I	THE NIGHT BATTLES













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On 21 March 1575, in the monastery of San Francesco di Cividale in the Friuli, there appeared before the vicar general, Monsignor [acopo Maracco, and Fra Giulio d' Assisi of the Order of the Minor Conventuals, inquisitor in the dioceses of Aquileia and Concordia, a witness, Don Bartolomeo Sgabarizza, who was a priest in the neighbouring village of Brazzano.' He reported a strange occurrence of the week before. He had heard from a miller of Brazzano, a certain Pietro Rotaro, whose son was dying from a mysterious ailment, that in an adjacent village, Iassico, there lived a man named Paolo Gasparutto who cured bewitched people and said that 'he roamed about at night with witches and goblins'. 2 His curiosity aroused, the priest, Sgabarizza, had summoned the fellow. Gasparutto admitted that he had told the father of the sick child that 'this little boy had been possessed by witches, but at the time of the witchery, the vagabonds were about and they snatched him from the witches' hands, and if they had not done so he would have died.' And afterwards he had given the parent a secret charm which could cure the boy. Pressed by Sgabarizza's questioning, Gasparutto said that 'on Thursdays during the Ember Days of the year they were forced to go with these witches to many places, such as Cormons, in front of the church at Iassico, and even into the countryside about Verona,' where 'they fought, played, leaped about, and rode various animals, and did different things among themselves; and ... the women beat the men who were with them with sorghum stalks, while the men had only bunches of fennel. '3


Disconcerted by these strange tales, the good priest immediately went to Cividale to. consult with the inquisitor and the patriarch's vicar; and chancing upon Gasparutto again, conducted him to the
 

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monastery of San Francesco. In the presence of the father inquisitor, Gasparutto readily confirmed his account and furnished new details about the mysterious nocturnal meetings: 'when the witches, warlocks, and vagabonds return from these games all hot and tired, as they pass in front of houses, when they find clear, clean water in pails they drink it, if not they also go into the cellars and overturn all the wine'; therefore, warned Gasparutto, addressing Sgabarizza, one must always have clean water on hand in the house. And since the priest did not believe him, Gasparutto offered to include him, along with the father inquisitor, in the mysterious gatherings: there were to be two before Easter, and 'having promised, one was then obliged to go.' And he declared that there were others who attended these reunions at Brazzano, lassico, Cormons, Gorizia, and Cividale, but their names could not be revealed, because 'he had been badly beaten by the witches for having spoken about these things.' Trying confusedly to make some sense out of Gasparutto's tales, Sgabarizza concluded that there existed, or so it appeared, witches like Gasparutto himself, 'who are good, called vagabonds and in their own words benandanti ... who prevent evil' while other witches 'commit it'."

A few days went by. On 7 April, the priest of Brazzano reappeared before the Holy Office and reported that he had gone to lassico to say Mass the Monday after Easter, and that he had run into Gasparutto there. After the Mass, as was customary, the priest had gone to a feast prepared in his honour. 'During the meal,' said Sgabarizza, 'I spoke about matters appropriate to the season, that is, guarding against sin and pursuing good and holy works.' But Gasparutto, who was present in his capacity as commissario (he must have been well-off: elsewhere there is a possible reference to his servants"), interrupted him to describe exploits of the usual company the night before: 'They crossed several great bodies of water in a boat, and. . . at the river Iudri" one of his companions became afraid because a fierce wind had come up, and the waters were rough, and he remained behind the others ... ; and ... they were in the countryside not far away, and they jousted and busied themselves with their usual pastimes.' The priest, his curiosity greatly aroused, had not been able to contain himself: 'I brought him home with me, and treated him kindly so as to draw other details out of him, if I could.' But this was to no avail."


The substance of Sgabarizza's depositions was confirmed by Pietro Rotaro, father of the child treated, though in vain, by Paolo Gasparotto. When Rotaro suspected that his son had been bewitched, he had appealed to Paolo, since the latter 'is known to go about with
 

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these witches and to be one of the benandanti'. 8 Also Gasparutto had talked at length with him about the nocturnal gatherings:"

'Sometimes they go out to one country region and sometimes to another, perhaps to Gradisca or even as far away as Verona, and they appear together jousting and playing games; and ... the men and women who are the evil-doers carry and use the sorghum stalks which grow in the fields, and the men and women who are benandanti use fennel stalks; and they go now one day and now another, but always on Thursdays, and ...

when they make their great displays they go to the biggest farms, and they have days fixed for this; and when the warlocks and witches setout it is to do evil, and they must be pursued by the benandanti to thwart them, and also to stop them from entering the houses, because if they do not find clear water in the pails they go into the cellars and spoil the wine with certain things, throwing filth in the bungholes.'

At the judges' request, Rotaro added details about the way Gasparutto had said he went to these gatherings, namely, as we shall see later on, 'in spirit', and astride such animals as hares, cats, and so on. Rotaro also had heard it said that even at Cividale there was one of these 'witches', a public crier named Battista Moduco, who, talking to friends in the square, had declared that he was a benandante and that he went forth at night, 'especially Thursdays'. At his point Troiano de'Attimis, a noble ofCividale, was called to testify. He confirmed that he had learned from his brother-in-law, chatting in the piazza, that 'some of these witches were in Brazzano, and that there was one even in Cividale, not far from us.' Then Troiano had noticed Battista Moduco nearby and had asked him:'?

'And you, are you one of those witches?' He told me that he is a benandante, and that at night, especially on Thursdays, he goes with the others, and they congregate in certain places to perform marriages, to dance and eat and drink; and on their way home the evil-doers go into the cellars to drink, and then urinate in the casks. If the benandanti did not go along the wine would be spilt. And he told other tall tales like these which I did not believe, and so I did not question him further.'

The vicar general, Maracco, and the inquisitor, Giulio d' Assisi, must have agreed with the scornful conclusion of the nobleman of Cividale; tall tales and nothing more. After this deposition, in fact, the interrogations set in motion by Gasparutto's revelations were halted. They were to begin again five years later, at the initiative, as we shall see, of another inquisitor.
 








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Vague and indirect as this evidence may be, it does none the less allow us to state with assurance that there did in fact exist in the area around Cividale, in the second half of the sixteenth century, a complex of beliefs (not limited to an individual, private sphere), that were otherwise unrecorded, and were strangely blended with well-known traditions. The witches and warlocks who congregated on Thursday nights to give themselves over to 'dancing', 'games', 'marriages', and banquets, instantly evoke the image of the sabbat - the sabbat which demonologists had miriutely described and codified, and that inquisitors had condemned at least from the mid-fifteenth century." And yet there are obvious differences between the gatherings described by the benandanti and the traditional popular image of the diabolical sabbat. It appears that in the former, homage was not paid to the devil (in fact, there was no reference at all to his presence), there was no abjuration of the faith, trampling of crucifixes, or defilement of sacraments." The essence of these gatherings was an obscure rite: witches and warlocks armed with sorghum stalks jousting and battling with benandanti armed with fennel stalks.

Who were these benandanti? On the one hand they declared that they were opposed to witches and warlocks, and their evil designs, and that they healed the victims of injurious deeds by witches; on the other, like their presumed adversaries, they attended mysterious nocturnal reunions (about which they could not utter a word under pain of being beaten) riding hares, cats, and other animals. This ambiguity was reflected even in the language. The notion of the profound difference, even real antagonism, between witches and warlocks (that is 'men and women who commit evil') and 'men and women benandanti', seems in fact to have been difficult to grasp even at the popular level. Thus, a country priest like Sgabarizza (who at first, significantly, used a rough translation for what he considered a strange word, 'vagabonds and in their language benandanti') and the miller Pietro Rotaro spoke of 'benandanti witches' - where the adjective gained meaning only when linked to a noun already firmly established. The benandanti were witches: but 'good' witches, Sgabarizza asserted, who tried to protect children or provisions in homes from the perfidy of the evil witches. Right from the start, therefore, the benandanti appear to us in the form of a contradiction which subsequently influences profoundly the course of their existence.
 





