Speaker 1: Welcome to Criminalia, a production of Shonda Land Audio in
Speaker 1: partnership with I Heart Radio. Imagine one day your local
Speaker 1: pharmacist is arrested and accused of drinking the blood of
Speaker 1: infants and flying to an orgy involving the devil. Welcome
Speaker 1: to Criminalia. I'm Maria Marquis and I'm Holly Fry. Let's
Speaker 1: talk about that pharmacist. Matteuccia di Francesco Matteuccia was born
Speaker 1: in in the small village of Ripa Bianca in the
Speaker 1: Province of Perugia in the Umbria region of Italy, and
Speaker 1: at this time in Italian history, most people were living
Speaker 1: in rural servitude and when she was born, the average
Speaker 1: life expectancy was thirty to thirty five years. Most people
Speaker 1: were not formally educated, and most of them were very superstitious.
Speaker 1: Other than her place of birth, we don't really know
Speaker 1: anything about her childhood. In fact, we don't meet up
Speaker 1: with her in history until she's accused of practicing witchcraft.
Speaker 1: Her witch trial was one of the earliest recorded witch
Speaker 1: trials in Europe, but what really makes it stand out
Speaker 1: is that it's considered the first case where an alleged
Speaker 1: witch is accused of flying during her lifetime. Actually from
Speaker 1: the early fourteenth century all the way up until sixteen
Speaker 1: fifty or so, it's estimated that between two hundred thousand
Speaker 1: and five hundred thousand alleged witches were executed in Europe,
Speaker 1: or more of them were women. Experts believe, of course,
Speaker 1: that most were wrongfully accused of their crimes, and those
Speaker 1: accused and convicted were often happening during cases of mass
Speaker 1: hysteria and fear about pagan practices and the embellished stories
Speaker 1: told about them. Perceptions about Western witchcraft and sorcery began
Speaker 1: to change during around the eleventh cent tree, which puts
Speaker 1: us around two hundred years before Matteuccia was born. Ideas
Speaker 1: about the magical arts had transformed from pagan practice into
Speaker 1: an intertwined association between those practices, heresy, and the devil.
Speaker 1: This meant that charges of practicing these offenses were tried
Speaker 1: in court as malevolent sorcery, as they already had been,
Speaker 1: but now they also came with the additional charges of diabolism.
Speaker 1: We've really started this season to see some identifying criteria
Speaker 1: used by locals and witch hunters, although it's still pretty
Speaker 1: early in terms of really seeing a pattern just yet.
Speaker 1: But here's what we've learned so far when it comes
Speaker 1: to identifying a witch. First, we can all probably tell
Speaker 1: from the numbers of deaths. If the individual was a woman,
Speaker 1: she could be a witch. And if she had a pet,
Speaker 1: and not necessarily the stereotypical black cat, she could be
Speaker 1: a witch. If she had a wart, she could be
Speaker 1: a witch. If she was middle aged somewhere around forty,
Speaker 1: or perhaps even a little older, she could be a witch.
Speaker 1: If she lived alone, it could be argued she was
Speaker 1: undermining the sacrament of marriage and the eyes of the church,
Speaker 1: and of course that meant she could be a witch.
Speaker 1: And finally, if you'd gotten in any sort of argument
Speaker 1: with her and something bad happened to you afterward, come on,
Speaker 1: she's surely a witch. From the four through the eighteen centuries,
Speaker 1: there were some really wild superstitions about witches, which is,
Speaker 1: we're believed to renounce God and instead worship the devil,
Speaker 1: and that meant things like selling one's soul in exchange
Speaker 1: for the devil's assistance and summoning demons to carry out
Speaker 1: magical deeds. It was also believed in Manti Yuccia's trial
Speaker 1: is considered the first recorded instance of this belief. As
Speaker 1: we said earlier, that which has had the ability to
Speaker 1: fly through the air, You might hear subtle differences in
Speaker 1: this story. Some flu on broomsticks, which is really the
Speaker 1: classic which vehicle, I would say, or on the back
Speaker 1: of a goat, or even on the back of a demon,
Speaker 1: But witches, make no doubt about it could fly. Some
Speaker 1: people also believed that witches had sex with the devil
Speaker 1: and engaged in orgies during their secret meetings. Some believe
Speaker 1: that the accused were capable of shape shifting from human
Speaker 1: to animal form, or just from human form to another
Speaker 1: human form. As we mentioned earlier, there were rumors that
Speaker 1: witches who had pets kept those animals as their familiars
Speaker 1: to do their evil bidding. And it was also believed
Speaker 1: that these so called witches were known to kidnap and
Speaker 1: murder infants and children for the purpose of drinking their blood,
Speaker 1: eating them, or rendering their fat into magical ointments, or
Speaker 1: perhaps all of the above. Sure, it's naive not to
Speaker 1: think that some people practiced sorcery with the intent to
Speaker 1: harm others, or as some people did worship the devil.
