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chapter 10

Witchcraft and magic

During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries between 100,000 and 200,000 people were officially tried, and between 50,000 and 100,000 executed for witchcraft in Europe. Of these, about 80–85 percent were women, though this percentage varied throughout Europe. Both Protestant and Catholic authorities tried and executed witches, with the Holy Roman Empire, Switzerland, and eastern France seeing the highest levels of perse- cution. The early modern upsurge in witch trials – often called the “Witch Craze” or the “Great Witch Hunt” – is an extremely complex phenomenon which has been the subject of a huge number of studies over the last thirty years; most of these emphasize the ways in which economic, social, political, legal, theological, and intellectual factors all played a role.

Luther did not write a systematic treatise on witchcraft, so his ideas emerge in discussions of Biblical references to witchcraft and in the table talk. These ideas did not break dramatically with those of late medieval Christian thinkers. Most historians of witchcraft note that during the late Middle Ages, Christian philosophers and theologians developed a new idea about the most important characteristics of a witch. Until that period in Europe, as in most cultures throughout the world, a witch was a person who used magical forces to do evil deeds (maleficia). One was a witch, therefore, because of what one did, causing injuries or harm to animals and people. This notion of witchcraft continued in Europe, but to it was added a demonological component. Educated Christian thinkers in some parts of Europe began to view the essence of witchcraft as making a pact with the devil, a pact which required the witch to do the devil’s bidding. Witches were no longer simply people who used magical power to get what they wanted, but people used by the devil to do what he wanted. (The devil is always described and portrayed visually as male.) The primary charge became being a devil-worshipping witch rather than doing specific evil deeds, which meant that many more people could be implicated. Gradually this demonological

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EBSCO Publishing : eBook Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 1/13/2019 6:59 PM via FLORIDA INTL UNIV AN: 120280 ; Karant-Nunn, Susan C., Wiesner, Merry E..; Luther on Women : A Sourcebook Account: s8862125

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or Satanic idea of witchcraft was fleshed out, and witches were thought to engage in wild sexual orgies with the devil, fly through the night to meetings called sabbats, which parodied the mass, and steal communion wafers and unbaptized babies to use in their rituals. Some demonological theorists also claimed that witches were organized in an international conspiracy to overthrow Christianity, with a hierarchy modeled on the hierarchy of angels and archangels constructed by Christian philosophers to give order to God’s assistants. Witchcraft was thus spiritualized, and witches became the ultimate heretics, enemies of God, a position that Luther firmly accepts. His most dramatic statement of this was in his 1516 sermon on the Ten Commandments, which he considered republishing in 1540 when there was a witch trial in Wittenberg.

This demonology was created by Catholic thinkers during the fifteenth century, and brought together in the Malleus Maleficarum (The Hammer of [Female]Witches), written by two German Dominican inquisitors, Heinrich Krämer and Jacob Sprenger, and published in 1486, with many editions and translations over the next several centuries. This book was not simply a description of witchcraft, however, but a guide for witch-hunters, advising them how to recognize and question witches. It was especially popular in central Europe, and the questions which it taught judges and lawyers to ask of witches were asked over a large area; the fact that they often elicited the same or similar answers fueled the idea that witchcraft was an international conspiracy. Though witch trials died down somewhat during the first decades after the Protestant Reformation when Protestants and Catholics were busy fighting each other, they picked up again more strongly than ever about 1560. Protestants did not reject Catholic demonology, and the Malleus was just as popular in Protestant areas as in Catholic ones; Luther clearly supports the investigation and execution of witches, complaining at one point that the legal system was too slow rather than too summary in its judgments. He and other Protestants may have felt even more at the mercy of witches than Catholics, for they rejected rituals such as exorcism, which Catholics believed could counter the power of a witch.

The Protestant and Catholic Reformations may also have contributed to the spread of demonological ideas among wider groups of the population, for both Catholics and Protestants increased their religious instruction of lay people during the sixteenth century. As part of their program of deepening popular religious understanding and piety, both Protestants and Catholics attempted to suppress what the elites viewed as superstition, folk

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belief, and more open expressions of sexuality; some historians view the campaign against witches as part of a larger struggle by elite groups to suppress popular culture, to force rural residents to acculturate themselves to middle-class urban values. The fact that women were the preservers and transmitters of popular culture, teaching their children magical sayings and rhymes along with more identifiably Christian ones, made them particularly suspect.

