Between them, Bardin in the fifteenth century, Rategno and Piotto in the sixteenth, and Lamothe-Langon in the nineteenth opened up what for long looked like a royal road to the origins of the great witch-hunt. It has turned out to be no such thing but, on the contrary, a false and decidedly muddy track. Once that is fully accepted it becomes possible to recognize other and better sign-posts, even when they point in unexpected directions.
8. MALEFICIUM BEFORE 1300
The stereotype of the witch as it is described at the beginning of Chapter Six, and as it existed in some parts of Europe in the fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, was an amalgam of four notions. A witch was imagined as (1) an individual who practised maleficium, i.e. who did harm by occult means; (2) an individual who was bound to the Devil as his servant; (3) an uncanny being who flew through the air at night for evil purposes, such as devouring babies, and who was associated with wild and desolate places; (4) a member of a society or sect which held periodical meetings or sabbats, where the Christian religion was systematically parodied and where the Devil was worshipped and also had sexual intercourse with his human servants.
Originally these four notions were quite distinct: and despite all the excellent work that has recently been done on the history of witchcraft beliefs and witch trials, it is still not clear how they came together. How did so complex a stereotype come into being — by what stages, in what circumstances, under whose auspices, in response to what needs and desires? The rest of this volume will be given over to trying to answer those questions.
The concept of maleficium provides a convenient starting-point; and as a first step we can forestall some possible confusions. Anthropologists working in present-day “primitive” societies have often found it convenient to distinguish between “sorcery” and “witchcraft”. “Sorcery” commonly refers to a technique: the use of substances or objects believed to be imbued with supernatural power, usually to the accompaniment of verbal spells or gestures, with the intention of harming one’s fellows. The source of “witchcraft”, on the other hand, lies not in technique but in the person: the witch is full of destructive power.(1) Now in Europe this distinction was known, but it was not absolute: sorcery and witchcraft overlapped — as indeed they do in many primitive societies today. Sorcery could be practised by any ordinary person, once the technique was mastered — but it could also be practised by a witch. A witch might operate through the use of substances or objects or spells or gestures as well as by the mere deployment of his or her indwelling power. In either case the deed was called by the same Latin name. Maleficium, which originally meant simply an evil deed or mischief, was used in official documents from the fourth century onwards in the specific sense of “Harm-doing by occult means”; and the usage persisted throughout the Middle Ages. Sorcerer and witch alike were designated by maleficus if male, malefica if female.
The world of Antiquity knew all about maleficium, and it would be perfectly possible to trace that part of the story back not only to ancient Rome but to Sumer; but fortunately it is unnecessary. For our purpose it is enough that maleficium and accusations of maleficium are to be found from the establishment of the first Germanic kingdoms onwards. From the sixth century to the thirteenth, laws and chronicles and epic poetry contain scattered references to the matter, most of them quite free from religious overtones. Though the evidence is not abundant, it is sufficient to show how maleficium had been regarded in pagan times, and how it continued to be regarded by many laymen in a Christianized Europe.
Tales of maleficium figure in the history of the first of the Frankish dynasties, the Merovingians. The historian of the Franks, St Gregory of Tours, tells of a case which had occurred within his own experience. When in 580 Queen Fredegond lost two of her young sons in an epidemic, she was easily persuaded that they were victims of sorcery: her hated stepson Chlodovic must have employed his mistress’s mother to make maleficia against the boys. The woman was arrested and tortured until she confessed. Armed with this confession, Fredegond persuaded her husband, King Chilperic, to abandon Chlodovic to her vengeance; the young man was duly stabbed to death by hired assassins. Meanwhile the alleged sorceress withdrew the confession that had been wrung from her. It made no difference to Fredegond, who had the woman burned alive.
Fredegond’s misfortunes continued, and so did her hunt for sorcerers. In 583 a third son caught dysentery and died. Soon afterwards the mayor of the palace, Mummulus, happened to remark that he possessed a certain herb which could quickly cure even the most hopeless cases of dysentery. The remark was reported to Fredegond, and she set to work at once. This time several women were arrested and tortured until they confessed that the mayor had employed them to kill the young prince by maleficium. Some of the women were burned, others were broken on the wheel; after which the torturers tackled Mummulus himself. Even after he had been repeatedly flogged and splinters had been driven under his nails, he would admit only that the women had supplied him with salves and potions, as a means of securing the good graces of the king and queen. Sent into exile, he died on the journey from the consequences of the torture.(2)
The employment of torture makes these cases atypicaclass="underline" Fredegond was after all both a monarch and an outstandingly ruthless politician. But in themselves the killings hardly offended against traditional norms.(3) It was an ancient custom for people who believed that maleficium was being used against them or against their kin to take personal retaliation. Amongst the Lombards in northern Italy and the Alamanni along the upper Rhine the private killing of suspected witches was a common practice down to the seventh century, and it was still common amongst the Saxons when they were conquered by Charlemagne towards the end of the eighth century.(4) In the archaic society of Iceland it was regarded as normal as late as the tenth century. This emerges clearly from the sagas which, though first written down between 1140 and 1220, portray society as it had existed some two centuries earlier. Thus Eyrbyggia, describing events around 980, tells how a widow, having brought serious illness on a young man by means of maleficium, was stoned to death by his kin.(5) Laxdaela, which covers the period 910-1026, tells how a married couple, both witches, killed a twelve-year-old boy by magical incantations; again, the victim’s family caught them and stoned them to death.(6)
There was however another way of dealing with such matters. In all early Germanic law a crime was treated less as an offence against society than as an offence against an individual and his kin. But where the community or the central authority was strong enough, the injured individual or kin were not permitted simply to take retaliation on the offender; instead, the offender had to pay them a fine in compensation (wergild). This arrangement applied to offences of all kinds, including maleficium. Already the law of the Salian Franks, the Pactus legis Salicae, which was written down early in the sixth century but which reflects the attitudes of a still earlier period, fixes the wergild to be paid it someone is killed by maleficium, and the smaller sum to be paid if he is merely injured in his health.(7) Similar provisions are to be found in the law of the East Franks, the Lex Ribuaria, which was written down a century later;(8) and this way of regarding maleficium continued to exert an influence almost throughout the Middle Ages. Yet death, usually by burning, continued to be recognized as a proper penalty for lethal maleficium in certain cases — for instance when the offender was a slave or serf, or when he or she pleaded guilty, or when the wergild was not forthcoming.