Sexual Encounters

Abstract

At the trial of Louis Gaufridi for witchcraft at Aix in 1610 the defendant described the banquet at the witches’ Sabbat: ‘Sometimes they ate the tender flesh of little children, who had been slain and roasted at some synagogue, and sometimes babes were brought there, yet alive, whom the witches had kidnapped from their homes if opportunity offered.’ And, yes, the witches drank malmsey wine for sexual stimulation.¹ Given their consumption of babies, given the ritual of inversion that was their Black Mass, and given all of their other perversions that often included sexual orgies, the use of malmsey wine to stimulate witches sexually seems somewhat less than diabolical; more typical for a wedding than for those paying homage to the prince of darkness. Not quite two centuries previously in 1447 the authorities at Florence had condemned Giovanna called Caterina of the parish of San Ambrogio for practicing sorcery; she distilled water from the skulls of dead men, mixed it with wine, and gave it to Giovanni Ceresani to provoke his lust for her.² Given the widespread belief in the aphrodisiac properties of alcohol noted in Chapter 3, Giovanna might have foregone the distilled water from the skulls of dead men, presented Giovanni with a cup of plain malmsey wine instead, and avoided her punishment, which was beheading. These two episodes demonstrate that the relationship between alcohol and sexual activity was more complex than indicated by the warnings and the praises contained in the same chapter. Much depended on time, place, and circumstances.