An Examen of Witches

Front matter

An Examen of Witches

from various trials of many of this sect in the district of Saint Oyan de Joux commonly known as Saint Claude in the county of Burgundy including the procedure necessary to a judge in trials for witchcraft

Henry Boguet

Editor’s Preface

Editor’s Preface

Although, as Henry Boguet himself points out in the Preface to his Discours des Sorciers, he has freely used the ample assistance of such authorities in the matter of witchcraft as Sprenger and Kramer; the celebrated Jean Bodin; Nicolas Remy of the supreme judicial court of Nancy; Peter Binsfeld, Bishop Suffragan of Trèves; Paul Grilland; Bartolomeo de Spina; Thyraeus; Leonard Vair; his many citations from the Malleus Maleficarum, the Démonomanie, the Dæmonolatreia, Raemond’s L’Antéchrist, and other encyclopædic manuals, must in no wise be taken as impairing either the interest or the originality of his own most remarkable and memorable work. Indeed it may be said that throughout the whole vast library of demonology, after the great Malleus Maleficarum, there is perhaps no treatise more authoritative, and certainly no treatise more revelatory of the human side of trials for witchcraft and of the psychology of those involved in such trials than the Discours des Sorciers (An Examen of Witches) of Henry Boguet, “Grand Juge de St. Claude, au Comté de Bourgogne.” Boguet’s appeal to authority is but to confirm his own long and infinitely patient experience. “I have founded the following Examen upon certain trials which I have myself conducted, during the last two years, of several members of this sect, whom I have seen and heard and probed as carefully as I possibly could in order to draw the truth from them.” There is not a chapter of the Examen which does not bear witness to this; not a page, scarcely a paragraph that is not indicative of the most scrupulous inquiry, the most particular research, the minutest interrogations, all informed by a just if tempered zeal and the nicest conscientiousness, by candour, dig , and most jealous loyalty to the truth. And so, although Bodin, Nicolas Remy, De Lancre had all written more copiously and were all three famous names, senators of no mean eminence and proved sagacity, it was the code of Henry Boguet, “The Manner of Procedure of a Judge in a Case of Witchcraft,”—“a book precious as gold,” it has been called—which was actually adopted in general practice by most local Parliaments and puisne courts, and that without any reflection upon or intended criticism of the digests and pandects compiled by most learned and most honourable legists and justiciaries, but because Boguet had in his seventy Articles codified the statutes and rulings, the methods and the regulations, most concisely, most clearly, and with the greater felicity.

Of the life of Henry Boguet, unfortunately very little is known. A native of Pierre-Court, which is a bailiwick of Gray in Franche-Comté, he was born about the middle of the sixteenth century, being descended from a good old stock of which several branches had long settled in the Dolonais district. From his writings it is clear that he was carefully and well educated, for he was widely read both in classical authors, especially the poets, and in the great historians. His bent, however, for the law was not long in discovering itself, and owing to his severe concentration upon the canonists and doctors, added to his acute and logical genius, he soon attained, by study and natural ability, high eminence in the legal profession. The modest piety and reverent orthodoxy of the rising advocate joined to a polished eloquence, could not fail to attract the notice of Ferdinand de Rye, Prince of the Holy Roman Empire, who had been appointed by Sixtus V to the Archbishopric of Besançon, in which Cathedral he was enthroned 13 November, 1587, and, owing to the favour of this magnificent prelate, Boguet was instituted Chief Justice of the whole district of Saint-Claude.

The city of Saint-Claude derives its name from S. Claudius, Abbot of Condat, whose life has been the subject of much controversy. Dom Benoît, Histoire de l’abbaye et de la terre de S. Claude (Montreuil-sur-Mer, 1890), tells us that the Saint had been Bishop of Besançon before being abbot; that he ruled his monastery for fifty-five years, and died in 694. The Abbey of Condat, which was founded between 425 and 430 by the hermits S. Romanus and S. Lupicinus, who had withdrawn into the desert where Saint-Claude now stands, became one of the most distinguished houses in Christendom. Originally the town which arose around the cloisters was known as S. Oyan de Joux from S. Eugendus (Oyan or Oyand), a disciple of the two holy founders. S. Eugendus died 1 January, 510, at Condat, and his tomb was long a place of pilgrimage. When, however, the body of S. Claudius, which had been concealed at the time of the Saracen invasion, was discovered in 1260, visited in 1272 by Peter of Tarentaise (Blessed Innocent V), and borne in solemn procession throughout Burgundy before being brought back to the Shrine at Condat, the abbey and town formerly known as St. Oyan were thenceforward more generally called Saint-Claude, although actually the name Saint Oyan de Joux lingered until the seventeenth century.

