John Linwood Pitts - Witchcraft and Devil Lore in the Channel Islands
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John Linwood Pitts >> Witchcraft and Devil Lore in the Channel Islands
WITCHCRAFT
AND
DEVIL LORE
IN THE
CHANNEL ISLANDS
TRANSCRIPTS FROM THE OFFICIAL RECORDS OF THE GUERNSEY ROYAL COURT,
WITH AN ENGLISH TRANSLATION AND HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION.
BY
JOHN LINWOOD PITTS,
_Membre de la Societe des Antiquaires de Normandie._
_Editor of "The Patois Poems of the Channel Islands;" "The Sermon on
the Mount and the Parable of the Sower, in the Franco-Norman Dialects
of Guernsey and Sark," &c., &c._
Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.
--EXODUS xxii, 18.
[Illustration]
Guernsey:
GUILLE-ALLES LIBRARY,
AND
THOMAS M. BICHARD, PRINTER TO THE STATES.
1886.
[_All Rights Reserved._]
TO
EDGAR MACCULLOCH, ESQUIRE,
F.S.A., LONDON AND NORMANDY, AND MEMBER OF THE FOLKLORE SOCIETY,
BAILIFF OF GUERNSEY,
WHOSE HISTORICAL RESEARCHES HAVE TENDED SO MUCH TO ELUCIDATE THE
TIME-HONOURED CONSTITUTION
AND
ANCIENT CUSTOMS OF HIS NATIVE ISLAND,
THIS
BRIEF RECORD OF ONE OF THE DARKEST CHAPTERS IN ITS CHEQUERED ANNALS
Is Dedicated
WITH SENTIMENTS OF THE HIGHEST RESPECT AND ESTEEM.
_Venena magnum fas nefasque non valent Convertere humanam
vicem._
HORACE, Epod. V. 87-8.
FOREWORD.
In presenting to the public another little volume of the "Guille-Alles
Library Series," it affords me much pleasure to acknowledge various
kindnesses experienced during its preparation. From Edgar MacCulloch,
Esq., F.S.A., Bailiff of Guernsey, I have received several valuable
hints and suggestions bearing upon the subject; and also from F.J.
Jeremie, Esq., M.A., Jurat of the Royal Court. I am also particularly
indebted to James Gallienne, Esq., Her Majesty's Greffier, for his
uniform kindness and courtesy in allowing the fullest access at all
times to the Archives under his care, not only in respect to the
subject-matter of the present publication, but also in other
historical researches which I have wished to make. I am equally
obliged to Mr. E.M. Cohu and Mr. H.J.V. Torode, Deputy-Greffiers, and
to Mr. A. Isemonger, Bailiff's Clerk, for various information and much
ready help, which materially facilitated my investigations. All these
gentlemen have my cordial acknowledgments and best thanks.
J.L.P.
Guernsey, December, 1885.
NOTE.--The Seal represented on the title page is
that of the Guernsey Bailiwick. It was first granted by
Edward I. in the seventh year of his reign (1279), and bears
the inscription: S. BALLIVIE INSULE DE GERNEREYE.
CONTENTS.
_Page_
DEDICATION v.
FOREWORD vii.
TABLE OF CONTENTS viii.
INTRODUCTION 1
WITCHCRAFT IN GUERNSEY 1
The Witches' Sabbath 2
The Devil's Ointment 2
Three Women burnt for Heresy in Guernsey 3
WITCHCRAFT IN JERSEY 4
Ordinance of the Royal Court 4
Women Hanged and Burnt *4
Mr. Philippe Le Geyt's Opinion 5
Later Superstitions 5
The Pricking of Witches *5
_Sorcerots_, or Witches' Spells 6
Torture of Witches in Guernsey *6
" " Scotland 7
GENERAL PERSECUTION OF WITCHES *7
On the Continent *7
In America *7
In England 8
In Scotland 8
CONFESSIONS OF GUERNSEY WITCHES UNDER TORTURE 9
Collette Du Mont 11
Marie Becquet 15
Isabel Becquet 16
DEPOSITIONS AGAINST COLLAS BECQUET 22
NOTE ON THE GUERNSEY RECORDS 27
WITCHCRAFT TRIALS IN GUERNSEY, 1563-1634 28
THE STORY IN BRIEF OF THE GUILLE-ALLES LIBRARY 33
INTRODUCTION.