Speaker 1: The crime of witchcraft were defined and within those definitions
Speaker 1: which hunts began to gain popularity, frequently encouraged by priests, judges,
Speaker 1: and local authorities who may or may not have studied
Speaker 1: theology or law. These so called experts believed there were
Speaker 1: witches in their society and that that evil needed to
Speaker 1: be expelled. We're going to take a break for a
Speaker 1: word from our sponsor, and when we come back, we
Speaker 1: will talk about what a wise woman was and why
Speaker 1: she would have been so important to her village. Welcome
Speaker 1: back to Criminalia. Let's meet mate Uchia. Mistress of herbs
Speaker 1: and protector of abused women. So Madauccia was known as
Speaker 1: a domino or barum that literally means the mistress of herbs,
Speaker 1: which is kind of a fabulous title. As an expert
Speaker 1: of herbs, she likely would have worked as an apothecary,
Speaker 1: or at least in a similar capacity, doing things like
Speaker 1: preparing ointments and herbal teas to heal ailments and injuries,
Speaker 1: perhaps with the recitation of a few magic words and
Speaker 1: amusing your quotes. It's more ritual at that point, probably
Speaker 1: than magical. She also provided aid for abused women. Word
Speaker 1: about Matthiuchia's herbal remedies and potions spread and her client
Speaker 1: base began to grow. To be honest, most of her
Speaker 1: advice was pretty harmless, although some of her concoctions may
Speaker 1: have seemed strange to some. So imagine, for example, a
Speaker 1: salve made out of radish, garlic, wormwood, and a few
Speaker 1: other herbs thrown in boiled in butter, strained, and then
Speaker 1: given to you to cure your headaches. This may all
Speaker 1: seem very odd, but to the people of her village,
Speaker 1: if it worked, it worked. Domina of Barum was what
Speaker 1: was known as a wise woman. A wiseman was a
Speaker 1: woman who was well versed in the use of herbs, charms,
Speaker 1: maybe fortune telling, and often she also of her babies.
Speaker 1: Most people in medieval times never actually saw a doctor,
Speaker 1: but they absolutely went to their local wise woman or
Speaker 1: wise man. They had basically three options for healthcare. One
Speaker 1: was the power of prayer. Too, they could seek out
Speaker 1: a monastery with monks or nuns with knowledge of herbal remedies.
Speaker 1: Or three, they could visit the local wise woman who
Speaker 1: was skilled in the use of herbs. During the Middle Ages,
Speaker 1: physicians were trained to observe palpitate, take a patient's pulse
Speaker 1: and do a urine examination, but apothecaries and wise women
Speaker 1: and wise men were able to practically apply more than
Speaker 1: six hundred plants for medicinal use. You can thank Diascordies,
Speaker 1: a Greek physician, pharmacologist, botanist, and the author of De
Speaker 1: Materia Medica. That's a five volume Greek encyclopedia about herbal medicine.
Speaker 1: It was referred to for more than fifteen hundred years,
Speaker 1: but like many old documents, the original text is lost. Luckily,
Speaker 1: there are many surviving copies the detail how plants were
Speaker 1: used for specific disorders, while others were credited with curing
Speaker 1: multiple diseases. His writings were the basis of pretty much
Speaker 1: all the herbal medicine practiced in Matti Yucci's lifetime. Apothecaries
Speaker 1: were highly valued medical professionals. Today, that work has been
Speaker 1: synthesized and edited, and today's version of it is widely
Speaker 1: attributed to Hippocrates. Matta Yucci's work as a wise woman
Speaker 1: though left her accused of being quote a woman of
Speaker 1: a bad life and reputation, public and enchantress, sorceress, evil
Speaker 1: spell caster, and which the records of her trial detail
Speaker 1: the charms she used and her specialties seemed to have
Speaker 1: been healing prayers, and she definitely could throw down a
Speaker 1: love spell. Her primary client, how for those love spells, though,
Speaker 1: according to her trial record, were women who wanted men
Speaker 1: to love them, as you'd expect, but she also used
Speaker 1: them to help women in abuse of relationships or women
Speaker 1: who had been abandoned by their partners. Among her clients
Speaker 1: was Braccia da Montone, a renowned leader of bands of
Speaker 1: mercenary soldiers and lord of a vast territory which included Perugia.
