Henricus Institoris and Jacobus Sprenger: Malleus maleficarum

Document Text

On the Different Methods by Which Demons Allure and Entice the Innocent through Sorceresses to Increase This Form of Breaking the Faith

Chapter One

THERE are three methods that the demons use more than the others to overturn the innocent through sorceresses and as a result of which that form of breach of the Faith is constantly increased. The first is the exhaustion that results from them relentlessly causing losses in temporal matters. As St. Gregory says, the Devil tempts repeatedly in order that the feeling of exhaustion at least should make him victorious. You should understand that this temptation does not surpass the strength of the one tempted. As for the divine permission, explain that God gives His permission so that humans will not grow sluggish through laziness. In token of this it is said, “The reason why God did not destroy these races was in order that he might educate Israel with them” (Judges 2). This passage is speaking of the neighboring Canaanite, Jebusite and other nations, and in the present day the Hussites and other heretics are given permission, so that they cannot be destroyed. Thus, the demons use the sorceresses to afflict the neighbors of the sorceresses and the innocent with losses in temporal matters that are so great that as if under compulsion the neighbors must first beg for the help of the sorceresses and finally submit to their advice.

Experience has often taught us this. We know an inn-keeper in the diocese of Augsburg who within one year had forty-four horses affected with sorcery, one after the other. Being afflicted with the feeling of exhaustion, his wife consulted sorceresses. By following their advice, which was clearly not wholesome, she rescued the other horses that he had subsequently bought since he was a haulier. When we were in the Office of the Inquisition, how many women complained to us that when they had consulted suspected sorceresses because of losses inflicted on cows though the deprivation of milk and on other domestic animals, they heard remedies offered on the condition that they were willing to make some promise to a spirit! When they asked what promise had to be made, the sorceresses answered that it was not much. The women just had to agree to follow the Master’s instructions about certain observances during Divine Service in church or to keep silent about certain things when making Confession to priests. Here it should be noted that, as was discussed above, the infamous Contriver of a Thousand Deceits begins with a few trivial matters, like spitting on the ground or closing one’s eyes at the Elevation of the Body of Christ, or uttering some unsalutary words. For instance, we know that when the priest greets the congregation during the solemn rites of the Mass by saying, “The Lord be with you,” the woman who still survives because of the protection of the secular arm, always adds in the vernacular, “Kehr’ mir die Zunge im Arsche um” [“Twirl your tongue in my ass”]. Other trivial acts are the uttering of similar words in Confession after Absolution has been granted or never making a full Confession, especially about mortal sins. In this way, they are gradually brought to the complete renunciation of the Faith and the sacrilegious avowal.

This method, as well as any similar one, is a practice used by sorceresses on respectable matrons, who are less given over to carnal vices and more greedy for earthly benefits. But for young women, who are more given over to ambition and the pleasures of the body, they practice a different method, making use of the desires of the flesh and pleasures of the body.

Here it should be noted that since the Devil’s intent and appetite are greater in tempting the good than the evil (although from the point of view of those tempted he tempts the evil more than the good, that is, a greater ease in accepting the temptation of the Devil is found in the evil than is in the good), he makes greater efforts to lead astray all the holiest virgins and girls. Experience provides more than enough proof of this, and so does reason. Since he already owns the evil but not the good, he makes greater efforts to lead astray to his dominion the righteous, whom he does not own, than the evil whom he does, in the same way that an earthly prince rears up more against a man who derogates more from his rights than he does against others who do not oppose him.

Experience, in the town of Ravensburg, two women were burned to ashes, as will be explained below where the method followed by them in stirring up storms is discussed, and the one of them who was a bath keeper told the following story among the other things to which she confessed. She endured many injuries at the hands of the Devil, because she had to lead astray a certain devout maiden who was the daughter of a certain very rich man (there is no need to name him, since she is dead, it having been arranged by divine mercy that evil should not make her heart depraved) by inviting her on some holy day, so that the demon could engage in his sorts of conversation with her in the appearance of a young man. She added that although she had tried to do this very often, whenever she addressed the young woman, she would always protect herself with the Sign of the Holy Cross. No one doubts that this clearly resulted from the prompting of a holy angel in order to rout the works of the Devil.

