Samuel Blaine

Professor Watt
History 356

Analysis of The Night Battles: A Widespread Cult

The Night Battles, a book by Carlo Ginzburg and translated to English by John and Anne
Tedeschi, is a massive compilation of court cases of the Roman Inquisition and other religious
legal bodies. These court cases depict religious denunciations and suits against people accused of
dabbling and taking place in witchcraft. Ginzburg repeatedly references a specific type of witch
during this time period of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. This witch is called a
benandanti, or well-farer. The benandanti are a group of agrarian good witches who
supposedly make nocturnal voyages outside of their bodies to battle in the name of Christ against
the Devils witches, or malandanti. The author proposes many points about this agrarian religious
sect. He proposes that the benandanti could be people who are epileptic. They could be people
who lie in order to gain money through deceit. But most of all, it seems Ginzburg felt that the
people who claimed to be benandanti were a part of a wide-spread pan-European fertility cult.
I can say I feel like the authors thesis was somewhat perplexing for me to understand.
His book is full of accounts of people claiming to be benandanti, and going before the
Inquisition. But, it is unclear whether or not Ginzburg believed they were all simply mentally
deranged or if they were a part of something larger. It seems that these accounts of the
benandanti come from a widespread belief that may have been derived from pagan fertility
ceremonies. It is possible that the idea of spiritual battles were passed down orally from
generation to generation, until the population really began to accept the idea as reality.

The book begins in the year 1575 with what you could call the first encounter with the
benandanti. The author describes how a priest from the village of Brazzano named Don
Bartolomeo Sgabarizza reported tidings of a man who, roamed about at night with witches and
goblins (Ginzburg, 1). This accused man was named Paolo Gasparutto. After miraculously
healing a sickly young boy, Sgabarizza began to further question Gasparutto. Gasparutto began
to tell the priest about some very unusual things. The mysterious man told the priest, on
Thursdays during the Ember Days (days that occur four times a year, representing the seasons
and times of fasting) they were forced to go with these witches to many places they fought ,
played, leaped about, and rode various animals, and did different things among themselves; the
women beat the men who were with them with sorghum stalks, while the men had only bunches
of fennel (Ginzburg, 1). These wild stories caused the priest Sgabarizza to become quite
bewildered, and he would immediately travel to speak to the nearest father Inquisitor. The
mysterious Gasparutto would be summoned before the Inquisition and questioned about these
lucid tales. He would go on to repeat them and try to clarify what people like him, benandanti,
would do.
This first encounter between the Roman Inquisition and a benandanti shows us many
interesting things. From the perspective of the priests and other clergy of the Inquisition, one can
see the fear they have of Gasparutto. He is a man that claims to fight against the Devil and his
servants, and for the good of the nations crops. When I first read this chapter in Ginzburgs
book, Ill admit I was quite confused. They listened to his testimony about how he fights for
good things and in the name of Christ, yet in the end they contort his words and cause him to
falter. They force him to recant and repent for succumbing to the dark arts of witchcraft. This is
quite interesting because I would think someone who is fighting witches for Christ would be a

good person, someone to reward and pat on the back. Yet we see the fear that these clergymen
have of Gasparutto. Instead of rewarding him, they punish him with six months in prison and
force him to renounce being a part of the benandanti. This behavior by the clergymen will
become a trend over the course of the next century.
This agrarian cult will certainly appear to grow in between the 1580s and 1670s.
Ginzburg shows us in The Night Battles that in different regions of Europe the concept of the
benandanti reveals itself in unique ways. The benandanti so far are depicted as people who leave
their bodies and travel in spirit to battle against bad witches. But Ginzburg shows us that these
benandanti can appear and claim different supernatural powers. One account shows us a woman
named Anna la Rossa who claimed she could see and communicate with dead people. In this
account, Ginzburg describes to us, it seems that Anna had gone to visit a woman of Gemona,
Lucia Peltrara, who was confined in a hospital, and told her that at the sanctuary of Santa Maria
della Bella she had seen a deceased daughter of Lucias wrapped in a sheet and in a disheveled
state. The dead girl had beseeched her to convey her last wishes to her mother (Ginzburg, 33).
In another account very similar to that of Anna la Rossa, another woman is described by
Ginzburg. A woman named Aquilina was interrogated for claiming to be able to see the dead.
The author tells us, she makes a profession of seeing, and cured diseases of every kind with
spells and superstitious remedies. A great multitude of people came to her, and there were rumors
that she earned perhaps more than two hundred ducats a year (Ginzburg, 37).
These two women describe to us Ginzburgs next description of the benandanti. This
group of people is largely seen as the agrarian group of nocturnal spirit travelers. But, the
accounts of Anna la Rossa and Aquilina show us an idea that sixteenth century Europe also had

