3 - Witchcraft Comes of Age

When Europe emerged from the Dark Ages in the year A.D. 1000, the art of witchcraft took on as many aspects as there were customs of the countries to which it spread. Among other things, witchcraft became either the toy or the tool of the ruling classes, and for a time, it was tolerated; that is, until it raised problems that demanded drastic action.

In the centuries encompassing the Roman Empire, stern edicts against witchcraft were essential soon after the establishment of Christianity as the state religion, for witchcraft represented a return to the worship of Diana, whose very existence, along with the rest of the Greek and Roman pantheon, was no longer recognized. But in England, France, and Germany, it marked a merging of Roman and local traditions that promised to cancel each other out when Christianity increased its hold.

An interesting case of how Roman methods of witchcraft were adapted by the English is found in the tale of Sir Marrok, which though legendary, is an accurate recital of the superstitious beliefs and practices in England, from the Arthurian era on. Sir Marrok, off for the Saxon wars, left the Lady Irma (whom he married after his first wife's death) in charge of his castle and his young son. When reports arrived of Marrok's death in battle, Irma dismissed his trusted servants and sent the boy away to parts unknown, intending to take over the castle for her own.

Unexpectedly, Sir Marrok returned, alive. Lady Irma received him cordially, explained that his son was asleep and offered him a goblet of spiced wine. As he drank, grayish hair spread on his face, which in turn became a muzzle, and his hands and feet were transformed into paws. He landed bewildered on all fours and saw himself reflected in a mirror as a lean gray wolf. Before he could turn on the woman who had bewitched him, her shrill call brought a squad of armed retainers and the wolf was lucky to outrun them from the castle and escape into the surrounding forest.

During the ensuing years, the great gray wolf not only eluded all hunters; he outfought the biggest wolves he encountered and drove their packs from the forest. He also sprang surprise attacks on outlaws, killing enough to discourage others from remaining in that vicinity. He even set fire to the huts of warlocks and witches who served Lady Irma. But he was wise enough never to venture near the castle.

Then late one afternoon, the bewitched Marrok saw a young knight riding toward the castle and from his accoutrements, the observant wolf decided that it was his own son, come back to claim his patrimony. Knowing the fate that awaited the youth, Marrok desperately pawed his way to a secret exit from the castle that he had avoided during all those years. He worked his way up to an underground chamber and there he found his own sword, cloak and armor on permanent exhibit, across from a shelf where a wax image of an owl gazed unblinkingly from above three lighted candles, colored respectively red, green and blue. But above, on a higher shelf, stood the hardened figurine of a lone gray wolf. With one swing of his forepaw, Sir Marrok knocked the clay image from its perch, and as it cracked on the stone floor, he became — this time not to his surprise — his own familiar self, Sir Marrok.

Grabbing his cloak and sword, Sir Marrok rushed up to the great hall, where he found Lady Irma proffering a chalice to the young knight, saying, "Pledge me in this wine, Sir Knight, and I shall tell thee where to find thy father." No pledge was needed. Papa was already there, swinging his sword toward the chalice, hoping to break it. But Irma, fast as ever, was ahead of him. She snatched it away, gulped its contents and flew hooting out through a high window that she had fortunately left open as a quick exit for Marrok's son.

This furnishes a good clue to what was going on in England at that time. Spiced wine that turned knights into wolves or witches owls were slightly on the fantastic side; but there were more prosaic concoctions as well, such as love philtres and death potions, with a whole range of mixtures that served in-between purposes and worked slowly or swiftly, as preferred, but always surely.

In later centuries, these brews were to gain recognition on their own merits, but during the Middle Ages they were generally regarded as adjuncts to witchcraft, with their potency depending on gruesome ingredients stirred at the right time of the moon. When administered, they were usually fortified by a glare of the Evil Eye or the muttering of some mumbo jumbo that served as an incantation.

While the secrets of witchcraft could be taught to willing pupils, contact with more virulent sources was essential to make the initiate function to his fullest; and sometimes warlocks and witches cropped up so unexpectedly that they appeared to be self-made. With Diana and her sinister opposite, Hecate, branded as myths along with the Norse and Teutonic deities, theologians were confronted with a real dilemma. To class witchcraft itself as sheer imagination would be to deny the potency that it obviously possessed. To allow its practice would be a direct reversion toward the outlawed pagan worship with which it was so solidly linked.

So they blamed it on the Devil, as head of a horde of demons and lesser imps, whose activities expanded in proportion to the reported facts that could be attributed to them. Any assemblage of witches could thus be condemned as a form of devil-worship, but it was quite as easy for anyone to form an individual pact with the Devil or one of his subordinates. Among the latter was a specific type of male demon known as an incubus, which supposedly haunted women in their sleep; and to whose nocturnal forays the birth of witches and warlocks was attributed. The female equivalent of the incubus was called a succuba and caused similar problems where men were concerned.

