On the Demon-mania of Witches
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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De la demonomanie des sorciers (On the Demon-mania of Witches or On the Demon Worship of Sorcerers) is a book by Jean Bodin.
Bodin's history of witchcraft persecutions was first issued in 1580, ten editions being published by 1604. Perhaps Bodin's most controversial statement was his recommendation of torture, even in cases of the disabled and children, to try to confirm guilt of witchcraft. He asserted that not even one witch could be erroneously condemned if the correct procedures were followed, suspicion being enough to torment the accused because rumours concerning witches were almost always true. Some scholars have attributed Bodin's attitude towards so-called witches as part of a populationist strategy typical of mercantilism.
Excerpt:
- Les Sorciers étant assemblez en leur Synagogue, adorent en premier lieu Satan, qui apparaît là tantôt en forme d'un grand homme noir ou rouge, tourmenté et flamboyant comme un feu qui sort d'une fournaise ardente, et tantôt en forme d'un bouc barbu, pour ce que le bouc est une bête puante, salace et lascive, et pour lui faire un plus grand hommage, ils lui offrent des chandelles, qui rendent une flamme de couleur bleue, et puis le baisent aux parties honteuses derrière, quelques-uns le baisent sur l'épaule: à d'autres fois encore, il tient une image noire qu'il fait baiser aux Sorciers. --(Jean Bodin, De la Démonomanie des Sorciers, 1580)[1]
Bodin's major work on sorcery and the witchcraft persecutions was first issued in 1580, ten editions being published by 1604. In it he elaborates the influential concept of "pact witchcraft" based on a deal with the Devil.
The book relates histories of sorcerers, but does not mention Faust and his pact. It gave a report of a 1552 public exorcism in Paris, and of the case of Magdalena de la Cruz of Cordova, an abbess who had confessed to sexual relations with the Devil over three decades. Bodin cited Pierre Marner on werewolf accounts from Savoie. He denounced the works of Cornelius Agrippa, and the perceived traffic in "sorceries" carried out along the Spanish Road, running along eastern France for much of its length.
He wrote in extreme terms about procedures in sorcery trials, opposing the normal safeguards of justice. This advocacy of relaxation was aimed directly at the existing standards laid down by the Parlement of Paris (physical or written evidence, confessions not obtained by torture, unimpeachable witnesses). He asserted that not even one witch could be erroneously condemned if the correct procedures were followed, because rumours concerning sorcerers were almost always true. Bodin's attitude has been called a populationist strategy typical of mercantilism.
The book was influential in the debate over witchcraft; it was translated into German by Johann Fischart (1581), and in the same year into Latin by François Du Jon as De magorum dæmonomania libri IV. It was quoted by Jean de Léry, writing about the Tupinamba people of what is now Brazil.
The book would inspire the title and thematic concerns of John Crowley's novel Dæmonomania.
