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- [00:00]
Professor Susanna Lipscomb
Hello, I'm Professor Susanna Lipscomb. If you'd like Not Just the Tudors ad Free to get early access and bonus episodes, sign up to History Hit with a History Hit subscription. You can also watch hundreds of hours of original documentaries, including my own on Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn, Brilliant Rivals and enjoy a new release every week. Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com subscribe. Thanks for listening to Not Just the Tudors. To get all History Hit podcasts ad free early access and bonus episodes, head over to historyhit.com subscribe and you can sign up on Apple Podcasts with just one click.
- [00:49]
Ryan Reynolds
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- [01:18]
Robin Briggs
CD Tails.
- [01:23]
Historian
What a difference.
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- [01:53]
Professor Susanna Lipscomb
Hello, I'm Professor Susanna Lipscomb and welcome to Not Just the Tudors From History Hit the podcast in which we explore everything from Anne Boleyn to the Aztecs, from Holbein to the Huguenots, from Shakespeare to samurais relieved by regular doses of murder, espionage and witchcraft. Not, in other words, just the Tudors, but most definitely also the Tudors. One of the territories in the heartland of the European witchcraft persecution of the 16th and 17th centuries was the Duchy of Lorraine. Lorraine was a small dukedom between France and modern day Germany. Next to Alsace, a world of forests, hamlets and harsh climates in the uplands, while on the plains fields of wheat and oats were punctuated with long winding villages of single streets. It was so small that its capital, Nancy, was no more than 60 miles from the duchy's borders at any point. Yet this small kingdom was a place of deadly witch hunting. Some 3,000 people were executed here. Remaining trial documents offer us, as today's guest has written, a rare chance to penetrate the world of ordinary villages from 400 years ago, so we can find out what was going on. To Discover more, in August 2021, I went to visit the eminent historian Robin Briggs. Robin is an Emeritus Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, where he spent his illustrious career. It was a particular pleasure for me to speak to him, for this exceptionally gifted historian was my doctoral supervisor. And more than any other historian, Robin has been my intellectual polestar. Among his many books on early modern France, he's the author of two seminal works on the history of witchcraft, Witches Neighbours, the Social and Cultural Context of European Witchcraft and the Witches of Lorraine. And this latter draws on his reading of all the surviving witch trials in Lorraine, which is no mean feat, written as they are in an appallingly illegible handwriting and running to many thousands of pages. He and I considered two of these Lorraine witch trials the convictions of Fr Caman in 1598 and Nicolas Rambaud in 1604. I'm Professor Susanna Lipscomb and this is not just the Tudors from History hit.
- [04:31]
Historian
Robyn, it's an absolute delight to sit down with you and look at a couple of witchcraft trials.
- [04:36]
Professor Susanna Lipscomb
Tell me first of all about the.
- [04:39]
Historian
Context of these trials, the Duchy of Lorraine and the scale of prosecution in that area.
- [04:45]
Robin Briggs
Yes, well, this is quite a small duchy, I suppose, as an independent European state of its time. It's sort of 50 or 60 miles in all directions, roughly, and it had a population perhaps half a million six hundred thousand around the late 16th century. But the actual duchy, because there are all kinds of other bits of territory inside, is probably only half that, 300,000. A modest European state of its day, but it is independent. The Duke is an independent ruler. It's largely French speaking, with a German speaking fringe in the northeast, so it's between France and the Holy Roman Empire. It had some technical affiliation, most of it, to the Holy Roman Empire, but that doesn't have any effect because by this stage they've been given a semi detached status. And that means that things go on in their own way there. They follow what is roughly a French system of justice, but in fact it's quite close to that in the Holy Roman Empire too, but rather different from the one in England. There are no juries. This is an inquisitorial system where you rely essentially on collecting up the evidence and having the case heard. But essentially in witchcraft cases, you rely on a confession usually obtained by the use of torture.
- [06:02]
Historian
And Lorraine is notable for the scale of its witchcraft trials?
