A Popular History of Witchcraft

Montague Summers

• Publisher: Obscure Press
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781446541067, 9781528772785
• eBook ISBN: 9781528763868
• Subtopic: Religion

First published in 1937, this volume offers an overview of witchcraft and its practices and history, written by Montague Summers. Augustus Montague Summers (1880 – 1948) was an English clergyman and author most famous for his studies on vampires, witches and werewolves—all of which he believed to be very much real. He also wrote the first English translation of the infamous 15th-century witch hunter's manual, the "Malleus Maleficarum", in 1928. Contents include: "Of the Practice and Profession of Witchcraft; of the Contact; and the Familiar", "Of the Practice of Witchcraft; of the Malice and Mischief of Witches; of the Devi's Mark; and of the Grimore", "Of the Witch Covens and their Grand Masters; of their Journey to the Sabbat; and of the Sabbat Orgy", etc. Other notable works by this author include: "Witchcraft and Black Magic" (1946) and "The Physical Phenomena of Mysticism" (1947). Many vintage books such as this are becoming increasingly scarce and expensive. We are republishing this volume now in an affordable, modern, high-quality edition complete with a specially-commissioned new biography of the author.

CHAPTER V

PART I OF ENGLISH WITCHCRAFT FROM THE BEGINNING UNTIL THE REPEAL OF THE LAW, 1736

Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.

Exodus, xxii, 18.

The word Witchcraft itself belongs to Anglo-Saxon days, and even if we possessed no other evidence of the fearful prevalence in the centuries before the Norman Conquest of wellnigh every kind of traffic with the darker powers throughout all England the fact that these horrid businesses were only too widespread might indeed be considered amply proven when we are able to recognize and enumerate no less than some forty native terms denoting all kinds of black magic and the various professors of that evil craft. Actually the wealth of witness from laws, both ecclesiastical and secular, from sermons and homilies, from leechdoms, chronicles and legend, is overwhelming.

It was in the spring of the year 597 that the Apostle of the English, Saint Augustine, with his little company landed on the Isle of Thanet, presently to be welcomed by King Æthelbert, himself still a pagan, although his wife and dear queen, Bertha of Paris, enjoyed the free exercise of her religion. It will be readily remembered how the King fearing some possible incantations on the part of the strangers insisted that their first interview should take place in the open air under the shadow of a sacred oak, the tree worshipped by the Druids, by the ancient Celts and Teutons, by Slavs and Lithuanians, at Nemi, in Syria, the tree whose majesty was revered by the whole Aryan race. The King’s apprehensions, however, were speedily set at rest, and he forthwith invited the missionaries to his royal city of Canterbury, a barbarous and squalid place enough, to which, however, they gladly came, as the Venerable Bede describes, bearing the Holy Cross together with a picture of the Sovereign King, Our Lord Jesus Christ, and chanting in unison sweet psalms and litanies as they went on their way.

After the death of Æthelbert in 616 great reverses befell Christianity, and witchcraft notably increased throughout the land. The dark opposing powers were not easily to be driven from the fair realm of Britain, and in 633 it seemed as if the Faith would be wholly extinguished throughout the North of England on account of the fierce persecutions of Penda, the pagan King of Mercia, whose court was thronged with wizards, diviners, and cunning women.

Rædwald, King of the East-Angles, a most powerful monarch who died about 627, and was fourth Bretwalda, erected (as the Venerable Bede tells us) in one and the same temple a high altar at which Mass was said, and a side altar at which sacrifices were offered to the devil.

In 747 was convened at the behest of Pope Zachary the Second Council of Clovesho, which forbade all abominations and vain pagan practices, “wizardry, sorcery, divinings, fortune-telling, periapts, spells, conjurations, and incantations, which are the very filth of the wicked, yea, heathen falsehood and deceit.”

Continuous legislation, the codes of Ælfred, of Edward and Guthrum, of Æthelstan, and many more ban witchcraft, demanding the supreme penalty for those who slay others by their spells. The Secular Laws of Cnut denounce those who “love witchcrafts to ensue them, or contrive secret murder in anywise; or offer evil sacrifice or by soothsaying, or perform anything pertaining to such abominable illusions”. By secret murder is intended any killing through a charm or some kind of witchcraft. The “evil sacrifice” is the Black Mass.