As was natural, Henry Boguet had a very particular devotion to the great patron of the district, S. Claudius, and prominent among his published works is a life of the Saint, Vie de Saint Claude, 1591. This was reissued in 1607; and in 1627 at Lyons, C. Rigaud et Cobert printed what is termed the Second Edition of this most edifying study: “Les Actions de la vie et de la mort de Saint Claude avec des miracles et indulgences concédées aux Confrères de son nom, ensemble quelques mémoires des terres et ville de Saint Oyan de Joux, des abbés d’icelles … plus a esté adjousté le miracle faict au regard de deux hosties consacrées au lieu de Favernay … le 25 may, 1608.” It will not escape notice that in Chapter V of his Examen Boguet fervently apostrophizes the glorious Saint Claude in a strain of glowing devotion, and declares his intention of writing an entire volume which shall celebrate the virtues, triumphs and honour of the Saint, and record the miracles daily wrought at his hallowed tomb. In an excess of criminal madness at the end of the eighteenth century the atrocious revolutionaries dared to profane the ancient shrine, and in March 1794 the body of Saint Claude, which had been venerated for so many hundreds of years by kings and prelates, by humble priest and simple artisan, by nobles and peasants, by pilgrims of every rank, high and low, and from every country, near and far, was sacrilegiously torn from its resting-place beneath the High Altar and burned to ashes in a mighty pyre.

A second work by Boguet which was highly esteemed was an exhaustive treatise upon the Burgundian code: “In Consuetudines generales Comitatus Burgundiae obseruationes … authore Henrico Boguet. Lugduni, J. Pillehotte, 4to. 1604.” These Commentaries long held their place as a legal text-book and a standard manual of reference. A second edition was published, octavo, at Besançon in 1725. But the book by which Henry Boguet is now generally known, although, curiously enough, as we shall have occasion to see a little later, it has become a volume of the very last rarity, is the famous Discours des Sorciers; An Examen of Witches.

The bibliography of the Discours des Sorciers is extremely intricate and difficult, so that the date of the first edition has not been exactly fixed even by such painstaking and eminent bibliographers as Albert Caillet, or Yve-Plessis in his Bibliographie Française de la Sorcellerie. We are, perhaps, fairly safe if we assign the editio princeps to Lyons, 1590, although the issue by Rigaud, Lyons, 8vo, 1590, is termed “3me édition.” It should be noted that this impression of 1590 must have differed in many particulars from the treatise as it subsequently appeared, since the editions of 1602, 1603, and later commence with the bewitching of Loyse Maillat in June, 1598. In 1590 examples from the trials could not have been given. There is a Lyons edition, 8vo, 1602, “Par Jean Pillehotte, à l’enseigne du nom de Iesvs,” and this would seem to be the first edition of the treatise as we now actually have it. In the following year, 1603, the same publishers issued the “Seconde Edition augmentee & enrichie par l’autheur de plusiers autres procez, Histoires & Chapitres,” Lyons. This was “Acheué d’imprimer le xix Nouembre 1603,” and a “Privilege du Roy” expressly forbids under strict penalties any other publisher save “Iean Pillehotte, marchand Libraire de Lyon,” to print or to sell any copy (save those of Pillehotte’s printing) for a term of ten years. This patent was “Donné à Fontaine-Bleau, le xxj d’Octobre, 1603,” and signed by Henry IV in Council. It had been granted owing to the fact that in 1603 the Discours des Sorciers appeared both at Paris (D. Binet, Seconde édition) and at Rouen (Martin le Mesgissier). In spite of the prohibition the Discours was printed in duodecimo at Rouen twice during the year 1606, in the spring by Jean Osmont, and in the autumn by R. de Beauvais. At Lyons Pillehotte published new octavo editions in 1605 and 1607. At Lyons, again, Pierre Rigaud issued a “Seconde édition” in 1608, 3 volumes; and a “Troisième édition” in 1610, “trois parties en un tome”; both octavo. The last issue seems to have been that of Pillehotte, 8vo, Lyons, 1611.