- [06:09]
Robin Briggs
Yes, it is, if one works it out as a figure in Relation to population. It comes out as one of the highest figures in Europe. The neighbouring Luxembourg is even higher, I think, but not by a huge amount. On the other hand, that makes it sound more terrible than perhaps it is because it's a very patchy, slow running persecution over about 50 years. I think probably half the villages in the duchy never had a witchcraft trial at all, though I'm quite convinced they would have had several potential suspects. They do manage to put perhaps 2,000 people to death as witches over roughly the 50 years of the major persecution from about 1580 to 1630, which is a lot by European standards in proportion to population. But when you start working out the actual percentage of people who have tried, it's not so high. And I mean, they do have about an 80% conviction and execution rate, so that's pretty high. But it is possible to get off. I mean, people do resist the torture. It is kept under some sort of restraint, much more so in fact, than in a lot of German states. They are really meant only to torture people once.
- [07:24]
Historian
So essentially if you could resist torture and not confess, then you had a possibility of escaping execution.
- [07:32]
Robin Briggs
Oh yes, you were simply released with a kind of parole, but in practice you got off and that was it. It is significant that people can stand the torture. I don't think it was absolutely unbearable. Although no doubt people's sensitivity to it varies in the physical sense, but also their determination. What is quite striking is that a significant proportion of those accused confess without being tortured. And clearly psychologically they are in a state where they aren't really going to put up very much resistance. And I think a lot of those who confess under torture have hardly started to feel it. I mean, it's very quick in many cases. And one sense is that these people are rather psychologically damaged already by the awareness that their neighbors think they're witches and are willing to seek their death. It's a pretty nasty situation to face. And even if you get off, I mean, your situation in the village is hardly going to be a very agreeable one.
- [08:33]
Historian
Yes, I mean your social relations are completely destroyed. What do you do then?
- [08:38]
Robin Briggs
I'm not sure that's absolutely true because we do know that there are occasional cases where people have tried twice and it does look as if very often they managed to restore some sort of relationships, quite surprisingly. But I think also one should note that it's likely that the village will be far from unanimous. People have their own groups within the village, they have their friends, their neighbours and they have good relations with some and bad relations with others. And very often one has the sense that there are people in the village who are rather dismayed by this and who sympathize, but of course, keep their mouths shut. In general, being sensible and realizing the danger of being associated with someone, because it does carry over from one person to another. Quite often, people who are seen as associates can become tainted, But I think in reality, there would be very differing valuations of people, and it does sometimes come up, even in the witness testimonies, that there are people who will say they see no harm in this person.
- [09:41]
Historian
And tell me about the nature of the sources for the cases that we're going to look at.
- [09:46]
Robin Briggs
Well, these are very typical in the sense there is a standard procedure, and roughly 20%, I think, of the trials have survived. That makes about 400 fully recorded cases, millions of words in pretty awful handwriting. And I'm proud of the fact that I've read it all. In the end, it took me decades to do that. So we've got a very rich source base there. And also it does overlap in the sense that one can often have quite a group of trials, not necessarily at the same time. You can see the same people reappearing in cases, and you get some sense of village dynamics and so on. So it's a very rich source. And it's also true, I think, that it's rather unlike, for example, the surviving, admittedly very limited records of English witchcraft trials, of which there aren't very many anyhow. But there, it seems to me, that witnesses only appear if they're going to testify to the crime in some rather serious way. Whereas it looks, in a lot of these cases, though not so much the examples I've got here, that large numbers of people are brought in, a lot of whom will say they don't really know anything. But also you do get a very varied picture. People talk about a lot of things, although they all relate in some sense to the witchcraft, but there's a lot of information about ordinary life and the circumstances in which people have had arguments or learned about things or related to one another and had financial, practical dealings about their lives. So you get a very real sense, I think, of the life these people are living.
- [11:27]
Historian
Yes, I think they give an extraordinary level of detail about everyday life and people's encounters and resentments and interactions. And I also want to testify to the fact that these are in atrocious handwriting. You, Robin, taught me how to read French manuscripts, and the examples I've read are nothing compared to the sort of execrable Handwriting of many of your cases. Well, let's talk about our first case, then. So do you want to introduce our accused witch? And then maybe we can have a look at some of the evidence.