The Christian Council of the Gold Coast, of which the Anglican Bishop of Accra is chairman, published in January, 1932, a lengthy memorandum dealing with African sorceries. Among the powers which a wizard is supposed to possess is “The power to inflict disease and death upon a human victim without physical contact or physical medium (popular belief distinguishes between witchcraft and poisoning)”. The Christian Council includes representatives of the English Church Mission, of the Methodist and Presbyterian bodies. It appears that some of the members were disinclined to believe in witchcraft, but be that as it may the warning of the Vox Populi of Accra which commented adversely upon the documents is soundest of all: “Our sincere advice to the churches of the Gold Coast is to leave the Devil alone . . . Of some meek strangers in Palestine it was once reported, ‘We would see Jesus’. A Christian Council to-day would see the Devil and his works and pay for it.”

Writing in the Daily Express on 3rd June, 1933, Mr. Arthur Hudson, K.C., former Attorney-General of the Gold Coast, mentions several instances of homicide by witchcraft. One of the earliest complaints that came before him was that of a man whose father had been killed by a wizard. The wizard had been angry with the deceased, had declared that he should die on a certain day, and on that day the victim died. In the present sad state of the law the murderer could not be convicted, and Mr. Hudson wisely attempted to frighten him by threats of punishment if any more complaints were made concerning his activities. In another instance a warlock told a man who had given offence that as he walked home to his farm a snake would come out of the bush and bite him, and that he would die. The man was bitten exactly in this way, and died. Here again the warlock could only be intimidated in hopes that he would for the future for very fear eschew his sorceries.

It would be easy to give many more quotations from and references to Anglo-Saxon and pre-Norman documents and writings of all kinds, but enough has been said to show that witchcraft, known in all its aspects throughout England long before the Conquest, was ever forbidden by the Law and banned by the Church.

After the Conquest the Anglo-Saxon statutes against witchcraft and all ecclesiastical censures and excommunications were in practice continued. William I in a summary of his legislation assigns perpetual exile as the punishment for any murder by black magic. (The technical word in the first instance implies the use of poison, but poison and spells were so invariably intermingled that the terms became synonymous.) It was soon found necessary to make the penalty more severe. Thus the code known as the Laws of Henry I, which may be dated about 1110, decrees that any murder, whether it be by poisoning or by witchcraft, is punishable with death. If, however, the victim has not been killed but has been injured in body or lies sick the offender may make compensation by payment of a heavy fine. The code specifies one particular form of malefic magic which was regarded as especially heinous, the piercing of an image or poppet to slay the man in whose likeness it was moulded.

In 1071 when William I was attacking Hereward the Wake and had abandoned all hope of capturing the Isle of Ely, a Norman knight ventured to suggest that as a last resource they should avail themselves of the help of an old woman, who (as he said) by her mysterious art was able to sap the defenders of their manhood and drive them pell-mell in a panic from their strongholds. The crone was brought to the camp under cover of darkness, but not so secretly that the news reached Hereward by means of a spy. The Saxon chief, disguising himself very adroitly in rags, obtained a lodging at the cottage of a widow where the witch dwelt. He overheard the two hags conversing in French, a language they, of course, deemed a vagrom wayfarer could not understand. At midnight the women went down to a spring of water which ran at the end of the garden, and concealed among the trees he watched whilst they invoked the “guardian of the springs”, a demon who answered in a hoarse and horrible voice. In consequence he was able to employ a counter-spell. When the enemy with great confidence made their next sally, the witch was stationed in a high chariot in their midst to ply her art whilst they fought. The Normans, however, were routed with heavy loss, and the sorceress being cast to the ground was slain in the mêlée.

That such foul creatures, ever ready to work harm, literally swarmed throughout England in those centuries cannot be doubted, even as it is certain that Satanists infest the country in our own time. Again and again the laws—silent to-day—forbade and penalized sorcery and enchantments. Nor can we be surprised that on occasion persons tormented by some sorceress have suddenly and violently avenged themselves, as when John of Kerneslawe was surprised one evening by a hideous hag who entering his cottage struck him smartly with her staff, and in a moment all his limbs were writhen and racked with pain. In self-defence, as against the devil, he snatched up a javelin and struck her through so that she died. But John fell into a delirium and ran lunatic, nor did he recover his wits until the clergy of the district very properly ordered that the body of the witch should be burned to ashes.

There was a terrific scandal in 1303 when one of the chief men in the realm, Walter Langton, Bishop of Coventry and treasurer of Edward I, was delated before Pope Boniface VIII as a notorious warlock and of worshipping the Demon with obscene ceremonies. After a most searching inquiry the incriminated prelate proved able successfully to clear himself of the crime.

