by Phil Clarke
Troubled Times.
The colonists in Massachusetts and the surrounding states were going through troubled times at the end of the seventeenth century. The winter of 1691 had been cruel and ensured that the year’s harvest was far from bountiful, while a severe bout of smallpox swept through the town of Salem, causing great suffering. These unfortunate coincidences were seen as the work of the Devil, such was their reaction to anything that could not be easily explained. This belief in the evil acts of Satan was perpetuated by the theocracy that governed the state. A strict and stern Puritan faith focused on good and evil and taught predestination, accepting that the fate of one’s soul was already decided at birth. The people felt constant need to seek out signs confirming an evil heart. Anything out of the ordinary was seen as a potential symbol of Satan and anyone not conforming to the norm upheld by the close-knit, church-going community, was seen to be in league with Satan and, therefore, deemed a witch.
The events in Salem were not without precedent. In 1688, the children of John Goodwin across the state in Boston began behaving strangely when Mary ‘Goody’ Glover, their Irish laundry woman, was accused of stealing linen by thirteen year-old Martha Goodwin. The fits thrown by Martha and her younger brother of two were so violent that they were often seemingly struck deaf, dumb and blind, leading the townsfolk to only one conclusion: the washerwoman had bewitched the children. Her inability to recite the Lord’s Prayer added to the evidence against her, the authorities never taking into consideration the fact that she could not speak English! Unsurprisingly, she was found guilty by the court and condemned to death for witchcraft. The whole affair was published by Cotton Mather in his book, Memorable Providences Relating To Witchcrafts and Possessions, that year, so the young girls at Salem would have been privy to the powerful effects of the Goodwins’ performance.
In November 1689, Samuel Parris moved from Boston and was installed as the new minister of Salem, where he was met with considerable opposition. His over-zealous preachings did little to endear him to his congregation. By October of 1691, many were keen to drive Parris out of Salem, and they refused to contribute to his salary. If only they had made good their threats, many of Salem village would have avoided severe persecution.
Troubled Teenagers
The trouble started when a group of impressionable young girls began to regularly visit the house of Samuel Parris to listen to Tituba – Parris’ Caribbean Indian slave – tell unsettling tales of voodoo and other West Indian folklore. This prompted a keenness to experiment in the occult and they became obsessed with fortune-telling. The girls endeavoured to predict, among other things, their future social standing. Elizabeth Parris, the minister’s nine-year-old daughter and her cousin, Abigail William aged eleven, were the youngest of the girls, and they would become so excited by the gatherings that they would begin to convulse, complaining of being pricked or cut. These fits were not confined to story-telling sessions. Elizabeth Parris was reported to have thrown a Bible across a room and Abigail made a scene during a day of fasting, disrupting prayers. The girls’ behaviour got steadily worse. They covered their ears during Parris’s sermons and barked like dogs when scolded. Even worse was to come. Soon the other older girls began exhibiting similar lawless behaviour, no doubt seeking the same attention that the youngest were attracting. This contagion affected Ann Putnam, Mary Walcott, Mary Warren, Mercy Lewis among others – all girls between the ages of twelve and twenty.
By February these public displays of petulance had grown to such a level that something had to be done. The village physician, Doctor William Griggs, was unable to provide a true medical diagnosis and so, in keeping with their puritanical belief in the unexplained, witchcraft was seen to be the only other possibility. This prompted Mary Sibley, the aunt of Mary Walcott, to call for a witch cake to be made; the unsavoury ingredients of which were rye meal mixed with the urine from the teenage girls. This creation was then fed to a dog and if the dog fell ill it would show the girls were not truly bewitched. However, if they had truly been afflicted, the dog would then identify the guilty witch. While the result of the spell remains unknown, the outcome prompted the townsfolk to pressure Elizabeth into revealing who caused her demonic convulsions. These subsequent accusations would unleash chaos throughout Salem and make it impossible for the girls to play it off as a teenage prank or a bid for attention. There was no turning back now. These ‘witch bitches’ – a term used by Old George Jacobs of the town – were about to become witch snitches.
Witch Snitches
These troubled teenagers moved their theatrics on to a brand new and disturbing level, burning all bridges when they were pressed to name names. They blamed the obvious scapegoats of the town, first turning on the story-telling slave, Tituba who, after several days of interrogation, confessed to bewitching the girls before receiving a reduced sentence of imprisonment. Next the collective finger of blame singled out two more women vulnerable by their peculiarities. Sarah Good was a poverty-stricken, angry old woman who was often seen muttering under her breath as well as smoking a pipe, while Sarah Osborne was a thrice-married cripple. None of these three were church-going folk; the clearest sign that they were in cahoots with the Devil.
The fourth victim of these witch snitches was to be more of a surprise and would increase the panic already prevalent in the town of Salem. The treatment of the first three suspected witches received opposition from Martha Corey, a member of the Church, and the girls’ reaction was to label her a witch. She was excommunicated and condemned to death and on being cut down from her rope was buried in a shallow, unmarked grave. This strengthened the position of the Salem witch spotters for now it was clear: any opposition to the girls’ accusations would be seen as a sign of guilt. Nobody was safe from the condemnations of these convulsing teens.