- [11:57]
Robin Briggs
This is a woman around 50. She doesn't seem exactly to know her age, which is quite typical. She's quite interesting in that she was a refugee from France. In fact, her family had been more or less wiped out by the plague. And she ends up in Lorraine. I mean, there are these people wandering around in quite large numbers, I think, in early modern Europe, where health is so fragile and families get broken up and people are used to that. But also, one sees in her case that she has had some difficulty being allowed to settle in places put down to a reputation as a witch. But one can't be entirely sure whether people aren't retrospectively saying that. But anyway, she's managed to marry a blacksmith and has been settled in this small village in the southeast of Lorraine for 20 years, it would seem. And during that time she's accumulated a significant number of disputes. And people have come to believe, I think, that she is a potent witch, and you don't want to get across her, and if you do, bad things will happen. One also sees, I think, in this case, that her husband has been relatively active in trying to defend her, which isn't always true. I think she's got six surviving children out of eight, which is quite a high rate. So, I mean, she's an established person, even though not a native of this community. And it's obvious that this reputation has been building up for a very long time. It's very hard to see why she's accused now. I mean, none of the witnesses are actually testifying about something that happened last week. The stories of all, I think at least a year old or more. One of the mysteries in the great majority of these cases is why people have thought over so many years that this person was doing them frightful harm and maybe had killed their husband or ruined them by killing their animals or something. And they haven't brought any accusation. I mean, one of my major claims is that this very low level but intense persecution has to do with a therapeutic system, that these people believe that a lot of illnesses are caused by other people's ill will and that if you get that person to do something, they can heal you. In fact, a lot of the witches, when they're describing their relationship with the devil, say that the devil gave them some powders, and quite often they're color coded. I mean, you have one powder to kill people, another to make them sick. But they also quite often say they were given a white powder which was to cure. So the devil gives you power, and the power includes the power to heal. It is a sort of fantasy of power which is at work. But also it feeds into this idea that you should identify the witch and then get the witch to heal you. And there is a notion that only the witch can take off a witchcraft sickness. It's all an illusion. It's a totally imaginary seen of these people being in league with the devil and having these powders and these powers. But at the same time, it's something which, if you believe in it, is potent, which really can have effects good and bad.
- [15:02]
Historian
Should we look at some of the other details, what they're accusing Fronsat of? Mostly got male witnesses, I noticed, but we've got some women speaking up.
- [15:10]
Robin Briggs
Yes, there's no doubt that men do predominate in the witnesses, and they certainly predominate even more when it's other men being accused. Whether it's a married couple, the husband would very often be the person who witnessed, even if really it was the wife who might have had more to say. But women do testify, and I personally think that there's a lot of evidence implying that these suspicions grow. In a world of feminine gossip. These societies are quite divided in the sense that women consort with other women and men with other men in work, even if you're working in the fields, you know, you have gangs of men and gangs of women. They do rather different things on the whole, even various forms of socializing during the day. The women, if they're not out at work, will tend to be in the street with children doing some sort of sewing or weaving or spinning. And the reputations are formed primarily within your own gender group. I would say, even though that doesn't necessarily come out in the witnesses in a case. And I think given the power balance in the local society, one would expect men to come forward more. And also, you know, it's true that men are going to be particularly concerned about animals. When a lot of stories about animals being damaged. One sees in this first case on these standard phenomena of something where these children are looking after the animals. That's absolutely standard, that even quite young children and through to teenagers, there's not really a lot of work for them. But these are slightly upland communities where there's probably quite a lot of putting out animals into woodland and so on. It's a standard way for the children to be usefully employed and then troubles Come, because obviously the animals get away and get into other people's property and do damage. This sort of quarrel is a very stereotyped one.
- [17:03]
Historian
If we have a look at some of the detail, we've got quarrels that produce sickness. That comes up once again. We've got our second witness here, Jean Claude Mamborg. What does he have to say about animals and quarrels?
- [17:15]
Robin Briggs
He's telling the story that he quarrels with her and she says, you'll repent of that. And then he's got this great list of animals that he's lost and their neighbours. And he claims to have lost many animals to a high value. And then his wife has died after a short illness and they haven't been able to persuade Francat, who's had their neighbor to visit her during that illness. It's rather striking because seven or eight years ago that his wife's died. And if you really believed she'd done it, I mean, how strongly did they suspect? You have no notion really. Can you?
- [17:49]
Historian
Pre Existing ideas seem crucial because he says, you know, it's in view of her reputation and the threats that she's made, but it's that she has a reputation as a witch means that when these things have happened, you've got to look for somebody to blame it on. Here's your obvious candidate.
- [18:03]
Robin Briggs
Yes, that's right. I mean, there's a circularity about it which is pretty obvious once you're one of the known suspects or perhaps the primary suspect. In a village, this pattern would repeat itself and repeat itself.
- [18:15]
Historian
And indeed it does. If we look onto the next witness, Steve Sant, we've got a similar story. What are the details here? Let's have a look.
