From the analysis of some inquisitorial trials for witchcraft that took place in Italy - and precisely between Emilia Romagna, Lombardy, Piedmont and Trentino - the theme of the resurrection of oxen, cows and calves, previously consumed by witches during the Sabbath and later on, emerges in common. resurrected through the bones by the Devil or the "Lady of the Game". A myth that recurs not only in the Italic witchcraft imaginary, but also in the Nordic pagan (with the god Thor) and even in the Christian (with San Germano) and Siberian shamanic one.
di Massimo Centini
In the following pages I propose some additions to the brilliant article by Marco Maculotti Fairies, witches and goddesses: subtle nourishment and bone renewal [1], focusing on testimonies relating to witch hunts. This is a summary of a specific study published in 2017 is titled The murderers of Levone. Crimes, rituals and mysteries in medieval Piedmont. The dominant theme is the myth of the resurrection of animals, carried out with rituals that involved the use of the bones and skins of the same animals, previously eaten, and documented in some sources relating to witch hunts. Preliminarily it must be said that the aforementioned myth is not very frequent among the accusations against witches, but not absent and, as we shall see, the object of attention by inquisitors, theologians and demonologists of the time.
SMany years have now passed since, for the first time, I came across the myth of bones and skins in a case against women accused of witchcraft. I learned about it by studying the acts against four women (Antonia de Alberto, Francesca Viglone, Bonaveria Viglone and Margarota Braya) of Levone, in Piedmont, to which in 1474 fifty-five counts of accusation were charged which referred a little to all the typical crimes of witchcraft: from infanticide to the relationship with Satan, from theft of animals to the sabbath. At the end of the trial, the women "convinced confessed to evil deeds, spells, witchcraft, heresy, venifications, murders and prevarication of the faith", were condemned to the stake. However, on 7 November 1474, only Antonia de Alberto and Francesca Viglone climbed the gallows of Pra Quazoglio, between Levone and Barbania. In fact Margarota had managed to escape, while for Bonaveria the imprisonment continued. We know that on January 25, 1475, she reappeared before the judge, but then traces of her are lost [2]. The 43rd of the indictments reports practices attributable to the rite studied here:
"To be the aforementioned, in the company of Pietro Braya, the wife of Michele Braya, Giovanni De Bertino, the wife of Giacobino della Giudeta, the late Turino Bertino, the late Giacomo Carenzani, the late Andrea Bossoneto, the late Antonio Perardi of Busano, of Guglielmina wife of the late Giacomo Martinagle of Rivara, of Giovanni Longo of Camagna, and of Turina wife of Stefano Regis of Rivara, went at night time in corso near Turin, in the Aviglio meadow, where many people of the sorcerers sect intervened that it was an endless multitude, which could hardly be counted. And after having danced in the usual way, some of them went there to a herd where they took two steers, who were skinned in the same Aviglio meadow, and bewitched and bewitched so that they would die in a short time. After they had eaten the meat, one of the society proclaimed that all those who had bones would present them, which wrapped in the skins of the steers said: Arise, Ranzola, and the steers rose again. "
As mentioned, in the trial sources relating to witch hunts there are accusations of theft of food, wine, beer and of course animals from the homes of the victims of the nocturnal covenants who then generally consumed these products on the occasion of sabbatical meetings. What is particularly singular in the case of Levone is the concluding action of the banquet, in which two steers stolen from a herd were eaten and their remains were then treated in a sort of ritor. Structurally, the case can be summarized as follows:
- "Two steers, who were skinned in the Aviglio meadow";
- "Bewitched and bewitched so that they would die in a short time";
- "After they had eaten the meat, one of the society proclaimed that all those who had bones would take them, which wrapped in the skins of steers said: Rise, Ranzola, and the steers resurrected."