There is another maiden in the diocese of Strasburg, and in confession to one of us she claimed that one Sunday, when she was walking around alone in her father’s house, a certain old woman of that town came to visit her, and among the other dirty words that she uttered, she added at the end, that if the maiden wished, she would take her to a place where young men unknown to all the people of that town were staying. “After I agreed” the maiden said, “and followed her to the house, the old woman added, ‘All right, we’ll go upstairs to the upper room, where the young men are staying, but make sure that you don’t protect yourself with the Sign of the Cross.’ After I claimed that I would do this, she led the way, and while I followed up the stairs, I secretly protected myself with the Sign of the Cross. What happened then is that when we both stood in front of the room at the top of the stairs, with a fearsome expression and angry demeanor the old woman turned and looked at me, saying, ‘Hey, curse you! Why did you cross yourself with the Sign of the Cross? In the name of the Devil, get out of here!’ Thus, I returned home unharmed.” From this story one can gather the cunning with which the Ancient Foe runs riot for the purpose of leading souls astray.

The bath keeper mentioned above who was burned to ashes claimed that she too had been led astray like this by an old woman, but her companion was led astray in a different way. This companion came upon a demon in the appearance of a human on a road, while she was intending to visit her boyfriend to fornicate. She was recognized by the incubus demon and he asked whether she recognized him. When she stated that she did not recognize him at all, he answered, “I am a demon, and if you wish, I will always be ready for your desire, and I won’t abandon you in any dire straits.” She agreed to this, and for the next eighteen years until the end of her life, she dedicated herself to those filthy acts of the Devil (with a complete renunciation of the Faith).

There is also a third method of alluring, by means of sadness and poverty. Young girls are sometimes corrupted by lovers with whom they have shamelessly copulated for the sake of marriage. The girls trust their lovers’ promises, and then when they are rejected, they are disappointed in their every expectation and consider themselves to be disgraced in every regard. At this point, they turn to every sort of assistance offered by the Devil or plot vengeance by affecting with sorcery their lover or the woman to whom he has joined himself or else by subjecting themselves to all filthy acts. There is no counting the number of such young women, as experience unfortunately teaches, and, there is likewise no counting the number of sorceresses who rear up from among them.

Let us recount a few events among many. There is a place in the diocese of Brixen, and there a young man testified to such a case regarding his wife, who had been affected by sorcery directed against him. “I fell in love with a certain woman during my youth,” he said, “and while she continually importuned me to join with her in marriage, I rejected her and took as my wife a woman from another territory. I nonetheless wished to please her for the sake of friendship and invited her to the wedding. She came, and when the other, respectable women were giving presents (offerings), the woman whom I had invited raised her hand and said in the hearing of the other women who were standing around”, “There will be few healthy days that will you have after this one.” “Terrified, my bride asked the by-standers who this woman was who had made such threats to her, since she did not recognize her, having been brought for marriage, as I’ve already said, from another territory. The other women stated that she was a lax and promiscuous woman. In any case, the events that she foretold ensued, and in that order—a few days later she was affected by sorcery, so that she lost the use of all her limbs. More than ten years later, the effects of this sorcery can still be seen on her body today.”

If it were necessary to insert the occurrences that were found in just the one town of that diocese, a whole book would have to be written. Those occurrences were written up and deposited with the Bishop of Brixen, and they are certainly both astonishing and unheard of, as the Bishop can attest.

