H05063 ADDER/WITCHES IN THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE 7/27/05 - HARDY FORUM ARCHIVES ___________________________________________________________________________
From: DDent@mail.MaconState.edu
Subject: Adder in RN
Date: July 27, 2005 7:30:41 AM PDT
I am interested in Hardy's need to present sexually-charged themes by invoking symbolic discourse and manipulating language in order to circumvent censorial boundaries. I am specifically thinking of the adder that stings Mrs. Yeobright in The Return of the Native. I am struck by the notion that Hardy is using the simultaneously repulsive and fascinating creature as a phallic symbol to reveal to Mrs. Yeobright that her wishes are no match for sexual desire. Specifically, I'm exploring Hardy's use of sexuality as a gate keeping device to keep women within their gender-defined boundaries.
Your thoughts on my observation will be very helpful. I'm new to the Forum, so please excuse me if my insertion of a new topic is inappropriate.
"The live adder regarded the assembled group with a sinister look in its small black eye, and the beautiful brown and jet pattern on its back seemed to intensify with indignation. Mrs. Yeobright saw the creature, and the creature saw her--she quivered throughout, and averted her eyes" (296)
"Look at that," murmured Christian Cantle. "Neighbours, how do we know but that something of the old serpent in God's garden, that gied the apple to the young woman with no clothes, lives on in adders and snakes still? Look at his eye--for all the world like a villainous sort of black currant. (297)
Thanks,
Debra
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From: jacky@wilkibob.me.uk
Subject: Re: Adder in RN
Date: July 27, 2005 8:33:57 AM PDT
Perhaps an interesting sequence to examine in this respect is Troy's sword
exercise in Chapter 27 of Far From the Madding Crowd. There are possibly
similar connotations here with the garden of Eden, Eve, Satan and sexuality.
I find troy's piercing of the caterpillar on Bathsheba's bosom interesting
in this respect. the hissing of the serpent is a repeated image throughout
this novel.
all the best
Jacky
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From: hardycor@owl.csusm.edu
Subject: Re: Adder in RN
Date: July 27, 2005 11:43:14 AM PDT
To: HARDY-L@csusm.edu
Reply-To: HARDY-L@csusm.edu
Specifically, I _m exploring Hardy _s use of sexuality as a gate keeping
device to keep women within their gender-defined boundaries.
You make an ineresting observation regarding the adder incident in RN
Debra. However in her chapter on RN in _Women and Sexuality in the Novels
of TH_ (Routledge, 1988) Rosemarie Morgan invokes another
"sexually-charged" image, which would seem, in contrast, to point to "the
interactive, reciprocal potential in the sexual relationship . . ."
between a man and a woman, implying greater freedom of sexual expression
for a woman than Victorian "gender-defined boundaries" might have allowed.
Describing Eustacia and Wildeve's disappearance into the twilight for a
romantic tryst Hardy writes:
"Their black figures sank and disappeared from against the sky.
They were as two horns
which the sluggish heath had put forth from its crown, like a
mollusc, and had now again drawn in. (RN, p.99).
Morgan notes how this reinforces "the sense of mutuality, reciprococity,
and sexual equivalence which the hermaphrodite (mollusc) image introduces,
Hardy invokes here the metonym 'horns' which serves aptly in its
significant plurality -- twinned erectile protuberances -- to suggest
sharpened appetites and sexual arousal in *both* his lovers" (60).
Best Wishes,
Betty
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From: DDent@mail.MaconState.edu
Subject: RE: Adder in RN
Date: July 27, 2005 3:00:57 PM PDT
Thanks Jacky and Betty for your comments.
The sexual relationship between Eustacia and Wildeve is definitely
mutually pleasurable but not enough for either of them. Certainly Hardy
is very interested in portraying forward-thinking and independent female
characters. I'm arguing that he presents sexuality (against the backdrop
of Victorian repression) as the ultimately inescapable force that either
destroys women or renders them unfulfilled. When Mrs. Yeobright gazes
into the "one eye" of the adder, she quickly averts her gaze suggesting
the phallic nature of the adder and that Eustacia's strong sexual
presence has replaced Clym's loyalty toward his mother. In the end,
Eustacia is destroyed because the heath holds her within its boundaries,
and she is never able to escape to Paris, a place where one of her
sensual nature might find freedom and fulfillment. The remedy for the
adder's sting is also interesting. The adder is cut into pieces and
cooked, and the oil is rubbed in the wound. I'm not sure what to make of
that. Anyway, my question is - Is Hardy advocating a more liberal
attitude regarding sexual relationships by showing ways that Victorian
women are restrained because of their sexuality? And, Is his use of
figurative language a strategy to get around the bowdlerization of his
art?
