Warning: If you don’t already know about this, it is some bad stuff.
THE HUNTS AND THE SCHISM
Many are the stories of noble Nephilim, stouthearted and powerful men and women who can inspire us today with the tales of their courage and valor. History is, however, not a storybook, and we would fail in our duty of instructing the new Shadowhunter if we ignored the more shameful and contemptible actions of our forebears. The Nephilim have always acted with morally upright objectives and out of a desire to do good in the world, but with our modern sensibilities we must mention, and condemn, those occasions when from those ambitions came behaviors that we would now consider to be evil.
The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries saw a tragic fad sweep through Europe: witch-hunting. It arose for a number of historical reasons—among them, religious fervor coinciding with the Protestant Reformation and a renewed interest on the part of the Catholic Church in condemning “devil-worship.” What began as the lynching of innocent and mostly mundane women (and some men) as “witches” expanded quickly, to become official mundane law. England, for instance, passed the first version of its Witchcraft Act in 1542, which made it illegal to:
. . . use devise practise or exercise, or cause to be used devysed practised or exercised, any Invocacons or conjuracons of Sprites wichecraftes enchauntmentes or sorceries, to thentent to get or fynde money or treasure, or to waste consume or destroy any persone in his bodie membres or goodes, or to pvoke [provoke] any persone to unlawfull love, or for any other unlawfull intente or purpose . . . or for dispite of Cryste, or for lucre of money, dygge up or pull downe any Crosse or Crosses, or by suche Invocacons or conjuracons of Sprites wichecraftes enchauntementes or sorcerie or any of them take upon them to tell or declare where goodes stollen or lost shall become . . .
Many Shadowhunters attempted to calm their local mundanes and direct their attention to less violent concerns; however, historical accuracy demands that we admit that many Shadowhunters took upon themselves the people’s fervor for witch-burning and helped them pursue it. Some Shadowhunters thought that this new enthusiasm for stamping out demons could be directed usefully, that mundanes might become aware of and able to deal with demons on their own. Instead the Enlightenment happened, mundanes developed modern science and began to build modern technology, and belief in witchcraft became something an educated mundane would consider a silly superstition. By the end of the 1700s, across all of Europe witch-hunting had died out, and maintenance of Downworld had reverted fully to the Nephilim.
In those two-hundred-odd years, however, Downworld suffered badly from these Hunts. Warlocks, especially those with marks that could not be easily disguised or hidden, were especially in danger. Such “disfigurements” were seen as clear evidence of witchcraft among mundanes. Luckily, most warlocks were living among mundanes already and were used to either hiding or explaining away their warlock mark, and most were able to avoid accusation. I know about this, we read The Crucible in English class.
In fact the Downworlders who suffered most directly from the Hunts were the werewolves. Recall that the mundanes’ zeal for witch-hunting was based on a belief that witchcraft represented dalliance with “satanic forces.” Just as the towns and cities were cleared of their witches, the forests of Central Europe had their werewolf populations decimated by mobs that swept through them, often with bands of hunting dogs, seeking to kill the “half-men who dally with the devil in the guise of a terrible wolf.” Unlike “witches,” who were regular people who had committed terrible crimes, werewolves were considered less than human and thus did not merit a trial before the death sentence was passed. Shamefully, the Council in 1612 declared its support for werewolf-hunting, arguing that those werewolves who lived in the forests rather than towns had become out of control, like wild animals, and could be put down like animals. The forests, the Clave said, contained only “savage werewolves” rather than “those respectable lycanthropes who are in control of their unusual Trait and integrated into the mundane town and city.” The Council, however, knew well that the forests being hunted were full of werewolf collectives who had gone to live under a more lupine social order in places where they would not be persecuted for it; these very human werewolves were given up by the Clave and were allowed to be destroyed. Werewolves died by the hundreds, possibly the thousands.
Not sure I even want to ask Luke about this.
While warlocks suffered less from the mob violence that decimated European werewolves, a different kind of damage was done to them by this anti-“satanic” fervor. Prior to this time, warlocks and Nephilim had been mostly allied, and often were close collaborators in pursuing demonic activity. We Shadowhunters possessed the tools most effective in killing demons, while the warlocks had access to magic and magical research that were of great help to us but that we could not perform ourselves (most obviously, demon-summoning). Jonathan Shadowhunter’s friendship with the warlock Elphas the Unsteady set a precedent that lasted more than four hundred years.
