Elizabethan Demonology written by Thomas Alfred Spalding
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10 ELIZABETHAN DEMONOLOGY
An Essay in Illustration of the Belief in the Existence of Devils,
and the Powers Possessed By Them, as It Was Generally Held during the
Period of the Reformation, and the Times Immediately Succeeding;
with Special Reference to Shakspere and His Works
by
THOMAS ALFRED SPALDING, LL.B. (LOND.)
Barrister-at-Law, Honorary Treasurer of The New Shakspere Society
London
1880
TO
ROBERT BROWNING,
PRESIDENT OF THE
NEW SHAKSPERE SOCIETY,
THIS VOLUME IS DEDICATED.
FOREWORDS.
This Essay is an expansion, in accordance with a preconceived scheme, of
two papers, one on "The Witches in Macbeth," and the other on "The
Demonology of Shakspere," which were read before the New Shakspere
Society in the years 1877 and 1878. The Shakspere references in the text
are made to the Globe Edition.
The writer's best thanks are due to his friends Mr. F.J. Furnivall and
Mr. Lauriston E. Shaw, for their kindness in reading the proof sheets,
and suggesting emendations.
TEMPLE,
October 7, 1879.
"We are too hasty when we set down our ancestors in the gross for
fools for the monstrous inconsistencies (as they seem to us)
involved in their creed of witchcraft."--C. LAMB.
"But I will say, of Shakspere's works generally, that we have no
full impress of him there, even as full as we have of many men. His
works are so many windows, through which we see a glimpse of the
world that was in him."--T. CARLYLE.
ANALYSIS.
I.
1. Difficulty in understanding our elder writers without a knowledge of
their language and ideas. 2. Especially in the case of dramatic poets.
3. Examples. Hamlet's "assume a virtue." 4. Changes in ideas and law
relating to marriage. Massinger's "Maid of Honour" as an example. 5.
_Sponsalia de futuro_ and _Sponsalia de praesenti_. Shakspere's
marriage. 6. Student's duty is to get to know the opinions and feelings
of the folk amongst whom his author lived. 7. It will be hard work, but
a gain in the end. First, in preventing conceit. 8. Secondly, in
preventing rambling reading. 9. Author's present object to illustrate
the dead belief in Demonology, especially as far as it concerns
Shakspere. He thinks that this may perhaps bring us into closer contact
with Shakspere's soul. 10. Some one objects that Shakspere can speak
better for himself. Yes, but we must be sure that we understand the
media through which he speaks. 11. Division of subject.
II.
12. Reasons why the empire of the supernatural is so extended amongst
savages. 13. All important affairs of life transacted under
superintendence of Supreme Powers. 14. What are these Powers? Three
principles regarding them. 15. (I.) Incapacity of mankind to accept
monotheism. The Jews. 16. Roman Catholicism really polytheistic,
although believers won't admit it. Virgin Mary. Saints. Angels.
Protestantism in the same condition in a less degree. 17. Francis of
Assisi. Gradually made into a god. 18. (II.) Manichaeism. Evil spirits
as inevitable as good. 19. (III.) Tendency to treat the gods of hostile
religions as devils. 20. In the Greek theology. [Greek: daimones].
Platonism. 21. Neo-Platonism. Makes the elder gods into daemons. 22.
Judaism. Recognizes foreign gods at first. _Elohim_, but they get
degraded in time. Beelzebub, Belial, etc. 23. Early Christians treat
gods of Greece in the same way. St. Paul's view. 24. The Church,
however, did not stick to its colours in this respect. Honesty not the
best policy. A policy of compromise. 25. The oracles. Sosthenion and St.
Michael. Delphi. St. Gregory's saintliness and magnanimity. Confusion of
pagan gods and Christian saints. 26. Church in North Europe. Thonar,
etc., are devils, but Balda gets identified with Christ. 27. Conversion
of Britons. Their gods get turned into fairies rather than devils.
