Europe's inner demons

Yet the Kyteler case is not a typical witch-hunt, of the kind that was to become so common at the time of the great witch-hunt. That much has often been noted, but it has not proved easy to explain, or even to define, its peculiarities. It becomes perfectly easy when it is realized that the frame of reference was still provided by ritual magic. Then everything makes sense. Petronilla of Meath referred to her mistress as the most practised mistress of the art in the realm, indeed in the whole world: such a description fits one of those magicians who were lords of demons rather than one of the later witches, who were their abject servants. Lighted candles were used in the ceremonies: the Solomonic books have much to say about that. Animals were torn limb from limb at country cross-roads, as sacrifices: this was a stock feature of ritual magic. One of Petronilla’s achievements was, by incantations, to make some women take on the appearance of horned goats: such tricks belong exclusively to the world of ritual magic. Above all, Lady Alice’s demon, though he has certain features in common with the demon-seducers of the later witch-trials, is only fully understandable when viewed in terms of Solomonic lore. He claims to be one of the lesser demons of hell, and iron bars form part of his equipment — and in the Key of Solomon spirits of the lowest order were described as being “like soldiers, armed with spears”. Even his name, which has caused so much puzzlement, ceases to be a riddle. In calling him Robin, Petronilla of Meath was no doubt uttering the name of the first local wood-spirit that occurred to her — as countless other women, under torture, were to do in later centuries. But in adding a patronymic she was surely— probably at Ledrede’s instigation — indicating a connection with ritual magic. In ritual magic the magician was often called the Master of the Art, the animal whose skin provided the parchment for the magic formulae was called the Victim of the Art. What, then, could be more fitting than that this early demonic familiar should be called

filius Artis — meaning not that he was the son of another demon, called Art (in any case a theological impossibility) but that he was a son of the magic art?

The second trial in which a sect of witches figures was held three quarters of a century later, some time between 1397 and 1406; and still the frame of reference was supplied by ritual magic. This was a Swiss trial, held at Boltigen in the Simmerthal — a region which had recently been conquered by the city of Bern; and it was conducted by a secular judge, Peter of Greyerz (Gruyères), who represented the authority of Bern.^††

The chief accused was one Stedelen. Under torture, this man confessed to a variety of maleficia. He had afflicted a whole farmstead with sterility, causing the farmer’s wife no less than seven miscarriages and making all the cattle infertile; this had been done by burying a lizard under the threshold. He also knew how to produce hail-storms and devastate the crops; how to make children fall into the water and drown before their parents’ eyes; how to kill people with thunderbolts; how to harm his neighbours in their belongings and their bodies — in fact, how to perform all the traditional forms of

maleficium. In answer to the judge’s questions, accompanied by repeated torture, he explained how storms were made. It appeared that a group of malifici

and maleficae came together in a field and begged the prince of all demons to send them one of his demonic subjects, whom they designated by name. A black cock was sacrificed at a cross-roads, its flesh being thrown high in the air, where the lesser demon snatched it up. After which the demon would make hail-storms and cast thunderbolts — though not, Stedelen added, always at the places suggested.

In the confession which Peter of Greyerz extracted from Stedelen the world of maleficium and the world of ritual magic come together more clearly even than in the Kyteler affair. And in other confessions extracted by the same judge — and by the same methods — the whole is fused with that stereotype of the heretical sect which had been developed over the preceding three centuries. Here we learn that the “sect” of malefici around Bern(were accustomed not only to kill babies by magical means but to use the infant corpses for concocting potions which, in turn, possessed magical power. A candidate for membership of the sect was taken by the masters into a church on a Sunday morning, before the blessing of the holy water. There he was required to renounce Christ and Christianity and to do homage to a demon, known as “the little master”, who manifested himself in human form. Next he drank from the potion — whereupon the “images of the art” were revealed to him. It is the age-old fantasy, adapted to include ritual magic.