Nor, we think, should another astonishing and unheard-of affair be passed over in silence. A certain high-born count of the land of Westrich within the territory of the diocese of Strasburg took as his wife a similarly high-born young woman, but he was unable to know her carnally until the third year after the celebration of the marriage, since, as the upshot of the matter proved, he was hindered by an impediment caused through sorcery. Being worried and not knowing what to do, he constantly invoked the Saints of God, and one day he happened to go to the city of Metz to finish some business. As he was walking through the streets and lanes of the city surrounded by his servants and family, he met a certain woman who had been his concubine many years before. When he saw her, the farthest thing from his mind were the acts of sorcery inflicted on him, and unexpectedly addressed her politely because of the old friendship they had formed, asking her how she was doing and how her health was. Seeing the piety of the count, she in turn earnestly asked about the health of his body and his situation. When he answered that everything was turning out prosperously for him, she was astonished and fell silent for a little while. Seeing her astonishment, the count spoke to her some more with polite words, inviting her to a dinner party. When she asked about the situation of his wife, she received a similar answer, to the effect that she was well in all regards, and when she then asked whether he had fathered children, the count said, “I have three male children. She’s given birth to one each year.” At this she was further amazed and fell silent for a while, and then the count said, “I ask you, my dear, tell me why you are asking so urgently. I don’t doubt that you are glad for me on account of my good fortune.” Then she said, “Truly I am, but curse that old woman who offered to affect your body with sorcery, so that you could hardly perform the carnal act with your wife! As a sign of this, the well in the middle of your courtyard has at its bottom a jar that contains certain objects for sorcery, and it was placed there so that you would have impotence in copulating for as long as the jar remained there. But now look! All the things that I have been rejoicing at are in vain” and so on. The count did not waste a minute. Returning home, he had the well emptied and found the jar. After burning everything, he suddenly recovered the power that he had lost. Next, the Countess re-invited all the noblewomen to a new wedding, stating that now she was the mistress of that castle and territory after having remained a maiden for so long. (Out of respect for the count, it would not be useful to mention the castle and territory by name. For right reason urges not only this but also that the essence of the deed should be revealed as a public indication of the repugnance felt for such a great crime.) From these facts are revealed the various methods followed by sorceresses for the increase of their lack of faith. For the woman mentioned above inflicted this act of sorcery on the count following the instructions of another sorceress after having been replaced by the count’s wife, and this reason leads to countless effects caused through sorcery.

There Follows a Discussion of the Method of Making a Sacrilegious Avowal

Chapter Two

The method of making the sacrilegious avowal in connection with an explicit agreement for faithfulness with the demons is varied, inasmuch as the sorceresses themselves engage in various practices in the infliction of acts of sorcery. To understand this, it should first be noticed that while the sorceresses appear in three kinds (those who harm but are unable to heal, those who cure and do not harm as a result of a particular agreement entered into with a demon, and those who harm and heal), as was discussed in Part One of the treatise, among those who harm one kind is supreme, and those who belong to this kind are able to commit all the acts of sorcery, while the others practice only some each. Hence, when the method by which the former make their avowal is described, a sufficient explanation of the other, lower varieties is given. It is they who, contrary to the tendency of human nature, indeed of all wild animals with the sole exception of wolves, regularly devour and consume babies of their own kind. This is the kind that is supreme in practicing acts of sorcery. For it is they who have a propensity for all other forms of harm. It is these sorceresses who stir up hailstorms and harmful winds with lightning, who cause sterility in humans and domestic animals, who offer to demons, as was explained above, or else kill the babies whom they do not devour. (This concerns babies who have not been reborn in the Font of Baptism; those that they devour have been reborn, as will be explained, but they do this only with God’s permission.) They also know how to cast infants who are walking near water into it without anyone seeing, even within the sight of their parents; how to make horses go crazy under their riders; how to move from place to place through the air, either in body or imagination; how to change the attitude of judges and governmental authorities so that they cannot harm them; how to bring about silence for themselves and others during torture; how to instill great trembling in the hands and minds of those arresting them; how to reveal hidden things and to foretell certain future events on the basis of information from demons, (i.e., those events that have some natural cause; see the question as to whether demons can learn of future events in advance in Pronouncements, Bk. 2, Dist. 12 [actually, Sent. 2.7.2.2]); how to see absent things as if they were present; how to turn human minds to irregular love or hatred; on many occasions, how to kill someone they wish to with lightning, or to kill some humans and domestic animals; how to take away the force of procreation or the ability to copulate; how to kill infants in the mother’s womb with only a touch on the outside; also on occasion how to affect humans and domestic animals with sorcery or inflict death upon them by sight alone without touch; and how to dedicate their own infants to demons. In short, when God’s justice permits such things to happen, these sorceresses who belong to this supreme variety know how to commit all these baneful deeds, while the others know how to bring about only some of them. The reverse, however, is not the case. (It is, however, the common practice of them all to perform filthy carnal acts with demons.) Accordingly, from the method of making the avowal used by the sorcerers who belong to the supreme variety, one can also easily grasp the method of the other sorceresses.