The procedure for "resurrecting" the animals can also be found in other (limited) documents relating to witchcraft trials: the bones of the killed animals, after being placed inside their skins, forming a bundle, were beaten with sticks by the participants in the Sabbath. At the end of the ritual, the animals came back to life ...Β
For example, in 1519 a trial for witchcraft took place in Modena in which a certain Zilia was accused, on the basis of the evidence gathered, of having attended a sabbath (ad cursum) in which the participants, after eating an ox, collected its bones in the animal's skins "et veniens last dominates cursus, baculo percussit corium bovis et visus est reviviscere bosΒ» [3]. The testimony on the affair was released to the inquisitor Giovanni da Rodigo, but behind this name the Dominican was actually hidden Bartolomeo Spina (1474-1576): the identification of this character would not ultimately be determined if in the Quaestio de strigibus [4] written by Spina, we could not find a precise indication on the magic of bones and skins attributable precisely to the trial held in Modena against the aforementioned Zilia. These are the fragments of the two documents that particularly interest us:
"[...] while they were on the spot he saw many others in that place, and they ate and drank and among all ate a whole cooked ox whose bones all threw on the skin of the ox, and finally arriving the lady (domina cursus), with a stick ran through the hide of the ox and the ox was seen reviving. "(Trial against Zilia);
"[...] they say that, after having eaten some fatty ox [...] that Lady orders that all the bones of the dead ox be collected on the stretched skin of that and, turning it over the bones for the four parts, touches them with the wand . The ox comes back to life as before and the Lady orders that he be taken back to the stable. "(Quaestio de strigibus).
Slightly different is the version that can be traced in the documents of a trial for witchcraft celebrated in 1505 in Val di Fiemme, in which the accused, during interrogation, they admitted that they gathered at the Sabbath where they ate cows and calves, which the devil brought back to life through the ritual of skins and bones [5]. Unlike the other known testimonies, in the case of a trial celebrated in Trentino, at the beginning of the XNUMXth century, the ritual was coordinated by the devil and not by the dominates ludi, Lady Orient o dominates cursus, as shown in the other two sources [6].Β
Returning to the first two cases cited, we must say that even if we know some works prior to the Quaestio de strigibus in which reference is made to the rite of the resurrection, from the comparison of the sources it is quite clear that the text of Spina was deeply affected by the testimony of the Modenese witch. We remind you that we have further indications in Girolamo Visconti [7] and Bernardo Rategno [8]: for both the resurrection of the animals was a fantastic experience completely devoid of reality. this is Visconti's opinion:
Β«After eating, gather the bones, the Lady of the game touching the remains of this animal with a stick makes it seem to revive. But this is clearly false, since according to theological thought the devil cannot raise the dead, so it seems that such a game is an illusion, also because such people in the morning are so hungry and thirsty as if they had not eaten: it is a manifest sign of deception, as they wanted to prove. "Β
So instead Rategno:
Β«But if those calves were really cooked and eaten, in no way can it be made that a devil, indeed all the devils, together with all their power, will bring them back to life; since resurrecting a dead body is really of infinite power, and this belongs to God alone, while in no way can it compete with the devil. It follows that if that meal was true and real, it is necessary to agree that the following resurrection will be fantastic and illusory; or that the meal was both fictitious and imaginary and the resurrection illusory; and so, since the devil subdued witches to himself for the first time by denying the Christian faith, he shows them from time to time, deceiving them in dreams or with fantastic apparitions. "
GIovan Francesco Pico della Mirandola in dialogue Strix: sive of Ludificatione Daemonum (1523) recalls that in the sabbatical meetings, the participants ate and drank without restraint, the food consisted of oxen stolen from the homes of the peasants but "does not fail to record, in this regard, the deception (praestigium) of the wrapped skin of the already eaten ox that stands upright (complicatede pellis comesti iam bovis et exsurgentis in pedes). It is precisely Dicaste, the inquisitor of dialogue, to liquidate the credibility of the resurrection of the oxen with a lapidary sentence: De bobus videntur ludibriaΒ» [9]. Incidentally it must be said that in the cases known to us about the resurrection of oxen and calves, the animals brought back to life were condemned to a short existence. In fact, in the case of Levone, the life of the "bewitched" steers was destined for a short duration: "they should die in a short time". In one case it is also said that the animals resurrected unquam sunt bona pro labore.