In the wake of the witch hunts, however, a great Schism came to pass between Nephilim and warlocks. Many Shadowhunters, caught up in the fervor of the Hunts, declared warlocks to be “by nature Demonick” and fully evil. In 1640 the Clave forbade the hiring of warlocks to assist in Shadowhunter business. In some parts of the world warlocks were rounded up, or were required to make evident at all times their warlock mark (thus instantly making criminals of all those warlocks whose marks were usually hidden by clothes and the like). In other parts of the world, warlocks went into hiding, sometimes banding together for safety but more often making their way alone. These actions by the Clave worked against the interests of Shadowhunters, making it significantly more difficult for them to hunt demons. They also antagonized and dehumanized those other members of Downworld most likely to be willing partners of the Shadowhunters.
In 1688 Consul Thomas Tefereel brought about his set of well-known Reforms, which officially declared that being a werewolf and living outside mundane habitations was not in itself a capital crime. The Reforms also required Nephilim to “be careful and clear” in judging werewolves and warlocks, such that these Downworlders would be persecuted only if they were actually breaking the Law. It was not, however, until the notorious trial in 1721 of Harold and Robert Grunwald—Shadowhunter brothers who had set fire to a local tavern house in which had been gathered the entire local werewolf clan—that the werewolf hunts died away for good. The Clave was horrified by the Grunwalds’ actions and, unusually, turned over the brothers to mundane authorities, who hanged them. The proactive persecution of warlocks continued in pockets around the world and dwindled only in the early nineteenth century. Warlock persecution was officially made illegal, and the laws against Shadowhunter-warlock collaboration revoked, in the First Accords in 1872. Okay, went and asked Luke anyway. He didn’t have much to say:
• Yes, the Hunts were bad. • No, the Clave hasn’t ever really made up for it, except for making it illegal now. • There are still Shadowhunters who think it should be illegal to “collaborate” with warlocks.
THE ACCORDS
THE FIRST ACCORDS, 1872
• Easy for the Clave to take blame for something that ended three hundred years ago, think they’re so great
You got the idea, I think.
A group of serious-looking men and a few women stand around a table rough with years, and examine the twenty-eighth draft of what, since the twenty-first draft, has become known as the Accords. This is Consul Josiah Wayland’s high Victorian Council Hall; he runs things with the discipline and rigidity of a German schoolmaster. Across the table from the Council members are the various Downworlder representatives. They feel the rights of Downworlders in Reparations trials are not sufficiently spelled out. Wayland suspects them of trying to build loopholes into the Law.
Wayland, you fiend!
It is the hottest summer in fifty years in Alicante. temperatures remain above ninety degrees for weeks at a time; moist hot air drapes itself over the Accords deliberations like a robe, shortening everyone’s patience and goodwill. Tempers flare. A constant argument occurs about whether the windows should remain open or closed. When open they allow at least the slight relief of a cross breeze, but they also let in a population of black flies that must be waved off with flyswatters. Everyone is constantly physically uncomfortable, except for the faerie and vampire representatives, who take the experience in stride, thus irritating the rest of the assembly all the more.
That Wayland would preside over what is almost certainly the most important event in modern Shadowhunter history is an interesting accident of timing. Wayland was not much loved as a Consul, and has not been remembered fondly for either his personality or his wisdom. In truth the groundwork for the Accords had been laid across the entire nineteenth century, beginning with the historic European Downworlder Treaty that was signed at the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 and marked the first time an official document promised any protection under the Law for Downworlders. Most of the credit for the ideas that led to the Accords should be given to the Consul at that treaty of 1815, Shimizu-Tokugawa Katsugoro. It is a testament to Shimizu-Tokugawa’s ideas and drive that even after his death in 1858, the work that led to the Accords continued until they were finally signed in 1872.
