Witchcraft in Europe, 400-1700

by Kors, Alan Charles; Peters, Edward

• ISBN13: 9780812217513
• ISBN10: 0812217519
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2000-12-01
• Publisher: Ingram Pub Services

Summary

The highly-acclaimed first edition of this book chronicled the rise and fall of witchcraft in Europe between the twelfth and the end of the seventeenth centuries. Now greatly expanded, the classic anthology of contemporary texts reexamines the phenomenon of witchcraft, taking into account the remarkable scholarship since the book's publication almost thirty years ago. Spanning the period from 400 to 1700, the second edition of Witchcraft in Europe assembles nearly twice as many primary documents as the first, many newly translated, along with new illustrations that trace the development of witch-beliefs from late Mediterranean antiquity through the Enlightenment. Trial records, inquisitors' reports, eyewitness statements, and witches' confessions, along with striking contemporary illustrations depicting the career of the Devil and his works, testify to the hundreds of years of terror that enslaved an entire continent. Thomas Aquinas, Martin Luther, Thomas Hobbes, and other thinkers are quoted at length in order to determine the intellectual, perceptual, and legal processes by which "folklore" was transformed into systematic demonology and persecution. Together with explanatory notes, introductory essays--which have been revised to reflect current research--and a new bibliography, the documents gathered in Witchcraft in Europe vividly illumine the dark side of the European mind.

Author Biography

Alan Charles Kors is Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania and author of Atheism in France, 1650-1729 and (with Harvey A. Silvergate) The Shadow University: The Betrayal of Liberty on America's Campuses. Edward Peters is Henry Charles Lea Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania. Among his books are The First Crusade, both also available from the University of Pennsylvania Press.

Table of Contents

Preface to the Second Edition	ix
List of Illustrations	xi
List of Abbreviations	xiii
Introduction: The Problem of European Witchcraft	1	(40)
I Christianizing the Traditions	41	(17)
Augustine: On Christian Teaching	43	(4)
Caesarius of Arles: Sermon 54	47	(3)
Isidore of Seville, Etymologies	50	(4)
Halitgar of Cambrai: The ``Roman'' Penitential	54	(4)
II Sorcery in Christendom	58	(29)
Regino of Prum: A Warning to Bishops	60	(3)
Burchard of Worms: The Corrector, sive Medicus	63	(4)
Hugh of St. Victor: The Didascalicon	67	(3)
William of Malmesbury: The Sorceress of Berkeley	70	(2)
The Decretum	72	(5)
Master Gratian
John of Salisbury: The Policraticus	77	(1)
Ralph of Coggeshall: The Heretics of Rheims	78	(3)
The Life of St. Justina	81	(6)
Jacobus de Voragine
III Thomas Aquinas on Sorcery and the Nature of Evil	87	(25)
From the Summa contra gentiles	90	(6)
From the Summa theologiae	96	(7)
From Quodlibet XI	103	(1)
From the Commentary on the Four Books of Sentences	104	(1)
The Mirror of True Penitence	105	(7)
Jacopo Passavanti
IV Popes, Theologians, Preachers, Lawyers, and Judges	112	(37)
Vox in Rama	114	(2)
Pope Gregory IX
Sorcery and the Inquisitors	116	(2)
Pope Alexander IV
William, Cardinal of Santa Sabina: Sorcery and the Inquisitors	118	(1)
Sorcery and the Inquisitors	119	(1)
Pope John XXII
The Directorium inquisitorum	120	(7)
Nicolau Eymeric
The Theology Faculty of the University of Paris Condemns Sorcery	127	(6)
Bernardino of Siena Preaches Against Women Sorcerers	133	(16)
V The Sect of Diabolical Witches	149	(27)
Pope Alexander V to Pontus Fougeyron on New Sects	152	(1)
Two Letters on the Pressing Danger	153	(2)
Pope Eugenius IV
The Formicarius	155	(4)
Johannes Nider
The Errores Gazariorum	159	(4)
Ut magorum et maleficiorum errores	163	(3)
Claude Tholosan
The Defender of Ladies	166	(4)
Martin Le Franc
A Scourge for Heretical Witches	170	(2)
Nicholas Jacquier
Jehan de la Case Is Pardoned for Killing a Witch-Finder	172	(4)
VI The Hammer of Witches	176	(54)
Summis desiderantes affectibus	177	(3)
Pope Innocent VIII
The Malleus Maleficarum	180	(49)
Heinrich Kramer
Jacob Sprenger
The Pursuit of Witches in Lombardy	229	(1)
Pope Alexander VI
VII Humanists, Sorcerers, Preachers, and Popes	230	(29)
A Terrible Case of Sorcery in Orleans	231	(5)
Desiderius Erasmus
Die Emeis	236	(3)
Johann Geiler von Kayserberg
Gainfrancesco Pico della Mirandola: Strix	239	(6)
On Diabolical Witchcraft	245	(14)
Pope Hadrian VI
VIII The Problem of Sorcery and Witchcraft in the Age of the Reformation	259	(71)
The Two Kinds of Sorcery and the Reformation	261	(4)
Martin Luther
Witchcraft and the Reformation	265	(5)
John Calvin
De veneficiis	270	(3)
Lambert Daneau
Tratado muy sotil y bien fundado	273	(7)
Martin de Castanega
De praestigiis daemonum	280	(10)
Johann Weyer
On the Demon-Mania of Witches	290	(12)
Jean Bodin
The Confessions of the Chelmsford Witches	302	(6)
The Prosecutions at Trier	308	(10)
The Prosecutions in Scotland	318	(4)
Demonolatry	322	(8)
Nicholas Remy
IX Witchcraft Prosecutions in the Seventeenth Century	330	(62)
Disquisitiones magicarum	331	(3)
Martin Del Rio
The Masque of Queens	334	(11)
Ben Jonson
The Trial of Marie Cornu	345	(3)
The Prosecutions at Bamberg	348	(5)
The Prosecutions at Wurzburg	353	(1)
The Prosecutions at Bonn	354	(1)
The Devils of Loudun	355	(4)
The Trial of Suzanne Gaudry	359	(8)
``A Discourse on Witches''	367	(3)
Cotton Mather
Sadducismus Triumphatus	370	(22)
Joseph Glanvill
X Belief, Skepticism, Doubt, and Disbelief in the Sixteenth, Seventeenth, and Eighteenth Centuries	392	(57)
Discoverie of Witchcraft	394	(8)
Reginald Scot
``Concerning Cripples''	402	(4)
Michel de Montaigne
The Political Works	406	(1)
Benedict de Spinoza
A Spanish Inquisitor on Witchcraft and Evidence	407	(12)
Alonso de Salazar Frias
Leviathan	419	(6)
Thomas Hobbes
Cautio criminalis	425	(4)
Friedrich Spee
The Enchanted World	429	(7)
Balthasar Bekker
The Recantation of the Salem Village Jurors	436	(2)
Answer to the Questions of a Provincial	438	(6)
Pierre Bayle
Witchcraft and the Law	444	(5)
Christian Thomasius
Acknowledgments	449