BÉZIN Honorine Lycanthropy in the Duchess of Malfi

LYCANTHROPY IN THE DUCHESS OF MALFI

Woodcut of a werewolf attack by Lucas Cranach the Elder (1512)


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TABLE OF CONTENTS

I — Wolf symbolism 3

A) A brief history of lycanthropy 3

B) Demonism and Witchcraft 8

C) The aetiology of lycanthropy 12

II — Lupina insania in the Duchess of Malfi 16

A) The genesis of Ferdinand’s natural pathology 16

B) Lycanthropia framed by discourse 19

C) A mirror to Ferdinand’s inner character 20

Bibliography 24

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The term ‘lycanthropy’ carries multiple meanings in the early modern mind on account of
different fields such as theology, demonology, medicine and folklore crossing one another. To begin
with, lycanthropy is defined by the reality of the werewolf, meaning the physical metamorphosis
from human-being to wolf. However, this term also refers to the delusion that one is capable of
such transformation whether it is the result of madness, melancholy, or witchcraft. Today, the
werewolf pertains to the domain of fiction and folklore, whilst the latter definition belongs to what
is called clinical lycanthropy. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the boundaries between
the two terms were blurred as it seems the words werewolf and lycanthrope could be
interchangeable.
Lycanthropy is tackled in John Webster’s (1580-c.1625) Jacobean play entitled The Duchess of
Malfi, written between 1612 and 1613 and was first privately performed at the Blackfriars Theatre
around 1613 and 1614. Webster’s play dramatises historical events discussing the life at the court
of Malfi, in Italy, from 1504 to 1510. Webster drew inspiration from the Italian novella Novelle
written by Matteo Bandello in 1554. Webster’s principal source was William Painter's The Palace of
Pleasure (1567), which was a translation of François de Belleforest's French adaptation of Novelle.
Webster’s play explores the story of the Duchess of Malfi, a widow who secretly marries her
steward, Antonio. Their undisclosed relationship and the delivery of offspring inflame the
Duchess’s two brothers, the Cardinal and Duke Ferdinand who both wished her sister to remain
unmarried in hopes of getting their hands on her inheritance. From this point onwards, they aim at
breaking their sister’s union with Antonio as they are living in clandestinity. The Duke orders the
imprisonment of her twin sister, the Duchess, where she is emotionally tormented and tortured
before being executed by her brother’s henchman, Bosola. Ferdinand’s descent into madness
occurs shortly after her sister’s death and manifests itself as lycanthropy, emerging during Act V.
This paper shall explore the motivation that lies behind John Webster’s choice in
introducing lycanthropy in this play, analysing the devices used and the effect intended. For this
purpose, I shall first study the wolf symbolism through the centuries providing a brief report of the
beliefs attached to lycanthropy and the contemporary context in which the Duchess of Malfi falls in.
And finally, I shall fully examine the Duke Ferdinand’s mental pathology.

I — Wolf symbolism
A) A brief history of lycanthropy

In order to investigate the early modern understanding of lycanthropy, it is essential to

delve into its development throughout the ages paving the way for our comprehension of the
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sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Early documentary evidence from the ancient world of Rome
and Greece supply a number of tales belonging to mythology in which men transform into wolves,
sometimes in their own accord and others as a punitive sentence.

The Greek poet Marcellus Sidetes who lived in the second century AD, wrote in his poem
De Lycanthropia that men were afflicted with a type of madness springing up at the beginning of
the year before worsening in February.1 This observation had its root in Roman mythology, notably
with the horned god Faunus, also known as Lupercus (‘he who wards off the wolf’). It was reported
that St. Valentine’s Day had its origins in the Faunus or Lupercus Festival, called Lupercalia or
wolf festival, which was originally celebrated en masse on February 15th. During this festival,
young men would dress in wolf and goat costumes chasing women through the streets playfully
whipping them with leather thongs in a fertility ritual.2 To fully grasp the wolf festival, it is
interesting to think the role of the god Pan through. The Greek version of Faunus happens to be
Pan ; he was the son of Hermes and was depicted as half-man and half-goat, in the same manner
as a faun or satyr. He was also called ‘Pan Leaks’, that is to say wolf-Pan, and was thought to be at
the origins of the Roman Lupercalia festival during which revellers would dress as wolves and
goats. St. Augustine explained in his City of God (c. 426) that Pan was so named because he held the
key to the mystery of men becoming wolves: “The epithet Lycaeus was applied in Arcadia to Pan and
Jupiter for no other reason than this metamorphosis of men into wolves, because it was thought it could not
be wrought except by a divine power.”3 Indeed, the Arcadians were turned into wolves when they
swam across a certain pool. They were condemned to live in the deserts of that region with wild
beasts just like themselves for nine years. But if they never fed on human flesh during this time,
they were restored to the human form by swimming back again through the same pool.

Greek historian Herodotus living in the fifth century BC appeared to be more skeptical
regarding physical transformations when he wrote on the Neuri tribe relating how “… the Greeks
settled in Scythia, say that once a year every one of the Neuri is turned into a wolf, and after a few days
returns again to his former shape. For myself, I cannot believe this tale; but they tell it nevertheless, yea, and
swear to its truth.”4 However, the belief that men could alter their physical shape persisted since

1Beresford, Matthew. The White Devil, Part I: The Cult of the Wolf “The Wolves of Rome: Classical Accounts of the
Werewolf Myth” p.46 edited by Matthew Beresford, Reaktion Books, Limited, 2013. ProQuest Ebook Central.

2 Ibid, p.44

3St. Augustine, The City of God, Book XVIII, Chapter 17 “What Varro says of the incredible transformations of men”.
Extracted from the online ressource https://carm.org/augustine-of-hippo

4Herodotus, The Persian Wars, Book IV “Melpomene”, p. 307. Translated by A. D. Godley, published in 1921. Loeb
Classical Library https://www.loebclassics.com/view/herodotus-persian_wars/1920/pb_LCL118.307.xml
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later authors chronicled the myth of Lycaon of Arcadia. Second-century Greek geographer
Pausanias was convinced that the legend “has the additional merit of probability” since “it has been a
legend among the Arcadians from of old.”5 The Greek poet Homer who lived in the eighth century BC
mentioned a race of people known as the Lycians and their god ‘Lycegenean Apollo’ (‘born of
wolf’). Appollo’s Mother, Leto, disguised herself as a she-wolf when she came from the land of the
Hyperboreans. Appollo visited his mother’s region, Lycia (‘wolfish’ or ‘belonging to a wolf’), in the
form of a wolf and slaughtered the Telchines. Apollo and his mother are not the only gods to be
associated with the wolf: Mars, the Roman god of war, also had the wolf as his symbol, and Jupiter,
god of the sky and thunder and king of the Roman gods, turned King Lycaon into a wolf. Lycaon
was reputed for practising human sacrifices and cannibalistic rituals, which infuriated the gods.
Consequently, the god Zeus/Jupiter travelled to Lycaon’s palace dressed as a traveller and was
invited to his banquet which presented dishes with human remains. The story of the punishment
of the tyrant Lycaon was retold in Golding’s translation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses where Lycaon’s
appalling conduct was described:

