Sometime later, the Sibyl returned to the king, offering to sell him six books revealing the future of the world for the same price as the nine. Now Tarquin was convinced she was deranged; he mocked her and sent her away. Sometime later, the Sibyl returned for the third time, carrying only three books now, for which she demanded the same 300 gold pieces. Something about her finally impressed the king and he asked to see the books. When he looked them over, he immediately recognized their value, paid the asking price and demanded to buy the other six. The Sibyl had the last laugh; she told Tarquin that she had burned them and promptly disappeared and was never seen again.
Whether one believes that story or not, The Sibylline Books existed. We know this because documentation survives regarding how they were stored, edited and finally destroyed.
Three books came directly from the Sibyl. Tarquin tremendously regretted not purchasing all nine. He ordered the entire College of Priests to recreate the other six as closely as possible. Envoys were sent to other Sibyls in other areas to obtain information. They did the best they could; however an aura of doubt remained as to whether all the crucial information had been retrieved. According to legend, because of Tarquin’s failure Rome was fated to never know its future.
These books were once Rome’s most heavily guarded treasure. The Sibylline Books were kept in a closely guarded vault beneath the Capitoline Temple of Jupiter where they were consulted by the College of Priests. The senate decreed that The Sibylline Books could only be consulted in cases of dire national emergency or before any momentous decision. Even the high priests were not permitted to examine them without receiving special authorization from the Senate. Anyone who attempted to defy this decree was to be sewn into a sack and tossed into the Tiber River.
In 204 BCE, when the Romans found themselves unable to defeat Hannibal of Carthage, The Sibylline Books were consulted. The books foretold victory if the sacred meteor representing the goddess Kybele, then housed in what is now Turkey, be brought to Rome and installed in a temple built for Kybele. History proved this prophecy correct.
Some information as to what was contained in The Sibylline Books survives. Some of it was agricultural information, similar to a modern almanac. There were also instructions for ending plagues and a description of the apocalyptic end of the world, which sounds remarkably like a description of nuclear disaster.
In 83 BCE, a tremendous fire destroyed the Temple of Jupiter and The Sibylline Books burned with it. Once again envoys were sent to various oracles in order to reproduce the texts as closely as possible. The Roman hysteria that greeted Egyptian Queen Cleopatra’s love affairs with Roman leaders derived partly from rumors that The Sibylline Books had prophesied her eventual takeover of Rome. In 18 BCE, Cleopatra’s nemesis Augustus Caesar had a second copy of the books made to protect against loss. During the process, he had one or both copies of The Sibylline Books carefully edited to erase all passages he deemed unacceptable.
Magic, prophecy, and mystery religions were increasingly unpopular in Rome. In 13 BCE, Augustus Caesar burned two thousand magical scrolls. Owning a magical book became a capital offense. Those who wished to preserve their books as well as their lives hid their libraries. The Sibylline Books were preserved but they fell out of fashion and were rarely consulted. Eventually the Roman Emperor Claudius established laws protecting diviners and prophets, including the Etruscan priests known as haruspices. He persuaded the Roman Senate to establish a library housing various writings on Etruscan religion and spirituality. Among the texts preserved in this library were The Sibylline Books.
Magic, prophecy, and mystery religions became even less popular once Christianity became Rome’s official religion. However, for a while The Sibylline Books were tolerated, and even respected, because it was believed that the Cumaean Sibyl had foretold the birth of Christ. Attempts were also made to utilize the Sibylline prophecies to their best advantage. Thus we know of the apocalyptic prediction because Christians later wrote of it, explaining that although others would perish, they would survive to live forever in the Kingdom of God. However, The Sibylline Books were ultimately Pagan works and exceptions would not long be made for them.
In 405 CE, the Christian general and acting regent, Flavius Stilicho, burned The Sibylline Books as heretical texts offensive to Christianity, along with Claudius’ entire library of Etruscan books devoted to divination, magic, religion, and spirituality, only stopping to scrape the gold from the doors of the Temple of Jupiter.
Because there were at least two copies of The Sibylline Books and because near the end they weren’t as closely guarded as they had been in their heyday, rumors persist that a copy of The Sibylline Books is secretly kept in the Vatican Library of Forbidden Books.
Witch-Hunt Books
Like the chicken and the egg, it’s impossible to determine how much the witch-hunts inspired the genre of witch-hunters’ manuals and how much the manuals influenced the witch-hunts. Certainly, stereotypes of witches and the demonization of witchcraft resulted from these books. Witch-hunting was given a religious, even papal, seal of approval in mass-market print form. Regular people, even the illiterate, were able to buy picture books that enabled them to recognize a “witch” and her familiars. (Let’s just say that whoever created these illustrations must have enjoyed drawing cats and bats.)
These manuals taught witch-finders how to find “witches” and instructed judges to have no mercy. Methods of torture were discussed dispassionately. This is a virulent genre; the books are worth reading if only because they still possess the ability to shock. The hatred of witches, women, nature, and foreign people and cultures is palpable.
