Imagine people born with a caul being summoned to fight midnight battles with evil witches. Imagine them changing shape into animals, flying, and fighting armed only with sorghum sticks, so that the land will prosper in the coming year. Now imagine that this isn't a fantasy story, but a real occurrence in the 16th centuries, one that confused the inquisitors assigned to deal with the incidents.
Of course I'm talking about the Benandanti, a survival of a pre-Christian fertility cult that lasted into the 16th century in northern Italy. It being Halloween, it seems appropriate that I should take a moment today to recommend the book
The Night Battles: Witchcraft and Agrarian Cults in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, by
Carlo Ginzburg.
Ginzburg is the definitive resource on this odd group, as he took the time to tease out from the confusing interrogation accounts the details of the practices of the Benandanti their fights against the evil Strega (witches), their adaptation to Christianity, and finally their decline. The unlettered peasants who made up the Benandanti seem to share enough elements in common with other traditional survivals in different Europe, to give the impression that we see in the Benandanti the remnants of a pan-European pre-Christian shamanistic religion. It may not have been organized as such, but there seems to have been a common core of belief involving going out in spirit form to defend the harvest or otherwise help the local people.
This book spends quite a bit of time gives a good example of how the Inquisition usually operated; bear in mind that the Witchunts we have a popular image of were far more a product of local people and political and social instability than the Inquisition, which focused on heresy. The Inquisitors were baffled by the Benandanti, who admitted to their actions, but still considered themselves good Christians. They struggled to put the Bendanti into their stereotypes of witches and sabbbaths, and so their reactions ranged from "look, just admit you're Satanists, and we'll fine you and send you home", to "Oh God, can't the locals deal with this?". It's worth pointing out that none of the Benandanti were actually executed for their actions, but their ever more strident attempts to prove that they were good Christians caused them to lose favor with the local people, and they had disappeared by the 17th century.
They may be gone, but the image of the Benandanti flying out in animal form to fight for the harvest is something to remember, especially on nights when the moon is full, and the mist hugs the ground in the fields.
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