On the Subject of Torture

During the three centuries of the witch-craze, the tortures used to extract “confessions” from supposed witches were so hideous that one hesitates even to recount them. It is safe to say that once the accusation of “witch!” was made, the poor accused had no escape. It was only a question of how long the torture would go on, how many others would be implicated, and whether or not the so-called witch would receive the mercy of strangulation before being burned. Strangulation was specifically denied to certain political witches like Father Urbain Grandier of Loudon, Whose lingering death at the stake in 1630 gave Ken Russell such opportunities for cinematic mayhem in The Devils (1971).

What could a witch expect once the accusation was made? At the very least, tests like “swimming”—a remnant of the ordeal by water of antiquity—or else weighing and pricking. At worst, ordeals like strappado, thumbscrews, the boot, the Black Virgin. Swimming meant that the accused was bound crosswise hand to foot and cast into a body of water. If she sank, she was said to be innocent; if she floated, she was the devil’s own child (that is: God’s water had rejected her). Weighing meant that the witch was weighed against a Bible or certain other weights—and whether she was found to be heavier or lighter, she was presumed guilty. (If heavier, she was possessed by an earth spirit; if lighter, by a spirit of fire.) Pricking was an ordeal in which witch-hunters sought those places on the witch’s body that were “the Devil’s marks,” thus insensitive to pain. In their hunger for victims, some Inquisitors even used retractable witch-prickers. The blade slid into the handle under pressure and the witch’s ouchlessness was “proof” of her guilt.

Strappado consisted of tying the victim’s arms behind her back, hanging weights to her feet, and violently hoisting her up in the air several times until she confessed or died. (Arms came out of sockets and trysts with the Devil came out of the unlikeliest mouths.) The boot was a vicious leg-breaker; the thumbscrews are self-explanatory; and the Black Virgin (a German witch-hunting invention) was a hinged life-size iron form with spikes inside to pierce—but not kill—the victim when it closed around her. Little wonder that so many “confessed.”

Without detailing the tortures further (the sadistically or masochistically inclined may consult numerous other books which savor these cruelties) it is important to say that torture is still used abundantly in our modern world. But today it does not have the explicit sanction of the Catholic Church (though its pervasiveness in many South American Catholic countries indicates, if not an implicit acceptance, then a willingness to look the other way). During the witch-craze, these tortures were perpetrated by those who considered themselves the only true representatives of God on earth. The Devil would have far to go to equal their ferocity.

One of the most moving documents to come out of the age of the witch-hunts is a letter dated 24 July 1628 from an accused male witch, Johannes Junius, Burgomaster at Bamberg, to his daughter, Veronica. All by itself, it tells the story of the role of torture in witch trials better than any “objective” description.

Many hundred thousand good-nights, dearly beloved daughter Veronica. Innocent have I come into prison, innocent have I been tortured, innocent must I die. For whoever comes into the witch prison must … be tortured until he invents something out of his head.… When I was the first time put to the torture, Dr Braun, Dr Kötzendörffer, and two strange doctors were there. Then Dr Braun asks me, ‘Kinsman, how come you here?’ I answer, ‘Through falsehood, through misfortune.’ ‘Hear, you,’ he retorts, ‘you are a witch; will you confess it voluntarily? If not, we’ll bring in witnesses and the executioner for you.’ I said, ‘I am no witch, I have a pure conscience in the matter; if there are a thousand witnesses, I am not anxious.’ … And then came also—God in highest heaven have mercy—the executioner, and put the thumb-screws on me, both hands bound together, so that the blood ran out at the nails and everywhere, so that for four weeks I could not use my hands, as you can see from the writing.… Thereafter they first stripped me, bound my hands behind me, and drew me up in the [strappado]. Then I thought heaven and earth were at an end; eight times did they draw me up and let me fall again, so that I suffered terrible agony.… And so I made my confession …, but it was all a lie. Now follows, dear child, what I confessed in order to escape the great anguish and bitter torture, which it was impossible for me longer to bear.… Then I had to tell what people I had seen [at the Sabbat]. I said that I had not recognized them. ‘You old rascal, I must set the executioner at you. Say—was not the Chancellor there?’ So I said yes. ‘Who besides?’ I had not recognized anybody. So he said: ‘Take one street after another; begin at the market, go out on one street and back on the next.’ I had to name several persons there. Then came the long street. I knew nobody. Had to name eight persons there.… And thus continually they asked me on all the streets, though I could not and would not say more. So they gave me to the executioner, told him to strip me, shave me all over, and put me to the torture.… Then I had to tell what crimes I had committed. I said nothing.… ‘Draw the rascal up!’ So I said that I was to kill my children, but I had killed a horse instead. It did not help. I had also taken a sacred wafer, and had desecrated it. When I had said this, they left me in peace.… Dear child, keep this letter secret … else I shall be tortured most piteously and the jailers will be beheaded.… Good night, for your father Johannes Junius will never see you more.

In England, tortures were considerably less horrid than on the Continent, and witches were hanged, not burned. Water ordeals and pricking were used, but tortures of the sort so prevalent in Catholic countries, where the Inquisition held sway, were not used. English witches were punished for malefica (evil deeds), not heresy. They were said to blight crops, cause babies to die, cause illness—all by means of sorcery. But since, in England, witchcraft was a civil, not an ecclesiastical, crime, witches had to be tried and punished under civil law—with its constraints against torture and burning.