stay with her cousins. Her husband later told the authorities he had no reason to think her
a sorceress. Others, however, were not so sure. Witnesses told how she and her mother
had fled to Boucoiran some years ago when a relative was executed elsewhere for
witchcraft and her mother was suspected. Martiale herself was pregnant at the time and
claimed to be a widow. In Boucoiran, she had a reputation for sexual promiscuity.
Eventually, she was captured at Gabriac and brought back to Boucoiran, where she
confessed that she had attended the sabbath. She had killed and witnessed the killing of
children; she once did so in the course of a quarrel in which she had been accused of
theft. But she had also killed pigs, not out of vengeance but simply in compliance with
the Devil’s command.
Especially poignant as an example of a woman’s vulnerability is the case of Jehanneta
Lasne of Vacheresse, who confessed under torture at Fribourg in 1493 that she had
attended assemblies of the witches’ sect, presided over by a figure who called himself
Sathanas. She had been induced into this sect because her husband would beat her, and
one night she went into the woods and cried out asking God or the Devil to come to her
aid. Sathanas then appeared and told her that if she denied God and took him as her
master he would comfort her and her husband would cease beating her.
Richard Kieckhefer
[See also: MAGIC; NECROMANCY]
Bonney, Françoise. “Autour de Jean Gerson: opinions de théologiens sur les superstitions et la
sorcellerie au début du XVe siècle.” Moyen âge 77(1971):85–98.
Cohn, Norman. Europe’s Inner Demons: An Enquiry Inspired by the Great Witch-Hunt. London:
Chatto and Windus, 1975.
Ginzburg, Carlo. Ecstasies: Deciphering the Witches’ Sabbath, trans. Raymond Rosenthal. New
York: Pantheon, 1991.
Kieckhefer, Richard. European Witch Trials: Their Foundations in Popular and Learned Culture,
1300–1500. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1976.
Kors, Alan C, and Edward Peters, eds. Witchcraft in Europe, 1100–1700: A Documentary History.
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1972.
Lea, Henry Charles. Materials Toward a History of Witchcraft. 3 vols. Philadelphia: University of
Pennsylvania Press, 1939.
Levack, Brian, ed. Articles on Witchcraft, Magic and Demonology. 12 vols. New York: Garland,
1992, Vol. 2: Witchcraft in the Ancient World and the Middle Ages.
Russell, Jeffrey Burton. Witchcraft in the Middle Ages. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1972.
WOMEN, RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE
OF
. In assessing the scope of medieval women’s religious experience, it is necessary to
consider that the concept “experience” comprises both internal and external factors, only
one of which is gender. Other components include theoretical knowledge, access to
situational frameworks (e.g., to the opportunity to exercise publicly recognized
authority), social and economic status, age, and linguistic skills to express and reflect
upon experiential data. All of these variables differ greatly not just between men and
The Encyclopedia 1859