Debra
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From: Rosemarie.morgan@yale.edu
Subject: RE: Adder in RN
Date: July 27, 2005 7:13:00 PM PDT
One antidote for snake bite, more commonly known in homeopathy, is to apply the source of the infection/poison as antidote. The idea is to apply
low (non-lethal) levels of the snake venom so that there is a chance for the
body to make antibodies to the venom and build an immunity to it ( this
is why a dog bite, under this rationale, is best treated by having the
dog lick the bite) . Treatment is most effective as a preventive
measure.The Egdon remedy appears to be a distillation of snake fluids.
Perhaps the concentrate was efficacious - "old wives" remedies
usually were, although in Mrs Yeobright's case it was too late.
The sexuality question has already been dealt with in detail in the book Betty cited, *Women and Sexuality*.
Cheers,
Rosemarie
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From: DDent@mail.MaconState.edu
Subject: RE: Adder in RN
Date: July 28, 2005 2:50:27 AM PDT
Rosemarie,
I should have clarified my question. It was directed toward the symbolic nature of the remedy (if there is any). I have your book, and it is a wonderful resource. It's not my intention to repeat or belabor arguments already presented in the book but to look at Hardy's rhetorical strategies regarding sexuality.
Thanks,
Debra
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From: Rosemarie.morgan@yale.edu
Subject: RE: Adder in RN
Date: July 28, 2005 5:28:28 AM PDT
Symbolism of the adder? -- this is a tough one! There is only one minor dimension to Mrs Yeobright's death by adder bite that I can think of and it is that the venom isn't usually fatal. She could have recovered. So, possibly the intervention of the snake contributes dramatic colour to what is a rather commonplace death by heart failure (the narrator makes a point of stressing her exhaustion even before the reaches Clym's house). Rhetorical strategies regarding sexuality? Some critics have made a case for an Oedipal relationship between mother and son. I wouldn't, myself, want to push snakes (phallic symbol) in here. Rhetorical strategies in this episode are, however, keenly engaged with the "blasted heath" and the eeriness of the Devil's Bellows -- so you might find an extended metaphor here-- devils/snakes and the postlapsarian "apple tree" ?
I'm think I'm pushing my luck here-- but good luck to you!
Best,
Rosemarie
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From: DDent@mail.MaconState.edu
Subject: RE: Adder in RN
Date: July 28, 2005 7:34:06 AM PDT
"The live adder regarded the assembled group with a sinister look in its small black eye, and the beautiful brown and jet pattern on its back seemed to intensify with indignation."
I think it's the description of the singular "eye" that I keep returning to. I know it's quite a stretch, but it seems to me that Mrs. Yeobright and ultimately Clym, Eustacia, and indirectly, Wildeve are defeated by the power of the snake (or is it sexual desire?). I think your postlapsarian "apple tree" idea fits perfectly with Christian Cantle's "Neighbours, how do we know but that something of the old serpent in God's garden, that gied the apple to the young woman with no clothes, lives on in adders and snakes still? Look at his eye--for all the world like a villainous sort of black currant. 'Tis to be hoped he can't ill-wish us! There's folks in heath who've been overlooked already. I will never kill another adder as long as I live. (297)
This also goes along with Hardy's habit of adding Satanic attributes to his unconventional and sensual characters - Eustacia (as witch) and Fitzpiers, for example. One source suggests that he did this to appease his critics. Anyway, your comments are very helpful and thought provoking. I appreciate your input.
