Chapter 28

Margaret Agar Somerset 1664 Margaret Aitchison N. Berwick 1590 Margaret Aynsley Northumberland 1673 Margaret Barclay Irvine 1618 Margret Bean Aberdeen 1597 Meg Begtoun N. Berwick 1590 Marget Beveridge Crook of Devon 1662 Margret Brodie Auldearne 1662 Margaret Brown Queensferry 1644 Margaret Clarke Somerset 1664 Margrat Cleraucht Aberdeen 1597 Margaret Craige Paisley 1678 Margaret Dauline Queensferry 1644 Margret Demperstoun Alloa 1658 Margret Duchall Alloa 1658 Margaret Duncane Ayrshire 1605 Margaret Duncane Crook of Devon 1662 Margaret Dwn N. Berwick 1590 Margaret Fulton Bargarran 1697 Margaret Grevell St. Osyth 1582 Margaret Hamilton (Mitchell) Borrowstowness 1679 Margaret Hamilton (Pullwart) Borrowstowness 1679 Margrat Holm Innerkip 1662 Margret Hucheons Auldearne 1662 Margaret Huggon Crook of Devon 1662 Marget Hutton Crook of Devon 1662 Margrat Innes Aberdeen 1597 Margaret Jackson Paisley 1678 Margaret Jennings Conn. 1661 Margaret Johnson Lancs 1633 Margaret Keltie Crook of Devon 1662 Margaret Kyllie Auldearne 1662 Margaret Laing Bargarran 1697 Margaret Landish St. Osyth 1645 Margaret Litster Crook of Devon 1662 Margaret Loy Liverpool 1667 Margaret McGuffok Ayrshire 1605 Margret McKenzie Innerkip 1662 Margaret McNeill Bute 1662 Margaret McNickell Bute 1662 Margaret McNish Crook of Devon 1662 Margaret McWilliam Bute 1662 Margaret Moone Thorp, Essex 1645 Margaret Morton Yorks 1650 Margaret Ncilduy Bute 1662 Margaret NcLevin Bute 1662 Margaret Nicoll Forfar 1661 Margaret Nin-Gilbert Thurso 1719 Margret Og Aberdeen 1597 Margaret Pearson Lancs 1613 Marguerite Picot Guernsey 1629 Margaret Pringle Borrowstowness 1679 Margrat Reauch Aberdeen 1597 Margaret Rodgers Bargarran 1697 Margrat Scherar Aberdeen 1597 Margaret Simson Hunts 1646 Margaret Smith Bute 1662 Margrat Smyth Aberdeen 1597 Meg Stillcart N. Berwick 1590 Margret Tailzeour Alloa 1658 Marguerite Tardif Guernsey 1624 Margaret Thomson N. Berwick 1590 Margaret Waite, Snr. Knaresborough 1621 Margaret Waite, Jnr. Knaresborough 1621 Margaret Wallace Glasgow 1622 Margret Wilson Auldearne 1662 Margaret Young Crook of Devon 1662 Margarett (surname unknown) Northumberland 1673

Marion Bailzie N. Berwick 1590 Marion Congilton N. Berwick 1590 Marion Dauline Queensferry 1644 Marion Frissell Bute 1642 Marrion Fyfe Crook of Devon 1662 Marion Grant Aberdeen 1597 Marion Hocket Ramsey, Essex 1645 Marion Linkup Leith 1590 Marion Little Queensferry 1644 Marion Nicholson N. Berwick 1590 Marion Paterson N. Berwick 1590 Marion Richart Orkney 1633 Marion Scheill (Shaw) N. Berwick 1590 Marion Stein Queensferry 1644 Marrion Thomson Crook of Devon 1662 Marion Wod Aberdeen 1597 Marion (Irish Marion) N. Berwick 1590

Marjorie Dunbar Auldearne 1662 Marjorie Man Auldearne 1662 Marjorie Mutch Aberdeen 1597 Marjorie Ritchie Forfar 1661 Margery Sammon St. Osyth 1582 Margery Stoakes St. Osyth 1645 Marjorie Taylor Auldearne 1662

