Grandier was reinstated as curé, and he must have thought himself to be invulnerable. Friends advised him to be smart and leave Loudun, but he refused, perhaps to spite his enemies.
Grandier’s Downfall
The event that sealed Grandier’s doom at fi rst seemed trivial. JEANNEDES ANGES, the mother superior of the Ur-suline convent at Loudun, invited him to take the vacant post of canon. He declined, citing the press of too many other duties. He had never met Jeanne or been to the con-vent. Unbeknowst to him, Jeanne was harboring a secret sexual obsession with him, and he had been the object of salacious gossip among the nuns for some time.
Jeanne, a mean and vindictive woman, was stung. The man she appointed to fi ll the post, Canon Mignon, disliked Grandier. He became privy to the sexual secrets of the nuns, their nervous temperments, and their ghost pranks in their haunted convent. It was soon easy to let them run out of control and become bewitched and beset by DE
-MONs. Mignon conspired with Grandier’s enemies to let it be known that he was responsible for their affl ictions.
Grandier shrugged off these stories, confi dent no one would believe them. As fantastic as they were, the stories found an audience not only among his enemies, but in the fertile political territory of Catholics and Protestants trying to sway the faithful with demonstrations of their
spiritual fi repower. Nothing played better for the Catho-lics than demonic possession.
Soon the nuns were giving hysterical performances for swelling crowds, under the exorcisms of Mignon and a Franciscan, FATHER GABRIEL LACTANCE, and a Capuchin, Father Tranquille. Both Lactance and Tranquille were be-lievers in the demonic.
Torture and Death
On August 18, Grandier was convicted and sentenced to be tortured and burned alive at the stake, and his ashes scattered to the winds. The sentence also stated that he would be forced to kneel at St. Peter’s Church and the Ur-suline convent and ask for forgiveness. A commemorative plaque would be placed in the Ursuline convent at a cost of 150 livres, to be paid for out of Grandier’s confi scated estate. The sentence was to be carried out immediately.
Grandier made an eloquent speech of his innocence to the stone-faced judges. So moved were the spectators, however, that many burst into tears, forcing the judges to clear the room. Grandier refused the last services of Lactance and Tranquille and made his fi nal prayers. The exorcists, pushing Grandier’s alleged guilt to the maxi-mum, insisted that when he said the word God he really meant “Satan.”
In anticipation of a guilty verdict and execution, about 30,000 people had fl ocked to Loudun to witness the spectacle.
Grandier’s body was shaved, but his fi ngernails were not ripped out because the surgeon refused to obey the court. In the interests of moving matters along, that pun-ishment was forgone. He was then prepared for the ques-tion extraordinaire, the confession of his crimes.
Lactance and Tranquille exorcized the ropes, boards, and mallets of torture, lest the demons interfere and relieve Grandier’s suffering. The curé was bound, stretched out on the fl oor, and tied from his knees to his feet to four oak boards. The outer boards were fi xed and the inner boards were movable. Wedges were driven between the pairs so that his legs were crushed. The excruciating crushing took about 45 minutes. At every blow, Grandier was asked to confess, and he refused. The fi nal hammer blows were de-livered by Lactance and Tranquille. Grandier’s smashed legs were poked, inducing more pain. The exorcists de-clared that the Devil had rendered him insensible to pain.
For two more hours, Grandier was cajoled to sign the confession prepared for him, but he steadfastly refused, saying it was morally impossible for him to do so. The court fi nally gave up and sent him off to the stake.
Grandier was dressed in a shirt soaked in sulfur and a rope was tied around his neck. He was seated in a mule-drawn cart and hauled through the streets, with a proces-sion of the judges behind him. At the door of St. Peter’s Church, the procession halted and a two-pound candle was placed in Grandier’s hands. He was lifted down and urged to beg pardon for his crimes. Grandier could not kneel because of his crushed legs and fell on his face. He was lifted up and held by one of his supporters, Father Father Urbain Grandier is burned at the stake. (AUTHOR’S
COLLECTION)
Grandier, Urbain 99
Grillau, who prayed for him as both of them wept in a piteous scene. The onlookers were ordered not to pray for Grandier, for they would be committing a sin.
