Books: Lives of the Necromancers

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It was to be expected that a man, who thus immersed himself in the
depths of thought, should be an inexorable enemy to noise and
interruption. We have seen that he dashed to pieces the artificial man
of brass, that Albertus Magnus, who was his tutor, had spent thirty
years in bringing to perfection, being impelled to this violence by
its perpetual and unceasing garrulity. [173] It is further said, that
his study being placed in a great thoroughfare, where the grooms were
all day long exercising their horses, he found it necessary to apply a
remedy to this nuisance. He made by the laws of magic a small horse of
brass, which he buried two or three feet under ground in the midst of
this highway; and, having done so, no horse would any longer pass
along the road. It was in vain that the grooms with whip and spur
sought to conquer their repugnance. They were finally compelled to
give up the attempt, and to choose another place for their daily
exercise. [174]

It has further been sought to fix the imputation of magic upon Thomas
Aquinas by imputing to him certain books written on that science; but
these are now acknowledged to be spurious. [175]

PETER OF APONO.

Peter of Apono, so called from a village of that name in the vicinity
of Padua, where he was born in the year 1250, was an eminent
philosopher, mathematician and astrologer, but especially excelled in
physic. Finding that science at a low ebb in his native country, he
resorted to Paris, where it especially flourished; and after a time
returning home, exercised his art with extraordinary success, and by
this means accumulated great wealth.

But all his fame and attainments were poisoned to him by the accusation
of magic. Among other things he was said to possess seven spirits,
each of them inclosed in a crystal vessel, from whom he received every
information he desired in the seven liberal arts. He was further
reported to have had the extraordinary faculty of causing the money he
expended in his disbursements, immediately to come back into his own
purse. He was besides of a hasty and revengeful temper. In consequence
of this it happened to him, that, having a neighbour, who had an
admirable spring of water in his garden, and who was accustomed to
suffer the physician to send for a daily supply, but who for some
displeasure or inconvenience withdrew his permission, Peter d'Apono,
by the aid of the devil, removed the spring from the garden in which
it had flowed, and turned it to waste in the public street. For some
of these accusations he was called to account by the tribunal of the
inquisition. While he was upon his trial however, the unfortunate man
died. But so unfavourable was the judgment of the inquisitors
respecting him, that they decreed that his bones should be dug up, and
publicly burned. Some of his friends got intimation of this, and saved
him from the impending disgrace by removing his remains. Disappointed
in this, the inquisitors proceeded to burn him in effigy.

ENGLISH LAW OF HIGH TREASON.

It may seem strange that in a treatise concerning necromancy we should
have occasion to speak of the English law of high treason. But on
reflection perhaps it may appear not altogether alien to the subject.
This crime is ordinarily considered by our lawyers as limited and
defined by the statute of 25 Edward III. As Blackstone has observed,
"By the ancient common law there was a great latitude left in the
breast of the judges, to determine what was treason, or not so:
whereby the creatures of tyrannical power had opportunity to create
abundance of constructive treasons; that is, to raise, by forced and
arbitrary constructions, offences into the crime and punishment of
treason, which were never suspected to be such. To prevent these
inconveniences, the statute of 25 Edward III was made." [176] This
statute divides treason into seven distinct branches; and the first
and chief of these is, "when a man doth compass or imagine the death
of our lord the king."

Now the first circumstance that strikes us in this affair is, why the
crime was not expressed in more perspicuous and appropriate language?
Why, for example, was it not said, that the first and chief branch of
treason was to "kill the king?" Or, if that limitation was not held to
be sufficiently ample, could it not have been added, it is treason to
"attempt, intend, or contrive to kill the king?" We are apt to make
much too large an allowance for what is considered as the vague and
obsolete language of our ancestors. Logic was the element in which the
scholars of what are called the dark ages were especially at home. It
was at that period that the description of human geniuses, called the
Schoolmen, principally flourished. The writers who preceded the
Christian era, possessed in an extraordinary degree the gift of
imagination and invention. But they had little to boast on the score
of arrangement, and discovered little skill in the strictness of an
accurate deduction. Meanwhile the Schoolmen had a surprising subtlety
in weaving the web of an argument, and arriving by a close deduction,
through a multitude of steps, to a sound and irresistible conclusion.
Our lawyers to a certain degree formed themselves on the discipline of
the Schoolmen. Nothing can be more forcibly contrasted, than the mode
of pleading among the ancients, and that which has characterised the
processes of the moderns. The pleadings of the ancients were praxises
of the art of oratorical persuasion; the pleadings of the moderns
sometimes, though rarely, deviate into oratory, but principally
consist in dextrous subtleties upon words, or a nice series of
deductions, the whole contexture of which is endeavoured to be woven
into one indissoluble substance. Several striking examples have been
preserved of the mode of pleading in the reign of Edward II, in which
the exceptions taken for the defendant, and the replies supporting the
mode of proceeding on behalf of the plaintiff, in no respect fall
short of the most admired shifts, quirks and subtleties of the great
lawyers of later times. [177]

