Punishment for High Treason against God's Majesty: Torture and Burning

The Malleus Maleficarum Series

The Malleus Maleficarum by Kramer and Sprenger, 1489, Excerpts

Our main object here is to show how, with God's pleasure, we Inquisitors of Upper Germany may be relieved of the duty of trying witches, and leave them to be punished by their own provincial Judges; and this because of the arduousness of the work: provided always that such a course shall in no way endanger the preservation of the faith and the salvation of souls. And therefore we engaged upon this work, that we might leave to the Judges themselves the methods of trying, judging and sentencing in such cases.

Their opinion is, then, that all witches, diviners, necromancers, and in short all who practise any kind of divination, if they have once embraced and professed the Holy Faith, are liable to the

Inquisitorial Court

Witchcraft is high treason against God's Majesty. And so they are to be put to the torture in order to make them confess. Any person, whatsoever his rank or position, upon such an accusation may be put to the torture, and he who is found guilty, even if he confesses his crime, let him be racked, let him suffer all other tortures prescribed by law in order that he may be punished in proportion to his offences.

The Inquisitor of Como has informed us that last year, that is, in 1485, he ordered forty-one witches to be burned, after they had been shaved all over. And this was in the district and county of Burbia, commonly called Wormserbad, in the territory of the Archduke of Austria, towards Milan.

Pentagram

Witches Punished as Apostates

The Malleus Maleficarum Series

The Malleus Maleficarum by Kramer and Sprenger, 1489, Excerpts

The crimes of witches exceed the sins of all others; and we now declare what punishment they deserve, whether as Heretics or as Apostates. Now Heretics are punished in various ways, as by excommunication, deposition, confiscation of their goods, and death.

Heretics, together with their patrons, protectors and defenders, and with their children to the second generation on the father's side, and to the first degree on the mother's side, are admitted to no benefit or office of the Church. And if a Heretic have Catholic children, for the heinousness of his crime they are deprived of their paternal inheritance. And if a man be convicted, and refuse to be converted and abjure his heresy, he must at once be burned, if he is a layman. For if they who counterfeit money are summarily put to death, how much more must they who counterfeit the Faith?

But to punish witches in these ways does not seem sufficient, since they are not simple Heretics, but Apostates. They must not be punished like other Heretics with lifelong imprisonment, but must be made to suffer the extreme penalty.

Changelings

The Malleus Maleficarum Series

The Malleus Maleficarum by Kramer and Sprenger, 1489, Excerpts

Another terrible thing which God permits to happen to men is when their own children are taken away from women, and strange children are put in their place by devils. And these children, which are commonly called changelings, or in the German tongue Wechselkinder

And it can be said that the Divine pity permits such things for two reasons. First, when the parents dote upon their children too much, and this a punishment for their own good. Secondly, it is to be presumed that the women to whom such things happen are very superstitious, and are in many other ways seduced by devils.

Witch’s Knot, Voodoo Dolls, and Bewitching Eyes

The Malleus Maleficarum Series

The Malleus Maleficarum by Kramer and Sprenger, 1489, Excerpts

Witch's Knot: This latter charm was usually a long cord tightly tied up in elaborate loops, among whose reticulations it was customary to insert the feathers of a black hen, a raven, or some other bird which had, or was presumed to have, no speck of white. This is one of the oldest instruments of witchcraft and is known in all countries and among all nations.

One of the oldest and most universal of spells: To effect the death of a man, or to injure him by making an image in his likeness, and mutilating or destroying this image, is a practice found throughout the whole wide world from its earliest years. It is common both in Babylon and in the Egypt of the Pharoahs, when magicians kneaded puppets of clay or pitch moistened with honey. If it were possible to mingle therewith a drop of a man's blood, the parings of his nails, a few hairs from his body, a thread or two from his garments, it gave the warlock the greater power over him. In ancient Greece and Rome precisely the same ideas prevailed, and allusions may be found.

There is a great power in the eyes, and this appears even in natural things. “Cast of eyes.” In Ireland it was supposed that certain witches could cast a spell at a glance, and they were commonly called “eye-biting witches.” The mind of a man may be changed by the influence of another mind. And that influence which is exerted over another often proceeds from the eyes, for in the eyes a certain subtle influence may be concentrated. The eyes are one of the tenderest organs of the body, therefore they are very liable to such impressions. Therefore it may well happen that the eyes receive some bad impression and change for the worse, since very often the thoughts of the mind or the motions of the body are particularly impressed upon and shown by the eyes.