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Five years later, on 27 June 1580, a new inquisitor, Fra Felice da Montefalco,13 revived the case left unfinished by his predecessor and ordered one of the two benandanti, Paolo Gasparutto, to appear before him. Gasparutto declared that he did not know why he had been summoned. He had been going to confession and receiving communion from his parish priest annually; he had never heard it said that at Iassico 'there is anyone who is a Lutheran and leads an evil life.?" When Fra Felice asked if he knew anyone who was a witch or a benandante, Gasparutto replied in the negative. And then" he suddenly exploded with laughter: 'Father, no, I really do not know. . . I am not a benandante, that is not my calling.' Then the inquisitor bombarded him with questions: had he ever tried to cure the son of Pietro Rotaro? Rotaro called me, Gasparutto replied, but I told him I knew nothing about such things and I could not help him. Had he ever spoken about benandanti with the previous inquisitor and with the priest of Iassico? At first Gasparutto denied this: later he admitted, with great mirth, that he had said he dreamed of fighting witches. But in the face of incessant questioning by the inquisitor, who reminded him of details from conversations held five years before, he repeated his denials, between peals of laughter. The friar finally asked: 'Why do you laugh so much?' Unexpectedly Gasparotto replied: 'Because these are not things to inquire about, because they are against the will of God. '15 The inquisitor, more and more baffled, persisted: 'Why is it against God's will to ask about these things?' The benandante now realized that he had gone too far: 'Because you are asking about things that I know nothing about,' he replied, and resumed his denials. The questions continued: had he ever spoken of nocturnal battles with witches, had he ever invited Sgabarizza and the inquisitor to these gatherings? His eyes shut, Gasparutto obstinately insisted that he remembered none of this. After Fra Felice recalled for him his descriptions of witches and benandanti returning exhausted from their games, and how, when they did not find water in the houses, they went into cellars, 'urinating and spoiling the wine', Gasparutto exclaimed with mocking laughter, 'Oh, what a world.' But nothing could budge him from his silence and in vain did Fra Felice promise him pardon and mercy if he would only tell the truth. At this point the interrogation ceased and Gasparutto was imprisoned.
 






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The same day the other benandante, the public crier Battista Moduco, nicknamed Gamba Secura was also interrogated. Born at Trivignano, he had lived in Cividale for the previous thirty years. He too declared that he had gone to confession and taken communion regularly, and that he did not know any heretics. But when he was asked about witches and benandanti, he quietly replied: 'Of witches I do not know if there are any; and of benandanti I do not know of any others besides myself.?" Fra Felice immediately inquired, 'what does this word "benandante" mean?' But Moduco seemed to have regretted his hasty reply and tried to tum the matter into a joke: 'Benandanti I call those who pay me well, I go willingly.' Nevertheless, he ended up admitting that he had told several people he was a benandante, and added: 'I cannot speak about the others because I do not want to go against divine will.' (We should note at this point that there is no evidence that Moduco and Gasparutto knew each other, or had even met.) Moduco did not hesitate to say of himself:

'I am a benandante because I go with the others to fight four times a year, that is during the Ember Days, at night; I go invisibly in spirit and the body remains behind; we go forth in the service of Christ, and the witches of the devil; we fight each other, we with bundles of fennel and they with sorghum stalks.'

It is not difficult to imagine the inquisitor's bewilderment over these benandanti who in so many ways themselves resembled the very witches against whom they acted as defenders of Christ's faith. But Moduco had not yet finished: 'And if we are the victors, that year there is abundance, but if we lose there is famine.' Later he clarified this:"

'In the fighting that we do, one time we fight over the wheat and all the other grains, another time over the livestock, and at other times over the vineyards. And so, on four occasions we fight over all the fruits of the earth and for those things won by the benandanti that year there is abundance.'

Thus, at the core of the nocturnal gatherings of the benandanti we see a fertility rite emerging that is precisely patterned on the principal events of the agricultural year.

Moduco added that he had not belonged to the company of the benandanti for more than eight years: 'One enters at the age of twenty, and is freed at forty, if he so wishes.' Members of this 'company' are all those who 'are born with the caul ... and when they reach the age of twenty they are summoned by means of a drum the same as soldiers, and they are obliged to respond.' Fra Felice interrupted, trying to put
 

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difficulties in the way of the benandante: 'How can it be that we know so many gentlemen who are born with the caul, 'and nevertheless are not vagabonds?' (We can see that the friar, almost as if to keep his distance, was trying not to use the popular term which was foreign to him.) But Moduco stood his ground: 'I am saying everybody born with the caul must go.' All this seemed incredible to the inquisitor, who insisted on knowing the truth about entry into this 'profession'; and Moduco replied simply, 'nothing else happens, except that the spirit leaves the body and goes wandering.'

The benandante's replies must have aroused serious suspicions in the mind of Fra Felice, and he asked: 'Who is it that comes to summon you, God, an angel, a man, or a devil?' 'He is a man just like us,' Moduco informed him, 'who is placed above us all and beats a drum, and calls us.' And in response to another question, he added: 'We are a great multitude, and at times we are five-thousand and more

... some who belong to the village know one another, and others do not.' The inquisitor would not give up: 'Who placed that being above you?' 'I do not know,' said Moduco, 'but we believe that he is sent by God, because we fight for the faith of Christ.' As for the captain, 'He is head of the company until he reaches the age of forty, or until he renounces it; ... he's from Cologne ... , a man of twenty-eight, very tall, red-bearded, pale complexioned, of noble birth, and he has a wife'; his insignia was white, 'the flag, that is the crosspiece that he carries above him, is black.' And he added: 'Our standard bearer carries a banner of white silk stuff, gilded, with a lion, , while'the banner of the witches is of red silk with four black devils, gilded'; and their captain has 'a black beard; he is big and tall, of the German nation': they go to do battle in various places, in the region of Azzano, near Cuniano, and sometimes 'on German soil, in certain fields near Cirghinis'.

But the inquisitor demanded still more information, and above all, the names of the other benandanti. Moduco refused: 'I would be beaten by the entire company,' and he even declined to reveal the names of the witches.P 'If you say that you fight for God, I want you to tell me the names of these witches,' Fra Felice insisted. But Moduco was stubborn. He decla.red that he could not accuse anyone 'whether he be friend or foe ... because we have a lifelong edict not to reveal secrets about one side or the other.... This commandment was made by the

captains of each side, whom we are obliged to obey.' Only after another of the friar's objections (This is just an excuse; since you assert that you are no longer one of them, you cannot be obliged to obey them: so tell me who these witches are') did Moduco finally yield and furnish two names, one of which was that of a woman who had supposedly
 

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deprived livestock of their milk. Moduco's interrogation ended here; evidently his replies had not put him in such a bad light in the eyes of the Inquisition, since Fra Felice let him go.





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On 28 June, Paolo Gasparotto was interrogated a second time. One day's imprisonment had convinced him of the futility of persisting in his denials. He admitted entering the company of the benandanti at the age of twenty-eight, summoned by the captain of the benandanti of Verona, of having remained in it for ten years, and of having abandoned it four years previously. 19 'Why,' the inquisitor asked, 'did you not tell me this yesterday?' Gasparutto replied: 'Because I was afraid of the witches, who would have attacked me in bed and killed me.' But to the friar's next question, 'The. first time that you went did you know that you were going with benandanti?' he responded at length: 'Yes, father, because I had been warned first by a benandante of Vicenza, Baptista Vicentino by name. . . thirty-five years of age, tall in stature, with a round black beard, well built, a peasant.' Battista had presented himself in 'the month of December, during the Ember season of Christmas, on Thursday about the fourth hour of the night, at first sleep.' And here the motif underlying the rites of the benandanti, which we saw in Moduco's interrogation, re-emerges especially clearly: 'He told me that the captain of the benandanti was summoning me to come out and fight for the crops. And I answered him: 'I do want to come, for the sake of the crops." ,

Fra Felice interrupted: 'If you were asleep, how did you answer him and how did you hear his voice?' Gasparutto explained:

'My spirit replied to him,' and he added that it was his spirit that went forth, 'and ifby chance while we are out someone should come with a light and look for a long time at the body, the spirit would never re-enter it until there was no one left around to see it that night; and if the body, seeming to be dead, should be buried, the spirit would have to wander around the world until the hour fixed for that body to die.'