“‘And yet he was not content: but went and cut the throte
Of one that lay in hostage there which was an Epyrote:
And part of him he did to roste, and part he did to stewe.
Which when it came upon the borde, forthwith I overthrew,
The house with just revenging fire upon the owners hed.
Who seeing that slipt out of doores amazed for feare and fled
Into the wilde and desert woods, where being all alone,
As he endeavorde (but in vaine) to speake and make his mone,
He fell a howling: wherewithal for very rage and mood
He ran me quite out of his wits and waxed furious wood [mad]
Still practising his wounted lust of slaughter on the poore
And silly cattel, thirsting still for blood as heretofore.
His garments turned to shaggie haire, his armes to rugged pawes
So is he made a ravening Wolfe: whose shape expressely drawes
To that the which he was before: his skin is hory gray,
His look still grim with glaring eyes, and every kind of way,
His cruell heart in outward shape doth well it selfe bewray.
Thus was one house destroyed quite, but that one house alone
Deserveth not to be destroyd.”6

5Pausanias, Delphi Complete Works of Pausanias (Illustrated)., Book VIII “Arcadia Mythical History” Delphi Classics, 16
nov. 2014. Google Books.

6Ovid, Arthur Golding, Jonathan Bate. Ovid's Metamorphoses: The Arthur Golding Translation, 1567. Paul Dry Books, 1965
p.10
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As a punishment, Lycaon was tuned into a wolf. Such a transformation constitutes a supernatural
explanation of a physical metamorphosis as it is caused by the intervention of a god. This
description echoes the narrative of human degeneracy prefacing the text. Golding’s interpretation
stresses the mutual relationship between wolf and Lycaon since by taking the form of a wolf,
Lycaon adopts the physical features that made manifest the bestial nature he had within.

Being turned into a wolf as a punitive sentence seems to be a common trope in Antiquity.
The roman statesman and scholar Pliny the Elder (23-79 AD) related the tale of an Olympic victor
based on the account of Greek writer Agriopas, in his Naturalis Historia (77 AD). Agriopas
recounted in his Olympionicae (date unknown) that a certain Daemenetus of Parrhasia had tasted
the viscera of a child sacrificed during the Arcadian sacrifices for the festival of Zeus Lycaeus.
Subsequently, Daemenetus had been turned into a wolf, his punishment had lasted for ten years.
When he had turned back into a man, he had entered the Olympic games as a boxer and won.
Nevertheless, just like Herodotus, Pliny was suspicious of such transformations and commented
“That men have been turned into wolves, and again restored to their original form, we must confidently look
upon as untrue, unless, indeed, we are ready to believe all the late which, for so many ages, have been found
to be fabulous.”7 Although the wolf metamorphosis, defined as versipellis (‘skin changer’ or ‘turn
skin’) in his Natural History, was widely known; Pliny was one of the first Ancient writers to
acknowledge this condition as a type of madness that men suffered from whereby they are
convinced to have been changed into a wolf. This is therefore one of the earliest references of
lycanthropy. Roman people thus seemed to have been apprised of this disease, which was
characterised by a noticeable change in one’s character and habits. This distinguishes from the
supernatural beliefs as it establishes lycanthropy as a medical disorder where those afflicted
imagine themselves as wolves. According to Greek physicians, the natural explanation of this
disease was based on the disruption of the bodily humours where an excess of black bile triggered
the disease of melancholy — lycanthropy is a form of melancholy. This shall be further explained
in a later part.

Despite some medical authorities acknowledging lycanthropy as a clinical condition,

werewolf beliefs were still very much grounded in superstition when involving the Church.
Becoming a wolf was considered to be a curse for not being a good Christian. Animal
transformation brings on the doctrine of metempsychosis, that is to say the migration of the soul

7Pliny the Elder. Natural History, Book The Nature of the Terrestrial Animals, Chapter 34: “WOLVES; THE ORIGIN OF
THE STORY OF VERSIPELLIS”, translated to English by John Bostock, M.D., F.R.S.H.T. Riley, Esq., B.A. London. Taylor
and Francis, Red Lion Court, Fleet Street (1855) http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:
1999.02.0137
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into another body. Neo-Platonists thought nobly of the soul and could not approve of such
possibility. It was inconceivable that God would allow the transformation of a man into wolf,
thereby replacing his soul with that of an animal, since it opposed the doctrine of divine charity.
Theology dismisses the reality of the werewolf by distinguishing illusory and actual change. St.
Augustine in Book XVIII of The City of God articulated the difference between the two:

“These things are either false, or so extraordinary as to be with good reason disbelieved. But it is to
be most firmly believed that Almighty God can do whatever He pleases, whether in punishing or
favouring, and that the demons can accomplish nothing by their natural power [...] Demons, if they
really do such things as these on which this discussion turns, do not create real substances, but only
change the appearance of things created by the true God so as to make them seem what they are not. I
cannot therefore believe that even the body, much less the mind, can really be changed into bestial
forms and lineaments by any reason, art, or power of the demons.”

The thought that God could transform a man into an animal, or allow the devil to do so was
terrifying for the Middle Ages and early modern Christian thinkers. Not only did it endanger the
image of a charitable god, but also the concept of sin and salvation. Indeed, if a man loses his
rational nature by turning into a beast, it questions whether he is responsible for the sins he
commits… In both classical and medieval instances, men forfeit their humanity once they are
transformed. However, in classical examples, werewolves are obliged to lead an outside existence,
whereas the medieval werewolf is represented to have the power of changing his shape through
demonic assistance.8 The Bible contains several examples of the evils committed by wolves,
including Ezekiel which compares “Her princes” to “wolves ravening the prey, to shed blood and to
destroy souls, to get dishonest gain.”9 Therefore the wolf carries a damnatory connotation in the
Christian doctrine. It is recorded in the twelfth-century De Spiritu et Anima that “it is very generally
believed that by certain witches’ spells and the power of the Devil, men may be changed into wolves.” But
the belief that “demons modify in appearance only those creatures of the true God so that they seem to be
what they are not” was rejected by St. Augustine as he does not “admit in any way that demons be
capable, by their power or their tricks, to transform in reality not the soul, but simply the body of a man into
parts and shapes of beasts.”10 He thought then that the soul of a Christian could not be tainted by the

8Beresford, Matthew. The White Devil, Part II: Magic and Mayhem, Chapter 4: the Medieval werewolf, p.87 edited by
Matthew Beresford, Reaktion Books, Limited, 2013. ProQuest Ebook Central.

9 Bible, Ezekiel 22:27, 21st Century King James Version.

10St. Augustine, The City of God, Book XVIII, Chapter 18 “What we should believe concerning the transformations which
seem to happen to men through the art of demons”. Extracted from the online ressource https://carm.org/augustine-of-
hippo
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devil and that any transformation is a mere bodily imprisonment and a curse placed on a gullible
person through devilry and witchcraft. The contemporary evidence came from a Christian point of
view as the clergy members were for the most part the only literate people in the Middle Ages in
Western Europe. Henceforth, it is unsurprising to notice the inescapable connexion between
werewolves and the devil (demonic possession, witchcraft).

