Edward Peters - Magician, Witch, and Law-Harvester Press (1978)

The
Magician
the Witch
and the Law
Henry C. Lea, Associate Professor
EDWARD PETERS
of Medieval History
University of Pennsylvania
The Harvester Press

1978
This edition first published in 1978 by
THE HARVESTER PRESS LIMITED
Publisher: John Spiers
2 Stanford Terrace, Hassocks, Sussex
Copyright © 1978 by Edward Peters
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Peters, Edward, b. 1936
The magician, the witch and the law.
1. Magic-History. 2. Witchcraft-History.
I. Title
301.2'1 BF1593
ISBN 0-85527-456-5
Composition by Deputy Crown, Inc.

T<J_my mother
Mar;orie Corcoran Peters
in memory of my father
Edward Murray Peters
Contents
Preface ix
Introduction: Magic in Medieval Culture xi
I. The Transformations of the Magus 1
0
Rhetoric and Magic in the Eleventh and

Twelfth Centuries
·O
3. Learning and Magic in the Twelfth and
21
. Thirteenth Centuries 63
r:t.
U. The Systematic Condemnation of Magic in the
Thirteenth Century 85
.2· The Sorcerer's Apprentice
@. The Magician, the Witch, and the Law
llO
Appendix 1. Res fragilis: Torture in Early European Law
138
Appendix 2. Nicholas Eymeric: On Heresy, Magic, and
183
the Inquisitor
Appendix 3. The Magician, the Witch and the Historians
196
Index
203
213
Preface
This book is a study of medieval conceptions of, and attitudes toward

maleficium, especially in those instances when maleficium served as a
generic term to designate both magic and witchcraft. Its focus is pri-
lmarily upon the ways by which theologians, �alis�, and jmJsts defined
rmaleficium and condemned it. It began as a development of my earlier
work on witchcraft, but it soon broadened to include magic as well, a
,,subject whose relation to witchcraft has not generally received much
"W,ttention. The completion of this study has been greatly aided by several
opportunities to present aspects of my work to colleagues and various
learned, and interested, audiences. A grant from the Penrose Travel Fund
of the American Philosophical Society enabled me to begin to survey
much manuscript and early printed literature; the generosity of the Uni
versity of Pennsylvania Press helped me to complete the work and p r e
pare it for publication.
Early versions of portions of the present work have been given as talks
to the following conferences and institutions: the Fourth International
Congress of Medieval Canon Law at Toronto in 1�; the Medieval
Bouse of the University of Rochester; the Faculty Research Club of the
University of Pennsylvania; the 1902 Lecture Series at Bryn Mawr Col
lege; Swarthmore College; the 1976 Western Michigan Medieval Con
ference at Kalamazoo. These generous occasions allowed me to present
ongoing research-often in an unfinished and unpolished state-to critical
and helpful audiences. Professor Alan C. Kors of the University of Penn-
ix
sylvania, ever since we collaborated on our documentary collection
X Preface
Witchcraft in Europe, has been an intelligent and critical adviser. Several

colleagues at the Department of History of the University of Pennsylvania
have helped me frame my argument and improve it. I am also personally
grateful to Professor William Jones of the University of New Hampshire,
Dr. Thomas Waldman of Philadelphia, and to Professor James M. Mul
doon of Rutgers University, Camden, for having helped me with parts of
this book when they were still only in conversational form. These indi
viduals, institutions, and occasions have contributed greatly to whatever
value my work has, and not at all to its :shortcomings.
My family has, as usual, gone without me for long and unconscionable
periods of time, both during the prelimiinary studies and research and
during the final preparation of the manusciipt. My gratitude to them is
greatest of all. I also acknowledge the contribution of the many students
at the University of Pennsylvania who have taken History 532, Topics in
Medieval Histo1y, when, as they often dicl, those topics turned out to be
heresy, dissent, magic, and witchcraft.
Modem historical literature on the subjects of magic and witchcraft
is both extensive and diverse. The bibliographical essay in Appendix 3,
below, attempts to describe the most important modern studies and to
indicate the best and most recent bibliogratphical guides through it. Since
these subjects are not of interest to med: ievalists alone, I have tried to
provide translations of the major texts discussed, to give their locations in
the original languages in footnotes, and to suggest in the footnotes the.
best scholarly guides to particular topics. Neither pretends to be exhaus�
tive; both pretend to efficiency of reference.
Historians perforce write about chronological change in a past whose
future they already know. This book attempts to put the great witchcraft
persecutions of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and the contempo
rary concern over learned magic well into the remote future of the writers
whose attitudes toward magic it analyses. In doing so, I hope that I have
been able to particularize in sharper relief than usual the actual concerns
of thinkers between the ninth and the sixt,eenth centuries and thereby to
have contributed a chapter on some neglected aspects of the condemna
tion of maleficium to the history of the religious culture of early Europe.
Phil,adelphia, 1978
Introduction
Magic in M�dieval Culture
Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim, a sixteenth-century humanist, critic

-of_ witch-trials, and eager student of natural magic, once remarked that
magic, a sublimis, sacraque disciplina, honored by the greatest thinkers
�(antiquity, had been unjustly condemned by the early Fathers of the
Church. Until his own age, this condemnation had resulted in a very
deficient sort of magic, not only in the corrupt and uncomprehending
practices of necromancers and witches, but in the deliramenta and super
stitiones of no less formidable medieval thinkers than Roger Bacon and
Arnald of Villanova. Agrippa's conception of a learned and high magic, ·
"not witchcraft, not superstition, not demonolatry, but wise, priestly and
-{P,!!>phetic," is the matter of another book than this, although it is necesr
sary to point out that it was not as far removed from the thought, and the
period, of Roger Bacon and Arnald of Villanova as Agrippa professed to
think. · The claims made by Agrippa and others in the fifteenth and six
teenth centuries for a pristine natural magic did not go unchallenged,
however, and more than one practitioner of high magic found himself
charged with necromancy and superstitio, the very traits Agrippa and
others had restricted to the lesser castes of the magic profession.
Agrippa's magic had to free itself of such charges because until it was
� unced by Pico and Ficino in the fifteenth century, no court or con
essor recognized any form of magic but that which had been condemned
b the Church Fathers and repeatedly denounced in all sources until the
£ii ·
_ teenth century. As a historian of magic Agrippa was generally right.
xi
I.
I
xii Introduction: Magic in Medieval Culture
The place of magic in the organization of knowledge of the Greek,
Hellenistic and Roman worlds, never entirely free of opprobrium, came
under new attacks in the first and second centuries A.D. from Christian
� writers a�d later from Roman emperors. After its last flowering in the
fourth and fifth centuries, most of the learned magic of the world of late
antiquity disappeared into manuscripts or into thin air, where much of
· r it remained, completely inaccessible to those who might have wished to
seek it out, until the recovery of much classical literature in the fifteenth
and sixteenth centuries. Renaissance humanism, with its passionate and
indiscriminate zest for classical information retrieval, also revived much.
Aglippa in his eloquent and fruitless defense of prisca magia.

of ancient magic and made for some of it the claims enunciated by -
The high Neoplatonk magic of the Reinaissance might indeed be con

demned as the old demonological magic in new dress, but it had about
it the pretense and dress of learning-and it had influential patrons. Its
practitioners never ran quite the risk of systematic condemnation and
persecution as did those necromancers and witches of whom Agrippa
so scornfully spoke. By the beginning; of the seventeenth century,
Shakespeare's Prospero could renounce his magic, drown his books, and
step back into the normal Christian world of Milan. Others, however,
paid heavier p1ices for engaging in what Agrippa had called the cor
Renaissance. They were tried, convicted[, and burned as malefici, and

rupted and uncomprehending magic of ithe Middle Ages and the early
their circumstances have concerned historians from the early nineteenth

century until the present.
Of the two, the witch has received by far the most attention. For
epistemological reasons, some of which are discussed below in the
bibliographical essay in Appendix 3, the phenomenon of witchcraft and
witch persecutions in early modern Europe has attracted the attention of
some of the best-and some of the worsit-modern historians. The high
, learned magic so eloquently praised by Agrippa has also attracted the
Tattention of historians. The third group, however, Agrippa's "necroman
cers," has received far less attention. Its members have either been dis- ·
�ed under the broad heading of learned magic or as an undifferentiated
part of the category of witches. The formal character of learned magic,
on the one hand, and the failure among historians to discriminate clearly
among types variously categorized as wiitches, are two reasons for the
infrequency of scholarly discussion of 1the figure of the magician in
-L medieval history. A third reason may be the extraordinarily literary con
i
text in which the best-known medieval magicians-Merlin, Faust, and
�imon Magus-are to be found. The air of faerie that surrounds Merlin,
Yet Agrippa's ignorant necromancers, and not the Renaissance magus

