Jacques du Boys, Dominican Witch-Hunter

Like Jean, Bishop of Beirut, Jacques du Boys was a Dominican friar who tutored the Inquisitor of Arras. Dean of the general chapter of the Order of Preachers, du Boys believed that many Cardinals and Bishops were secretly witches. He also believed that fully one-third of Christian Europe's population practiced witchcraft. Du Boys was a rabid witch-finder indeed. Anyone who opposed the burning of any witch was herself or himself a worshipper of the Devil.

A Church service preceded Arras' first mass burning of witches in 1459. All convicted witches confirmed the accuracy of the Inquisitor's Sabbat descriptions. Nonetheless, when it came time for the convicts to be burned, all recanted their confessions. While tied to the stake, the victims cried out that they had been induced to say they had attended the Sabbat "by means of torture and lying promises--they had been assured that if they confessed their only penance would be an obligation to go on a short pilgrimage." The Inquisitor showed no mercy and all were killed.

The Duke of Burgundy, feudal overlord of Arras, eventually intervened and the witch trials ground to a halt. Thirty years after they had been burned to death, the witches of Arras were posthumously granted a full pardon. A memorial was "erected on the site at which they had died, protesting their innocence as the flames rose around them" (King 72, 73).

Lost?

Jacques du Boys, Dominican Witch-Hunter copyrighted 1996-1998 to Shantell Powell.