from his body, a thread or two from his garments, it gave the warlock the greater power over him. In ancient Greece and Rome precisely the same ideas prevailed, and allusions may be found in Theocritus (“Idyll” II), Virgil (“Eclogue” VIII, 75⁠–⁠82), Ovid (Heroides, VI, 91, sqq.; Amores, III, VII, 29, sqq.), and many more. (See R. Wunsch, “Eine antike Rachepuppe,” Philologus, LXI, 1902, pp. 26⁠–⁠31.) We find this charm among the Ojebway Indians, the Cora Indians of Mexico, the Malays, the Chinese and Japanese, the aborigines throughout Australia, the Hindus, both in ancient India and at the present day, the Burmese, many Arab tribes of Northern Africa, in Turkey, in Italy and the remoter villages of France, in Ireland and Scotland, nor is it (in one shape and form or another) yet unknown in the country districts of England. ↩

19. Some of the chronicles say Chester. ↩

20. This is referred to in Heywood’s King Edward IV, 4to, 1600, in the opening scene, where the Duchess of York, the King’s mother says:

    O Edward, Edward! fly and leave this place,
    Wherein, poor silly King, thou are enchanted.
    This is her dam of Bedford’s work, her mother,
    That hath bewitch’d thee, Edward, my poor child.

    ↩

21. This is probably the exact date. The discourse in question was certainly delivered between November, 1559, and 17 March, 1560. ↩

22. Relation of a Journey, London, 1632. ↩

23. Biographia Dramatica, Vol. I, p. 729. ↩

24. Reigned 590⁠–⁠604. ↩

25. Reigned 1227⁠–⁠41. He was almost one hundred years old at the time of his death. ↩

26. A. L. Maycock, The Inquisition, 1926, p. 235. ↩

27. Reigned 1254⁠–⁠61. ↩

28. 24 December, 1294⁠–⁠11 October, 1303. ↩

29. A close investigation was made, but the Bishop completely cleared himself of the charges. ↩

30. 7 August, 1316⁠–⁠4 December, 1334. ↩

31. 20 December, 1334⁠–⁠25 April, 1342. ↩

32. 30 December, 1370⁠–⁠27