..: at least, is not readily amenable to serious historical analysis.
Introduction: Magic in Medieval Culture
or the witch, were the object of most theological, moral, and }egal con-
l-demnation from the filth to the fifteenth centuries. The nattire of that
.
condemnation and the conception of the crimen magiae in literary and
legal sources colored both the suspicion of tne later learned magus and
the fear and prosecution of the witch. .!E._aq9.lti_on, the actual Qc_mrence
of magici�ns at different times an_d places between the fifth and_ the
sixte�nth centuries also influenced both traditional and novel forms of
condemnation. Finally, the nature of the sources that discuss the crime
or-magic, the crimen magiae, must also be taken into account if one
4 wishes to obtain a historical �nse of precisely what medieval writers
tbgught magicians were.
This book began, in part, as the study of some questions that had
arisen when I collaborated with Professor Alan C. Kors of the University
of Pennsylvania on the anthology of texts in translation, Witchcra� in
Europe. Those questions originally clustered around the figure of the
witch and her medieval antecedents. Am�e _ at}tecedents, I �und
j the_m�gician, Agrippa's necrOIJlancer rather Than h:is_learne? _magus. The
magician has intruded himself intp the history of witchcraft condemna
tions and persecutions on the basis <:if his. occurence in the sollfce mate
frialsof -medieval and Renaissance ideas of deviance and dissent. M�fj,.:;.
-�, the term that all sources down to the �ighteenth...,-_cent1Jry employed
designate witchcraft, originally m.eant generally injurious crime _and,
specificallx within_ that category, magic. Witches were. prosecuted in' the
· to
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in part, at least, because t ey, like
the magicians, employed a kind of maleficium. Like the magician and
the heretic, they ran afoul of specific laws that had their roots in Roman
and canonical legal traditions and Christian theology. Thus, the purpose
oCthis book is to explore some of the links among the magician, the
witch, and the law within the context of medieval culture and the specific .
character of medieval historical sources.
The first chapter deals with the transformations of the magus, that is,
with the process by which the learned magic of the ancient world was
transformed in late antique and early medieval sources into the demonic
magic known to most medieval thinkers and linked by them to certain
fonns of heresy, blasphemy, and superstition, particularly to idolatry.
Thereafter, the progression is roughly chronological. The final chapter
treats the problem of magician and witch, suggesting that the finalg_ ns
�:ffiatio11 2.f....th!...!!11.:fg,tJs�a.Lca.,1Jsfil!. i!.)._J.la. f.L b¥-.the.., tbQ.\lghL of fi(��. e�th-
century theologians ancl-,law-)<ers, a new literalness in reading the legal
f
\ rarts �f the Old Testament, a sharper idea of pact with the demon, a
ai:ge.literature on magic, and a new sense of sacramental responsibility
Pnncip ally on the part of secular magistrates rather than inquisitors.
More than heresy or magic specifically, however, such terms as super-
xiv Introduct:ion: Magic in Medieval Culture
stitio and idolatria acquired new sharpness. These are the theological
offenses of magician, heretic, and witch alike. There are other terms that
are not treated as extensively as these but are as important; some I intend
1 to pursue at a later date. The chief among these is curiositas, "the passion
for knowing unnecessary things." It was the shape of legitimate knowl
edge in medieval society that defined, by excluding them, the magician,
£!!.he heretic, and the witch. Others are fotria and dulia, the technical
names for the veneration magicians and witches paid to demons. Finally,
magic, like heresy, was a political offense. Spiritual and temporal powers
were both vulnerable to heresy, but magic looms large as a social and
·/ political weapon in the fourteenth and £ifteenth centuries. Attempts of
learned magicians and some philosophers to separate "good" and 'bad"
magic, "learned" and "unlearned" magic, "philosophical" from "bestial''.,
magic, never wholly succeeded. Whether it pleased him or not, a magi
cian like Agrippa von Nettesheim was clos:er to the victims of witch-trials
than he knew, or cared to acknowledge.
Some of the most familiar elements in the history of witchcraft are
virtually omitted from the following study. Rather than account for the
partieulars of night-flight, sabbats, cannibalism, infanticide, and weather
magic, I have tried to look at a broadeir area, that of superstitio and
is!£1Blti.a. Within that broader area, the nature of maleficium clearfy ex
pands to include the magician as well as the witch. Both figures, in addi
tion, took on some of their coloration from antique and medieval tradi
tions of invective against heresy and heretics. The studies of Jeffrey
• Russell and Norman Cohn deal extensivelly wi�h the forms of invective;
. those dealing with accusations of cannibalism, orgy, and ritual secrecy
offer important dimensions to many of the materials dealt with in this
book. If I have treated these problems with less thoroughness than they
deserve, it is because the treatments of Hussell and Cohn . already offer
substantial commentary and analysis, and I have profited from them
greatly. Some movements, notably Catharism, the most violently attacked
heresy of the Middle Ages, shared the brunt of much of thi� sort of invec
tive, although Catharism is relatively lightly treated in the following
pages.
Jhis,..Q.Q.Q.k js_ a_,..5Judy3>f the way.s by .whieh, the writers of different kinds
of texts conceptualjzed_ !he� phenomenon 0tf magic and created the forms·
:tofjJ.Iy.ecwe that crossed genre limits and. helped to shape the common
..1l'mage of the heretic, magician, and witch alike. It traces something of a
high road in this process, relying on new information that may be 6b
l tained from some well-known texts by emphasizing the contexts in which
I.those works were produced.
!_he contextual .ci.ceumstance..s.. of invecti � a�ainst m;1gic are e�sen�
to consider, because, as later chapters off this book will argue, it w�
Introduction: Magic in Medieval Culture xv
largely by lifting the portrait of the magician and the traits attributed
to him out of their original contexts and placing them in new contexts
Jthat the sixteenth-century onslaught against magic and witchcraft was
accomplished. From their diverse origins, the, traits of the magician were
shaped into a commonly unoerstoo 1mageoy'the ena otrlre tnirreenth
'1
cenfu:l· T_o wh��ver extent �ey� have,.il�ag�JLahgyt...9t,h�r. ti.�e
magic, sixt�ent�epj::g,rx �P..�gists� Ji.Js.e� Agnppa.., ansl.. �a.d.wi;.��af n
��<>&��ns _J!nsf ��oral!�� _sb�z:.<:i t�e..l�!lle view 9f demol!ological magic.
'or
Indeed, to make any defense of high magic at all in the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries, any ap0logist had to condemn demonological magic
in virtually the same breath. Ttre critics of high and low magic alike were
less discriminating. Not only such well-known critics as Jean Bodin,
but otherwise cautious and sceptical thinkers like Johann Weyer agreed
e
on the natureand necessity of the condemnation of magicians. Earlr)
modern Europe knew several different kinds of magic, but . most of its
thinkers, regardless of their individual reasons, uniformly condemned the
agic of the Middle Ages and thus__, ill tb.(;)ir distinctive ways, helped to
tain the prosecution of magicians and witches both through the /
nteenth century.
T��apter..0Uei.tb. ..Ib.omai..massiove... . smdy_o£...1Wigian.. a1Jd.J.be f
Decline of M gic is entitled "The Magic of the Medieval Church." In it,J
Tliomas examines one pole of medieval awareness of "Magic," that at
which the powers of sacrament, saint, and priest tended toward debase
12
ment iii"' tne realm of popular, including clerical, attitudes toward the
mvocation of divine powers to ameliorate the circumstances of earthly
1i£e. At the other pole, of course, there was another kind of what modern
thinkers might be inclined to call magic, the blinding power of miracle,
�hentic sacrament, or direct divine intervention. At the latter extreme,
t�s..n,o magic at all, since the chief feature of magic is its power of
��lling)rather than beseeching, supernatural forces. The closer that
memeval beliefs veered toward the automatic power of compulsion over
spirits, whether beneficient or evil, the closer it came to magic. Church
men were not unaware of this dilemma, and late ,medieval attacks on
eJ;stitjo included both those beliefs that were condemned outright and
r ose beliefs that, while strictly still within the realm of orthodoxy, never
theless suggested too great a dependence upon the compulsive powers of
sacraments and sacramentals. Moreover, this condemnation of beliefs in
the compulsive power of the Church's sacraments and other elements of
�e Christian cult was not the only basis for the attack on magical b e
liefs . Magicians and, later, witches could also invoke and beseech the
demons·, and this element of invocation, of offering them those forms of
veneration, latria and dulia, that were strictly reserved for God and the
.
saints, seemed certainly more blasphemous, if not more dangerous, than
Introduction: Magic in Medieval Culture
the belief in the compulsive powers of riitual magic itself. Thus, as both
a perversion of proper forms of devotion and as an art that claimed or )
was accused of claiming to enable its jpractitioners to compel super
Eiatural forces, magic in all of its variations was savagely condemned
f2Y churchmen.
I
o medieval thinkers, magic was the !,arliest f!lld xn.osUlliciLu>,rm,,gf
mman .£.Qmro..er.ce.,..with.... demons...,Jieresy was another, and the images of
1e magician and the heretic were shaped by the same kind of fear and
j
revulsion. Moreover, magic could be learned, and the medieval organiza
tion of legitimate knowledge was one of the weapons that medieval
.
thinfers usecf c.9nsisteiillytq attack ma,gTcaf practices. ·Not o_nly was�
, · Jl!_;lgi?a�"'ST£�1sraim��ourrtwasfllso"'1lf�t.lllIDoi-btd<len knowl- .
friiira) rather than m�acles iracufa), c:;t.used inj�iry, and therefore was i
' ·· edge.:,Finally, �agic, although its critics , uccused it of working wonders !
punishable under eiiminal law ell � under ecclesiastical strictures. �

Thus, tnel u orce of ecclesiastical conde�;tic>n� available to sec·u�J
' Iar magistrates from an early date, and late medieval writers o'n magic !
rarely failed to mention the - civil, as well as the spiritual liability of the ;
crime!J,,JJUlg-iae. ·-�.
f
To search for witches alone in medievall sources is to narrow the limits
law covered many offenses, so did the concept of superstitio. Any historian
\
of a legitimate histo1ical question. Just as the concept of maleficium in
concerned with the history of magic and witchcraft as cultural phenomena