The inquisitor then asked him if he had known Battista Vicentino prior to his appearance that night. 'No, father,' Gasparutto replied, unperturbed, 'but they know who is a benandante.' 'How do they know who is a benandante?' 'The captain of the benandanti knows it. '20
 


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Here Gasparutto began to describe (with only a few slight differences from Moduco's account) the company of the benandanti to which he belonged: 'We are only six ... we fight with viburnum branches, that is, with the staff which we carry behind the crosses in the processions of the Rogation days; and we have a banner of white silk, all gilded, and the witches have one that is yellow, with four devils on it. '21 He added that they went to do battle in the country around Verona and Gradisca and, after an interruption by the inquisitor ('how do you know where you are supposed to go?'), he explained that 'during the Ember Days preceding, the benandanti and the witches challenge each other, and they name the place.' Then, to the friar, who had asked him if he had ever promised to take anyone to these 'games', he replied immediately, almost with annoyance: 'Yes, the last father inquisitor; and if he had come along, you would not be questioning me now.' Their captain was 'a person from Verona, I do not know his name, and I believe that he is a peasant of average height, a plump man with a red beard, about thirty years old'; Gasparutto did not know how he had become captain.

Gasparuttos story, like Moduco's, ended with the accusation of two witches - one from Gorizia, the other from the village of Chiana, near Capodistria. The inquisitor seemed satisfied and freed Gasparutto, ordering him to reappear within twenty days, this time not in Cividale but in Udine, at the monastery of San Francesco.





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The proceedings described above took place on 28 June. On 24 September the inquisitor ordered that Gasparutto, who had not kept the appointment at Udine, (he later tried to excuse himself, claiming that he had been ill) be brought there, and had him incarcerated. Two days later the questioning of the benandante resumed.

Thus far Moduco's and Gasparutto's accounts match almost entirely. But now a difference appeared. Gasparutto modified his confession on one key point by introducing a new element: 'I have come to think that I should tell the truth,' he declared at the beginning of the interrogation. The inquisitor restated a question which was intended to undermine the most important theological point in his confession: 'Who led you to enter the company of these benandanti?' To this Gasparotto replied unexpectedly: 'The angel of God ... at
 

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night, in my house, perhaps during the fourth hour of the night, at first sleep . . . an angel appeared before me, all made of gold, like those on altars, and he called me, and my spirit went out. . . . He called me by name, saying: "Paolo, I will send you forth as a benandante and you will have to fight for the crops." I answered him: "I will go, I am obedient." '22

How are we to explain this change? At first glance it would seem reasonable to suppose that, faced by the prolongation of the interrogations and the renewed imprisonment, Gasparutto might try to extricate himself from the clutches of the Inquisition by placing. greater weight on the Christian motivation of his 'profession'. Perhaps he thought he could do this by introducing the theme of an angel, not realizing that he was thereby aggravating his own situation. But two points should be kept in mind: the detail of the angel who participated in the meetings of the benandanti (to whom Gasparutto referred) and who will reappear, if only briefly, in two later trials of 1618-19, and 1621-23 and the fact that after he was led back to prison, Gasparotto mentioned the angel to Moduco. This undercuts the hypothesis that it was a spontaneous invention he concocted for his defence. All in all, it makes sense to suppose that in his first confession Gasparutto had kept silent about the appearance of the angel precisely because he discerned its intrinsic danger.

Gasparutto had barely finished speaking about the apparition of the angel 'all made of gold' when the inquisitor broke in with an abrupt insinuation: 'What did he promise you, women, food, dancing, and what else?' Gasparutto's allusion to the angel was all that was needed to convince Fra Felice of the basically diabolical character of the benandanti's 'games' and of their identity with the sabbat. Gasparutto vehemently denied this, and defended himself by shifting the accusation to the enemy, the witches: 'He did not promise me anything, but those others do dance and leap about, and I saw them because we fought them.' Now the inquisitor turned to another key point in Gasparotto's story: 'Where did your spirit go when the angel summoned you?' 'It came out because in the body it cannot speak,' Gasparutto replied. The exchanges now came in rapid succession: 'Who told you that your spirit had to come out if it was to speak with the angel?' 'The angel himself told me.' 'How many times did you see this angel?' 'Every time that I went, because he always came with me,' and a little later he added: 'He stays in person by our banner.?"

Thus far we have had what amounts to a monologue on Gasparotto's part, interrupted only by the inquisitor's requests for clarification. As long as the benandanti's tales of their nocturnal 'games'
 

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were merely startling facts, even though silently suspect, but at least not out of line with traditional demonological schemes, Fra Felice had maintained a passive attitude of mild astonishment and detached curiosity. But with the opening that Gasparutto had suddenly provided, the technique of the interrogation changed, becoming openly

.suggestive. The inquisitor now began in earnest to try and make the benandante's confessions conform to the existing model - the sabbat.

First of all he subtly endowed the figure. of the angel with demonic attributes: 'When he appears before you or takes his leave, does this angel frighten you?' 'He never frightens us, but when the company breaks up, he gives a benediction,' Gasparutto stubbornly answered. 'Does not this angel ask to be adored?' 'Yes, we adore him just as we adore our Lord Jesus Christ in church.' At this point Fra Felice changed the subject: 'Does this angel conduct you where that other one is seated on that beautiful throne?' In Gasparutto's tale, needless to say, there had been no mention of devils or thrones. This time too the reply was prompt and tinged with exasperation: 'But he is not of our company, God forbid that we should get involved with that false enemy! . . . It is the witches that have the beautiful thrones.' The inquisitor persisted: 'Did you ever see witches by that beautiful throne?' And Gasparutto, gesturing with his arms, sensing that he had been caught in the inquisitor's trap: 'No sir, we did nothing but fight!' Fra Felice was implacable: 'Which is the more beautiful angel, yours or the one on the beautiful throne?' And Gasparutto, contradicting himself in his desperation: 'Didn't I tell you that I have not seen those thrones? ... Our angel is beautiful and white; theirs is black and is the devil. '25







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By now the trial was riearing its conclusion. On the whole, the inquisitor had managed' to adapt Gasparutto's testimony to his own notions and theological preconceptions: the meetings of the benandanti and of the witches were nothing but the sabbat, and the 'company' of the benandanti which falsely proclaimed that it enjoyed divine protection and fought under the guidance and aegis of an angel was diabolical. Under the pressure of the inquisitor's questioning Gasparutto's self-assurance seemed to weaken, as if the reality of his beliefs had suddenly changed and was slipping out of his grasp. A
 


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day or two later, once more before Fra Felice, he declared: 'I believe that the apparition of that angel was really the devil tempting me, since you have told me that he can transform himself into an angel.' The same thing happened to Moduco in his interrogation of 2 October: 'Ever since I heard from that friend of mine who is in prison that an angel appeared to him, I have come to think that this is a diabolical thing, because our Lord God does not send angels to lead spirits out of bodies, but only to provide them with good inspiration.?" Were these retractions sincere? It is impossible to reply with certainty. What counts is that the events in this trial- the crisis of beliefs evidenced by the two benandanti, their incorporation, at the inquisitor's insistence, into the latter's mental and theological world - epitomised and anticipated the general evolution of the cult that was to define itself, little by little, over more than half a century.

But ancient beliefs are not so easily dispelled. Moduco had asserted that he was now convinced of the diabolical nature of his apparitions. But even though he may have been wary of expressing it, he could not help reaffirming what was for him an incontestable reality:"

I A certain invisible thing appeared to me in my sleep which had the form of a man, and I thought I was asleep but I was not, and it seemed to me that he was from Trivigniano, and because I had about my neck that caul with which I was born, I thought I heard him say "you must come with me because you have something of mine"; and so I told him that if I had to go, I would, but that I did not want to depart from God; and since he said this was God's work, I went at age twenty-two, or twenty-three.'

As for the 'caul' which he had already stated was a distinctive mark of the benandanti, Moduco asserted that he had always worn it about his neck; then, after losing it, he stopped going forth at night: since 'those who have the caul and do not wear it, do not go out.'

