These Who Are Good

In 1575 inquisitors in northern Italy discovered the benandanti, a band of self-professed spiritual warriors who claimed to send their spirits forth in their sleep to engage in ritual night battles to defend the season's harvest from witches. In this episode, I bring you the stories of two men prosecuted by the Inquisition for their witch-fighting ways. When records obscure reality, who can find the truth?

Researched, written, and produced by Corinne Wieben, with original music by Purple Planet.

Episode sources

For more on the Malleus Maleficarum and witch hunting on the European continent, check out The Hammer.

Give to the Italian Red Cross to help victims of the Emilia-Romagna floods:
English: https://dona.cri.it/sostienici/~my-donation
Italiano: https://dona.cri.it/alluvione-emiliaromagna/~mia-donazione 

Chapters

• 0:00 Pre-roll
• 0:08 Intro
• 1:23 The Benandanti
• 3:47 Paolo Gasparutto
• 10:12 Battista Moduco
• 16:03 Conclusion
• 19:24 Outro

Transcript

Pre-roll
You’re listening to Enchanted, a podcast on the history of magic, sorcery and witchcraft. I’m Corinne Wieben.

Intro
As summer ends and the harvest season approaches, it’s a good time to remember the long history of men and women who have taken it upon themselves to ensure a good harvest and with it, the continued survival of their communities. One such group has managed to capture the imaginations of early modern inquisitors and modern audiences alike. These are the benandanti, a group of self-appointed warriors from northern Italy, who reportedly fought witches in their sleep in order to protect the year’s crops. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, however, the benandanti came to the attention of the Inquisition. In this episode, I bring you the stories of two men questioned by the Inquisition for their witch-fighting ways as benandanti.

The Benandanti
The name benandanti translates literally to “good walkers,” but a more accurate translation might be “those who go forth for good.” According to available records, they flourished in the northern Italian region of Friuli. While Friuli borders the Veneto, the region around the city of Venice, to the west, it shares an eastern border with Slovenia. Its unique location means Friuli has a unique history, with multiple languages and cultures operating within the region. Its name even differs, depending on which locals you’re asking. For this reason, some historians have argued that the benandanti might well be part of a larger network of folk traditions appearing throughout central Europe.

According to the testimonies offered by self-professed benandanti, these men and women served an important function in protecting the fertility of the crops and livestock of the region. On the Ember Days, quarterly holidays in the Christian calendar which call for fasting and tend to correspond with planting and harvest times, the benandanti would project their spirits in their sleep, flying forth into the night to engage in battles with the malandanti, evil-doers who attempted to sabotage the harvest.

This folk tradition might have continued undisturbed and undiscovered but for the fact that a local priest heard about it and, concerned for the welfare of his flock, consulted with inquisitors from the Catholic Church to root out any heresy. In 1575, the benandante Paolo Gasparutto reportedly gave a charm to a miller from Brazzano to help heal his son from a mysterious illness that he believed was caused by witchcraft. The local priest, Don Bartolomeo Sgabarizza, heard about this use of magic and sought Paolo out to ask about his beliefs.

Paolo Gasparutto
This is how, in March of 1575, the Inquisition came to the northern Italian town of Cividale del Friuli to investigate rumors of witchcraft and heresy. To any educated priest who encountered these stories of night flights and revels, they would have sounded like witchcraft. Most clerics would have had only a narrow textual framework with which to understand the benandanti. The first, the ninth-century Canon Episcopi, describes the “night flights” of witches devoted to Diana, the ancient Roman goddess of the moon. The second, the Malleus Maleficarum, is the influential fifteenth-century witch-hunting manual, which relies heavily on this earlier textual tradition to associate spirit sendings and night flights with witchcraft.

Concerned, Don Bartolomeo testified before the Inquisitor Fra Giulio d’Assis. When the priest and inquisitor tried to give Paolo an “out” by suggesting that these were merely dreams or fancies, Paolo insisted that these night battles had actually occurred and invited both the priest and the inquisitor to join him.