Deuce. Old Nick. 28. Subsequent evolution of belief. Carlyle's Abbot
Sampson. Religious formulae of witchcraft. 29. The Reformers and
Catholics revive the old accusations. The Reformers only go half-way in
scepticism. Calfhill and Martiall. 30. Catholics. Siege of Alkmaar.
Unfortunate mistake of a Spanish prisoner. 31. Conditions that tended to
vivify the belief during Elizabethan era. 32. The new freedom. Want of
rules of evidence. Arthur Hacket and his madnesses. Sneezing.
Cock-crowing. Jackdaw in the House of Commons. Russell and Drake both
mistaken for devils. 33. Credulousness of people. "To make one danse
naked." A parson's proof of transubstantiation. 34. But the Elizabethans
had strong common sense nevertheless. People do wrong if they set them
down as fools. If we had not learned to be wiser than they, we should
have to be ashamed of ourselves. We shall learn nothing from them if we
don't try to understand them.
III.
35. The three heads. 36. (I.) Classification of devils. Greater and
lesser devils. Good and bad angels. 37. Another classification, not
popular. 38. Names of greater devils. Horribly uncouth. The number of
them. Shakspere's devils. 39. (II.) Form of devils of the greater. 40.
Of the lesser. The horns, goggle eyes, and tail. Scot's
carnal-mindedness. He gets his book burnt, and written against by James
I. 41. Spenser's idol-devil. 42. Dramatists' satire of popular opinion.
43. Favourite form for appearing in when conjured. Devils in Macbeth.
44. Powers of devils. 45. Catholic belief in devil's power to create
bodies. 46. Reformers deny this, but admit that he deceives people into
believing that he can do so, either by getting hold of a dead body, and
restoring animation. 47. Or by means of illusion. 48. The common people
stuck to the Catholic doctrine. Devils appear in likeness of an ordinary
human being. 49. Even a living one, which was sometimes awkward. "The
Troublesome Raigne of King John." They like to appear as priests or
parsons. The devil quoting Scripture. 50. Other human shapes. 51.
Animals. Ariel. 52. Puck. 53. "The Witch of Edmonton." The devil on the
stage. Flies. Urban Grandier. Sir M. Hale. 54. Devils as angels. As
Christ. 55. As dead friend. Reformers denied the possibility of ghosts,
and said the appearances so called were devils. James I. and his
opinion. 56. The common people believed in the ghosts. Bishop
Pilkington's troubles. 57. The two theories. Illustrated in "Julius
Caesar," "Macbeth." 58. And "Hamlet." 59. This explains an apparent
inconsistency in "Hamlet." 60. Possession and obsession. Again the
Catholics and Protestants differ. 61. But the common people believe in
possession. 62. Ignorance on the subject of mental disease. The
exorcists. 63. John Cotta on possession. What the "learned physicion"
knew. 64. What was manifest to the vulgar view. Will Sommers. "The Devil
is an Ass." 65. Harsnet's "Declaration," and "King Lear." 66. The
Babington conspiracy. 67. Weston, alias Edmonds. His exorcisms. Mainy.
The basis of Harsnet's statements. 69. The devils in "Lear." 70. Edgar
and Mainy. Mainy's loose morals. 71. The devils tempt with knives and
halters. 72. Mainy's seven devils: Pride, Covetousness, Luxury, Envy,
Wrath, Gluttony, Sloth. The Nightingale business. 73. Treatment of the
possessed: confinement, flagellation. 74. Dr Pinch. Nicknames. 75. Other
methods. That of "Elias and Pawle". The holy chair, sack and oil,
brimstone. 76. Firing out. 77. Bodily diseases the work of the devil.