Debra
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From: Rosemarie.morgan@yale.edu
Subject: RE: Adder in RN
Date: July 28, 2005 8:28:48 AM PDT
Cantle's piece accords well-
I suggested postlapsarian not simply because sexual innocence has been lost (generally) but because the lone apple tree is infested with wasps and, to complicate matters, they are drunk on the fermenting juice of the apples. Demonic? Venn is most definitely aligned with the devil (which you know already). But Eustacia's witch associations were cut by TH possibly to avoid connotations of Satanism. He was aware that witches were persecuted and unjustly so -- and being Hardy he might also have been aware that witches and nuns go by the same word in Celtic. I need to brush up on the Maleficorum but as far as I recall the links made by the Church Inquisitors which led to the burning of conventual women (presumed witches) was not uncommon. In a nutshell - I don't think we can assume Hardy shared the man-in-the street notion that witches were evil. Rather that he distrusted his reading public -- hence the cuts in RN? (a rhetorical statement merely).
It might be useful to get hold of Hermann Lea's article, 'Wessex Witches, Witchery, and Witchcraft', which was publ. in the Nineteenth Century, June 1903. Hardy enjoyed reading this and (linking it to RN) told Lea that it was surprising how the old beliefs linger on. I haven't read the Lea but perhaps it deals only with the likes of the true witch on Egdon -- Susan Nunsuch (her name suggests TH knew of the connection between nuns and witches, who incidentally, sport similar gear -- habits).
Enough witchery -- now back to the construction guys currently beating up my pore ole house.
Best
Rosemarie
PS Superstition is central to the downfall (defeat) of Egdon's inhabitants.
==========
From: DDent@mail.MaconState.edu
Subject: RE: Adder in RN
Date: July 28, 2005 8:58:56 AM PDT
I'll definitely search for the article. You've given much to consider as I work on my thesis. Thanks, & good luck with your house.
Debra
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From: patrick@prassociates.co.uk
Subject: RE: Adder in RN
Date: July 28, 2005 12:54:38 PM PDT
Debra - you have started a fascinating thread. Being professionally interested in adders and living in England I am very familiar with the reptiles and their habits.
I personally would not read the psychosexual connotations into TH's passage that you suggest. Biblical serpent allusions notwithstanding, adders are not really very phallic or sexy things and, if people notice them at all, they are usually coiled up among dead bracken fronds or sometimes on a log or tree stump and look very unerotic.
Country people, particularly heath-croppers, are, of course, aware of them and, in the past, they simply killed them as a minor nuisance. In many places in my experience people are more worried about their dogs and other animals being bitten than themselves and adder bite to humans remains rare, though it may have been commoner in barefoot days. The normal treatment today for adder bite is simply to rest - anti-serums are no longer given (I am told) and nearly all the victims recover within a few days. Again, I am sure country people in the 19th C would have known all this. There have been snake catchers in England within living memory and they themselves were sometimes bitten and knew exactly how to deal with the situation, or the situation of others similarly afflicted.
Unusually for him TH's description of adders does not seem very good. They do not 'sting' for example and would be impossibly difficult to find after dark on a heath. The method of catching is, however, intriguing, but today we simply pick them up with a stick shaped like a tick. Usually they just hang there in the crook, though one has to be .careful. The eyes are also not at all like black currants (though the eyes of many small animals are).
If anyone wants to check them out there are some wonderful pictures on my friend George McCarthy's website:
http://www.georgemccarthy.com/galleries/adders.html
I wonder if TH was really just giving us some rather complicated country lore to add, as it were, to the character of Egdon Heath and its people. In that sense I think I agree with most of Rosemary Morgan's comments I do think, however, there may be something in the eye contact. Meg Cronin, if she is still reading these exchanges, has done much work on eyes and eye contact in Hardy's work and it is a theme that often comes up, though not really in a sexual sense.
Patrick Roper.
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From: DDent@mail.MaconState.edu
Subject: RE: Adder in RN
Date: July 28, 2005 6:17:00 PM PDT
Patrick,
Thanks for sending the link. Since I have an acute aversion to snakes, they all look quite sinister to me. Certainly Mrs. Yeobright's death, if precipitated by the "adder's sting," is more dramatic than heart failure. Hardy's attention to the eye contact sparked my interest in exploring the incident. The firsthand knowledge of adders you provide is fascinating.
