Rainer Decker

Rainer Decker is among the first generation of scholars granted access to the Archive of the Holy Office. The archive contains actual trial transcripts and related documents as well as the detailed minutes of administrative meeting. This material clarifies the role of the Catholic Church in the prosecution of witches and magicians.

Witchcraft and the Papacy is a scholarly book, likely to be available mainly in university libraries and of interest largely to the serious student of the history of witchcraft. Decker cites many individual trials, as well as papal decrees on the subject. He uses this material to trace changes in the attitude of the Church, of individual popes and of the surrounding society.

Since the book deals mainly with Italy and other areas under direct papal control there is little material that applies to the history of witchcraft in England. Nevertheless Wiccans may be interested in descriptions of the types of magic being practiced at the time, and the history of changes in attitudes toward the prosecution of magical crimes.

Decker explains that Church law had consistently ruled that first time offenders should be treated gently: allowed to abjure their heresies and given penance and instruction rather than punishment. Only those who relapsed were to be turned over to the secular arm for execution. Decker emphasizes that the greatest number of executions for witchcraft took place after secular governments took over the prosecutions, since these courts were not bound by the more strict procedural rules of the Inquisition. Further, secular authorities were more likely to be swayed by popular opinion and to see witches as members of a conspiracy against society. For example, the legal code of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, promulgated in 1532, specified death by fire for magic intended to harm. Early trials allowed for evidence to be challenged by the defendant, as in other criminal trials, but by the late 1500s witchcraft had come to be considered such a threat, a crimen exceptum, that ordinary rules of evidence should be ignored.

The major point that Decker seeks to establish is that areas under the direct control of Rome did not succumb to the hysteria that lead to tens of thousands of deaths in parts of France, Germany and Alpine areas. The major reason was that the Roman Inquisition was skeptical of testimony by witches that they had traveled in the body to sabbats. If the memory of the event was a delusion created by Satan, as the Canon Episcopi had stated, there was no reason to believe a prisoner who claimed to have seen other known individuals at the sabbat. In the absence of other evidence, such as a previous reputation as a witch, the named parties would not be arrested and tortured. Therefore the cascade of arrest, accusations and further arrests and accusations could not occur. Judges were also admonished to verify physical evidence of malificium. For example, if a woman was accused of having caused a death the judge was to ascertain that the person named had actually died and that the cause of death appeared to be magic. They were also told to separate the accused in jail; to avoid leading questions; to record questions and answers exactly; and to ask whether past enmity existed between accused and accuser. In addition, defendants were allowed an advocate and advocates were provided for poor suspects.

Decker is concerned that past historians have misunderstood the role of the Church and the motives of its leaders in the prosecution of witches. He asserts that the popes of the 17th century could have been ignorant of much that happened in Germany, given the disturbance and war caused by the Reformation, and if aware would have been unable to control secular trials, even in territories that remained Catholic. The Catholic areas of Switzerland were relatively close to Rome, yet the Church had difficulties controlling local courts. Decker documents a case in the mid 1600s in which the Inquisition seized control of fifteen Swiss children aged from eight to twelve who had been convicted of witchcraft. The Church acted to save the children from execution by resettling them in Milan, with good Catholic families who would assure their livelihoods and education.

In later chapters Decker examines the type of magical offenses most frequently tried and the punishments given. One woman who was brought before the Inquisition in Venice was variously accused of love magic, healing by magic, and possession of copies of the Key of Solomon (possibly for sale). She was arrested and tried three separate times over the course of thirty years, given prison sentences that were gradually reduced to home arrest, and only died when she fell while fleeing a fourth arrest. The most severely punished magic was that involving the sacraments: stealing consecrated hosts or using holy water or consecrated oil in spells could result in severe sentences of imprisonment or galley service. Necromancy and summoning demons was also a serious offence; but these forms of magic were more likely to be performed by men, sometime, in fact, by clergymen. The last execution carried out by the Roman Inquisition was in 1761, for the crime of impersonating a priest. The prisoner was strangled in prison, the body burned privately and the ashes buried in a churchyard, thus disappointing the public of the spectacle of a public burning.
Despite his defense of the Church from inaccurate and prejudiced charges by past historians, Decker does not claim that no injustices were done in its name. He caution against substituting a rosy legend for the so-called “black legend” of the past. He also explains that while the Enlightenment caused the cessation of prosecutions for magical crimes when the rulers no longer believed such crimes were possible, the Church still believes that demons exist and that magic is possible.

The material in this book is detailed and complex, ranging across six centuries and a multitude of official pronouncements and arguments on the subject. This review has touched only on the highlights, and while I hope to have done justice to the author’s core argument a full reading of the evidence he produces will yield a clearer picture of the issues. I did find the chronology confusing at times as the thread of exposition on the official papal policy toward witchcraft became mingled with treatment of other related crimes and problems, such as demonic possession.

I recommend this book for serious students of the history of magic in Europe. It contains extensive notes and a bibliography of both manuscript and printed sources. Of course many of the sources are in Latin, German or Italian, as are Decker’s other published works. We can hope that more such research in the archives will result in greater understanding of this area of history and that the resulting scholarship will be made available in English.… (mais)