It would be certainly wrong therefore to consider the legal phrase, to
"compass or imagine the death of the king," as meaning the same thing
as to "kill, or intend to kill" him. At all events we may take it for
granted, that to "compass" does not mean to accomplish; but rather to
"take in hand, to go about to effect." There is therefore no form of
words here forbidding to "kill the king." The phrase, to "imagine,"
does not appear less startling. What is, to a proverb, more lawless
than imagination?

Evil into the mind of God or man
May come and go, so unapproved, and leave
No spot or blame behind.

What can be more tyrannical, than an inquisition into the sports and
freaks of fancy? What more unsusceptible of detection or evidence? How
many imperceptible shades of distinction between the guilt and
innocence that characterise them!--Meanwhile the force and propriety
of these terms will strikingly appear, if we refer them to the popular
ideas of witchcraft. Witches were understood to have the power of
destroying life, without the necessity of approaching the person whose
life was to be destroyed, or producing any consciousness in him of the
crime about to be perpetrated. One method was by exposing an image of
wax to the action of fire; while, in proportion as the image wasted
away, the life of the individual who was the object contrived against,
was undermined and destroyed. Another was by incantations and spells.
Either of these might fitly be called the "compassing or imagining the
death." Imagination is, beside this, the peculiar province of
witchcraft. And in these pretended hags the faculty is no longer
desultory and erratic. Conscious of their power, they are supposed to
have subjected it to system and discipline. They apply its secret and
trackless energy with an intentness and a vigour, which ordinary
mortals may in vain attempt to emulate in an application of the force
of inert matter, or of the different physical powers by means of which
such stupendous effects have often been produced.--How universal and
familiar then must we consider the ideas of witchcraft to have been
before language which properly describes the secret practices of such
persons, and is not appropriate to any other, could have been found to
insinuate itself into the structure of the most solemn act of our
legislature, that act which beyond all others was intended to narrow
or shut out the subtle and dangerous inroads of arbitrary power!

ZIITO.

Very extraordinary things are related of Ziito, a sorcerer, in the
court of Wenceslaus, king of Bohemia and afterwards emperor of Germany,
in the latter part of the fourteenth century. This is perhaps, all
things considered, the most wonderful specimen of magical power any
where to be found. It is gravely recorded by Dubravius, bishop of
Olmutz, in his History of Bohemia. It was publicly exhibited on
occasion of the marriage of Wenceslaus with Sophia, daughter of the
elector Palatine of Bavaria, before a vast assembled multitude.

The father-in-law of the king, well aware of the bridegroom's known
predilection for theatrical exhibitions and magical illusions, brought
with him to Prague, the capital of Wenceslaus, a whole waggon-load of
morrice-dancers and jugglers, who made their appearance among the
royal retinue. Meanwhile Ziito, the favourite magician of the king,
took his place obscurely among the ordinary spectators. He however
immediately arrested the attention of the strangers, being remarked
for his extraordinary deformity, and a mouth that stretched completely
from ear to ear. Ziito was for some time engaged in quietly observing
the tricks and sleights that were exhibited. At length, while the
chief magician of the elector Palatine was still busily employed in
shewing some of the most admired specimens of his art, the Bohemian,
indignant at what appeared to him the bungling exhibitions of his
brother-artist, came forward, and reproached him with the unskilfulness
of his performances. The two professors presently fell into warm
debate. Ziito, provoked at the insolence of his rival, made no more
ado but swallowed him whole before the multitude, attired as he was,
all but his shoes, which he objected to because they were dirty. He
then retired for a short while to a closet, and presently returned,
leading the magician along with him.

