Compendium Maleficarum/Book 1/Chapter 15
Dealing with the question whether the devil can render insentient that which is naturally sensitive, so that, for example, a man should feel no pain when put to torture, Iamblichus (De myster. Aegypt.) writes that many heathen seers nave been thrown into the fire and have either not been burned or have not felt their burning or any other tortures; and he says that this is due to some god who drives back the flames, or nullifies the other tortures. And what is this god of the sorcerer Iamblichus but the Cacodemon Eurycles? What are those seers but witches? In our own day there are impious soldiers who think that they are invulnerable if their armour is charmed with a certain spell, or if they have the hardihood to commit the sacrilege of piercing, threatening or breaking the image of the Crucifix. So Baptista Codronchi[2] (De morbis ueneficis, III, 12) tells that they wear a shirt inscribed with a terrible and most horrid character, which they call the Shirt of Hell; or else they wear trinkets engraved with various magic signs; or they make use of prayers, which the sorcerers blasphemously and falsely ascribe to S. Leo or Charlemagne, invoking the mighty Names of God. So does the devil delude his own, as may be seen from the examples.
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Examples.
Martin Delrio (D.M. I, 21) tells that he knew a certain law student named Quirino, a Bachelor of Law, who, relying upon such a charm, boldly mingled in brawls and fights and, though often struck, was never wounded. At last, in 1572 or 1573, he was killed at a drinking-bout in Rome through some trifling wound. The following example is similar.
Nider writes in his Formicarius that in the district of Berne there was a notorious witch named Scavius,[3] who dared to boast publicly that whenever he wished he could change himself into a mouse in the sight of all his rivals; and so he is said to have often escaped from the hands of his mortal enemies. But, when it was the will of Divine Justice to make an end of his wickedness, his enemies stole upon him as he was sitting in a warm bath by the window suspecting no attack, and suddenly struck him through the window with swords and spears, so that he perished miserably for his crimes.
It is a common matter for witches to escape the torture of the rack; for they overcome all the pain by laughter or sleep or silence. Loys Charondas le Caron[4] in his Antichrist Unmasked, I, tells a wonderful story of this sort as follows. He knew a woman of fifty who endured boiling fat poured over her whole body and severe racking of all her limbs without feeling anything. For she was taken from the rack free from any sense of pain, whole and uninjured, except that her great toe, which had been torn off during her questioning, was not restored, but this did not hinder or hurt her at all. After she had undergone every torture and had obstinately denied all her crimes, she cut her throat in prison. So the devil, having accused her of witchcraft through the mouth of a possessed woman, killed her.
Near Amiens in 1599 a girl witch was imprisoned, who felt nothing when her feet were cruelly burned or when she was heavily scourged, until at the suggestion of a priest they hung about her neck a waxen image of the Blessed Lamb. Then, by virtue of the sacred amulet, the wiles and guile of the devil were defeated, and she began to feel the force of pain. Therefore it is clear that this indifference to torture, which even Tostado (In Genesim. XIII) recognises, springs from no physical cause, but is due to the devil’s work.
Remy (I, 5) tells the following. When Isabella Pardea was seized for witchcraft at Epinal on the 6th May, 1588, and had shown the magistrate a part of her body branded by the devil, it occurred to the magistrate to test the truth of this alleged insensitiveness to pain. So he ordered a pin to be thrust and pressed deeply into her, and this was done in the presence of sufficient witnesses, and no blood flowed from the wound, and the witch gave not the least sign of pain.
At Brindisi in November 1590, when Claudia Bogarta was about to be tortured, she was closely shaved, as the custom is, and so a scar was exposed on the top of her bare brow. The Inquisitor then suspecting the truth, namely, that it was a mark made by the devil’s claw, which had before been hidden by her hair, ordered a pin to be thrust deep into it; and when this was done she neither felt any pain, nor did so much as a drop of blood come from the wound. Yet she persisted in denying the truth, saying that her insensitiveness was caused by an old blow from a stone. But when she was brought to the torture, she not only acknowledged that the scar had been given her by the devil, but confessed to many other abominable crimes which she had committed.
In June 1591 at Iesi, a village a mile distant from Brindisi, the Judge ordered a gaoler to search Mugeta, who was charged with witchcraft. The gaoler therefore stripped her to see if he could find any devil’s mark, and at last found on her left thigh a mark like a shell. Into this he thrust his weapon with all his force, but Mugeta uttered no cry, nor could he get one drop of blood from the wound; but when he lightly pricked the place next to the mark, she roared aloud in pain, and much blood flowed from it.
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- ↑ “Insensible to torture.” It was well known that witches had charms which enabled them to bear the severest tortures without flinching. Damhouder, whilst member of the council at Bruges, relates a case which came under his own eyes. A witch during three examinations not only endured the fiercest engines, but actually laughed at and mocked the officers. At length a piece of parchment covered with cabalistic characters was found on her person, and after its removal she soon confessed her pact with Satan. (“Rerum Crimin. Praxis,” Cap. XXXVII, Nos. 21, 22. Cf. Brunnemann, “Le Inquisit. Process,” Cap. VIII, Memb. v. No. 70.) Grilland tells us that he had met instances of insensibility to torture only to be explained by magic. “De Quaestione et Tortura,” Art. III, 12–16. He gives several conjurations which were used completely to deaden all pain: “Quemadmodum lac Beatae Gloriosae Mariae Uirginis fuit dulce et suaue Domino Nostro Iesu Christo, ita haec tortura sit dulcis et suauis brachiis et membris meis.” Another ran:
Imparibus meritis tria pendent corpora ramis.
Dismas et Gestas, in medio est Diuina Potestas.
Dismas damnatur, Gestas ad astra leuatur.At Innsbruck a witch boasted that if she had but a thread of a prisoner’s tunic she could enable him to endure torture to the death without confessing. W. B. Seabrook in his study of sorcery in Haiti, “The Magic Island,” relates that during a military engagement there was slain a notorious warlock, a member of the “culte des morts.” Upon the body was found a small book of secret formulas written in creole by himself. Of these one is: “When confronted with Torture.” When one finds himself tied up, it is very necessary to make this prayer: ‘For the sake of the great pain which Jesus Christ suffered from Judas, the traitor, in walking along Golgotha’s hilly road, may I be relieved from the rope which is piercing through my [mention the part] to the heart, just as the left side of Christ’s Body did abundantly spill Blood by Herod, the infamous executioner. Amen.’ Order a mass in the name of all the Saints.”
- ↑ “Codronchi.” This famous Italian physician was born at Imola c. 1560. The work to which reference is made is: “Batistae Codronchii de Morbis Ueneficis ac Ueneficiis, libri quattuor, in quibus non solum certis rationibus ueneficia claro demonstratur sed eorum species … aperiuntur.” Venice, 1595.
- ↑ “Scavius.” This wretch was not only a warlock of most ancient impiety, but also an instructor of younger witches. Peter of Berne judged that he spread sorcery like a plague, and Nider tells us that this holy Inquisitor when bewailing the iniquities and necromancy practised in Berne added “quorum primus auctor fuit quidam Scauius dictus … Hic tamen suae fraudis commenta discipulo, qui Hoppo uocabatur, reliquit. Et idem supra dictum Staedelin in maleficiis magistrum fecit.” Staedelin or Stadlin dwelt at Boltigen in Simmenthal. He was brought to trial before Peter of Berne and confessed many secrets of the horrid craft. See “Malleus Maleficarum,” Part II, Qn. I, Ch. 6.
- ↑ “Loys.” “Charondas de Caron.” Born at Paris, 1530; died 1617.