| The beginnings of the Inquisition led to all kinds of scandalous affairs behind the scenes of church and crown. A brief summary of some of these events of the medieval period follow here. The first quote is from the introduction to the 1948 edition of the book, giving the reader a brief understanding of the mindset of the times: “Matthew Paris tells us how in 1232 the Chief Justice Hubert de Burgh, Earl of Kent, (Shakespeare's “gentle Hubert” in King John), was accused by Peter do Roches, Bishop of Winchester, of having won the favour of Henry III through “charms and incantations.” In 1324 there was a terrific scandal at Coventry when it was discovered that a number of the richest and most influential burghers of the town had long been consulting with Master John, a professional necromancer, and paying him large sums to bring about by his arts the death of Edward II and several nobles of the court. Alice Perrers, the mistress of Edward III, was not only reputed to have infatuated the old King by occult spells, but her physician (believed to be a mighty sorcerer) was arrested on a charge of confecting love philtres and talismans. Henry V, in the autumn of 1419, prosecuted his stepmother, Joan of Navarre, for attempting to kill him by witchcraft, “in the most horrible manner that one could devise.” The conqueror of Agincourt was exceedingly worried about the whole wretched business, as also was the Archbishop of Canterbury, who ordered public prayers for the King's safety. In the reign of his son, Henry VI, in 1441, one of the highest and noblest ladies in the realm, Eleanor Cobham, Duchess of Gloucester, was arraigned for conspiring with “a clerk,” Roger Bolingbroke, “a most notorious evoker of demons,” and “the most famous scholar in the whole world in astrology in magic,” to procure the death of the young monarch by sorcery, so that the Duke of Gloucester, Henry's uncle and guardian, might succeed to the crown.” – (Intro to 1948 Ed – P. V, paragraph 2) Now we move onto the actual book, with the introduction: “On December 9, 1484, a Bull of Pope Innocent VIII was issued in which the Pontiff delegated powers to Heinrich Kramer and James Spranger as inquisitors throughout Northern Germany, particularly in the provinces and dioceses of Mainz, Cologne, Tréves, Salzburg, and Bremen and by Letters Apostolic requiring the Bishop of Strasburg, Albrecht von Bayern (1478-1506), to assist them. The Bull was printed as a preface to the malleus and this book was spread all over Europe and a copy of it lay on the bench of every magistrate.” (Introduction Page VIII) The church didn’t just go after adults, they accused children of witchcraft as well: “So in the prosecutions at Würzburg we find that there were condemned boys of ten and eleven, two choir boys aged twelve, “a boy of twelve years old in one of the lower forms of the school,” “the two young sons of the Prince's cook, the eldest fourteen, the younger twelve years old,” several pages and seminarists, as well as a number of young girls, amongst whom “a child of nine or ten years old and her little sister” were involved.” – (Introduction Page XVIII) |
Next, we read about how seduction was viewed as bewitching: “In the days of Edward IV it was commonly gossiped that the Duchess of Bedford was a witch, who by her spells had fascinated the King with the beauty of her daughter Elizabeth, whom he made his bride, in spite of the fact that he had plighted his troth to Eleanor Butler, the heiress of the Earl of Shrewsbury.” Incubi were demons thought to induce pregnancy in women and then take their babies. These babies likely died as a result of miscarriage, which was not explained by the church to the people, but instead left as common superstition. Also, there were the succubi who induced men to have sexual affairs and eject seminal fluid while they slept. This was of course a sin, because the church would not have men expressing their sexuality freely. In the Bull of Pope Innocent VIII we read, in the introduction, the following: “It has indeed lately come to Our ears, not without afflicting us with bitter sorrow, that in some parts of Northern Germany, as well as in the provinces, townships, territories, districts, and dioceses of Mainz, Cologne, Tréves, Salzburg, and Bremen, many persons of both sexes, unmindful of their own salvation and straying from the Catholic Faith, have abandoned themselves to devils, incubi and succubi, and by their incantations, spells, conjurations, and other accursed charms and crafts, enormities and horrid offences, have slain infants yet in the mother’s womb, as also the offspring of cattle, have blasted the produce of the earth, the grapes of the vine, the fruits of the trees, nay, men and women, beasts of burthen, herd-beasts, as well as animals of other kinds, vineyards, orchards, meadows, pasture-land, corn, wheat, and all other cereals; these wretches furthermore afflict and torment men and women, beasts of burthen, herd-beasts, as well as animals of other kinds, with terrible and piteous pains and sore diseases, both internal and external; they hinder men from performing the sexual act and women from conceiving, whence husbands cannot know their wives nor wives receive their husbands; over and above this, they blasphemously renounce that Faith which is theirs by the Sacrament of Baptism, and at the instigation of the Enemy of Mankind they do not shrink from committing and perpetrating the foulest abominations and filthiest excesses to the deadly peril of their own souls, whereby they outrage the Divine Majesty and are a cause of scandal and danger to very many.” – Bull of Pope Innocent VIII |