Speaker 1: He fought in many battles, and he was almost always victorious.
Speaker 1: We do not know how these two people met, but
Speaker 1: he was friendly with Matteucia and not always friendly to
Speaker 1: the pope. You can see where that might cause a problem.
Speaker 1: Experts think their friendship may have been a contributing factor
Speaker 1: in what ultimately led to her arrest and spoiler alert,
Speaker 1: her execution. Although it was rare before the year fourteen
Speaker 1: hundred for witchcraft crimes to specifically be prosecuted, the increasingly
Speaker 1: common persecution of heresy made way for later criminal charges
Speaker 1: against sorcery. The inquisitors who arrested Matteucia expected to find
Speaker 1: supernatural diabolism for enchantments and other magical arts. But they
Speaker 1: didn't I mean not really, but inquisitors always made sure
Speaker 1: to find what they were looking for. So we're gonna
Speaker 1: once again take a break for a word from our sponsor,
Speaker 1: and when we return, we will go to Matteuccia's trial,
Speaker 1: where it was claimed that she was quote instigated by
Speaker 1: a diabolical spirit. Welcome back to Criminalia. Let's talk about
Speaker 1: how this wise woman found herself accused of having flown
Speaker 1: on a goat. Matticia's trial was conducted in Tody at
Speaker 1: the Tribunale Malai, which translates into English as the Court
Speaker 1: of Evildoers. It's a pretty great name, but to be clear,
Speaker 1: it was a terrible place. The historical records are still
Speaker 1: preserved today at the Municipal Historical Archives, and hers is
Speaker 1: one of the oldest witchcraft cases in Italy for which
Speaker 1: a complete trial record survives. Her court record states that
Speaker 1: her case was brought to trial after complaints from local
Speaker 1: quote reputable men, complaints of who, what, when or where.
Speaker 1: None of that is included. What we know of her
Speaker 1: trial is that she was charged with upwards of thirty counts,
Speaker 1: including some very specific things, the crime of having persuaded
Speaker 1: one of Braccio's men to gather the flesh of a
Speaker 1: drowned man to prepare an oil to heal the wounds
Speaker 1: of a patient, of having drunk the blood of many infants,
Speaker 1: of being able to turn into a cat, and having
Speaker 1: flown on a goat to the famous note de Benevento,
Speaker 1: which translates into English as the walnut tree of Benevento.
Speaker 1: So I want to sidestep for a second and just
Speaker 1: digress into a discussion about the legend of this walnut
Speaker 1: tree of Benevento, because it was recorded during the trial
Speaker 1: as a place where which is gathered every Saturday night
Speaker 1: on the banks of the river Savato in Benevento. It's
Speaker 1: just north of Naples, and they would dance around this
Speaker 1: walnut tree in the presence of the devil. In addition
Speaker 1: to providing her apothecary services, which her accusers characterized as enchantment,
Speaker 1: Matiucia was also accused of flying in through people's windows
Speaker 1: and sucking the life out of children sometimes though that's
Speaker 1: reported as sucking the blood out of children, but really
Speaker 1: either way. Some sources report she was accused of being
Speaker 1: a sex worker, as well as having committed desecration with
Speaker 1: other women. One source also mentioned her being a nun.
Speaker 1: We can't confirm any of that, so take those with
Speaker 1: a grain of salt. It's said in some records that
Speaker 1: Bernardino dos Siena also pressed charges against her, although if
Speaker 1: he did, it is unclear what the specific charge was.
Speaker 1: Bernardino Dosciana was an Italian priest and Franciscan missionary who
Speaker 1: was known as the Apostle of Italy. He was eventually
Speaker 1: made a saint, and he frequently preached against so called
Speaker 1: wickedness such as sorcery, gambling, witchcraft, homosexuality, and heresy, weaving
Speaker 1: all of that into local legend and folklore. And he
Speaker 1: became a very popular man in his own lifetime, and
Speaker 1: when he preached, large crowds gathered. When it came to witchcraft,
Speaker 1: he frequently preached and will quote, there is nothing better
Speaker 1: to do than cry to the fire, to fire to
Speaker 1: the fire, and by fire he meant witches were to
Speaker 1: be burned at the stake, and that means burned alive.