- [18:22]
Robin Briggs
There's a quarrel over the tithes and a lawsuit. So he loses a horse and then some other animals. And then he reports the husband defending her, but defending her in a rather dangerous way. He says that all those who attacked her would gain nothing. Well, of course it's a nice unclear threat, but all the same, I mean, I think it's easy to see how they would have taken it. And one's got a situation where his wife has been ill, must have been for a long time, if it began on the day they quarreled over the tithes. Because. Because that's several years back.
- [18:51]
Historian
And I guess again and again what we have is this assumption of causality that another man, five years earlier, she, meaning Francat and his wife, had quarrel over reciprocal finds of animals, insulted one another after this, lost a fine cow in its calf and it's like. Well, and the assumption that these things are connected.
- [19:09]
Robin Briggs
Yes. What also comes out from a lot of these stories is nonetheless, that people are pretty charitable to neighbours. I mean, that they do live in a world where you have to do things for one another. That's expected. And of course that means that when people don't live by the code. Quite. And are felt not to be playing the game, then that is going to cause ill feeling and could well morph into some form of belief about witchcraft.
- [19:36]
Historian
Yes. In fact, we have another example later down where Fransata, suspected witch, had asked a man called Claude to help fetch some stones for her new house, but he'd excused himself. So he hasn't done what she expects of him as a neighbor or as someone else in the village in helping her out at this time of need.
- [19:52]
Robin Briggs
Yeah.
- [19:53]
Historian
And then actually this is one of the few people who expresses his doubt. He says he heard that she was angry, so he's assuming that there's kind of that transference of assuming that the other person is going to be angry at you for not helping. And then he loses four fine cows and a bull and some young calves, but he's not sure that she's caused it. This is one of the few people in this instance who says, oh, actually, well, maybe not.
- [20:15]
Robin Briggs
That's right. People do, I think, realize that there is something rather hypothetical about a lot of this. Had they been absolutely convinced, one, it's hard to believe they wouldn't have done something earlier. Although I do have a set of explanations which don't particularly come up in this case, apart from the husband being fairly aggressive defending her. But I think to actually set about to cause one of your neighbours to be put to death in a very unpleasant way is a pretty severe step. Even if you might want to do it, you can't sort of do it overnight. I think, for a start, you've got to get other people to agree with you. You need to know that a number of other villagers will come forward and testify, and it's going to be very hard to establish that without the suspect getting to know about it, and particularly if some of the others turn out to be reluctant, you may have exposed yourself in a very unpleasant way. And if you believe this is a person with serious powers, then you're not going to want to have them thinking of exercising them against you. And another thing which I think I've found very clear evidence for, is that 15 or 20 pretty clear cases where it's alleged that the supposed witch had been saying Things about how if they were accused, they would accuse other people of being their accomplices. And what would seem to be true, I think, is that in any village, there would have probably been several people. It wasn't just one. I mean, there would have been other people in the same village, probably both men and women, who had some sort of reputation and who had a great deal to fear if they were denounced by somebody who was confessing to being a witch and saying they'd seen them at Sabbath. Because that could start a prosecution against them and would certainly be something that was remembered against them for the future. Very often, when it comes to it, they do name some accomplices when they're being tortured or when they're confessing about going to the Sabbath, and then they very often withdraw those charges at the last minute when they're about to be executed. I think we can assume they had a conscience, but also I think they would have been attended by a cleric who would no doubt have told them that if they went to their death having made false accusations, they would rot in hell for it. So I think we can assume that they weren't too willing, necessarily. But because a threat advance, it's there.
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- [25:00]
Robin Briggs
So we've.
- [25:00]
Historian
Got this series of witness statements. They're in some way confessions because they're telling of the wrongs that they have done the accused, which would then generate the resentment they assume. And I'm also struck by two things. One, that clearly the accused isn't wealthy at all. There's much here about poverty and being owed money and not having help. And the other thing is, as you say, about her husband speaking up in defense of her honour when he has no actual power or he or she have no actual power in the circumstances. They're saying these bold things like you're going to pay for this later that get remembered. But actually they almost by definition indicate how little power they have. And the sort of witchcraft story is one of weeding power into the presence of those who have none.
- [25:48]
Robin Briggs
Well, yes, the power the devil gives them is a compensation for their lack of it in real life, you might say.
