The Sorcerer Monk of Stavelot

Jean Delvaux was fifteen years old when his life changed forever. As a shepherd he tended cattle on the lonely pastures of the Ardennes, far from any village, surrounded by nothing but wind and clouds. One afternoon, an old man appeared on the path — a stranger Delvaux had never seen before.

The man spoke softly but compellingly. He promised the young shepherd knowledge, power, and riches, on condition that Delvaux obey him. Enchanted by the words, the boy agreed. The stranger sent him to a school in Trier, where Delvaux learned to read and write — but also, he later claimed, the dark arts.

Years passed. Delvaux entered the Benedictine order at Stavelot and became a monk. No one suspected what lay behind his pious facade — until the rumours began.

In 1592, the first whispers started. Brother Delvaux behaved strangely — he mumbled in unknown tongues, disappeared from his cell at night and returned with mud on his habit. When the prior of the monastery suddenly died, accusing fingers pointed at Delvaux.

Under the pressure of interrogations, Delvaux began to confess — or to fantasise; the two could no longer be told apart. He spoke of witches’ sabbaths attended by more than five hundred people, led by demons bearing names like Beelzebub, Leviathan, and Astaroth. There was dancing, feasting, and sinning, he claimed, on deserted moors by moonlight.

Worst of all were the accusations. Delvaux named more than five hundred people — villagers, merchants, nobles, fellow monks, and even clergymen. The entire region was swept into a spiral of fear and suspicion. Neighbours accused neighbours, families fell apart.

In 1596, Ernest of Bavaria, prince-bishop of Liège, appointed an inquisitorial tribunal. For months, witnesses were heard, confessions extracted, and evidence gathered — or what passed for evidence in an age when the line between truth and delusion was as thin as the smoke of a pyre.

On 2 April 1597, the verdict was delivered. Jean Delvaux was stripped of his monastic status and priestly ordination and handed over to the secular court. It condemned him as a poisoner and sorcerer. The sentence was death.

He was granted one mercy: permission to be buried in the monastic graveyard, the place where he had once hoped to rest in peace. Whether his confessions contained truth or were the product of torture and madness, no one will ever know for certain. But his name remained bound to the abbey for centuries — not as a monk, but as the man who let the devil into the holiest house of the Ardennes.