And it is doubly sad, to contemplate that the Temples of Justice were peopled by these fears of fantasy and the imagination—like some of the fetishes that modern critics of our present judicial system erect in some places—and that the high priests of the temples blindly followed the mad cry of the mob and laid aside the scales of justice to interpret the unjust ideals of an intoxicated public sentiment, following only the red flag of murder. These jurists of the past centuries who participated in this wholesale slaughter of individual right, may have feared their recall, if they withstood the frenzy of a wrought-up public clamor, and in this a lesson can be learned, of the danger of following the demands of public sentiment, in courts of justice, instead of the proper ideals of equality and justice.
It is fortunate that only the small percent of the densely ignorant now-a-days, account for the misunderstood facts and phenomena of nature by the fears and delusions of witchcraft and sorcery and that in the progress of the race, the delusion of witchcraft has been crowded into the dark, remote and rugged sections where alone the foot of civilization can find no resting-place.
There are few, if any, more deplorable episodes, in human history than that of the persecutions for witchcraft. They illustrate to what an extreme degree of relentless cruelty human nature will go, when fanned to a fever-heat of excitement by some fanatical delusion. On the other hand, the history of the persecutions for witchcraft show how little reliance can be placed upon the credibility of witnesses, influenced by some general excitement, or acting under a mistaken belief of duty, based upon the attainment of some popular object. Thousands of witnesses who appeared against the poor victims charged with this hated crime of witchcraft and sorcery, honestly believed in the fantastical delusions and tricks of fancy that they described as actual occurrences, which in fact had no better foundation than their own fervid imaginations.
Regarding man’s self, alone, it is difficult to reconcile the beneficent laws taught by the church, with the sad “scope and scheme” of things, as disclosed by the pathetic facts of history, in connection with this subject. And yet:
FOOTNOTES:
[1] II. Mackay’s “Memoirs of Delusions,” pp. 169, 170.
[2] Ante idem.
[3] Johns’ “Oldest Code of Laws,” 1; Scheil’s “Tome IV. Textes Elamites-Semitiques,” etc., Johns’ “Babylonian and Assyrian Laws, Contracts and Letters.”
[4] Ante idem.
[5] II. Mackay’s “Memoirs of Delusions,” p. 169; Exod. XXII. 18. As Mackay shows, the sublime hope of immortality, in the early days of “little knowledge” became the source of a whole train of superstitions, from which fount a deluge of blood and horror poured over Europe, for two and a half centuries. “Memoirs of Delusions,” vol. II., p. 168.
[6] Niebuhr’s Lecture, Roman History (English Tr.), vol. I., pp. 295, 319; George Long’s article “Lex,” in Smith’s Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities; Mommsen’s History of Rome (English translation), vol. I., book I., ch. II. and book II., ch. 2.
[7] Codex Justin. lib. ix, tit. 18.
The “Dialogue on Witches and Witchcraft,” published by the Percy Society from the literature of the middle ages, presents the reasons and basis for the belief in Witchcraft, “in which is layed open how craftily the divell deceiveth not onely the witches, but many other, and so leadeth them awrie into manie great errours, By George Giffard, Minister of God’s word, in Malden, published in 1603.”
In this Dialogue, Daniel quotes Christ’s words, as reported by Marke, that his name is “Legion, for we are many,” as evidence of the existence of “multitudes and armies of divels, as we see in the Gospel.” The command of the Mosaic law “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live,” is quoted as a sufficient reason for rooting them out; the words of Moses are quoted that the Lord would cast out those nations that hearkened unto soothsayers and diviners, pronouncing that every one that does those things are an abomination to the Lord; that the Lord not only declared that such as practiced witchcraft and sorcery were an abomination before the Lord, but that they should “also bee rooted out.” (Percy Society Pub. vol. VIII., 24, 40, 42, 52, 72.)
The belief that cats were bewitched to do the bidding of the devil, which formed such a large part of the delusion of witchcraft, as practiced in the middle ages, is also touched on, in the “Dialogue on Witches,” in the above interesting publication, from the literature of the middle ages which can be read with much amusement and entertainment, because it gives in realistic hue, a vivid pen picture of the old delusion, just as it existed in the early days of the seventeenth century.
[8] Cnut, II., 4; Lea. op. cit. iii. 420; Brunner D. R. G. ii. 678; II. Pollock and Maitland’s History English Law, p. 553.
[9] Leg. Hen. 71; II. Pollock and Maitland’s History English Law, 553.
[10] II. Pollock and Maitland’s History English Law, p. 553.
[11] II. Pollock and Maitland’s History English Law, p. 553.
[12] Garinet’s “Histoire de la Magie en France.”
[13] Ante idem.
[14] Dr. Sprenger, in his “Life of Mohammed,” computes the entire number of persons who were burned as witches, during the Christian epoch, as about nine million.
Tasso attributed the belief in magic and witchcraft to the Crusaders, but M. Michaud, in his “History of the Crusades,” denies that the Crusaders believed in witches. However, the edicts of Charlemagne demonstrate quite conclusively that Tasso was right, for the Crusaders, in common with the millions of their contemporaries who were votaries of the delusion of witchcraft and sorcery, attributed the misunderstood facts in the natural world about them, to supernatural powers of magic.
[15] Mackay’s “Memoirs of Delusions,” vol. II., p. 186.
[16] Monstrelet’s Chronicle.
[17] II. Mackay’s “Memoirs of Delusions,” p. 194.
[18] Mackay’s “Memoirs of Delusions,” vol. II., p. 195.
[19] Ante idem., p. 197; Danaeus, “Dialogues of Witches.”