has to consider the .;.P�sific ��l.£2,.iu��ts of_ those �offense.S. Having
started out in search of the witch, I found that the sources I encountered,
when broken down into genres and analyzed as texts of particular kinds,
revealed less and less about medieval '\vitchcraft" and more and more
about other areas which few writers had discussed. The rule of looking
at what the sourcesJ,!!U)S one of two rules that I have followed through
out. The other is to consider ideas and documents �xt. If one puts
the image of the sixteenth-century witch out of one's mind for a while,
one finds something very different in the medieval sources. Except for a
very few pages at the end, this book does not address the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries. It begins with the history of the one figure that I
I
� Ii (and Cohn) have discovered in the sources, the ma�ician. In dealing with
this figure, I have fleshed out in antiquity and the early Middle Ages his
emergence in the Christian world-view and his importance in theology,
particularly in patristic literature. This treatment may also help to supple
ment and clarify some of Cohn's findings.
1, Second, this book deals very carefully with words. As a colleague .once
suggested to me, the English language permits one to speak of sorcerers
4 and witches chiefly because the English language der�ves from. Romance
and Germanic roots. In Latin, the same word was used for both magician
Introduction: Magic in Medieval Culture �
and witch, maleficus( a). The word sorcier( e ) describes both in French.
zauberei means 'magic' in German, and Hexe means 'witch,' but Hexe is
a late development. Thus, this study focuses upon maleficium in what
ever form it is found, and it rarely uses the word witch to apply to any
erson before 1450 or so. For the image of the witch in the fifteenth and A
ixteenth centu.ries iL�.m...th.at...Qf thJLin�i&ia_Q, the idQgter3}ie /J 2-
r I superstlt§,1:. The word magici is much more accurate when applied to
ccu practices of any kinclbetore the middle of the fifteenth century.
• . Third, this study attempts to deal with the rhetorical tra�� that
shaped the picture of the magician, the heretic, and the witch. One of the
II
skills of the rhetorician generA1ly was his mastery over forms of chaos,
· violence, and €he �pernatural. The rhetorical learning of the Middle
·v.
Ages contributed to the depiction of those social types whom most people
detested. In addition to the rhetoric of the sources, I have paid most atten
tion to the genre of the sources:. Thus, for example, when a monastic
-
writer in the twelfth century describes heretics' activities, a magician, or
..
extreme violence, he does so in part because of the demands of his genre,
and in part because of his view of the lay world generally. Both these
elements have to be taken into account in analyzing the place of his re
marks, not only in his own world, but as they appeared to later people
who did not view them in the same context. Finally, I have paid close
attention to the !!!,ilie,!-1,<i,_the source. A legal tract addresses different
questions from a sermon, and the ideas in both, while they ·may be re
lated, are not identical. In some cases, notably that of John of�J§!:mr:Ll
Policraticus discussed in Chapter 2, I have argued thatt.fie book's genre,
/t in this case a moral treatise for courtiers, must be considered when in
terpreting the texts.
I,\ . Fourth, I have attempted to delineate some of the �t�t§. in
which the magician is most likely to be found. One of the dilemmas of
the historian of witchcraft is that, outside of accusations, trial records,
treatises, it is hard to find witches that correspond to the
, and theoretical
'{ best-known ideal type of the si1,C�enth centm:y. It is easy to find heretics.
; <i� is a!so_ e_il� t:_o_ fi.nd_ _m�Lcians,� and the sources where magicians are
found, with real magic books and real attei:npts to alter the lives of human
1beings help to explain why the ideas abo�;..0em took shape and how
Q �hey cnculated.
1JI I have focused u on the l'courbas the oli · center
rather than the law-court, ecause i t seems from the documents that the
'.
court life and the nifure of courtiers' attitudes toward security, incerti-
tude, ambition, and fear-as well as the personnel in the court and their
4 -
life style-help to explain the fam:teentl-1-eeitt1rry- phenomenon - of- trials

� - -
�
Go- �itical sorcery, so badly understood by most political historians. I
�ve al investigated the texts that would have been best known to
different kinds of people in different social circumstances. Thus, to dis-
so
xviii Introduction: Magic in Medieval Culture
cuss theologians' ideas of magician and witch, it is important to know the
J<inds of books theologians got their infonnation from, as it is for lawyers,
-4,reachers, and inquisitors. The generic relationships of texts to ideas is
similar to the relationship of institutions liike the court to the character of
belief in, and fear of, magic.
This book, then, deals with a number of topics that have been treated
by other historians of witchcraft, but its focus on the history of the .
· \ ideas of magic, maleficia, idolatria, and superstitio makes it an addition

magician, the social reality of magic, arnd the interrelations among the.
repetition of them. It is philosophcally closest to Cohn's Europe's Inner

to and clarification of certain ideas in imodem scholarship, and not a
1
Demons, but it has benefitted from the work of most of the historians
mentioned above, particularly Russell. Although I disagree with Russell
about a number of points on the medieval history of the magician, in
Witchcraft i n the Middle Ages was stimiulating and helped to focus my.
developing my own approach, I often found that an encounter with
own work; without it this book would have been much longer.
The nature of the sources for such a discussion of magic in medieval .
culture as this book contains is not the same as that for later studies of
which Thomas built the monumental Rel'.igion and the Decline of Magic
witchcraft or learned magic. The vast evidence for popular beliefs upon
is lacking, as is the vast mass of archivall data that characterizes the in-
/ temal history of individual witchcraft persecutions in the work of
MacFarlane and Midelfort. Medieval sources permit one, rather, to ob
serve the learned tradition that depicted the figure of the magician and
the process by which the learned tradition was applied by spiritual and
century of the type of demonological magician enabled theologians and

temporal magish·ates to particular figures.. The existence by the thirteenth
magistrates to deal with diverse cases of magic that came before them.
�'I.:��_£rea!i.2.9...Qf.!b�. .�y.p�js the history that this book attempts to describe,
for it lay behind the learned magus of the Renaissance as well as the
necromancers and witches that even the defenders of learned magic
1,
(1_90ndemned.
1
The Transformations
of the Magus
The Hellenic world, as it set about its task of organizing and systematiz
ing knowledge, recognized and defined gi and the figure of the
magos. The te1m magos first appeared in� ree;Das a designation of the
,\ � astro!qg��s!§_yv l!Q, Herodotus tells us, accompanied the army
I of Xerxes into Greece.1 From its first Greek use, the term shared much
of the opprobrium of other things Persian and generally oriental that so
characterizes subsequent Greek intellectual life. The association of the
magoi with hated Persia and the unfamiliar sight and sound of their
practices perhaps helped to add the meaning "h'ickster" or "quack" to the
original sense of magos, an extension noted as early as the fifth century
ll.c. After the fifth century the Persian origin of the magos ceased to be
emphasized, and the term displaced older Greek designations of practi
tioners of magic. A magos b . ecame a practitioner ( or pretended prac-
,J titioner) qi_.fil_!:s that elicited _tw_aid o[gpg�_<!,q!W;O..!!:es for his own
%enefit or for that of his clients, usually for criminal purposes. Plato, in
The Laws, is explicit in his condemnation of magoi and their practices:
�s for those who add the character of a beast of prey to their atheism or belief
lil divine indifference or venality, those who in their contempt of mankind
bewitch so many of the living by the pretense of evoking the drutd and the
promise of winning over the gods by the supposed so�ceries of prayer,_.s_acrifics,
� cfilltai:ions.. and thus do their best for lucre to ruin individuals, whole
l( arn1hes,
and communities, the law shall direct the court to sentence a culprit
convi cted of belonging to this class to incarceration in the central prison,
I
2 The Transformations of the Magus
where no free citizen shall have access to him . . . . At death he shall be cast
out beyond the borders without burial, and if any free citizen has a hand in
his burial, he shall be liable to a prosecution for impiety at the suit of any
who cares to take proceedings."
In Plato's view the magos committed a crime so deadly in the eyes of

the community and the gods that it rivallced that of Polynices in the eyes
of Creon, and violation of the prohibition of burial was, of course, the
�I
great offense of Sophocles' Antigone.
later Roman concept of mageia:

Arthur Darby Nock suggests a succin,ct definition of the Greek and
The profession by private individuals of the possession of technical ability

enabling them to supply recipes or perform rites to help their clients or dam
age their clients' enemies; the use by such cHents or by others of such proceed
ings to damage enemies; and- corresponding to the vague modern use already
mentioned- the religions belonging to aliens or on any general ground dis
approved.3
The older Greek term for magic, goeteia, gave way before mageia, the
individual goes before magos, and goetef.a became a kind of species of
evil daimones, whereas mageia employed only good daimone§. �sso

magic. According to some philosophers it was the kind of magic that used
ci�tion olthe..mag-0s with.daimo,.nes, goo..d...m: .Q�d, was in part a develop-

ment of the Platonic theory that daimones w�r�_inte°"rmediarieJ��
� II tnedivine- and the h_nman�realms. The magoi, therefore, were those who
/
_,,.� ·- - --
daimones. Such professional, or technical contact with the daimones, how
.,, _
cou'ld by their art or pretense consult and sometimes command the
the claims of some magoi that they employed a legitimate and divinely
ever, was rarely looked upon with equanimity in Greek law. In spite of
approved techne, or ars, and in spite of the claim of some later religious
mageia,�_!y_more often than not ch:i1racterized the Greek and later

philosophers that there were pe1mitted, as well as forbidden forms of
the Roman attitude toward magical practices and practitioners. That
although the magoi may have been hated. and distrusted, there was also
hostility was compounded of various measur� of scorn and fear, for
widespread belief that their arts did indeed pose a considerable threat
A to the well-being of the Greek and Romalll community.•
Although Plato was harsh in his condemnation of magicians, the laws
of Greece and Rome were harsher. They contained stiff penalties for the
\
ol practice of magic, especially when that magic could be proved to have
caused injury or loss. Besides its alleged impiety, magic also · attracted
the hostility of philosophers because it appeared to conflict with the
� ethical character of legitimate intellectual inquiry since it was sometimes
The Transformations of the Magus
considered to be a form of aimless erudition, curiositas, which was at
3
tacked in other forms as well. The ethical bent of the later Hellenistic
world harbored little good-will toward magicians who professed to be
able to command or compel the daimone� especially if such powers
hinted at impiety, caused human injury, or deflected the magician from
the proper path of philosophical inquiry. Well before the advent of
Christianity, therefore1 the figure of the mago's ana: tfie nature of fos art.
� h:a'd 15een ap�werf��on;;-ri]o[W �<?E.,lrerS-ffld'ia:wgivers-as-welb One
of the first tasks of ·C hristians was not to condeinntne magos on any
,J parti� ularly original ground, b� t to prove that they themselves were not
Greeks and Romans were not the only people who defined, feared, and
�oi.
condemned magical practices. The Septuagint version of Old Testament