Women were also more likely to be witches, in the eyes of learned theo- rists, because they were more sexual than men. The authors of the Malleus are obsessed with sex (even some of their fellow investigators and demo- nologists thought that they overdid it), seeing this, and not evil deeds, as the key issue in witchcraft. Female sexual drive was viewed as increasing throughout a woman’s life, making the post-menopausal woman most vul- nerable to the blandishments of a demonic suitor. Luther’s early sermon references to witchcraft focus specifically on women’s sexuality, and his stories about witches include ones that focus on older women’s lust and on the ways in which young women used magically enhanced sexual allure to tempt men.

Along with learned demonology, Luther’s discussions of witchcraft contain many elements that come from popular ideas about witches. The incidents of witchcraft he relates often involved food preparation or the care of animals and children, all areas of life over which women had con- trol and in which misfortune could occur easily, with magic or malevolence the most likely explanation. Witches are the inversions of the good wives and mothers he praises so extensively elsewhere: they destroy, rather than sustain, children; they scold, curse, or cast spells rather than being silent; they are willful, independent, and aggressive, rather than chaste, pious, and obedient. Luther’s voice thus added little that was new to discussions of witchcraft, but his authority was such that later authors and compilers of witch treatises included some of his writings to give their arguments extra weight.

sermons

Sermon on the Ten Commandments, 1516, WA I [P. 403] For the devil holds the female sex organ [organumsexumfoemineum] as his servant, so that he admits it to his holy rites, proclaims his laws and sows his superstitions through it, in every way contrary to God, who has imposed His sacred rites and priesthood and His word on men [viris]. For a

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long time this feminine priesthood has prevailed and it has filled these lands with innumerable superstitions, charms, and frivolous teachings, which for a long time people have feared more than the laws and rights of the masculine and divine priesthood.

[P. 407] And who can enumerate all the ludicrous, ridiculous, false, vain, and superstitious ideas of this seducible sex? From the first woman, Eve, it originated that they should be deceived and considered a laughing-stock.

Sermon on Exodus, 1526, WA XVI, p. 551 [Sermon on Exodus 22:18, “You shall not permit a female sorcerer to live.”] Concerning the female sorcerer. Roman law also prescribes this. Why does the law name women more than men here, even though men are also guilty of this? Because women are more susceptible to those superstitions of Satan; take Eve, for example. They are commonly called “wise women.” Let them be killed. None of them should take advantage of the holy things of Christians. For they say: “I swear to you by the sword that pierces Mary’s heart, by the thorns of Christ, by the four Evangelists, etc.” To us Christians it is said: “If you lack anything, ask for faith, ask for bodily and external things; if you do not immediately receive them, wait. Do not deal with Satan; do not command God as the witches do.” The sorceress establishes a certain time, person, and places, saying: “There in bed you will find a frog, hair, the ones of the dead; unless you take them away, unless you dig them up, your painful leg will not be healthy, you will not see, etc.” Here the fool says, “By my soul, I have found it to be so,” as if Satan cannot most easily place those things in such a way or take possession of your leg. For just as you believe, so it will seem to you. The law that sorceresses should be killed is most just, since they do many cursed things while they remain undiscovered, for they can steal milk, butter, and all things from the house; thinking about some cow, they can say one good word or another and get milk from a towel, a table, or a handle. And the devil leads milk and butter to their milking instrument. They can enchant a child to cry continually, not eating or sleeping, etc. They can also hide a lesion on someone’s knee, so that the body decays. If you should see such women, look away, for they have diabolical faces. Therefore, let them be killed. In truth, medicine is something else; namely nature, not a demon. If you apply herbs to men with your words or a benediction by the Lord’s Prayer or an angel, etc., that is a demon. Nature, however, is God’s; where the nettle burns, water moistens. Certain herbs are medicinal. But if your words are needed, it is a demon, not nature.

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lectures and commentary

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[Commenting on Galatians 3:1, “Who has bewitched you so that you do not obey the truth?”] The reason Paul calls the Galatians foolish and bewitched is that he compares them to children, to whom witchcraft does a great deal of harm. It is as though he were saying: “What is happening to you is precisely what happens to children, whom witches, sorceresses, and hags usually charm quickly and easily with their bewitchment, a trick of Satan.” Paul does not deny that witchcraft exists and is possible; for later on, in the fifth chapter (5:20) he also lists “sorcery,” which is the same as witchcraft, among the works of the flesh. Thereby he proves that witchcraft and sorcery exist and are possible. For it is undeniable that the devil lives, yes, rules in all the world. Therefore witchcraft and sorcery are works of the devil, by which he not only injures people but sometimes, with God’s permission, destroys them. But we are all subject to the devil, both according to our bodies and according to our material possessions. We are guests in the world, of which he is the ruler (John 16:11) and the god (2 Cor. 4:4). Therefore the bread we eat, the drinks we drink, the clothes we wear – in fact, the air and everything we live on in the flesh – are under his reign. Through his witches, therefore, he is able to do harm to children, to give them heart trouble, to blind them, to steal them, or even to remove a child completely and put himself into the cradle in place of the stolen child. I have heard that in Saxony there was such a boy. He was suckled by five women and still could not be satisfied. There are many similar instances.