B) Demonism and Witchcraft

Unlike the Ancient interpretation of lycanthropy, the sixteenth and seventeenth-century

authors combined the natural humoral model originated from Greek and Arabic medicine with
supernatural beliefs related to the power of the Devil. It was seen how the Church admonished
and refused to accept the idea of actual transformations from man to wolf, however demonology
picked up where theology left off by discussing the operation of illusory change and by
assimilating witchcraft. Demonologists “agreed that shape-shifting was achieved through demonic
agencies and pacts with the Devil”; however, “they disagreed among themselves over the precise
mechanisms by which such a metamorphosis was accomplished.”11 It was commonly believed that shape-
shifting was achieved through the obtainment of items from the Devil, such as a belt, a wolf pelt,
or the application of magic ointments and salves. In his Discours exécrable des Sorciers (1602), French
jurist and judge Henri Boguet (1596-1616) asserted that these salves aimed at deadening the senses
and at inducing sleep so that the Devil could carry out those acts “which the witch has in mind to do,
giving himself the appearance of a wolf.”12 This theory implied that a ‘werewolf’ was actually asleep
whilst Satan was perpetrating the crimes he thought he was committing, like killing men and
beasts. Boguet also argued that this kind of demonic possession did not excuse the ‘werewolf’ from
responsibility as “they were guilty in nothing but their damnable intention.”13 Those who harboured
demonic entities allowed them to do so by first renouncing God and Heaven. French magistrate
Nicholas Rémy (1530-1616) was reputed as a hunter of witches comparable to Jean Bodin. He
agreed with Boguet by declaring that although the lycanthropic acts were performed by demons,
the werewolf’s criminal prosecution was still valid on the grounds of moral violation as they were
“so notoriously befouled and polluted by so many blasphemies, sorceries, prodigious lusts and flagrant

11Hirsch, Brett D. “An Italian Werewolf in London: Lycanthropy and The Duchess of Malfi" Early Modern Literary Studies: A
Journal of Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century English Literature, vol. 11, no. 2, 2005, pp. 2-43.

12 Henri Boguet as quoted from ibid.

13 Ibid.
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crimes.”14 Consequently, they were “justly to be subjected to every torture and put to death in the
flames”15 Therefore, lycanthropy became associated with supernatural affiliations that were
interpreted as evidence of demonic possession and regarded as a form of witchcraft. Sixteenth-
century popular beliefs would have religious and legal authorities convinced of the reality of the
werewolf which was justified under the influence of the Devil. The metaphysical religious beliefs
of the afflicted suffused their mental life.

Even though the Duke Ferdinand’s lycanthropea is justified by medical terms, the
supernatural is still a prominent feature of The Duchess of Malfi. The main characters are seen
rejecting supernatural explanations for unusual events, tending to heap scorn on such explanations
by dismissing them as mere superstitions. One instance is when Bosola “suspect there hath been some
sorcery / Us’d on the duchess”16 declaring she dotes on someone far beneath her station. To which
Ferdinand mockingly replies “Can your faith give way / To think there's power in potions or in charms, /
To make us love whether we will or no?”17 inquiring whether Bosola actually believes that love potions
“can force the will.” The Duke asserts that “These are mere gulleries, horrid things, / Invented by some
cheating mountebanks / To abuse us.”18 Once again, witchcraft is discarded by “trials” or experiments,
therefore scientific knowledge, which proves that they are simply “lenitive poisons… to make the
patient mad.”19 And yet, he accuses his sister of possessing the powers of witchcraft when he warns
the Duchess that her reputation would be ruined if she remarries and then advises her not keep
secrets:
“FERDINAND: Look to ‘t; be not cunning
For they whose faces do belie their hearts
Are witches, ere they arrive at twenty years—
Ay, and give the devil suck.”20

14Rémy, Nicholas. Demonolatry: An Account of the Historical Practice of Witchcraft, Book III, Chapter XII p.188 Originally
published as Daemonolatreiae libri tres in 1595. Edited by Montague Summers and translated as Demonolatry in 1929.
Courier Corporation (2014)

15 Ibid.

16 Webster, John. The Duchess of Malfi (c.1614). Act III, Scene 1 l. 62-79. Penguin Classics (2014)

17 Ibid.

18 Ibid.

19 Ibid.

20 Ibid, Act I, Scene 2, l. 220-223.

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The Duchess breaks her promise to her brothers that “[she] will not marry”21 when she vows
herself to Antonio who notices that “There is a saucy and ambitious devil / Is dancing in this circle”22 in
a self-deprecating tone. Somehow he associates the widowed Duchess’s ring with demonism.
Consequently, when the Duke finds out about his sister’s marriage to Antonio, he claims that “The
witchcraft lies in [the Duchess’s] rank blood.”23 From a theological point of view, Ferdinand accuses his
sister not to have been bewitched as would have Bosola, but to be possessed of the Devil from
within, in her own blood. The word blood is also in concordance with the humoral teachings of
Galen…
However the roles are then inverted when Ferdinand approaches Bosola to ask him to spy
on the Duchess for him in exchange for payment. Bosola is reluctant at first and reproved his
suggestion of making him a familiar:
“BOSOLA: It seems you would create me
One of your familiars.
FERDINAND: Familiar! What's that?
BOSOLA: Why, a very quaint, invisible devil in flesh:
An intelligencer.”24

In keeping with his lack of insight, Ferdinand cannot recognise the demonic potential in
himself. Nonetheless, connotations of demonism starts adding up around Ferdinand’s persona as
he is both the tormented and the torment of others. His sheer cruelty is revealed from the fourth
act onwards after having imprisoned his sister in a dark and grim cell. He presents her with a dead
man’s hand, which he makes her believe it is her husband’s. As this scene occurs in the dark, the
Duchess does not question whether it is true or not and kisses it before coming to the realisation
that it was severed from her husband’s supposed body. She immediately begs for light to which
her brother complies and then exits leaving her alone. Upon seeing the dead man’s hand lying on
the ground, she shrieks “What witchcraft doth he practise that he hath left / A dead-man's hand here?”25
Her accusation of witchcraft is followed by the discovery, “behind a traverse”, of “the artificial figures
of Antonio and his children, appearing as if they were dead.”26 The Duke’s play-acting with its use of