Thanks,
Debra
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From: Rosemarie.morgan@yale.edu
Subject: RE: Adder in RN
Date: July 28, 2005 8:01:41 PM PDT
Patrick- the narrator doesn't describe it as a "sting." Ignoramus Sam Fairway is the culprit.
(This kind of thing still happens today, in reverse -- for example, many Americans talk of wasps and bees as "biting." And the other day a neighbour in my back yard cautioned her child: "Be careful it doesn't bite you." I didn't like to say that chickens "peck" and don't have jaws or teeth to bite ..)
When (the educated) Clym speaks of the snake incident he speaks correctly and says "I remember when I was a child seeing just such a bite" (VII). Sam then follows suit and uses the word "bite." Next point to remember is that the adder with the "eye" is not the adder which bites Mrs Y. It is a snake later caught by Sam to prepare the snake oil antidote. Yes-- catching in the dark would be problematic but actually Sam admits to having caught two adders earlier in the day and is bringing them along for the antidote cook-out.
What follows is then suggestive of Shakespeare's fool on Lear's heath, The conversation among the locals (a corporate "fool" I suggest) is idiotic! It's not just the "currant" eye (a perfection in bathos which stirs a readerly chuckle) but the sudden start of fear of bad spells and witches and superstition which pervades the scene. If I were making a movie I would play up this episode for sheer hilarity -- Cohen Bros style.
Interesting that Hardy does not pemit Mrs Y a tragic ending - as he does Eustacia. Perhaps she is not sufficiently "large" of character or sufficiently "great" of stature to warrant a tragedy.
Cheers, Rosemarie.
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From: Charles.Anesi@wellsfargo.com
Subject: RE: Adder in RN
Date: July 28, 2005 10:34:40 PM PDT
I don't recall nuns in particular being mentioned as likely witches in the Malleus Maleficarum, though solitary living was a fact (along with many others) that tended to support a charge of witchcraft. However, Eustacia would catch the eye of a good witch hunter for other reasons:
What sort of Women are found to be above all Others Superstitious and Witches
As to our second inquiry, what sort of women more than others are found to be superstitious and infected with witchcraft; it must be said, as was shown in the preceding inquiry, that three general vices appear to have special dominion over wicked women, namely, infidelity, ambition, and lust. Therefore they are more than others inclined towards witchcraft, who are more than others given to these vices. Again, since of these three vices the last chiefly predominates, women being insatiable, etc., it follows that those among ambitious women are more deeply infected who are more hot to satisfy their filthy lusts; and such are adultresses, fornicatresses, and the concubines of the Great. (F. Henricus Institoris et F. Jacobus Sprengerus, Inquisitores, Malleus Maleficarum, Pars I., Quaestio VI. (1484; English tr. Rev. Montague Summers, 1928)
Similar but more delicately phrased statements can be found in Cotton Mather's Wonders of the Invisible World and other writings.
Chuck Anesi
charles.anesi@wellsfargo.com
office 480-575-3478
cell 612-940-3345
fax 480-575-3519
==========
From: dcorney@westnet.com.au
Subject: Adder in RN
Date: July 29, 2005 1:00:37 AM PDT
The use of "sting" as opposed to "bite" in relation to the adder probably relates back to the root of the word which is derived from OE "stingan" meaning to "stick, stab or pierce", which is what snakes often do.
Shakespeare uses it in A Midsummer Night's Dream when Hermia is berating Demetrius:Could not a worm, an adder, do so much?/Than thine, thou serpent, never adder stung./An adder did it; for with doubler tongue.
Regards
David Cornelius
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From: pauline.guerin@ntlworld.com
Subject: RE: Adder in RN
Date: July 29, 2005 1:20:34 AM PDT
Also just to add, I'm sure Patrick knows this, that most people die of the
shock of the bite from an adder rather than from the venom itself. I can't
remember the exact details now of Mrs Yeobright's death, but it would seem
to me that that is probably the case? (being in the middle of my masters
dissertation I'm a bit loath to spend time looking it up, but I'm sure you
will correct me.
Kind regards
Pauline
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From: Rosemarie.morgan@yale.edu
Subject: RE: Adder in RN
Date: July 29, 2005 5:17:51 AM PDT
Depends how much store you put on her physical condition prior to the bite.
