Valais witch trials

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The Valais witch trials consisted of a witch hunt including a series of witch trials which took place in the Duchy of Savoy in today's southeastern France and Switzerland between 1428 and 1447. It can be considered as the first series of witch trials in Europe, fifty years before the starting point of European witch trials. The victims were also accused of being werewolves. The persecutions started in French-speaking Valais and spread to German-speaking Valais (Wallis) and the wallyes in both the French and German-speaking Alps. The number of the victims of the persecutions is unknown; there were at least c. 367 of both genders.

1 Background
2 Quotations of the trials
3 The procedure
4 Accusations
5 The executions
6 References

[edit] Background

In 1428, the duchy of Savoy had recently been tormented by a civil war-like state in 1415-1419 betwen the clans of the nobility, where people had been severed between the sides for and against the family Raron, which other noble clans had rebelled against, and the society was in a state of great tension.

On 7 August 1428, the delegates from seven districts in Valais demanded that the authorities should initiate an investigation against suspected witches and sorcerers unknown. Everyone pointed out as sorcerers by more than three people was to be arrested. If they confessed, they were to be burned at the stake as heretics, and if they did not confess, they would be tortured until they did so. Also, those pointed out by more than two of the judged sorcerers were to be arrested.

The whole thing started in Val d'Anniveres and Val d'Hérens in southern French-speaking Valais and spread north to the German-speaking Valais (Wallis). Within one and a half years, between one and two hundred people had been burned to death. The hysteria had by then spread to the French and Swiss Alps, from St. Bernhard in Savoy to Briançon in Dauphiné. From these territories, it then spread over the valleys in Durance, Argentière, Freissiniere and Valpute, resulting in one hundred and ten women and fifty seven men having been tortured or burned to death, until the persecutions stopped in 1447.

The witch trials of Valais are badly documented; the best source is the contemporary chronicles made by the clerk of the court, Johannes Fründ, (1400-1469), an eyewitness to the events. His document, however, was made in the middle of the trials (in c. 1430, seventeen years before they were finished), and it therefore lacks a complete coverage.

[edit] Quotations of the trials

The following are citations from the chronicles of Johannes Fründ:

" In the year which was counted one thousand and four hundred and thereafter the twenty eight year after the birth of Christ, the bishopric of Wallis saw the uprising of evil, murder and heresy among witches and sorcerers, among women as well as men, known by the name sortilegi in Latin, and they were found first in two valleys in Wallis..."

" ...and an aboundence of them have confessed to great evil and many murders and heretic beliefs and an aboundence of evil things, which they have performed, such things which are in Latin known as sortilegia, and of which many are stated in this document; however, a lot of it is not mentioned, so that no one may be corrupted. One should consider, that thess people, be they male or female, which are guilty of these things and and this evil whih they have peformed, that they have larned this from the evil spirit..."

"They were even those who killed there own children and fired and cooked them and took them to their company to eat them, and carried mischeaf and other things to church, so that everyone believed it to be children,. But they had left their children at home and ate them later, when they so choosed."

" There have also ben many of them, guilty of such evil, so great a heresy and so many murders, that they whith this evil, heresy and magic did not tell any of the priest, so that it may not be stopped. And they were many of these people, who could speak more when they had ben apprehended than other uneducated people, and who called upon God and his saints more than others. This they did so that they would be considered innocent. And some of them did not confess at all; some let themselwes be tormented and tortured to death, rather than confess or say anything...."

"...and still they were many testemonies against them and even more had raported them as guilty, which everyone could give proof of, and they were thought bewitched so they would not be able to point out the other witches. And no matter how severly they were questioned, during more and more torture, many would no confess but let themsewles be tortured so they died form it, and they were all the same judged and burned, some alive and some dead. "

" And they had ben so many, that they claimed that if they had ben able to rule but one year more, they could have established a court among themselwes; and the evil spirit lead them to understand that they would be so strong that they need not fear no rule nor any courts and that they would establish a court to take control over Christianity ..."

"...for they confessed that they condemned over seven hundred people, of which over two hundred have ben burned in one of a half year; they are still sentenced and burned every day, when you are able to arrest them."

[edit] The procedure

People with a good reputation pointed out by a condemned were not arrested directly but first investigated discreetly. However, those pointed out by several condemned were arrested immediately. Some confessed directly; others refused and were described as very verbal in their defense. Only very few of the names are known, but they were all peasants, though some of them were described as well educated and learned.

With the exception of the trials in Dauphiné, where most accused were female, there were about as many male as female among the accused. They are not considered to have been old, as they managed to withstand torture long before they died. People were arrested daily.

[edit] Accusations

Flying: To have smeared in chairs, flying through the air and plundering wine cellars.
Lycanthropy: To have killed cattle in the shapes of werewolves.
Invisibility: To have made themselwes invisible with herbs.
To have cured sickness and paralysis caused by sorcery by giving it to someone else.
Cannibalism: To have abducted and eaten children.
Curses.
To have met and learned magic from Satan.
Conspiracy: To have planned depraving Christianity of its power over humanity.

The Devil was to have come to sinners and promised to teach them magic if they renounced Christianity and stopped going to church and confession; they paid him taxes and he did not demand any worshipping.

[edit] The executions

The condemned was tied upon a ladder with a wooden crucifix in their arms and a bag of gunpowder around their neck. The ladder was then tipped into the burning stake. Some were instead decapitated before they were burned. Many were tortured to death but their bodies were burned at the stake nonetheless.

The property of the executed was given to their family only if they could swear to have been unaware of the sorcery; otherwise it went to the nobility, who paid for the executions of their vassals. When Fründ wrote his document in 1430, 100 or 200 people had been executed, but the persecutions were to continue until 1447, and it is hard to know the exact amount of people who were killed by the time the persecutions ended. Unlike later with trials, about as many men as women are believed to have been killed.