[margin: a: Aristotle, History of Animals, book 2, chapter 14, and book 9, chapter 17. (b) Pliny, book 8, chapter 42, and book 32, chapter 4; Tiraqueau cites more in the law Connubiali. (c) Grillandus, On Sortileges, question 3, number 15, and question 5, number 2. (d) Digest, On Penalties, law Si quis aliquid, paragraph Qui abortionis; Digest, To the Cornelian Law on Assassins and Poisoners, law 3, paragraph Haec adiectio. (e) Grillandus, question 3, number 18, at the end]
They call by this name whatever is said, done, or given for the purpose that someone may be drawn into love and the frenzies of Venus. The ancients have commemorated very many philters of this kind for us: Theocritus and Virgil, in the Pharmaceutria, mention the Iynx, which Langius says is called by the Germans Windals, Wasseroths, and Ruerprommel, and which the Latins call Frutilla; the same Theocritus, Virgil, and Propertius praise hippomanes; Aristotle mentions the remora and sippe; Pliny mentions a certain little frog-amulet; Hesychius Illustrius, from Aesop, mentions the astirite stone; Archelaus mentions arrows from the body of Rostius; the old poet Laevius gives many others in Apuleius, Apology 1; Lucian also gives many in the dialogue of Bacchis and Melitta. Among more recent authors, there are Marsilio Ficino, book 13 of Platonic Theology; Pomponazzi, On Incantations, chapter 8; and Caelius Calcagninus, in a whole work on love-magic.
These ancients seem to share the common error that even unwilling people can be enticed into love by philters of this kind. We shall soon discuss that error. First let us look at harmful magical practices of this kind in our own age, which Grillandus has handed down in writing best and most exactly of all:
Love-sortileges, he says, are done either within the body or outside the body of the person being harmed. Within the body they are commonly done through food or drink. And in these the sacraments of the Catholic Church are often mixed in, something which scarcely tends to happen in hostile or sleep-inducing harmful magic: for instance, a consecrated host, or one not yet consecrated but written around with blood-red marks and letters. Over it they have one, two, three, five, or more masses said. When these have been celebrated, they give the host itself, not whole as it is, but reduced very finely into powder, to the person to be harmed, whom they cause to take it in food, such as in soup, or in drink. In the same way they act with calamint mixed with other ingredients and given, as above, in food or drink, because they say that it is attractive by nature and that it can draw the heart and will of the one absorbing it toward love of the person giving it. But all these things are trifles and deceptions of the demon, etc.
[margin: a: Gloss on chapter Accusatus, paragraph Sane, On Heretics, in the Sext]
And afterward:
Twice or three times I have had, as a matter of fact, sorcerers who, applying themselves to this sortilege or harmful magic, had mixed in a host. One, namely, was a religious cleric, who received the most sacred host itself. Part of it this most wicked man, who desired to be loved, had taken, speaking certain rather foul and unspeakable words which it is not fitting to report here; the remaining part of the host he had sent to the woman herself, not in the form of a host, but broken into little pieces and reduced into powder, to be taken in food or drink. Again I had another who had received a host not yet consecrated, and around it, with the blood of the ring-finger, had written certain very foul words. Then he had placed the host itself on an altar, that is, on a bare consecrated stone, hidden nevertheless under the altar linen, and had caused a priest of lax conscience to celebrate masses over it from time to time, with certain prayers added for his purpose. Then he had taken up the host itself, which nevertheless had not been expressly consecrated. One part of it he had taken for himself, and the other part he had given to the person to be harmed, reduced into powder, as I said just above. Both of those who had taken the host itself asserted that they would be bound to each other by an indissoluble bond of love; nevertheless I saw and perceived no apparent effect.
Nor have two years yet passed since I heard that another similar case happened at Rome, involving a certain unchaste woman. In her baskets were found two hosts, on both of which certain blood-red words were written, etc. She kept them, as she affirmed, for the purpose of giving them to another woman, at the request of a man who desired that woman’s love.
At another time, not even a year has passed since two unchaste women at Rome, whom I saw and heard, had taken baptismal oil, with which they anointed their lips, saying these words, “Faith, I renounce you,” etc.; and with those lips thus anointed they had kissed certain men for the sake of obtaining love from them, as they themselves affirmed. Nevertheless, in the end the whole experiment was deceptive, and I saw them pay worthy penalties for their excesses.
Another example happened within the last three years in the same city: a certain most foul woman had taken a small piece of that skin with which an infant comes clothed from the mother’s womb when it first comes into the light. She had likewise hidden it on a bare consecrated stone, and had caused several masses, five in number, to be celebrated over it. Afterward she had taken that skin, baptized it under the name of the person to be harmed with baptismal water and the customary ceremonies, then reduced it to powder, with the intention of giving it to the person to be harmed. In the meantime, however, she was caught and could not complete the sortilege, but paid fitting penalties for her crime.
Thus far Grillandus. He could have added that sorcerers of this kind are so wicked that women offer their menstrual fluid mixed into food and drink to men, and men offer semen, both of which decent ears can scarcely endure; these are seasoned with certain words and given to others, as is clear from the confessions of many. Sprenger also reports that they use dung and other excrements of this kind.
Grillandus then continues what he had said:
[margin: Unkeyed marginal note: Grillandus, question 3, number 23]
Outside the body, or outside the intestines, love-producing harmful magic is done by certain mixtures composed from leaves or roots of herbs, metals, reptiles of the earth, feathers, intestines or limbs of birds, fish, or animals, and other similar natural things.
Del Rio adds: they especially seek either hair or nail clippings, or a band, or some other garment which was accustomed to touch the body of the person being harmed; or, if they cannot obtain anything of this kind, a letter or something else from that person’s house.