Vivid nightmares were often blamed on these demons, although they may have served as alibis where actual lechery was involved. Their prevalence was partly explained by the claim that a group of incubi and succubae had long ago taken over an island in the Mediterranean as their very own and that the present inhabitants were therefore a race of full-fledged demons, capable of taking off on flights throughout the world and doing their usual mischief wherever they happened to land.

Confirmation of such theories was built into the Merlin legend. It is told that the Devil approached a pious young woman during an unguarded moment and thus Merlin was engendered. The purpose of this liaison was to provide the world with a human fiend possessed of such hellish powers that he could stop the rising tide of Christianity; but an alert priest baptized the infant Merlin so promptly after birth that his Satanic sire was thwarted. Merlin still possessed his diabolical talents, but instead of using them for evil, he became the champion do-gooder of his era.

Shortly after the year 1000, a similar, but far more plausible story was built around a real-life personage, Robert, Duke of Normandy, popularly known as "Robert the Devil." His mother, wanting another child and finding that prayers were to no avail, implored the Devil to grant her wish. Robert was born soon afterward and though generally conceded to be the true son of the current duke, he acted as though he were the Devil's own. He was reputedly versed in witchcraft and even in his youth, he became both the hero and the villain of fantastic adventures that studded his singularly sinful and ferocious career. His brother, Richard, inherited the dukedom in 1026 and when he died mysteriously two years later, Robert took over in his stead.

Whether Richard died from poison or witchcraft (which often were one and the same), Robert was generally suspected of the crime, although it was never proven. However, several years later, he set out on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, which was regarded as a form of penance. As his successor, he named his young son William, whose mother was a tanner's daughter who had succumbed to Robert's blandishments during one of his devilish misadventures. Robert died while in Syria and William became Duke of Normandy, later to claim the throne of England and gain it as William the Conqueror.

William, too, was frequently suspected of using witchcraft to achieve his aims. Duke Alain of Brittany, who acted as regent during William's minority, died very suddenly; and years later, when William was about to embark for the conquest of England, Alain's son, Conan, turned against him, claiming that Alain should have been the rightful ruler of Normandy, but that William had poisoned him. Rather than leave Normandy open to attack by Duke Conan, William sent conciliatory messages back and forth by a mutual friend and trouble was averted.

Shortly thereafter, an infection appeared on Conan's hands and when he unthinkingly stroked his face, it spread there, too, so rapidly that he soon died from the effects of a mysterious and virulent poison. His followers were of the opinion that while Conan was preparing a reply to William's last message, the messenger sprinkled a special powder in the duke's gloves and on his horse's reins. But the charge remained unproven.

Other rumors, however, were equally to William's discredit. The province of Maine was ruled by Count Herbert, whose brother Walter, the next in line, died quite suddenly. Soon afterward, Count Herbert also died under mysterious circumstances, and with Walter already gone, the province went to William.

So it was little wonder that Duke William was generally regarded as a worthy son of "Robert the Devil" and the illegitimacy of his birth added to the sinister touch. All through his life, luck and omens favored him and he made the most of them. In 1066, he timed his invasion of England to the appearance of a great comet and it proved to be his lucky star. When he landed on the English coast, he tripped as he came ashore and a moan came from the superstitious Normans, who took it to be a bad sign. But the moans changed to cheers when William came to his feet, clutching a fistful of sand and proclaiming it a token that all the remaining land of England would be his, which it rapidly became.

Yet William, like his father, affected a pious attitude that would have disclaimed witchcraft entirely, if he hadn't used it when the time was ripe. A die-hard Saxon named Hereward, popularly termed "Hereward the Wake," defied the Normans until they drove him to the Isle of Ely, in the heart of the marshy fenlands. When the Normans tried to build causeways to get at Hereward, his men sprang up apparently from nowhere, with sudden attacks that smacked of witchcraft.

To counteract that, William, ever resourceful, and perhaps equally sure of his diabolic ancestry, ordered a tower to be built in the heart of the disputed fenlands. There, he installed a resident witch whose job was to overwhelm the fenlanders with spells more powerful than any they could produce. Good thinking on William's part, as he probably figured that the Saxons hadn't any worthwhile spells to begin with.

Except they didn't need spells. They simply crawled through the rushes, and set fire to them, directly under the wooden tower, sending it up in flames and taking the witch along with it. By the time the Normans had recovered from the shock, the incendiaries were off through the brakes to rejoin Hereward on his final flight from the fens. That was one witch burning that was really justified.