There were such sorceresses thirty years ago within the territory of Savoy in the direction of the domain of Berne, as Nider recounts in his Ant Hill. Today, they are within the territory of Lombardy in the direction of the domain of the duke of Austria, where the inquisitor of Como, as was mentioned in the preceding part, had forty-one sorceresses burned to ashes in one year (the year of Our Lord ’85), and he is still engaged in constant labor in the Inquisition.

There are two methods of making the avowal. One is a ceremonial way similar to a ceremonial vow. The other is a private one that can be made to a demon individually at any hour. The ceremonial one is carried out among them when the sorceresses come to a certain assembly on a fixed day and see the demon in the assumed guise of a human as he urges them to keep their faith to him, which would be accompanied by prosperity in temporal matters and longevity of life. The women who are in attendance commend to him the female novice who is to be accepted, and then, if the demon finds the female novice (or male disciple) ready to renounce the Most Christian Faith and Worship, and never to adore the “Distended Woman” (that is what they call the Most Blessed Virgin Mary) and Sacraments, then the demon holds out his hand and conversely the male disciple (or female novice) promises to follow those practices, pledging this by signature. After getting these promises, the demon immediately adds that they are not enough, and when the disciple asks what further ones must be made, the demon asks for homage, which contains the provision that the person will belong to him eternally in body and soul and be willing, to the best of his abilities, to turn any other people, of both sexes, into the demon’s associates. He then adds that the person should make himself certain pastes out of the bones and limbs of children, especially those reborn with the Font of Baptism, and that with these pastes he would able to fulfill all his desires with the demon’s assistance.

We inquisitors learned of this method through the testimony of experience in the town of Breisach in the diocese of Basel, receiving full information from a young woman who was a sorceress but converted. Her aunt, too, had been burned to ashes in the diocese of Strasburg, and the young woman stated that the method by which her aunt had originally attempted to lead her astray was as follows. One day she had to go upstairs with her aunt and enter a room at her command. There, she saw fifteen young men in green-colored garments after the fashion in which knights are accustomed to go about, and the aunt said to her, “Well, then! From among these young men I will hand over to you the one that you want, and he will take you as his bride.” When the young woman said that she did not wish to have any of them, she was badly wounded and eventually gave in, indicating the method mentioned above. She also stated that she had been transported quite often over long stretches of the earth with her aunt at night, all the way from Strasburg to Cologne. It is this woman who gave rise to our promise in Question One to explain whether sorceresses really are moved in body from place to place by demons. (This promise was made because of the words of the Canon, where the sense of the text is that they do so only in the imagination, though sometimes they really are moved in body.) When she was asked whether they went about like this only in the imagination and fantasy, being deluded by the demons, she answered that they did so both ways. This is in fact the case, as will be explained below in connection with the method of being transported in location. She stated that greater losses are inflicted by midwives, since they must generally either kill babies or offer them to demons. She stated that she had also been severely beaten by the aunt because she had opened a covered jar and found the heads of very many babies inside. She also recounted many other stories, having first sworn an oath to tell the truth, as was fitting.

To her words about the way of making the avowal, unimpeachable corroboration is provided by the things that the aforementioned Johannes Nider, a notable Doctor who even in our days is famous for wondrous writings, recounted in his Ant Hill on the basis of the report of an inquisitor of the diocese of Autun, who conducted an inquisition in that diocese into many people accused of acts of sorcery and had them burned to ashes. Nider says, “From the account told to me by the inquisitor mentioned above I learned that in the Duchy of Lausanne certain sorcerers cooked and ate their own baby children. The method of learning this art was, as he said, that the sorcerers came to a certain gathering and by their work they saw the demon as if real in the assumed image of a human, and to him the disciple was obliged to give his word about renouncing Christianity, never worshipping the Eucharist and treading on the Cross when he could do so secretly.”