- [25:55]
Historian
And then Fransade herself is interrogated. And that's how we get so many of the details you told us, first of all about having had eight children, of whom six are alive, but generally denies most of the suggestions that are made.
- [26:08]
Robin Briggs
Yes.
- [26:09]
Historian
And then on comes Nicolas Remy. Tell us about Remy.
- [26:13]
Robin Briggs
Well, Remy is famous because he wrote a book. He was a lawyer trained in France, who spent about 15 years as a member of the Central Court in Nancy, then became procifer General. So that's the attorney General for the duchy. He doesn't have any particular power really, except to organize the paperwork. He's gained the reputation of being a tremendous witch hunter, when in practice he's just an official who countersigns papers. Occasionally Remy himself will think it's not a good enough case to carry on with and will suggest it's just not good enough, you know, and either get More evidence or drop it. But normally he will say, right, that's enough. And in this case, he's got masses of evidence. This is a substantial set of accusations, lots of animals, quite a few people dead. So no question he's going to say, carry on. And what you then do is torture her. Some people, you see, I mean, about 15% of the accused would have confessed a disdain and. Because when we start saying, oh, you know. But they're so credulous, how could they believe all this nonsense when significant numbers of people say, yes, I did it, as soon as you bring them in.
- [27:24]
Historian
It makes other people.
- [27:25]
Robin Briggs
It's rather difficult to suppose it's all false. I mean, it is, but they're prepared to confess it very quickly. But she is not. She is tortured and she withstands the torture.
- [27:37]
Historian
So she's racked severely. Yes, but confesses nothing.
- [27:40]
Robin Briggs
Yeah, it's not clear whether it was the same day or later date because the document doesn't say, but they torture her again and they shouldn't have done that. When she's confessed, Remy asks for her to be executed. The change de Nancy Central Court says, yes, all right, but she must be asked simply to confirm her confessions, which they should have done and hadn't. And they also say that the reiteration of the torture had been directly contrary to law and good practice. But they don't do anything about it because, of course, she's now confessed. And nobody's going to say that this isn't true. She does herself, when they do this, finally say, no, it wasn't, it's just the torture. But they say, well, it was the devil. Then she says, yes, it's true. She realizes, I mean, of course, had she stuck to those new denials, she would have been tortured again, that is legal.
- [28:34]
Historian
She says she's seduced by Persian, which is the name given to the devil, and killed a series of animals in revenge for minor offenses. And she goes on through this list, which does fit in the witness statements very well. And I wondered if it was a question of there being leading statements being put to her that she's just agreeing to, or whether it's actually that. That she is very much importing this folkloric sense of what witches do. But they're quite specific.
- [28:59]
Robin Briggs
Yes, they are. This is a question and answer session. If one has a complete thing of this, one would, I think, probably see that she was having a lot of things put to her. Now, what I think one might notice is that she doesn't actually confess to having killed any human. Being except possibly a beggar woman. So somebody she wasn't accused of. I mean, somebody who means nothing, as it were, in the local context. An outsider who nobody knows about. But otherwise she admits to making some people ill, but she doesn't admit to killing anybody. I think again, that's quite a common pattern that they know this means their own death, but they don't necessarily admit to a lot of the charges against them. She makes only the most banal and simple statements about being seduced and going to the Sabbath. They want that to be said, but they're not very interested. They don't pursue questioning about it. They do want to check out on the mal. On the harm they've done to other people. But again, as long as they admit to a certain number of offenses, that's enough. You know, you don't need to bother.
- [30:09]
Historian
One last question about her on 27 June 1598 with this final interrogation where she says actually now, she's not a witch. She'd only confess because of the torture. Your note said she was content for them to put her to death nevertheless. And I wondered if there was a sense of having given up, you know.
- [30:27]
Robin Briggs
Yeah, I think so. There is a case where there's a woman who hesitates and keeps denying that she's a witch. And in the end she says, put me to death anyway. I don't want my children to have this thing hanging over them. The central court says she should be banished. I mean, the local court decides to execute her anyway and does it. And it was obvious, actually that the local officials were furious because they couldn't get her to do what you expect.
- [30:52]
Historian
Our second case today is a fascinating one for a start, because actually it's involving a male witch. And you've said that almost 30% of your cases are men.