John Willard, a farmer and deputy constable, had been involved in the arrest of the first suspects but, on realising that the true criminals were the teenagers, he vocalised his suspicions and was forced to flee the town. He was picked up ten days later and brought before the girls, who promptly found him to be a witch. John Willard was hanged on 19 August. He was not the only official who bore the wrath of these young wenches. In Andover, Justice Dudley Bradstreet issued forty arrest warrants but when he refused to sign any more, his lack of co-operation was seen as sympathy for the sorcerers. With the indictment of nine murders over his head, he fled for his life and, unlike Willard, he managed to keep it.
Not even the accusers themselves were safe. Twenty-year-old Sarah Churchill was a servant to George Jacobs and when he was apprehended and examined, she refused to continue with the charade. Her Salem sisters immediately accused her of being a witch so, fearing for her own life, she quickly rejoined the fold. The other teenage turncoat was Mary Warren. When her employers, the Proctors, were accused of witchcraft, she could not bring herself to testify. Knowing that a public plea for their innocence would bring accusations upon herself, she secretly spoke with the other girls in the hope that their lives could be spared. It made no difference. Mary Warren was hounded by her friends until she confessed that John Proctor’s spectre afflicted her. Save these two exceptions, at no time was any regret or remorse shown on the part of the girls. As the verdicts were read out in court and as the condemned were made to swing by their necks, the girls remained steadfast.
The Salem girls, now unable to show any signs of culpability, went on a widespread trail of denunciation, their techniques improving with experience and leaving no doubt in the minds of the town magistrates. When the girls failed to synchronise their spasms they found other ways of confirming bewitchment. The examination of William Hobbs is the perfect example. In a far from subtle manner, Abigail Williams forecast who he was tormenting, at which point the chosen girl would fall into fits and complain of biting and pricking.
When neighbouring towns began to suspect that they, too, were harbouring witches, the girls were sent for. In the villages of Topsfield an
d Andover, they were forced to adapt their technique to get round the fact that they did not know the names of the people they wished to censure. It was then that they created the touch test, which involved Ann Putnam and Mary Walcott going into spasms while the suspects were lined up before them. In turn, they were asked to touch the convulsing girls. If the girls became quiet the toucher was guilty of witchcraft. Two alleged witches who failed this test were Ann Pudeator and Mary Parker, who were eventually hanged on 22 September 1692.
The Executions
Some of those who confessed to dabbling in sourcery during the Salem trials never found their neck in the noose. A confession and a promise that no further afflictions would be made was enough to produce a reprieve. Those twenty who were executed in 1692 were those stubborn ones who denied all charges of witchcraft and collusion with the Devil, but were unfortunate enough to have an accusatory teenage finger pointed at them.
The first to be sentenced to death was Bridget Bishop. She was known in the village as possessing a dubious moral character. The pervasive Puritan values of the community frowned upon her colourful attire and late night partying, making her an easy target for fanatics hellbent on eradicating the town of riff-raff and undesirables. When they were brought into the courthouse these malicious sisters of Salem began to writhe in agony despite never having met Bridget before. This was sufficient proof that Bishop was guilty and in just eight days she was tried, sentenced and executed upon Gallows Hill, where she continued to profess her innocence.
Bishop was the only ‘witch’ to be hanged alone. There followed a short recess during which time the authorities sought advice from Cotton Mather, the head of the Boston clergy, on whether this drastic course of action was correct. The reply was an affirmation of their actions and so what followed were three hanging days over the next three months. Five were executed on 19 July, a further five met their maker a month later on 19 August and eight more were hanged on 22 September.
As with all crazes, this trend was short-lived. The urge to purge their communities of witches was soon out of vogue. In October, the town of Gloucester sent for the female band of witch-finders. During this visit they discovered only four, and on being summoned the following month, they were met with a rather frosty reception resulting in no arrests. Clearly, the flames of fanaticism were no longer raging as they once had, and the girls’ testimonies were not wholly believed. At this time, in the nearby town of Ipswich, the girls went into one of their performances on seeing an old woman and they were promptly ignored, such was the apathy surrounding the witch-hunters by the end of 1692.
In May 1693 an amnesty was granted and all those in gaol were set free. Finally, the crazed stupor was beginning to wear off and there were clear signs that the people of Salem were returning to their senses. Only one of the girls ever apologised for her actions. This came in the form of a written apology in 1706 from Ann Putnam. She claimed that she had never acted maliciously during that wild witch-seeking year but, in fact, had been deluded by the Devil into denouncing the innocent. Over the coming years, a petition was created listing the names of all those that had been falsely accused of witchcraft and in 1711 compensation was granted to twenty-two of those listed, the authorities acknowledging the huge mistake they had made. It was not until the fitting date of 31 October – Halloween – 2001 that Governor Jane Swift finally proclaimed the innocence of all those accused in Salem and its surrounding towns more than 300 years ago.