21 Ibid, l. 216.

22 Ibid, l.321-322.

23 Ibid, Act III, Scene 1, l.78.

24 Ibid, Act I, Scene 2, l.170-175.

25 Ibid, Act IV, Scene 1, l.54-55.

26 Ibid.
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wax effigies and some dead man’s limb would have been considered as witchcraft by Webster’s
audience. Let’s not forget that King James I of England wrote a statue against witchcraft in 1604
which made it capital offence to “take up any dead man, woman, or child out of his, her, or their grave…
or any other part of any dead person, to be employed or used in any manner of witchcraft, sorcery, charm, or
enchantment.”27 Not only did it condemn Ferdinand’s case of lycanthropy but also the use of
severed body parts to serve evil intentions. Moreover, wax effigies were commonly regarded as a
species of witchcraft back then. Indeed, “[Witches] make a Picture of Clay, like vnto the shape of the
person whom they meane to kill, and dry it thorowly and when they would haue them to be ill in any one
place more then an other; then take a Thorne or Pinne, and pricke it in that part of the Picture you would so
haue to be ill: and when you would haue any part of the Body to consume away, then take that part of the
Picture, and burne it.”28 Records of witches sticking pins in poppets or fashions pictures of wax
found in a dunghill are also to be found in Alan Macfarlane’s Witchcraft in Tudor and Stuart England
(1970). Such sorcery is also known and acknowledged by the characters of the play since the
Duchess’s reaction to her brother’s trick is to wish for her picture to be “… fashion’d out of wax, /
Stucke with a magicall needle and then buried / In some fowle dung-hill”29 as there is no one she cares for
left. This episode stresses how Ferdinand is linked with the diabolical considering the numerous
references to magic and witchcraft listed above. This also suggests that witchcraft and demonism
left very much their imprint on sixteenth- and seventeenth-century contemporaries as it is made
clear that John Webster drew inspiration from real events and sources of the same historical period.
The passage of the severed hand particularly brings into mind Henri Boguet’s Discours exécrable des
Sorciers (1602) as it also alludes to the use of a chopped hand as evidence to a woman’s lycanthropy
who was later executed as a witch.30

The question whether the spiritual world, more especially demonic spirits, is present in
everyday life hangs over the entire play as it is the subject of speculations and denials. It is through
this indeterminacy that the tragic power of the play arises from. The demonological tracts

27Raithby, John ed. The Statutes of the Realm.Volume IV, Part II “Statutes of King James the First A.D. 1603-1604”, Chapter
XII “An Act against Conjuration, Witchcraft and dealing with evil and wicked Spirits” p.1028, published in 1819.
Retrieved from the Internet Archive https://archive.org/stream/statutesrealm01etcgoog#page/n297/mode/2up/
search/1604

28Potts, Thomas. The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster, “The   voluntarie   Confession and
Examination of Elizabeth Sowtherns alias Demdike”. Originally published in 1613. Edited by James Crossley, released on
April 25, 2006 [eBook #18253] http://www.gutenberg.org/files/18253/18253-h/18253-h.htm#DISCOVERIE

29 Webster, John. The Duchess of Malfi (c.1614). Act IV, Scene 1 l. 61-66. Penguin Classics (2014)

30Boguet, Henri. Discours exécrable des sorciers: ensemble leur procez, faits depuis 2 ans en çà, en diuers endroicts de la France.
Auec vne instruction pour vn iuge, en faict de sorcelerie, “Comme les sorciers nuisent avec la main” p.158. Originally
published in 1602. Chez Romain de Beauuais (1606). BnF Gallica.

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published in England during this period reveals a trend which depicts lycanthropy as a
manifestation of the demonic exacerbation of illness, madness of melancholy. The Discoverie of
Witchcraft (London, 1584) by Reginald Scot (1538-1599) dismissed lycanthropy and actual
transformations as absurdities, subscribing to the opinion that “the transformations, which these
witchmongers doo so rave and rage upon” is “a disease proceeding partlie from melancholie”31 whilst
refuting outright the possibility of demonic intervention in such cases, for “Lycanthropia is of the
ancient physicians called Lupina melancholia, or Lupina insania.”32 In the same way, English Church of
England priest Henry Holland (1556–1603) maintains that the “transformation of men and women into
wolfes” is “clean contrarie against nature”, and the product of “Sathanicall delusions” in those who
“abound in melancholy”, in A Treatise Against Witchcraft (London, 1590).33 Other contemporary
authors such as Puritan preacher George Gifford (1548-1600) who writes in A Dialogue Concerning
Witches and Witchcraftes (London, 1593) that the Devil could “make the witches in some places beleeve
that they are turned into the likeness of wolves”, since he “can set a strong fantasie in the mind that is
oppressed with melancholie.”34 Subsequently, courts would take the same approach in the ensuing
judicial cases such as the young ‘werewolf’ Jean Grenier in 1603. The werewolf was no longer the
product of a physical and demonic transformation but the victim of an unstable mind. This paved
the way for the discourses of demonology and medicine to intersect as they both ascribed
lycanthropy to madness and melancholy.

C) The aetiology of lycanthropy

Authors might employ metaphors of disease and illnesse to achieve a particular literary
effect. In The Duchess of Malfi, John Webster links Duke Ferdinand with lycanthropy for dramatic
purposes. Whilst analysing The Duchess of Malfi, it becomes quite clear that such a literary work
draws heavily on medical sources which reflect the contemporary understanding of health and
disease. The affliction of lycanthropy comes as curious to a modern audience, but it was utterly
understood by an early-seventeenth-century audience to be the imagined — as it was discussed in
the previous part of this paper, the actual transformation started to be dismissed by the end of the

31Scot, Reginald. The Discoverie of Witchcraft, Booke V “Transformations confuted”, Chapter VI “The witchmongers
objections, concerning Nabuchadnez-zar answered, and their errour concerning Lycanthropia confuted” p.58. Courier
Corporation, 1930.

32 Ibid.

33Holland, Henry. A Treatise Against Witchcraft, Chapter II “Of the witches of our time, and of their bargaines, societie,
and acquaintance with Sathan” page unnumbered. Cambridge: Printed by John Legatt, printer to the Vniuersitie of
Cambridge, 1590. Early English Books Online: http://name.umdl.umich.edu/A03468.0001.001

34Gifford, George. A Dialogue Concerning Witches and Witchcraftes p.94. Originally published in 1593, reprinted from the
edition of 1603, London: Printed for the Percy Society (1842)
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the sixteenth century — of an individual into the shape of a wolf. It was noticed that the case of
Ferdinand contained some similitude with Donato Antonio ab Altomari’s account of a lycanthropy
case, it appeared as the first known lycanthropic report. Webster describes the Duke wandering
“Behind Saint Mark's church, with the leg of a man / upon his shoulder.”35 This description matches that
of ab Altomari in Ars Medica (first printed in 1553) of his patient on his way back from a graveyard
carrying a severed human leg over his shoulder. Therefore there are striking similarities between
Ferdinand’s madness and contemporary medical discourse touching lycanthropy.