Interspersed among witch-hunters’ manuals are a few other works published simultaneously, protesting against the witch-trials or the demonization of witches. It is worthwhile to read these as well because they put the lie to the notion that the European witch-hunts occurred because of ignorance, because people didn’t know any better. Balthasar Bekker and Friedrich Spee knew better, and felt strongly enough to record their beliefs in print for everyone to read, at tremendous personal sacrifice and great personal risk.
Some of the most prominent witch-hunters’ manuals are discussed below although there are others in the genre. The few works that dispute witch-hunt methods stand pretty much alone, although history shows that there was a tremendous response to these works. Bekker’s work in particular is believed to have drastically minimized witch-hunting in the Netherlands. Because many of the authors of the most prominent witch-hunt manuals also presided over trials, much of their historical background will be found in WITCHCRAZE!
Unlike grimoires, authors of witch-hunters’ manuals were pleased and proud to sign their work. Publication dates and locations are reliable. There was no reason, when publishing these books, to fear the law; these authors were the law. Books are listed in alphabetical order by author’s name. (As you will see, in general, grimoires had snappier, more evocative titles.) None of the following titles have been lost. All remain in print.
Ady, Thomas
A Candle in the Dark, or a Treatise Concerning the Nature of Witches and Witchcraft: Being Advice to the Judges, Sheriffs, Justices of the Peace and Grandjurymen What to Do Before They Pass Sentence on Such as are Arraigned for their Lives as Witches (1656)
Ady’s book argues that the Bible does not support the validity of witchcraft, at least in the demonic sense. Ady criticized tests used by contemporaries to determine whether someone was a witch. This book was particularly popular among Protestant critics of the witch-trials for whom the Bible was the ultimate arbiter. The book contains the first written reference to “hocus pocus,” used to describe fairground conjurers who practice deceit and illusion rather than witchcraft.
Bekker, Balthasar
The World Bewitched or The Enchanted World (1690)
Balthasar Bekker, a Dutch scholar and Reformed Dutch Church clergyman (March 20, 1634–June 11, 1698) was a major force in preventing the escalation of witch-hunts in Holland. In 1690, he published The World Bewitched, a revolutionary work in which he argued that spirits cannot control the actions of humans and that witches do not consort with the devil, and therefore people are deluded if they fear the power of witches. Bekker suggested that Church leaders encouraged these beliefs so as to justify their practice of confiscating the estates of wealthy people convicted of witchcraft. This book is now considered the seventeenth century’s most influential critique of demonology and witchhunting.
The World Bewitched was published in Dutch and was soon translated into English, French, and German. Within two months of publication, 4000 copies had been sold in the Netherlands alone. Bekker’s church did not support him. In 1692 he was expelled from the ministry because of his book. The World Bewitched was very influential among the Dutch populace, despite protests from local church officials, and witchhunting in Holland was subsequently mild, never reaching the panic levels experienced in France, Germany, and Switzerland.
Bodin, Jean
Demonomania of Witches (1580)
Jean Bodin (1529–1596) was a French Carmelite monk who left the order to study law, eventually becoming a law professor and attorney. Beginning in 1561, Bodin spent 15 years serving King Charles IX of France, at which point he authored and published Six Books of Republic, which analyzed the concept of sovereignty, the king’s right to rule. The book became extremely influential and established Bodin as a leading European political theorist. Many of his books fell somewhat foul of the Inquisition because they were understood to reveal Calvinist sympathies. Bodin has been described as “a learned and humane scholar” and praised for his early defense of religious tolerance.
Of course, that tolerance didn’t extend to witches, nor was Six Books of Republic Bodin’s only work. Bodin left the Court shortly after its publication and became a small-town attorney, public prosecutor and trial judge. Bodin was already prominent and esteemed when he wrote Demonomania and it quickly became among the most widely read demonological treatises of its day, going through ten editions before 1604. It was published in French, German, and Latin.
The book is essentially a professional handbook for prosecutors and judges. In it Bodin argues that it is the responsibility of all judges to treat witches harshly and then execute them by the most painful methods possible. He regretted that burning someone alive wasn’t painful enough and suggested the use of green wood so as to prolong the experience. Anyone showing mercy to witches was suspect and should be tried and executed, too. Bodin suggested that Johann Weyer (see page 146), who had previously disputed the existence of witches, be among those tried. No exceptions were to be made for little witches; Bodin encouraged children to be tortured as brutally as adults so that they’d testify against their parents (and presumably against whomever else their torturers suggested).
Demonomania was used by many judges to justify cruelty and torture. Bodin himself boasted that he’d had both children and adults burned with hot irons until they confessed to any and every accusation. He died from bubonic plague in 1596.