used the Greek word magos freely to condemn those magicians of Pharaoh
depicted in Exodus 7 :8, as well as the practices condemned at length in
the legal portions of Leviticus and Deuteronomy. The later Latin transla
tions of the Bible translated magos by magus, because it had come to
have a similar meaning in the Roman world to its meaning in the Greek
t world. Again and again in the Old Tes_tament, Je:,,v� w�re_wa2:�ed again�_ '
practicing magic or consulting magicians. §�1cn prohibitions, however,
clianot stoptheseQi·acoces, anaGi�eks, Romans, Jews, and earlyCnns
tiarisalike �12� to have persisted in consulting magicianswethnttrthe
lffihand sililllcenturi,eu.o.;:.antl-pr<fu
apfilong_after.5
- Among the first and most important episodes in the encounter of Chris
ianity with pagan magic is the story, recounted in Acts 13:6-12, of the
meeting of St. Paul with the Jewish magician i§.!r.mas, in the entourage of
a sympathetic Roman proconsul, Sergius Paulus�
· . . an intelligent man, who had sent for Barnabas and Saul and wanted to
hear the word of Cod. This Elymas the sorcerer [magusJ (for that is how his
name may be understood ) seeking to tur� proconsul away from the faith,
resisted them. Saul, however, also known as Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit,
f looked upon him and said: "O you who are full of fraud and all falseliood, son
?f the devil, enemy to all justice, will you never stop trying to subvert the
Just ways of the Lord. And now behold, the hand of God is upon thee, and
You will be blind, and for a time will not see the sun." And immediately mist
and shadows came over him, and he groped about for someone to take his
hand and lead him.6
At its very outset, in a simple version of what would later become a com
mon rheto1ical tradition, Ch1istianity set itself sharply against the practice
of magic in the person of one of its earliest and most influential figures,
1
St. Paul himself. To pagans, of course, such a contest might have seemed
to he a contention of magicians to see who was stronger ( also a literary
theme), and indeed Christians were accused by their critics of practicing
,magic themselves. But in this story, Elymas's daimones never appear, and
+ the hand of God was something that even mildly curious pagans like
Sergius Paulus could recognize.
E�rly Christianity attacked other as�cts of the p�gan world �esides
its magic, princie_ally _i!_s learned. cultui:.e. ,. �nd often the denuncia!ign of
pagan IT§"at� a�d philosopjiy too.J< the form of including and �
u identifying them with magic, thus fmther insulting the pagans who th-em- .
\A_jelves never identified the two. Tertulliian's famous taunt, "What has
Athens to do witli Jerusalem,'' was taken by many Christians to include
all aspects of pagan thought/ The writings of Tertullian condemn both
magic and that vain erudition that "is able to study nature without car-
1ing for him who created it and governs it: they only trouble themselves
in a great emptiness."8 Indeed, it is as a subspecies of curiositas that
�ertullian denounces magic, and he denounces less the practice itself
than the mental attitude that to hi�vades all_p�philosophy, the
ffass1on for l<nowl�ge thatdoes not r��>ognize .the finaj end_ oJ _l!l_L true_
4 k,nowkdge,. the knowJedge.- of -God. As the gods of the pagans became
-<!wons..s in- Chtistian.. e:xe�L'{,Q° �n eJfo,��: le!@iQ!\ancipJltlosbplrf'" joined
,-.n
pagan magic as condemned. For Tertullian, the·· magicians efariottS
practices, pagan consulfafions of oracles,. and other forms of divination
were all performed with the aid of demons. Early Cluistian demonology
Lat its outset identified the magical arts with the power of the devil.
In the search for a form of Christia111 culture that might retain the
acceptable aspects of pagan letters while discarding the dangerous and .
damnable, a search that extended from Tertullian through St. Augustine's
De doctrina christiana, many Church Fathers found it impossible to con�
ceive of a Christianity that was not based upon Latin culture. Tertullian
himself reproached his fellow Cluistians with their ignorance of the faith,
which made them prone to diversion from it. Between his richly exploited
vein of contempt for the pagan philosophers ( which he derived from
pagan antiphilosophical literary traditions) and his genuine concern over
Christian ignorance, Tertullian was the first of many Christian thinkers to
come to terms with pagan antique culture without falling prey to the
errors in it that they equally denounced.
In many respects, the search for a Christian accomodation to _pJlgfill
�re ended with St. Augustine's De doctrina chrigifina_��en 396
and 427.0 This treatise, enormously influential in its own time, continued-
to inspire thinkers for many centuries to , come, down into the nineteenth
and twentieth centuries. In the De doc,�rina christiana, __Augu�L.
out those_clernents-(.)Lpa�rary culture that a _re ...]:!§!Pfu� �
�: ;.;.:;;
.. :::;.::� � di...,
niLl>
g_o
L
L s, cripture,
andj�nat are not. In book 2, Augustine
takes up the definition of superstitiouspraclices; and it is here that he
The Tramformations of the Magus
makes h� ordered, coherent denunciation o�;;rinkin it to i ol tr
5
and �upe��, an �ams mg 1t rom Go s world alt�gethe�.. Book 2

ofth�trctrtnn1'ndutlesao1scuss10n of the understanamg of signs and /
J
the ignorance which prevents a proper understanding of them. In con
sidering the value of studying pagan literature, Augustine insists that:
Every good and true Christian should understand that, wherever he may find
truth, it is his Lord's. And confessing and acknowledging this truth also in the
sacred writings, he will repudiate superstitious imaginings and will deplore
and guard against men who, "When they knew God have not glorified Him as
God, or given thanks; but becanre vain in their thoughts, and their foolish
heart was darkened. For professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.
And they changed the glory of the incorruptible God into the likeness of the
image of a corruptible man, and of birds, and of four-footed beasts, and of
creeping things."10
Augustine's quotation from St. Paul ( Romans 1:22-23) echoes the imagery
of the story of Elymas in Acts, and the whole passage is a continuation
of Tertullian, as well as an important chapter in the search for a Christian
wisdom that so marked the patristic age.
Augustine then goes on in book 2, chapters 19-24, to discuss the con
tent of pagan superstition, which he casts whollx.J..n terms of superstitio
·Variovarfous forms of magia. Chapter 20 is a catalogue of what Augustine
cafls" the magical arts7' and in this catalogue, he includes virtually all
the forms of idol-worship, particularly in the casual habits of everyday
life: pacts with demons, haruspicy, augury, medical magic, and the ob
servance of omens and signs. Chapter 21 adds astrology, as does chapter
22, also adding a discussion of the genethliaci, those who predict a per
son's future f rom the study of birthdays. Chapter 23 sums up the reason
f��s �demnation of ��-s�Esti99n:
For it is brought about as if by a certain secret judgement of God that men
who desire evil things are subjected to illusion and deception as a reward for
their desires, being mocked and deceived by those fallen angels to whom,
according to the most beautiful ordering of things, the lowest part of this
world is subject by the Jaw of Divine Providence.
Even if the image of the dead Samuel told the truth to King Saul, says
Augustine, the means by which the spirit was called up were neverthe
less to be condemned:
Therefore, all arts pertaining to a trifling or noxious superstition constituted

on the basis of a pestiferous association of men and demons as if through a
Pac� of faithless and decitful friendship should be completely repudiated and
avoided by the Christian . . .
T.he Transformations of the Magus
Such practices "all imply a pestiferous ,curiosity, an excruciating solici
6
tude, and a mortal slavery." By the beginning of the fifth century, when
I
Augustine wrote, magia was already cast away no longer regarded as a

.,i legit�mate part of Cfiristian knowledge. And Augl;stine used the
magia to indiiae the wnole panoply of 1magic as practised in the pagan
term
and early Christian worlds. Nowhere is this attitude more strongly ex
1
. pressed than in the De civitate D(}j, especially in books 10, 18, and 19.
In chapter 9 of book 10, Augustine distinguishes between the true
sacrifices offered to God and the worship of idols and demons. Miracles,
Augustine says, were intended to support the worship of the true God,
and they were perfo1med by simple fait: h and confidence:
. . . not by spells and charms composed aLccording to the mies of criminal
superstition, the craft which is called �g_i£..Q!.._§£.lr.£�ry . . . a_d�Jesta}_)le name, .,_,·
or by the more honorable title of theurgy. For people attempt to make some .
sort of distinction between practitioners of evil arts, who are to be condemned, ·
classing these as "sorcerers" ( the popular name for which is necromancy) and.
others whom they are prepared to regard as praiseworthy, attributing to them.
the practice of theurgy. In fact, both typ1es are engaged in the fraudulent.
rites of demons, wrongly called angels. n
Chapters 17 and 18 of book 18 deny the reality of humans who change

their shapes. Book 19, chapter 9, again takes up th�st oL the -dec�i-t
of the demons. In these and other passages throughout his writings,
A�gustine gath�rs up what had indeed been discrete magical practices,
I classes them all under the_ Eeasl!ng of .§f!J2ers.titio, and . condemn�_ .th�m-
emph�tically, blaming the dece�t_oL !he:-. dernens and the· undtscip-linecl
1 qurfositas of ig�oranf1iumans.
Augustine thus links two of the most important strands of early Chris
tian culture: the separation of a Christian learning from the many dis- (
" ll� ciplines of pagan antiquity, and the growth of Christian demonology. In 1
· the new organization of legitimate knowledge, everything pertaining to t
-A magic, astrology, and divination is rejected as superstitio and therefore
made a deception of the devil.
The history of late Jewish and early Christian demonology has pro
duced an extensive literature that can only be summed up here,12 Jewish
demonology has been attributed to the Jpopula1ity of apocalyptic litera
ture which, with conversion, also became the intellectual property of the
early Christian community. The apocryplhal Book of Erwch treated good
and wicked angels, unclean spi1its, divine punishment through the
medium of Satan, and idolatry. To this demonology the early Fathers,
from Justin Martyr to St. Ambrose and St. Augustine, made ' their own
distinctive contributions. Justin particularly gave shape and identity to
the demons and explained their powers ,over humans:
The Transformations of the Magus 7
They afterwards subdued the human race to themselves partly by magical
writings, and partly by fears and the punishments they occasioned, and partly
by teaching them to offer sacrifices and incense and libations, of which things
they stood in need after they were enslaved by lustful passions. 13
Here the magical arts, already under attack on other grounds by early
Christian writers, are explicitly identified as one of the means by which
demons extended their power over humans.
The human race, therefore, was particularly prone to demonic inter- .
ference, deceit, and temptation, and in early Christian baptisms dissocia
/
tion of the catechumen from .-the world of demons was dramatically
underlined and emphasized. In addition to this theoretical and prac
tical demonology, other aspects of early Christian life also contributed
both to the concept of Satan and to the condemnation of magic. The
idea of the Antichrist, a human born either of Satan's union with a
in the Didache apostolorum and in the writings of a number of Fathers, ,

human woman or from a human union presided over by Satan, appears
t\ parallelled by his association with magia. However the Antichrist is to

including St. Ambrose. The association of the Antichrist with Satan is
14
be born, all . writers agree that he will be raised by magicians and use
was rooted in apocalyptic w1itings, including the Book of Revelations,

their deceits to attract other humans to him. The legend of Antichrist
development in the Sybilline writings, particularly the Tihurtina and the

but, as Norman Cohn and others have shown, it received its fullest
· / Pseudo-Methodius . ' These traditions were conveyed to later medieval