Martha Semple Bargarran 1697

Martin Tulouff Guernsey 1563

Mary Barber Northampton 1612 Mary Barnes Conn. 1662 Marie Becquet Guernsey 1617 Mary Bychance St. Albans 1649 Marie Clouet Guernsey 1631 Marie de Calais Guernsey 1617 Marie de Calais Guernsey 1631 Marie du Mont Guernsey 1617 Marie Gauvein Guernsey 1570 Mary Green Somerset 1664 Mary Greenleife Alresford, Essex 1645 Marie Guilbert Guernsey 1639 Marie Guillemotte Guernsey 1634 Mary Hunter Northumberland 1673 Mary Johnson Wyvenhoe, Essex 1645 Mary Johnson Conn. 1647 Mary Lamen, Snr. St. Albans 1649 Mary Lamen, Jnr. St. Albans 1649 Marie Lamont Innerkip 1662 Marie Mabille Guernsey 1631 Marie Martin Guernsey 1588 Marie McKaw Bute 1662 Mary McNiven Bute 1662 Marie Mortimer Guernsey 1631 Marie More NcCuill Bute 1662 Marie Paterson N. Berwick 1590 Mary Penny Somerset 1664 Mary Phillips Northampton 1705 Mary Read Lenham 1652 Marie Roland Guernsey 1601 Marie Roland Guernsey 1634 Mary Rynd Forfar 1661 Mary Sanford Conn. 1662 Marie Shuttleworth Lancs 1613 Mary Sikes Yorks 1649 Marie Sohier Guernsey 1626 Marie Spencer Lancs 1613 Marie Stewart Bute 1662 Mary Trembles Bideford 1682 Mary Warberton Somerset 1665

Masie Aitchison N. Berwick 1590

Mercy Disborough Conn. 1692

Meslie Hirdall Auldearne 1662

Michael Aynsley Northumberland 1673 Michael Clark N. Berwick 1590

Mildred Wright Maidstone 1652

Nathaniel Greensmith Conn. 1662

Nicholas Jennings Conn. 1661

Patrick Lowrie Ayrshire 1605 Patrick McKaw Bute 1662 Patrik Watson Dirlton 1649

Perine Marest Guernsey 1622

Philipine le Parmentier Guernsey 1617

Rachel King Somerset 1665

Rebecca Greensmith Conn. 1662 Rebecca Jones St. Osyth 1645 Rebecca Weste Lawford, Essex 1645

Richard Dickes Somerset 1665 Richard Graham Edinburgh 1590 Richard Lannen Somerset 1665

Robert Griersoun N. Berwick 1590 Robert Grieve Lauder 1649 Robert Wilkinson Lancs 1613 Robert Wilson Crook of Devon 1662

Rose Cullender Bury 1664 Rose Hallybread St. Osyth 1645

Sarah Barton Harwich 1645 Sarah Cooper Essex 1645 Sarah Hating Ramsey, Essex 1645 Sarah Smith St. Albans 1649

Susan Cock St. Osyth 1645 Susanna Edwards Bideford 1682 Susanne Prudhomme Guernsey 1629 Susanne Rouanne Guernsey 1631

Temperance Lloyd Bideford 1682

Thomas Bolster Somerset 1665 Thomas Burnhill N. Berwick 1590 Thomas Durning Somerset 1665 Thomas Leyis Aberdeen 1597 Thomas Weir Edinburgh 1670

Thomasse de Calais Guernsey 1617 Thomazine Ratcliffe Suffolk 1645 Thomasse Salmon Guernsey 1570 Thomasine Watson Northumberland 1673

Ursley Kemp St. Osyth 1582

Vyolett Leyis Aberdeen 1597

Walter Ledy Auldearne 1662

William Ayres Conn. 1662 William Barton Queensferry 1655 William Berry Rutland 1619 William Coke Kirkcaldy 1636 William Craw Borrowstowness 1679 William Wright Northumberland 1673

APPENDIX IV

JOAN OF ARC AND GILLES DE RAIS

These two personages--so closely connected in life and dying similar deaths, yet as the poles asunder in character--have been minutely studied from the historical and medical points of view, and in the case of Joan from the religious standpoint also. But hitherto the anthropological aspect has been disregarded. This is largely due to the fact that these intensive studies have been made of each person separately, whereas to obtain the true perspective the two should be taken together. This individual treatment is probably owing to the wide divergence of the two characters; the simplicity and purity of the one is in marked contrast with the repulsive attributes of the other. Yet anthropologically speaking the tie between the two is as strongly marked as the contrast of character.