Having thus disposed of his rival, Ziito proceeded to exhibit the
wonders of his art. He shewed himself first in his proper shape, and
then in those of different persons successively, with countenances and
a stature totally dissimilar to his own; at one time splendidly
attired in robes of purple and silk, and then in the twinkling of an
eye in coarse linen and a clownish coat of frieze. He would proceed
along the field with a smooth and undulating motion without changing
the posture of a limb, for all the world as if he were carried along
in a ship. He would keep pace with the king's chariot, in a car drawn
by barn-door fowls. He also amused the king's guests as they sat at
table, by causing, when they stretched out their hands to the different
dishes, sometimes their hands to turn into the cloven feet of an ox,
and at other times into the hoofs of a horse. He would clap on them
the antlers of a deer, so that, when they put their heads out at
window to see some sight that was going by, they could by no means
draw them back again; while he in the mean time feasted on the savoury
cates that had been spread before them, at his leisure.

At one time he pretended to be in want of money, and to task his wits
to devise the means to procure it. On such an occasion he took up a
handful of grains of corn, and presently gave them the form and
appearance of thirty hogs well fatted for the market. He drove these
hogs to the residence of one Michael, a rich dealer, but who was
remarked for being penurious and thrifty in his bargains. He offered
them to Michael for whatever price he should judge reasonable. The
bargain was presently struck, Ziito at the same time warning the
purchaser, that he should on no account drive them to the river to
drink. Michael however paid no attention to this advice; and the hogs
no sooner arrived at the river, than they turned into grains of corn
as before. The dealer, greatly enraged at this trick, sought high and
low for the seller that he might be revenged on him. At length he
found him in a vintner's shop seemingly in a gloomy and absent frame
of mind, reposing himself, with his legs stretched out on a form. The
dealer called out to him, but he seemed not to hear. Finally he seized
Ziito by one foot, plucking at it with all his might. The foot came
away with the leg and thigh; and Ziito screamed out, apparently in
great agony. He seized Michael by the nape of the neck, and dragged
him before a judge. Here the two set up their separate complaints,
Michael for the fraud that had been committed on him, and Ziito for
the irreparable injury he had suffered in his person. From this
adventure came the proverb, frequent in the days of the historian,
speaking of a person who had made an improvident bargain, "He has made
just such a purchase as Michael did with his hogs."

TRANSMUTATION OF METALS.

Among the different pursuits, which engaged the curiosity of active
minds in these unenlightened ages, was that of the transmutation of
the more ordinary metals into gold and silver. This art, though not
properly of necromantic nature, was however elevated by its professors,
by means of an imaginary connection between it and astrology, and even
between it and an intercourse with invisible spirits. They believed,
that their investigations could not be successfully prosecuted but
under favourable aspects of the planets, and that it was even
indispensible to them to obtain supernatural aid.

In proportion as the pursuit of transmutation, and the search after
the elixir of immortality grew into vogue, the adepts became desirous
of investing them with the venerable garb of antiquity. They
endeavoured to carry up the study to the time of Solomon; and there
were not wanting some who imputed it to the first father of mankind.
They were desirous to track its footsteps in Ancient Egypt; and they
found a mythological representation of it in the expedition of Jason
after the golden fleece, and in the cauldron by which Medea restored
the father of Jason to his original youth. [178] But, as has already
been said, the first unquestionable mention of the subject is to be
referred to the time of Dioclesian. [179] From that period traces of
the studies of the alchemists from time to time regularly discover
themselves.

The study of chemistry and its supposed invaluable results was
assiduously cultivated by Geber and the Arabians.

ARTEPHIUS.