Bishop Hooper on hygiene. 78. But devils couldn't kill people unless
they renounced God. 79. Witchcraft. 80. People now-a-days can't
sympathize with the witch persecutors, because they don't believe in the
devil. Satan is a mere theory now. 81. But they believed in him once,
and therefore killed people that were suspected of having to do with
him. 82. And we don't sympathize with the persecuted witches, although
we make a great fuss about the sufferings of the Reformers. 83. The
witches in Macbeth. Some take them to be Norns. 84. Gervinus. His
opinion. 85. Mr. F.G. Fleay. His opinion. 86. Evidence. Simon Forman's
note. 87. Holinshed's account. 88. Criticism. 89. It is said that the
appearance and powers of the sisters are not those of witches. 90. It is
going to be shown that they are. 91. A third piece of criticism. 92.
Objections. 93. Contemporary descriptions of witches. Scot, Harsnet.
Witches' beards. 94. Have Norns chappy fingers, skinny lips, and beards?
95. Powers of witches "looking into the seeds of time." Bessie Roy, how
she looked into them. 96. Meaning of first scene of "Macbeth." 97.
Witches power to vanish. Ointments for the purpose. Scot's instance of
their efficacy. 98. "Weird sisters." 99. Other evidence. 100. Why
Shakspere chose witches. Command over elements. 101. Peculiar to Scotch
trials of 1590-91. 102. Earlier case of Bessie Dunlop--a poor, starved,
half daft creature. "Thom Reid," and how he tempted her. Her canny
Scotch prudence. Poor Bessie gets burnt for all that. 103. Reason for
peculiarity of trials of 1590. James II. comes from Denmark to Scotland.
The witches raise a storm at the instigation of the devil. How the
trials were conducted. 104. John Fian. Raising a mist. Toad-omen. Ship
sinking. 105. Sieve-sailing. Excitement south of the Border. The
"Daemonologie." Statute of James against witchcraft. 106. The origin of
the incubus and succubus. 107. Mooncalves. 108. Division of opinion
amongst Reformers regarding devils. Giordano Bruno. Bullinger's opinion
about Sadducees and Epicures. 109. Emancipation a gradual process.
Exorcism in Edward VI.'s Prayer-book. 110. The author hopes he has been
reverent in his treatment of the subject. Any sincere belief entitled to
respect. Our pet beliefs may some day appear as dead and ridiculous as
these.
IV.
111. Fairies and devils differ in degree, not in origin. 112. Evidence.
113. Cause of difference. Folk, until disturbed by religious doubt,
don't believe in devils, but fairies. 114. Reformation shook people up,
and made them think of hell and devils. 115. The change came in the
towns before the country. Fairies held on a long time in the country.
116. Shakspere was early impressed with fairy lore. In middle life, came
in contact with town thought and devils, and at the end of it returned
to Stratford and fairydom. 117. This is reflected in his works. 118. But
there is progression of thought to be observed in these stages. 119.
Shakspere indirectly tells us his thoughts, if we will take the trouble
to learn them. 120. Three stages of thought that men go through on
religious matters. Hereditary belief. Scepticism. Reasoned belief. 121.
Shakspere went through all this. 122. Illustrations. Hereditary belief.
"A Midsummer Night's Dream." Fairies chiefly an adaptation of current
tradition. 123. The dawn of doubt. 124. Scepticism. Evil spirits
dominant. No guiding good. 125. Corresponding lapse of faith in other
matters. Woman's purity. 126. Man's honour. 127. Mr. Ruskin's view of
Shakspere's message. 128. Founded chiefly on plays of sceptical period.
Message of third period entirely different. 129. Reasoned belief. "The
Tempest." 130. Man can master evil of all forms if he go about it in the
right way--is not the toy of fate. 131. Prospero a type of Shakspere in
this final stage of thought. How pleasant to think this!
ELIZABETHAN DEMONOLOGY.