Another illustration from Nider follows. There was also the common report (the story is from Judge Peter in Boltigen), that in the land of Berne thirteen babies were devoured by sorcerers, and for this reason public justice had blazed forth quite harshly against such parricides. When Peter asked a certain captured sorceress about the method by which they ate infants, she answered, “The method is this. We prey on babies, especially those not yet baptized, but also those baptized, particularly when they are not protected with the Sign of the Cross or prayers.” (Notice, reader, that they prey on the unbaptized in particular at the instigation of the Devil, so that they should not be baptized.) It goes on: “With our ceremonies we kill them in their cribs or while they lie beside their parents, and while they are thought to have been squashed or to have died of something else, we steal them secretly from the tomb and boil them down in a caldron until all the flesh is made almost drinkable, the bones having been pulled out. From the more solid matter we make a paste suitable for our desires and arts and movements by flight, and from the more runny liquid we fill a container, for instance a bottle made out of a skin. Whoever drinks from this container is immediately rendered knowledgeable when a few ceremonies are added, and becomes the master of our sect.”

Here is another method for the same purpose, one that is more distinct and clear. When a certain young man who had been arrested with his sorceress wife, and in the court of Berne was being held separately from her in a different tower, he said, “If I could receive forgiveness for my misdeeds, I would readily reveal all the things that I know about acts of sorcery. For I see I will have to die.” When he had heard from the learned men standing around that he could receive complete forgiveness if he truly repented, he offered himself happily to death, and described the methods of the original tainting. “The procedure,” he said, “by which I was led astray is this. It is first necessary that on Sunday, before the Holy Water is consecrated, the prospective disciple should enter a church with the masters and in their presence renounce Christ, the Faith in Him, Baptism and the whole Church, and then do homage to the masterling.” (That is, to the little master. For this and nothing else is what they call the demon.)

Here it should be noted that this method agrees with the others already mentioned. It is no obstacle that sometimes the demon is present when the homage is done to him, and sometimes not. For he is working craftily in the latter case, perceiving the inclination of the prospective disciple, who, as a novice, will perhaps shrink from his presence through fear, though through his friends and acquaintances the demon easily guesses that the prospective disciple gives his assent. The reason why they call him the “masterling” even when he is absent is so that the prospective disciple will be struck with less terror as a result of his considering him to be small.

The following appears at the end. “He drinks from this skin, and once this is done, he immediately perceives that in his innards he conceives and retains pictures of our art concerning the fundamental rites of this sect. By this method,” he said, “was I led astray. So was my wife, whom I believe to be so obstinate that she would rather endure the flames than be willing to confess to the smallest truth. But, alas, we are both guilty.”

The truth was found to be exactly as the young man said. After confessing in advance, he was seen to die in great contrition. His wife, on the other hand, though convicted by witnesses, was unwilling to confess to any of the truth, either under torture or in death. Instead, when the fire had been prepared by the executioner, she cursed him with the vilest words and was in this way burned to ashes. From these facts their ceremonial way of making an avowal is clear.

The other method, the private one, is performed in various ways. Sometimes, a demon appears to men or to women who are trapped in some bodily or temporal affliction, sometimes addressing them visibly, sometimes using people as intermediaries. He promises that if they are willing to act in accordance with his advice, everything will turn out as they wish. As was discussed in Chapter One, he begins with small matters in order to lead them gradually to greater ones. Various deeds and events discovered by us in the Inquisition could be narrated in proof of this, but because this topic is not subject to difficulty, it is necessary to strive for brevity, though a further explanation is added.

For an explanation of the way they do homage a few things should be noticed:

Regarding the fact that the Devil receives homage, a few things should be noted: for what reason and in what different ways he does this.

First, he does this fundamentally to increase the offence against the majesty of God by appropriating for himself a creature dedicated to God and to be more certain of the future damnation that is his greatest desire, but it has often been found by us that he accepted such homage for a certain number of years at the time of the avowal, though on some occasions he took the avowal only and postponed the homage for a certain number of years. Let us say that the avowal consists of a complete or partial renunciation of the Faith, this being complete when the Faith is renounced as a whole, as was discussed above, partial when as a result of the pact entered into the person has to follow certain ceremonial rituals contrary to the ordinances of the Church (for instance fasting on Sundays or eating meat on Fridays or concealing certain crimes in Confession or committing a similar crime). Let us say that homage consists of the handing over of body and soul.

