The Story Thus Far: In 1376 CE, Spanish Inquisitor Nicholas Eymerich published his Directorium Inquisitorum (“Inquisitors’ Manual”), the first comprehensive treatise on witch hunting in print (see Hunting Witches in Print, Part One – “Oh, No, Not SPAIN Again?!”)…
Not long after this historical publication, in 1384 to be exact, friar Ruggero da Carate interrogated Sibillia Zanni, a young society woman from Milan, Italy, who claimed to have attended occult ceremonies in several wealthy homes around town since the age of sixteen. A figure known as the Madonna Oriente (not the Christian Virgin Mary but a mysterious “Lady of the East,” derived from a Latin term often used to denote the moon as a goddess) or La Signora del Gioco (“Lady of the Games”) presided over these rituals, apparently performing magic acts. Soon another young woman, Pierina de Bugatis, was brought forward with a similar story.
Quite sensibly, the friar dismissed as fantasy their wildly fanciful tales of ghosts at the gatherings and animal bones miraculously brought back to flesh-and-blood life, and sent them home with a light penance that involved standing at a church door during mass with two large yellow crosses and three fingers sewn on their dresses for three Sundays.
The next time Sibillia appeared before a Church official, Inquisitor Beltramino di Cernuscullo listened to her very closely, asked further questions, took detailed notes, and promptly proceeded to “persuade” her, possibly by torture, to confess to worshipping the devil (Catholic definition). Today, her rather surreal descriptions of the elaborate rites sound suspiciously like the hallucinations brought on by certain natural agents and indeed, the secret knowledge her mystical mistress supposedly imparted to her devotees included the knowledge and use of herbs and such. Nevertheless, the Inquisitor took her seriously – all the way to her blazing demise.
On May 26, 1390 the town of Sant’ Eustorgio (site in Italian) burned Sibillia to death at the stake for witchcraft in the “game of Diana, named Herodias,” (site in Italian) and two months later on July 21, Pierina as well. Wikipedia’s “The Moon in Mythology” claims, “Those who worshipped her were the first Inquisition victims to be burned as witches, though not the first victims of persecution as witches nor the first victims of the Inquisition.”
(I wonder if the name “Sibillia” is derived from the Latin “sibylla,” the origin of our word “sibyl;” extra points to anyone who recognizes what an interesting coincidence this would be!)
Only ten years old at that time, German-born Johannes (a.k.a. John) Nider later entered the Dominican Order and studied philosophy in Vienna, Austria and Cologne, Germany. Unlike Eymerich, Nider concentrated on theology rather than the Inquisition, returning to teach at his Alma Mater, the University of Vienna in 1425. He became prior of the Dominican convent of Basel, Switzerland in 1431, thus perfectly positioning himself to participate as theologian and legate in the Council of Basel-Ferrara-Florence, which took place from approximately 1431 through 1445 – not before indulging in a spot of peace negotiation with the Bohemians along the way.
During the Council, he circulated his Formicarius (“The Ant Hill”), a collection of his writings (1435 – 1437) on current theological, philosophical, and social issues, including diabolism and sorcery, although again he departed from his Catalan predecessor by dedicating only one section to this subject. Book Five, Of Witches and Their Deceptions, mostly unfolds as the interrogation by Peter of Greyerz (a.k.a. Gruyeres), a “castellan” or “judge” active in the area of Berne, Switzerland in the late 14th – early 15th century, of an allegedly captured male witch who “confesses” to suitably gruesome details of his practice, such as ritual infanticide a la Holy Child of La Guardia.
However, Nider manages to stress the heretical nature of witchcraft as well as its more sensational aspects; for example, he gives that alleged sorcerous equivalent of Sunday mass, the orgiastic witches’ Sabbath, conspicuously little emphasis in his treatise. In fact, he seems to have actually doubted that witches could fly, that naïve loon…
At any rate, he made his fame during his lifetime mostly as a reformer and scholar in addition to theologian and negotiator; the University of Vienna twice elected him as dean before his death on August 13, 1438 in Colmar, today France. First printed posthumously in 1475, Formicarius not only represents the second published book to deal with witchcraft, but also reveals that Church officials, specifically Inquisitors, were trying and torturing suspected witches as early as the beginning of the 15th century. It also may make Nider “the first clerical authority to argue that women were more prone to become witches than were men.”
And all witch hunters needed was more printed material to take it up another notch…
Next: Hunting Witches in Print, Part Three
Seems like we are at a sluggish time. Maybe it is just that time of year. Maybe it is because we are just sick and tired of things like this:
