This
is just a little overview of my section that I covered during the leadership
discussion for Chapter 7 in Kors and Peters.
Strix, by
Gianfrancesco Pico della Mirandola, came out in 1523 and it is based on a real
event that Mirandola participated in: the witch trial of Caterina de Racconigi
(Kors and Peters 239). The work follows a dialogue form between characters,
which was a popular writing style in the 15th and 16th
centuries (239). The four main characters that are listed on pg. 240 are: Apistius
(“‘the man without faith’”), Phronimus (“‘the prudent man’”), Dicaste
(“‘judge’”) and Strix (who is called Strega in the text) is the witch.
In
the first part, Phronimus and Apistius are debating on the existence of magic
and witchcraft. Phronimus is trying to prove to Apistius that magic is real: “many
learned men, experts, and certainly not part of the mob, all believe it, and
have openly expressed their convictions. We cannot believe that they are
mistaken.” (242) However, Apistius argues that it is “laughable, that, having
drawn a circle and anointed the body with some ointment…and murmuring some
gobbledygook, these people can mingle with the demons and that this silly troop
of riders through the night on whatever kind of stick that they’ve decorated,
can ride a goat or a ram, or that others are carried through the air by a force
greater than any wind.” (242) When they see Dicaste and Strega talking,
Apistius and Phronimus decide to try to see what is going on.
In
the second part we see Apistius and Phronimus talking to the accused witch,
Strega. She tells them all about these wicked deeds that she did because of
witchcraft. They sort of have a debate about whether or not witches are
transported bodily or spiritually to the sabbat. Dicaste’s opinion is that
either mode of transportation can happen in different instances and “Sometimes
it happens through a deception of the demon and sometimes by the choice of the
witches.” (243). On pg. 243, Strega gives a graphic account of how witches like
her killed infants. And after all of this evidence in support of witchcraft,
Apistius is still not convinced.
In
the last part, Dicaste brings in ancient and Biblical references to prove that
magic is real. When Apistius is still hung up on how witches get to the sabbat,
Dicaste tells him that how the people get to the sabbat does not matter, but
what matters is that they turned their backs on Christianity and the Church
(244). And then Phronimus gives a nice, neat conclusion, at the end of which
Apistius announces that he’s finally convinced and he changes his name. When
the others don’t believe him, Pistius responds, “Do you really think that I
could joke about something upon which both ancients and moderns agree? Upon
that which the poets, rhetoricians, Stoics, jurists, philosophers, theologians,
wise and prudent men, soldiers, rustics, experimenters all agree?” (245)
This
document is really interesting to read because to the contemporaries of the
time, Phronimus and Dicaste make perfect sense while to readers today, Apistius
has the most logical views. Therefore, the medieval sense of logic is very
different from our common sense and we see this in this document. When I first
read this, I was rooting for Apistius because his arguments are ones that people
of today would probably make.
Kors,
Alan Charles and Edward Peters. Witchcraft
in Europe: 400-1700. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.
2001. Print.
