Part 4

[84] “Daemonologie,” Edinburgh, 1597. James was undoubtedly the prime author of the new and harsher English statute against witchcraft, which, with a fresh edition of his “Daemonologie,” appeared in the year (1603) of his accession to the English throne.

[85] It was the day of the “Theatrum diabolorum,” of the “Theatrum de veneficis,” of the “Mallei maleficarum”--now swollen by supplements to thrice the bulk of the original “Malleus,” and growing every year.

[86] True, there was still, in many quarters, an unreconciled public sentiment, and even now and then an open though unpublished deprecation. It has long struck the attention of historians that, even in witch-ridden Germany, the great imperial city of Nuremberg seems free from the persecution. Its criminal code was the Carolina; yet a contemporary manuscript copy of its executioner’s records, from 1600 to 1692, in the possession of the President White Library, shows not a single execution for witchcraft proper. I hold in my hand a document--so far as I know unprinted, and certainly unknown to the historians of witchcraft--which may partially explain this. It is a manuscript, in a sixteenth century hand, on whose cover I read, “Der Nürnbergischen Theologen Ainhellige Antwort, über etliche Puncten, die Unhulden betreffent”; and at the head of its first page, more explicitly, “Ainhellige Antwort der Hochgelerten Theologi unnd Predicanten zu Nürnberg: auff die Suplication des Raths zu Weisenburg an die Eltern herren dess geheimen Raths alhie zu Nürnberg: umb unterichtung: Wie sie sich mit iren Hexen undt Unhulden verhalden sollen, unnd wass in Göttlicher heiliger Schrifft darvon gegründett sey.” At the end are the signatures of the six pastors of Nuremberg, and the date--1590. Through thirty weary pages the city clergy wrestle with the problem set them; and superstitious enough seems their answer. They believe fully in witchcraft and in its punishment--nay, they establish both in all their horrible detail out of Holy Writ. And yet (the influence of the canon _Episcopi_ is clearly not dead, even for Protestants) they deny that the witches can transform themselves, or ride through the air, or cause wind or hail-storm; all this is mere illusion. And so do they fence about the prescribed procedure with their cautions against trusting the testimony of the witches themselves or the word of the executioner or charges against persons of else unblemished reputation; that, seeing the most prolific sources of the spread of the persecution thus cut off, one no longer wonders, if such were the spirit of even her theologians, at Nuremberg’s own immunity.

[87] “Instructio pro formandis processibus in causis strigum, sortilegiorum, et maleficiorum,” Rome, 1657.

[88] In his “Philosophical considerations touching witches and witchcraft,” 1666, which, enlarged, was reprinted (1668) as “A blow at modern sadducism,” and (1681) as “Sadducismus triumphatus.”

[89] In his “Select cases of conscience touching witches and witchcraft,” 1646. I have not seen the book, and copy its title from Wright (“Narratives of sorcery and witchcraft”).

[90] In his “An advertisement to the jurymen of England, touching witches,” London, 1653.

[91] In his “A candle in the dark; or, A treatise concerning the nature of witches and witchcraft,” London, 1656.

[92] In his “The question of witchcraft debated; or, A discourse against their opinion that affirm witches,” London, 1669.

[93] In his “The displaying of supposed witchcraft,” London, 1677.

[94] And if it surprise any that, in a paper before the American Historical Association, I say nothing of the literature of American witchcraft, I can reply only that it seemed to me a work of supererogation, if not an impertinence, to treat that literature in this presence with the brevity its place in the history of the delusion would demand.

[95] In his “Tribunal reformatum,” Hamburg, 1624.

[96] That Thomasius was himself their author was, indeed, clearly stated in a letter appended to the “Theses,” wherein he says to the respondent: ...“_In chartam conjeci breves has Theses, quae in perlectione prolixioris dissertationis Tuae in mentem venerunt._”... They were published the next year (and often thereafter) in German translation, under his own name, as “Kurtze Lehr-Sätze von dem Laster der Zauberey.” But this was only a beginning of Thomasius’ share in the crusade. He gathered, or led his students to gather, all that could be found written against the persecution (among the rest Spee’s book) and issued it afresh in German; he translated, with preface of his own, every new book upon it that appeared abroad; he encouraged his pupils to discuss it in their dissertations, or did so in their names; he assailed it in lecture and review and editorial; and he kept up the warfare till his death. An utterance of his even earlier than the “Theses” I find in his “Dissertatio ad Petri Poireti libros de Eruditione,” 1694 (reprinted in his “Programmata Thomasiana,” 1724), where he already takes strong ground against the persecution, though not wholly against the superstition.

[97] “Disputatio juris canonici de origine ac progressu processus inquisitorii contra sagas, quam ... praeside Dn. Christiano Thomasio ... subjicit ... Johannes Paulus Ipsen.” That Thomasius, and not Ipsen, is its author, is abundantly clear from internal evidence; and Thomasius himself claims it as his own in subsequent writings. We have, by the way, from Thomasius’s own lips (in his “Programma invitatorium” to “Dodecas quaestionum promiscuarum,” Halle, 1694--cited by A. Roquette in the _Centralblatt für Bibliothekswesen_, 1887), an ironical discussion of this prevalent fashion of writing for one’s pupils disputations which one afterward collected and published under one’s own name. “Neque falsum committitur,” he thinks, “dum quis se auctorem scribit disputationis, cujus nec lineam saepius elaboravit, saepius nec intelligit.”

[98] “An historical essay concerning witchcraft,” London, 1718.

[99] “Bibliotheca, acta et scripta magica: Gründliche Nachrichten und Urtheile von solchen Büchern und Handlungen, welche die Macht des Teufels in leiblichen Dingen betreffen,” Lemgo, 1739-45.

[100] “Versuch einer Geschichte der Hexenprozesse,” i., Berlin, 1784. It unfortunately remained a fragment--in fact, as the author himself calls it, only an introduction.

[101] In the “literarisch-kritischer Anhang über die Quellen und Bearbeitungen der Hexenprozesse,” appended to his little study on “Die gegenwärtige Wiederbelebung des Hexenglaubens” (Berlin, 1875).

Transcriber’s Note:

The footnotes have been relocated to the end of the main text and renumbered to better fit the ebook format.

Spelling and hyphenation in common use at the time of publication have been kept as is. Obvious typos have been corrected.

The following change has been made:

- In footnote 75: sortilége to sortilège