Bartolomeo Spina refused to consider the visions of the witches and their flights of real facts, the spells were believed to be the result of pro parte quaestionis falsi; furthermore, for the inquisitor it was a sin to attribute to the devil the powers of women given to Satan and delusion omnia contingunt most of the testimonies collected in the minutes of the Inquisition. On the other hand, however, he showed particular attention to the episodes relating to the bones and skins of steers.
This specific attention to the phenomenon of the resurrection of animals is rather singular and in any case is also present in the evaluations carried out on the subject by other authors of the same period as Spina. For example, the humanist Peter Pomponazzi (1462-1525) emphasized in his treatise De incantationibus, that "if this really seemed to someone, and it was not told in a fairy tale, these animals were not really dead, as we have seen in our times [...] if it was a true resurrection, it was not the work of demons, but of God himself " [10]. There was therefore, in the proto-scientific consciousness of the period, the need to interpret as a possible fact, without renouncing theological reflection, even certain magical-witch-like phenomena, such as the resurrection of animals. To the demons, who were in fact believed to be the architects of the actions performed by dominates cursus, therefore, the ability to bring freshly eaten oxen back to life was not recognized, since only God had this power.Β
For Bartolomeo Spina the phenomenon was the result of a function determined by the demons who produced a fictitious body to be placed inside the skins of the animals.: the artifice, however, was destined to have a short duration since, as we have seen, the resurrected animals almost always died in their stables after a few days. For the author of the De Strigibus the resurrection of the oxen carried out by the devil with the mediation of the witches, was an attempt to mimic the extraordinary experience of San Germano, who resurrected a calf offered to him by a family of poor peasants [11]. In this part of the saint's biography, conducted with a hagiographic approach, Germano obtained the surprising resurrection simply by touching the bones of the calf wrapped in their skin.
The oldest sources we have on the specific miracle of the saint consist of one Life Germans and from the collection Miracle Germani, both from the XNUMXth century, drawn up by the monk Eirico (Enrico) d'Auxerre [12]. As regards the case of the resurrected calf, we can perhaps discern in this story the intention to Christianize a myth which, according to the hagiographer, became objective proof of divine power. The experience, however, has an Old Testament precedent, which, albeit with different evocative values, we find in a vision of the prophet Ezekiel:
Β«[β¦] The hand of the Lord was upon me and the Lord brought me out in spirit and made me stop in the middle of the plain: it was full of bones! He made me go all around them; there were so many on the surface of the plain, it was evident that they were very dry. He said to me: Son of man, can these bones live again? I said: God, my Lord, you know! He said to me: Prophesy to the bones and say to them: Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord; thus says God my Lord to these bones: Behold, I will give you the spirit and you will live. "Β
(Ez, 37, 1-5)
The myth of the resurrection from the bones is also traceable in other religions, in which, in substance, the evocative role has a topos substantially unchanged [13]. So, for example, the Koran:
Β«[β¦] There was a man who, passing by a city destroyed to its foundations, asked himself: Could God restore life to this city? Immediately God made him die and kept him in that condition for a hundred years. At the end of the hundredth year he resurrected him and asked him: How long do you think you stayed like this? One day or part of a day, was the answer. No! God said, you've been there for a hundred years. Look at your food and drink they are still as you left them. But of your donkey only the bones are left: and now We clothe them with flesh and bring it back to life. We wanted to give you a Our Sign, so that you will be aware of Our Omnipotence. "
[14]
As a whole, the rite of resurrection through the bones reveals a rather wide geographical spread:
In the magical folklore of India, certain saints and yogis are believed to have the power to raise the dead from their bones or ashes; this is what Gorakhnath does, for example, and it is not without interest to point out right now that this famous magician is considered as the founder of a yogitantric sect, that of the Yogi Kanphata, in which other shamanic survivals could be found. Finally, it is worth mentioning certain Buddhist meditations whose object is the vision of the body that is transformed into a skeleton; the important part that human skulls and bones play in Lamaism and Tantrism; the skeleton dance in Tibet and Mongolia; the function of the Brahmarandhra. "
[15]
In 'History brittonum, written in the VIII / IX century, we find the story of San Germano: the episode of the bones and skins is not mentioned, but in the text it is said that the saint, before starting to eat, ordered the diners to do not break any bones of the eaten animal: this warning could be related to some beliefs and taboos of the ritual symbolism of hunters [16]. We also leave out the analogies with the resurrection of the goats by the god Thor, present inEdda and analyzed in cited article by Maculotti.