The pattern of witchcraft in high places was strongly evidenced during the next few centuries, but its constant tendency was to spread to lower circles of society. As robber barons and feudal lords rose to the rank of kings, they passed laws against its practice, often for their own protection, since they had become so powerful that witchcraft was one of the few remaining ways their rivals could undermine them.

When such attempts were made, the instigators, in their turn, generally delegated the work to subordinates or secret accomplices, so as to be clear of blame if things backfired. Also, if they believed in witchcraft, they preferred to leave it to hands more skillful than their own; while if they doubted it and were merely plotting an insurrection or assassination, a pretence of witchcraft was a good way to play on the gullibility of their followers and rouse them to fanatical action.

Most attractive of all, from the standpoint of the lawmakers themselves, was the chance this gave them to beat prospective plotters to the punch by the simple expedient of accusing them of doing the very thing they would have liked to do. Persons paid to spread rumors of a plot would name higher ups from whom confessions, wrung by torture, named those still higher, until it reached the level of someone whose property it would be worth confiscating.

The best way to appreciate the viciousness of this circle is through a brief survey of some of the more spectacular witchcraft cases as reported in the early years of the fourteenth century: In the year 1323, some shepherd dogs attracted attention at a cross-roads on the outskirts of Paris, where they kept whining and digging at a patch of ground despite all efforts to call them off. Their owners dug there and pried up some stones under which they found a strongly constructed box containing a large black cat with a supply of food and some articles used in religious rites.

Two tubes ran from the box to the ground above, furnishing the cat with air; and the scent from those had caused the dogs to dig. The police were notified and questioned all the carpenters in the surrounding villages until they found one who remembered making the box for a man named Jean Prevost. Prevost was arrested and after being given the customary torture, he admitted that he and an accomplice named De Persant had been employed by the Abbot of Sarcelles to find out who had stolen some money from him and that they were using witchcraft for that purpose. Their procedure called for leaving the cat in the box for three days, then killing it and cutting its skin into long, thin strips so as to form a charmed circle. From within the circle, they were to invoke a demon called Berich; and once he appeared, he would reveal the desired details.

The fact that they had been forestalled before going through with the malevolent ceremony apparently delayed the trial, for Prevost died before it was completed; but De Persant was convicted soon afterward and was burned alive, along with the body of his dead partner in witchcraft. The abbot, though perhaps more a dupe than a guilty party, was sentenced to prison along with some other persons who admitted knowing of the transaction. In the year 1323, when England was suffering under the misrule of King Edward II and his chief advisor, Hugh Despenser, and the latter's son, also named Hugh, a group of men in Coventry turned to witchcraft as a means to end the nation's woes. Headed by a man named Richard Latoner, they chose Hallowe'en as an appropriate night to visit John of Nottingham, a veteran warlock, and make a proposal which he readily accepted.

John was supplied with wax, canvas and other materials, along with enough food for several months, so that he and an accomplice named Robert Mareschal could set up shop in an old deserted manor house outside Coventry. The place, which was reputedly haunted, was ideal for their clandestine operations, which involved the fashioning of lifelike images of their prospective victims. These were seven in all: King Edward, the two Despensers, the Prior of Coventry and two lesser prelates, with an extra figurine representing a court favorite named Richard de Sowe, who was chosen for experimental purposes, since he was generally detested.

The warlock and his apprentice must have gathered many weird ingredients from graveyards and elsewhere during baleful periods of the moon, for their work was not completed until the following spring. The figures, too, were exact to the last detail, even including a miniature crown on the head of the image representing the king. Late one spring night, after all was complete, John of Nottingham showed Robert Mareschal a curiously fashioned pin made of pure lead and thrust it into the head of the experimental puppet.

In the morning, John told Robert to stop by the house where Richard de Sowe lived and find out how the witchcraft was doing. It was doing very well, but Richard wasn't. He had awakened screaming in the night and was now practically out of his mind, unable to recognize anyone. His delirium continued intermittently during the next three weeks, until John of Nottingham decided to ease Richard's torment.

Again with Robert Mareschal as witness, the warlock drew the curious pin from the puppet's head; then, as an afterthought, he thrust it into the figure's heart. Next day, when Robert stopped at the de Sowe house, he learned that Richard's delirium had ended, but that he was confined to bed, suffering from severe chest pains. Three days later, Richard de Sowe died, apparently from a heart attack.

All was then ready to begin work on the figures of the king and his ministers, much to the joy of Richard Latoner and his two dozen associates. But they, along with John of Nottingham, had overlooked the weak link in their chain — Robert Mareschal; either his frequent calls at the de Sowe house had roused suspicion by the authorities, or he had been so shaken by the result of John of Nottingham's witchcraft that he went to the constabulary himself and revealed the whole conspiracy.

