The () were members of an agrarian visionary tradition in the Friuli district of Northeastern Italy during the 16th and 17th centuries. The claimed to travel out of their bodies while asleep to struggle against malevolent sorcerers (; ) in order to ensure good crops for the season to come. Between 1575 and 1675, in the midst of the Early Modern witch trials, a number of were accused of being heretics or witches under the Roman Inquisition.
According to Early Modern records, were believed to have been born with a caul on their head, which gave them the ability to take part in nocturnal visionary traditions that occurred on specific Thursdays during the year. During these visions, it was believed that their spirits rode upon various animals into the sky and off to places in the countryside. Here they would take part in various games and other activities with other , and battle malevolent witches who threatened both their crops and their communities using sticks of sorghum. When not taking part in these visionary journeys, were also believed to have magical powers that could be used for healing.
In 1575, the first came to the attention of the Friulian Church authorities when a village priest, Don Bartolomeo Sgabarizza, began investigating the claims made by the Paolo Gasparotto. Although Sgabarizza soon abandoned his investigations, in 1580 the case was reopened by the inquisitor Fra' Felice de Montefalco, who interrogated not only Gasparotto but also a variety of other local and spirit mediums, ultimately condemning some of them for the crime of heresy. Under pressure by the Inquisition, these nocturnal spirit travels (which often included sleep paralysis) were assimilated to the diabolised stereotype of the witches' Sabbath, leading to the extinction of the cult. The Inquisition's denunciation of the visionary tradition led to the term "" becoming synonymous with the term "" (meaning "witch") in Friulian folklore right through to the 20th century.
The first historian to study the tradition was the Italian Carlo Ginzburg, who began an examination of the surviving trial records from the period in the early 1960s, culminating in the publication of his book The Night Battles: Witchcraft and Agrarian Cults in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (1966, English translation 1983). In Ginzburg's interpretation of the evidence, the was a "fertility cult" whose members were "defenders of harvests and the fertility of fields". He furthermore argued that it was only one surviving part of a much wider European tradition of visionary experiences that had its origins in the pre-Christian period, identifying similarities with Livonian werewolf beliefs. Subsequent historians have alternately built on or challenged aspects of Ginzburg's interpretation.
Members
The – a term meaning "good walkers" – were members of a folk tradition in the Friuli region.
The , who included both males and females, were individuals who believed that they ensured the protection of their community and its crops. The reported leaving their bodies in the shape of mice, cats, rabbits, or butterflies. The men mostly reported flying into the clouds battling against witches to secure fertility for their community; the women more often reported attending great feasts.
Across Europe, popular culture viewed magical abilities as either innate or learned; in Friulian folk custom, the were seen as having innate powers marked out at birth. Specifically, it was a widely held belief that those who in later life became were born with a caul, or amniotic sac, wrapped around their heads. In the folklore of Friuli at the time, cauls were imbued with magical properties, being associated with the ability to protect soldiers from harm, to cause an enemy to withdraw, and to help lawyers win their legal cases. In subsequent centuries, a related folkloric tradition found across much of Italy held to the belief that witches had been born with a caul.
From surviving records, it is apparent that members of the first learned about its traditions during infancy, usually from their mothers. For this reason, historian Norman Cohn asserted that the tradition highlights how "not only the waking thoughts but the trance experiences of individuals can be deeply conditioned by the generally accepted beliefs of the society in which they live".
Visionary journeys Although these were described by as spirit journeys, they nevertheless stressed the reality of such experiences, believing that they were real occurrences.
On Thursdays between the Ember days, periods of fasting for the Catholic Church, the claimed their spirits would leave their bodies at night in the form of small animals. The spirits of the men would go to the fields to fight evil witches (). The men fought with fennel stalks, while the witches were armed with sorghum stalks (sorghum was used for witches' brooms, and the "brooms' sorghum" was one of the most current type of sorghum). If the men prevailed, the harvest would be plentiful.
The female performed other sacred tasks. When they left their bodies they traveled to a great feast, where they danced, ate and drank with a procession of spirits, animals and faeries, and learned who amongst the villagers would die in the next year. In one account, this feast was presided over by a woman, "the abbess", who sat in splendour on the edge of a well. Carlo Ginzburg has compared these spirit assemblies with others reported by similar groups elsewhere in Italy and Sicily, which were also presided over by a goddess-figure who taught magic and divination.
The earliest accounts of the 's journeys, dating from 1575, did not contain any of the elements then associated with the diabolic witches' sabbath; there was no worshipping of the Devil (a figure who was not even present), no renunciation of Christianity, no trampling of crucifixes and no defilement of sacraments.