Ci still seem natural to ask ourselves from whom the Levonese witches learned the ritual of bones and skins and above all, what were the ways in which they got to know that magic procedure? Furthermore, what is the meaning to give to the expression Β«Sorgi, ranzolaΒ»? And again, how to correlate that "very large group", in which "masters, lovers and infernal demons" were included, to the penetration of the rite into the peasant culture of Piedmont of the fifteenth century? These are questions destined to remain without precise answers. The reference to experiences from βotherβ cultures and from history only partially illuminates our observation. The comparison does not offer us substantial help, but merely demonstrates that, beyond any other evaluation, on the symbolic level, a significant percentage of the rituals linked to hunting cultures would seem to be present in the magical-satanic experiences of the witches of Levone.
Taking as good the direct analogy between the two symbolic experiences, the fact remains that they are different background: in fact, in the magical action carried out by the women participating in the Sabbath, it certainly cannot be said that there was a conscience related to animalicide. This ethical attitude finds in the rites post-mortem practiced on animals a "ritualized and traditional response to one dimension of malaise of one's own cultural state in its dimension of difficulty, in its shock of unbearability, a malaise that the ritual fiction system does not consolidate, but exorcizes and makes it bearable " [17]. The phenomenology of the resurrection of animals stolen and eaten by witches could simplistically be considered as the reverberation of a symbolic process known in the bosom of myth and religion and remained entangled somewhere in the folklore culture from which it then penetrated through an elusive game of mirrors, into the rites of the witches.
Nor should we exclude that the experience of bones and skins was pushed among the pending accusations on Levonese witches, by the accusers themselves, who used knowledge acquired in the management of justice and therefore in possession of a wide range of cases to which they could draw on to look for analogies and make comparisons in the course of inquisitorial practice. Obviously, to argue that the inquisitors made comparative mythology would obviously be absurd. But the existence of a continuity between the comparative mythology that we practice and the interpretations of the inquisitors is undeniable. They translated, or rather transposed into a different and less ambiguous code, beliefs that were essentially foreign to their culture.
We also add that the warning of St. Germane and Thor not to break the bones of the eaten animal offers us opportunities to broaden the ethnographic reflection around the question addressed here. To do this, let's refer to the studies of Vladimir Propp: "Among the Lopari (inhabitants of the Kola peninsula) if by chance a bone was eaten by a dog, the dog was killed and the reindeer bone was replaced by the corresponding dog bone" [18]. We also add the tradition can also be found in some documents relating to the witch hunt, emblematic of the words of Jerome Visconti: dominates ludi precipit eis quod servent bones.
An interesting example comes from the deposition released by the alleged witch Pierina de Bugatis (1390), in which we come across the myth of the resurrection of animals through the ritual of bones and skins performed by the "Lady East". From his testimony we learn that the architect of the practice, in putting away the bones, he realized that some were missing, he replaced them with elderberry wood. In the rituals of Siberian folklore, there is a series of cases that are linked to topos of the replaced bone. We generally find a example recurring: a party invitee held back an ox rib that had been offered to him. Later, the spirits who collected all the bones of the animal to revive it, were forced to replace the missing rib with a walnut branch.