Artephius is one of the earliest names that occur among the students
who sought the philosopher's stone. Of him extraordinary things are
told. He lived about the year 1130, and wrote a book of the Art of
Prolonging Human Life, in which he professes to have already attained
the age of one thousand and twenty-five years. [180] He must by this
account have been born about one hundred years after our Saviour. He
professed to have visited the infernal regions, and there to have seen
Tantalus seated on a throne of gold. He is also said by some to be the
same person, whose life has been written by Philostratus under the
name of Apollonius of Tyana. [181] He wrote a book on the philosopher's
stone, which was published in Latin and French at Paris in the year
1612.

RAYMOND LULLI.

Among the European students of these interesting secrets a foremost
place is to be assigned to Raymond Lulli and Arnold of Villeneuve.

Lulli was undoubtedly a man endowed in a very eminent degree with the
powers of intellect. He was a native of the island of Majorca, and was
born in the year 1234. He is said to have passed his early years in
profligacy and dissipation, but to have been reclaimed by the accident
of falling in love with a young woman afflicted with a cancer. This
circumstance induced him to apply himself intently to the study of
chemistry and medicine, with a view to discover a cure for her
complaint, in which he succeeded. He afterwards entered into the
community of Franciscan friars.

Edward the First was one of the most extraordinary princes that ever
sat on a throne. He revived the study of the Roman civil law with such
success as to have merited the title of the English Justinian. He was
no less distinguished as the patron of arts and letters. He invited to
England Guido dalla Colonna, the author of the Troy Book, and Raymond
Lulli. This latter was believed in his time to have prosecuted his
studies with such success as to have discovered the _elixir vitae_,
by means of which he could keep off the assaults of old age, at least
for centuries, and the philosopher's stone. He is affirmed by these
means to have supplied to Edward the First six millions of money, to
enable him to carry on war against the Turks.

But he was not only indefatigable in the pursuit of natural science.
He was also seized with an invincible desire to convert the Mahometans
to the Christian faith. For this purpose he entered earnestly upon the
study of the Oriental languages. He endeavoured to prevail on different
princes of Europe to concur in his plan, and to erect colleges for the
purpose, but without success. He at length set out alone upon his
enterprise, but met with small encouragement. He penetrated into
Africa and Asia. He made few converts, and was with difficulty suffered
to depart, under a solemn injunction that he should not return. But
Lulli chose to obey God rather than man, and ventured a second time.
The Mahometans became exasperated with his obstinacy, and are said to
have stoned him to death at the age of eighty years. His body was
however transported to his native place; and miracles are reported to
have been worked at his tomb. [182]

Raymond Lulli is beside famous for what he was pleased to style his
Great Art. The ordinary accounts however that are given of this art
assume a style of burlesque, rather than of philosophy. He is said to
have boasted that by means of it he could enable any one to argue
logically on any subject for a whole day together, independently of
any previous study of the subject in debate. To the details of the
process Swift seems to have been indebted for one of the humorous
projects described by him in his voyage to Laputa. Lulli recommended
that certain general terms of logic, metaphysics, ethics or theology
should first be collected. These were to be inscribed separately upon
square pieces of parchment. They were then to be placed on a frame so
constructed that by turning a handle they might revolve freely, and
form endless combinations. One term would stand for a subject, and
another for a predicate. The student was then diligently to inspect
the different combinations that fortuitously arose, and exercising the
subtlety of his faculties to select such as he should find best
calculated for his purposes. He would thus carry on the process of his
debate; and an extraordinary felicity would occasionally arise,
suggesting the most ingenious hints, and leading on to the most
important discoveries. [183]--If a man with the eminent faculties
which Lulli otherwise appeared to have possessed really laid down the
rules of such an art, all he intended by it must have been to satirize
the gravity with which the learned doctors of his time carried on
their grave disputations in mood and figure, having regard only to the
severity of the rule by which they debated, and holding themselves
totally indifferent whether they made any real advances in the
discovery of truth.

ARNOLD OF VILLENEUVE.