At this point, after a little more skirmishing, Fra Felice suddenly brought the indecisive course of the trial to a halt and took it firmly in hand: 'Did you see what the witches were doing out there?' This was a device, tried successfully with Gasparutto earlier, to compel Moduco to recognize the witches' sabbats in the meetings of the benandanti. And the fact that Moduco had already asserted that witches armed with sorghum stalks fought for the devil" made this misrepresentation easier. But Moduco avoided this trap: 'No sir, except on the Ember Days when we fought against them: but they go forth also on Thursdays. . . the witches always go out on Thursdays to hurt someone, and I do not know if anyone calls them out.' And he added: 'The witches do reverence and pray to their masters who go about with great solemnity in black dress and with chains around their necks, and
 

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who insist on being kneeled to.' The inquisitor's next question took a predictable tum: 'Do you benandanti kneel before your captain?' Moduco replied with martial pride: 'No, sir, we only pay our respects to him with our caps, like soldiers to their captain.' There was one more exchange: 'After they have knelt, do the witches play other games?' 'Sir, this I have not seen because they go hither and yon.' Then Fra Felice could no longer contain himself and exclaimed: 'How could you make yourself believe that these were God's works? Men do not have the power either to render themselves invisible or to lead the spirit away, nor are God's works carried out in secrecy.' It was an impetuous, frontal attack. And Moduco, rather than attempting a defence, offered excuses: 'That one begged me so much, saying, "dear Battista, get up," and it seemed as if I was both sleeping and not sleeping. Since he was older than me, I allowed myself to be persuaded, thinking it was proper.' But he admitted his error: 'Yes, sir, now I do believe that this was a diabolical work, after that other person told me of that angel of his.' However, he could not help insisting on the orthodox, even pious, character of the benandanti's gatherings:"

'The first time I was summoned ... the captain took me by the hand and said "Will you be a good servant?" and I replied, "Yes".... He did not

promise me anything, but did say that I was carrying out one of God's works, and that when I died I would go to paradise. There we did not mention Christ by name, nor the Madonna, nor any saint specifically, nor did I ever see anyone cross himself or make the sign of the cross: but in truth they did talk of God and the saints in general, saying: "May God and the saints be with us," but without naming anyone.'

Suddenly, provoked by yet another of the inquisitor's insinuations, he added: 'While waiting for the company we did not do anything, we neither ate nor drank; but on our way home, I wish I had a scudo for every time we drank in the wine cellars, entering through the cracks, and getting on the casks. We drank with a pipe, as did the witches; but after they had drunk, they pissed in the casks.' Irritated perhaps by such extravagant tales, the inquisitor cut the account short, and reproached the benandante for not having revealed these nocturnal diversions to his confessor. 'Dear sir,' Moduco replied with a mixture of astonishment and resentment, 'have I not told you that simply because I said a couple of things I was beaten terribly, so my sides were all black and blue and also my back and arms? And this is why I never told it to the confessor.'
 







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The interrogations ended with the release of the two benandanti and an injunction to them to reappear whenever they might be summoned by the Holy Office. Because of a jurisdictional conflict between the patriarch's vicar and the commissioner of Cividale, pronouncement of sentence against them was delayed for over a year." In fact, it was not until 26 November 1581 that the inquisitor conveyed to Moduco and Gasparutto the order to appear at the Church of San Francesco in Cividale 'ad audiendam sententiam '.

In the sentences the heresies" contained in the confessions of the two men were listed in detail. Several points were singled out as being particularly worthy of censure: Moduco's statement that whoever was a benandante and fought for the faith against witches would be certain to go to paradise; the idolatry practised by Gasparutto in his adoration of the false angel; and finally, the sin of reticence of which the two became guilty by concealing their nocturnal activities from their confessors." It is noteworthy, however, that in the sentence against Gasparutto, whose indictment was considered more serious because of his allusion to the presence of the ambiguous angel at the meetings of the benandanti, sharper language was used. Thus, it was not said, as in Moduco's case, 'You were with the benandanti,' but rather 'You were with witches whom you called benandanti' ; moreover, 'diabolical arts' were explicitly mentioned. Further, a misconception was introduced into Moduco's sentence in another attempt to equate the diabolical sabbat with the meetings of the benandanti: 'You urged others to come with you ... and to those who came you taught that they must not mention the holy name of God and of the saints, because they would then have had to remain.' According to Sgabarizza, Gasparutto instead had limited himself to saying: 'When we were there, even if we should see some wild dancing, we were to say nothing; otherwise we would have been forced to stay.?" Both were absolved from the more serious form of excommunication to which they were liable as heretics, and condemned to six months imprisonment. Moreover, prayers and penances were imposed which they were to fulfil during appointed days of the year, among which were the Ember Days, so as to obtain from God forgiveness for sins committed at these times. Soon after, the penalties were remitted, on condition that the two benandanti should remain within the city for a fortnight. That same day, after reading of the sentences, they solemnly abjured their errors 'in the presence of a great multitude'. 34
 



14
 
9

As we will see, the picture that emerges from the recitals of the two benandanti would not be fundamentally modified for several decades. In a certain sense, in fact, this evidence is the richest source of information that has come down to us for this first phase of the beliefs being examined here. In this period the benandanti constituted, as we perceive from their confessions, a true and proper sect." organized in military fashion about a leader and linked by a bond of secrecy - a relatively weak bond which the benandanti were continually breaking, either out of loquacity or naive boastfulness. The members of this sect (who were dispersed throughout the Friuli, and especially in the eastern sections) were principally united by a common element, that of having been born with the caul, in other words, wrapped in the amniotic membrane.

According to several bits of contemporary evidence, most of it emanating from the Friuli, various superstitions were attached to this object, the 'caul', or placenta: it was supposed to protect soldiers from blows, cause the enemy to withdraw, and even help lawyers to win their cases." Certainly, it was an object endowed with magical powers. To increase these powers Masses were even celebrated over it, as we know from a superstitious practice already in vogue in the time of San Bernardino, who condemned it in one of his sermons." Battista Moduco asserted that he had been given the caul with which he was born by his own mother, together with the warning that it should always be worn. Once, when he was in Rome, Moduco had a monk celebrate more than thirty Masses over this caul which had been baptized with him. In his turn Gasparutto confessed: 'About a year before the angel appeared to me, my mother gave me the caul in which I had been born, saying that she had it baptized with me, and had nine Masses said over it, and had it blessed with certain prayers and scriptural readings; and she told me that I was born a benandante, and that when I grew up I would go forth at night, and that I must wear it on my person, and that I would go with the benandanti to fight the witches.' Thus, a specific power was added to the general properties of the caul; that of predestining the individual born wrapped within it to the 'profession' of the benandanti; moreover, Moduco affirmed 'those who have the caul and do not wear it, do not go out.' There was a strong tradition in the folklore of many parts of Italy, including the Friuli and Istria (where it was an echo of the very belief we are examining here), that children born with the caul were condemned to become witches;" But this similarity does not tell us
 


15
 
how the connection between being 'born with the caul' and becoming benandanti could have evolved. We will attempt to clear up this point with the help of additional evidence.

The initiation of the benandanti took place at a specific age, corresponding approximately to the reaching of maturity (Moduco entered the 'company' at age twenty, Gasparutto at twenty-eight); as in an army, after a time, say ten or twenty years, one became freed from the obligation of marching forth at night to fight. In any case, the moment of initiation did not come without warning; in fact, it was expected, as we saw from the admonishments of Gasparutto's mother to her son. As Moduco said, when those born with the caul 'reach the age of twenty they are summoned by means of a drum the same as soldiers.' Regardless of whether this was done by an angel or a benandante, they already knew that 'they had to go.'





10

We have been talking of the benandanti as a sect: a very special sect, whose ceremonies, in the words of the benandanti themselves, had an almost dream-like character. But actually, the benandanti were saying something different; they never doubted the reality of those gatherings which they attended 'in spirit'. An identical attitude is discernible in witch trials in other parts of Italy, and elsewhere as well. We can use as an example the case of Domenica Barbarelli, a witch of Novi, prosecuted by the Modenese Inquisition in 1532. She had testified that 'she wanted to go to the games of Diana at all costs and because others knew this, she was watched so that she could not get away. She lay as if dead for about two hours, but finally, after frequent shaking by the by-standers, seemed to awake and spoke these words: "I did indeed go there in spite of you": and she reported many evil deeds which she said she had done in the games.?" Here too, the going in a dream, 'in spirit', was perceived as something real. For this reason the witch taunted the bystanders: she believed that she herself, or her spirit, had truly gone to the 'games'.