This illness was originally a concept of Ancient Greek medicine which depicted those
afflicted with it as melancholics, who suffer from severe dryness of the body. They were regarded
as dangerous neither to themselves nor to others, but would simply roam out at night mimicking
the behaviour of wolves and linger by grave monuments until daybreak.36 Greek physicians
suggested a light diet, including diverse pharmaceuticals in order to lessen the damaging sway of
black bile in the body of the patient. This fairly harmless melancholic lycanthrope was typical of
the Ancient medical tradition, however the depiction of the lycanthrope as a grave digger is more
representative of the early modern werewolf traditions. The cultural movement Humanism, which
turned away from medieval scholasticism to embrace a revival of Ancient Greek and Roman
thought, brought together these two divergent concepts of wolfish madness. In the early medical
portrayals, the disease comes up under different names: cucubuth or chatrab in De praestigiis
daemonum (1563), translated as On the Tricks of Demons, by Johann Weyer (1515-1588), but also
under lykanthropia and mania lupina, as in The Canon of Medicine (Al-Qanun fi’t-Tibb, 1025) by
Avicenna (980-1037) which were listed as synonymous terms for the condition. Lycanthropy
displayed then negative aspects of the wolfish conduct: the melancholic sufferers were wild,
riotous, and could be appeased through the use of shackles to restrain them.37 The werewolf was
gradually associated with the feature of grave robber, exhuming graves and carrying around body
parts, just as listed in the successful Lexicon Medicum Graecum-Latinum (which first appeared in
1598) by Bartholomeo Castelli (date unknown). This representation stands as a sharp contrast with
the inoffensive melancholic characterised by late Antiquity.

The affliction called melancholy was a common feature of the Elizabethan and Jacobean
drama, making the melancholic character almost a tradition in itself although the subsets of

35 Webster, John. The Duchess of Malfi (c.1614). Act V, Scene 2, l. 14-15. Penguin Classics (2014)

36Metzger, Nadine. “Battling Demons with Medical Authority: Werewolves, Physicians and Rationalization”, History of
Psychiatry, vol. 24, no. 3, 2013, pp. 341-355

37 Ibid.
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melancholy very much varied. Indeed the melancholy humour in theatre is composed of the sad
pensive melancholic (or the intellectual), the antic disposition of melancholy, the malcontent (the
ambitious and frustrated political man), and the melancholic lover. Ferdinand’s melancholy verges
on hysteria, whereby his mind is suffocating paving the way for altering his perception of reality.
His lycanthropic delusions are triggered by an abundance of melancholy. “Men-woolfes” are the
product “of a naturall super-abundance of Melancholie”, which manifests itself in the form of
lycanthropic delusions so that “some thinke themselves Pitchers, and some horses, and some one kinde of
beast or other.”38 Similarly, John Deacon and John Walker rejected the supernatural aspects of this
plague in favour of a medical model which was coined as ‘lycanthropia’ and explained in a
dialogue between the lycanthrope named Lycanthropus and the physician Physiologus:

“You are called Lycanthropus: that is, a man transformed to a woolfe: which name is verie
fitlie derived from the verie disease it selfe that disorders your braine, called Lycanthropia.
Which word, some Physitions do translate Daemonium Lupinum, that is, a woolvish
Demoniacke: others Lupina melancholia, and Lupina insania, that is a woolvish melancholie,
or a woolvish furie and madnes. And it is nothing else in effect, but an infirmitie arising
upon such phantasticall imaginations, as do mightily disorder and trouble the braine.”39

In other words, just as English cleric and physician John Webster (1610-1682) asserted in
The Displaying of Supposed Witchcraft (London, 1677), patients suffering from Melancholy “in its
several kinds” were “mentally and internally (as they thought, being deprived in their imaginations)
changed into Wolves” but “the change was only in the qualities and conditions of the mind, and not
otherwise”40 thus excluding the existence of the supernatural and denying extravagant reports
attributed to witchcraft.

The most representative medical diagnosis of lycanthropy can be found in Anatomy of

Melancholy (London, 1621) by Robert Burton (1577-1640). Although most contemporaries compared

38The Demonology of King James I: Includes the Original Text of Daemonologie and News from Scotland, the Third Book,
Chapter I “Epistemon” p.153, edited by Donald Tyson. Llewellyn Worldwide, 8 mars 2012. Google Books: https://
books.google.fr/books?id=Mq0_i3GJLsMC&printsec=frontcover&hl=fr#v=onepage&q&f=false

39 Deacon, J. Walker, J. Dialogicall discourses of spirits and divels declaring their proper essence, natures, dispositions, and
operations, their possessions and dispossessions : with other the appendantes, peculiarly appertaining to those speciall points, verie
conducent, and pertinent to the timely procuring of some Christian conformitie in iudgement, for the peaceable compounding of the
late sprong controuersies concerning all such intricate and difficult doubts, “the fifth dialogue” p.159. Early Medieval Books
online: http://name.umdl.umich.edu/A20000.0001.001

40Webster, John. The Displaying of supposed Witchcraft, Chapter V p. 95. London: Printed by J.M. and are to be sold by the
booksellers in London (1677). Early Medieval Books online : http://name.umdl.umich.edu/A65369.0001.001
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lycanthropy to a kind of melancholy, Burton rather referred it “to madness, as most do.”41 It is
relatively difficult to delineate the difference between melancholy and madness as Renaissance
scholars would often interchange the two terms since both states are characterised by the same
symptoms. Nevertheless, Burton distinguished the two on the basis of the degree of violence:

“Madness is therefore defined to be a vehement dotage; or raving without a fever, far more
violent than melancholy, full of anger and clamour, horrible looks, actions, gestures,
troubling the patients with far greater vehemency both of body and mind, without all fear
and sorrow, with such impetuous force and boldness, that sometimes three or four men
cannot hold them. Differing only in this from frenzy, that it is without a fever, and their
memory is most part better. It hath the same causes as the other, as choler adust, and blood
incensed, brains inflamed, &c.”42

The testimony of the later physician Robert Bayfield (1629-1668) upheld Burton’s position in his
account of lycanthropy in which he declared that “Wolf-madness, is a disease”, when narrating the
story his patient, “a certain young man” with “a wild and strange look” who set about “barking and
howling.” In the course of his examination, Bayfield “opened a vein, and drew forth a very large
quantity of blood”, which appeared “black like Soot.”43 The patient was then provided with a potion
and a vomitive to remedy his abundance of black bile and was quickly restored to health.

As a conclusion, the discourses of demonology and medicine intersect; as we have seen,

wolfish transformations were generally attributed by medical authorities to madness and
melancholy, although a minority continued to profess its traditional, supernatural origin. This
medical model was founded on natural infirmity, making differences between spiritual and natural
causes. The publication of A Briefe Discourse of a Disease Called the Suffocation of the Mother (London,
1603) written by English physician Edward Jorden (1569-1633) proceeded with the effort to
distinguish the spiritual from the natural, bewitchment from insanity. Jorden argued that
experienced physicians, like himself, are “best able to discerne what is naturall, what not naturall, what
preternaturall, and what supernaturall.” Appearing simultaneously was Samuel Harsnett’s
(1561-1631) A Declaration of Egregious Popish Impostures (London, 1603), which denounced the illegal

41 Burton, Robert. Anatomy of Melancholy, PART I, SUBSECT. IV.—Dotage, Frenzy, Madness, Hydrophobia, Lycanthropia,
Chorus sancti Viti, Extasis. Originally published in 1621. Gutenberg Ebook released in 2014: http://www.gutenberg.org/
files/10800/10800-h/10800-h.htm

42 Ibid.

43Bayfield, Robert. A Treatise De Morborum Capitis Essentiis & Prognosticis, CAP. XXIII. De Lupina Insania p.50 (1663).
Early Medieval Books online : http://name.umdl.umich.edu/A27077.0001.001
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Catholic and Puritan practices of exorcism, vilifying them on the grounds that both demonic
possession and exorcism were fraudulent spectacles. Although witchcraft prosecutions continued
in England throughout the seventeenth century, the trend to medicalise the behaviour of witches
and the bewitched served to question the authority of the trials and the supernatural mentality
that lied behind them. It paved the way for a new medical model which provided a psychological
alternative to conditions formerly defined as supernatural in origin, such as lycanthropy/
lycanthropia.