Arnold of Villeneuve, who lived about the same time, was a man of
eminent attainments. He made a great proficiency in Greek, Hebrew, and
Arabic. He devoted himself in a high degree to astrology, and was so
confident in his art, as to venture to predict that the end of the
world would occur in a few years; but he lived to witness the
fallaciousness of his prophecy. He had much reputation as a physician.
He appears to have been a bold thinker. He maintained that deeds of
charity were of more avail than the sacrifice of the mass, and that no
one would be damned hereafter, but such as were proved to afford an
example of immoral conduct. Like all the men of these times who were
distinguished by the profoundness of their studies, he was accused of
magic. For this, or upon a charge of heresy, he was brought under the
prosecution of the inquisition. But he was alarmed by the fate of
Peter of Apono, and by recantation or some other mode of prudent
contrivance was fortunate enough to escape. He is one of the persons
to whom the writing of the book, _De Tribus Impostoribus_, Of the
Three Impostors (Moses, Jesus Christ and Mahomet) was imputed! [184]

ENGLISH LAWS RESPECTING TRANSMUTATION.

So great an alarm was conceived about this time respecting the art of
transmutation, that an act of parliament was passed in the fifth year
of Henry IV, 1404, which lord Coke states as the shortest of our
statutes, determining that the making of gold or silver shall be
deemed felony. This law is said to have resulted from the fear at that
time entertained by the houses of lords and commons, lest the
executive power, finding itself by these means enabled to increase the
revenue of the crown to any degree it pleased, should disdain to ask
aid from the legislature; and in consequence should degenerate into
tyranny and arbitrary power. [185]

George Ripley, of Ripley in the county of York, is mentioned, towards
the latter part of the fifteenth century, as having discovered the
philosopher's stone, and by its means contributed one hundred thousand
pounds to the knights of Rhodes, the better to enable them to carry on
their war against the Turks. [186]

About this time however the tide appears to have turned, and the alarm
respecting the multiplication of the precious metals so greatly to
have abated, that patents were issued in the thirty-fifth year of
Henry VI, for the encouragement of such as were disposed to seek the
universal medicine, and to endeavour the transmutation of inferior
metals into gold. [187]

REVIVAL OF LETTERS.

While these things were going on in Europe, the period was gradually
approaching, when the energies of the human mind were to loosen its
shackles, and its independence was ultimately to extinguish those
delusions and that superstition which had so long enslaved it.
Petrarch, born in the year 1304, was deeply impregnated with a passion
for classical lore, was smitten with the love of republican
institutions, and especially distinguished himself for an adoration of
Homer. Dante, a more sublime and original genius than Petrarch, was
his contemporary. About the same time Boccaccio in his Decamerone gave
at once to Italian prose that purity and grace, which none of his
successors in the career of literature have ever been able to excel.
And in our own island Chaucer with a daring hand redeemed his native
tongue from the disuse and ignominy into which it had fallen, and
poured out the immortal strains that the genuine lovers of the English
tongue have ever since perused with delight, while those who are
discouraged by its apparent crabbedness, have yet grown familiar with
his thoughts in the smoother and more modern versification of Dryden
and Pope. From that time the principles of true taste have been more
or less cultivated, while with equal career independence of thought
and an ardent spirit of discovery have continually proceeded, and made
a rapid advance towards the perfect day.

But the dawn of literature and intellectual freedom were still a long
time ere they produced their full effect. The remnant of the old woman
clung to the heart with a tenacious embrace. Three or four centuries
elapsed, while yet the belief in sorcery and witchcraft was alive in
certain classes of society. And then, as is apt to occur in such cases,
the expiring folly occasionally gave tokens of its existence with a
convulsive vehemence, and became only the more picturesque and
impressive through the strong contrast of lights and shadows that
attended its manifestations.

JOAN OF ARC.

One of the most memorable stories on record is that of Joan of Arc,
commonly called the Maid of Orleans. Henry the Fifth of England won
the decisive battle of Agincourt in the year 1415, and some time after
concluded a treaty with the reigning king of France, by which he was
recognised, in case of that king's death, as heir to the throne.
Henry V died in the year 1422, and Charles VI of France in less than
two months after. Henry VI was only nine months old at the time of his
father's death; but such was the deplorable state of France, that he
was in the same year proclaimed king in Paris, and for some years
seemed to have every prospect of a fortunate reign. John duke of
Bedford, the king's uncle, was declared regent of France: the son of
Charles VI was reduced to the last extremity; Orleans was the last
strong town in the heart of the kingdom which held out in his favour;
and that place seemed on the point to surrender to the conqueror.

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