Europe in Adso's Lihellus de Antichristo, w1itten around the middle of
5
the tenth century:
Antichrist will have magicians, criminals, soothsayers, and wizards, who, with
'L'the devil's inspiration, will bring him up and instruct him in every iniquity,
trickery, and wicked art. And evil spirits will be his leaders and eternal friends
and inseparable comrades. ,r.
Antichrist's illusions and deceits specifically will make people believe

that he is their leader. The association of the figure of Antichrist of with
L those of the magicians contributed to reinforcing the uniform hostility of
early Christianity to what was universaJly denounced as magic.
The figure of Simon Magus_also played a prominent role in the shaping
of Christian attitu -estoward magic. In some ways, he is the classic test
(!he pagan gods and the power of the true God. Simon, a magus himself,
l�gure for the Christian sense of the difference between the powers of
, converted to Christianity and asked to purchase the magical powers of

the Apostles for his own benefit. Although he later became the arch
heretic in the reform movements of the eleventh and twelfth centuries
8 T'he Transformations of the Magus
and as the "St. Simon" of later medieval anticlerical satire, his career
and its end offer a sharp picture of the Christian sense of the difference
magi. Justin Martyr makes it clear that Simon performed his magical
between real miracles and the deceits and demonic connections of the
Acts of Peter, Simon Magus confronts St. Peter and proves the power of
feats through the power of the demon oru�raJing in hirri..,,Jn the apocryphal
his gods by flying ( which the commentators all agree was done by the
.j power of the demons ). By invoking the name of God against the demons
who support Simon Magus, St. Peter makes him fall to the ground de
feated. There is perhaps no better example in early Christian literature
of the Christian distinction between true miracles and the magical arts
111
\tlpracticed by those deceived by Satan. Like the encounter between St.
Paul and Elymas, that between St. Pete1r and Simon Magus was, in part
at least, a Christian attempt to distinguish between the demonic magic
that enveloped the pagan world ( and of which Christians themselves
l �
ad been accused) and the true power of the Ch1istian god, revealed ·
L;_hrough his humble, simple, pious servants, not through wicked magJ.<?.�aE,s.
devil worship and superstitio, Christians by the fo�irth �entqry were ablt:_
With magic excluded from the legitimate sciens.�Ulll.flJtWciated..w.ith
l y
toeinplo afrffie paganf1teratt{re that C(>Udemned magic on behalf Of
priest Anebo in book 10 of the De cit>itate Dei, and the antimagical

�heir ow1l cause. Augustine so uses Porphyry's letter to the Egyptian
writings of the Roman sati1ists ( Horace, for example) could enter the
vocabulary of Christian invective. Christians now could, and in the
11
Christian Empire did, sack �gan hous�LlJL5.e..ar.cb_o£.. magic... books,_ and

hney could in�e_t!'te �I _!12st:i�ity of JRpman law- against.. magic. '8 As
Calumniam magiae quae facilius infam ,atur quam prohatur. Apuleius's

¼puleius had once saTcI ( in his own defense against a charge of magic) :
Apologia offers, in fact, an excellent survey of the magical ideas of the

second centmy A.D., and it is precisely this tissue of beliefs that came
under intense and unremittin Christiarn condemnation. n 1
But it 1e uistians alone who provided the mas.L.efle.cili!.e-
Tables to the Corpus luris Civilis of Justinian in the sixth century, con
c-9ndemnation o mag.!._c. The Roman stalte, in its laws from the Twelve
demned magic and its practitioners as vigorously as they were denounced
theurgia and goeteia/magia, ridiculed by Tertullian and Augustine, was

(!?y Tertullian, Augustine, or Ambrose. The pagan distinction between
taken no more seriously by the Roman emperors. The distinction, in fact,

seems to have had more reality for philosophers than for their ,oppo
nents- or even for the magicians themselves-since several histo1ians
l\�heurgia practiced by the "learned" magiicians and ti1e goeteia practiced

have pointed out that there was no visible difference between the
' -l (py the "low" magicians.

The best and most recent study of the position of magic in the fourth
and fifth century Roman Empire is Peter Brown's essay, "Sorcery, Demons,
d and the Rise of Christianity: From Late Antiquity to the Middle Ages."20
The great virtue of Brown's study is that it deals with the accusations of
rnagic and the condemnation of magical practices in this period in a
persuasive and well-documented social context, and thereby avoids focus
ing upon the literary sources and bringing to bear upon them the men
malaise in the structure of the governing classes of the Roman Empire

tality of nineteenth- or twentieth-century rationalist scholars. "A precise
(especially in its eastern, Gre,ek-speaking half) forced the ubiquitous

sorcery beliefs of ancient man to a flash-point of accusations in lhe mid
fourth century A.D." They were produced by uncertainty, political in
stability, and conflict among the governing classes of the Empire, and
they subsided when political and social stability was restored, by the end
of the sixth century A.D. Brown describes the dilemma of the fourth and
fifth centmies in anthropological terms:
This is when two systems of power are sensed to clash within the one society.
On the one hand, there is articulate p:)\ver, p:>wer defined and agreed upon
by everyone ( and especially by its holders ) : authority vested in precise per
sons; admiration and success gained by recognized channels. Running counter
to this may be other forms of influence less easy to pin down . . . inarticulate
power: the disturbing intangibles of social life; the imponderable advantages
of certain groups; personal skills that succeed in a way that is unacceptable
or
i difficult to understand. 'Where these two systems overlap, we may expect
·t1t,to find the sorcerer.
In such a world, as Brown goes on to describe it, the servants of the