Later we will investigate the significance of this going 'in spirit' on the part of witches and benandanti. Meanwhile we should note first of all that both groups claimed that, before setting out for their meetings, they fell into states of profound prostration, or catalepsy, the causes of which have been widely discussed. Doubtless, this is a marginal
 

16
 
problem in the interpretation of witchcraft. Even if we could (and we cannot) determine with certainty the nature of these cataleptic states, we would still need to explain the really important element: the meaning of the visions claimed by both witches and benandanti. There is no doubt that the question should at least be asked.

The explanations that have been suggested are basically of two types: either it has been supposed that witches and warlocks were individuals afflicted by epilepsy, hysteria, or other mental diseases not well defined; or else the loss of consciousness accompanied by hallucinations, described by them, have been attributed to the effect of ointments containing sleep-inducing or narcotic substances. Let's begin by discussing the second of these possibilities.

It is well known that witches anointed themselves before going to the sabbat. Already in the mid-fifteenth century the Spanish theologian, Alfonso Tostado, in his commentary on Genesis, noted in passing that Spanish witches, after uttering certain set words, smeared themselves with ointments and then fell into a deep sleep which made them insensible even to fire and to injuries. But upon waking they declared that they had been to this or that, perhaps very distant, place, to meet their companions, feasting and philandering." A half century later Giovanni Battista Della Porta obtained a similar result when he had an old woman reputed to be a witch anointed, recording in minute detail the ingredients of the unguent used. The experiment was repeated with conflicting results by two scholars in modem times." It seems reasonable to suppose, nevertheless, that if not all, at least some of the confessed witches, used unguents capable of inducing states of hallucination and delirium.

It is not so easy, however, to extend this hypothesis to the benandanti. Neither Gasparutto nor Moduco ever mentioned ointments. They spoke only of deep sleeps and of lethargic states which rendered them insensible, thereby allowing the spirit to leave the body. Even in later benandanti trials we find only two references to ointments. A cowherd of Latisana, Menichino, admitted being a benandante and asserted that he went out at night in the form of smoke to fight the witches. During his trial by the Venetian Holy Office in 1591 the inquisitor asked him, in the usual insinuating manner, if 'when he went forth as smoke, as he says, did he anoint himself with any unguent or oil, or. . . did he utter any words?' At first the defendant reacted violently to this suggestion: 'No, by the saints, God, and the Gospels I did not oil myself or say any words.' But later when the interrogations were being read back to him he did admit that the benandante who had persuaded him the first time to go out at night
 

17
 
had told him to grease himself 'with lamp oil the evening before he was to go forth' ..u This was a cautious and perhaps incomplete admission and it does not find much more solid corroboration in the testimony of a carpenter from Palmanova who denounced as a benandante a well-known prostitute named Menica of Cremons to the inquisitor of Aquileia: 'She herself admits that when she goes out she greases herself with oils and creams, and the body remains while the spirit departs.?" As we will see, this is secondhand and also very late evidence (the trial took place in 1626), and should probably be taken as an early sign of that association of benandanti with witches which was beginning to be made in this very period." All in all, the evidence for the use of unguents by benandanti is really too sparse, in relation to the number of surviving trials, to allow us to use it as an explanation for their behaviour.

Let's pass now to the first-mentioned hypothesis. It is an established fact that many witches were epileptics, and that many demoniacs suffered from hysteria. Still, there seems little doubt that we are confronted with many manifestations which can not be explained on pathological grounds. First, this is so in terms of statistics, since in the face of such large numbers of 'sick' people, even the boundaries between a healthy and diseased state become vague; secondly, the so-called hallucinations, instead of being confined to an individual, private sphere, have a precise cultural basis. For example, their recurrence in a circumscribed period of the year - the Ember Days - immediately comes to mind. They are of a type befitting a specific popular religiosity or a particular aberrant mysticism. The same reasoning applies to the benandanti. It would seem obvious to ascribe the catalepsy and the lethargy by which they claimed to be afflicted to epileptic fits. The fact is, however, that only one benandante - a woman named Maria Panzona, tried by the Holy Office first at Latisana and later in Venice in 1618-19 - appeared to have suffered from the 'ugly ailment' ('bruto male'), epilepsy." To be sure, in her case, the attacks which beset her continually, even during questioning, must have seemed at certain times - during the Ember Days - much like the benandanti's ritual lethargies. The documents available to us, however, do not give sufficient information, and the nature of the benandanti's catalepsy remains a mystery. In any case, whether it was induced through ointments containing drugs, epileptic fits, or speci-fic ecstatic techniques, the puzzle of the benandanti and their beliefs must be resolved on the basis of the history of popular religiosity not on that of pharmacology or psychiatry."
 




18
 
11

The loss of the senses, a condition common to both witches and benandanti, was understood as a separation of the spirit from the body. Margherita of San Rocco, condemned to the stake in 1571 by the mayor and elders of Lucca, declared that 'the visits to the games which I have made did not take place in person, but in spirit,leaving thebody at home. '46 A'nd one of her companions, Polissena of San Macario (who met the same fate) testified: 'I allowed myself to be persuaded by an aunt of mine, Lena of Pescaglia, to enter into witchcraft; after her death I did nothing for about a year, and then I began to go out in this way, that is, she called me and said "let us go", and only I could hear her voice, and then I greased myself with the ointment I had brought with me ... and was transformed into a cat, left the body at home, descended the stair, and went out by the door.?" These were words uttered during torture, or at least in the course of a trial heavily influenced by it. 48 But what counts here is not their sincerity but rather the- evidence they furnish for the widespread existence of certain beliefs which, as we will see, were not shared by the judges.

This departure of the spirit from the body, which was left lifeless, was understood as an actual separation, an event fraught with perils, almost like death. To the mayor and elders of Lucca, Margherita of San Rocco declared (and this particular recurs in the confessions of her companion Polissena) that when they went to the sabbat 'if perchance we were turned over face down we would lose the spirit and the body would die'r" moreover, if the spirit 'did not return before dawn at cock's crow, we would not change back into human form, and the body would stay dead and the spirit remain a cat. '50 For his part, the benandante Gasparutto told Rotaro that 'when he [Gasparutto] went to these games his body stayed in bed and the spirit went forth, and that while he was out if someone approached the bed where the body lay and called to it, it would not answer, nor could he get it to move even if he should try for a hundred years; and. . . they wait twenty-four hours before returning, and if one should say or do something, the spirit would remain separated from the body, and after it was buried, the spirit would wander forever'." The soul which left the body to go to the witches' conventicles or to the jousts of the benandanti was considered in both cases as something very real and tangible, usually an animal. In another Lucchese trial (this one dating from 1589) an old woman accused of witchcraft, Crezia of Pieve San Paolo, declared: 'Forty years or more ago, I knew a witch called Gianna, and once when she fell asleep I saw a mouse come out of her mouth; it was her.spirit
 

19
 
and I do not know where it was going.?" When Gasparutto's wife was interrogated by Fra Felice da Montefalco on 1 October 1580, she claimed not to know whether her husband was a benandante; however, she did remember that one.winter night she had woken in a fright and called to Paolo for comfort: 'And even though I called him ten times and shook him, I could not manage to wake him, and he lay face up'; a little later she had found him mumbling to himself: 'These benandanti say that when their spirit leaves the body it has the appearance of a mouse, and also when it returns, and that if the body should be rolled over while it is without its spirit, it would remain dead, and its spirit could never return to it. '53 Later corroboration of this belief that the soul was a 'mouse' (which was not limited to the Friuli'") was provided in a 1648 trial against a child who claimed to be a benandante: at the sabbat which he had attended (by that time the identification of benandanti with witches had been pretty well accom-plished) some of those present were 'in spirit and in body, in male and female forms', while others instead were 'in the shape of mice', that is, only 'in spirit'. 55 The concept of the soul as something material had such deep roots among the benandanti that Menica of Cremons, denounced in 1626, declared that she went to the conventicles leaving her body behind so that she might assume another one like it.56 Moreover, this belief was known even beyond the circles of witches and benandanti. In Verona, for example, early in the sixteenth century Bishop Gian Matteo Giberti had to suppress the popular custom of removing the roofs of houses of the recently deceased so that their souls might be freed and ascend to heaven. 57






12

Not all witches asserted that they went to the sabbat 'in spirit'. A woman of Gaiato, Orsolina, nicknamed 'la Rossa', tried by the Modenese Inquisition in 1539, was asked by the judge whether she always made her way to the sabbat 'physically or in sleep'. She replied that 'there are many who go in spirit only, but some also in their bodies'; as for herself, 'she always went there physically'." From the very first persecutions, controversy had raged, among those who debated the true nature of witchcraft, over the two alternatives - whether witches betook themselves to the sabbat 'indreams' or 'physically' .
 


