Anxieties about the noxious influence of witches and their demonic agents reached their peak in the early modern period, when church authorities targeted thousands of people, predominantly older women, for interrogation and execution. The inquisitors kept detailed records of the testimony of convicted witches, which informed the handbooks that they composed to justify their industry in rooting them out. The creation of the printing press in the fifteenth century facilitated the circulation of these writings throughout northern Europe. Chief among them were Heinrich Kramer’s The Hammer of Witches (Malleus maleficarum), published in 1487, and Nicolas Rémy’s Demonolatry (Daemonolatreiae libri tres), which appeared a century later in 1595. Informed by their authors’ experiences as inquisitors, these manuals shared strategies for dealing with the threat of fiendish infiltration in European communities. Their insights and imaginings about the purpose and practice of sexual commerce between witches and their demon companions, especially their ruminations on the questions of how such commerce took place and whether it could produce offspring, revealed more about the preoccupations of the inquisitors than it did about the practice of witchcraft.
…But the theory that modern witches are tainted with this sort of diabolic filthiness is not substantiated only in our opinion, since the expert testimony of the witches themselves has made all these things credible; and that they do not now, as in times past, subject themselves unwillingly, but willingly embrace this most foul and miserable servitude. For how many women have we left to be punished by secular law in various dioceses, especially in Constance and the town of Ratisbon, who have been for many years addicted to these abominations, some from their twentieth and some from their twelfth or thirteenth year, and always with a total or partial abnegation of the Faith? All the inhabitants of those places are witnesses of it. For without reckoning those who secretly repented, and those who returned to the Faith, no less than forty-eight have been burned in five years. And there was no question of credulity in accepting their stories because they turned to free repentance; for they all agreed in this, namely, that they were bound to indulge in these lewd practices in order that the ranks of their perfidy might be increased…
Therefore, to return to the question whether witches had their origin in these abominations, we shall say that they originated from some pestilent mutual association with devils, as is clear from our first knowledge of them. But no one can affirm with certainty that they did not increase and multiply by means of these foul practices, although devils commit this deed for the sake not of pleasure but of corruption. And this appears to be the order of the process. A Succubus devil draws the semen from a wicked man; and if he is that man’s own particular devil, and does not wish to make himself an Incubus to a witch, he passes that semen on to the devil deputed to a woman or witch; and this last, under some constellation that favors his purpose that the man or woman so born should be strong in the practice of witchcraft, becomes the Incubus to the witch.
Plutarch in his Numa, arguing against the beliefs of the Egyptians, says that it is absurd to believe that demons are captivated by human beauty and grace, and have intercourse with mankind for the sake of carnal pleasure.[3] For nature provides physical beauty as a stimulant to propagation, of which demons have no need, since they were created in the beginning in a certain fixed number. It must follow, then, that such intercourse is powerless to generate so wonderful a creation as man. For, in the first place, there must be a complementary correlation between the species; and this cannot exist between a demon and a man; so utterly opposite by nature are the mortal and the immortal, the corporeal and the incorporeal, the sentient and the insentient, or any two creatures which are even more opposite and contrary to each other. How such incompatibles can mingle and copulate together passes my understanding; and certainly I cannot believe that any perfect or complete issue can be brought to life by such a union. For there must always be some proportion between the active and the passive agent, and the extremes must meet in some common mean, if they are to produce any result.
Moreover, if like is born from like, how, I ask, can a living being spring from the union of such opposite and dissimilar natures? I know that you will say that when demons set themselves to this business, they assume some body which they endow with the powers, nature, and appearance of a living human form (for man is composed of spirit and body). Let it be granted to assume that they assume some body, for so far I am in agreement with you; but I think that body will be either the corpse of a dead man or else some concretion and condensation of vapors; for methinks that I say elsewhere that they usually adopt one of these two methods of manifesting themselves to us. But, I ask, can anything more absurd or incredible be said or imagined than that which is devoid of animal life can have any power or efficacy to impart life to another? For this process of procreation is governed by the laws of nature, according to which no semen can be fertile unless it comes from a living man. I am aware that Peter of Palude and Martin of Arles have said that when demons go about this work, they, as it were, milk the semen from the bodies of dead men, but this is as ridiculous as the proverbial dead donkey’s fart.[4]
And if, as Saint Basil and many others have maintained, the demon’s body is formed from a concretion of condensed vapors, still the business will go forward with no greater success, and such a body will be no more adapted to the work than that of which I have just spoken…[5]
It is a fact that all witches who give a demon free rein over their bodies (and this they all do when they enter his service, and it is as it were the first pledge of their pact with him) are completely in agreement in saying that, if the demon emits any semen, it is so cold that they recoil with horror on receiving it…
I need not here run through all the arguments which are usually adduced in support of this opinion, for the fact is proved by actual experience. Alexander ab Alexandro records that he knew a man who told him that the appearance of a friend who lately died (but it is probable that this was a spectral illusion of a demon) came to him, very pale and wasted, and tried to get into bed with him; and although he fought with him and prevented him from doing this, he yet succeeded in inserting one foot, which was so cold and rigid that no ice could be compared with it.[6] Cardan also tells a similar story of a friend of his who went to bed in a chamber which had formerly been notoriously haunted by demons, and felt the touch of an icily cold hand.[7] But to come nearer home, the confession of Ponsète of Essey, who was convicted of witchcraft at Montlhéry, agrees with what has been said above. She said that whenever she put her hand in her demon’s bosom she felt it as hard and rigid as marble.
Averroës, Blessed Albertus Magnus, and several others add to the above two methods of procuring this monstrous procreation a third which is perhaps more credible and probable.[8] According to them, the demons inject as incubi the semen which they have previously received as succubi; and this view can reasonably be supported by the fact that this method differs from the natural and customary way of men only in respect of a very brief intermission in its accomplishment. This objection, moreover, they easily overcome by quoting the extraordinary skill of demons in preserving matters from their natural dissolution. But whether it be a man or a woman who is concerned, in either case the work of nature must be free, and there must be nothing to delay or impede it in the very least. If shame, fear, horror or some stronger feeling is present, all that comes from the loins is spent in vain and nature becomes sterile; and for this reason the very consummation of love and carnal warmth which it implies will act as a spur to the accomplishment of the venereal act. But all they who have spoken to us of their copulations with demons agree in saying that nothing colder or more unpleasant could be imagined or described. At Dalheim, Pétrone of Armentières declared that, as soon as he embraced his Abrahel, all his limbs at once grew stiff. Hennezel at Vergaville said that it was as if he had entered an ice-bound cavity, and then he left his Schwartzburg with the matter unaccomplished. (These were the names of their Succubae.) And all female witches maintain that the so-called genital organs of their demons are so huge and excessively rigid that they cannot be admitted without the greatest pain. Alexée Drigie reported that her demon’s penis, even when only half in erection, was as long as some kitchen utensils which she pointed to as she spoke; and that there was neither testicles nor scrotum attached to it. Claude Fellet said that she had often felt it like a spindle swollen to an immense size so that it could not be contained by even the most capacious woman without great pain. This agrees with the complaint of Nicole Morèle that, after such miserable copulation, she always had to go straight to bed as if she had been tired out by some long and violent agitation. Didatia of Miremont also said that, although she had many years’ experience of men, she was always so stretched by the huge, swollen member of her demon that the sheets were drenched in blood. And nearly all witches protest that it is wholly against their will that they are embraced by demons, but that it is useless for them to resist.