Reflections on a Possessed Apple

6 Historically Speaking · September/October 2005 Reflections on a Possessed Apple Darren Oldridge In 1 602 Henri Boguet, a provincial judge in Franche-Comté, noted the ability of demons to take possession of fruit. To illustrate this fact he described an incident in Savoy. An apple was found on a bridge in the town ofAnnecy, where it provoked the anxiety of townsfolk by emitting a "great and confused noise." No one dared to approach the fruit for the space of some hours; but "at last one man more bold than the rest" cast it into the water with a long stick. The judge affirmed that the apple was infested with foul spirits and suspected the involvement of a witch. "It cannot be doubted," he wrote, "that this apple was full of devils, and that a witch had been foiled in an attempt to give it to someone." This is the kind of incident that inspires fascination and incredulity among modern readers. In many popular accounts ofthe past, it would probably be presented as a quaint instance of "superstition"; academic historians , on the other hand, might regard it as too trivial or bizarre to deserve serious attention. This response is understandable. Taken on its own, Boguet's tale is a curious footnote in the history of witchcraft. It is impossible to reconstruct the incident on which it was based, and—to my knowledge at least—no other accounts ofthe bedeviled fruit have survived . Viewed from a larger perspective, however, Boguet's apple reveals much about the beliefs of late medieval and early modern people. It also raises questions about the construction of knowledge and the nature of rationality, both for Boguet's contemporaries and for us. The most important point about Boguet is that he was not mad. Nor was he particularly credulous or prone to "superstition." Indeed, he was quick to dismiss the "vulgar errors" of the French peasantry, including the widespread belief that witches could turn into wolves. Boguet's demonology belonged to a much larger intellectual enterprise that involved some of the finest minds in Western Europe: the great jurist Jean Bodin was an acknowledged expert on witches, as was King James VI of Scotland. Boguet's acceptance of the possessed apple was consistent with the shared beliefs of this body of experts, and these beliefs in turn were a natural extension of the worldview of most educated Christians. Two core assumptions underpinned this worldview. The first was the existence of supernatural entities that could intervene in human affairs. As well as God, good and bad angels could make themselves known in the 4 A devil embracing a woman, n.d. Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Collection, Yale University. physical world. Theologians developed intricate accounts of the relationship between God and these lesser spirits and speculated carefully on the metaphysics oftheir encounters with human beings; but no one seriously questioned their existence. While Protestants and Catholics disputed the doctrine ofjustification and the geography ofthe afterlife, they shared a common body of knowledge, derived largely from the Bible and the church fathers, on the motives and abilities of demons. Second, most Renaissance intellectuals were prepared to accept the authority of ancient texts. These writings were by no means the only source of knowledge—direct observation and induction played a role in science and philosophy—but the citation of authoritative texts remained a central feature ofpremodern scholarship. The church fathers provided a repository of reliable opinion, supplemented by respected non-Christian writers such as Plato and Aristotle. The Bible, of course, was the ultimate source of knowledge . While there was plenty of room for interpretation and dispute about the scriptures —often based on the work ofAugustine and other early Christian authorities—the overwhelming consensus held that they offered a reliable account of the natural world. These features of the intellectual landscape established the parameters of plausible belief. A simple example can make the point. In 1563 the German physician Johannes Weyer published a critique of witch trials. Many allegations of witchcraft, he argued, derived from the melancholic imaginings of deluded old people. These were an insecure basis for the prosecution of alleged witches. Weyer's reasoning was rooted, however, in...