20
 
Obviously, this is not the place to retrace the long history of this controversy. 59 It will suffice to sum up the arguments of the respective positions. The advocates of the reality of the 'games' (by far the majority until the second half of the seventeenth century) found justification by evoking venerable authorities for their position, in addition to the consensus gentium. The utterances of witches were too alike despite differences in the physical constitution, social condition, and place of origin of the accused to be attributed to dreams or fantasies." In other words, everything was real: the magical properties of the diabolical ointments, the transformation of the witches into animals, their nocturnal flights to perhaps very distant places, the devil's presence at the conventicles, and so forth. On the other side were those who argued that the sabbat was unreal; they judged it to 'bethe fruit of the delirious fantasies of 'base-born old folk or ignorant and simple people, vulgar rustics', or of women, as Andrea Alciato jeered, who deserved hellebore more than the stake. They confronted their opponents with the celebrated Canon Episcopi (derived from a German penitential work, probably of late ninth-century origin) and maintained the impossibility of the witches' nocturnal flights on both natural and supernatural grounds." This thesis, supported by the physician Johann Weyer whose arguments were already partially rationalistic, began gradually to predominate in the course of the seventeenth century, until little by little it prevailed uncontested, during that very period which saw the persecutions of witches come to a peak almost everywhere in Europe.

These alternatives formulated by inquisitors, jurists and theologians naturally were also those faced by the judges of the two benandanti. Should the nocturnal gatherings and the battles which they described be understood as dreams and fantasies, or as real events? There were no doubts on this score, as we have seen, among the benandanti themselves: conventicles and battles were very real, even if only their spirits participated. But the judges refused to go along with this division: in the sentences concluding the trial, Gasparutto and Moduco were condemned for having 'gone' with the benandanti, and for having dared 'to believe and affirm' that the spirit could, on these occasions, abandon the body and re-enter it at will. Similar distortions turn up, and not by chance, in many other witchcraft trials. As they sought to control, by articulating it, the painful .sense of profound disorientation experienced during their lethargies, witches and benandanti alike spoke of the spirit leaving the body in the guise of a cat, a mouse, or some other animal (these were the metamorphoses discussed at such length by theologians and inquisitors). But this
 

21
 
experience could not be successfully conveyed, and the statements about the departure of the soul from the body were condemned. The confessions of the witches and benandanti were wilfully incorporated into the inquisitorial schema with its contrary concepts of a real tangible sabbat and one of fantasy and imagination.





13

What we have noted thus far helps to explain the reason for the queries attempted by Fra Felice da Montefalco during the interrogation. It is not surprising either, that in the final session the notary observed that Gasparutto's wife cried without shedding tears, a fact considered obvious evidence of witchcraft and of ties to the devil;" and that Gasparutto's and Moduco's trial was routinely filed under the rubric 'Processus haeresis contra quosdam strigones' ('heresy trial against
certain witches').	.

When we tum, however, to the rites which, according to the benandanti, were practised at their nocturnal gatherings, it is clear that they bore no resemblance to the sabbat. They were rites that hardly need to be explained, so explicit and transparent is their significance: we are not dealing with hardened superstitions mechanically repeated, but with ceremonies that were intensely and emotionally experienced." The benandanti, armed with bundles of fennel who fought witches and warlocks armed with stalks of sorghum, did so with the consciousness that they were locked in a struggle 'out of love for the crops', to assure their community abundant harvests, a plenitude of food, of small grains, and of the vineyards, in fact, 'all the fruits of the earth'. It was an agricultural rite which survived with extraordinary vitality almost to the end of the sixteenth century in the marginal area of tha Friuli, left relatively untouched by the main routes of communication." It is hard to say when it originated, but even today, it is possible to discern the complexity of the cult which expressed itself through this rite.

The benandanti went forth on Thursday nights in the Ember seasons: festivities which had survived from an ancient agricultural cycle and which were eventually incorporated in the Christian calendar." that symbolized the changes of the seasons, the perilous passage from the old to the new time of year, with its promise of planting, harvest, reaping and autumn vintage." It was during these occasions,
 

22
 
on which the prosperity of the community depended, that the benandanti went forth to protect the produce of the earth from witches and warlocks, and from those forces that they thought secretly threatened the fertility of the fields: 'And if we are the victors, that year there is abundance, but if we lose there is famine.'

To be sure, the benandanti were not alone in fulfilling this propitiatory function. The church itself laboured to protect the harvests and ward off those all too frequent and ruinous famines by means of Rogations, processions around the fields, usually during the three days preceding the Ascension: and for a long time the tradition was preserved of forecasting harvests from each of these days - the first for vegetables and grapes, the second for wheat, and the third for hay." And, in this period, the disasters caused by foul weather were frequently attributed, especially in the Friuli, to punishment inflicted by God for past sins: on 9 April 1596 Clement VIII absolved the district of Polcenico from an excommunication which it feared it had incurred as evidenced by the barrenness of the crops; he did the same on 26 March 1598 with the district of San Daniele, whose harvests had been repeatedly struck by hail. 68 But if the processions of the Rogation Days and papal absolutions were not considered sufficient, here, in tacit competition, emerged the rites of appeasement of the benandanti. It certainly was not accidental that the benandanti's weapon in their battles to protect the fertility of the fields was, as Gasparutto described it, the wayfaring tree or viburnum, 'that rod which we carry behind the crosses in the Rogation processions.' This mixture of the sacred and the diabolical led the inquisitor to forbid Gasparutto (and the prohibition was intended to include his domestics) from bearing these rods in the Rogation processions, and in fact to order them kept at horne."

Obviously, we are not suggesting by this that Friulian peasants at the end of the sixteenth century attempted to safeguard their crops and their harvests exclusively by means of religious processions or superstitious practices, but the careful performance of work in the fields could and in fact did easily co-exist with faith in the benefits of ecclesiastical rituals or even in nocturnal battles fought victoriously by the benandanti. In these very years and among these same peasants there is evidence of attitudes that were deeply and fiercely naturalistic: such as a magnificent statement by Niccoli> Pellizzaro, a peasant of Villa in Carnia, whom the Inquisition condemned in 1595 for having maintained 'that the benedictions which priests pronounce over fields, and the holy water which they sprinkle over them the day of Epiphany, in no way help the vines and trees to bear fruit; only dung and the industry of man do that. '70 But even more than a 'humanistic'
 

23
 
exaltation of man's power over nature, we may see here the echo of a religious polemic; Pellizzaro, in fact, was suspected of Lutheranism, and by his statement he may have been conveying his scorn for priests and Catholic ceremonies.

50 the benandanti with fennel stalks battled witches armed with stalks of sorghum. It is not clear why sorghum was the weapon of the witches - unless it could be identified with the broom, their traditional symbol (the so-called 'broom sorghum', one of the most common varieties of sorghum, is a type of millet). It is a compelling theory, especially in light of what we will say about the nocturnal gatherings of the witches and benandanti as the antecedents of the diabolical sabbat - but obviously this is a theory which should be advanced with caution. In any case, for the benandanti the sorghum seemed to symbolize the evil power of the witches. The parish priest of Brazzano, Bartolomeo 5gabarizza, reported having had this conversation with Gasparutto: 'He begged me not to sow sorghum in my field, and whenever he finds any growing he pulls it up, and he curses whoever plants it; and when I said that I wanted to sow it, he began to swear."! To fennel, instead, whose healing qualities were recognized in popular medicine, was attributed the power of keeping witches away: Moduco affirmed that the benandanti ate garlic and fennel 'because they are a defence against witches'. 72

It may be supposed that this combat re-enacted, and to a certain extent rationalized, an older fertility rite in which two groups of youths," respectively impersonating demons favourable to fertility and the maleficent ones of destruction, symbolically flayed their loins with stalks of fennel and sorghum to stimulate their own reproductive capacity, and by analogy, the fertility of the fields of the community. 74 Gradually the rite may have come to be represented as an actual combat, and from the uncertain outcome of the struggle between the two opposed bands would magically depend the fertility of the land and the fate of the harvests." At a later stage these rites would cease to be practised openly and would exist precariously, between the dream-like and the hallucinatory, in any case on a purely internal emotional plane - and yet without quite sliding into mere individual fantasizing.