The case of Joan is easily studied, as the documents are accessible.[956] Anatole France has realized that behind Joan there lay some unseen power, which Charles VII feared and from which he unwillingly accepted help. M. France sees in this power a party in the Church, and in his eyes the Church was a house divided against itself. Though agreeing with the view that Joan was the rallying-point of a great and powerful organization, I see in that organization the underlying religion which permeated the lower orders of the people in France as in England; that religion which I have set forth in the foregoing chapters. The men-at-arms, drawn from the lower orders, followed without hesitation one whom they believed to have been sent by their God, while the whole army was commanded by Marshal Gilles de Rais, who apparently tried to belong to both religions at once.

1. _Joan of Arc_

The questions asked by the judges at Joan's trial show that they were well aware of an underlying organization of which they stood in some dread. The judges were ecclesiastics, and the accusation against the prisoner was on points of Christian faith and doctrine and ecclesiastical observance. It was the first great trial of strength between the old and the new religions, and the political conditions gave the victory to the new, which was triumphant accordingly. 'We have caught her now', said the Bishop of Beauvais, and she was burned without even the formality of handing her over to the secular authorities. After the execution, the judges and counsellors who had sat in judgement on Joan received letters of indemnity from the Great Council; the Chancellor of England sent letters to the Emperor, to the kings and princes of Christendom, to all the nobles and towns of France, explaining that King Henry and his Counsellors had put Joan to death through zeal for the Christian Faith; and the University of Paris sent similar letters to the Pope, the Emperor, and the College of Cardinals. Such action can hardly be explained had Joan been an ordinary heretic or an ordinary political prisoner. But if she were in the eyes of the great mass of the population not merely a religious leader but actually the incarnate God, then it was only natural for the authorities, who had compassed her death, to shelter themselves behind the bulwark of their zeal for the Christian religion, and to explain to the heads of that religion their reasons for the execution. On the other hand, the belief that Joan was God Incarnate will account, as nothing else can, for the extraordinary supineness of the French, who never lifted a finger to ransom or rescue Joan from the hands of either the Burgundians or the English. As God himself or his voluntary substitute she was doomed to suffer as the sacrifice for the people, and no one of those people could attempt to save her.

In comparing the facts elicited at the trial with the Dianic Cult as set out in the previous chapters, the coincidences are too numerous to be merely accidental. I do not propose to enter into a detailed discussion of the trial, I only wish to draw attention to a few points in this connexion.

The questions put to Joan on the subject of fairies appear to the modern reader to be entirely irrelevant, though much importance was evidently attached to her answers by the Court. She could not disprove, though she denied, the popular rumour that 'Joan received her mission at the tree of the Fairy-ladies' (Iohanna ceperat factum suum apud arborem Dominarum Fatalium), and she was finally forced to admit that she had first met the 'Voices' near that spot. Connexion with the fairies was as damning in the eyes of the Bishop of Beauvais and his colleagues as it was later in the eyes of the judges who tried John Walsh and Aleson Peirson.

The names of Christian saints, given to the persons whom Joan called her 'Voices', have misled modern writers; but the questions showered upon her show that the judges had shrewd suspicions as to the identity of these persons. That the 'Voices' were human beings is very clear from Joan's own testimony: 'Those of my party know well that the Voice had been sent to me from God, they have seen and known this Voice. My king and many others have also heard and seen the Voices which came to me ... I saw him [St. Michael] with my bodily eyes as well as I see you.' She refused to describe 'St. Michael'; and bearing in mind some of the descriptions of the Devil in later trials, it is interesting to find that when the judges put the direct question to her as to whether 'St. Michael' came to her naked, she did not give a direct answer. Later the following dialogue took place: 'If the devil were to put himself in the form or likeness of an angel, how would you know if it were a good or an evil angel?' asked the judges. Again Joan's reply was not direct: 'I should know quite well if it were St. Michael or a counterfeit.' She then stated that she had seen him many times before she knew him to be St. Michael; when a child she had seen him and had been afraid at first. Pressed for a description, she said he came 'in the form of a true honest man' [tres vray preudomme, forma unius verissimi probi hominis].[957] The accounts of the trial prove that Joan continually received advice from the 'saints'. The person whom she called 'St. Katherine' was obviously in the castle and able to communicate with the prisoner: this was not difficult, for the evidence shows that there was a concealed opening between Joan's room and the next. It was in the adjoining room, close to the opening, that the notaries sat to take down Joan's words when the spy Loyseleur engaged her in conversation; and it was evidently through this opening that 'St. Katherine' spoke when she awoke Joan 'without touching her', and again when Joan could not hear distinctly what she said 'on account of the noise in the castle'. A remark of Joan's that 'she often saw them [the Voices] among the Christians, they themselves unseen', is noteworthy for the use of the word _Christian_, suggesting that the 'Voices' were of a different religion. The remark should also be compared with the account given by Bessie Dunlop as to her recognizing Thom Reid when those about him did not know him; and with the statement by Danaeus that 'among a great company of men, the Sorcerer only knoweth Satan, that is present, when other doo not know him, although they see another man, but who or what he is they know not'.