The Witchcraft superstitions of the Channel Islands, sad as they were
in their characteristics and results--as is abundantly evidenced by
our judicial records--were but a part and parcel of that vast wave of
unreasoning credulity which swept across the civilised world during
the Middle Ages, and more or less affected every class of society, and
all sorts and conditions of men. From the lists given in the following
pages (pp. 28-32), it will be seen that in about seventy-one years,
during the reigns of Elizabeth, James I. and Charles I., no fewer than
seventy-eight persons--fifty-eight of them being women, and twenty of
them men--were brought to trial for Sorcery in Guernsey alone. Out of
these unfortunate victims, three women and one man appear to have been
burnt alive; twenty-four women and four men were hanged first and
burnt afterwards; one woman was hanged for returning to the island
after being banished; three women and one man were whipped and had
each an ear cut off; twenty-two women and five men were banished from
the island; while five women and three men had the good fortune to be
acquitted. Most of these accused persons were natives of Guernsey, but
mention is made of one woman from Jersey, of three men and a woman
from Sark, and of a man from Alderney.
With regard to the gatherings at the so-called Witches' Sabbaths,
there can be no doubt that--quite apart from the question of any
diabolic presence at such meetings--very questionable assemblies of
people did take place at intervals among the inhabitants of many
countries. Probably these gatherings first had their rise in the old
pagan times, and were subsequently continued from force of habit, long
after their real origin and significance had been forgotten. Now, it
would be very easy for these orgies to become associated--particularly
in the then superstitious condition of the popular mind--with the
actual bodily presence of the Devil as one of the participants; while
it is also not improbable that, in some cases at least, heartless and
evil-minded persons worked upon the prevailing credulity to further
their own nefarious purposes. Our esteemed Bailiff has offered a
suggestion or two of considerable value on this point with regard to
certain Guernsey phases of the superstition. He thinks it highly
probable that some of these deluded women were actually the dupes of
unprincipled and designing men, who arrayed themselves in various
disguises and then met their unfortunate victims by appointment. This
idea is, indeed, borne out to a great extent by some of the
particulars stated in the following confessions. For instance, some of
the women assert that when they met the Devil he was in the form of a
dog, _but rather larger_; he always stood upon his hind legs--probably
the man's feet; and, when he shook hands with them, his paw _felt like
a hand_--doubtless it _was_ a hand. Another suggestion of the
Bailiff's is also worth notice. It is that the black ointment so often
mentioned as being rubbed on the bodies of the so-called witches, had
a real existence, and may have been so compounded as to act as a
narcotic or intoxicant, and produce a kind of extatic condition, just
as the injection of certain drugs beneath the skin is known to do now.
These suggestions are certainly worth consideration as offering
reasonable solutions of at least two difficulties connected with those
strange and lamentable superstitions. In one way or other there must
have been some physical basis for beliefs so widely extended and so
terribly real. Imagination, of course, possesses a marvellous power of
modification and exaggeration, but still it requires some germs of
fact around which to crystallise. And it is to the discovery of the
nature of such germs that a careful and conscientious observer will
naturally turn his attention.
* * * * *
While speaking of the burning of Witches in Guernsey, I may also
refer for a moment to the three women who, in Queen Mary's reign
suffered death by fire, for heresy, because the reason of their
condemnation and punishment has caused some controversy, and is often
associated in the popular mind with a charge of sorcery. Dr. Heylin in
his _Survey_ (page 323), says:--
Katherine Gowches, a poor woman of St. Peter-Port, in
Guernsey, was noted to be much absent from church, and her
two daughters guilty of the same neglect. Upon this they
were presented before James Amy, then dean of the island,
who, finding in them that they held opinions contrary to
those then allowed about the sacrament of the altar,
pronounced them heretics, and condemned them to the fire.