emperor, the representatives of articulate power par excellence ( as, by
analogy, the Q11:.istian missionaries and bishops would be, several cen
turies later in a totally Christianized society) became the most freguent
�cusers. Those who have recourse to any source of power-outside the
�mperial scheme are the accused. Brown's great virtue in this argument
is to attack the common victims' ( and historian'.s ) view that these
charges were cynical or were "smears." At least once again, many cen
turies later, a similar spate of charges of political sorcery was launched
against courtiers of kings and popes in fourteenth-century France and
Avignon. As will be suggested below, Brown's model also offers a dimen
sion for investigating these later medieval charges of political sorcery.
·Barred from organized political opposition to an increasingly autocratic
emperor, the emperors enemies, or even those who maintained their
power and position without specific imperial favor, were charged with
br esorting to
sorcery. Political and constitutional history, its rules and
methods set down by rationalist institutional histo1ians in the nineteenth
and twentieth centuries, has made no place for the problem of magic
and politics, nor for the intimate, ambiguous, hot�house atmosphere of
the court. Just as heresy is the sin against the Church par excellence, so
, \lis magic the sin against the temporal ruJer, or indeed against the spiritual
lruler seen as a private individual. And the court is its laboratory. "When
we see them in this light, we can appreciate how the sorcery accusations
of the fourth century mark a stage of conflict on the way to a greater
definition of the secular governing class of the Eastern Empire as an
aristocracy of service, formed under the emperor by divine right." The
emperor's servants, chiefly Christians, of course had the added support
of the Christian view that pagan gods were demons and that the pagan
_ \\traditional aristocracy must of necessity have engaged in commerce
with demons. As the early fourteenth century saw, the charges would
work the opposite way as well: traditional "feudal" alistocrats, the king's
''natural" advisers, brought charges of sorcery against upstart parvenu
royal servants and favorites, in an age iprecisely when the royal power
veered between the traditional limited personal authority of a king sur
rounded by aristocrats and the ambitious centralizing tendencies of late
medieval kings and their low-born, but loyal and ruthless servants. Brown
also argues that the sorcerer had affiliations with the demimonde, impor
tant but socially ill-defined figures who wielded great power and favor:
the rhetor, the charioteer ( thinking of Theodora, one might add the
actress and indeed histriones in general ), and the holy man. For "un
controlled religious power," too, threat, ened the regimentation of the
single authority of the state, and only the slow process of totally Chris
tianizing the Empire relieved the tension in the relations between the
court and the holy man. The developing notion of Christian sanctity
must have saved others besides those great imperial opponents St.
Athanasius and St. Ambrose.
Brown traces the role of Christianity in these accusations and their
demise first to the universal Christian exjplanation for all misfortune, the
fallen character of the human race and God's anger against it. In the:
1 works of Augustine, Brown sees a sense of identity that is flexible and·
capacious enough to accomodate misfortune, ambiguity, and unpre
dictability as predictable partc; of the natural human condition:
I
r This situation changed as Late Roman societi, became more fixed. The stabiliza0
!tion of the local Christian communities and the elaboration of a finely
i
larticulated penitential system placed boundaries 011 Augustine's sense of the
1
unidentifiable guilt of a bottomless identity. The idea of ill-defined guilt
hardened into a sense of exposure to misfortune through the . neglect of .
prescribed actions. . . . The Church was the community for whom Satan had .
been bound: his limitless powers had been bridled to permit the triumph of
the Gospel; more immediately, the practising Christian gained immunity from ·
sorcery.
The confrontation directly between the demon and the saint or God be
11
came more important than that between the sorcerer and his victim.
Sorcerers eithe r continue to serve the pagan gods ( who are really demons)
I .
J or work in Christi� society through the power of the demon. They no
longer have any 6r hat is depende� upon knowled,w rofessional
slaf ; ey no lopger comman t � ggq�, .}2ut �O!k ..J!!lf!�Lilie... s°QD. i.t.h_. ,
41/hieh the devil has deceived them; the efficacy of sorcer itself is denied
Demonic power confronts ffie saint an t e c1tuchman and, in the great
I
duel between them-an exemplary duel in which the devil is often
turned to ridicule and occasionally to human service-the power of God
is made manifest. This is the stioject of early medieval hagiography, s e r
'mons, and miracle stories such as the Dialogues of Gregory the Great.
- Brown also points out that the idea that God acts to eradicate..J1m:rfill
.
dous evils direc�1:sion -. 0Lwhat.. .some.....historiaus _ha.'>Le_callec:L the
_tJieo'ry-ohmm-anenrjustice�nded to diminish the figure of the sorcerer
'- � tne"stxth-c-entury:- Ttiis notion contains great implications for the
feriod between the sixth and the twelfth centuries because, as later
�hapters will argue, i! is precisely in the eleventh and.twelfth centuries
that t�_ th�.9ry of immanent.j.ustice both._divine immanence in law courts
and in _ the phenom�nal ��MJ.!Llh.uh.��L�!� intervention-begins
to weaken, and human agents once again have to take up the burdens of ·
�) -
. �orrectingtFie errors of httrmt�'<'>cie!Y:;:-- _!3y-the- en<l-of- the--fourth century;-
�riters as different as Lactantius and John Cassian agreed that the
magical arts, magi, and malefici were all created by the � In the
fifth century Pope Leo I wrote that magic was simply one of the many
astutia of the devil, through which he subdues the greater part of
i humanity with his superstitiones.
The universal condemnation of the magicians by early Chlistian writers
was colored by elements of the Christian experience both before and.
after the conversion of the emperors to Christianity. Roman invective
against religions that they found distasteful or even criminal was highly
developed by the first century A.D. Roman hostility to certain mystery
cults, to the Jews, and to the Druids and their human sacrifices helped
J to s ap this invective, and regional hostilities throughout the Empir
"t' earn� �
ed 1t even further. In his study Europe,s Inner Demons, Norma
Cohn traces this invective as what he calls the "prelude in antiquity" to
the accusat ions made much later against heretics and magicians and
Witches in the medieval Christian world.27 Acts of idolatry, cannibalism,
sexual promiscuity, infanticide, and unspeakable rites were levelled at
Christians ( and are found in the work of the Clnistian apologists) from
the fund of social invective that the Romans reserved for a number of
categories of infamous people, including political conspirators. Cohn
argues that, "In each case the murder and the cannibalistic feast form
Part of a 1itual by which a group of conspirators affirms its solidarity."
By assimilating the Christian agape, or love feast, to the pagan Baccha
nalia, the stereotypical association of political conspirators, pagan writers
succeeded in depicting Christians as enemies of the state in terms familiar
to Romans through their earlier political a:,sociations. The Christian denial
of the values of the pagan world (Tacitus had said that Christians
possessed an odium humani generis, a hattred for human nature) did not
prevent Ch1istians from borrowing forms of pagan invective.
These anti-Christian injunctions, Cohn argues, were adopted by Chris
tians themselves in their attacks on heterodoxy from the third century
on. Indeed, although there is no space to summa1ize it here, Christian
orthodox invective against heterodoxy in the fourth and fifth centuries
constituted a bitter and violent indictment of religious deviance. 21a As
Cohn has suggested, some of the elements: of this attack came from tradi
tional Roman invective, but the attacks on the heretics had other sources
as well. Apocalyptic prophecies were pressed into service, with their
invective against the enemies of God, amd the literature thus created
entered the patristic tradition, to be returned to again and again when
religious dissent became a problem. As noted above, the prevalence of
he�a not a...m.aj_oI._P.roblem before the eleventh century. It is in
tFiecontext of eleventh-c�;tl!rY... antihereltical literature, most of which
I was produced by monastic
. writers familiar with patristic invective, that-
/' these traits were assumed to be those of eleventh- and twelfth-century
heretics. Thus patristic antiheretical invective came to color the descrip
tions of later heretics, magicians, and witches. This litera1y tradition is
important to emphasize. The great prestige of the Fathers in later cen
turies and the twelfth-century idea that contemporary heresies were ofd
heresies renewed justified the use of this trnditional invective.
r -The Christian condemnation of magic, the association of magicians
' with the figure of Antichrist, the fear of heresy, and the borrowing of
/ traditional forms of Roman invective to condemn both magicians and
1 heretics constituted the foundation of the Christian attitude toward both
I magic and heresy. As the foregoing discussion has suggested, both
I -magicians and heretics were condemned, aind the terms of their denuncia
tion were similar, �g 1:9,.Qts . ..i.1 cla.ssicaL paw:i_ f.01ru_ oLipvective.
Another source of Christian invective contributed to the rhetoricalcolora-
tion of both. To the Christfan, the one p, erson who possessed an odium
humani generis was the Jew. Along with the heretic and the magician, ·
the Jew was also considered to be a chilid of Satan, from the first anti
Jewishpolemics in the New Testament to the raging antisemitism �f the
sixteenth century. Such texts as John 8:44 call the Devil the father of the
Jews, and the first mention of a "synagogue of Satan," an epithet fre
quently launched against later heretical groups and witches' assemblies,
occurs in Revelation 2:9 and 3:9. 22 Church fathers accused Jews of wor-
shipping Satan and charged them with �-y ( the crime of the m�
13
cians), giving their children to the demons. The magician encountered

fiySt. Paul in the retinue of Sergius Paulus was the Jew Ely.mas. Jewish
magicians, probably an extremely small group 1n the late antique world,
loomed large in Christian rhetoric. Jews were associated with the triumph .
ff Antichrist. Jews had been accused of widespread practice of magic
and possession of magic lore in the Roman world before Christians made
those charges their own, and the fondness of non-Jewish magicians for
Hebrew lore and their use of the Hebrew language helped perpetuate
the Jews' reputation as sorcerers down through the Middle Ages. From
.J Origen on, the Jew as sorcerer remained a learned and popular motif,
The charge of sorcery, by the fourth century fixed in association with that
of diabolism, increased Christian hated and fear of the Jew, and the
association of Jews with sorcery enhanced the diabolic attributes of all
magic. Jewish magicians, necromancers, poisoners, and servants of the
devil through magical arts populate medieval European literary sources
and aided in the general condemnation of magic by associating it with
an especially hated people.
As Joshua Trachtenberg has noted, late medi,eval lawbooks often listed
the crime of sorcery among laws pertaining to the restriction of Jews.
t The legend of Theophilus, one of the most influential sources for later
Christian ideas of pact with the devil and its requirement for magical
practices, was written in Byzantium early in the seventh century. In it
i the priest Theophilus is guided by a Jewish magician and is given magical
\powers in return for his apostasy. This early literal association of a
Jewish magician with pact with the devil-anticipated in the story of the
magician, the devil, and the Senator Proterius in the fi. fth century-re
mained familiar in Byzantium and was later adopted by medieval story
tellers, the most notable of whom was Rutebeuf in the thirteenth
century.23 The popularity of the story lent several of the most important
motifs to the later story of Faust. Historians have generally left the case
I of Faust out of the discussion of magic, heresy, and witchcraft, but the
story clearly draws upon elements that were commonplace beliefs as
early as the end of the sixth century. The tale of Faust is not as removed
from the burning of witches and the condemnation of even learned ·
magic in the sixteenth century as many historians indicate.
Many of the ideas from various sources described above made their
·\ way into the�oZ9gies. .of.�idore of Seville, written
early in the seventh
century. Isidore's Etymologies became an immensely popular reference
Work for later medieval writers, and his views on magic remained influ
ential down to the twelfth century,
2
when, as we shall see, t��e

•
:�P viga!QlW�b¥,..�t-¥ietor-aoo-t1<1t1s-passed..int.o�SGb� �
e�ogy an philosg�lsidore's pompous pretentions to learning and
his heavy reliance on earlier encyclopedists did not prevent him from
\.If vehemently condemning magic in all its forms. Like St. Augustine, Isidore
I was willing_t�ize disti.nctio.ns. .-am.ong_ _differenj kinds �f magic,
'l but h�c__gndem,ned filL.Qf.. ..these _as.. , dall}!la�le.
The strictures against magical practices in Roman law in the Theo-
dosian Code were passed on to later European society in tl1e form of
/Germanic law codes. Sometimes, as in the case of the Breviarium Alarici,
/ they were embellished with additional comments. Such, for example, was
, the case of the text in Theodosian Code 9.16.3:
The science of those who are equipped with magic arts and who are revealed
to have worked against the safety of men or to have turned virtuous minds to
lust shall be punished and deservedly av,enged hy the most severe laws.
The Breviarium added ( perhaps not for the first time) the injunction:
t}fagicians, enchanters, conjurors of storms, or those who, through the invoca

tion of demons throw into confusion the minds of men shall be punished with
every kind of penalty.
Although some histo1ians of witchcraft have made much of the injunc

tions against the magical arts in the Germanic laws, . seeing a new infu
sion of magic in the folk customs of the Germanic peoples, the Latin
terminology and consistency of these laws with earlier Roman law and
: patristic literature makes any uniquely Germanic folk practices hard to
- ' distinguish. If there were traditional folk practices condemned in the
Visigothic and Frankish laws, they were condemned in the same tone
and for the same reasons that magic had been condemned earlier. The
J bulk of pagan beliefs and new superstitions occasioned by them were
� treated in the indiculi superstitionum published by many Church coun
' cils between the sixth and the tenth centuries and in the treatises De
superstitionibus rusticorum written by ecclesiastics during the same
period. This literature has been widely surveyed by folklorists and re-
• ligious and literary histo1ians. Some of it contains elements dealing with
the older beliefs of the new European peoples, and these are integrated
into Christianity through the sources mentioned above and the peniten
tials written in the eighth and ninth centuries. In many respects the most
'i_
complete of these penitentials · ( which includes many of the materials
' I considered by councils and individual' writers) is book 5 of Burchard of
I
Worms' Decretum, an early eleventh-,century compendium of old beliefs
systematically set out within the cont,ext of the developing canon law.2r.
Such writers as Russell and Lea have summa1ized the elements of these
· to
beliefs that appear to contribute to later ideas of witches, but it seems
rne that, in law at least, these ideas virtually disappear from view after ·
15
the compendium of Burchard. As will be discussed in Chapter 3, th