Little Johnny - -
'Your face is white and wet, and your head is hanging-down like' (if she were suffering heat-stroke she wouldn't be "white")
Then,
'How funny you draw your breath -- like a lamb when you drive him till he's nearly done. Do you always draw your breath like that?'
'Not always.' Her voice was now so low as to be scarcely above a whisper.
'You will go to sleep there, I suppose, won't you? You have shut your eyes already.'
I think your point about dying of shock makes a lot of sense given her prostrated condition -- unfortunately I don't think we'll ever find out. One of Hardy's ambiguous moments!
Best,
Rosemarie
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From: patrick@prassociates.co.uk
Subject: RE: Adder in RN
Date: July 29, 2005 5:41:41 AM PDT
Pauline,
Apparently only 12 people have died of adder bites in Britain since 1900, though it is estimated that up to 400 people a year are bitten. Adder venom evolved to deal with mice and other small animals and often has no effect at all on other large creatures (including humans).
The shock you speak of is I suspect anaphylactic shock, a kind of allergic reaction that also sometimes occurs with wasp or bee stings, and not sheer fright. It does indeed seem possible that this is what, in TH's mind, caused Mrs Yeobright's death. I believe much work was being done on this condition in France around the time Return of the Native was published and I wonder if TH had read about it.
The last word on adder bites is in a web page written by probably our leading British herpetologist, Jim Foster:
http://www.geocities.com/braguk/aboutadder3.html
Interestingly Jim says that when bitten by an adder "taking aspirin or alcohol may be very dangerous". He also writes "One report ... refers to a total of 33 animals with adder bite being treated at two Dorset based veterinary surgeries over a two year period from 1959 to 1960, where none of these cases were fatal."
I think he should have said "was fatal", but far be it from me to be pedantic.
No need to reply and good luck with your masters.
Patrick Roper
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From: patrick@prassociates.co.uk
Subject: RE: Adder in RN
Date: July 29, 2005 6:00:02 AM PDT
I agree. Also it is all to do with witches and superstition rather than sex.
In regard to TH's somewhat unconvincing description of adders, creatures I am sure he had known well since childhood, I am quite surprised because he is usually so accurate and precise in these things (as I am often reminded when the darkling thrushes or autumn robins sing in our garden). I think he wanted us to enjoy this adder episode in, perhaps, a rather theatrical unrealistic way.
I also wonder if TH was having a dig at the miracle patent medicines often called 'snake oil', a term that seems to have become widespread at about the time Return of the native was published. For example "real snake oil was prized for its supposed medicinal properties. In 1880 for example, a newspaper article on a Pennsylvania man-"a celebrated hunter, trapper and snake-tamer by the name of John Geer"-told how he killed rattlesnakes and extracted "oil from their bodies." The article stated: "this oil is very useable and sells readily for $1 per ounce. It is said to have great curative powers" ("Killing Snakes" 1880). I once saw a bottle in a private collection with a label on which was actually penned "Snake Oil" and that (if memory serves me) may have dated from the mid-nineteenth century or even earlier."
Patrick Roper
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From: DDent@mail.MaconState.edu
Subject: RE: Adder in RN
Date: July 29, 2005 9:35:04 AM PDT
It's interesting that Diggory Venn can be thought to be in league with the devil and have a successful end, and poor Eustacia, who is suspect because she fits the mould, - ("As to our second inquiry, what sort of women more than others are found to be superstitious and infected with witchcraft; it must be said, as was shown in the preceding inquiry, that three general vices appear to have special dominion over wicked women, namely, infidelity, ambition, and lust" ) has to suffer the public humiliation and physical pain of Susan Nunsuch's pin pricking and possibly meet her tragic end because of Susan' "counter-witchcraft": "Susan held the object at arm's length and contemplated it with a satisfaction in which there was no smile. To anybody acquainted with the inhabitants of Egdon Heath the image would have suggested Eustacia Yeobright.