As for why they follow such practices, we can cite four reasons from the point of view of the demon. As was explained in the second basic section of Part One of the treatise (“Whether demons are able to turn men’s minds to hatred or love”), he cannot enter the inner thoughts of the heart, since this is appropriate for God alone, but comes to know them from conjectures (as will be explained below), and therefore if the infamous Wily Foe considers that it would be difficult to approach a female novice to secure her assent, he approaches her cajolingly, making few demands in order to bring her gradually to greater ones.

The second reason. Since it must be believed that there is a diversity among those who renounce the Faith, some doing so by mouth and not by heart, some by mouth and by heart, the Devil wishes to test whether she makes her avowal to him by heart as she does by mouth, assigning a certain number of years, so that in that time he may discover her intention on the basis of her works and behavior.

The third reason. If over such a course of time he recognizes that she is not very eager to carry out any crime at all and that she is now adhering to him by mouth but not by heart, and if he presumes that God’s mercy will help her through the protection of a good angel, which the demon can test in respect to many things, then he undertakes to abandon her, and expose her to temporal afflictions so that in this way at least he may make profit from her despondency. The truth of this is obvious. If it is asked why it is that certain sorceresses are unwilling to confess to even the least truth under any torture, even the greatest, while others readily confess to their crimes after each list of questions, and also why it is that after they have confessed, they endeavor to do away with their lives by hanging themselves—for it can in fact be said that when divine compulsion through a holy angel does not co-operate in forcing the sorceress to confess the truth and in dispelling the spell of silence caused by sorcery, then whatever happens, whether this is silence or a confession of crimes, is done by the work of the demons—the first is the case with those whom the demon knows to have denied the Faith by mouth and by heart and to have done homage in the same way, since he is certain of their obstinacy, while, conversely, he abandons the others by not protecting them, because he knows that they are of no use to him at all. Experience has often taught us this in that it was made clear by their confessions that all those women whom we caused to be burned to ashes were involuntary in inflicting acts of sorcery. They did not say this in hopes of escaping, because the truth was clear from the blows and scourges inflicted on them by the demons when they did not comply with their wishes (they were very often seen with faces swollen and bruised), and, likewise, because after they have confessed their crimes under torture, they always contrive to end their lives by hanging themselves. The truth is grasped from our practice whereby guards are assigned every hour to watch for such things after they confess their crimes, though sometimes they have been found hanging from shoelaces or veils through the carelessness of the guards. As has been said, the Foe clearly brings this about to prevent them from gaining forgiveness through contrition or Sacramental Confession.

As for those whom he could never entice in their heart, he now endeavors, since it would have been very easy for them to find forgiveness with God, to bring them to despair through temporal shame and the horrible death, although by the Grace of God greater forgiveness, as the pious belief must be, resulted through true contrition and pure confession in instances where they were not voluntary in clinging to those filthy acts.

This is made clear by the things that happened barely three years ago in the towns of Hagenau and Ravensburg in the dioceses of Strasburg and Constance. In the first town, one hanged herself by a cheap veil that could be torn into strips. Another one (by the name of Walpurgis) was known for the sorcery of silence, instructing other women as to how they should bring about such silence with a first-born male child cooked up in an oven. More deeds and events are available, and similar accounts of others burned to ashes in the second town will be cited here and there in various passages.

There is a fourth reason why demons postpone receiving homage in the case of some sorceresses, but do not do so at all in the case of others. Since they can learn the length of a person’s life more subtly than astrologers can, they have an easier time than astrologers do in either fixing in advance the end point of a life or in anticipating the natural end with one that is caused, in the manner already discussed.