- [31:02]
Robin Briggs
You know, across Europe it's 20 to 25% average, and in parts of France it's up to 70% of men. And there are some other smallish places where you may majority of men. Absolutely baffling that no one has ever come up with convincing explanations for these fluctuations. But yes, in Lorraine, actually it fits almost exactly with some of the neighboring areas. In the eastern regions of France, one finds a very similar proportion of men. I did actually do a calculation. I took 100 plus men and an equal number of randomly selected female witches from Lorraine and worked out the numbers of people and animals and so on they were supposed to have afflicted and there was really almost nothing in it. The one area where, as you would Expect was a major difference was in bewitching babies and children, where obviously the women predominated, but even then there were a few men, even with babies, and the conviction rate is identical. Being a witch, that counts. One thing I can say about him is that he's a herdsman, basically, who has some sort of reputation, like many herdsmen, from being able to heal sick animals. And I think about 15, perhaps of my 107 men were herdsmen. It's still only a small fraction, but I think it is an area where you're in charge of the animals, you have to look after them. These animals are fragile. I mean, a lot of them are pretty miserable runts, underfed and sickly, and probably not in great condition, many of them particularly to get through a winter, not a prestigious job, although it is competed for. In this story, one sees that he is accused of having killed somebody who underbid him to be the herdsman. And then it's convincingly explained, firstly of all, that he didn't bid himself and didn't want to be herdsman that year. And anyway, the man was ill already, so there's an interesting case where that particular accusation is in effect dropped.
- [33:02]
Historian
People repeatedly start by saying that Nicolas Rimbaud has had a reputation as a witch for more than 20 years and there's been some quarrel. So in one instant here, this man tells the story about how four years before, Rambo's son Noel had borrowed one of his horses to round up one of their own, had somehow managed to blind it in one eye, and when Dieu des Gardes had gone to remonstrate, had had a quarrel with Rambo's wife, the then smacked her face. They sharp words, and he gets told again, it will be a costly bow, he'll have reason to remember it. So it's so similar to the previous case in that you've got the boss.
- [33:38]
Professor Susanna Lipscomb
You'Ve got the insult.
- [33:39]
Robin Briggs
That's right, yeah. And I think what it brings out is that within this society there's an expectation you'll defend yourself. You won't take anything lying down. It leads you into danger. In the next witness too, there's a quarrel. It's the daughter who's working as a servant for someone else. As children get into their teens, they're sent out into service very often in a different village. And here it looks as if he thinks that they ought to do a bit more for her. They ought to give her a pair of shoes. And then again Mumbo hits the other man.
- [34:15]
Historian
And then four of his horses die suddenly.
- [34:17]
Robin Briggs
Yes, yes.
- [34:18]
Historian
So it must be a case of witchcraft again. We've got illness again. We've got this sense of a reciprocal culture of lending and borrowing. I was really struck by one witness where, when soldiers had been billeted on the village and had broken the witness's oven some 15 or 16 years before, Rambo had offered him bricks from one of his own to remake it, on the understanding that he would return the service when necessary. And then three or four years later, had asked for five dozen bricks, but he had only prepared a date himself, and so he refused. And then there's a quarrel and then there are two horses who were lost. I mean, the pattern becomes very clear.
- [34:52]
Robin Briggs
Yes, yes, it does. He clearly feels that Ambo as being totally unreasonable. He wants far more than he'd had, and so he's trying to strike an unfair bargain. But at the same time, of course, he had said he would. It's a bit on the edge, isn't it?
- [35:07]
Historian
And the other thing is, it's really struck by the sense of needing a cause. Like one of the witnesses says he's quarreled with Rambo nine years before and lost a cow, and goes on to say he doesn't know whether this is a result of his witchcraft or perhaps punishment for his own sins. But there's got to be a cause. I mean, the cow can't just have died.
- [35:23]
Robin Briggs
No, no, no, that's right. Absolutely. He's prepared to accept religious view that you displeased God more or less, but he wants it to have an explanation. A feature of the whole cosmology was that it was sort of absolutely crazily rich with explanations, almost all of them. False things don't happen by accident. The concept of misfortune doesn't seem to have a effect here. If possible, you find a reason for it. Why does this happen? It doesn't happen by accident.
- [35:52]
Historian
I'm actually struck so often. There's a kind of folk theology that I think still exists. So at some level we accept that things happen by chance and for bad luck. But the number of times I've been told by people everything happens for a reason, I think. Well, I don't think it does. I think sometimes just bad things happen.