The poor women, on the other side, pleaded for themselves,
that that doctrine had been taught them in the time of King
Edward; but if the queen was otherwise disposed, they were
content to be of her religion. This was fair but it would
not serve; for by the dean they were delivered unto Helier
Gosselin, then bailiff, and by him unto the fire, July 18,
1556. One of these daughters, Perotine Massey, she was
called, was at that time great with child; her husband, who
was a minister, having in those dangerous times fled the
island; in the middle of the flames and anguish of her
torments, her belly broke in sunder, and her child, a goodly
boy, fell down into the fire, but was presently snatched up
by one W. House, one of the by-standers. Upon the noise of
this strange incident, the cruel bailiff returned command
that the poor infant must be cast again into the flames,
which was accordingly performed; and so that pretty babe was
born a martyr, and added to the number of the holy
innocents.
Parsons, the English Jesuit, has asserted that the women were felons
and were executed for theft, while other apologists have described
them as prostitutes and generally infamous in character. The original
sentences, however, which still exist at the Guernsey _Greffe_, and
which I have examined, conclusively settle the question. Both the
ecclesiastical sentence, which is in Latin, and the civil sentence,
which is in French, distinctly describe the charge as one of _heresy_,
and make no mention whatever of any other crime as having aught to do
with the condemnation.
It has been questioned too whether a child could be born alive under
such circumstances. Mr. F.B. Tupper, in his _History of Guernsey_
(page 151), says: "We are assured by competent surgical authority that
the case is very possible"; and he further mentions that in a volume
entitled _Three Visits to Madagascar_, by the Rev. Wm. Ellis,
published in London, in 1858, a precisely similar case is stated to
have occurred in that island. A native woman was burnt for becoming a
convert to Christianity, and her infant, born in the flames, was
thrust into them again, and burnt also.
Lord Tennyson refers to this Guernsey martyrdom in his historical
drama of _Queen Mary_ (Act v. Scene iv.). It is night-time in London;
a light is burning in the Royal Palace; and he makes two "Voices of
the Night" say:--
_First_:--There's the Queen's light. I hear she cannot live.
_Second_:--God curse her and her Legate! Gardiner burns
Already; but to pay them full in kind,
The hottest hold in all the devil's den
Were but a sort of winter; Sir, in Guernsey,
I watch'd a woman burn; and in her agony
The mother came upon her--a child was born--
And, Sir, they hurl'd it back into the fire,
That, being thus baptised in fire, the babe
Might be in fire for ever. Ah, good neighbour,
There should be something fierier than fire
To yield them their deserts.
With regard to Witchcraft in Jersey, I have not had an opportunity of
personally examining the official records there. I find, however, some
information on the subject, given by M. De La Croix, in his _Ville de
St. Helier_, and _Les Etats de Jersey_, upon which I have drawn. In
the way of legislation, the Guernsey Court does not appear to have
promulgated any penal statutes on the subject, being content to treat
the crime as one against the common law of the Island. In Jersey on
the contrary, Witchcraft was specially legislated against at least on
one occasion, for we find that on December 23rd, 1591, the Royal Court
of that island passed an Ordinance, of which the following is the
purport:--
Forasmuch as many persons have hitherto committed and
perpetrated great and grievous faults, as well against the
honour and express commandment of God as to the great
scandal of the Christian faith, and of those who are charged
with the administration of justice, by seeking assistance
from Witches and Diviners in their ills and afflictions; and
seeing that ignorance is no excuse for sin, and that no one
can tell what vice and danger may ensue from such practices:
This Act declares that for the time to come everyone shall
turn away from such iniquitous and diabolical practices,
against which the law of God decrees the same punishments as
against Witches and Enchanters themselves; and also in
order that the Divine Vengeance may be averted, which on
account of the impunity with which these crimes have been
committed, now threatens those who have the repression of
them in their hands. It is, therefore, strictly forbidden to
all the inhabitants of this island to receive any counsel or
assistance in their adversities from any Witches or
Diviners, or anyone suspected of practicing Sorcery, under
pain of one month's imprisonment in the Castle, on bread and
water; and on their liberation they shall declare to the
Court the cause of such presumption, and according as this
shall appear reasonable, shall be dealt with as the law of
God directs.
In 1562 two women were executed in Jersey for witchcraft. One of them
named _Anne_, a native of St. Brelade's, was burnt at St. Helier's;
and the other, _Michelle La Blanche_, expiated her crime at the gibbet
of the Hurets, in the parish of St. Ouen, because criminals dwelling
on the Fief Haubert de St. Ouen, were, in accordance with custom,
required to be executed within the boundaries of the said Fief--seeing
that it possessed a gallows-right--and their goods and lands became
forfeited to the Seigneur.