Daughters of Witches

The Malleus Maleficarum Series

The Malleus Maleficarum by Kramer and Sprenger, 1489, Excerpts

Finally, we know from experience that the daughters of witches are always suspected of similar practises, as imitators of their mothers' crimes; and that indeed the whole of a witch's progeny is infected. And the reason for this and for all that has been said before is, that according to their pact with the devil, they always have to leave behind them and carefully instruct a survivor, so that they may fulfil their vow to do all they can to increase the number of witches

In the duchy of Swabia a certain farmer went to his fields with his little daughter, hardly eight years old, to look at his crops, and began complaining about the drought, saying: Alas! when will it rain? The girl heard him, and in the simplicity of her heart said: Father, if you want it to rain, I can soon make it come. And her father said to her: What? Do you know how to make it rain? And the girl answered: I can make it rain, and I can make hailstorms and tempests too. And the father asked: Who taught you? And she answered: My mother did, but she told me not to tell anybody.

The father was terrified, and asked her if she could raise a hailstorm then. And the girl said: Yes, if I had a little water. Then he led the girl by the hand to a stream, and said: Do it, but only on our land. Then the girl put her hand in the water and stirred it in the name of her master, as her mother had taught her; and behold! the rain fell only on that land. Seeing this, the father said: Make it hail now, but only on one of our fields. And when the girl had done this, the father was convinced by the evidence, and accused his wife before the judge. And the wife was taken and convicted and burned; but the daughter was reconciled and solemnly dedicated to God, since which hour she could no more work these spells and charms.

Powerful Witches

The Malleus Maleficarum Series

The Malleus Maleficarum by Kramer and Sprenger, 1489, Excerpts

The most powerful class of witches raise hailstorms and hurtful tempests and lightnings; cause sterility in men and animals; offer to devils, or otherwise kill, the children whom they do not devour. Moreover, they distract the minds of men, driving them to madness, insane hatred, and inordinate lusts.

They can also, before the eyes of their parents, and when no one is in sight, throw into the water children walking by the water side; they make horses go mad under their riders; they can transport themselves from place to place through the air, either in body or in imagination; they can affect Judges and Magistrates so that they cannot hurt them; they can cause themselves and other to keep silence under torture; they can bring about a great trembling in the hands and horror in the minds of those who would arrest them; they can show to others occult things and certain future events, by the information of devils, though this may sometimes have a natural; they can see absent things as if they were present; they can turn the minds of men to inordinate love or hatred; they can at times strike whom they will with lightning, and even kill some men and animals; they can make of no effect the generative desires, and even the power of copulation, cause abortion, kill infants in the mother's womb by a mere exterior touch; they can at time bewitch men and animals with a mere look, without touching them, and cause death; they dedicate their own children to devils; and in short, as has been said, they can cause all the plagues which other witches can only cause in part, that is, when the Justice of God permits such things to be. All these things this most powerful of all classes of witches can do, but they cannot undo them.

Sins of Witches Exceed Other Occult Practices

The Malleus Maleficarum Series

The Malleus Maleficarum by Kramer and Sprenger, 1489, Excerpts

The enormity of witches' crimes is proved by comparing them with the other practices of Magicians and Diviners.

The species of the first form of Divination, that is, an open invocation of devils, are the following: Sorcery, Oneiromancy, Necromancy, Oracles, Geomancy, Hydromancy, Aeromancy, Pyromancy, and Soothsaying. The species of the second kind are Horoscopy, Haruspicy, Augury, Observation of Omens, Cheiromancy and Spatulamancy. The species of the third kind vary according to all those things which are classed as Sortilege for the finding out of something hidden, such as the consideration of pricks and straws, and figures in molten lead.

Geomancy, which is concerned with terrene matters, such as iron or polished stone; Hydromancy, which deals with water and crystals; Aeromancy, which is concerned with the air; Pyromancy, which is concerned with fire; Soothsaying, which has to do with the entrails of animals sacrificed on the devil's altars.

The other species of divination, which are performed with a tacit, but not an open, invocation of devils, are Horoscopy, or Astrology, so called from the consideration of the stars at birth; Haruspicy, which observes the days and hours; Augury, which observes the behaviour and cries of birds; Omens, which observe the words of men; and Cheiromancy, which observes the lines of the hand, or of the paws of animals.

In Necromancy there is always an express and particular invocation of demons, for this craft implies that there has been an express compact and contract with them. Let us therefore only consider Astrology. In Astrology there is no compact, and therefore there is no invocation, unless by chance there be some kind of tacit invocation,

The practices of witches are included in the second kind of superstition, which is to say Divination, since the expressly invoke the devil. And there are three kinds of this superstition: - Necromancy, Astrology, or rather Astromancy, the superstitious observation of stars, and Oneiromancy.

The sins of witches exceed all these crimes.

Baphomet