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On this date in 1611, the pathetic figure of a former priest — his body shaved to expose Devil’s marks, a noose about his neck — was conveyed to the secular powers to be tortured one last time, then hauled through the streets of Aix-en-Provence and burned to ashes.

Witchsmellers were thick on the ground in pre-Thirty Years’ War France, as elsewhere.

In our scene in the south of France, we find a characteristic entry in this horrible catalogue.

Parish priest and lothario Louis Gaufridi, having seduced a local teenager, found himself in hot water when she contracted the trendy disorder of demonic possession and started raving about the times she went with the cleric to see Black Sabbath.

Other inmates at the convent to which Gaufridi’s paramour had been conveyed were soon in on the act, indicting him for cannibalism, exotic sexual perversions, and — of course — devil-worship.

Gaufridi’s denials were overcome in the usual way, with the support of doctors who filed a report scientifically vouching that the infernal powers had laid their mark upon the subject. The priest soon saw the wisdom in copping to the charges, and not only his torture-adduced confessions (which he vainly attempted to repudiate in court) but the veritable original contract specifying the terms of his demoniacal servitude was produced for magisterial consideration.

I, Louis, a priest, renounce each and every one of the spiritual and corporal gifts which may accrue to me from God, from the Virgin, and from all the saints, and especially from my patron John the Baptist, and the apostles Peter and Paul and St. Francis. And to you, Lucifer, now before me, I give myself and all the good I may accomplish, except the returns from the sacrament in the cases where I may administer it; all of which I sign and attest.

I, Lucifer, bind myself to give you, Louis Gaufridi, priest, the faculty and power of bewitching by blowing with the mouth, all and any of the women and girls you may desire; in proof of which I sign myself Lucifer.

That’s right. He did it all for the nookie.

(That, and to “be esteemed and honored above all the priests of this country.” Thomas Wright, in his omnivorous and freely available chronicle of European witch trials, remarks that these two attributed motives suggest “the reason why Gaufridi was persecuted by the rest of the clergy.” And oh, but the ladykiller — or rather, the reverse — still starred in the fantasies of the possessed years after his death. (French link))

Gaufridi’s execution immediately freed his erstwhile lover from her satanic affliction. Madeleine de la Palud, however, having officially established herself as susceptible to the penetrations of the Evil One, would remain suspect in the eyes of the inquisition for the 60 years remaining of her life. She twice faced witchcraft charges herself.

Also On This Date

• 1315: Enguerrand de Marigny, on Montfaucon

On this date 1,150 years ago, Eulogius of Cordoba was beheaded for blasphemy in Muslim Spain.

Islamic rule in Spain was a century and a half old at this time; a period of relative comity among the Abrahamic faiths, it was nevertheless far from painless for Christians.

Islamic law exerted some (usually) non-lethal pressure on subject Christians by tolerating them as second-class citizens, subject to restricted civic privileges and additional taxes. With apostasy from Islam to Christianity punishable by death, it engineered a steadily increasing Muslim proportion of the populace.

Around 850, and continuing for the ensuing century, some Christians’ resistance to this arrangement would provoke periodoc repressions and a regular supply of martyrs.

Eulogius, a priest renowned for his eloquence and education, became a prominent exponent of the emerging trend of missionary martyrdom — Christians intentionally blaspheming Mohammad to a Muslim judge for purposes of drawing an exemplary death sentence.

We can readily infer that Eulogius’s support for such behavior was controversial; surely missionary martyrdom escalated tensions between the comingling communities in ways potentially troublesome for the go-along, get-along crowd. And Christians had good reasons to go along and get along: they could enjoy positions of wealth, influence and comfort, along with unencumbered worship.

Bishop Reccafred of Cordoba attempted to squelch any appearance of official support for these fire eaters, and threw Eulogius and other priests in prison after promulgating a decree against the martyrdoms in 852. Naturally, this made him a sellout in the eyes of the militants; Eulogius took a firm line against any attempt to derogate the martyrs of a fellow monotheism as unequal to the ancient martyrs of pagan Rome.

Those who assert that these [martyrs] of our own day were killed by men who worship God and have a law, are distinguished by no prudence … because if such a cult or law is said to be valid, indeed the strength of the Christian religion must necessarily be impaired. (Cited here)

The Cordoban martyrs’ movement claimed a few dozen lives over the 850’s — a hagiography records 48 — some taking inspiration from Eulogius’ Exhortation to Martyrdom. The author of that tract eventually followed his own advice.

Caught sheltering an apostate Muslim (she was executed a few days after Eulogius), the priest got into it with the Islamic judge, denounced the Prophet, and earned himself a death sentence. The story says he even literally “turned the other cheek” when struck by a guard en route to his decapitation.

In all the time since, Eulogius’s words have had a resonance for at least some segment of Christendom: when martyrdom has waxed popular, or confrontation with Islam loomed large. As his entry in Medieval Iberia: An Encyclopedia puts it,

Eulogius’s apologetic treatises are important, then, not only as evidence of the wide spectrum of Christian responses to life under Muslim rule — from outright rejection to almost complete assimilation — but also as one of the earliest extant sources for Western views on Islam.

St. Eulogius’s life gets a somewhat more detailed treatment (from an apologetic perspective) in The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and other Principal Saints, a Google books freebie.

Part of the Themed Set: The Church confronts its competition.

Also On This Date

• 1963: Jean-Marie Bastien-Thiry, model for the Jackal