WITCHCRAFT IN BAVARIA. 37 



the beginning tlie satellite of Satan, tlie arch-seducer, and his facile 

 instrument in bringing sin into the world with all its woe. This 

 notion often croj)s out where one would least expect it, as, for ex- 

 ample, in Albrecht Diirer's engraving of four naked women, bear- 

 ing the date 1491 and the enigmatical letters O. G. H., which 

 probably mean Odium Generis Humani. The female figures 

 doubtless represent witches. Patristic and scholastic writers from 

 Chrysostom to Thomas Aquinas vie with each other in their de- 

 nunciations of woman, and the authors of the Malleus Maleficarum 

 fairly overwhelm the reader with passages from these sources in 

 proof of her flagitiousness. They also derive femina from fe and 

 minus, signifying a creature of little faith. To this astounding 

 etymology, which from the use of the word fe (faith) would seem 

 to be of Spanish origin, they add an equally conclusive argument 

 from physiology, declaring that " only an imperfect animal could 

 have been formed out of a crooked rib." How could a being with 

 such an origin be straightforward or exert any other than a per- 

 verting influence upon man, and, as Milton says, " by her charms 

 draw him awry " ? On the other hand, we are seriously assured 

 that God's selection of man, in distinction from woman, as the form 

 of his earthly incarnation, has tended to preserve the male portion 

 of the human race from satanic influences and especially from " the 

 scourge of sorcery." " Praise be to the Most High for this gracious 

 immunity! " exclaim these devout Dominicans. It is hardly con- 

 ceivable that such wretched twaddle, which would have been silly 

 enough if uttered in jest, should have been put forth by Christian 

 metaphysicians and moralists in justification of barbarous cruelty in- 

 flicted for centuries upon the most helpless members of society. 

 Perhaps the queerest feature of this foolish and fanatical crusade 

 against woman is that it should have been preached by the ardent 

 adherents of a Mariolatrous religion, in which the adoration of the 

 Virgin Mother had already superseded the worship of her divine 

 Son. 



Hartlieb, to whose book we have just referred, was a physician, 

 humanist, diplomatist, a man of the world with knowledge and 

 experience gained by travel, well versed in literature and with a 

 scientific turn of mind, and yet this representative of the highest 

 culture of his time firmly believed in the reality of witchcraft and 

 attributed it to the direct agency of the devil. He seems to have 

 been especially interested in the art by which old hags produced 

 hailstorms and showers of rain, and took every opportunity to get 

 at the secret of it. In 1446, while he was on a mission from the 

 Bavarian duke to the Count Palatine at Heidelberg, a notorious 

 sorceress had been arrested and cast into prison. As a special favor 