When the Discours des Sorciers appeared it was prefaced in print by the approval and formal approbations of Doctors and Theologians not a few. No less a person than Père Coyssard, an influential member of the Society of Jesus and Rector of the Jesuit College at Besançon, vouched that the work contained nothing contrary to the Catholic Faith or hurtful to the soundest morality. Jean Dorothée signed the Imprimatur. De La Barre, Professor of Theology at the University of Dôle, unreservedly praised and recommended the book “auquel je n’ay rien treuué contraire à la Religion Catholique & Romaine, ny aux bonnes moeurs, ains plustost rempli de plusiers belles doctrines”; whilst two celebrated religious, most skilled theologians and canonists, Jean Le Comte, Prior of the old Augustinian convent at Lyons, and Amedée Besson, O.S.A., wrote that the Discours was an excellent treatise very necessary for the times, and finally the Vicar-General, Chalom, became lavish in his benedictions. Ushered into the world under such eminent auspices, dedicated to so august a prelate as the Archbishop of Besançon and to his all-powerful nephew, François de Rye, Dean of the Cathedral Chapter, it is hardly to be wondered at that Boguet’s volume was at once accepted as an ultimate authority, whilst the book was straightway eulogized both in prose by the faculties of the Universities of Dôle and Lyons, and in verse by poets such as Jacques Michalet and Jean Heraudel. The learned Daniel Romanet, a doctor in theology and assessor of the High Court of Salins, who was known for his devotion to Notre-Dame-Libératries, addressed Boguet in the following sonnet:

L’impie abjurement, les offrandes, les voeux; Les danses, les baisers, les viandes fardées, Les poudres, les onguents, les grêles debandées,

Les Sabbats, les transports, les fascinements d’yeux: Les charmes, les poisons, les couplements hideux, Les souffles pestilents, les ocillades dardées, Les bluëtans flambeaux, les paroles gardées, Les caractères vains, les meurtres malhereux: Les transmutations, les faits lycantropiques, Les airs empoissonés, les spectres Plutoniques, Les meurtriers touchements, la rage des esprits. Entres aux corps humains, et bref ce qu’en la terre Le Demon pent fournir pour nous dresser la guerre Sont tracés par Boguet en ces doctes escrits.

The style of Boguet is nervous and concise; he is vivid and graphic in his details; keenly logical in his arguments; elegant in his expression; without prolixity, without peri . Above all, his work is informed by the most patent and admirable sincerity. Perhaps one of the features which will most strangely strike the modern reader is his frequent appeal to and constant citation of classical examples and Latin authors. It cannot escape remark that he quotes repeatedly from Vergil, Horace, Ovid, Lucan, Pliny, Apuleius, and many more, often thus clinching a conclusion or driving home a syllogism in a way which to some readers now may appear a little too literary, even a little baroque. Yet a very strong case might be made out for such a line of thought and phrasing, but it must suffice to say that this stylistic mannerism, which in no way affects the solidity and essential truth either of his inquiry or his ratiocination, is a direct legacy from the Renaissance, that Renaissance which loved to subject theme to a formal purism of Vergilian Latinity. And so in his Hymnus ad Diuum Stephanum Cardinal Bembo wrote of Our Lord as “Magnanimus Hero,” and of Our Lady

quem candida partu Caelicolum regi tecto sub paupere Nympha, Non ullam Uenerem, nullos experta hymenaeos, Ediderat …

Jerome Vida, the pious Bishop of Cremona, in his Christiad when speaking of the Transfiguration nearly echoes the Æneid:

After the Last Supper Holy Mass is thus described:

Hunc semper ritum memores, arisque sacramus Sinceram cererem, et dulcem de uite liquorem, Pro ueterum tauris, pecudum pro pinguibus extis. Ipse, sacerdotum uerbis eductus ab astris, Frugibus insinuat sese regnator Olympi.