Relationship with witches Ginzburg noted that whether the were themselves witches or not was an area of confusion in the earliest records. Whilst they combated the malevolent witches and helped heal those who were believed to have been harmed through witchcraft, they also joined the witches on their nocturnal journeys, and the miller Pietro Rotaro was recorded as referring to them as "benandanti witches"; for this reason the priest Don Bartolomeo Sgabarizza, who recorded Rotaro's testimony, believed that while the were witches, they were 'good' witches who tried to protect their communities from the bad witches who would harm children. Ginzburg remarked that it was this contradiction in the relationship between the and the malevolent witches that ultimately heavily influenced their persecution at the hands of the Inquisition.
Inquisition and persecution
Sgabarizza's investigation: 1575 In early 1575, Paolo Gasparotto, a male who lived in the village of Iassico (modern spelling: Giassìcco), gave a charm to a miller from Brazzano named Pietro Rotaro, in the hope of healing his son, who had fallen sick from some unknown illness. This event came to the attention of the local priest, Don Bartolomeo Sgabarizza, who was intrigued by the use of such folk magic, and called Gasparotto to him to learn more. The told the priest that the sick child had "been possessed by witches" but that he had been saved from certain death by the , or "vagabonds" as they were also known.
He went on to reveal more about his brethren, relating that "on Thursdays during the Ember Days of the year [they] were forced to go with these witches to many places, such as Cormons, in front of the church at Giassìcco, and even into the countryside around Verona," where they "fought, played, leaped about, and rode various animals", as well as taking part in an activity during which "the women beat the men who were with them with sorghum stalks, while the men had only bunches of fennel."
Don Sgabarizza was concerned with such talk of witchcraft, and on 21 March 1575, he appeared as a witness before both the vicar general, Monsignor Jacopo Maracco, and the Inquisitor Fra Giulio d'Assis, a member of the Order of the Minor Conventuals, at the monastery of San Francesco of Cividale del Friuli, in the hope that they could offer him guidance in how to proceed in this situation. He brought Gasparotto with him, who readily furnished more information in front of the Inquisitor, relating that after taking part in their games, "the witches, warlocks and vagabonds" would pass in front of people's houses, looking for "clean, clear water" that they would then drink. According to Gasparotto, if the witches could not find any clean water to drink, they would "go into the cellars and overturn all the wine".
Sgabarizza did not initially believe Gasparotto's claim that these events had actually occurred. In response to the priest's disbelief, Gasparotto invited both him and the Inquisitor to join the on their next journey, although refused to provide the names of any other members of the "fraternity", stating that he would be "badly beaten by the witches" should he do so. Not long after, on the Monday following Easter, Sgabarizza visited Giassìcco in order to say Mass to the assembled congregation, and following the ritual stayed among the locals for a feast held in his honour.
During and after the meal, Sgabarizza once more discussed the journeys of the with both Gasparotto and the miller Pietro Rotaro, and later learned of another self-professed , the public crier Battista Moduco of Cividale, who offered more information on what occurred during their nocturnal visions. Ultimately, Sgabarizza and the inquisitor Giulio d'Assisi decided to abandon their investigations into the , something the later historian Carlo Ginzburg believed was probably because they came to believe that their stories of nocturnal flights and battling witches were "tall tales and nothing more".
Montefalco's investigation: 1580–1582 Gasparotto and Moduco Five years after Sgabarizza's original investigation, on 27 June 1580, the inquisitor Fra Felice da Montefalco decided to revive the case of the . To do so he ordered Gasparotto to be brought in for questioning; under interrogation, Gasparotto repeatedly denied having ever been a and asserted that involvement in such things were against God, contradicting the former claims that he had made to Sgabarizza several years before. The questioning over, Gasparotto was imprisoned.
That same day, the public crier of Cividale, Battista Moduco, who was also known locally to be a , was rounded up and interrogated at Cividale, but unlike Gasparotto, he openly admitted to Montefalco that he was a , and went on to describe his visionary journeys, in which he battled witches in order to protect the community's crops. Vehemently denouncing the actions of the witches, he claimed that the were fighting "in service of Christ", and ultimately Montefalco decided to let him go.
On 28 June, Gasparotto was brought in for interrogation again. This time he admitted to being a , claiming that he had been too scared to do so in the previous interrogation lest the witches beat him in punishment. Gasparotto went on to accuse two individuals, one from Gorizia and the other from Chiana, of being witches, and was subsequently released by Montefalco on the proviso that he return for further questioning at a later date. This eventually came about on 26 September, taking place at the monastery of San Francesco in Udine. This time, Gasparotto added an extra element to his tale, claiming that an angel had summoned him to join the . For Montefalco, the introduction of this element led him to suspect that the actions of Gasparotto were themselves heretical and satanic, and his method of interrogation became openly suggestive, putting forward the idea that the angel was actually a demon in disguise.