At the Ursuline convent, the same procedure was re-peated, and Grandier was asked to pardon Jeanne and all the nuns. He said he had never done them any harm and could only pray that God would forgive them for what they had done.
Father René Bernier, who had testifi ed against Grand-ier, came forward to ask for Grandier’s forgiveness and offered to say a mass for him.
The place of execution was the Place Saint-Croix, which was jammed with spectators. Everyone who had a window had rented it out to capacity. More spectators sat on the church’s roof. Guards had to fi ght a way through the throng to reach the 15-foot stake driven into the ground near the north wall of the church. Faggots were piled at the base of the stake.
Grandier was tied to a small iron seat fastened to the stake, facing the grandstand, where his enemies drank wine in celebration. He had been promised strangulation by the noose around his neck prior to the start of the fi re.
The Capuchin friars exorcized the site, including the wood, straw, and coals that would start the blaze and the earth, the air, the victim, the executioners, and the spec-tators. The exorcisms were done again to prevent the in-terference of demons to mitigate Grandier’s suffering and pain. His death was to be as excruciating as possible.
Grandier made several attempts to speak, but the friars silenced him with douses of holy water and blows to his mouth with an iron crucifi x. Lactance still demanded a confession, but Grandier gave none. He asked Lactance for the “kiss of peace,” customarily granted to the condemned.
At fi rst, Lactance refused, but the crowd protested, and so he angrily complied, kissing Grandier’s cheek.
Grandier said he would soon meet the judgment of God, and so, eventually, would Lactance. At that, Lac-tance lit the fi re, followed by Tranquille and another ex-orcist, Father Archangel. The executioner moved quickly to strangle Grandier but discovered that the noose had been secretly knotted by the Capuchins so that it could not be tightened. The friars doused some of the fl ames with holy water to exorcise any remaining demons. Left to burn alive, Grandier began screaming.
A large black fl y appeared, which the exorcists took as a sign of BEELZEBUB, the Lord of the Flies. Grandier’s body was consumed in fl ames. Then a fl ock of pigeons appeared, wheeling around the fi re. Grandier’s enemies took this as a sign of demons, and his supporters took it as a sign of the Holy Ghost.
When the fi re burned itself out, the executioner shov-eled the ashes to the four cardinal points. Then the crowd surged forward to scavenge grisly souvenirs of teeth, bits of bone, and handfuls of ashes, to be used in CHARMs and spells. The relics of a sorcerer were considered to be quite powerful. When all were gone, the satisfi ed crowd dis-persed to eat and drink.
Later, back at the Ursuline convent, Jeanne was exor-cized again. She said the fl y was the demon Baruch, who had been intent on trying to throw the priests’ exorcism book into the fi re. She confi rmed that Grandier really had prayed to Satan, not to God. She said he suffered an ex-cruciating death thanks to the exorcisms of the priests, and that he was suffering special torments in HELL.
Jeanne and the other nuns were remorseful about Grandier and worried that they had sinned. Soon, how-ever, the priest was forgotten, as the possessions and exorcisms continued. Tranquille and Lactance suffered demonic problems themselves and died.
FURTHERREADING:
Certeau, Michel de. The Possession at Loudun. Translated by Michael B. Smith. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000.
Ferber, Sarah. Demonic Possession and Exorcism in Early Mod-ern France. London: Routledge, 2004.
Huxley, Aldous. The Devils of Loudun. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1952.
griffi n-demon An Assyrian guardian against evil spir-its. The griffi n-demon is a hybrid with a human body and bird head and wings. Figurines of griffi n-demons were placed in foundations of houses and palaces to ward off DEMONs.
grimoires Handbooks of magic that provide instruc-tions for rituals, the casting of spells, the procuring of treasure and love, the procuring of FAMILIARs, and the evocation and control of spirits, including DEMONs and
ANGELs, to perform tasks. Grimoire is a French term for
“grammar book.”
Although any handbook of magic could be called a grimoire, the term usually applies to specifi c texts that claim the magical knowledge of King SOLOMON as their source. The material in grimoires is heavily derivative of Hebrew magical and mystical lore, involving the names, powers, and duties of spirits and the powerful names of God. Other principal sources are Hellenistic Greek and Egyptian magical texts and folk magic.