These acts and deeds of sorceresses can be explained briefly, first by citing the demon’s cleverness in such matters. In The Nature of Demons, Augustine gives seven reasons why contingent events in the future can be conjectured in a likely manner (not that the demons can know them as a certainty). The first is that they have a strong natural subtlety with regards to the workings of their intellect, and for this reason they understand causes even without running around as is necessary in our case. The second is that they know more things than we do because of their experience with time and the revelations made by the spirits above. Hence, on the basis of Isidore, the Doctors quite often affirm that the demons have excellent knowledge through three sorts of acuity (subtlety of nature, experience of time, and revelations from the spirits above). The fourth is their swiftness of movement, which results in their ability to foretell with miraculous swiftness in the west things that have happened in the east. The fifth is that since they can use their power to cause diseases, taint the breeze, and cause famine when God permits, they can likewise foretell these events. The sixth is that they can foretell a death more subtly through signs than a physician can by examining the urine and the pulse. For just as through signs the physician sees in a sick person certain things that the simple person does not notice, the demon sees things that no human sees naturally. The seventh is that on the basis of signs that derive from the intent of a human they conjecture the things that are or will be in the soul more cleverly than a wise man can. For they know what urges, and consequently what sort of works, are probably going to result. The eighth is that since they know the acts and writings of the prophets better than humans do, and many future events are determined by them, they can foretell many future events on this basis.… Hence, it is no wonder if a demon can know the natural length of a human’s life. The situation is different, however, in the case of a death that has been caused. Such a death is what happens through the burning to ashes that the demon brings about in the end, when, as has been said, he finds the sorceresses not to be voluntary and he is apprehensive about their return and conversion, while others whom he knows to be voluntary he protects up to the time of their natural, as it were, death.

Let us give illustrations from either perspective that have been found or performed by us. In the diocese of Basel, a village situated above the Rhine called Oberweiler had a parish priest who was respectable in behavior but who held the view, or rather error, that there is no such thing as sorcery in the world, but only in the opinion of humans, who ascribe effects of this kind to womenfolk. God wished to cleanse him of his error in a way that would also reveal other activities on the part of demons in fixing a limit on sorceresses’ lives in advance. When this priest wished to cross a bridge quickly to finish some business, he had an encounter with a certain old woman who was rude like him, and being unwilling to give way at the entryway to the bridge so that she could go first, he instead walked on rudely and accidentally knocked the old woman into the mud. Outraged at this, she burst out with insulting words, saying to him, “Father, you will not cross unharmed.” He did not pay much attention to the words, but that night when he wanted to get up from bed, he felt that he had been affected by sorcery below the belt. The result was that when he wanted to visit the church, other people always had to hold him up with their arms. He remained in this condition for three years, under the domestic care of his mother by the flesh. After these three years, when the old woman, whom he had always suspected of inflicting the sorcery on him because of the insulting words with which she had threatened him, fell ill, it nonetheless happened that the sick woman sent for him to hear her confession. Though the priest rudely said she should confess to her master, the Devil, at the insistence of his mother he went to her home supported by the arms of two peasants. While he sat at the head of the bed in which the sorceress was lying, the two peasants wanted to hear from outside by the window—the room was situated at ground level—whether she would confess to the sorcery inflicted on the parish priest. Then, it happened that although during confession she made no mention of the sorcery that had been inflicted, after finishing confession she said, “Father, do you know who affected you with sorcery?” When he answered politely that he did not, she replied, “You suspect me, and rightly so. You should know that I inflicted it on you” (for the reason mentioned above). When he pressed her to free him, she said, “Look, the appointed time is coming and I have to die, but I will arrange things so that you will be made healthy a few days after my death.” And so it turned out. For she died according to the limit set by the demon, and one night within the next thirty days the priest found himself entirely healthy. The name of the priest is Father Heflin, who is now in the diocese of Strasburg.

Something similar happened in the village of Bühl near the town of Gübwiller in the diocese of Basel. There was a certain woman, who was arrested and eventually burned to ashes, and for six years this woman had an incubus demon, in fact right beside her husband as he slept in bed—three times a week (on Sunday, Thursday and Tuesday) and on other, more holy nights. She had done homage to the Devil with the provision that after seven years she would be dedicated to him forever in body and soul. Nonetheless, God arranged things piously. For when she was arrested and condemned to the flames in the sixth year, she made a full and genuine confession and is believed to have received forgiveness from God. For she was very voluntary in dying, claiming that although she could have been set free, she preferred death so long as she escaped the power of the demon.