II — Lupina insania in the Duchess of Malfi

A) The genesis of Ferdinand’s natural pathology

Having duly studied the theological, demonological and medical backgrounds leading up
to John Webster’s (1580-c.1625) time, the lycanthropic character of Duke Ferdinand in The Duchess
of Malfi will now be scrutinised. The discussion shall first turn to the natural cause of his pathology
which is reported by the doctor as “a very pestilent disease… / They call ‘lycanthropia’.”44 The doctor
explains to Pescara, a soldier and courtier, that:
“In those that are possess’d with’t there o’erflows 

Such melancholy humour, they imagine 

Themselves to be transformed into wolves.”45
The doctor pursues his explanation by informing Pescara that lycanthropes do not only imagine
themselves wolves but also act accordingly, meaning they “Steal forth to churchyards in the dead of
night, / And dig dead bodies up.”46 Ferdinand was seen “Behind Saint Mark's church, with the leg of a
man / upon his shoulder” howling “fearfully.”47 When he was approached at this particular moment,
he claimed “he was a wolf”, and that whilst “a wolf’s skin was hairy on the outside”, his was hairy “on
the inside.”48 Such a claim uncovers a clear diagnosis of his condition; Ferdinand’s lycanthropia is a
natural illness which is treated on the same ground as madness. The doctor assures that he tended
Ferdinand so that his Grace is now “very well” but still expresses some doubts: “If he grow to his fit
again I’ll go / A nearer way to work with him than ever Paracelsus dreamed of” as he fears “a relapse.”49

44 Webster, John. The Duchess of Malfi (c.1614). Act V, Scene 2, l.5. Penguin Classics (2014)

45 Ibid, l.8-10

46 Ibid, l.11-12

47 Ibid, l.14-16

48 Ibid, l.16-18

49 Ibid, l.2é-28
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Paracelsus (c.1493–1541) was a Swiss physician who saw illness as having a specific external cause
(rather than resulting from an imbalance of the bodily humours), and introduced chemical
remedies to replace traditional ones. Once again, Webster might have a contemporary source for
this scene; French Reformed theologian Simon Goulart (1543–1628) wrote that “Wolues were
commonlie hayrie without, and hee [the lycanthrope] was betwixt the skinne and the flesh”50 in his work
Histoires Admirables et Mémorables de Nostre Temps (“Admirable and Memorable Histories”)
originally published in French c.1600s. This distingues the notion that the lycanthrope is convinced
he has been transformed and the notion that he has been transformed by the power of Satan.

Albert H. Tricomi has recently argued that Ferdinand’s disease is actually a supernatural
phenomenon resulting from a demonic possession. However, his argument relies on the references
to the supernatural throughout the play, which are only overtones of other events, and on the
interpretation of the verb “possess’d” in Act V scene 2. As it was established in a previous part, the
only allusion to a character being possessed with the devil is the Cardinal who is “able to possess the
greatest devil and make him worse” (I, 1. l.44-46), and in whose lips “the devil speaks in them” (I, 2, l.99).
Therefore it verifies the natural phenomenon of Ferdinand’s lycanthropy, its causes shall now be
examined.

According to the humoral theory, the body is made of four humours: blood, phlegm, choler
and melancholy which can provoke pathological conditions when imbalanced in the body. These
imbalances can result from either an excess or deficiency of a specific humour, and from the
presence of an unnatural form of melancholy that is caused by adduction (unnatural high
temperature) arising from excessive hot passions. It is known thanks to medical treatises that
melancholic personalities are characteristically cold and distant, who are prone to solitude and
afflicted by sorrow and sometimes by fear. When melancholy overflows, it can occasion inflated
sadness, hallucinations, seclusion, lethargy, aloofness and darkness. Ferdinand does not appear as
melancholic, but rather as choleric in temperament since he is passionate, intemperate, inclined to
rashness and anger. He is said to be of “a most perverse, and turbulent nature” (I, 2, l.82) and marked
to be “A very salamander lives in’s eye, / To mock the eager violence of fire” (III, 3, l.49-50) — a
salamander being a lizard believed to live in fire embodying passion. Ferdinand is so irascible
during a particular scene with the Cardinal that he becomes “so wild a tempest” (II, 5, l.16) and that
he needs to “to purge [his] choler” by applying rhubarb (II, 5, l.13). An excess of hot and dry choler

50Goulart, Simon. Admirable and memorable histories containing the wonders of our time, “p.386. Translated from French to
English by Edward Grimeston. Imprinted at London:   By George Eld,   1607. Early Medieval Books online: http://
name.umdl.umich.edu/A01991.0001.001
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(or yellow bile) was the humour most likely to be associated with angry outbursts, and rhubarb
was a widely accepted purgative treatment. Ferdinand continues to rave in his fit of rage arguing
that they “must not now use balsamum but fire” (III, 5, l.23) to purge his sister’s “infected blood” (III, 5,
l.25) in his murderous talk about having her “hewed… to pieces” (III, 5, l.31). Ferdinand cannot
“quench [his] wild-fire” (III, 5, l.48) taking his brother the Cardinal aback by this mad spectacle. The
latter compares his brother’s fit to “violent whirlwinds”, whose “intemperate noise” is likened to “deaf
men’s shrill discourse / Who talk aloud, thinking all other men / To have their imperfection” (II, 5, l.51-53).

During this choleric episode, Ferdinand expresses a curious, almost incestuous, fascination
for his sister as he begs his brother to “Talk to [him] somewhat, quickly, / Or [his] imagination will carry
[him] / To see [her sister] in the shameful act of sin” (II, 5, l.39-41) with “some lovely squire / That carries
coals up to her privy lodgings.” (II, 5, l.45-6). Ferdinand’s complex relationship with his twin sister
seems to stimulate his feelings of anger, jealousy and even lust. Whether his phantasmagorias are
the proof of his incestuous and unrequited love for his sister, the result is the same since his hot
passion deforms him “so beastly” (II, 5, l.58). Indeed, his “intemperate anger” (II, 5, l.59) heats the
choler in his sister which kindles “[his] palsy” (II, 5, l.55). The excess of unnatural choler manifests
itself in Ferdinand’s lycanthropy, and alternatively in his madness as suggested by Burton when he
differentiates madness from melancholy. It is impossible to determine whether his lycanthropia is
the outcome of his melancholy or madness because of a lack of evidence from the text to make this
distinction certain. Although the doctor asserts that Ferdinand suffers from an excess of
melancholy, Ferdinand’s behaviour in the previous acts tends to demonstrate his rash conduct is
“full of anger and clamour” which is typical of madness.

