origins of the theory of the witches’ sabbath

ORIGINS OF THE THEORY OF THE WITCHES’ SABBATH

Exodus, 22:18– “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.”

c. 790 Charlemagne decrees that only pagans believe in witchcraft; those who burn witches will be executed.

c. 1100 The Canon Episcopi declares that those who think they are witches are only dreaming.

1184 Pope instructs all bishops to “inquire” after heretics.

1252 Pope sanctions use of torture in investigations.

1324 Trial in Ireland of “heretical sorceresses” led by Dame Alice Kyteler

1486 The Dominican inquisitor Heinrich Kramer publishes Malleus Maleficarum, with papal approval.

1480-1660

50,000 witches are executed, 80% of them women; the hunt climaxes in 1580-1600 and 1620-1640.

Christopher Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus

(1588):Alchemists and

astrologers were respected

professionals, but NOT if they invoked

demons.(See Brian Levack,

pp. 47-50)

Hans Baldung Grien, “The Groom Bewitched”

(1544):Maleficium = “the

working of harm to the bodies or goods of one’s neighbors by means of evil spirits or strange powers derived from intercourse with such

spirits” (Oxford English

Dictionary).

The “lying in”: “Birth of the Virgin Mary” (Italian, ca. 1506):Midwives became suspect if the mother or baby died

“Saul and the Witch of Endor” (1526): See 1 Samuel 28:1-25

ORIGINS OF THE “INQUISITION”:

St. Dominic (1170-1221)

receives from God and St. Peter his

commission to defend orthodoxy with the iron

rod of discipline(painted ca. 1730)

Malleus Maleficarum[The Hammer of

Witches], by the Dominican

inquisitors Heinrich Kramer and Jakob Sprenger (1486)

Michael Wohlgemuth, Woodcut of the alleged ritual murder of Simon of Trent by the Jews (1493)

Both Jews and accused witches were routinely

subject to torture on the Continent,

but not in England:A Jew interrogated with the strappada

(16th-century German woodcut)

After enough torture, they would confess to almost

anything:The execution of 40

Jews in Berlin in 1510 for desecrating

the Host (later exposed as a

judicial fraud)

SUSPICIONS ABOUT MAGIC FOCUSED MORE AND MORE ON WOMEN: Hieronymous Bosch,

“The Temptation of St. Anthony” (1506)

Joachim Patenier, “Temptation of St. Anthony” (ca. 1515)

Albrecht Dürer,Untitled (1497)

Botticelli, The Three Graces(detail from “Primavera”, 1482)

Hans Baldung Grien, “Witches’ Sabbath”

(1510)

“True Chronicle of the Godless

Witches and the Heretical Devil’s

Women of Schletstaat”

(1571)

The Witches from Macbeth (J.H. Fuessli, 1783)

Frans Francken, “A Witches’ Kitchen” (Antwerp, 1610)

Frans Francken, “Assembly of Witches” (Antwerp, 1607)

The “water test” for finding witches (England, 1613)

A French vision of the Witches’ Sabbath from 1613

Jacque de Gheyn (Flemish), “A Witches’ Sabbath” (1690s)

Francisco de Goya, “Witches’ Sabbath”

(Spain, 1789)