As Don Bartholomeo tells it:

“He told me that on Thursday during the Ember Days of the year they were forced to go with these witches to many places… When I asked him what they did in these places, he said that they fought, played, leaped about and rode various animals, and did different things among themselves. The women beat the men who were with them with sorghum stalks, while the men only had bunches of fennel, and for this reason 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. Because this all seemed very strange to me, I came to Cividale to talk with you sir, or with the father inquisitor. And since I chanced upon this Paolo here in Cividale, I brought him to the father inquisitor in San Francesco, to whom he admitted all these things… After the father inquisitor and I had promised to go with him so that we might get him to talk, he said that he would go… Once we were there we were to say nothing, even if we were to see certain wild dancing, otherwise we would be compelled to remain there, and he also told me that he had been badly beaten by the witches for having spoken about these things, and some of these who are good, called vagabonds, and in their own words benandanti, prevent evil, and some of them commit it…”

A second witness in this inquest testified:

“[Paolo] told me that when he goes 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, but if he did not look at it and called it, it would respond at once, and when they err or speak with someone, their bodies are beaten, and they are found all black and blue, and he had been beaten and mistreated because he spoke with me these things, and if I did not believe him that I should promise to go with him, and I would see them for myself… He said that for any who wait twenty-four hours before returning and who might say or do something, their spirit would remain separated from the body, and after it was buried the spirit would wander for ever and be called malandante… This Paolo told me that these malandanti eat children.”

At first, the local inquisitor seemed ready to dismiss all this as peasant beliefs beyond the cares of the church, but five years later, in 1580, another inquisitor decided to reopen the investigation into the benandanti. 

Paolo was brought back before the Inquisition and questioned a second time.  This time, the fantastic tales of night battles with the malandanti began to resemble a kind of military service. He described being recruited by the captain of the benandanti of Verona when he was twenty-eight. Paolo testified that another benandante had warned him in his sleep this would happen, saying, “He told me that the captain of the bendandanti 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.’” Paolo stated that all those “born with the caul,” that is, born with a piece of amniotic sac covering the face, are called to be benandanti. This is a rare phenomenon, occurring in less than one in eighty thousand births, and when the priest asked how many benandanti were in his company, Paolo answered, “We are only six.”

Questioned again a few months later, Paolo described being called forth by an angel this time, saying, “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.” Questioned whether this angel frightened the company or asked to be adored, Paolo answered, “He never frightens us, but when the company breaks up, he gives a benediction… [W]e adore him just as we adore our Lord Jesus Christ in church, and it isn’t many angels but one only who leads the company.”

Battista Moduco
In the midst of these investigations, the inquisitors also brought Battista Moduco, the town crier of Cividale, in for questioning. In his testimony, Battista emphasized the importance of the benandanti in defending the harvest from the evil witches who would destroy it. Asked how this fighting order functions, he replied, “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. And if we are the victors, that year there is abundance, but if we lose there is famine… One enters at the age of twenty and is freed at forty if he so wishes… We are a great multitude, and at times we are five thousand and more… [W]e fight for the faith of Christ… Our standard bearer carries a banner of white silk stuff gilded with a lion… The banner of the witches is of red silk with four black Devils, gilded… The captain of the witches had a black beard; he is big and tall—of the German nation… There are no women among us, but it is true that there are women benandanti, and women go against women… 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.”

When pressed to reveal the names of his companions and of the witches, Battista was admirably tight-lipped. He answered that he could not reveal the names of his companions or of the witches they fought, “Because we have a life-long edict not to reveal secrets about one side or the other… This command was made by the captains of each side, whom we are obliged to obey.” Asked if he thought any of this heretical, Battista replied, “I have not known anyone who is a heretic, nor had any dealings with them.”