The Witch-hunters: France
Jean Bodin
Born in 1529, 320 kilometres (200 miles) south-west of Paris in the town of Angers, Jean Bodin was to become one of the most ardent of witch-hunters in all of France. Like many of his fellow persecutors, Bodin was a well-educated man attending both the local university in his home town and, after a brief period as a Carmelite monk, the University of Toulouse, where he later became the professor of Roman Law. In 1561, Bodin moved to Paris to serve King Charles IX and began writing his successful though controversial publications on philosophy, politics and sovereignty – the latter subject was extensively covered in his Les Six livres de la République (The Six Books on the State), completed in 1576. That same year he married the daughter of a King’s prosecutor at Laon and established himself as a provincial lawyer. Later he became a public prosecutor, which brought him face to face with many suspected witches. Attending these trials helped him to form his major work on witchcraft entitled De la Demonomanie des Sorciers (Of the Punishments deserved by Witches), which revealed his brutal point of view. It covered ways in which judges could battle the witch problem and legally defined a witch as, ‘one who knowing God’s law tries to bring about some act through an agreement with the Devil’.
Bodin took the witch infestation very seriously and this was reflected in the punishments he advocated in the third part of the book. Torture during interrogation was essential to unmask the suspect and reveal his or her true identity, and Bodin often went all out, using hot irons to cauterise inflicted wounds in order to extract a confession. No punishment was too cruel for a witch in his eyes, and not even the young and old escaped his wrath – he was known to torture children and the elderly. An agonising execution upon the flaming pyre was not enough for Bodin, who considered burning to be too good for witches as even the slowest fires would last only half an hour.
His hatred was directed not solely towards those who – under duress – confessed to witchery. Judges who failed to give the maximum sentence to a sorcerer were themselves condemned to death. Those who failed to believe in the influence of Satan through witchcraft were also heavily rebuked by Bodin. Dealing with the Devil required relentless verve, leaving no room for half measures or scepticism. It was imperative that the full force of the law should be administered for the security of the state and to assuage God’s vengeance. He insisted upon the disclosure of accomplices and even called for children to testify against their parents if witchcraft was suspected. Such suspicion, without prior evidence, was grounds for torture followed by condemnation from which they could never be acquitted. For Bodin, this was not man’s inhumanity to man but the Lord’s work. Such belief was illustrated in 1566 when a woman from Vermandol near Saint Quentin was mistakenly burnt alive after the executioner overlooked the customary strangulation. Bodin was far from apologetic. He passed off this miscarriage of justice as the judgement of God. Presumably, it was also God’s handiwork when Bodin contracted the plague and died in 1596.
Nicholas Remy
Our second Gallic demonologist and executor of witches hailed from Charmes in the Lorraine region of France. Nicholas was born around the year 1530 into a renowned and noble family, a branch of the ancient house of Saint Remigio de Câlons-sur-Marne. They were a family of lawyers. His father, Gerard Remy, was Provost of Charmes and his uncle was Lieutenant-General of Vosges. It was unsurprising, then, that Nicholas followed suit. He studied law at the University of Toulouse before taking over the Lieutenant-General post on his uncle’s retirement. The titles were bestowed upon Nicholas with continued regularity, being made a Privy Councillor to the Duke Charles III of Lorraine in 1575 and six years later he became the State Attorney of Lorraine and Sheriff of the Court of Nancy. It was at this point that his hatred for witches revealed itself in the cruellest of ways.
As State Attorney and Sheriff, Nicholas quickly established himself as a fervent detester of devil-worshipping witches, and the torturous acts he performed upon his suspects earned him the moniker, the ‘Torquemada of Lorraine’. He was known to punish children as young as six or seven and torment their minds by having them parade around their parents as they burnt at the stake. This passion for persecution began at an impressionable age when, as a child, he often frequented the trials of suspected sorcerers. Yet it was an incident in 1582 that would truly give birth to his widespread extermination of so many unfortunate French men and women.
Nicholas Remy was approached by an old beggar woman and, not knowing his attitude
towards such vagrants, she was promptly snubbed by him. A few days later, Remy’s eldest son was taken ill. Doctors were unable to restore his health and he died. A livid Nicholas demanded vengeance and, with his witch-hating beliefs fuelled by grief, he hunted down the elderly transient and had her prosecuted for bewitching his son and causing his death. An accusal from someone so respected in the community was enough to condemn such a good-for-nothing hobo and instead of alms she was given something far more life-changing: a death sentence.
From this moment on, Remy went on a crusade against those he believed were in league with the Devil, and took every case of sourcery as personally as that which had seemingly befallen his son. Rather than roaming the district of Lorraine wildly looking for signs of witchcraft, Remy used his background in law to rationally justify his accusations. This above-board approach ensured that his prosecution success rate soared above those of his witch-hunting contemporaries. On his retirement to the country in 1592, he wrote his book Demonolatreiae, in which he revealed the extent of his witch-hunting exploits. To lend further weight to its contents, printed on the title page of this work was the self-congratulatory revelation that he had condemned 900 witches in only fifteen years, naming 128 of them. This work went on to be reprinted many times after its initial publication in 1595, and even substituted the Malleus Maleficarum as the accepted handbook for witch-hunters.