ORIGINS OF THE THEORY OF THE WITCHES’ SABBATH Exodus, 22:18– “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.” c. 790 Charlemagne decrees that only pagans believe in witchcraft; those who burn witches will be executed. c The Canon Episcopi declares that those who think they are witches are only dreaming. 1184Pope instructs all bishops to “inquire” after heretics. 1252Pope sanctions use of torture in investigations Trial in Ireland of “heretical sorceresses” led by Dame Alice Kyteler 1486 The Dominican inquisitor Heinrich Kramer publishes Malleus Maleficarum, with papal approval ,000 witches are executed, 80% of them women; the hunt climaxes in and

Christopher Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus (1588): Alchemists and astrologers were respected professionals, but NOT if they invoked demons. (See Brian Levack, pp )

Hans Baldung Grien, “The Groom Bewitched” (1544): Maleficium = “the working of harm to the bodies or goods of one’s neighbors by means of evil spirits or strange powers derived from intercourse with such spirits” (Oxford English Dictionary).

The “lying in”: “Birth of the Virgin Mary” (Italian, ca. 1506): Midwives became suspect if the mother or baby died

“Saul and the Witch of Endor” (1526): See 1 Samuel 28:1-25

ORIGINS OF THE “INQUISITION”: St. Dominic ( ) receives from God and St. Peter his commission to defend orthodoxy with the iron rod of discipline (painted ca. 1730)

Malleus Maleficarum [The Hammer of Witches], by the Dominican inquisitors Heinrich Kramer and Jakob Sprenger (1486)

Michael Wohlgemuth, Woodcut of the alleged ritual murder of Simon of Trent by the Jews (1493)

Both Jews and accused witches were routinely subject to torture on the Continent, but not in England: A Jew interrogated with the strappada (16 th -century German woodcut)

After enough torture, they would confess to almost anything: The execution of 40 Jews in Berlin in 1510 for desecrating the Host (later exposed as a judicial fraud)

SUSPICIONS ABOUT MAGIC FOCUSED MORE AND MORE ON WOMEN: Hieronymous Bosch, “The Temptation of St. Anthony” (1506)

Joachim Patenier, “Temptation of St. Anthony” (ca. 1515)

Albrecht Dürer, Untitled (1497) Botticelli, The Three Graces (detail from “Primavera”, 1482)

Hans Baldung Grien, “Witches’ Sabbath” (1510)

“True Chronicle of the Godless Witches and the Heretical Devil’s Women of Schletstaat” (1571)

The Witches from Macbeth (J.H. Fuessli, 1783)

Frans Francken, “A Witches’ Kitchen” (Antwerp, 1610)

Frans Francken, “Assembly of Witches” (Antwerp, 1607)

The “water test” for finding witches (England, 1613)

A French vision of the Witches’ Sabbath from 1613

Jacque de Gheyn (Flemish), “A Witches’ Sabbath” (1690s)

Francisco de Goya, “Witches’ Sabbath” (Spain, 1789)