But these are pure conjectures that can be confirmed only on the basis of solid evidence, unavailable at present, about preceding phases of the cult. There is absolutely nothing in the statements of the benandanti that can be interpreted as a relic of this hypothetical original rite. More plausible perhaps is the analogy between the battles of benandanti against witches and ritual contests between
 

24
 
Winter and Summer (or Winter and Spring) which used to be acted out, and still are today, in some areas of north-central Europe." Consider, for example, the plant parts with which both contestants are draped: Winter with pine branches or other plants of the season, Summer with ears of grain, flowers, and so forth. Is there something analogous, even though the two plants flourish in the same season, in the sorghum and the fennel of which the benandanti spoke? It should be noted, in particular, that the contest between Winter and Summer is linked, in some areas, to a presumably older rite, that of the expulsion of Death, or of the Witch.?" In this ceremony, undoubtedly intended to procure abundant harvests, an effigy of Death, or of the Witch, is beaten with a stick, stoned, and finally solemnly driven from the village. Is there an analogy between this symbolical removal of the wintry season, and the blows inflicted on the witches by the benandanti? Possibly; but along with these similarities there are also notable differences. First of all, the ritual struggle between Winter and Sum-mer was celebrated everywhere once a year, whereas the benandanti claimed that they fought the witches on four occasions each year (the Ember seasons); secondly, and this is even more important, the content of the two rites appears to be totally dissimilar. In the contests between Winter and Summer a peaceful alternation of the seasons is symbolized, and the victory of Summer is inevitable:" on the contrary, the battles between benandanti and witches were a clash, with an uncertain outcome, between abundance and famine, a real battle conducted according to a precise ritual. Here the contrast between old and new season's was experienced dramatically, virtually a contest to decide the actual physical survival of the community."






14

In the confessions of these benandanti, religious elements of very different origin were superimposed on this agrarian rite, seemingly self-sufficient in its internal motivations. Moduco and Gasparutto both asserted that they could not discuss the nocturnal conventicles in which they participated because by doing so they would be flouting the will of God; and Moduco clarified this point: 'We go forth in the service of Christ and the witches in the service of the devil.' The company of the benandanti was a divine entity, virtually a peasant army of the faith established by God ('we believe that it is given by God,
 

25
 
because we fight for the faith of Christ'): at its head, according to Gasparutto, was an angel of God; within the group, Moduco related, God and the saints were piously invoked, and its members were certain to go to paradise after death.

The contrast between fighting 'for love of the crops' and fighting 'for the faith of Christ' is indeed glaring. To be sure, in this popular religiosity, so composite, interlaced with the most varied elements, such syncretism is not surprising. But we should ask ourselves the reason for this Christianization of agrarian rites performed by the benandanti - which undoubtedly was 'spontaneous' in this period and widespread throughout the Friuli. Perhaps it was a method adopted in a distant past to shield from the eyes of the church a rite that was not quite orthodox (just as the groups of young people celebrating ancient fertility rites placed themselves under the protection of a patron saint):" or it may be that the ancient agrarian rite gradually received a Christian motif from those who ingenuously joined the good cause of the fertility of the fields with the holy cause of the faith of Christ. Finally, we may eve.n suppose that, in the face of the progressive assimilation (to be discussed below) of diabolical elements on the part of their enemies, the witches, the benandanti instinctively and correspondingly identified their cause with that of the faith.


There may be some truth in each of these assumptions. At any rate, it is clear that this attempt at Christianization did not (and could not) succeed, and indeed was not favorably received by the Inquisition. It faded away within a few decades. Two primary elements coexisted within the medley of beliefs of which the benandanti were the bearers: an agrarian cult (probably the more ancient of the two) and a Christian cult, and in addition a number of other elements capable of being assimilated by witchcraft. When inquisitors failed to understand the first and decisively rejected the second, this composite of myths and beliefs, for lack of other outlets, inevitably had to debouch in the last direction.






15

Thus far we have spoken principally of the benandanti. The time has come to talk about their adversaries: the witches and warlocks. They appear from the confessions of Gasparutto and Moduco first of all by
 

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way of contrast - a contrast that here too is physical and tangible - with the benandanti: 'Our captain was somewhat pale of face, and the other one swarthy,' 'our standard bearer carries a banner of white silk, gilded, with a lion. . . the banner of the witches is of red silk with four black devils, gilded.?' But what did witches and warlocks do in their conventicles? Besides fighting with the benandanti, 'they dance and leap about,' Gasparutto stated. There is no trace, as we have already noted, of the elements that would later impress a diabolical stigma on the traditional sabbat: presence of the devil, profanation of the sacraments and apostasy from the faith. To be sure, certain details were there pointing to a tendency in this direction - the devils depicted on the banner of the witches and Moduco's statement: 'We go forth in the service of Christ and the witches in the service of the devil.' But these are isolated matters, and may have been appropriated at a later date. These witches were characterized not in terms of crimes theologically defined, but rather in terms of the destruction they brought to the harvests and famine, and the sorcery they worked on children. But even in this second instance they had to overcome the strenuous opposition of the benandanti. The son of the miller Pietro Rotaro 'had been possessed by witches, but . . . at the time of the witchery the vagabonds were about and they snatched him from the witches' hands.' In fact, the benandanti could recognize immediately the victim of an act of witchcraft: 'It can be ascertained,' said Gasparutto, 'because they do not leave any flesh on the body, ... and they remain dried up and withered, nothing but skin and bones.' If the benandanti arrived in time they could attempt to save the bewitched child: it sufficed to weigh him three successive Thursdays, and 'while the child is weighed on the scale, the captain of the benandanti uses the scale to torment the witch that has caused the injury, even to the point of killing him; ... when the child gains in weight ... the witch withers and dies, and if the child withers, it is the witch that lives. '82

The fact that this trial is the first Friulian evidence of witches' conventicles might be considered pure chance. But this coincidence becomes remarkable and probably no longer casual when we notice that it is not until 1634 (and after more than 850 trials and denunciations to the Holy Office of Aquileia and Concordia) before we encounter a full description of the traditional diabolical sabbat. There are many accounts before this time of nocturnal conventicles of witches and warlocks, but benandanti were always present in them, and the rites were always somewhat unusual, much like those described by Gasparutto and Moduco. It is a relationship that recurs too often and over too long a period to be attributed to chance.
 

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Something must have taken place in the Friuli akin to what has been documented for another part of the peninsula, the area around Modena:" the gradual but continuous transformation of ancient popular beliefs, which, under the unconscious pressure from inquisitors, finally crystallized in the pre-existing mould of the diabolical sabbat. In Modena, the earliest references to nocturnal meetings of witches in fact do not concern the adoration of the devil, but the cult, still innocuously magical, of a mysterious female divinity, Diana, about which we have knowledge in northern Italy at least from the end of the fourteenth century. 84 When it was said of a witch (who was mentioned in a trial in 1498, although she herself was not tried) that she used to go 'in striacium', that is to say, to the sabbat, what is described is merely a peaceful nocturnal gathering of individuals assembled together until dawn to eat 'the turnips of a field or garden'. 85 It is not until 1532 that one encounters descriptions of the desecration of the cross and of the host, intercourse with devils, and so forth. And it should be noted that in this later context the person of Diana, although transformed, was still present. 86

We see that the acceptance of the diabolical sabbat in the Modenese area long preceded - by a century in fact - a similar development in the Friuli. This too reflects what we have called 'the marginal quality' of the Friuli, as well as, perhaps, the greater complexity and vitality of the benandanti's beliefs compared to the cult of Diana (a cult from which these beliefs were an offshoot). In both cases, however, it seems fair to assert that the belief in the diabolical sabbat is something that was initially foreign to the popular mind. Indeed, even if this observation could be applied to many other localities, the problem of the origins of the diabolical sabbat would still persist."