1. It is impossible to understand and appreciate thoroughly the
production of any great literary genius who lived and wrote in times far
removed from our own, without a certain amount of familiarity, not only
with the precise shades of meaning possessed by the vocabulary he made
use of, as distinguished from the sense conveyed by the same words in
the present day, but also with the customs and ideas, political,
religious and moral, that predominated during the period in which his
works were produced. Without such information, it will be found
impossible, in many matters of the first importance, to grasp the
writer's true intent, and much will appear vague and lifeless that was
full of point and vigour when it was first conceived; or, worse still,
modern opinion upon the subject will be set up as the standard of
interpretation, ideas will be forced into the writer's sentences that
could not by any manner of possibility have had place in his mind, and
utterly false conclusions as to his meaning will be the result. Even the
man who has had some experience in the study of an early literature,
occasionally finds some difficulty in preventing the current opinions of
his day from obtruding themselves upon his work and warping his
judgment; to the general reader this must indeed be a frequent and
serious stumbling-block.
2. This is a special source of danger in the study of the works of
dramatic poets, whose very art lies in the representation of the current
opinions, habits, and foibles of their times--in holding up the mirror
to their age. It is true that, if their works are to live, they must
deal with subjects of more than mere passing interest; but it is also
true that many, and the greatest of them, speak upon questions of
eternal interest in the particular light cast upon them in their times,
and it is quite possible that the truth may be entirely lost from want
of power to recognize it under the disguise in which it comes. A certain
motive, for instance, that is an overpowering one in a given period,
subsequently appears grotesque, weak, or even powerless; the consequent
action becomes incomprehensible, and the actor is contemned; and a
simile that appeared most appropriate in the ears of the author's
contemporaries, seems meaningless, or ridiculous, to later generations.
3. An example or two of this possibility of error, derived from works
produced during the period with which it is the object of these pages to
deal, will not be out of place here.
A very striking illustration of the manner in which a word may mislead
is afforded by the oft-quoted line:
"Assume a virtue, if you have it not."
By most readers the secondary, and, in the present day, almost
universal, meaning of the word assume--"pretend that to be, which in
reality has no existence;"--that is, in the particular case, "ape the
chastity you do not in reality possess"--is understood in this sentence;
and consequently Hamlet, and through him, Shakspere, stand committed to
the appalling doctrine that hypocrisy in morals is to be commended and
cultivated. Now, such a proposition never for an instant entered
Shakspere's head. He used the word "assume" in this case in its primary
and justest sense; _ad-sumo_, take to, acquire; and the context plainly
shows that Hamlet meant that his mother, by self-denial, would gradually
acquire that virtue in which she was so conspicuously wanting. Yet, for
lack of a little knowledge of the history of the word employed, the
other monstrous gloss has received almost universal and applauding
acceptance.
4. This is a fair example of the style of error which a reader
unacquainted with the history of the changes our language has undergone
may fall into. Ignorance of changes in customs and morals may cause
equal or greater error.
The difference between the older and more modern law, and popular
opinion, relating to promises of marriage and their fulfilment, affords
a striking illustration of the absurdities that attend upon the
interpretation of the ideas of one generation by the practice of
another. Perhaps no greater nonsense has been talked upon any subject
than this one, especially in relation to Shakspere's own marriage, by
critics who seem to have thought that a fervent expression of acute
moral feeling would replace and render unnecessary patient
investigation.
In illustration of this difference, a play of Massinger's, "The Maid of
Honour," may be advantageously cited, as the catastrophe turns upon this
question of marriage contracts. Camiola, the heroine, having been
precontracted by oath[1] to Bertoldo, the king's natural brother, and
hearing of his subsequent engagement to the Duchess of Sienna,
determines to quit the world and take the veil. But before doing so, and
without informing any one, except her confessor, of her intention, she
contrives a somewhat dramatic scene for the purpose of exposing her
false lover. She comes into the presence of the king and all the court,
produces her contract, claims Bertoldo as her husband, and demands
justice of the king, adjuring him that he shall not--
"Swayed or by favour or affection,
By a false gloss or wrested comment, alter
The true intent and letter of the law."