His lycanthropy is triggered by the Duchess’s death which steers a torrent of confused
emotions in Ferdinand’s persona. Shortly after her assassination, Ferdinand attacks Bosola for
killing her sister whereas he was the one to order such a cold-blooded command. He then tries to
understand in vain his own motives for such an order, and eventually the nature of his impending
folly is made explicit when he predicts his own fate:
“The wolf shall find her grave, and scrape it up,
Not to devour the corpse, but to discover
The horrid murder.” (IV, 2, l.297-9)
The reality of his sister’s death hits him inwards to the point of transforming him psychologically
into the monster he has always been ever since the beginning of the play. The Duchess’s murder
urges Ferdinand further into his madness which is clear-cut when he states that he has “cruel sore
eyes” (V, 2, l.63) matching Burton’s “horrible looks” when he describes madness. His delusion
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becomes even more acute after Ferdinand claims to be haunted by his own shadow, seized by an
urge to “throttle it” (V, 2, l. 31-7).

In addition to basing Ferdinand’s madness on medical descriptions, Webster inserts

supplementary literary features for dramatic purposes.

B) Lycanthropia framed by discourse

The Duchess of Malfi foregrounds the social and psychic dimensions of lycanthropy
throughout the acts. Lycanthropy appears to be framed by discourse through the use of animal
vocabulary such as the Duchess being depicted as a hyena who can draw all the breath out of a
man’s body merely by lying on him. The malcontent Bosola, who is crossed with Ferdinand
following his partial release from slavery, slips references to animal imagery, referring to some
kind of bestiary, as they illustrate human monstrosity:

“But in our own flesh, though we bear diseases

Which have their true names only ta’en from beasts,
As the most ulcerous wolf, and swinish measle;
Though we are eaten up of lice, and worms,
And though continually we bear about us
A rotten and dead body, we delight
To hide it in rich tissue: all our fear—
Nay, all our terror— is lest our physician
Should put us in the ground to be made sweet.” (II, 2)

Here Bosola is voicing his anxiety about inescapable physical decay which is turned into
degeneration. This suggests that one is animal in being both of the body and with the power to
decrease human status, since the animal diseases are feeding off the human that they also replace.51
“The most ulcerous wolf” carries a duality where the wolf is both seen as preying on human flesh
and as a feature of human degeneracy. Therefore, this indicates that Bosola’s vision of lycanthropy
is both psychic and physical. However, Ferdinand stresses furthermore the connexion between
human and wolf as he sees wolves everywhere letting his anxiety appears in his language. He says
of his sister that “the howling of a wolf is music [compared] to [her]” (III,2), then asks “where are your

Erica Fudge. Renaissance Beasts, “Hairy on the Inside: Metamorphosis and Civility in English Werewolf Texts” by S.J.
51

Wiseman. University of Illinois Press, 2010.

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cubs?” (IV,A) and refuses to pity on the death of his nephews whom he calls “young wolves” (IV,2)
upon seeing them strangled. By qualifying her children as cubs, Ferdinand implies that the
Duchess is a she-wolf. This could be a subtle way to attack her once again due to the double
meaning of the word ‘lupa’ which can designate either a she-wolf or a prostitute. These allusions to
animals foreshadows Ferdinand’s fate as though his inner-self is struggling with his true nature,
and makes him appear more lupine to the audience. Although his language is realigned with that
of the audience at the death of the Duchess when he drifts to an existential endeavour rambling:
“She and I were twins: / And should I die this instant, I had liv’d / Her time to a minute.” (IV, 2, l. 255-7)
But then his language shifts again assuring that “The wolf shall find her grave, and scrape it up: / Not to
devour the corpse, but to discover / The horrid murder.” (IV, 2, l.297-9) And this is what he does when
he “Steal[s] forth to churchyards in the dead of night, / And dig[s] dead bodies up.” (V, 2, l.16-18)

Ferdinand is psychologically tormented by his hairy inside and lets it transpire via his
discourse, whilst others identify him as wolfish. He even classed himself with “a sheep-biter” (V, 2,
l.50) and even points out how his physician is worryingly hairy as he fantasises to have his “beard
sawed off, and his eyebrows filed more civil.” (V, 2, l.59) Ferdinand’s physician plays with the
possibility of Ferdinand being possessed with the devil, but knows that he only thinks himself “to
be transformed into wolves.” This clears up that Ferdinand is clearly “out of his princely wits.” (V, 2, l.
58) The Duchess of Malfi uses lycanthropy to embody mental decay and is laid as a threat to social
relations. It brings on that his lycanthropy is accompanied by its civic and social implications since
Ferdinand fails to fill up his role of prince and brother by murdering his own sister. The play’s play
on words about animal transformations also holds a central place for it marks Ferdinand’s failure
of self-diagnosis because he attributes wolflike features to others in the first part of the play,
whereas his despotism kicks in his lycanthrope-self in the second part of the play. Unlike Lycaon
who struggles to articulate his grief when he is turned into a wolf, Ferdinand’s condition enables
him to give utterance to his rage in language.

C) A mirror to Ferdinand’s inner character

Why did John Webster choose to construct a villain afflicted by lycanthropy? Ferdinand’s
lycanthropia was an intentional addition to The Duchess of Malfi, since there is no mention of such
pathology in Webster’s source for the plot, William Painter’s Palace of Pleasure (1567). Despite the
natural explanation given by the physician, Ferdinand’s lupina insania is seen as “a fatal
judgement” (V, 2, l. 83-4) by Bosola. This belief implicitly suggests that Ferdinand has sinned which
results in a divine punishment and retribution as it was commonly believed in the seventeenth
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century. Ferdinand is taken care of by his brother, the Cardinal, who is said “’Twas nothing but pure
kindness in the devil / To rock his own child” (V, 4, l.20-1) thus placing Ferdinand as the devil’s child.
This inevitably questions whether Ferdinand is to be held accountable for his own actions.
Theologically speaking, the responsibility for sinful deeds rests upon the rational consent to
commit the sin. Ferdinand did not choose to suffer from his condition and definitely lacks
rationality as he is prompt to beleaguer his own shadow. However, Ferdinand is far from being
blameless and surely does not lack moral culpability in the earlier parts of the play. So when does
the Duke actually become a lycanthrope?

It is fair to regard the masque of madmen (IV, 2, l.60-112) as a reflexion of Ferdinand’s own
degenerative mind since he even attests himself to have been “distracted of [his] wits” (IV, 2, l.279)
during the Duchess’s murder. From this point, Bosola comments upon his master’s behaviour and
how he is “much distracted” (IV, 2, l.336). Nevertheless, the fact that he is reported to be “sick” (V, 1,
l.56-9) right upon his arrival in Milan shows that Ferdinand is not responsible for the deaths of
Bosola and the Cardinal. Indeed, moral capability requires rational consent, but if by his arrival in
Milan Ferdinand is already afflicted with lycanthropy, then he cannot be held accountable for his
actions. On the other hand, it is not the case for Ferdinand’s complicity in the death of his sister
and her children. His devious mind was sane enough to scheme the episode of the wax figures and
the dead man’s hand. Although, Ferdinand’s tendency to drop references to animals throughout
the play foreshadows his disease. Now that it is stated when Ferdinand becomes ill, it is essential
to wonder what is it about the werewolf that sets it apart from the other conditions of the medical
lore.