Da Burhard of Worms we know that witches placed the hearts of those who had suffered their spell in the place stamen aut lignum. Even in some sixteenth-century witchcraft trials we find traces of such actions, in which the inquisitors confessed that they had removed the hearts of those they had killed and that they had rags and straw within the bodies. In essence, therefore, two lines of the Nordic myth would have spread both on the level of folklore, with relapses in the beliefs on witchcraft, and in the Christian cult emblematized with the figure of St. Germano. Here it appears difficult to understand through which paths the pagan divinity Thor can be related to dominates ludi ritually activeΒ ad cursus.
The keystone could be found in the figure of Perchta. In fact, the possibility must be considered that this divinity, of which the dominates ludi he was probably one of the many personifications, sharing with Thor the power to bring animals back to life, just as it seems he shared with Odin the function of leader of the furious army. In short, we find ourselves in the presence of some convergences that help to illuminate the epistemological hypothesis aimed at highlighting the possibility that in that magmatic complex of signs called "witchcraft" in fact there were still living experiences from various pre-Christian ritual experiences. Thesis that, as is known, after the studies of mary douglas, then consolidated and refined in the researches of Carlos Ginzburg [19] they have opened up new perspectives for investigation, even if not shared by the community of scholars, especially historians.
A at this point, trying to draw the strings of the complex of experiences related to the Levonese rite of the resurrection of animals after the sabbatical and taking into account the documentation we have, we can see that the structure of the story presents some formal variants that can be found in the various sources , without altering the substance:
- the oldest document (1390) on the myth comes from Milanese trial against Pierina Bugatis, in which to operate was the dominates ludi, while it appears that the animals resurrected unquam sunt bona pro labore;
- in Piedmontese process of Levone (1474) the resurrection was carried out with the aid of a rite practiced by "one of the society"; the animals died after a few days;
- also in the Trentino trial (1505) the resurrected oxen were destined to die within a few days, only to carry out the rite was the diavolo;
- in Modena process of 1519 the magical action was the domain of dominates cursus. The rite allowed the resurrection of animals previously eaten, but we have no information on their future fate;
- when it comes to Quaestio de strigibus (1522) the oxen resurrected by the dominates cursus they were destined to die within the next three days;
- in contemporary testimonies (Visconti; Rategno) the phenomenon is considered completely illusory and devoid of objective confirmation in reality.
On the basis of the contributions of the ethnographic survey, it should however be emphasized that the ritual use of bones also proposes connections with the corpus of practices related to the shaman's initiatory process. We refer in particular to the tradition relating to symbolic quartering of the future shaman, who must undergo this experience before officially acquiring his role. The ritual of cutting the body into pieces,
"[...] to cook it in a container, eat its meat, drink its blood, open its belly and replace the viscera, insert sacred stones, all reasons that have a frightening evidence in the Siberian shamanic tradition, they find themselves with a different cohesion or minor, extended from Australia to the Papua Kiwai, to the Dayaki of Borneo, to the Eskimo tribe of America; nor would we hesitate to recognize them as the basis of Greek myths and rituals: as well as in the myths of Pelops, of Medea, even in the whole Dionysian cult. And this impressive extension, all rooted in ecstatic, dreamlike, visionary experiences, can only confirm the role that man's visionary attitude had, and still has. "
[20]
The theme of dismemberment and reassembly has also spilled over into the tale, with characteristics still related to the initiatory tradition. However, we do not go further to avoid abusing the perspectives offered by comparativism. We therefore conclude by observing that, within the demonization of the pagan religion implemented by the Church, the different typologies of the indicated rituals have been identified as magical expressions, which intended to intervene in the processes of nature through diabolical illusions.Β
The primitive dimension of the ritual process has thus disappeared through the contamination of the interpretation of Christian observers and, in the case of witchcraft, following the search for signa correlated to the devil often conduct irrationally conducted by inquisitors. A research then formalized in the documents to which we turn to try to isolate reality from fantasy, even if the task is rather difficult since, in some cases, such as that of bones and skins, very extensive relationships in space and time. And, since there are no neutral theses, "a skeptic might object at this point that a term as reality (or even cultural reality) is illegitimate: what is at stake here would be only different voices within the same text, not different realities " [21]. Voices that, in the course of Levone's trial, at the end of everything decreed the penalty of the stake.