Brought back for questioning a few months later, in September of 1580, Battista continued to offer details about the benandanti and their duties. He testified, “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 who insist on being kneeled to…. [W]e only pay our respects… with our hats, like soldiers to their captain.” When the inquisitor asked how Battista could possibly see any of this as the work of God, since “[m]en 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,” Battista replied, “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… [N]ow I do believe that this was a diabolical work, after that other one told me of that angel of his, which I mentioned before…”

 This final about-face may have saved Battista’s life. When the inquisitor general summoned Paolo and Battista to hear their sentences in November of 1581, he informed Battista that his belief in the bendandanti was unequivocally heretical, but stated, “[W]e have ascertained that in following our frequent instructions and those of other virtuous men, you have returned, adhering to a healthier opinion, to the bosom of holy mother church and to its unity… Consequently we have admitted you... as a warning to publicly abjure the aforementioned heresies and any other, according to the following formula:

“…I promise to believe with my heart and confess with my tongue that hoy, catholic and apostolic faith which holy mother church believes, confesses, proclaims and observes. Consequently, I abjure, revoke, detest and disown every heresy of whatever kind it might be… If I learn that someone is infected with heresy or belongs to the witches, or to the witches and benandanti, I will reveal this information to you the father inquisitor or to your successors…”

After offering this oath, Paolo and Battista were given similar sentences in the form of penance. These included six months in prison, fasting and praying for the forgiveness of their sins on every Friday of the Ember Days for the next two years, offering confession and receiving communion three times a year, sending any cauls or wrappings in which their children are born to the Holy Office of the Inquisition rather than casting them into the fire, and praying the rosary on holy days for three years. The prison sentences for both men were remitted so they could care for their families.

Conclusion
The first modern scholar to rediscover the inquisition records about he benandanti was Italian historian Carlo Ginzburg, who, in his 1966 book I Benandanti, drew ties between the benandanti and similar beliefs in the Balkan region, suggesting that this tradition had ancient roots and may at one point have spanned Central Europe. Later scholars have rejected this idea, especially Norman Cohn, who, in his 1975 book Europe's Inner Demons: An Enquiry Inspired by the Great Witch-Hunt, denied that the folk or witch traditions of early modern Europe had any ties to ancient beliefs or practices.

Thus, the origins of the benandanti remain a mystery. The nature of inquisitorial records makes uncovering reality nearly impossible. These records read as dialogues, consisting of specific questions from the inquisitors designed to elicit specific answers. Defendants and witnesses were rarely able to speak freely. Instead, the beliefs of the inquisitors often shaped the direction of the questions and their answers. That said, it is possible that Paolo and Battista truly believed the things they said, that they left their bodies several times a year to engage in spiritual warfare against evil-doers in order to ensure a plentiful harvest.

The Inquisition’s investigations into the benandanti continued well into the seventeenth century. In 1668 a priest complained to one inquisitor that he had initiated legal action against several suspected benandanti but that “this trial will not be pursued, for reasons I do not know, to the great detriment of the Christian religion and injury to the poor creatures who suffer from these accursed people.” A final proceeding against suspected benandante Andrea Cattaro began in 1676 but was never concluded. 

Whatever its origin, the tradition of the benandanti appears to have had a hold on both laypeople and clerics alike. Both Paolo and Battista appear to have shared the genuine conviction that they were called to this duty, much as a soldier might be called by his captain to fight in wartime. Battista’s testimony in particular relies on the idea of soldiers going to war, and may even contain a cheeky rebuke to the inquisitors. He stated that the benandanti merely saluted their captains with their caps, like soldiers. According to Battista, it was the witches’ masters who, much like the highly educated, elite inquisitors, “go about with great solemnity in black dress and with chains around their necks and who insist on being kneeled to.”

Outro
If you enjoyed this episode, you can subscribe to Enchanted wherever you listen. This episode was produced by me with original music by Purple Planet. You can find them at purple dash planet dot com. If you want to learn more about the benandanti, be sure to check out the sources link in the show notes. Special thanks to Enchanted’s Patreon patrons for supporting the production of this and every episode. If you want to support Enchanted, please visit patreon dot com slash enchantedpodcast. If you’re looking for a way to support the show that won’t cost you anything, you can always give Enchanted a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts, Podchaser, Audible, or wherever you listen and recommend Enchanted to your friends. You can get in touch with me via email at enchantedpodcast at gmail dot com or follow on Facebook, Instagram, and Tumblr at enchantedpodcast and on Twitter at enchantedpod. As always, for more information and special features for each episode, visit enchantedpodcast dot net. I’m Corinne Wieben. Thank you for listening and stay enchanted.