Speaker 1: He had visited Doughty as recently as that same year
Speaker 1: or within two years prior, sharing these very same beliefs
Speaker 1: with Mattiuchia's fellow villagers. So there is a description of
Speaker 1: one of his speeches, and it paints quite a picture,
Speaker 1: so we're going to read it. Quote. The turmoil was large,
Speaker 1: and the people trembled. The church and Piazza Santa Croce
Speaker 1: was full of citizens and peasants, women and men, several
Speaker 1: thousands in number. The shouting of little children and young
Speaker 1: boys was loud when Friar Bernardino stopped preaching and went
Speaker 1: to the piazza with many other fryers and set on
Speaker 1: fire a pile of four tables of games, several baskets
Speaker 1: of dice, more than four thousand pairs of old and
Speaker 1: new card games of great numbers, And placed and attached
Speaker 1: and hung on every side were much hair and flounces
Speaker 1: of dresses of women and other things, and with a
Speaker 1: lot of wood underneath. You have never seen a more
Speaker 1: beautiful fire. And the flames spread in the air and
Speaker 1: confused the demon enemy of God. Let's talk more about
Speaker 1: Matuccia's trial. Court records also report how she and will
Speaker 1: quote here, enchanted the body head or other limbs of patients.
Speaker 1: The fact was, though in this court it really didn't
Speaker 1: matter if her patient had become gravely ill or died,
Speaker 1: or if she had cured their illness rather than reading disease,
Speaker 1: she would still be held guilty of practicing witchcraft. It
Speaker 1: didn't matter either way. Matteuci confessed to several things, although
Speaker 1: it's really unclear if her confession happened under torture. Torture,
Speaker 1: as we know, is a common practice at this time
Speaker 1: in history. She confessed to having sold medicine, but she
Speaker 1: also confessed to having flown on the back of a
Speaker 1: demon or possibly a goat, after having smeared herself with
Speaker 1: an ointment made of the blood of newborn children. Mattiucia
Speaker 1: was quote instigated by a diabolical spirit. Specifically in the
Speaker 1: trial record, the phrase is Malamale's addendo diabolico spiritu instigata,
Speaker 1: which translates into English as adding evil to evil inspired
Speaker 1: by the demonic spirit, and that phrase was added to
Speaker 1: the tale of almost all of the paragraphs detailing Matteuccia's crimes,
Speaker 1: just to be sure we all knew that her crimes
Speaker 1: were of the Black Arts and that she was in
Speaker 1: league with the devil. While reading her trial record is
Speaker 1: historically interesting, it's it's also a document that is absolutely
Speaker 1: not in her favor, and neither was her trial. Matteuccia
Speaker 1: didn't have any form of defense. She did not serve
Speaker 1: as her own defense. She had no one to stand
Speaker 1: up for her. She testified, likely it filtered through interrogators
Speaker 1: that she had had involvement with quote ghosts who came
Speaker 1: to her as a remedy to procure a pagan bone,
Speaker 1: that is, of those buried without baptism, the bodies of
Speaker 1: drowned persons to obtain fat with which, after having cooked
Speaker 1: the meat, to create a liquor. Mattiacia confessed to the
Speaker 1: crime she was accused of as we said, and unsurprisingly,
Speaker 1: she was found quote guilty of having carried out her
Speaker 1: criminal activity in a continuous and aggravated manner. On March,
Speaker 1: at age forty, she was burned alive in the Perusian
Speaker 1: town of Tody. Inspired by Bernardino da Siena, Tody tightened
Speaker 1: up witchcraft laws right around the time Matteuccio was executed,
Speaker 1: and they implemented a zero tolerance stance. We're gonna quote
Speaker 1: de Siana here wherever one may be, he stated, and
Speaker 1: whoever may know him or her in any place whatsoever,
Speaker 1: inside or outside the city straightaway accused her before the inquisitor.
Speaker 1: Every which every wizard, every sorcerer or sorceress, or worker
Speaker 1: of charms and spells, such enchanters, every time they have
Speaker 1: worked any charms or spells, have denied God by doing so,
Speaker 1: and he packed the house. We always end on a
Speaker 1: net on, like a down note, Holly, So, and it's
Speaker 1: usually someone's death. Um, so let's drink to perhaps a
Speaker 1: happier time. What do you have for us today? Okay,
Speaker 1: so I'm gonna confess that first for today's cauldron, I
Speaker 1: thought about trying to make a drink somehow inspired by
Speaker 1: a goat, but I abandoned that line of thinking because
Speaker 1: it was going to bad places. But what I there
Speaker 1: were a few things that I really loved. I obviously
Speaker 1: love the phrase diabolical spirit which comes up, and I
Speaker 1: like that there's kind of a double on ponder there,
Speaker 1: and then spirits can refer to alcohols. So I came
Speaker 1: up with a drink that I'm calling the diabolical Spirit
Speaker 1: and what it actually reverences. And this is a little gross,
Speaker 1: but I promised the drink is delicious. Are the allegations
Speaker 1: that she drank blood? Guess what You're never going to
Speaker 1: get a bloody marry anything out of me because I
Speaker 1: do not like them, and I think tomato juice is,
Speaker 1: oh my god, how do we even know each other?