Most of the principal grimoires were written in the 17th and 18th centuries but claimed to be much older.
They were popular well into the 19th century. Printed on cheap paper, grimoires circulated primarily in France and Italy. They are still consulted, but modern magicians have written their own textbooks of magic.
Grimoires give instructions for rituals to conjure and control spirits and cosmic forces for protection, wealth, luck, supernatural power, CURSEs on enemies, and so forth. They instruct the magician on what to wear, what tools to use, how to purify himself, and what prayers and incantations to recite at precise astrological times and various hours of the day and night, according to the ruling spirits. They give recipes for fumigations, descriptions of the creation of magic circles, magic triangles, pentacles,
AMULETs, TALISMANs, seals and sigils, instructions on sac-100 griffi n-demon
rifi ces, and ways to deal with unruly demons, including rites of EXORCISM.
Some grimoires are devoted to theurgy, or white magic, while others concern goetia, or black magic. Some include both. The attainment of treasure and love and the ability to harm one’s enemies are prominent throughout the grimoires. Some were printed in red ink and were said to burn the eyes if gazed at too long.
The following are the grimoires of signifi cance:
Key of Solomon The most important grimoire is the Key of Solomon, also called the Greater Key of Solomon and the Clavicle of Solomon. This text is the source for most other grimoires. The book is attributed to the legendary King Solomon, who asked God for wisdom and commanded an army of demons (DJINN) to do his bidding and build great works. In the fi rst century C.E., the Jewish historian Jose-phus mentioned a book of incantations for summoning and thwarting demons that was attributed to the author-ship of Solomon. Josephus said that a Jew named Eleazar used it to cure cases of POSSESSION. Josephus may have been referring to the Key, but some historians believe it was the Testament of Solomon (discussed later) or, more likely, a different text altogether.
The Key is mentioned in literature throughout the centuries, and over time it grew in size and content. So many versions of this grimoire were written that the orig-inal text is uncertain. A Greek version that dates to 1100–
1200 C.E. is part of the collection in the British Museum.
From the 14th century on, Solomonic magical works took on increasing importance. Around 1350, Pope Innocent VI ordered that a grimoire called The Book of Solomon be burned; later, in 1559, the Inquisition condemned Solo-mon’s grimoire again as dangerous. The Key of Solomon was widely distributed in the 17th century. Hundreds of copies of the Key, in differing versions, still exist. Suppos-edly, the original manuscript was written in Hebrew, but no such text is known.
Lemegeton Another grimoire attributed to Solomon is the Lemegeton, or Lesser Key of Solomon. The origin and meaning of Lemegeton are not known. The book also was known as Liber Spirituum (see later discussion) and Liber Offi ciorum. Claims were made that the Lemegeton was originally written in Chaldean and Hebrew, but these are doubtful. The earliest perfect examples of it are in French.
The material probably is derived in part from the Testa-ment of Solomon (discussed later) and also the apochry-phal book of Enoch. Part of the Lemegeton was published in Latin by the demonologist JOHANN WEYER in 1563, entitled Pseudomonarchia Daemonum (Pseudo- monarchy of demons). REGINALD SCOT translated part of it into his Discoverie of Witchcraft (1584).
The book is divided into four parts: Goetia, Theurgia, the Pauline Art, and the Almadel. The Almadel was men-tioned in writing around 1500. Goetia is devoted to evil spirits. Theurgia (or Theurgia-Goetia, as it is also called) is devoted to both good and evil spirits and all aerial
spir-its. The Pauline Art concerns the spirits who govern the planets, the signs of the zodiac, and the hours of the day and night. The Almadel concerns 20 chief spirits who govern the four quarters and the 360 degrees of the zo-diac. Goetia is the part published by Weyer. Waite specu-lated that Goetia is the original Lemegeton and the other three parts were unknown to Weyer and were added at a later time.
The Lemegeton lists 72 FALLENANGELS, their titles, seals, duties, and powers, and the angels who can thwart them.
The number 72 may have been inspired by the Schemh-amphorae, 72 angels who bear the Names of God, which are given in Hebrew Scripture and are expressed at the end of every verse. The verses are used in invocation and in magic. The Schemhamphorae function as names of power.