- [36:06]
Robin Briggs
Well, I'm afraid, yes. I mean, most bad things happen by accident sort of state of mind. I mean, given a choice, I always go for the cock up rather than the conspiracy theory, you know, But I think an awful lot of people go for the conspiracy theory.
- [36:27]
Professor Susanna Lipscomb
Thanks for listening to not just the Tudors. To get all History hit podcasts ad free early access and bonus episodes, head over to historyhit.com subscribe and you can sign up on Apple Podcasts with just one click.
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Robin Briggs
Yeah.
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- [37:24]
Historian
So we get to an interrogation here. We're in April 1604 and we get told that he's about 50 and we get told that he agrees. Lots of circumstantial detail. He can't remember it, but he doesn't really admit to any charges, apart from one of stealing wheat because he doesn't know who it belonged to. But what I think is really fascinating is when we get to the confrontation between the accused and the witnesses, one of the things that's used as evidence against him is that he begins to lament without shedding any tears.
- [37:54]
Robin Briggs
Yes.
- [37:55]
Historian
And this is used as a sign that he's a witch.
- [37:57]
Robin Briggs
Yes. This is one of the standard folk beliefs that witches can't shed tears. It appears in quite a few cases. It doesn't, although it's said to him. It's a great presumption. I mean, in practice I don't think it ever makes any difference, but it clearly is something that they believe. I seem to remember a woman said, I cried so much for the deaths of my children that I. I can't cry anymore. I can't shed any more tears. It is pretty heartrending. You think of the situation these unhappy people live in.
- [38:32]
Historian
Then we get onto the agreement that he can be tortured. And we're told that the chief legal officer here, the procureur fiscal, asked for ordinary and extraordinary torture. Could you explain the difference between those two?
- [38:45]
Robin Briggs
Well, not really, actually, because, I mean, extraordinary is meant to be more severe. But I found no pattern to this at all. It just seems to be a question of what the local court decides to do without really bothering about it. As long as they've been told they can torture them, they do what the hell they like. As far as I can see, this is A case where he's given the whole lot. The ordinary torture ought, I think, to have been the thumb screws and the rack. So you're obviously, you have your thumbs and fingers squashed in this vise, and then you're wrapped, you're stretched on a ladder and pulled. But then they used the tortillon, which is alarm press, and then they use the STR. And this is where they put 50 pounds on his feet. I mean, strappado lifts you up in.
- [39:28]
Historian
The air by your arms behind you as well.
- [39:31]
Robin Briggs
Yes, that's right, yes.
- [39:32]
Historian
So he must have dislocated shoulder.
- [39:34]
Robin Briggs
Yes. I mean, I could do all sorts of frightful things to you, but they give him the whole battery and he doesn't confess. It looks as if the Procure Fiscal is a bit of a witchcraft nut. Blamont has the second highest rate of trials relative to population in the duchy. This small region on the southeastern side of the duchy. It's not massively higher than some of the others, but it is higher. And so the local officials, particularly perhaps the proclaimer fiscal, are rather keen on witchcraft trials. And certainly in this case, he's given a bad time, but then you get this strange phenomenon that it's sort of a day later he's brought back in and now he says, yes, I'm going to confess, though in theory he should at this point have been able to say, I'm not a witch, and got off. He's one of a number of people who do this and one feels, do you just not understand the procedure? It's very hard to believe they don't because they must know about other trials.
- [40:33]
Historian
But maybe he thinks it's going to happen all over again.
- [40:35]
Robin Briggs
Well, maybe he thinks it's going to happen all over again because they don't say that. They don't say they threatened him. But I mean, I just thought, I couldn't stand any more of that. I'm going to quit, you know.
- [40:44]
Historian
Now, I was also struck that the judges, just before he does that, or the day before he does that, the judges are saying to him, look at how many indications I have been. Look that you've been denounced by someone else. Look that you didn't produce tears. And then even this. And your appearance, your appearance is evil and your eyes are sunk back in deep in your head, and. As if this is an indication of him being a witch, because this is a period in which they do attach.
- [41:09]
Robin Briggs
Physical appearance. Yes, yes.
- [41:11]
Historian
So then he goes on to confess and we have this extraordinarily detailed and imaginative account of what happens at the witch's Sabbath. Tell us about what he says.