The points of mortal sin, of which Joan finally stood accused, were the following: 1, The attack on Paris on a feast day; 2, taking the horse of the Bishop of Senlis; 3, leaping from the tower of Beaurevoir; 4, wearing male costume; 5, consenting to the death of Franquet d'Arras at Lagny.

Of these the most surprising to modern ideas is the one referring to costume, yet it was on this that the judges laid most stress. Even the severest of sumptuary laws has never made the wearing of male dress by a woman a capital crime; yet, though Joan had recanted and been received into the Church, the moment that she put on male attire she was doomed on that account only. Whether she donned it by accident, by treachery, by force, or out of bravado, the extraordinary fact remains that the mere resuming of male garments was the signal for her death without further trial. On the Sunday she wore the dress, on the Monday she was condemned, on the Tuesday the sentence was communicated to her, on the Wednesday she was burned, as an 'idolator, apostate, heretic, relapsed'. If, as I suppose, she were a member of the Dianic Cult, the wearing of male attire must have been, for her, an outward sign of that faith, and the resuming of it indicated the relapse; the inscription on the high cap, which she wore at her execution, shows that the judges at least held this opinion. Throughout the trial questions were poured upon her as to her reasons for wearing the dress, and she acknowledged that she wore it, not by the advice of a human man [per consilium hominis mundi] ... 'Totum quod feci est per praeceptum Domini, et si aliam praeciperet assumere ego assumerem, postquam hoc esset per praeceptum Dei.' Asked if she thought she would have been committing mortal sin by wearing women's clothes, she answered that she did better in obeying and serving her supreme Lord, who is God. She refused to wear women's dress except by command of God: 'I would rather die than revoke what God has made me do.'

On her letters were placed sometimes the words Jhesus Maria or a cross. 'Sometimes I put a cross as a sign for those of my party to whom I wrote so that they should not do as the letters said.' Though the mark was merely a code-signal to the recipient of the letter, it seems hardly probable that a Christian of that date would have used the symbol of the Faith for such a purpose. She also consistently refused to take an oath on the Gospels, and was with difficulty persuaded to do so on the Missal. When she was asked whether she had ever blasphemed [blasphemaverit] God, she replied that she had never cursed the Saints [maledixit Sanctum vel Sanctam]. When pressed whether she had not denied [denegaverit] God, she again refused a direct answer, saying that she had not denied the Saints [denegaverit Sanctum nec Sanctam].

The general feeling towards her among the Christian priesthood is shown by the action of Brother Richard. When he first entered her presence 'he made the sign of the cross and sprinkled holy water, and I said to him, Approach boldly, I shall not fly away.'

Another point to be noted is her answer that she learned the Paternoster, Ave Maria, and Credo from her mother, thus proving that she was not of a witch-family. According to Reginald Scot it was sufficient evidence to condemn a woman to death as a witch if her mother had been a witch before her. At the same time, however, Joan refused to say the Paternoster except in confession, when the priest's lips would have been sealed if she had proved herself not to be a Christian. She was very urgent to confess to the Bishop of Beauvais, but he was too wary to be caught.

She first heard the 'Voices' at the age of thirteen, the usual time for the Devil and the witch to make 'paction'. One of her followers, Pierronne, was burnt as a witch, avowing to the last that she had spoken with God as friend with friend, and describing the costume of her Deity with a detail which shows the reality of the occurrence. If also there is any weight to be attached to certain names--as seems likely after studying the lists given above--then we have in this history four of the chief witch-names; Joan, the daughter of Isabel, and the two saints Katherine and Margaret. These coincidences may be small, but there are too many of them to be ignored.