Then they employ certain bindings. Having wrapped these things in them, they sew them into the cloak or tunic of the person to be harmed, or hide them under the head of the bed, or among the feathers or mattress on which that person sleeps, or under the threshold of the door, or of some other place over which the man to be harmed, or the woman to be harmed, will pass.
Thus far Grillandus, partly in question 3, number 15, and partly in question 5, number 3, where he also adds certain sacrileges of theirs:
The sorcerers themselves often mix into these things blessed water, namely from the baptismal font or from the common vessel existing in the church, or the holy oil of Baptism, Chrism, or Extreme Unction, blessed olive branches, palm branches, blessed candles, sacred Agnus Dei objects, blessed incense, paschal candles, and similar things. Sometimes also they take something from the relics of the holy martyrs, if they can have it, namely little particles of bones, hairs, or garments. Others take certain scraps of priestly vestments and of other blessed cloths by which the sacred mysteries are venerated and celebrated, such as albs, purificators, corporals, tunicles, maniples, amices, white stoles, consecrated stones, altar cloths, patens, sudaries, chalices, and similar things. All these, or part of them, they are accustomed to mix into love-sortileges, applying their most unspeakable prayers and diabolical words to foul acts of lust, committing the abuse of so many sacraments and other sacred things.
Soon he adds a certain third kind of love-sortilege, in these words:
Certain people from among those who belong to an express profession sometimes carry certain images to places of sacrifice. These images are made from earth, wax, gems, or any other mixture whatever. First they baptize them in the name of the person to be harmed, under devotion and invocation of the Devil, with the same ceremonies which our priests are accustomed to use in true Baptism; and they add certain foul and unspeakable words. Sometimes they open the breasts of these images and make their hearts glow with great heat; or they hold them only until they melt, thinking that in the same way the heart of the person to be harmed will similarly be burned or softened and will be rendered obedient to the will of the sorcerer or lover.
John of Salisbury, book 1, chapter 11, says: “There are little image-workers who, in order to alter the effects of human beings, form likenesses of those whom they are trying to pervert in softer material, wax or perhaps clay.” Virgil mentions this illusion in the Pharmaceutria:
[margin: a: Picatrix, Abano, and Agrippa. (b) Book 1, On Spectres, chapter 5]
As this clay hardens and this wax melts In one and the same fire, so may Daphnis in our love.
Naso also, in the book of Heroides:
She devotes those absent, and fashions waxen images, And drives slender needles into the wretched liver.
[margin: a: Book 4, chapter 7, referring to Bozius’s On the Marks of the Church]
So says he, referring Ovid’s passage to love-producing harmful magic; I, however, would rather refer it to hostile harmful magic. A little later I shall show that this harmful magic is most ancient, well known to Greeks and Latins, and received from the Chaldeans. For the most part they use virgin parchment, which they make from the skin of a recently born boy, dead before Baptism, or from an aborted child; it is inscribed with characters and magical words. Recent magicians talk nonsense about its wonderful power and efficacy, and Le Loyer has supplied an example. They also once used certain cords and bindings, about which we shall speak later.
Grillandus further investigates the reason why they use sacred things only for love-magic, and answers many things; whoever wishes may read him. In our own time, even for hostile poisoning, they baptize toads and give them, what I shudder to think of, the venerable Eucharist to swallow. Thus, clearly, the world becomes worse every day, and human beings at the end of this age are hurled headlong into heavier crimes.
Concerning a love-philter, Thomas Bozius, a priest of the Oratory, narrates a miracle confirmed by public testimony and by the continuous attestation of many centuries. His work was as hated by heretics as it was useful to Catholics. Therefore, in On the Marks of the Church, he says:
The ninth miracle happened at Offida in Picenum. For in the year 1273 a certain woman, after she had taken the Eucharist in her mouth, did not swallow it, but carried it away preserved with her, so that she might use it through poisonings to reconcile her husband’s love to herself. Therefore, instructed in evil arts, she placed it on a roof tile set over coals. When this was done, wonderful to say, the Eucharist, most openly changed into flesh, began to emit blood widely, so that it extinguished the coals; nor could the eruption of blood be restrained until the coals grew white-hot, although the woman left nothing undone, throwing on ash and dust and applying wax. Then, stunned by the event, she wrapped the tile with the divine flesh and blood in linen and buried it in the dung of a nearby stable. The matter lay hidden for seven years, although certain wonders happened. Others did not know whence they arose; the woman, conscious of the deed and of her crime, did know. When those years had passed, she at last disclosed the matter to a priest. When he went there, he found the flesh intact, the blood fresh, and the linen unharmed. The miracle, made known and spread abroad to all, moved countless people from every place to come to the spectacle, and still moves them after three hundred and ten years. For the flesh is seen, and the blood is seen enclosed in glass ampullae, for the everlasting memory of so great a thing; nor after so great a span of time has anything from them been corrupted or wasted away.
See by what manner God, through so manifest a miracle, checked the nefarious sortilege of the poor woman. But now let us see what the force of this love-sortilege is.
[margin: a: Jurists on the cited paragraph Adiectio, and on the cited paragraph Qui abortionis; Azo on the Code, On Harmful Magic and Mathematici; Oldradus, consilium 210; Godefridus and Angelus on law Eorum, Code, On Harmful Magic; Albericus, rubric, Code, On Heretics; Vitalis, treatise On Harmful Magic; Grillandus, the cited question 3, number 15; Tiraqueau, cited law 13 and treatise On Reducing Penalties; Peter Le Loyer, cited chapter 5; Antonius Guibertus; Menochius; Clarus; Farinacius; and others. Among canonists, Hostiensis, in the Summa, On Magic, paragraph Quam sententiam]