Aiguillettes and Witchcraft

Disclaimer

This is NOT a page about Wiccans or neo-pagans, and I do not advocate the belief that Wiccans are Satan-worshippers and/or baby-killers. I am well aware that they are not. This is a starting point for historical research into the great witch craze of 1100-1700 AD. And please, don't ask me for spells.

Aiguillettes

Also known as the ligature, an aiguillete was a knotted loop of thread used by witches to cause castration or impotence, barrenness, or discontented marriages.

16^th-century France held a strong phobia of the aiguillette. "It was believed that at the instant when a priest blessed a new marriage, the witch slipped behind the husband, knotted a thread and threw a coin on the ground while calling the Devil. If the coin disappeared, which all believed to mean that the Devil took it and kept it until Judgement Day, the couple was destined for unhappiness, sterility and adultery."

In Languedoc, couples were so afraid of the aiguillette that fewer than ten percent of weddings took place publicly in church. Instead, the couple, the parents, and the priest celebrated the sacrament secretly.

"At least one physician, Thomas Platter, concluded that the panic was so bad that there was a local danger of depopulation" (Guiley 1989 6-7).

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Aiguillettes and Witchcraft is copyright 1997-1998 to Shantell Powell.