The 72 demons in the Lemegeton possess teaching skills for the sciences and art, as well as the ability to cause terrible diseases and disasters. Few have any healing ability.
Testament of Solomon The Testament of Solomon is a Greek text in the pseudepigrapha written between the fi rst and third centuries C.E. It tells the story of how King Solomon built the Temple of Jerusalem by commanding demons. The text is rich in demonology, angelology, and lore about medicine, astrology, and magic. The author probably was familiar with the Babylonian Talmud.
The text says that stellar bodies are demonic, wield-ing destructive power over the affairs of humanity. The 36 decans, or 10-degree portions of the zodiac, are called heavenly bodies and likewise are ruled by demons, who cause mental and physical illnesses. There are seven
“world rulers,” who are equated with the vices of decep-tion, strife, fate, distress, error, power, and “the worst,”
each of whom is thwarted by a particular angel (with the exception of “the worst”).
The testament provides a signifi cant contribution to the legends of Solomon’s magical powers and the magical The Devil and a sorcerer exchange copies of a book of black magic and the Gospels. (AUTHOR’S COLLECTION)
grimoires 101
handbooks attributed to Solomon. It is not a grimoire of magical instruction, however.
Grand Grimoire This French grimoire was probably au-thored in the 17th or 18th century. The earliest edition of it bears no date or place of publication. One version of it claims to date to 1522. Its full title is The Grand Gri-moire, with the Powerful Clavicle of Solomon and of Black Magic; or the Infernal Devices of the Great Agrippa for the Discovery of all Hidden Treasures and the Subjugation of ev-ery Denomination of Spirits, together with an Abridgment of all the Magical Arts. The editor, Venitiana del Rabina, said he translated the work from the writings of Solomon himself, which came into his possession.
The Grand Grimoire is a text of black magic. It has the same chief demons as the Grimorium Verum and nearly the same subordinate offi cers but describes different du-ties for them. The book is especially signifi cant for its fea-ture of a specifi c PACT between the magician and LUCIFUGE
ROFOCALE, the prime minister of LUCIFER, who makes his only appearance in all literature in this grimoire alone.
However, his last name, Rofocale, may be an anagram of FOCALOR, a demon named in the Lemegeton.
The book also includes instructions for necromancy.
Grimorium Verum Drawn from the Greater Key of Solo-mon and written in French, this book probably was writ-ten in the mid-18th century. Claims were made that it was translated from Hebrew by a Dominican Jesuit named Plaingiere and was published by “Alibeck the Egyptian”
in 1517. Its full title is Grimorium Verum, or the Most Ap-proved Keys of Solomon the Hebrew Rabbin, wherein the Most Hidden Secrets, both Natural and Supernatural, are immediately exhibited, but it is necessary that the Demons should be contented on their part.
The Grimorium Verum nearly copies the Key of Solo-mon in instructions for preparation of the magician and his tools but provides different instructions for the prepa-ration of the virgin parchment and for the evocation and dismissal of spirits. There is an entirely different hierar-chy of demons, who number 30 and who report to three leaders, Lucifer, BEELZUBUB, and ASTAROTH, who have among them six deputy chiefs.
The material also shows infl uences from Lemegeton.
It includes the “Admirable Secrets” of the pseudo-Alber-tus Magnus, or Little Albert (see later), which appear in other later grimoires. The Grimorium Verum covers the
“Genuine Sanctum Regnum,” or the true method of mak-ing pacts.
Fourth Book Authorship is attributed to the occultist Henry Cornelius Agrippa, but the book, supposedly the fourth volume of Agrippa’s monumental three-volume Occult Philosophy, was written by an unknown author. It is also known as the Liber Spirituum and is in the open-ing of the Lemegeton. The Fourth Book appeared after the
Fourth Book Authorship is attributed to the occultist Henry Cornelius Agrippa, but the book, supposedly the fourth volume of Agrippa’s monumental three-volume Occult Philosophy, was written by an unknown author. It is also known as the Liber Spirituum and is in the open-ing of the Lemegeton. The Fourth Book appeared after the