Defense or Torture: Legality through the Malleus Maleficarum

A few interesting ideas about justice and the legal process emerge from the Malleus Maleficarum. For one, the authors of the Malleus emphasize discretionary privileges, as well as general rules of conduct for the Judge at hand. For example, the text states, “If the accused...is asking to defend herself...let the Judge take note that he is not bound either to publish the names of the deponents or bring them before the accused (Kors 206). As the authors were likely aware, such a concept appears aimed at disarming attempts at defense by the accused. In the Malleus, the secular Judge is an active limb of the law, a powerful, enabled controller of justice. Thus, unsurprisingly, Kramer’s work encourages the use of torture by the empowered Judge; the text describes, “let her [the accused] be often and frequently exposed to torture” (Kors 213). The document asserts torture as a standard, a commonality of trial, a natural tool of the secular court.

Torture is not in question per se, if defense is more subject to consideration. Hence, the idea that there is a “question of allowing the accused to be defended, and whether she should be examined in the place of torture, though not necessarily in order that she should be tortured (Kors 206). Consequently, the overall tone of the text conveys a justifiable application of torture in most cases, as defense becomes questionable. In general, the text incorporates new legal standardization into the objective of the prosecution of witches, namely female. To me, the document places the Judge as a symbol of state power, while the more intensely procedural aspect of the legal world, as the authors employ it, make the arguments seem more rational, if not necessarily so.

How do you perceive “the Judge” in the text?

On Exposure, Humilation, and Helplessness

Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Sprenger, authors of the Malleus Maleficarum, gave very detailed advice as to how a suspected witch should be investigated, questioned, tortured, and tried. She was not to be left alone after torture, lest the Devil coerce her to commit suicide. She was to be led backwards into any chamber the judge was in, lest she bewitch or curse him with her eyes. She was to be questioned in a different location than the torture chamber in the event she confessed under torture.
By far the most interesting bit of advice Kramer and Sprenger gave to judges and inquisitors was to search a suspected witch upon taking her into questioning, and again more invasively before torturing her. They advised removing her clothes (or having a virtuous woman do so in private chambers) to search for any concealed magic implements that might impair the investigation. Before torture, she was to be shaved, removing all the hair from her body in search of hidden devil's marks, magic implements, or other damning evidence hidden in the hair.
In the 15th century, when the Malleus Maleficarum was written, and in the subsequent century or two when the advice within was implemented, adult women would ordinarily be seen naked by only their husbands, and their hair would ordinarily never be removed for any purpose (except perhaps medical reasons). Searches of this nature would be highly unusual and humiliating, only adding to the dehumanization suspected witches faced as their family, friends, and neighbors were turned against them, their reputations were destroyed, and their every word discredited. Though such searches were ostensibly to reveal damning evidence, the humiliation a witch would likely feel surely added to the pressure to confess and make everything stop.

Kors and Peters, p. 204-224

Thou Shalt Not Kill: theological parameter for the church?

Immediately after I began the reading of Kors & Peters tonight in the introduction to Part III in the Malleus Maleficarum something really stuck out. Kramer and Sprenger discuss the transfer of responsibility to try witches to secular courts along with ecclesiastical. However specifically in the case of sole heretics it is the responsibility to try and judge, "but for the secular judge to carry out the sentence and to punish; that is, when a capital punishment is in question." In any other case of sole heretics, the punishment was left to the penitential, but in the case of a possible punishment of death the secular judges were responsible to administer the punishment. I was just curious if this was for the commandment not to kill. Also, for some reason I was under the impression the the church may have been supportive of the burning of witches, if that is true then why could they not administer the punishment? In this section and later on the authors again discuss the responsibility of the secular court to try witches based on the encompassing danger, threat, and offense of witch craft not only to the church but also secular society.

In their section titled "Of the Manner of pronouncing a Sentence which is Final and Definitive," the authors explain this again saying, "It must be remembered, also, that this crime of witches is not purely ecclesiastics; therefore the temporal potentates and the Lords are not debarred from trying and judging it." While reading this I came to the conclusion it wasn't necessarily a call for a more vast court system in order to stop more witches rather, it strikes me as a plead for more support. Whenever one desires more support for his or her position, specifically in politics, the communal threat is invoked (specifically the notion that everyone's children are endangered by this "threat" if people do not join in to fight it is utilized regularly).By framing witchcraft as encompassing into the secular realm and calling for the use of secular courts to also try the witches do you, as the reader, sense the authors' plead for more support outside of the church?

On the Wrong Side of the Law: States, Legal Codes, and the Witch-Hunt

Thus far, we have studied papal documents, church penitentials, and religious views on everything from sex with the devil to the everyday uses of magic in the medieval period. Undoubtedly, as Levack argues, the non-secular development of perspectives on witchcraft contributed fundamentally to the propelling force of demonology and accusations of witchcraft moving into the early modern period (Levack 89). However, the foundational aspect of religion did not impede a secular appropriation of these techniques for use in the other political arena: among kings, emperors, and rulers of states, that were becoming both more nationalistic and bureaucratic. Although earlier rulers utilized inquisitorial techniques in the political sphere, like Philip the Fair of France in the 1300s against the powerful Templars, both state power and the inquisitorial processes were not yet defined, centralized, or coordinated as they would appear in the 1500s to 1600s. Not to mention, church authority became the lesser, as the state became the overseer of both the religious and secular realms in the sixteenth century (Levack 91). Overall, Levack’s ideas demonstrate that the legality or more appropriately, illegality of witchcraft in the sixteenth-century had been absorbed by the growing secular domain in general.