There seems little doubt that politics were mixed up in this case, as they most certainly were the motive of the famous trials of 1324 when no less than twenty-seven defendants were brought before the King’s Bench for murder by fashioning and tormenting a wax image. Upon All Hallows E’en, 1323, a number of Coventry men went privately to the house of a notorious “nigro-mauncer”, John of Nottingham, who was then living in their town, and having bound him and his man, Robert Marshall from Leicester, to closest secrecy, paid him a large sum of money to undertake the slaying of King Edward II, the royal favourite young Hugh le Despenser, and other great men of quality. The old warlock and his servant forthwith set to work. A remote and ancient manor, some half a league from Coventry, was the scene of their operations. In this horrible haunted house they set about their work. They were well feed, and provided with seven pounds of fair white wax and two ells of superfine canvas to fashion the mommets, the King with a gilded crown on his head, Monsieur Hugh, and the rest. Long and thoroughly they laboured at their modelling. It was resolved that first they would make an experiment upon Richard de Sowe, a courtier whom they hated. Accordingly they moulded their figurine, and at midnight on the Friday before the Feast of Holy Rood (3rd May) Master John gave Marshall a long leaden pin bidding him thrust boldly two inches deep into the forehead of the doll. The next morning the servant went to de Sowe’s house upon some casual errand to learn that he was writhing on his bed in agony, uttering piercing cries with burning pains in the head and frantically delirious whilst the physicians were at their wits’ end to diagnose the mysterious malady. And so he lingered until some days later the warlock drew the pin from the brow and struck it featly into the heart of the image. Whereupon de Sowe expired, and Marshall panicky and dithering with fear rushed off to the Sheriff, one Simon Crozier, before whom he confessed all that had been going on, which immediately resulted in the arrest of Master John and the whole gang of conspirators. Shame to say the wealthy burgesses greased the palm of justice and escaped, but Master John was not so lucky for he died in durance on the very eve of the trial, whilst the unfortunate wight who blabbed was sent back to prison to abide there.

In the forty-fifth year of Edward III, that is to say 1371, a Southwark man was brought before the King’s Bench upon a charge of sorcery. He was found to have in his wallet the mummified head and embalmed hands of a dead man, a skull, and a grimoire. In spite of such damning evidence the Chief Justice, Sir John Knyvet, only required him to take solemn oath that he would never practise any kind of witchcraft nor cast a spell for good or ill, whilst the book and the loathly relics of mortality were burned in Tothill Fields.

In 1376 the so-called “Good Parliament” openly charged Alice Perrers, the fascinating mistress of Edward III with witchcraft, and declared that she maintained in her house a mysterious Dominican, “who in outward show professed physic” but by whose experiments Alice had allured the King to her unlawful love. He had fashioned a rare ring of memory the virtue whereof was to keep the doting monarch ever mindful of the lady.

Under Richard II and Henry IV there were constant prosecutions of conjurors and traffickers in black magic, whilst Henry V was plainly very much perturbed about the increase of sorcerers in his realms. He even prosecuted his stepmother, Joan of Navarre, for attempting his life by witchcraft, and her confessor, a Franciscan, John Randolf, an admitted adept, was lodged in the Tower. There seems little doubt that the friar had moulded wax figurines after the traditional manner.

Dames of high degree indeed seem to have been particularly implicated in accusations of witchcraft employed for political motives, and we frequently have very full details of such cases chronicled of course owing to their notoriety and importance, hundreds of similar instances in the lower walks of life passing unrecorded. Thus in 1441 Eleanor Cobham, Duchess of Gloucester, wife of “the Good Duke Humphrey”, “sometime Protector of England,” was “arrested and put in hold, for she was suspect of treason”. It was found that she was deeply implicated in the witchcrafts and sorceries of a learned astrologer, Roger Bolingbroke, with whom also were concerned Thomas Southwell, a canon of St. Stephen’s; Sir John Hume a priest; William Woodham; and Margery Jourdemain, a witch of the vilest antecedents. Bolingbroke asserted that he had “wrought the said necromancy” at the duchess’ command but it was with a view to ascertain “to what estate she should come”, (in other words her chance of succeeding to the throne) and not to plot any treason against the king. There can be little doubt, however, that the death of Henry VI was being attempted according to the orthodox mode of piercing and melting wax images. Bolingbroke was hanged at Tyburn, beheaded and quartered; Canon Southwell died in prison; whilst Mother Jourdemain, “the Witch of Eye” (the Manor of Eye-next-Westminster), who had been imprisoned on a charge of sorcery eleven years before but afterwards discharged, was burned at the stake in Smithfield, since she was guilty of high treason as well as malefic magic. The Duchess of Gloucester was compelled to do public penance, walking the streets of London barefoot and bareheaded, in a white shift, and carrying a lighted taper of two pounds weight. She was then confined for life at Peel Castle in the Isle of Man, a fastness yet horribly haunted by her unquiet ghost.

