Communicating with the Spirits

How Waldensians Became Witches: Heretics and Their Journey to the Other World

HOW WALDENSIANS BECAME WITCHES: HERETICS AND THEIR JOURNEY TO THE OTHER WORLD1 WOLFGANG BEHRINGER The question how the Waldensians became witches has for long interested scholars. Although it did not play a prominent part in the historiography of Waldensian heresy (Döllinger, 1890; Grundmann, 1935; Leff, 1967; Molnar, 1993; Lambert, 1977; Merlo, 1984; Erbst össer, 1984; Audisio, 1989), historians of witchcraft have shown a long standing interest in the subject. The leading scholar of the “rationalist school,” the liberal historian and archivist of the municipal archive of Köln, Joseph Hansen (1862–1943),2 has promoted the idea that Waldensian backwoodsmen and -women had been forced into confessions of witchcraft by the intellectual and physical constraints exercised by the Inquisition (Hansen, 1900). Thus Hansen could be interpreted as a precursor of the “labeling theory” (Becker, 1973), since—according to his theory—the Waldensian heretics were simply labeled: by the “populace” as sodomites,3 and by Catholic theologians as witches, without themselves giving their accusers any reasons to do so. Hansen’s explanation is still widely accepted, for instance—with some modifications—by recent publications, including Norman Cohn, William Monter and Andreas Blauert (Cohn, 1975, pp. 32–59, 225–55; Monter, 1976, pp. 19–24; 1994, pp. 47–58; Blauert, 1989, pp. 26–30). This theory, however, remains unsatisfactory since it cannot explain why Waldensians, who could have been burnt as heretics anyway, should in addition have been labeled as sorcerers with the specific ability of flying in the air. Attempts to explain the equation of Waldensians and witches with an interior logic cannot be derived from the range of absurd interpretations within the so-called 156 COMMUNICATING WITH THE SPIRITS romantic approach in the historiography of witchcraft (Monter, 1971–72, pp. 435–53). And when Carlo Ginzburg opened new dimensions in the interpretation of the witches’ Sabbath with the emphasis on ecstatic experiences, he found no new way to integrate the Waldensians into his concept. As a prelude to the revival of popular myths in his decifrazione del Sabba he reconstructed the scapegoating of lepers and Jews in late medieval France to explain why Jewish religious terms like Synagogue or Sabbath played such a prominent part in the terminology of witchcraft (Ginzburg, 1989; 1990). The terminology has already been discussed by Cohn (1975, pp. 100ff). Indeed he could point at the bull of Pope Alexander V (ca. 1340– 1410, r. 1409–1410), who confirmed to the Inquisitor Ponce Fougeyron in 1409 in form of a rescript, “quod nonnulli christiani et perfidi iudei infra eosdem terminos constituti novas sectas et prohibitos ritus eidem fidei repugnantes inveniunt, quos saltem in occulto dogmatizant, docent, praedicant et affirmant” (Pitz, 1988, p. 52). The Jews and Christians in this strange new sect, which operated in the Dauphiné and other parts of the French Alps and in South-Eastern France, were using sorcery, divination, devil worship, etc.4 The bull was confirmed in 1418 by Pope Martin V (1368–1431, r. 1417–1431) and in 1434 by Pope Eugene IV (ca. 1383–1447, r. 1431–1447) for the same Franciscan inquisitor in the same region (Hansen, 1901b, pp. 16ff). Within the following five years, however, there occurred a decisive change in the perception of the enigmatic new sect, one is tempted to say with Thomas S. Kuhn, a change of “paradigm” (Kuhn, 1962; 1974, pp. 459–82). In 1437 the same pope issued not an individual rescript, but a general decree to all inquisitors about devil worshippers, who committed “maleficia” by words, touches, or signs (Hansen, 1901a, pp. 17ff). And three years later, a bull “ad perpetua rei memoriam” of the same pope, against the former duke Amadeus VIII of Savoy (1383–1451, r. 1416–1434), elected by the Council of Basel as anti-pope Felix V (r. 1439–1449) (Stutz, 1930, pp. 1–22, 105–120, 189–204, 278–99; Andenmatten–Paravicini Bagliani , 1992), connects this pontificate with all the heresies in his country, devil-worshipping and sorcery, “qui vulgari nomine stre- HOW WALDENSIANS BECAME WITCHES 157 gule vel stregones seu Waudenses nuncupantur” (Hansen, 1901a, pp. 18ff; 1901, pp. 408–415). This—finally—was the name of the new sect. They were neither Christians nor Jews: they were Waldensian witches. The papal bull used this terminology for the first time in 1440, explicitly maintaining that it was the popular terminology of a specific region, the Duchy of Savoy (Lequin—Mariotte, 1970). That this...