people who believed they could see and communicate with the dead. This concept proposed by
Ginzburg brings out the idea that across Europe this idea of supernatural spiritual people can
have some variation. There is almost certainly a connection between stories like Gasparuttos and
these two womens. An interesting point worth mentioning is that the author discovers that some
of these women with special powers are really just pretending. Ginzburg tells us, Anna la Rossa
was trying, it would appear, to alleviate her own and her familys poverty by exploiting an
extremely common but also insatiable desire, the longing to know something about the fate of a
departed loved one (Ginzburg, 34).
Another perplexing variation that the author brings up in his discussion of the benandanti
would be the account of the werewolves. Ginzburg tells us the account of Thiess, an elderly man
from Germany. Thiess testifies that he had his nose broken by a man named Skeistan. He reports
that Skeistan was a witch. Ginzburg informs us, Skeistan was a witch, and with his companions
had carried seed grain into hell to keep the crops from growing. With other werewolves Thiess
had also gone down into hell and fought with Skeistan (Ginzburg, 29). This shows us the idea of
the agricultural protection that comes from these spiritual battles.
This account of werewolves protecting agrarian life is quite surprising when compared to
the benandanti and their witch battles. Werewolves have traditionally been identified as evil
creatures, always mauling and destroying anyone that is in their path. Yet the author brings us an
account where a group of werewolves is actually the protectors of people and their yearly
harvest. When Thiess is brought before the religious courts, he states his testimony about his
good intentions. He is found guilty of dabbling in dark arts and is sentenced to ten lashes. Thiess
will continue to claim to be part of the hounds of God.

A final variation from the stereotypical benandanti that Ginzburg shows us in The Night
Battles would be that of the traveling divine abbess. There are several accounts across Europe
during this time period that report the sighting of a troupe who were led by an ethereal woman.
This female figure becomes known across the land by many names, some which are AbundiaSatia-Diana-Perchta. There are also names for her followers that are said to follow only in spirit.
These names are the Furious Horde and the Wild Hunt.
This variation of the benandanti story is not too far away from the original story
discovered. There are many parallels such as how the original benandanti would travel only in
the spirit and likewise these goddess following people also supposedly travel in the spirit. A
further detail that could be compared between the two is how the original benandanti and the
witches would help themselves to the wine cellar of a home. Likewise, Diana and her company
would often pass through homes where patrons would leave out food for them. This can be seen
as another reference to the agrarian society. People felt that if they appeased Diana, the goddess,
then she would in return bless the home financially and agriculturally.
Ginzburgs book, The Night Battles, gives us a fairly clear look into sixteenth and
seventeenth century European witch trials. I feel like Ginzburg was moderately successful in
defending his thesis that an agrarian cult developed during the late 1500s. Ginzburg consulted
many fantastic sources namely documents on Roman Inquisition court denunciations. I feel like
this book had many strengths. A few of the strengths in this piece would be the sheer number of
accounts that referenced the benandanti. The multitude of these accounts show validity to
Ginzburgs research. Another strength would be the readable nature of this book. I would say it
was very student friendly. The only possible weakness I might could label would be the slightly
repetitive nature of the book. I understand that a book referencing court cases will naturally have

a monotonous feel. Overall, the material and content of this book was very engaging and
interesting. A lot can be learned about witchcraft in Europe from The Night Battles.

Works Cited
Ginzburg, Carlo. The Night Battles: Witchcraft & Agrarian Cults in the Sixteenth & Seventeenth
Centuries. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins UP, 1983. Print