In 1583 a rather curious point of law was raised in connection with a
pending witch-trial at St. Helier's. On the 15th of February in that
year, a suspected witch named _Marion Corbel_, who had been imprisoned
in the Castle awaiting her trial, suddenly died. Whereupon her
relatives came forward and claimed to be heirs to her goods and
chattles, seeing that she had not been convicted of the imputed crime,
and urging that her death put an end to further criminal proceedings.
The Queen's Procureur, however--it was in the reign of
Elizabeth--contended that death was no bar to the completion of the
indictment, although it had effectually removed the criminal from the
jurisdiction of the Court, as far as punishment was concerned. The
very reasonable claim of the deceased woman's relatives was therefore
set aside, and the defunct of course being found guilty, her
possessions reverted to the crown.
Again, forty years later, in 1623, an old woman of sixty, named _Marie
Filleul_, daughter of _Thomas Filleul_, of the parish of St.
Clement's, was tried before a jury of twenty-four of her countrymen,
and found guilty of the diabolical crime of Sorcery. She was therefore
hanged and burnt as a witch, and her goods were confiscated to the
King [James I.], and to the Seigneurs to whom they belonged.
It may be interesting to note here the opinion of Mr. Philippe Le
Geyt, the famous commentator on the constitution and laws of Jersey,
and one of the most enlightened men of his time, who for many years
was Lieutenant-Bailiff of that island. He was born in 1635 and died in
1715, in his eighty-first year. In Vol. I., page 42, of his works,
there occurs a passage of which the following is a translation:--
As Holy Scripture forbids us to allow witches to live, many
persons have made it a matter of conscience and of religion
to be severe in respect to such a crime. This principle has
without doubt made many persons credulous. How often have
purely accidental associations been taken as convincing
proofs? How many innocent people have perished in the flames
on the asserted testimony of supernatural circumstances? I
will not say that there are no witches; but ever since the
difficulty of convicting them has been recognized in the
island, they all seem to have disappeared, as though the
evidence of the times gone by had been but an illusion. This
shows the instability of all things here below.
Coming down now to within a century ago, we find an article in the
_Gazette de Jersey_, of Saturday, March 10th, 1787, complaining of the
great increase of wizards and witches in the island, as well as of
their supposed victims. The writer says that the scenes then taking
place were truly ridiculous, and he details a case that had just
occurred at St. Brelade's as corroborative of his assertion. It
appears that a worthy householder there, had dreamed that a certain
wizard appeared to him and ordered him to poison himself at a date
which was specified, enjoining him above all things not to mention the
incident to anyone. The poor silly fellow was dreadfully distressed,
for he felt convinced that he would have to carry out the disagreeable
command. At the same time he was quite unable to keep so momentous a
secret to himself, and so he divulged the approaching tragedy to his
wife. The good woman's despair was fully equal to his own, and after
much anxious domestic counsel they determined to seek the good offices
of a White Witch (_une Queraude_), with the hope that her incantations
might overcome the evil spells of the Black Witch who was causing all
the mischief. This White Witch prescribed lengthened fasting and other
preparations for the great ordeal, and on a given night she and the
bewitched householder, together with his wife and four or five trusty
friends with drawn swords, shut themselves up in a room, and commenced
their mysterious ceremonial. There was the boiling of occult herbs;
the roasting of a beeve's heart stuck full of nails and pins; the
reading of certain passages from the family Bible; a mighty
gesticulating with the swords, which were first thrust up the chimney
to prevent the Black Witch from coming down, and anon were pointed
earthward to hinder him from rising up; and so the ridiculous game
went on. The only person who benefited was of course the imposter, who
was paid for her services; while we may perhaps charitably hope that
her dupes also were afterwards easier in their minds. The writer adds
that many other persons besides this man at St. Brelade's, had
latterly believed themselves bewitched, and had consulted wizards, who
were thus driving a profitable trade.