Therefore, for me, one interesting representation of the secular domain mentioned in the reading was the Constitutio Criminalis Carolina or as Levack refers to it, the Carolina code of 1532 (Levack 90). In her article, Joy Wiltenburg suggests that the sixteenth-century code of the Holy Roman Empire reflected societal changes. For one, it was an effort at reform of legal practice, yet still employed Roman inquisitorial procedures. Two, it had an “educative goal,” one that eased and encouraged the employment of standard legal processes at local levels of justice. Lastly, the author stressed the text indicates that courts had become places of “public business,” prone to an intermingling of rationality and emotion (Wiltenburg 713-734). Wiltenburg’s study shows how the Carolina code both connects to secular power and to witch-hunts. In effect, the Carolina is evidence that people were far more steeped in a background of acceptable legal/non-legal actions, while legality became a public concept tied inextricably to standards of state and power. Witches became a link in the ties between people, justice, and state. The secular influence took hold in the witch-hunt at hand. However, secular power was just one consideration in the continued heightening of witch-hunts, as the Carolina is just one example of how witchcraft was translated into standards of state power.  

Levack, Brian P. The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe. London: Rutledge, 2013.

Wiltenburg, Joy. “The Carolina and the Culture of the Common Man: Revisiting the Imperial Penal Code of 1532.” Renaissance Quarterly 53.3 (2000): 713-734.

 

Damned if You Do, Damned if You Don't: Tests for Innocence in Early European Court

It is definitely a relief that some of the early methods of court order in Medieval Europe no longer apply when it comes to law and order. Some of the descriptions Levack presented were somewhat frightening, in that there seemed to be no hope whatsoever for the accused, even if they were to be proven innocent. When I read the examples, the term, "Damned if you do, damned if you don't," comes to mind. You see, in order to prove one's innocence, the accused would have to perform some form of task that was more or less dangerous as a way of testing in God's name whether or not the accused (or victim) was innocent. Levack explained how people would have to do things like, "put his arm into hot water and in similar fashion reveal a healed limb after bandaging; or he would be thrown into a body of cold water and would be considered innocent only if he sank to the bottom..." (Levack 75-76). Tests such as these in order to prove someone's innocence are troubling because they are simply too dangerous and could very much cause the death, or at least severe injury of the accused. And the accused cannot even back out of the test, otherwise he will be proven guilty. So as you can see, this is why I would describe these methods of law and order as a "Damned if you do, damned if you don't," type of scenario. However, in regards to the changing trial laws during the witch-hunts, do you think the change in court law improved, or became worse?

Levack, Brian P. The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe. London: Rutledge, 2013. Page.

Dancing with the Devil

     Upon reading Lynda Roper's chapter on Sabbaths one of the many things that stood out to me was the mention of dancing. Although many view dancing as a time of joy and happiness and even Roper mentions that dances punctuated social life. She mentions how dances celebrated weddings, the birth of children, and other festivities throughout the village. Yet there is another tone given to dancing as Roper goes on. Women accused of witchcraft most often "flew" to Sabbaths and confessed to dancing with/for the devil. During this time dancing seemed to have gone from an act so joyous to something sinister. Roper mentions certain authors and their take on dancing at that time. The most common theme among these authors was that dancing was associated with fighting, adultery, murder. Even Jean Bodin condemned the dances that made "people wild and raging, and women to miscarry." Dancing was seen as an anti-fertility rite. Yet mentioned before it also celebrated the birth of children.
      It's interesting how these things in life, dancing, feasting, playing music, are simple acts yet during the witch hunts many of these activities were suddenly viewed as sinful.


   Just a fun side note: the whole time I was reading about this I was thinking "Footloose" this sounds exactly like the plot of the movie Footloose.

Silver Age: The Devil's Rejects

Even in the heretical divisions of the demon loving women across Europe, there still was a further divide in how demons viewed classes and beauty.  It was not enough to give your heart and soul to the Devil, but to be further judged in how much you as a woman brought to the table in looks and loot was a factor revealed under interrogation.  The humiliation and how far it went under the circumstances of feast and sexual debauchery was dependent on demon’s favor based on the aforementioned.  As Roper describes regarding women and their confessions of roles within the evil banquets, there was an obvious disparity in old and young hearts sought out by the demons.  While the young beauties are sought from all classes, the less affluent or older women suffered sideline rejection and even more humiliating acts that substantiated their cast within the feast, “…forced to act as human candle holders, lighting the dancing of the younger with a candle stuck in their anus” (Roper 122).  While this is a graphic representation of anal rape and humiliation, the cultural parody is derived from German custom in which young women coming of age place a lit pot outside their door as a signal of sexual maturation (Roper 123). 

Using the brief example above, how much of women’s confessions were maybe a conduit for grievances by way of fantasy/parody of cultural customs/age discrimination/societal cast.  

Roper, Lyndal. Witch Craze. Yale University Press, 2004. Print