At any cost the Vergilian tradition must be preserved and accordingly there could be no keener shaft to wing an argument than an apt quotation from some classical source. We must not then be surprised to find that Boguet continually appeals to Roman story and repeatedly cites the Latin poets, although to us such allusion may seem far from germane to the matter in hand.

Henry Boguet, honoured and respected by all, died in 1619.

It has been said that the Discours des Sorciers in spite of its popularity, in spite of its wide and continued use, in spite of no less than a dozen known editions—and it is plain that several issues have completely vanished—has become a book of the last rarity, and the explanation of this is sufficiently remarkable. It appears that certain wealthy members of Boguet’s family were of an exceedingly sceptical and hostile turn of mind. These persons united in a cabal, and pooling no small part of their several fortunes, they expended their utmost resources in buying up each impression of the Discours des Sorciers as it came from the Press. They then promptly consigned the copies to the flames. Owing to this deplorable mania, which they keenly pursued long after the death of the author, but a few exemplars remained in circulation, and the Discours is now actually one of the scarcest of the witchcraft manuals.

These insensate folk carried their hate even further, and did not hesitate to spread the most scandalous and opprobrious stories concerning their dead relative. So bitter was their animosity, so malevolent proved their designs, that it is almost to be suspected that they were themselves of that horrid craft and company which he had prosecuted with such lively energy. They actually rumoured that Henry Boguet had been a sorcerer, but secretly, and thus they explained his knowledge of the dark mysteries of that demoniacal society. It was further bruited in after years that he had been finally unmasked and sent to the stake as a warlock of long continuance. In England the case of Matthew Hopkins is hardly parallel. It will be remembered that this notorious “Witchfinder general” was popularly supposed to have stolen Satan’s bead-roll at some Sabbat, and the vulgar legend went abroad that he was “swum as a wizard and went over the water like a cork.” But we know that all this is utterly untrue. Hopkins died “peacibly, after a long sicknesse of a Consumption” at his old home in Manningtree, Essex, and was buried at Mistley, 12 August, 1647. On the other hand, far from impertinent is the instance of the lying legends which grew up around the name of that great and noble judge Nicolas Remy of Lorraine, whose Dæmonolatriæ Libri Tres, the fruit of the rich experience of fifteen years, was published at Lyons in 1595. Remy died at Nancy in 1600, and his enemies so vilely bespattered his reputation that the idlest and most preposterous stories concerning him won credence. We find these repeated in such compilations as Alexandre Erdan’s La France Mystique, second edition, Amsterdam, 1858, Vol. I, p. 133, xl, where we are told of Remy; “Ce misérable parla tant et si ardemment du démon, qu’il finit par en perdre la tête; il alla, un beau jour, se dénoncer lui-même comme sorcier, et il fut brûlé publiquement.” These are the lies and malice of the Pharisees of old, and such accusations have received a divine answer: “If Satan cast out Satan, he is divided against himself: how then shall his kingdom stand?”

In the Discours des Sorciers, which has never before been translated from the French into any other tongue, we have a piece of altogether exceptional interest, one of the most valuable documents in the whole library of demonology. There is no doubt from the evidence that Boguet had to deal with a particularly noxious, well , and essentially dangerous coven, and there is every indication that he did his work with a thoroughness and a practicality which alone could efficiently cope with so alarming and ominous a situation. It is a question whether in the background, behind those who were brought to trial, may not have lurked personages and influences justice could not, or at least did not, reach. When we consider the zeal of Bodin, of Henry Boguet, Nicolas Remy, and Pierre de Lancre, we must always remember the difficulties and hazards these brave men had to face. Already had the seeds of anarchy and revolution been widely sown. The wizard Trois-eschelles openly boasted to King Charles IX that within the French coasts there were some thirty thousand witches, and, as Boguet himself writes, there was hardly a country which was not “infested with this miserable and damnable vermin.” Their contest with the evil thing was hard and long; it was a struggle of which they could not hope to see the end; and yet they persevered, strengthened and sustained by the knowledge that their honour and their palm lay as much perhaps in the fight as in the victory.

Montague Summers.