* * * * *
Among the indications and symptoms of a witch, are reckoned various
bodily marks and spots, said to be insensible to pain (page 20),
inability to shed tears, &c. The pricking of witches was at one time a
lucrative profession both in England and Scotland, one of the most
noted prickers being a wretched imposter named Matthew Hopkins who was
sent for to all parts of the country to exercise his vile art. Ralph
Gardner, in his _England's Grievance Discovered_ (1655), speaks also
of two prickers, Thomas Shovel and Cuthbert Nicholson, who, in 1649
and 1650, were sent by the magistrates of Newcastle-on-Tyne, into
Scotland, there to confer with another very able man in that line and
bring him back to Newcastle. They were to have twenty shillings, but
the Scotchman three pounds, per head _of all they could convict_, and
a free passage there and back. When these wretches got to any
town--for they tried all the chief market-towns in the district--the
crier used to go round with his bell, desiring "all people that would
bring in any complaint against any woman for a witch, they should be
sent for and tried by the person appointed." As many as thirty women
were brought at once into the Newcastle town-hall, stripped and
pricked, and twenty-seven set aside as guilty. Gardner continues:--
The said witch-finder acquainted Lieutenant-Colonel Hobson
that he knew women whether they were witches or no by their
looks; and when the said person was searching of a
personable and good-like woman, the said colonel replied and
said, 'Surely this woman is none, and need not be tried;'
but the Scotchman said she was, for the town said she was,
and therefore he would try her; and presently, in sight of
all the people, laid her body naked to the waist, with her
clothes over her head, by which fright and shame all her
blood contracted into one part of her body, and then he ran
a pin into her thigh, and then suddenly let her coats fall,
and then demanded whether she had nothing of his in her
body, but did not bleed? But she, being amazed, replied
little. Then he put his hands up her coats and pulled out
the pin, and set her aside as a guilty person and child of
the devil, and fell to try others, whom he made guilty.
Lieutenant-Colonel Hobson, perceiving the alteration of the
aforesaid woman by her blood settling in her right parts,
caused that woman to be brought again, and her clothes
pulled up to her thigh, and required the Scot to run the pin
into the same place, and then it gushed out of blood, and
the said Scot cleared her, and said she was not a child of
the devil.
If this precious wretch had not been stopped he would have declared
half the women in the north country to be witches. But the magistrates
and the people got tired of him at last, and his imposture being
discovered, he was hanged in Scotland. At the gallows he confessed
that he had been the death of 220 men and women in England and
Scotland, simply for the sake of the twenty shillings which he
generally received as blood-money.
* * * * *
The belief in _Sorcerots_, or witches' spells of a peculiar kind,
mentioned in the _Depositions_ (pages 22, 23, &c.) receives curious
modern confirmation by a kindred superstition still current among the
emancipated negroes of the United States. It was described in a letter
on "Voudouism in Virginia" which appeared in the _New York Tribune_,
dated Richmond, September 17, 1875. Mr. Moncure D. Conway, in quoting
this and commenting on it in his _Demonology and Devil-Lore_ (Vol. I.
pages 68-69), says that it belongs to a class of superstitions
generally kept close from the whites, as he believes, because of their
purely African origin. Mr. Conway is, however, probably mistaken about
the origin, seeing that the same belief prevailed in Guernsey three
centuries ago. The extract from the letter is as follows:--
If an ignorant negro is smitten with a disease which he
cannot comprehend, he often imagines himself the victim of
witchcraft, and having no faith in "white folks' physic" for
such ailments, must apply to one of these quacks. A
physician residing near the city [Richmond] was invited by
such a one to witness his mode of procedure with a dropsical
patient for whom the physician in question had occasionally
charitably prescribed. Curiosity led him to attend the
seance, having previously informed the quack that since the
case was in such hands he relinquished all connection with
it. On the coverlet of the bed on which the sick man lay,
was spread a quantity of bones, feathers, and other trash.
The charlatan went through with a series of so-called
conjurations, burned feathers, hair, and tiny fragments of
wood in a charcoal furnace, and mumbled gibberish past the
physician's comprehension. He then proceeded to rip open the
pillows and bolsters, and took from them some queer
conglomerations of feathers. These he said had caused all
the trouble. Sprinkling a whitish powder over them, he burnt
them in his furnace. A black offensive smoke was produced,
and he announced triumphantly that the evil influence was
destroyed, and that the patient would surely get well. He
died not many days later, believing, in common with his
friends and relatives, that the conjurations of the "trick
doctor" had failed to save him only because resorted to too
late.