[Footnote 1: Act v. sc. I.]
Now, the only remedy that would occur to the mind of the reader of the
present day under such circumstances, would be an action for breach of
promise of marriage, and he would probably be aware of the very recent
origin of that method of procedure. The only reply, therefore, that he
would expect from Roberto would be a mild and sympathetic assurance of
inability to interfere; and he must be somewhat taken aback to find this
claim of Camiola admitted as indisputable. The riddle becomes somewhat
further involved when, having established her contract, she immediately
intimates that she has not the slightest intention of observing it
herself, by declaring her desire to take the veil.
5. This can only be explained by the rules current at the time regarding
spousals. The betrothal, or handfasting, was, in Massinger's time, a
ceremony that entailed very serious obligations upon the parties to it.
There were two classes of spousals--_sponsalia de futuro_ and _sponsalia
de praesenti_: a promise of marriage in the future, and an actual
declaration of present marriage. This last form of betrothal was, in
fact, marriage, as far as the contracting parties were concerned.[1] It
could not, even though not consummated, be dissolved by mutual consent;
and a subsequent marriage, even though celebrated with religious rites,
was utterly invalid, and could be set aside at the suit of the injured
person.
[Footnote 1: Swinburne, A Treatise of Spousals, 1686, p. 236. In England
the offspring were, nevertheless, illegitimate.]
The results entailed by _sponsalia de futuro_ were less serious.
Although no spousals of the same nature could be entered into with a
third person during the existence of the contract, yet it could be
dissolved by mutual consent, and was dissolved by subsequent _sponsalia
in praesenti_, or matrimony. But such spousals could be converted into
valid matrimony by the cohabitation of the parties; and this, instead of
being looked upon as reprehensible, seems to have been treated as a
laudable action, and to be by all means encouraged.[1] In addition to
this, completion of a contract for marriage _de futuro_ confirmed by
oath, if such a contract were not indeed indissoluble, as was thought by
some, could at any rate be enforced against an unwilling party. But
there were some reasons that justified the dissolution of _sponsalia_ of
either description. Affinity was one of these; and--what is to the
purpose here, in England before the Reformation, and in those parts of
the continent unaffected by it--the entrance into a religious order was
another. Here, then, we have a full explanation of Camiola's conduct.
She is in possession of evidence of a contract of marriage between
herself and Bertoldo, which, whether _in praesenti_ or _in futuro_,
being confirmed by oath, she can force upon him, and which will
invalidate his proposed marriage with the duchess. Having established
her right, she takes the only step that can with certainty free both
herself and Bertoldo from the bond they had created, by retiring into a
nunnery.
[Footnote 1: Swinburne, p. 227.]
This explanation renders the action of the play clear, and at the same
time shows that Shakspere in his conduct with regard to his marriage may
have been behaving in the most honourable and praiseworthy manner; as
the bond, with the date of which the date of the birth of his first
child is compared, is for the purpose of exonerating the ecclesiastics
from any liability for performing the ecclesiastical ceremony, which was
not at all a necessary preliminary to a valid marriage, so far as the
husband and wife were concerned, although it was essential to render
issue of the marriage legitimate.
6. These are instances of the deceptions that are likely to arise
from the two fertile sources that have been specified. There can
be no doubt that the existence of errors arising from the former
source--misapprehension of the meaning of words--is very generally
admitted, and effectual remedies have been supplied by modern scholars
for those who will make use of them. Errors arising from the latter
source are not so entirely recognized, or so securely guarded against.