analytical lawbooks of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries rely far mor
on patristic materials than upon the host of early medieval pagan anl
'Ychristian popular beliefs that these sources display. Although these be
liefs and the cultures that produced them play an important role in the
cultural history of Europe, they did not play a particularly important
part in the lawyers' and theologians' consideration of magic-and later,
witchcraft-in the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries, except
insofar as one or two of them, notably those described in the Canon
Episcopi, were transmitted by ·the learned lawyers and theologians of
�is period. During the fifteenth century, to be sure, popular beliefs once
again fell under the purview of learned theologians, but they responded
to these with the learned materials of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.
They did not return to the old penitentials and excavate primitive tribal
beliefs in order to check them against the practices they observed in their
-own time; tp�)LJurned )!lste_ad_!.o_ll� i ._.!1:aiitioJ1ajJearne� J�f\Llrnd. theo-�
lo�cal literature, and there was in _t]ljs virtually no ref�rence to _ _ earl�er -
b'eliefs a�d- cuit�.� or aChristian. What-wor�ied later theologians
and lawyers was what wonie their p'1l:tristic and later sources: evidence
of practices that had been condemned from the days of Tertullian and
Justin Martyr as sinful magic. The inqujsitors and their colleagues on
secular benches responded to fifteenth and sixteenth century phenomena
with the intellectual resources of fifteenth and sixteenth century lawyers
and theologians. The problem of witchcraft persecutions looms large
enough in this period without tracing either its inspiration or the response
to it from the materials included in indiculi superstitionum, tracts De
superstitione rusticorum, penitentials that no one read, or the encyclopedic
and often astonishing collections of popular beliefs assembled and dis
played by the tireless energy of Burchard of Worms.
The Carolingian renaissance, which performed the first stage of that
renewal of early Christian learning that was vigorously continued by
t:leventh and twelfth centmy scholars, also helped to revive some of the
patristic strictures against magic. In the work of its most important repre
sentatives, Alcuin and the authors of the capitularies, it is possible to see
a renewed concern for many forms of deviance, often singularly
a learned
c ncern based upon a reading of
the texts of Augustine and others. In
�
�r of Reims and Hrabanu_§ Maurus-in�the ninth cen
ry, �e s� ��yiv�-th!·patrist� int�est iq and .concern �about
�a -
��gic. It is leamed.m�!C that_2ccuJ2kd tp� &�ds-!2.L
th rn�� enJury, a . _<:... or sim
�rs!itio th�..t. .tl�_pve<;l n.ot.i}·qrn_jgugr:g.!J!i.
� ll!,_ bl!.t from an� .r�me th€1,t fa 1_<jnate� �� it repe _.!}e�:.,t_ose
rl ��h century scholarsWho dealt with it. -
t�mtn
ll.
- - !.
It has been said of the court of Louis the Pious, son of Charlemagne,
16
dlhat every great man at it had his ow111 personal astrologer. The texture
of Carolingian court life suggests the p,lausibility of this remark, because
in the heady atmosphere of transfo1ming an Iron Age assembly of
warbands and settlers into an ideal Christian kingdom, the Carolingian
Empire often presents ( as it did to itself) the image of a composite of
late Roman imperial and barbarian Germanic styles of life and thought.
The classical works that Carolingian scholars discovered, edited, and
circulated among themselves were the very ones that managed to pre
serve much antiquarianism along wi1th Christian piety. The religious
basis of Charlemagne's and Louis's renovatio has long been recognized.
What has often not been recugnized as fully is how much of the old
Learned world of late antiquity came with the Christian materials. In the
sophisticated, learned, violent, and self-serving Carolingian court world
those who had access to, and even a rudimentary understanding of,
beamed magic could easily find employers. No residual pagan supersti
tions or folk beliefs were necessary. The Carolingian aristocrats knew
how to value learned magicians as it valued learned chroniclers, holy
men, astrologers, wande1ing Iiish scholar monks, and any other successful
1means of making their way through the rapidly changing post-tribal world
/of Charlemagne's renewed Roman Empire and Louis's rapidly deteriorat
ling Christian kingdom. 2G
In his treatise De divortio Lotharii, Hincmar of Reims took up the
question of whether or not a man could be enchanted and thereby lose
l
, his potency. In his consideration of the divorce case of the emperor
Lothar, Hincmar argued that malefici!ttm could indeed prevent a man
from consummating his marriage, although in the case at hand he accused
the emperor's mistress of having perfo:rmed the act of maleficium. Hinc
mar's text became quite influential, s:ince it was cited on many other
occasions and was included in Gratian's Decretum, the first modern book
of canon law, in 1140.
Far more important, however, was the work of Hrabanus Maurus of
Fulda. In his early work on Christian learning, the De institutione cleri
corum, Hrabanus defended the study of pagan literature, but advisedly:
There are two kinds of doctrines which were exercised among the gentiles:
one dealt with those things which were instituted by men . . . the other insti
tuted by divinity. That which was instituted by men was partly superstition
and partly not. Superstitiosum est quidquid institutum est ab hominibus ad
facienda et colenda pertinens, vel colendum sicut Deum creaturam, vel partem
illam creaturae, vel ad consultationes et pacta quaedam significationem cum
daemonibus placita atque foederata, qualia sunt molimina magicarum artium
quae quidem commemorare potius quam docere assolent poetae.27
The. Transformations of the Magus
These ��uct of superstitious human institutions and
17
involving pact with the demon, s ould be avoided.- Hrahanus's treatise

De magicis artibus, opens with a long series of biblical citations against ,
all forms of magic and then lists all the varieties of magic known to the
Church Fathers.28 Although the actions of the magicians sometimes work,
flrabanus says, they do so only because the magicians have made a pact
with Satan. and because God in his wisdompermits' Hie demons- toac,
Acomplish what the magicians think they accomplish. Curiositas and
cupiditas mge the magicians to admire the demons, especially the prophe
cies that the demons make ang.. the mira ( not miracula) they perform.
Hrabanus appears to know in surprising detail of what he speaks, and
this store of knowledge o e part of an abbot of Fulda and archbishop
of Mainz ;ho died in � 57 is a clear reflection of the familiarity of
Carolingian clerics with�h tradition of magical arts. Perhaps most of
Hrabanus's knowledge was acquired through scriptme and the works of
St. Augustine, but much of his commentary has a personal and knowl
edgeable ring to it. In fact, Hrabanus concludes his tract with the plea
that the kingdom of God, that is now spreading over the whole world,
not be destroyed by human vanity, demonic illusions, and the magic arts.
The kings and prelates of his own age are addressed and urged to
obliterate these practices, lest the wrath of God fall upon them as it fell
upon Ahab and Ochozias. Far more than popular superstitions and folk
lore, Hrabanus treats the same kind of learned practices that Augustine
had dealt with, and he does not do so as an antiquarian.
The dislike of magic found in Hincmar and Hrabanus suggests that
the Carolingian period �iYaL(...oLC.O.ntinuation) of learneft
magLc. BV.he .. heginning_ of . the_ tenth century, a number of writers ( in
cluding the canonist Re� <.>f �riim )- de�riped ig. legal-;;;llec�!QQsand
�rutentials, practices that were p_ �rtlY. f2!k-p�liefa . and-. partly t,he
resjauum of learned magk. By preserving the texts of an earlier age and
�ing to them, theCarolingian writers transmitted to later centuries not
the traditional folk beliefs of the penitentials, b� the defi_!!itio!:1_ of,
hostility toward, and eondemnatioo of l��rned magic, both from the
Fathers and from their own works. Hrabanus knew- well the associations
With heresy found in earlier writers: in commenting on Exodus 22:18,
Mal,eficos non patieris vivere, he remarks:
TyPologically, we may understand maleficos as meaning heretics, instigated

�ot by the spirit of God but by the wicked spirit; they introduce perverse sects
1n orde
r to deceive men, which the law of God orders to be abolished that is
separated and anathematised from the community of the faithful who live �
true
life in God, so that maleficium, which is error, shall be extinguished.29
(fi'2
As we will see below, thjs figurative- inteqn=etation .o_f �J<!. that w � s_ Jater
r"'
taken with appalling literalness by the instigators of the_ witch persecJJ:__
tions in the .6.f teenth a!'}d Sixteenth centuries,' C�ntinued to he....unG.eFSOOOd
�gur_�.!i�h'.'. through the twel.f�h__ century. Btrt the description and de
nunciation of magic, the association of maleficium with heresy, and the
details of pact and charges of idolatr.ia and superstitio, reflected cons
siderable concern for the presence aind danger of magic. The great
Carolingian heresies remained, for the most part, the property of mon�
in monasteries; but magic pervaded the court and, as far as Hrabanus
was concerned, most of the world. Heretical magicians were a real and I
pressing danger; the magos of Xerxes, turned quack, philosopher, �/
gist, mal�fi:.C!fS, _andt serv�� lagu�� f�ars.of_9reeks ;Lnd
Romans, Jews anc Christians, and the newly Christianized inhabitants
of Germanic Europe. Idolater and here� he was finally transformed in
'I- J patristic literature into God's hum �n__eru:.my and an enemy of mankind . I
I
itself. Teacher of Antichrist, with his bc�ks, charms, and dem�se,2\Y.ei,
he entered the consciousness of latermedieval Europe. fnvective against
magicians tainted Jews and heretics. J[t is found first in the rhetorical
language of eleventh- and twelfth-centuiry writers.
NOTES
1. Aside from the standard reference encyclopedias, see Walter Burkert,