Lycanthropy presents a key element that some other medical pathologies lack. The
werewolf is a border creation, and by the virtue of this hazardous position he is torn between the
human and the bestial that “constantly threatens the ontological status of being human”52
triggering certain anxieties about identity. This thus means that the lycanthrope blurs the lines
between man and beast — a debate that has been discussed since Antiquity: what does set the man
apart from the beast, and is the man truly far removed from the animal? This discussion was under
increased scrutiny during the early modern period as well. Our human shape is no longer
sufficient to attest of our humanity since theology clearly gives warnings about how human form
does not guarantee the humanity of angels and devils who can shape-shift under some
circumstances. Subsequently, it is not surprising to read that the mad and colonised people are

52Hirsch, Brett D. "An Italian Werewolf in London: Lycanthropy and the Duchess of Malfi." Early Modern Literary Studies:
A Journal of Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century English Literature, vol. 11, no. 2, 2005, pp. 2-43.
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human creatures put on the same footing as animals due to their behaviours. The only distinction
between man and beast is once again his ability to reason, it is solely on this basis that animals are
said to be incapable of sin unlike humans. But lycanthropy hints that such a capability is forfeited
once one is afflicted, as a result it threatens the identity of being human and its wavering boundary
between man and beast. It also arises the question of salvation since the werewolf, as an animal, is
excluded from divine judgement. But the subtle difference between a werewolf and a lycanthrope
is that the latter only believes to have been transformed into a wolf but retains his human shape.
As a consequence, can he really be exempt of divine judgement when he is precisely punished by
God with his lycanthropy?

Accounts of lycanthropy are utterly gruesome as it includes acts of murder, mutilation and
even cannibalism. But the lycanthrope is not dangerous because of that —   as we know plain
human-beings could just as well commit such crimes — but he is a threat for he is a hidden figure.
Unlike the wolf which is “hairy on the outside” and thus easily identifiable, the lycanthrope is “hairy
on the inside” (V, 2, l.16-8), making it harder to identify evil. Not only did Webster use the unstable
status of the werewolf to serve its plot, but he also endorsed a popular association between Italians
and depravity. In the early modern period, Italy was perceived as the kernel of political intrigue,
moral decay, and economic power. Playwrights could use the common connotation attached to
Italy as plot devices for dramatic purpose: Italy was linked with Popery, sodomy, murder and
poison, deceit, revenge, and sexual promiscuity.53 This vision of Italy is confirmed in Volpone (1606)
written by Ben Johnson (1572–1637). In this comedy, Italy is depicted as a city of such decadence
that wealthy men use their powerful position for immoral degeneracy and deceit, and do not
hesitate to disinherit their sons and sacrifice their wives in the pursuit of monetary gain. This
image of Italy is only reinforced by Webster’s characterisation of an unbridled Machiavellian
whose depravity drives him out to the limit of humanity — in other words, the Duke has
completely earned his place in such a corrupt society. Jacobean audiences looked down on
foreigners whose attitudes were regarded as suspicious due to their Catholic leanings, which were
a threat to the nation and the Anglican Church. Consequently, the portrayal of the Cardinal as a
lecherous and murdering character was very much expected at the time; such a characterisation
was in tune with the tradition of anti-Catholic rhetoric. Therefore the wolf and the Catholic were
considered to be of similar breed: they were both wolves in the shape of men making them
undistinguishable from the rest of society and more dangerous to the Church and state. Both were
just as much depraved, ruthless and blood-thirsty.

Bovilsky, Lara. “Black Beauties, White Devils: The English Italian in Milton and Webster”, p. 625-651. Volume 70,
53

Number 3, Fall 2003 (2003).

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However, the figure of the wolf in early modern England was a topical allusion to the Irish
as well. For instance, it has been argued that Rosalind’s description in Shakespeare’s As You Like It
(1599) of the interplay between the would-be lovers as “like the howling of Irish wolves against the
moon” (V, 3, l.92-3) may be a reference to Hugh O’Neill’s rebellion against Queen Elizabeth.
O'Neill's is best known for leading the resistance against the Tudor conquest of Ireland during the
Tyrone's Rebellion (1594–1603) — the strongest threat to English authority in Ireland since the
revolt of Silken Thomas (1513–1537) who rebelled against King Henry VIII in 1534. Chronicler
William Camden (1551-1623) reported that “some of the Irish” “doe affirme that certaine men in this
tract are yeerely turned into Wolves”, and supposed it “to be a meere fable” provoked by “that malicious
humour of predominant unkind Melancholie.”54 The wolf was then employed as an emblem of Catholic
deception by poets and pamphleteers alike, and encapsulated the internalised view of the wild and
uncivil nature of the rebellious Irish.

Touching Ferdinand’s lycanthropy, we can conclude that his condition is symptomatic of

“the corruption of the times” (I, 1, l.14) that occupies the court: it is a mania generated by a deficient
court. Ferdinand takes part in its corruption by making bawdy double entendres and even controls
this court as he asks to two courtiers “Why do you laugh? Methinks you that are courtiers should be my
touch-wood, take fire when I give fire; that is, laugh when I laugh, were the subject never so witty.” (I, 2, l.
39-41). But his tyranny is rewarded with his image being reduced to a coward and confused
madman attacking his own shadow. His behaviour concords with the classical stories which, just
like The Duchess of Malfi, make a clear assertion that the link between tyranny and wolves is the
trigger of civic collapse. Animal transformations in the Renaissance are the signs of a social crisis
after a scene of injustice. This offers a way of thinking through civil discontents. Ferdinand’s
steady decline into madness echoes the rise of the intrigue and imperfect justice of the court, since
both drift further apart from their ideal, civilised forms. Thus, Ferdinand’s lycanthropy embodies
not only the degeneration of the individual from the human, but also the deterioration of the
society from the civil.

As a general conclusion, numerous people were trialled and executed for lycanthropy
whilst witchcraft gained a dismal momentum across Europe during the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries. The increasing concern about lycanthropy is stressed by the number of convicted

54 Camden, William, Britannia, “Ireland and the smaller islands in the British ocean”. Published in 1607, A hypertext
critical edition by Dana F. Sutton, The University of California, Irvine (2004).
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lycanthropes and of treaties tackling the subject. Demonologists argues that witches shifted shape
into wolves due to “their innate greed, cruelty, lust for human flesh, thirst for human blood, and a
desire to execute their heinous works without being identified”55 urging them to commit
unspeakable atrocities such as killing men, women, children and livestock. John Webster’s
portrayal of lycanthropy is congruous with the humoral theory. However upon analysing
Ferdinand’s character, it is difficult to feel any sympathy towards the victim as his general conduct
leads him to the development of his madness. Consequently, his deeds play an active part in his
demise introducing his lycanthropy as divine punishment, as a moral justice.

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