Therefore witchcraft is nothing but an artifice and illusion of the devil, whether he cripples a part of the body or touches the body or takes it away altogether . . .

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It is commonly the nature of women to be timid and to be afraid of everything. This is why they busy themselves so much with witchcraft andCo

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superstition. One teaches the other, so that it is impossible to tell what kind of hocus-pocus they practice. But a Christian woman should not do this. She must go along freely and with confidence and not be so timid. She should not practice witchcraft and superstition and run hither and thither, uttering a magic formula here and a magic formula there. Whatever her lot, she should let God rule and she should remember that she cannot fare badly. For since she knows how she is faring and that her position in life is pleasing to God, why should she fear? If your child dies, if you become ill, be of good cheer; commit it to God.

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It delights Satan if he can delude us by taking the appearance either of a young man or of a woman. But that anything can be born from the union of a devil and a human being is simply untrue. Such an assertion is sometimes made about hideous infants that resemble demons very much. I have seen some of these. But I am convinced either that these were deformed, but not begotten, by the devil, or that they are actual devils with flesh that they have either counterfeited or stolen from somewhere else. If with God’s permission the devil can take possession of an entire human being and change his disposition, what would be so remarkable about his misshaping the body and bringing about the birth of either blind or crippled children?

Thus he is able to delude people who are irreligious and who live without the fear of God; when the devil is in the bed, the young man imagines that he has a girl, and the girl that she has a young man. But that anything could be born from this cohabitation, this I do not believe. Yet in many places sorceresses have been consigned to the pyre and burned for having had commerce with the devil.

table talk

WA TR II, no. 2529b, pp. 504–5 The devil has sexual relations with the weather witches. It could certainly be true that the devil has sexual relations and copulates with those old whores, the weather witches, that he satisfies their lust; but that he produces a child with them is not possible, for God alone is the creator and maker of human beings and creation is only possible through His actions and not throughCo

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those of the devil. But it is true that they [the weather witches] often confuse women who have just given birth, lie down in the place of the child and are more awful than ten children with shitting and eating, screaming, and so on. I know an example of this that occurred in Halberstadt. There the devil lay down in the place of a child, and made himself look exactly like the child; he was so unsettled and cried so much that the parents had no peace at night because of him. He also sucked the mother dry, so that she could no longer nurse him. After the mother had nothing more to give him, the father sent in another wetnurse, whom he also sucked dry, and so on until the fifth [wetnurse]. The parents did not know what they should do with the child, and they were advised to bring it to Hoppelstad, which was a pilgrimage site because it was still Catholic. The father put the child in a basket and left. As he was going on his way, he crossed over some water, and something in the water cried out: “Hilero!” Out of the basket the child answered: “Hoho!” The voice in the water asked, “Where are you going?” And the child in the basket answered, “I am supposed to go to Hoppelstad, so that I will be better able to thrive.” With this the man was shocked, and he immediately threw the child and the basket in the water. The two devils then began to laugh and chatter in the water, making fun of the man, etc.

WA TR III, no. 2982b, pp. 131–32 The torments of the devil through witches. Doctor Luther spoke often of witches, of the asthma and nightmares that plagued his mother because of her neighbor, a sorceress, though she had always treated her nicely and with friendship and had tried to reconcile with her. For she shot [a look at] children, so that they cried themselves to death. And she punished a pastor and bewitched him, so that he had to die; he could not be helped with any medicine. She took dirt on which he had walked and threw it in the water; he could not get healthy again without that dirt. After this he [Luther] was asked whether those who fear God and are good Christians can also be bewitched. And he answered: “Yes, because our souls are subject to lying. These [the souls] can be redeemed, but the body must expect the devil’s fatal stabs. And I believe that my illnesses are not always natural, but that Sir Satan works his mischief on me through magic. God, however, saves His chosen from such evil.”

WA TR III, no. 3601, pp. 445–46 A citizen of B. was bewitched by a witch so that he lost all of his goods and became poor. He asked the devil for advice, but afterwards his conscience troubled him so that he sought consolation and wondered what to do. AtCo

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this Doctor Martin said, “He did evil and acted against God. Why didn’t he follow the example of Job? Have patience, stick with God and entreat Him for His blessing? You should tell him that he should do penance and not seek refuge in Satan, but bear God’s will with patience.”