Note:
1) Marco Maculotti, Fairies, witches and goddesses: "subtle nourishment" and "bone renewal", in "Axis Mundi", March 20, 2019.
2) State Archives of Turin, Criminal matters, bunch 1, File 1; Deck 6, Bundle 2.
3) State Archives of Modena, Inquisition of Modena and Reggio, Processes, b.2; l.4.
4) Bartolomeo Spina, Quaestio de strigibus, una cum Tractatu de praeminentia Sacrae Theologiae, et quadruple Apologia de Lamis contra Ponzinibium, Rome 1576.Β Β
5) A. Panizza, Trials against witches in Trentino, in "Trentino Archive", VII, 1888; VIII, 1889; 1890.
6) Very briefly we remember that the female figure differently indicated in the sources is a character who in many of the statements made by women accused of witchcraft is totally devoid of demonizing connotations, indeed, on several levels, it would seem to be linked to the image of connected pagan female divinities to fertility. She later she will then fall into the maelstrom of demonization that surrounded the idea of ββthe sabbath.
7) Girolamo Visconti, Lamiarum sive striarum opusculum, 1460.
8) Bernardo Rategno, De strigiis, 1505.
9) M. Bertolotti, The bones and skins of oxen. A popular myth between hagiography and witchcraft, in βQuaderni storicoβ, 1979, N. 41, p. 473.
10) EP Pomponazzi, De naturaleum effectuum admirandorum causis, seu de incantationibus liber, in Pomponatii Opera, Basel 1567.
11) Probably, the sources of Bartolomeo Spina consisted of the Historiale speculum by Vincenzo di Beauvais and by Golden legend by Jacopo da Varagine.
12) The miracle of the calf's resurrection is not reported in the oldest biography of St. Germain by Constantius of Lyons (XNUMXth century), cf. Costance de Lyon, Vie de Saint Germain d'Auxerre, edited by R. Borius, Paris 1965. On the story of San Germano, see the article by Marco Maculotti ved. (note 1).
13) For example, The Egyptian Book of the Dead, CXXV.
14) Koran, II, 259.
15) M. Eliade, Occultism, witchcraft and cultural fashions, Florence 1982, p. 187.
16) In mine already mentioned The murderers of Levone. Crimes, rituals and mysteries in medieval Piedmont (Turin 2017) I had proposed, as a simple working hypothesis, to deepen the theme of resurrected animals having as focus the symbolic practices that are part of the so-called "ritual fiction". In practice, a behavior that, in specific cultural contexts, activates, according to fixed and collectively shared ritual schemes, a series of procedures that fictitiously invalidate an act previously performed and perceived as a negative fact, fault or infringement. These rites are dominated by the primal sense of guilt that is somehow exorcised through the symbolic process of the so-called post-hunting fiction (cf. AM Di Nola, Religious anthropology. Introduction to the problem and research samples, Rome 1984).
17) AM Di Nola, on. cit., p. 262
18) See Ja Propp, Oedipus in the light of folklore. Four studies of historical-structural ethnography, Turin 1975, p. 19.
19) M. Murray, The god of witches, Rome 1972; Witches in Western Europe, Rome 1974; C. Ginzburg, The Benandanti. Research on witchcraft and agrarian cults between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Turin 1966; Night story. A decipherment of the Sabbath, Turin 1989.
20) A. Seppilli, Poetry and magic, Turin 1971, p. 56.Β
21) C. Ginzburg, The thread and the traces. True fake fake, Milan 2006, p. 276.
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