The other great hero of these First Accords was the head of the London Institute at the time, Granville Fairchild, who acted as a great peacekeeper throughout the long hot summer and constantly smoothed over relationships between the delegations at times when their clashing interests led to offense and resentment. He possessed a preternatural ability both to make the Council understand and appreciate the wishes of the Downworlder delegation, and to help the Downworlders understand and appreciate the wishes of the Nephilim. Sadly, Fairchild did not live to ratify the Accords he himself had worked so hard to complete. As negotiations were concluding, he traveled to the island of Cyprus to offer his expertise in demonology to the Institute there. The Cypriot Nephilim were fighting the Greater Demon Stheno, who was ravaging the countryside. There Fairchild died, as befits a Shadowhunter, in battle with Stheno. Though they were drastically different men, Fairchild and Consul Wayland had a great friendship, and Wayland dedicated the signing of the Accords to Fairchild’s memory.
(In an unusual end to the story, Stheno was eventually dispatched back to the Void in Scotland in 1894 by a team of English Shadowhunters; though Stheno was in disguise, he was recognized because he was wearing Granville Fairchild’s favorite Ukrainian fur hat, which had been a gift from Wayland.) Ha!
These First Accords were opposed heavily by some Shadowhunters, mostly those who stood to lose significant income as a result of the proposed Reforms. (See “.”) Luckily, compromises were found that allowed the Accords to be ratified and signed. The final draft, the thirty-third, was agreed upon near the end of the summer of 1872. Fifty signers were present to ratify it: ten vampires, ten werewolves, ten warlocks, ten faeries, and ten Nephilim. Vampire representative Aron Benedek famously described the final document as a “compromise of compromises,” but in truth the skeleton of the subsequent Accords was fully in place with this first agreement. The Accords that have followed have hewn to its model more often than not.
Among the landmark resolutions adopted as part of these First Accords were:
• The declaration of Downworlders as beings with souls, and thus entitled to the protections due to humans.
• The revoking of Laws making it illegal for Downworlders to adopt mundane children.
• The granting to Downworlders of the right to a court trial when accused of breaking the Law; no longer could Shadowhunters adjudge them guilty of crimes and punish them immediately.
• Legal language restricting the penalties that could be placed on Downworlders, to prevent punishment out of proportion to the crime.
• The granting of Downworlders’ right to their own internal organizational schemes—vampire clans, wolf packs, faerie courts, et cetera—without interference from the Clave. In fact, the Accords made membership in one of these internal organizations a requirement for Downworlders; “unaffiliated” vampires or werewolves were considered rogue and were not afforded the same protections under the Law.
• Acknowledgment of the Nephilim as the official law-keeping force of Downworld, and agreement by the Downworlders to abide by Covenant Law. Acknowledgment of the theoretical body of Heaven, through its representative Raziel, as the ultimate authority over our world.
It is interesting to examine the updates in the Accords over the years, and how the Accords today differ from the original document signed those many years ago. The major differences include:
• Increasingly detailed and specific language about the rights of Downworlders in criminal trials. The need for more and more legalism in the Accords came about as Consuls and Inquisitors varied wildly in how they interpreted things, sometimes adopting draconian rules against Downworlder groups, who had little recourse but to try to get the rules made more specific in the next Accords. Interestingly, the criminal law section of the Accords is now treated as a separate document and is framed by a different group of representatives—ones with legal expertise—from those who write the rest of the Accords. This is in part because the criminal law section of the Accords is now significantly longer than the entire rest of the Accords put together. This separate document is, however, the only place where a Downworlder’s right to trial is officially recognized by the Nephilim, and so the document has grown in importance with each successive Accords.
• A much stronger declaration of the rights of mundanes to live their lives unimpeded by the vicissitudes of Downworlders. It was at the Seventh Accords, for instance, that it first became illegal for vampires to keep subjugates.
• During the time of the first three Accords, warlocks were habitually summoning demons at the request of Nephilim. Technically this was illegal. The Fourth Accords specifically made it legal for warlocks to do whatever magic was deemed necessary in the course of a Nephilim investigation.
These and other such social reforms teach us that the spirit of the Accords is alive in Idris, and that we continue to refine and ever improve relations between Idris and Downworld.
So progressive, we couldn’t murder Downworlders in the street anymore.
Big change, though—from “Downworlders are basically demons” to “Downworlders are basically humans.”
. Gibson, Marion, Witchcraft and Society in England and America, 1550–1750 (London: Continuum International Publishing Group, 1976), 1–9.
I did not know about this. It is pretty bad, yeah.
It’s not like your country or your religion behaved way better.