From her workbasket in the window-seat the woman took a paper of pins, of the old long and yellow sort, whose heads were disposed to come off at their first usage. These she began to thrust into the image in all directions, with apparently excruciating energy. Probably as many as fifty were thus inserted, some into the head of the wax model, some into the shoulders, some into the trunk, some upwards through the soles of the feet, till the figure was completely permeated with pins" (356). This seems to confirm that Hardy wants to show the destructive nature of closed minds when they come in contact with an unconventional female.
All of your comments are stirring some interesting thoughts and directions for my thesis.
Thanks,
Debra
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From: Rosemarie.morgan@yale.edu
Subject: RE: Adder in RN
Date: July 29, 2005 7:33:17 PM PDT
Venn isn't "thought of to be in league with the devil" he is the manifestation of devilry -- first in the eyes and minds of the community and second, in the eyes of the narrator.
The problem with Venn is that Victorian moralistic critics deemed him the good guy --for persecuting and punishing the beautiful, wayward Eustacia (Oak receives similar acclaim for hounding Bathsheba).. As you know beautiful women, especially sexually active women, were blamed for men's desires -- (men being too weakminded, poor souls, to be able to resist the absolute wickedness of desirable women. Well, you saw yesterday's posting on witches!).
Victorian attitudes still prevail (read Simon Gatrell).
We should also remember that TH wrote the happy ending for Venn to satisfy public demand. He also devised an alternative ending (the disappearance of Venn) for more discerning readers: things might well be otherwise.
Few artists create a tragic figure out of someone undeserving of heroism. Eustacia has to die (as Socrates, or Antigone or Christ has to die). She suffers, she struggles, she embodies freedom and the breaking of social codes, -- she is heroic. . Venn cannot possibly die. He's a creep. Literally.!
Even beyond fiction nobody is much interested in the death of busybodies. But give them a Princess Diana . . . . . . !
Cheers,
Rosemarie
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From: DDent@mail.MaconState.edu
Subject: RE: Adder in RN
Date: July 30, 2005 6:08:55 AM PDT
Thanks - As usual, your insight is wise and helpful.
Debra
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From: Rosemarie.morgan@yale.edu
Subject: Light Note RE:Witches
Date: July 30, 2005 2:02:39 PM PDT
On a lighter note I was interested to see that the *Da Vinci Code* has some discussion of the persecution of holy women under the Malleus witch hunts.
Cheers,
Rosemarie
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From: Charles.Anesi@wellsfargo.com
Subject: RE: Light Note RE:Witches
Date: July 31, 2005 12:08:46 AM PDT
All kinds of women were persecuted as witches, but again, I can't find anything in the "Malleus Maleficarum" that singles nuns or other holy women out as being more likely than other women to be witches. Someone with the dubious name "Wicasta Lovelace" has taken the time to produce an electronic version of Montague Summers' English translation, which can be found at http://www.malleusmaleficarum.org/ and is searchable. A PDF version can be downloaded from the same site. Part I Question VI, "Why it is that Women are chiefly addicted to Evil Superstitions," can be found at http://www.malleusmaleficarum.org/part_I/mm01_06a.html . Copies of Summers' English translation and Wolfgang Behringer's German translation are readily available from abe.com.
Christopher Mackay of the University of Alberta (http://www.ualberta.ca/~csmackay/) says that he has prepared a new, reliable Latin/English edition that is "now being composited by Cambridge University Press, and dis volentibus will be available in 2007 or 2008." (See http://www.ualberta.ca/~csmackay/Malleus/Malleus.Project.html for details.) According to Mackay "the only translation into English is the fraudulent work of the dilettante (and clerical impostor) Montague Summers. While not entirely inaccurate, this work is often misleading, is written in crabbed pseudo-early modern style, not infrequently guesses (inaccurately) about difficult passages, and often either mangles or totally ignores the many citations of earlier works that are given in the text."
(In fairness to Summers, he was well educated, but eccentric, unwholesome, and probably criminal.)
Chuck Anesi
charles.anesi@wellsfargo.com
office 480-575-3478
cell 612-940-3345
fax 480-575-3519
==========
From: Rosemarie.morgan@yale.edu
Subject: Malleus
Date: July 31, 2005 5:23:25 AM PDT
Chuck-- the "Malleus" wouldn't designate nuns or any others of that ilk. It is an Inquisition Handbook - detailing, among other things, the search procedure for a woman's body. For example, suspects should be examined for a nipple in the armpit which, under the auspices of the witch hunt (and prior to modern medical technology which provides treatment for this condition), was deemed just one sign of demonism. As an ecclesiastical document produced for the ordained worthies of the church the *Malleus* wouldn't dare make such a designation. The history of the millions of women persecuted (yes -- millions) tells a different story and I'll send you some titles as soon as I've cleared some of this work backlog.