Before his execution Bolingbroke was set on a high platform outside St. Paul’s, whilst a rousing sermon was preached to the crowd. He was dressed in his magic robes, holding a huge scimitar in his right hand and a great gilt sceptre in his left, “arrayed in that marvellous array he was wont to don when about his magic.” Upon the scaffold was also placed his necromantic throne, a chair of subtle wizardry, curiously painted, wherein he used to sit when he wrought his dark craft, and on the four corners of the chair stood four swords and from every sword there hung an image of a foul fiend graven in copper. Such chairs are still occasionally to be found. In 1929 I saw a very fine specimen then in the possession of Mr. John Jennings. This was of mahogany, and inserted in the back showed the painting of a magician, holding his wand of power, and surrounded by demons. The picture was covered by an elegantly shaped shield of bevelled Vauxhall glass. On the arms and seat were various mystic devices inlaid and piqués in brass. Other instruments appertaining to Bolingbroke’s craft and which had been found in his closet were displayed, stars, pentacles, cups, censers, images of silver and other metals, together with waxen mommets not a few. Thomas Southwell used to say Mass at an altar in the Lodge of Hornsey Park over “certain instruments fit for the craft of necromancy”. He had celebrated a requiem for the living king, and had also baptized a wax figurine of Henry, piercing it with a sharp bodkin. The case not being proved against Sir John Hume and Woodham, they were acquitted.

Even Jacquette de Luxembourg, Duchess of Bedford, and mother-in-law of Edward IV was attacked by evil tongues who declared that she had fashioned two puppets to compel the king to love her daughter. There were also rumours of a mysterious figure, the image of a soldier, about a finger’s length, but broken in the midst and mended with wire which the lady used for purposes of magic. The Duchess made her plaint to the Privy Council, and the whole thing broke down utterly, which did not, however, hinder Richard of Gloster some years later when he was aiming at the throne reviving the scandals, and declaring that his brother’s marriage with Elizabeth was invalid as having been contrived “by sorcery and witchcraft, committed by the said Elizabeth and her mother”. He also charged them together with that other witch of their counsel, Shore’s wife, with wasting his body by their spells, and did not hesitate to pull up his sleeve and show his shrunken withered arm to the Privy Council, swearing that thus “yonder sorceress, my brother’s wife” and her company had plagued him, whereas all present knew well that he had been deformed from birth. And so Jane Shore must do public penance therefor, and walk the London streets clad only in a shift, barefoot, and carrying a lighted taper.

Throughout the fifteenth century there were prosecutions of the smaller fry, and an almost continuous list of cases, year after year, might be recorded. Thus Richard Walker, a chaplain, is accused by the Prior of Winchester of sorcery, and is found to have in his closet a beryl stone for divining, two grimoires, and two dolls of wax. In 1444 there was publicly punished in London a man “the which wrought by a wicked spirit the which was called Oberycom, and the manner of his process and working was written and hanged about his neck when he was in the pillory”. In 1500 Thomas Wright, a Premonstratensian Canon of Sulby Abbey, near Market Harborough, came under grave suspicion for “using books of experiments”, and for having bribed a mysterious “vagabond” to teach him the way of occult science.

At the trial of the Duke of Buckingham, twenty-one years later, an accusation of sorcery supported the capital charge of high treason. He had consulted with Dom Nicholas Hopkins, a monk of the Hinton Charterhouse, of whom he inquired concerning the King’s death—a fatal question, if true. It was also alleged that the Duke had been heard to say that Cardinal Wolsey was an idolater and sorcerer, nourishing a familiar, who advised him how to keep the royal favour.

When Henry VIII was beginning to grow a little weary of the gospel light that gleamed from Boleyn’s eyes he whispered to some convenient friend that unquestionably he had “made the marriage seduced by witchcraft”, a self-evident fact since God denied him a son. Before the birth of Elizabeth indeed a whole horde of occultists had been consulted to determine the sex of the chil...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Montague Summers
• Contents
• Illustrations
• Introduction
• I. Of the Practice and Profession of Witchcraft; of the Contract; and of the Familiar
• II. Of the Practice of Witchcraft; of the Malice and Mischief of Witches; of the Devil’s Mark; and of the Grimoire
• III. Of the Witch Covens and their Grand Masters; of their Journey to the Sabbat; and of the Sabbat Orgy
• IV. Of the Black Mass; and of the Loves of the Incubi and Succubi
• V. Part I.—Of English Witchcraft from the Beginning until the Repeal of the Law, 1736
• VI. Part II.—Of English Witchcraft from the Passing of the Statute of 1736 until the Present Day
• Index