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The trial of Gasparutto and Moduco was the first in a long series involving the benandanti (both men and women) who declared that they fought at night with witches and warlocks to secure the fertility of the fields and the abundance of the harvests. This belief (we have hinted at its presumbly ritual origins) does not appear to the best of our knowledge, in any of the countless trials for witchcraft or super-stitious practices held outside the Friuli. The sole and extraordinary exception is furnished by the trial of a Livonian werewolf which took
 

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place at Jiirgensburg in 1692 - more than a century after the trial of Gasparutto and Moduco, and at the other extremity of Europe."

The accused, a certain Thiess, an old man in his eighties, freely confessed to his judges that he was a werewolf (wahrwolff). But his account seriously differs from the concept of lycanthropy which was widespread 'in northern Germany and the Baltic countries. Thiess related that he once had his nose broken by a peasant of Lemburg named Skeistan, who at that time was already dead. Skeistan was a witch, and with his companions had carried seed grain into hell to keep the crops from growing. With other werewolves Thiess had also gone down into hell and had fought with Skeistan. The latter, armed with a broom handle (again, the traditional symbol of witches) wrap-ped in the tail of a horse had struck the old man on the nose. This was not a casual encounter. Three times each year on the nights of St Lucia before Christmas, of Pentecost, and of St John, the werewolves pro-ceeded on foot, in the form of wolves, to a place located 'beyond the sea': hell. There they battled the devil and witches, striking them with long iron rods, and pursuing them like dogs. Werewolves, Thiess ~xclaimed, 'cannot tolerate the devil'. The judges, undoubtedlyaston-ished, asked for elucidation. If werewolves could not abide the devil, why did they change themselves into wolves and go down into hell? Because, old Thiess explained, by doing so they could bring back up to earth what had been stolen by the witches -livestock, grains, and the other fruits of the earth. If they failed to do so, precisely what had occurred the previous year would be repeated: the werewolves had delayed their descent into hell, found the gates barred and thus failed to bring back the grains and buds carried off by the witches. For this reason last year's harvest had been very bad. But this year, instead, things had been different, and, thanks to the werewolves, the harvest of barley and rye, as well as a rich catch of fish, were assured.

At this point the judges asked where the werewolves went after death. Thiess replied that they were buried like other people, but that their souls went to heaven; as for the souls of witches, the devil claimed them for himself. The judges were visibly shaken. How was it pos-sible, they asked, for the souls of werewolves to ascend to God if it was not God they served but the devil? The old man emphatically rejected this notion: the werewolves were anything but servants of the devil. The devil was their enemy to the point that they, just like dogs - because werewolves were indeed the hounds of God - pursued him, tracked him down, and scourged him with whips of iron. They did all this for the sake of mankind: without their good work the devil would carry off the fruits of the earth and everyone would be deprived as a
 

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consequence. The Livonian werewolves were not alone in their fight with the devil over the harvests: German werewolves did so as well, although they did not belong to the Livonian company and they journeyed to their own particular hell; and the same also was true of Russian werewolves who that year and the one before had won pros-perous and abundant harvests for their land. As soon as the were-wolves managed to snatch away from the devil the seed grain he had stolen, they cast it up into the air so that it might fall back down to earth and be spread over the fields of rich and poor alike.

At this juncture, as might have been foreseen, the judges tried to get Thiess to confess that he had entered into a compact with the devil. The old man reiterated, in vain, with monotonous obstinacy that he and his companions were 'the hounds of God' and the enemies of the devil, that they protected men from dangers and guaranteed the prosperity of harvests. Then the parish priest was summoned, who scolded him and called on him to abandon the errors and diabolical lies with which he had tried to cover up his sins. But this too was useless. In a burst of anger Thiess shouted at the .priest that he was tired of hearing all this talk about his evil doings: his actions were better than the priest'S, and moreover he, Thiess, would neither be the first nor the last to commit them. The old man remained steadfast in his convic-tions and refused to repent; on 10 October 1692 he was condemned to ten lashes for his superstitious beliefs and acts of idolatry.

This was not a case, clearly, of more or less ill-defined similarities, or of the repetition of metahistorical religious archetypes." The beliefs of the old werewolf Thiess substantially resemble those which emerged at the trial of the two Friulian benandanti: battles waged by means of sticks and blows, enacted on certain nights to secure the fertility of fields, minutely and concretely described. Even details such as the broom handles with which the Livonian witches were armed recalls the stalks of sorghum or millet used by the witches of the Friuli. i In the Friuli the struggle was primarily over the vineyards, in Livonia over barley and rye, but the struggle for fertility was understood as a work that was not merely tolerated but was even protected by God, who actually guaranteed entrance into paradise for the souls of the participants. There is not much doubt about any of this. Obviously, what we have here is a single agrarian cult, which, to judge from these remnants surviving in places as distant from one another as were Livonia and the Friuli, must have been diffused in an earlier period over a much vaster area, perhaps the whole of central Europe. On the other hand, these survivals may be explained either by the peripheral positions of the Friuli and Livonia with respect to the centre of diffu-
 

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sion of these beliefs, or by the influence, in both cases, of Slavic myths and traditions. The fact that in Germanic areas, as we shall see, there were faint traces of the myth of nocturnal combats waged over fertility, might lead us to lean towards the second possibility. Only intensive research may be able to resolve this problem.

But it is not just the beliefs of old Thiess that remind us of the Friulian benandanti. The reaction of the Jiirgensburgjudges resembles, even in particulars, that of the Udine inquisitors: both rejected, with mingled shock and indignation, the paradoxical boasts of the benan-danti to be the champions of 'Christ's faith', and of the werewolves to be 'the hounds of God'. In both cases the judges tried to identify the benandanti and the werewolves with the witches who were followers and worshippers of the devil. There is a difference to be noted, however. Gasparutto and Mod uco, to the best of our knowledge, were the first benandanti tried by the Holy Office; the very name 'benan-danti' was unknown to the inquisitors. Only gradually would the benandanti assume the traits of diabolical witches. In that late seven-teenth-century Livonian trial we are witnessing the opposite phe-nomenon. The figure and negative attributes of werewolves, the fero-cious scourge of flocks and herds, were well known to the judges of Jiirgensburg. But a totally different picture was painted by old Thiess: werewolves were defenders of the harvest and of livestock against the constant threat from the enemies of the prosperity of mankind and of the fertility of the land - the devil and the witches. This revival of presumably ancient beliefs can probably be explained by the fact that at the end of the seventeenth century Livonian judges had ceased to use judicial torture or even rely on leading questions in the interro-gation of defendants." That the favourable image of werewolves was much older than the end of the seventeenth century is shown first of all by Thiess's venerable age: presumably he must have acquired these beliefs in his distant youth, which brings us to the early years of the century. But there is an even more compelling bit of evidence. In mid-sixteenth century Caspar Peucer, during a digression on were-wolves and their extraordinary exploits, inserted into his Commen-tarius de praecipuis generibus divinationum an anecdote about a young man of Riga who had suddenly fallen prostrate to the ground during a banquet. One of the onlookers had immediately recognized him as a werewolf. The next day the youth related that he had fought a witch who had been flying about in the guise of a red-hot butterfly. Were-wolves, in fact, Peucer commented, boasted that they kept witches away." This was an ancient belief, then. But, just as with the benan-danti in the Friuli, under pressure from the judges, the original
 


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positive qualities of the werewolves began gradually to fade away and become corrupted into the execrable image of the man-wolf, ravager of livestock.

In any case, on the basis of this surprising Livonian counterpart, it seems appropriate to suggest that there is a real, not an analogical, connection between benandanti and shamans. Such phenomena as trances, journeys into the beyond astride animals or in the form of animals (wolves or, as in the Friuli, butterflies and mice) to recover seed grain or to assure the fertility of the land, and as we will note shortly, participation in processions for the dead (which procured prophetic and visionary powers for the benandanti) form a coherent pattern which immediately evokes the rites of the shamans. But to trace the threads which tied these beliefs to the Baltic or Slavic world obviously falls outside the scope of this particular investigation. So let us return to the Friuli.
 




































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