But what has just been said surely shows that it is of no use reading a
writer of a past age with merely modern conceptions; and, therefore,
that if such a man's works are worth study at all, they must be read
with the help of the light thrown upon them by contemporary history,
literature, laws, and morals. The student must endeavour to divest
himself, as far as possible, of all ideas that are the result of a
development subsequent to the time in which his author lived, and to
place himself in harmony with the life and thoughts of the people of
that age: sit down with them in their homes, and learn the sources of
their loves, their hates, their fears, and see wherein domestic
happiness, or lack of it, made them strong or weak; follow them to the
market-place, and witness their dealings with their fellows--the honesty
or baseness of them, and trace the cause; look into their very hearts,
if it may be, as they kneel at the devotion they feel or simulate, and
become acquainted with the springs of their dearest aspirations and most
secret prayers.
7. A hard discipline, no doubt, but not more hard than salutary.
Salutary in two ways. First, as a test of the student's own earnestness
of purpose. For in these days of revival of interest in our elder
literature, it has become much the custom for flippant persons, who are
covetous of being thought "well-read" by their less-enterprising
companions, to skim over the surface of the pages of the wisest and
noblest of our great teachers, either not understanding, or
misunderstanding them. "I have read Chaucer, Shakspere, Milton," is the
sublimely satirical expression constantly heard from the mouths of those
who, having read words set down by the men they name, have no more
capacity for reading the hearts of the men themselves, through those
words, than a blind man has for discerning the colour of flowers. As a
consequence of this flippancy of reading, numberless writers, whose
works have long been consigned to a well-merited oblivion, have of late
years been disinterred and held up for public admiration, chiefly upon
the ground that they are ancient and unknown. The man who reads for the
sake of having done so, not for the sake of the knowledge gained by
doing so, finds as much charm in these petty writers as in the greater,
and hence their transient and undeserved popularity. It would be well,
then, for every earnest student, before beginning the study of any one
having pretensions to the position of a master, and who is not of our
own generation, to ask himself, "Am I prepared thoroughly to sift out
and ascertain the true import of every allusion contained in this
volume?" And if he cannot honestly answer "Yes," let him shut the book,
assured that he is not impelled to the study of it by a sincere thirst
for knowledge, but by impertinent curiosity, or a shallow desire to
obtain undeserved credit for learning.
8. The second way in which such a discipline will prove salutary is
this: it will prevent the student from straying too far afield in his
reading. The number of "classical" authors whose works will repay such
severe study is extremely limited. However much enthusiasm he may throw
into his studies, he will find that nine-tenths of our older literature
yields too small a harvest of instruction to attract any but the pedant
to expend so much labour upon them. The two great vices of modern
reading will be avoided--flippancy on the one hand, and pedantry on the
other.
9. The object, therefore, which I have had in view in the compilation of
the following pages, is to attempt to throw some additional light upon a
condition of thought, utterly different from any belief that has firm
hold in the present generation, that was current and peculiarly
prominent during the lifetime of the man who bears overwhelmingly the
greatest name, either in our own or any other literature. It may be
said, and perhaps with much force, that enough, and more than enough,
has been written in the way of Shakspere criticism. But is it not better
that somewhat too much should be written upon such a subject than too
little? We cannot expect that every one shall see all the greatness of
Shakspere's vast and complex mind--by one a truth will be grasped that
has eluded the vigilance of others;--and it is better that those who can
by no possibility grasp anything at all should have patient hearing,
rather than that any additional light should be lost. The useless,
lifeless criticism vanishes quietly away into chaos; the good remains
quietly to be useful: and it is in reliance upon the justice and
certainty of this law that I aim at bringing before the mind, as clearly
as may be, a phase of belief that was continually and powerfully
influencing Shakspere during the whole of his life, but is now well-nigh
forgotten or entirely misunderstood. If the endeavour is a useless and
unprofitable one, let it be forgotten--I am content; but I hope to be
able to show that an investigation of the subject does furnish us with a
key which, in a manner, unlocks the secrets of Shakspere's heart, and
brings us closer to the real living man--to the very soul of him who,
with hardly any history in the accepted sense of the word, has left us
in his works a biography of far deeper and more precious meaning, if we
will but understand it.
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