Europe's inner demons
- Автор: Кон Норман
- Год: 1975
- Язык: английский
- Год: BASIC BOOKS,.INC., PUBLISHERS
- ISBN: 465-0131-X
- Жанр: История
Электронная книга - «Europe's inner demons». Краткое содержание книги:
Who were these “witches” and “devils” and why did so many people believe in their terrifying powers? What explains the trials, tortures, and executions that reached their peak in the Great Persecutions of the sixteenth century? In this unique and absorbing volume, Norman Cohn, author of the widely acclaimed Pursuit of the Millennium, tracks down the facts behind the European witch craze and explores the historical origins and psychological manifestations of the stereotype of the witch.
Professor Cohn regards the concept of the witch as a collective fantasy, the origins of which date back to Roman times. In Europe's Inner Demons, he explores the rumors that circulated about the early Christians, who were believed by some contemporaries to be participants in secret orgies. He then traces the history of similar allegations made about successive groups of medieval heretics, all of whom were believed to take part in nocturnal orgies, where sexual promiscuity was practised, children eaten, and devils worshipped.
By identifying' and examining the traditional myths — the myth of the maleficion of evil men, the myth of the pact with the devil, the myth of night-flying women, the myth of the witches' Sabbath — the author provides an excellent account of why many historians came to believe that there really were sects of witches. Through countless chilling episodes, he reveals how and why fears turned into crushing accusation finally, he shows how the forbidden desires and unconscious give a new — and frighteningly real meaning to the ancient idea of the witch.
“Why, if popular witch-beliefs were much the same as they had been in the Middle Ages, was it only during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries that legal action against witchcraft attained such dimensions? To this question there are only two possible answers. Either the demand for the prosecution of witches suddenly grew, or the facilities for such prosecution had not previously existed.”(56)
Thomas regards the first of these answers as by far the most plausible. The legal machinery for prosecuting the authors of maleficia existed in earlier centuries; if it was hardly ever used, that indicates that there was no widespread desire to prosecute witches or sorcerers. The argument sounds cogent enough. It becomes less so when one examines how, in such cases, medieval legal machinery actually worked.
Almost throughout the Middle Ages — very generally until the thirteenth century, in some parts of Europe even to the fifteenth century— the accusatory form of criminal procedure obtained. That is to say, the legal battle was fought out not between society and the accused, but between the accused and a private person who accused him. In this respect there was no difference between a civil and a criminal case; in the latter as in the former the individual complainant was responsible for finding and producing proofs such as would convince the judge.
The accusatory procedure was derived from Roman law, and it retained all those features which had characterized it under the later Empire. By and large it favoured the accused rather than the accuser. The accuser was obliged to conduct the case himself, without the assistance of prosecuting counsel. Moreover, if he failed to convince the judge he was likely to suffer as heavy a penalty as would have been visited upon the accused if he had been convicted. This was known as the talion.(57)
The intention behind the talion was simply to discourage malicious or frivolous accusations, but the effect was far more sweeping. How was the law to distinguish between a mere mistake and deliberate calumny? In practice it seldom distinguished; everyone knew that an unsuccessful complainant would almost certainly be penalized, whatever his motives. In England, under Edward I, it was decreed that an accuser who failed to make out his case should be imprisoned for a year as well as pay compensation for the imprisonment and infamy he had brought upon the accused; and this provision was altogether in keeping with a tradition which went back to Anglo-Saxon times.(58)
Everything possible was done to impress the would-be accuser with the risks involved. When notifying the judge of the proposed action, the accuser had to give a written undertaking to provide proof and, if the proof were found inadequate, to submit to the penalty of the talion as a calumniator. This inscription was an indispensable preliminary; no criminal case could proceed without it. And that was not alclass="underline" once the inscription had been accepted by the judge, the accuser could not withdraw without incurring the penalty of the talion. Indeed, even while the action was in progress the accuser might, in effect, be penalized: in those cases where the accused was imprisoned pending trial, the judge commonly ordered the accuser to be imprisoned likewise, to preserve equality between the two parties.(59)
In order to condemn the accused outright, the judge required either a spontaneous confession from him or else an array of proofs which should be “clearer than the noonday light”. Failing these, he would order the accused to submit to an ordeal. The ordeal, which originated not in Roman but in early Germanic law, could take various forms. The accused might be thrown into the water, bound in a certain way. If he or she floated it meant that the water, that symbol of purity, was rejecting a criminal; sinking was therefore taken as proof of innocence. Or the accused might be required to hold a red-hot iron, or plunge an arm into boiling water, for a given time. The injured limb was then bound up for a few days; if, when the bandage was removed, no scar was found, that too was proof of innocence. These ordeals were applied chiefly to members of the lower orders. Amongst the aristocracy the matter was more likely to be submitted to the test of single combat, either between the accuser and the accused or between champions representing them. All these various ordeals were regarded as appeals to God: where the human judge was uncertain, the decision was left to divine justice. But by the thirteenth century these ancient forms of ordeal were being replaced by another device, canonical purgation: the accused was required to swear before God that he was innocent, while a specified number of compurgators, or oath-helpers, swore that his oath was to be trusted.
An ordeal successfully endured, a canonical purgation successfully discharged, would bring acquittal; and in that case the accuser was required to prove that his accusation had been due to an honest mistake. If he was unable to carry out this almost impossible task, nothing could save him from the talion. The results of the system were what one would expect: nobody would become an accuser unless impelled by the most powerful motives. Only the most imperious considerations of self-interest or the most obsessive passion would induce anyone to face a long-drawn-out and highly uncertain action, which while it was in progress might involve his own imprisonment and which might end in his ruin. This was the case even when the offence in question was an ordinary felony: historians of medieval law tend to think that, so long as the accusatory procedure remained in force, only a tiny proportion of common criminals were ever brought to trial. But the inhibiting factors must have been vastly more powerful still when the offence was maleficium, whether real or imagined.
By its very nature maleficium was almost improvable. Where puppets were produced, stuck full of pins, things might go well enough; but such cases were very exceptional. Other types of proof were far more hazardous. A misfortune — a death or an illness — was never simultaneous with the act of maleficium that was supposed to have caused it. Nor were there likely to be eye-witnesses to an act of maleficium — let alone eye-witnesses who would be prepared to testify on oath. The accused, on the other hand, had very good chances of establishing his or her innocence, whether by ordeal or by compurgation. In such circumstances, to charge anyone with maleficium was to take a very grave risk indeed. Sometimes the risk was taken, with disastrous results — for instance, at Strasbourg in 1451 a man who had accused a woman of maleficium and failed to make his case was arrested, tried for calumny and drowned in the River Ill.(60)
What was true of maleficium as a secular offence was even more true of maleficium as a religious offence. If the hazards were enough to deter a man from demanding justice even when he felt himself personally wronged, why ever should he concern himself with a matter which in no way involved his own interests? Maleficium as a religious offence was best left to the priest in the confessional. It was not for nothing that the clerical authors of the famous manual for witch-hunters, the Malleus Maleficarum, deplored the fact that even in the late fifteenth century the accusatory procedure was still in force at Coblenz. There were suspected witches in the neighbourhood, but it was simply impossible to try them under that procedure.(61)