Cheers,
Rosemarie
==========
From: patrick@prassociates.co.uk
Subject: RE: Malleus
Date: July 31, 2005 11:04:44 AM PDT
The history of the millions of women persecuted (yes -- millions) tells a different story and I'll send you some titles as soon as I've cleared some of this work backlog.
I wonder, Rosemarie, if Ronald Hutton's 'Triumph of the Moon. A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft' (OUP 1999) will be on your list. Hutton is (or was) Professor of History at Bristol University and his book is a thorough and scholarly research of the emergence of modern paganism. He mentions, in particular, 'The Return of the Native' in respect of TH's use of the word 'pagan'.
Hutton goes in some depth into the issue of the persecution of women as supposed witches. While I appreciate that 'persecution' and 'execution' are not the same thing, he says that between 1428 and 1782 laws against witchcraft resulted in 40,000 to 50,000 executions (not all of women), a figure which he claims to have researched thoroughly from original documents and other evidence and which he says has been accepted by his peers. He points out that he disagrees with Professor Anne Llewellyn Barstow who proposes a figure of 100,000.
Hutton is well aware that others have claimed up to 9 million women were executed for witchcraft in Europe and gives a fascinating history of how this apparently exaggerated figure was reached via a long chain of authors from Hardy's time or earlier until fairly recently and, in particular, from an American organisation called WITCH (Women's International Conspiracy from Hell) formed in 1968.
An interesting passage in Hutton, for example, is in the chapter 'Coming of age': "The women accused [of witchcraft] were virtually never powerful, independent, popular figures who posed any threat to the dominant structure of their society. In most cases they were already poor, marginalized, and anti-social, and where accusations spread they mostly reflected tensions between neighbours in the lower reaches of society. Victims were rarely midwives, who were far more commonly found searching suspects for signs of witchcraft, and although some were healers or cunning folk, the proportion of these was always small ... Accusations of witchcraft were not merely made against women but very often - in some areas mostly - initially made by women, not in the name of male power but because the alleged spells cast by witches most commonly affected those spheres of activity - small children, domestic work and the physical home, the animals of the in-field - which were normally the responsibility of females.
"The traditional paradigm of witch trials as a means by which people in power regulated and indoctrinated their inferiors, which flourished from the eighteenth century to the 1970s, has collapsed almost completely. It is now obvious that the main force in driving on persecution was pressure from common people, who genuinely feared and hated witches and wanted their rulers to act against them in times of social upheaval and economic crisis. The greatest single factor in keeping trials relatively infrequent was the disinclination of those rulers to oblige, so that hunts flourished not where states were larger and more powerful, but where they were smallest and most fragmented, and had a decentralised system of justice which put magiustrates most directly in contact with the populace ... etc.
I have often wondered how much TH knew and had read about all the developments in this field that were taking place in the late 19th C. I suspect more than is suggested by what he wrote though, as this thread has illustrated, there seem to be many hints and veiled allusions in his works.
Patrick Roper
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From: Charles.Anesi@wellsfargo.com
Subject: RE: Malleus
Date: July 31, 2005 12:03:26 PM PDT
Rosemary, I was just responding to your earlier remark "Hardy he might also have been aware that witches and nuns go by the same word in Celtic. I need to brush up on the Maleficarum but as far as I recall the links made by the Church Inquisitors which led to the burning of conventual women (presumed witches) was not uncommon." I took this to mean that you thought the Malleus stated that conventual women in general or nuns in particular were especially likely to engage in witchcraft, and was explaining that it does not.