Mass arrests followed. John of Nottingham and Robert Mareschal were charged with murder by witchcraft; but Richard Latoner and his associates denied any complicity, so the trial was delayed until some time in 1325. By then, John of Nottingham had conveniently died in jail and although Robert Mareschal was sentenced to a prison term, his unsupported testimony was not enough to convict Richard Latoner or any of his group.

There was still the matter of conspiring against the life of King Edward II and his principal ministers, the Despensers, who all were anxious to press charges against the Coventry plotters. But more delays followed and, by the end of 1326, a revolt of the English barons resulted in the capture and execution of both Despensers, followed by the deposition and murder of Edward II in Berkeley Castle the next year. So, seemingly, crime triumphed over witchcraft, or vice versa, though the two could have been hand in glove.

Ireland, too, underwent a fantastic witchcraft scandal at this same time. Lady Alice Kyteler, who lived near Kilkenny, had been married to a wealthy banker named William Outlaw, who had died around the year 1300, leaving her a son, William, Junior. Following that, she had three more husbands, each with children of their own. Every new spouse apparently was eager to marry the wealthy widow, but after two had died mysteriously and the third was practically on his death bed, it became painfully evident that she was diverting their wealth, as well as her own, to her son.

This was confirmed by citizens of Kilkenny who noted that on certain evenings, toward twilight, Lady Alice assiduously swept quantities of rubbish from along the street, piling it up in front of her son's door, while she repeated a low chant:

To the house of William, my son,
Hie all the wealth of Kilkenny town.

The wealth, meanwhile, hied itself William's way, so Lady Alice was quite properly suspected of using witchcraft to achieve her aims. But charges much more serious than the reciting of a mere doggerel verse were soon leveled in her direction. Her fourth husband, before he succumbed, managed to get hold of various concoctions and implements that she had been using for malevolent purposes and these were turned over to the Bishop of Ossory, who was already looking into the case.

William's money stalled any action by the civil authorities long enough for Lady Alice to escape to England, but a dozen of her subordinates, including William, were rounded up and put on trial. One of Lady Alice's women, named Petronilla, claimed that her mistress had a knowledge of witchcraft unequalled in all the world and proceeded to give the gruesome details.

At Lady Alice's command, Petronilla had frequently sacrificed roosters at a certain crossroads, with the result that a mysterious being invariably appeared, sometimes as a huge cat, other times as a shaggy dog, and occasionally in hideous human guise. His name was Robert Artisson and he not only furnished competent advice in the preparation and casting of spells, but occasionally doubled as Lady Alice's demon lover, visiting her boudoir while Petronilla was present and therefore able to describe the extravagant orgies that transpired.

The most powerful ingredient concocted under the demon's supervision consisted of baneful plants, ground up with squirming worms and mixed with the brains of an unbaptized child in the skull of a robber who had been beheaded. Hair from the heads of executed criminals, nails from dead men's fingers, the entrails of sacrificed animals, also went into various unguents and powders which were used to excite love or hatred, whichever might be preferred in a specific case.

Among the exhibits at the trial was a staff which Lady Alice smeared with a special preparation so that she could ride it like a hobby horse and make her appointed rounds more speedily. From the historic standpoint the staff had a double significance: it represented an early version of the familiar broomsticks on which succeeding generations of countless witches were purported to fly; and it involved a new use for the "flying ointment" that dated from the time of Apuleius and was to figure more and more strongly in the witchcraft of years to come.

The fact that Lady Alice had twelve accomplices is also of historical significance, as it added up to thirteen, the exact number of a coven, or organized group of witches. This has been cited in support of a theory that witch cults were of very ancient origin, although covens, as such, did not come into vogue until a comparatively modern period, as will be discussed later.

The most important aspect of Lady Alice's sordid practices was the invoking of the alleged demon, Robert Artisson, who is still a subject of controversy. Possibly he was a mere human masquerading in a devil's guise to awe such dupes as Petronilla, in which case he probably fled to England along with Lady Alice, to become her fifth husband, since neither was ever heard from again. Conversely, he could have been a fabric of Petronilla's own imagination, if only to crawl out from under the dilemma in which Lady Alice had left her.

Only it didn't work out for Petronilla. She was burned at the stake, along with a few others of the so-called coven. William Outlaw apparently kept much of the loot that his mother had so symbolically raked to his door, except for paying off the civil authorities and putting a new roof on the local cathedral to satisfy the ecclesiastics.

But demonology had gained its foothold. Devil worship and Satanism were on the way up, as opposed to mere wildcat witchcraft. The Establishment of that period depended on the cooperation of state and church to insure civilized progress; so it was logical that persons who rebelled against one would occasionally find allies among those who opposed the other. Civil law treated witchcraft as a crime; ecclesiastic law branded it as heresy. Troubled times were due for witches and their craft in the next few centuries to follow.