[20] Mackay’s “Memoirs of Delusions,” vol. II., p. 199.
[21] The ignorant Canadian French still believe in the Loup-garou, just as the French did in the centuries gone by.
[22] Mackay’s “Memoirs of Delusions,” vol. II., p. 201.
[23] Hutchinson, on Witchcraft.
In the year 1670 a number of women were condemned by the Parliament of Normandy, for riding broom-sticks to the Domdaniel. Louis XIV., commuted their sentences to banishment for life, when the Parliament of Rouen presented to him a memorial, insisting that he set aside the order for their commutation, but the wise King stood firm and refused to let them be judicially murdered in his kingdom. (For this memorial in full, see II. Mackay’s “Memoirs of Delusions,” pp. 289, 298.)
[24] II. Mackay’s “Memoirs of Delusions,” p. 226.
[25] Very severe statutes were passed during the reign of Elizabeth, against the imaginary crime of witchcraft and sorcery. The statute 33 Henry VIII. c. 8, was repealed by I. Edward VI., c. 12 and as this left no law in force to punish this class of offenders, it was enacted by 5 Elizabeth, c. 16, that if any person used or practiced witchcraft, enchantment, charm or sorcery, whereby any one shall happen to be killed or destroyed, it shall be felony, without clergy. And if anyone thereby be wasted, consumed, or lamed, in body or member, or any of his goods destroyed or impaired, such offender shall be imprisoned for a year, and stand in the pillory once a quarter, during that time for six hours. (V. Reeve’s History English Law, p. 349.)
[26] See “Butlers Hudibras,” edition by Dr. Zachary Gray (vol. II).
[27] Mackay’s “Memoirs of Delusions,” vol. II., p. 237.
[28] Lecky’s “Rationalism in Europe,” vol. I.
[29] Lecky’s “Rationalism in Europe,” p. 146, vol. I.
[30] II. Mackay’s “Memoirs of Delusions,” p. 248.
[31] II. Mackay’s “Memoirs of Delusions,” pp. 253, 254.
[32] Ante idem.
[33] II. Mackay’s “Memoirs of Delusions,” p. 255.
[34] II. Mackay’s “Memoirs of Delusions,” p. 258.
While this hideous record of blood and murder, in the name of the law, was being recorded in England, during the seventeenth century, a similar record was being written, in the criminal courts of Spain, Italy, Scotland and Germany. Thousands of innocent people lost their lives under this charge in these countries, during this century.
As an illustration of this mad carnival of death, in Würzburg, alone in the two years following 1627, one hundred and fifty-seven people were burned, in twenty-nine burnings, averaging from five to six people at a burning. The wealthy and the paupers, old and young, the ungainly and the comely, all alike suffered in this unholy crusade.
Of the list there were three play-actors; four innkeepers; three councilmen; fourteen vicars; the burgomaster’s lady; an apothecary’s wife and daughter, the wife, sons and daughter of the councillor Stolzenberg and Gobel Babelin, “the prettiest girl in the town,” thirty-two vagrants and a large number of little innocent children, who were guilty of no offense or crime other than that of living in a period when their innocence was considered a crime. (Hauber’s “Acta et Scripta Magica.”)
[35] II. Mackay’s “Memoirs of Delusions,” p. 258.
[36] Upham’s “Salem Witchcraft, in Outline”; Nevin’s “Witchcraft in Salem Village.”
[37] Upham’s “Witchcraft in Outline,” p. 6.
[38] Upham’s “Witchcraft in Outline,” 6.
[39] The trial of Mary Dyer, Quaker, is presented in “Two Letters of William Dyer,” 1659-1660.
[40] Upham’s “Salem Witchcraft”; Nevin’s “Witchcraft in Salem”; Moore’s “History of Witchcraft in Massachusetts.”
[41] Upham’s “Salem Witchcraft,” pp. 25, 26.
[42] Upham’s “Salem Witchcraft,” pp. 44, 45; Nevin’s “Witchcraft in Salem,” 46, 69.
[43] Upham’s “Witchcraft in Outline,” 61.
[44] Ante idem., p. 69.
[45] Rose Terry Cooke, in her, “Death of Goody Nurse,” thus describes the death of this good woman:
[46] Upham’s “Salem Witchcraft,” p. 87.
[47] Upham’s “Salem Witchcraft,” pp. 142, 143; Nevin’s “Witchcraft in Salem,” pp. 70, 253.
[48] See article on “Demonology,” in Foreign Quarterly Review, London, 1840.
[49] Paradise Lost, book ii, Line 666.
[50] II. Mackay’s “Memoirs of Delusions,” p. 178.
[51] Many of the ignorant Canadian-French still believe in the delusions of the loup-garou, or man wolf, and in the southern portion of Nigeria, as recently shown by P. Amaury Talbot, superstition and witchcraft lurk in all the forests and lakes of the country. Describing these superstitions, in a recent article in the London Telegraph, Mr. Talbot says:
“The bush with its soft green twilight, dark shadows, and quivering lights, is peopled by many terrors, but among these ‘Ojje’, or witchcraft, reigns supreme. The bird which flies in at your open door in the sunlight, the bat which circles round you at night, the small bushbeasts which cross your path while hunting, all may be familiars of witch or wizard or even the latter themselves, disguised to do you hurt. Sometimes the terror of witchcraft will scatter a whole town.”
And for belief in witchcraft, among the southern darkies, see Journal of American Folk Lore, vol. III., p. 205; Bruce’s “Plantation Negro as a Freeman”; and Jones’ “Negro Myths from the Georgia Coast.”
[52] II. Mackay’s “Memoirs of Delusions,” p. 277.