The practice of looking for distinctive marks, including the "witch's teat", was an English obsession and postdates the Malleus. Though the Malleus calls for careful search of the accused, it does so for other reasons:
"The third precaution to be observed in this tenth action is that the hair should be shaved from every part of her body. The reason for this is the same as that for stripping her of her clothes, which we have already mentioned; for in order to preserve their power of silence they are in the habit of hiding some superstitious object in their clothes or in their hair, or even in the most secret parts of the their bodies which must not be named." (Part III Second Head Queston IV)
There are, in fact, some pretty good due process guarantees in the Malleus.
Chuck Anesi
charles.anesi@wellsfargo.com
office 480-575-3478
cell 612-940-3345
fax 480-575-3519
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From: Rosemarie.morgan@yale.edu
Subject: RE: Malleus
Date: July 31, 2005 12:56:42 PM PDT
Yes-- I agree with you Patrick. My sense is that TH was well-informed about these issues-- although it would be hard to be as well informed as you are given that the most searching studies have been made since his time and not before. How well RN fits into all your points! I've never had the chance to study the MS -- it would be interesting to make an in-depth study of TH's revisions to Eustacia's "witch" qualities. John Paterson's book is the only work on the MS I've seen and it is just plain wacky (he might just as well have written the *Malleus*).
I haven't had time to go back to that influential work but I did follow Chuck's url very briefly and thought that unintiated Forum readers might be amused by this. At trial, the suspect might well be led into the court walking backwards. This was to prevent her having eye contact with the judge. It was believed that a "witch" could change the judge's mind in her favour if she gazed on him!
I wonder what folks will be laughing about (concerning our society) a few hundred years from now.
Thank you Patrick, a most informative posting. I'll watch out for the Hutton ( I don't know whether complete data/numbers will ever be available when delving back that far into history -- look at the amount of unsolved mysteries in our own day!)
Cheers,
Rosemarie
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From: Rosemarie.morgan@yale.edu
Subject: RE: Malleus
Date: July 31, 2005 1:12:58 PM PDT
The mind boggles-- I wonder how many naked women (or private parts) the clergy enjoyed!
Unlike you, Chuck , I don't believe for one moment that the *Malleus* guidelines were followed to the letter.. "Interpretation" is all ( the bible is a good example) as is the fact that many, many inquisitors and their practitioners would never have even set eyes on the *Malleus* in the first place but would be going by general consensus and hearsay. The recommendation for "torture" is a good example. There are no specifications, boundaries, limits, or guidelines. Just that torture is okay. Send that out to the the bullies, the sadists, the superstitious, the frightened, the self-righteous --
Yes-- I am with you on the repercussions of the *Malleus* It is how it was interpreted, applied and handed down through generation which offers insight into its socio-historical implications. Its own records are weak and anecdotal but its legacy is profound.
Rosemarie
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From: Charles.Anesi@wellsfargo.com
Subject: RE: Malleus
Date: July 31, 2005 4:04:25 PM PDT
To summarize, I was trying to make clear that the Malleus Maleficarum does not contain many of the things commonly credited to it. As a sanity check I asked Prof. Mackay about the devil's mark. He confirmed that the MM is devoid of references to it.
Mackay also noted that Institoris, in a handbook for witch hunting he wrote for the city of Nuremburg in 1491, advocated "logical inference" instead of torture and derided "diviners" who employed sorcery to detect witches. Though since torture was standard operating procedure in legal systems derived from the Roman Law, which applied to most of Europe and of course the Church, it was certainly used in cases of witchcraft as in ordinary criminal cases.
Chuck Anesi
charles.anesi@wellsfargo.com
office 480-575-3478
cell 612-940-3345
fax 480-575-3519
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From: Rosemarie.morgan@yale.edu
Subject: RE: Malleus
Date: July 31, 2005 6:56:37 PM PDT
Thanks Chuck
I take your point about the devil's mark. You must surely be right. As I have said before, everything is open to interpretation. The crimes committed in the name of Christianity are not customarily ordained by Christ, either. The *Malleus* is tricky to read and even trickier to interpret. and nothing has so far persuaded me that the procedures for persecution and execution, by torture or otherwise, of countless thousands of "witches" could even begin to encompass words such as "due process" or, mutatis mutandis,"sanity." I would apply the same rationale to the holocaust.
But this is too far from Hardy, at this point. Let's continue off list, if needs be.
Best wishes,
Rosemarie
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