In Festo B.M.V. vulgo della Medaglia miracolosa.

.

To Monseigneur

To Monseigneur, Monseigneur

the most Illustrious and Most Reverend Archbishop of Besançon, Monsieur Ferdinand de Rye, Prince of the Holy Roman Empire, Abbot of Saint Oyan de Joux commonly known as Saint Claude, Cherlieu, etc.

Monseigneur,

It is to you that the credit is due for the partial purging of your land of Saint Claude from witches, that vermin which had long been multiplying and would have infected many dis , but for the care you have taken to extirpate them. Messieurs your brethren, those three Bolts of Mars, have waged war upon the enemies of their Princes: but you have fought the deadliest enemies of Heaven that the world knows. So that just as their glory must live for ever by reason of their great and warlike exploits, so also can your glory never pass away by reason of your so pious care. Accordingly I have set down a little treatise concerning that which has been done with regard to this miserable sect of people, in order that all may know the zeal with which you have striven to bring them to the payment of their last debts; and I dedicate it to you as to the author, after God, of the good which has resulted, very humbly entreating you to accept it with an indulgent eye, even as it has pleased you always to honour with your favour him who offers it to you and will ever remain,

Monseigneur,

Your very humble servant,

Henry Boguet.

To Monsieur

To Monsieur, ' the Vicar-General of Besançon, MonsieurFrançois de Rye, Abbot of Acey,Preseigne, etc.

Monsieur, I no longer marvel that there have formerly been witches who have said that, if as many of them were men as there were women, and if they had a great Lord as their leader, they would be strong enough to make war upon a King. For I have no doubt but that this would in such a case be easy for them, and that they would even overcome their enemies. I do not mean that they would do so by means of their spells and charms, although we read that this was done by Oddo, the great pirate and sea-rover, in Denmark, and by the Huns who by their magic arts defeated Sigisbert, King of Soissons, in the time of Chilperic, not to mention Haakon, Prince of Norway, who fought his enemies with storms of hail. But I mean that they could raise an army equal to that of Xerxes, although that was of eighteen hundred thousand men. For if it be true that Trois-eschelles, one of the best informed of their sect, declared in the time of Charles IX that there were in France alone three hundred thousand or, as some read, thirty thousand witches, as what figure can we estimate the number of those which could be found in all the different countries of the world? And must we not believe that since that time they have increased by more than half? For my part I have no doubt of it: for if we but look around among our own neighbours, we shall find them all infested with this miserable and damnable vermin. Germany is almost entirely occupied with building fires for them. Switzerland has been compelled to wipe out many of her villages on their account. Travellers in Lorraine may see thousands and thousands of the stakes to which witches are bound. We in Burgundy are no more exempt than other lands; for in many parts of our country we see that the execution of witches is a common occurrence. Returning again to our neighbours, Savoy has not escaped this pest; for every day she sends us a countless number of persons possessed of demons which, on being exorcised, say that they have been sent by witches into the bodies of these poor wretches: moreover, most of the witches whom we have burned here came originally from Savoy. And what shall we say of France? It is difficult to believe that she is purged of witches, considering the great number which she had in the time of Trois-eschelles. I say nothing of other more remote lands. No, no; there are witches by the thousand everywhere, multiplying upon the earth even as worms in a garden. And this is a shame to the Magistrates whose duty it is to punish felons and criminals; for if we had no more than the direct command of God to put them to death as being His bitterest enemies, why should we endure them any longer and thus disobey the Majesty of the Most High? In this we do even worse than the witches themselves; for disobedience is likened to Idolatry and Witchcraft by Samuel, speaking to Saul. And Saul found this to be true, to his own great damage; for, because he did not slay all the Amalekites and their cattle as he had been commanded, God was angry with him and caused him to be defeated and killed, with his sons, by the Philistines. Therefore we ought well to search our conscience, and feat lest it should happen to us as it did to Saul for that one disobedience. I pass over the fact that God at various times threatened cities and villages with destruction for this crime, and that He has sometimes brought them to utter ruin for the same crime of witchcraft. I say nothing, too, of the fact that the only delight of witches is to do ill, and that they gloat over the sickness and death of persons and cattle. This is but another reason why we should naturally be incited to punish them, provided that there is any humanity in us and if, to speak more strongly, we are at all worthy of the name of man. For even the most irrational beasts do not suffer amongst them those which league and conspire together against the rest, as we know from experience. Nature or, to speak more correctly, the Author of nature, naturally impresses this common duty on our minds; for otherwise the world could not continue. For these reasons, therefore, it is necessary that everybody should bear a hand in so good a work, and especially those in authority, so that we may show ourselves to be what we were created to be, namely, men and reasonable beings, and that we bring not upon us the destroying anger and indignation of the Living God. I know that there have before this been those who have not been able to believe that what is said of witches is true; but in these present days they are beginning to believe it, owing to a special grace of God, who has opened their eyes, which had been blinded by Satan that by this means he might, as he has done, increase his kingdom. These men, I say, are now busy in hunting down witches, so that not long ago they caused some to be put to death. And I take this as a sign that in a short time Satan and all his subjects will be overcome, and witches will no longer boast that they are able to make war upon a King, as they have done before now. I would have them to know that, if effect could be given to my wish, the earth would be immediately cleared of them; for I would that they should all be united in one single body, so that they might all be burned at once in a single fire. In the same way a certain Emperor wished, but wished wrongly, that all the Romans might have but a single head, so that he might slay them with one blow. Meanwhile I shall use every endeavour to make war upon them, both by bringing them to Justice, and by my humble writings, as I now do with this Treatise which I offer again to the public under your name, Monsieur, always presupposing that Monseigneur your Uncle, to whom I dedicated it in the first place, will agree that during his absence you should take his place in this new edition, and that on your own part you will be pleased to accept my offer as coming from one who has already devoted himself entirely to you and desires ever to be known,