- [41:20]
Robin Briggs
He gives a fairly standard account that he's been seduced by the devil because he's had this terrible experience. He's bought a horse which then turns out to be worthless, and he's lost all the money he spent on it because he's poor. He's very upset and he's going home from the fair where he's bought it and sold it, and he's given some money that disappears. But it's a very sketchy account of this. And then he says he doesn't see him again for six or seven years. It's crazy. They don't seem to mind about these very implausible stories. And then he thinks that his sister is accused. So there's a family theme here. It's very common. And I may say his son was executed as a witch 20 years later and he believes he's been given money to buy her out. Well, you couldn't buy somebody out. You could buy somebody out from most things, but not from witchcraft. He's taken off to this sabbat where they're all dancing and he finds a pretty girl and is obviously quite pleased about that. But then he doesn't find the food very good. But then he talks about how there are gentlemen there and so they discuss what sort of harm they're going. I mean, the sabbat is an anti fertility exercise, essentially. You might say that all witchcraft virtually could almost be classified in that way. I mean, harming animals, crops, people. So they're having this row about should we harm the wheat or the vegetables or the oats? And the poor would like to harm the oats because that's what you feed animals. And so that worries the rich with animals much more than it does the poor. The poor would like the wheat crop protected, but no, the rich are the masters. And they go and do this thing which is a standard story about the Sabbath. You beat water with little sticks and you raise up a storm. And so he tells various stories about the harm he's done and so on. But then he tells a second story about going to the Sabbat and again they make a hailstorm and they go up in the air on horseback. And he then tells this story that he says, Jesus Maria, and that means everything vanishes and he has to walk home. This is a standard story about the Sabbath, mustn't say the name of Jesus, or the whole thing vanishes. And then the third account of the Sabbath, there's a whirlwind and they go up and they knock down the oaks and destroy the acorn crop. I mean, it's hallucinatory stuff. This is the most elaborate set of stories about the Sabbath by any adult witch. There are two children who tell pretty elaborate stories, but of all the Lorraine witches, this is the most vivid and elaborate story about the Sabbath. I couldn't help thinking that this man must have been some sort of village storyteller. There is a mention of him singing loudly in one of the depositions. And where, you know, one can say that there's an awful lot of stories about the Sabbat in circulation from the confessions. But he wouldn't have got all this from those. I mean, he's added a lot of elements of his own, even though it is all in the context of attacking crops, destroying fertility. So it sort of makes very good sense, but the imaginative scale of it is really very unusual.
- [44:31]
Historian
The judges must have been delighted to get such a rich crop of stories.
- [44:34]
Robin Briggs
Well, Robin thinks so. And then at the end, this exchange with the judges, where he asks them to forgive him for causing them so much trouble, and then they say, we forgive you and please pardon us and pray God on our behalf when you're in the other world. And, I mean, the idea is, I think, that if you confess, renounce the devil and get put to death, you've expiated your sins and you will go to heaven. And there's a lot in the cases to suggest that this belief is widely held, you know, and so perhaps this is an explanation for why people confess. In a sense, they are getting it all off their chest, relieving their conscience and believing that they've mended something that was very badly wrong and dealt with this reputation which they know they have, even though they should know, of course, that it's completely illusory. I mean, it takes you into a world almost beyond one's imagining. I think all this, I used to feel rather strange working on it, apart from anything else, how utterly convincing the stories become to you, how you really start to think these people were witches. And it's very hard to detach yourself in its own language. This is so convincing, it all makes sense.
- [46:02]
Professor Susanna Lipscomb
My thanks once again to Robin Briggs. And for now, that brings to an end our special month of podcasts on witchcraft. If you haven't done so already, do listen to the recent episodes, including the Bass Witch Hunt, the Witch in History, the Witch Finder General and Cunning Folk. And there are plenty more episodes on witchcraft in the not just the Tudors Archive, and I imagine we might be returning to the subject again in the not too distant future. Thanks to my researcher Alice Smith and my producer Rob Weinberg. And thanks to you for listening to Not Just the Tutors from History Hit. We are always eager to hear from you, including receiving your brilliant ideas for subjects that we can cover. So do drop us a line at not just the tutorsistoryhit.com or on X, formerly Twitter otjusttutors. Remember that you can also listen to all of these podcasts on YouTube and watch hundreds of documentaries when you subscribe@historyhit.com subscribe and if you'd be so good as to follow Not Just the Tudors on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts, you'll get each new episode as soon as it's released.
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