WA TR IV, no. 3921, pp. 10–11 About love-potions. Doctor Jonas and Doctor Balthasar told about a case in which a man who was at Leipzig loved a young woman very much and spoke of this to her and promised marriage. But then he found out that she had given him a potion, drink, or soup that had made him fall in love with her. After he went to another woman to be made healthy again, his love disappeared. Then Doctor Luther became angry and said: “Why do you bother me with such stories? My thoughts on this are that he should either take her [in marriage] or else clearly accuse her to the authorities and prove that he was deceived by the love-potion or drink. If we accept this excuse and allow it, then everyone will excuse himself in this way, whenever he regrets [his actions]. One shouldn’t joke about such things! If someone feels that he is a man, he should take a wife and not put God to the test. This young woman did what she was accused of having done to help the man, and to avoid uncleanness and adultery.”

And then he began to complain about the terrible temptations in the monasteries, about the pollution and nocturnal emissions, with which the devout fathers are almost always tormented, so that they cannot say mass on the following day. “But so many masses that we were supposed to perform would have been omitted because of our needing to be excused, that [the matter] became public and the prior allowed even those who were unclean to say mass. Shame on this! We should just destroy all the monasteries and convents because of shameful pollution, where idle people laze around all day, letting themselves be fed like swine with the best and rarest food and drink, so that they stimulate such uncleanness to increase every day. Dear God, protect us from this abomination and let us stay in holy marriage, so that our weakness may be turned to good.”

WA TR IV, no. 3969, pp. 43–44 About a bewitched young woman. Master Spalatin spoke to Doctor Luther in 1538, about a young woman in Altenburg who was bewitched so that she cried blood. When the sorceress was in a place that [the young woman] could not see her, she could still feel her presence and cried. To this Doctor Martin replied. “Such things should be punished. The lawyers always need too many witnesses and testimonies, and don’t pay enough attention toCo

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these. Recently I handled a marriage case in which the wife wanted to kill her husband with poison, so that he vomited lizards. When she was interrogated with torture, she would not confess. For such sorceresses become dumb and do not pay attention to the pain; the devil will not allow them to speak. But such deeds give proof enough, and one should punish them harshly to serve as an example, so that others are shocked away from such devilish doings.”

WA TR IV, no. 3979, pp. 51–52 Of [female] milk thieves. On 25 August 1538 there was much discussion about witches and sorceresses who steal chicken eggs out of nests, or steal milk and butter. Doctor Martin said: “One should show no mercy to these [women]; I would burn them myself, for we read in the Law that the priests were the ones to begin the stoning of criminals. People say that such stolen butter stinks and falls to the ground if you try to eat it, and that afterwards such sorceresses, when they want to do mischief again, are very much vexed and tormented by the devil. Village pastors and schoolmasters have long known about their arts and have harassed them.”

And he said: “Once on St. John’s Day at a St. John’s Day fire an ox-head was lying on a fence, and a huge crowd of sorceresses gathered around it and pleaded to be able to burn candles and lights [in front of it]. But Doctor Pommer’s solution was the best: one should harass them with dirt and stir the milk so that their things will all stink. For when milk was stolen from his cows, he instantly took off his pants and, sitting as a watchman, mixed ashes with milk and stirred it around, saying: ‘Eat this, you devil!’ After this, milk wasn’t taken from him any more.”

WA TR IV, no. 4646, p. 416 Of two sorceresses. Doctor Martin spoke about two sorceresses who were sitting one night in a tavern with two pails of water that they had prepared near them, discussing whether they should harm the grain or the wine. But the tavern-keeper, standing hidden in a corner, heard them, and took both of the pails. When the women went to bed, he poured the water over them; the water turned to ice, and the two of them died immediately. Dr. Martin said, “The devil is very powerful through sorceresses.”

WA TR VI, no. 6836, p. 222 Witchcraft described theologically. “Sins are a falling away from God’s work, through which God is angered and offended; because it is so loathsome, witchcraft is correctly described as a crime against God’s divine majesty, aCo

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rebellion and a depravity, through which one intends to violate the divine majesty to the utmost. The jurists engage in fine scholarly disputations and speak about all types of rebellion and disobedience to higher authorities, and among other things they include leaving one’s lord on the field of battle, betraying him, and joining the enemy; for this they all recognize that bodily torture and death are appropriate punishments. Witchcraft is therefore a much more shameful and terrible defection, for through it one turns away from God – to whom one is promised and sworn – to the devil; thus it is also appropriate to punish it through loss of body or life.”

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