, as your very humble servant, Henry Boguet.

Author's Preface

Author’s Preface

It is astonishing that there should still be found to-day people who do not believe that there are witches. For my part I suspect that the truth is that such people really believe in their hearts, but will not admit it; for the Pagans have a lesson for them in this matter; they are refuted by the Canon and Civil Laws; Holy Scripture gives them the lie; the voluntary and repeated confessions of witches prove them wrong; and the sentences passed in various places against the accused must shut their mouths. I am not sure that I dare not go so far as to say that it seems more likely than not that such people are of the witches’ party: in any case, I have no doubt this is true of some of them; and that the rest are unwilling to admit the existence of witches because, perhaps, they are descended from them and, in defence of their ancestors, would have men firmly believe that there are no witches in the world. Yet this is not a matter of such small moment as many people think; for it is a cause of the frequent immunity of witches, greatly to the mischief of the public and to the prejudice of the honour of God, which we should in all things have as our object, not allowing Satan to enlarge his kingdom further, as he does by means of the damnable plots of these his subjects.

Now I do not gainsay that the stories told of witches are very strange; for there is matter for much wonder in the form taken by Satan when he accosts them; their transvection to the Sabbat is astounding; we can but marvel at their oblations, their dances, their obscene kisses, their feasts, and their carnal couplings with their Master; it is beyond comprehension how they cause hail and tempests to spoil the fruits of the earth, and again how they cause the death of a man or the sickness of an animal; it would seem impossible for a witch to transport the corn from one field to another, and milk from the udder of one cow to that of another; it is beyond knowledge how they contrive to send demons and evil spirits into a man’s body, or how they change themselves into wolves. In short, the deeds of witches have been considered as supernatural and miraculous, and therefore have men been unable to credit them.

But what then; Do we not know how great is the knowledge and experience of demons? It is certain that they have a deep knowledge of all things. For there is no Theologian who can interpret the Holy Scripture better than they; there is no Lawyer with a profounder knowledge of Testaments, Contracts and Actions; there is no physician or philosopher who better understands the composition of the human body, and the virtue of the Heavens, the Stars, Birds, and Fishes, of trees and herbs and metals and stones. Furthermore, since they are of the same nature as the Angels, all bodies must obey them in respect of local motion. Again, do we not know how great is the power which God in express words has given them upon earth. The Book of Job teaches us this so plainly that there is no need of other proofs; for God even says that there is no power upon earth which may be compared with that of Behemoth.