Speaker 1: I don't know. Well it shows over we just never
Speaker 1: have to share drinks, really is the case? Right? It
Speaker 1: works out great all the time. You're gonna want this
Speaker 1: one though. So this is of course a beautiful, beautiful
Speaker 1: red color, and it's got a very surprisingly complex flavor.
Speaker 1: It's absolutely lovely. So you're gonna start it's simple to
Speaker 1: put together three quarters of an ounce of grenadine. You're
Speaker 1: gonna do a half ounce of lemon juice, and then
Speaker 1: you're gonna add an ounce of gin and three quarters
Speaker 1: of an ounce of amoretto. And to all of that
Speaker 1: you will add three ounces of pomegranate juice. You can
Speaker 1: shake that all up, or you can stir it up
Speaker 1: and you end up. It's thick, and it looks very
Speaker 1: much like blood. That pomegranate juice has such a deep
Speaker 1: flavor and a deep color that it looks very bloody.
Speaker 1: So it looks like blood. It's rich and taste, it's
Speaker 1: full of antioxidants. That is the diabolical spirit. It is
Speaker 1: really delicious. I will say it is a lot of
Speaker 1: flavor and it is quite sweet. So if you wanted
Speaker 1: to cut it, you could also pour in some club
Speaker 1: soda and just you know, bring it down a little bit.
Speaker 1: If you want to do the mocktail version, it's super
Speaker 1: duper easy. You're gonna do all of the same stuff,
Speaker 1: but you're going to skip the gin obviously, and use
Speaker 1: almond syrup in lieu of vamoretto. And here's what I
Speaker 1: would do, because there is a cool thing that happens
Speaker 1: to your nose and your palette when you're drinking it,
Speaker 1: because you do get those that scent of gin, even
Speaker 1: though the flavor of it is not particularly strong and
Speaker 1: it I would add a garnish of rosemary. Get a
Speaker 1: nice sprig of rosemary and stick it in your glass
Speaker 1: for the mocktail, because you're still going to get that
Speaker 1: that aromatic experience of smelling something that is herbalal and
Speaker 1: has like a little pungent bite to it, but it
Speaker 1: is also very beautiful and it makes the mocktail very delicious.
Speaker 1: We did a u and it may have been in
Speaker 1: the first season Catherine, perhaps did you give her a
Speaker 1: bloody cocktail? As well. Yes, you were talking about the
Speaker 1: one that we did for Halloween, which was called the
Speaker 1: Unlikely Antidote. It had a black cherry puree around the
Speaker 1: rim that gave it the sense of dripping blood. The
Speaker 1: drink itself was basically like a black and whisky sour, right,
Speaker 1: I kind remember what we had used for that that
Speaker 1: rent the dripping red. It was very cool looking. Yes,
Speaker 1: made a mess as well. Oh yeah, well you know Halloween,
Speaker 1: you know, um, I may have missed it. But your
Speaker 1: glass choice for today's drink, do you know? I just
Speaker 1: put mine in a Rocks glass. I shook mine, poured
Speaker 1: it over ice because it was very simple, very simple
Speaker 1: delivery there. Yeah, it's an easy, peasy whatever you like
Speaker 1: on this. Like I like it cold, you might want
Speaker 1: to drink it warm so you can simulate that it's
Speaker 1: more blood like or servant with someone and claim it is.
Speaker 1: So hopefully if you try to make that you will
Speaker 1: enjoy it. I certainly did. The non drinker at my
Speaker 1: house loved it. So there you go. If you would
Speaker 1: like to join us next week, we would delight in
Speaker 1: that as well, because there's another cocktail, and I promise
Speaker 1: that one is also pretty interesting. Thank you for spending
Speaker 1: this time with us this week on Criminalia, and see
Speaker 1: you right back here next week with more witchcraft and
Speaker 1: diabolical things. Criminalia is a production of Shonda land Audio
Speaker 1: in partnership with I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from
Speaker 1: Shonda land Audio, please visit the I Heart Radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.