“Whatever punishment one can order against witches by roasting and cooking them over a slow fire is not really very much; and not as bad as the torment which Satan has made for them in this world, to say nothing of the eternal agonies which are prepared for them in hell, for the fire here cannot last more than an hour or so until the witches have died.” (Jean Bodin, Demonomania)
Boguet, Henri
Discourse on Sorcery (1602)
Henri Boguet (c. 1550–1619) was a French attorney and author of legal textbooks for witch-trial judges. Boguet himself had presided over witch-trials as a chief judge in Burgundy and he included details of personal experience in his Discourse on Sorcery. As judge, Boguet condemned at least 600 people to death, including children, for whom he showed no mercy. Boguet describes how he oversaw in person the torture of an eight-year-old girl allegedly possessed by demons. Despite the common practice of strangling the condemned prior to burning their bodies, Boguet personally made sure that many of the condemned were burned alive. His textbook was highly popular, with over a dozen reprints by 1614. He held witches responsible for outbreaks of syphilis. Boguet writes as an eye-witness that Germany in 1590 was
almost entirely occupied with building fires [for witches]; and Switzerland has been compelled to wipe out many of her villages on their account. Travelers in Lorraine may see thousands and thousands of the stakes to which witches are bound.
del Rio, Martin
Disquisitiones Magicarum or Investigations into Magic (1603)
Martin del Rio (1551–1608), who became a Jesuit at the age of 30, was considered a great scholar. His work was written in Latin and became immensely popular, even displacing the Malleus Maleficarum in certain circles. It argues that European witchcraft beliefs and practices were stimulated by attraction to Moorish culture in Spain and also implicates various heresies and the emergence of Protestantism as having influence over witches. He perceived Christianity as besieged by alchemists, sorcerers, and witches whom he classified as heretics as well as evil-doers. Del Rio’s teacher at the Sorbonne, Professor Juan de Maldonado, also taught Pierre de Lancre (see page 144). A popular lecturer, he emphasized that faith was more vital than reason, and is believed to have had an impact on the witch-hunts, if only indirectly, through his famous, powerful students.
Gifford, George
A Discourse of the Subtle Practices of Devils by Witches and Sorcerers (1587) and A Dialogue Concerning Witches and Witchcraft (1593)
The English clergyman George Gifford (c. 1548–?) wrote two books arguing that witches did not possess supernatural power to harm. Only the devil himself possessed the power to work supernatural evil. Gifford believed that most self-professed witches were delusional and that witch-hunters and persecutors were stimulated by fear and hysteria, not reason. Gifford was an independent thinker; in 1584 he had been suspended from his ministry for refusing to subscribe to the articles of the established church. He lost his position despite petitions otherwise from his parishioners. Gifford did not deny the existence of witchcraft; however he amended its definition. Magical work and mystic power sought through Christian channels were not to be considered witchcraft. Gifford’s works contain rare descriptions of the Essex witch-trials.
Guazzo, Francesco Maria
Compendium Maleficarum or Collection on Witches (1608)
Francesco Guazzo was an Ambrosian monk considered an expert on witchcraft and demonology. Federico Borromeo, Archbishop of Milan between 1595 and 1631 and later a cardinal, requested that Guazzo write Compendium Maleficarum. In 1605, Guazzo had been called to Germany because of his reputation as an expert demonologist. In Germany he was personally involved with various witchcraft trials, serving as a judge. He returned to Milan in 1608 and presented Compendium Maleficarum to the archbishop. It immediately became a standard text for witch-hunters and judges, used by lawyers and church official for making arguments and rendering decisions during trials.
Guazzo acknowledges in the text that some women accused of attending sabbats had witnesses who saw them simultaneously home in bed. However, Guazzo points out that these alibis aren’t proof that the witches weren’t at the sabbat, for two reasons:
Witches can magically journey in their dreams.
Satan is perfectly capable of creating a “false body” that impersonates the witch well enough to fool her husband and children, making it look like she’s home while really she’s reveling.
Using Guazzo’s arguments, it’s virtually impossible to provide an alibi or prove innocence. It wasn’t necessary, incidentally, to read the Compendium Maleficarum either closely or in full to be influenced by it. Its very title subliminally sent a powerful message. Maleficarum is the feminine form of the Latin term for witches, which subtly reinforced the notion that witches were largely, if not exclusively, female. In fact, it wasn’t necessary to read Compendium Maleficarum at all in order to understand its underlying message. Compendium Maleficarum is essentially an extension and update of Heinrich Kramer and James Sprenger’s Malleus Maleficarum (1486). Guazzo’s work also shows the influence of other witch-hunting authors like Martin del Rio and Nicholas Remy. However, unlike these other books the Compendium is a picture book. The other manuals presuppose a fairly high level of literacy. None of these books are easy to read. The language is specialized; they’re full of convoluted legal arguments and theology. Unlike English witch-trial pamphlets, these handbooks were intended as texts for attorneys, clergymen, and judges, not for the average reader. The Compendium Maleficarum however doesn’t demand literacy at all; the book is illustrated with a series of provocative, stereotypical and frequently sordid woodcuts depicting witchcraft, demons, and maleficia. The images remain familiar today; they’re used to illustrate countless books on witchcraft. The illustrations, perhaps even more than the text, made the Compendium Maleficarum an extremely influential book.
See CREATIVE ARTS: Visual Arts: Medieval Woodcuts.
Gui, Bernardo