"rOH2:: zum griechischen Schamanismus,'"' Rhenisches Museum 105 ( 1962 ) :
36-55. See also Arthur Darby Nock, Essays o n Religion and Magic i n the
Ancient World, ed. Zeph Stewart, 2 vols. (Cambridge, Mass., 1972), 1 : 15,
"Paul and the Magus," pp. 308-30; 2 : 3· 0, "Greeks and Magi," pp. 516-26;
Lynn Thorndike, History of Magic and Experimental Science, 8 vols. (New
York, 1923-1958 ) , 1 : 41-181.
2. Plato The Laws 10.909b; l l.933a-e; cf. Republic 364b. See also Jacque
line de Romilly, Magic and Rhetoric in Ancient Greece (Cambridge, Mass.,
1975), pp. 25-43.
3. Nock, "Paul and the Magus," p. 315.
4. The reputation of Apuleius as a mag�cian and the interest in and fear of
magic in his romance Metamorphoses is described by Adam Abt, Die Apologie
des Apuleius von Madaura und die antike Zauberei, Religionsgeschichtliche
Versuche und Vorarbeiten, Bd. 4 (Giessen, 1908).; Antonie Wlosok, "Zur
Einheit der Metamorphosen des Apuleius," Philologus 113 ( 1969 ) : 66-84, and
Horst Ri.idiger, "Curiositas und Magie," ,vort und Text. Festschri� fiir Fritz
Schalk (Frankfurt, 1963) : 57-82. See the more general survey by A. A. Barb,
�'The Survival of the Magic Arts," in T.he Conflict Between Paganism and
Christianity in the Fourth Century, ed, A. Momigliano (Oxford, 1963), pp.
100-125; Clyde Pharr, "The Interdiction of Magic in Roman Law," Transao-
tions of the American Philological Association 63 (1932): 269-95, and espe
cially the study of Peter Brown, cited below, n. 18.
5. A good brief introduction is H. A. Kelly, The Devil, Demonology and
,t Witchcraft (New York, 1974 ) . See also Nock, "P�ul and the Magus"; L. Gar
dette, "Magie," Dictionnaire de theologie catholique, vol. 9, cols. 1510-50;
J. Annequin, Recherches sur l'action magique et ses representations (Ier et
tyme siecles apres J.C.) (Paris, 1973 ) . For magic in Jewish life, see Judah
Goldin, "The Magic of Magic and Superstition," in Aspects of Religious
Propaganda in Judaism and Early Christianity, ed. Elisabeth Schtissler Fiorenze
(Notre Dame, Ind., 1976), pp. 1 15-48, and below, n. 22.
6. Nock, "Paul and the Magus,':,..Passim. See also Morton Smith, Clement of
Alexandria and a Secret Gospel of Mark (Cambridge, Mass., 1973), pp. 229-37.
7. Jean-Claude Fredouille, Tertullien et la conversion de la culture antique
(Paris, 1972), pp. 412-42.
8. Ad nationes 2.4.19; Fredouille, Tertullien, p. 415.
9. Augustine, De doctrina christiana, ed. W. M. Green (Vienna, 1963), and
Augustine, On Christian Doctrine, trans. with introduction by D. W. Robert
son, Jr. (Indianapolis, 1958).
10. Augustine On Christian Doctrine 2.18.28 (Robertson trans. p. 54). On
divination, see Robert La Roche, La Divination (Washington, 1957 ) , pp.
1 -213.
11. Augustine, Concerning the City of God Against the Pagans, trans. Henry
Bettenson (Baltimore, 1972), p. 383.
JI 12. See Kelly, Devil, Demonology, and Witchcraft; Thorndike, History l: .
340-522; Joshua Trachtenberg, Jewish Magic and Superstition (reprint ed.;
New York, 1970).
13. Kelly, Devil, Demonology, and Witchcraft, pp. 28-31; for the following
pages, see especially Otto Bikher, Diimonenfurcht und Da.monenabwehr
(Stuttgart-Berlin, 1970).
14. See Michael McHugh, "Satan in St. Ambrose," Classical Folia 26 ( 1972 ) :
94-103.
15. Norman Cohn, The Pursuit of the Millennium (New York, 1970); Paul
J. Alexander, "Medieval Apocalypses as Historical Sources," American Histori
cal Review 73 ( 1968): 997-1018; Joshua Trachtenberg, The Devil and the Jew
(New Haven, 1943), pp. 32-43.
16. John Wright, trans., The Play of Antichrist (Toronto, 1967), pp. 103-10.
Medieval listeners would recognize the inverted parallel between Antichrist
�� Jesus. The former was raised and taught by magicians, but at Christ's
d
1rth the Magi gave up their arts.
• 17· See the discussion in Julio Caro Baroja, The World of the Witches, trans.
[A 0· N. V. Glendinning (Chicago, 1965), pp. 17-57.

1�· Peter Brown, "Sorcery, Demons and the Rise of Christianity: from Late
ntiquity to the Middle Ages," in Religion and Society in the Age of Saint
, A gUstine, ed. P. Brown (New York, 1972), pp. 119-46, . n. 6 on p. 126. See
a{: Campbell Bonner, "Witchcraft in The Lecture Room of Libanius," Trans
�
actions of The American Philological Association 43 ( 1932 ) : 34-44.
19· The best discussion of Apuleius's Apologia and of magic generally in
20 'Jrhe Transformations of the Magus
second-century Rome is still Adam Abt,. Die Apologie des Apuleius von
Madaura und die antike Zauberei, Religion:sgeschichtliche Versuche und Vorar
beiten, Bd. 4 (Giessen, 1908) . See above, n . 4.
20. See Brown, "Sorcery." This immensely important study contrasts sharply
with the earlier study of Barb, "Survival of the Magic Arts."
21. Norman Cohn, Europe's Inner Demons: An Enquiry Inspired by the
Great Witch-Hunt (New York, 1975), pp,. 1-15. Of all recent books on the
subject, Cohn's seems to me among the freshest and most accurate, although
it is marred by many typographical and editorial errors.
22. The standard work is Trachtenberg's The Devil and the Jew. See also
Bernard Blumenkranz, Juifs et Chretiens dans le monde occidental, 430-1096
(Paris, 1960), and Brown, "Sorcery," pp. 140-42. More recent, although not as
comprehensive, is Venetia Newall, "The Jew as Witch-Figure," in The Witch
Figure, ed. V. Newall (London, 1973), pp. 95-124. See also Leon Poliakov,
"Le <liable et les Juifs," in Entretiens sur l'l'iomme et le diable, ed. Max Milner
(Paris, 1965), pp. 189-212.
23. L. Radermacher, "Griechische Quellen zur Faustsage," Sitzungsberichte
der Wiener Akademie der Wissenschaften �W6 ( 1927 ) ; Carl Kiesewetter, Faust
in der Geschichte und Tradition (reprinted.; Hildesheim, 1963), pp. 1 14-18;
� Jeffrey Russell, Witchcraft in the Middle Ages (Ithaca, 1972), p. 61. See also
Henry Chadwick, Priscillian of Avila (Oxford, 1976), esp. pp. 51-56.
24. W. M. Lindsay, ed., lsidori Hispalensis Episcopi Etymologiarum, 2 vols.
(Oxford, 1911), VIII, ix, 1 ff. De Magis; IX, 2, 43; XIV, 3, 12; XIV, 8, 17. Cf.
Hans Philipp, Die historisch-geographischen Quellen in den Etymologiae des
lsidorus von Sevilla ( Berlin, 1912); J. Fontaine, Isidore de Seville et la culture
classique clans l'Espagne wisigothique, 2 vols. (Paris, 1959). For Hugh of St.
Victor, see below, Chapter 3.
25. Patrologia Latina 140, cols. 537-1090. See also John T. McNeill and
Helena M. Gamer, Medieval Handbooks oif Penance (New York, 1930); John
'f. �cNeill, "Folk-Paganism i!1 the Peniten_!,iaJ.s," Jo!fmal of Religion� 13 '{1933) :
450-66; CyrilleVogel, "Pratiques superstitieuses au debut du IXe siecle d'apres
_
e Corrector sive Medicus de Burchard, eveque de Worms (965-1025) ," in.
Etudes de civilization meclievale (]Xe - Xlle siecles). Melanges offerts a
__§dmond-Rene Labande (Poitiers, 1974 ) , pp. 751-61. See also Henry Charles
Lea, Materials Toward a History of Witchc.raft, ed. and comp. Arthur Howland :
(Philadelphia, 1938), passim; Russell, Witchcraft, pp. 63-100.
26. Pierre Riche, ''La mai:,rie carolingienne," Academie des Inscriptions et
Belles-Lettres, Comptes Rcmdus des Seances de l'annee 1973, Janvier -Mars, pp.
127-38, is a comprehensive survey with g:ood bibliographical references, and
Raoul Manselli, "Simbolismo e magia nell'allto medioevo," in Simboli e simbolo-
r
, Lgia nell'alto Medioevo (Spoleto, 1976), pp. 293-348.
27. PL 107, col. 392.
28. PL 1 10, cols. 1095-1108.
29. PL 108, col. 121. See the brief discussion in Lea, Materials, 1:205. On
the use of this important interpretation in the twelfth-century glossa orclinaria
to the Bible, see below, Chapter 3.
2
Rhetoric and Magic in the

Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries
DIATRIBE AND CHRONICLE
From the eighth to the late twelfth centu1y, the literature which re- /
corded both heretical and magical practices came from a limited intellec- 1/
�al and institutional sphere. This literature was primarily m_ooastic,
�healli.1¥- upon the authority._- of- patristic literar¾ traditions, and. haq
the pu�pose oL i.rnp.r..QYIDg.Jh.e_IJl.oJ:.el _ch;i.,:ac_ter_of it re,adex.s. ,_ no.t...Il�.Q�s
s�ily desc1}bing its. su9jects accurately for them. At the basis of this
l
intellectual tradition lay the stuay " of granimaraiid rhetoric, until the
eleventh century the two chief subjects of the trivium, far outdistancing
dialectic and the quadrivium, which only came into curricular prominence
after 1\00. Thus, in examining tenth and eleventh-_centmy literature on
-
n:agic, witchcraft, and heresy, its rhetorical, exegetical, moral, and
- �onastic basis must be kept in mind. As the next section of this chapter
Will suggest, much of the well-known association of heresy and magic
nd
� reports of the excesses of deviant behavior that mark the literature
f the eleventh and twelfth centuries derive from this tradition. In this
section I propose to examine the role of rhetoric in the preservation and
transmission ( and perhaps creation) of beliefs about magicians, witches,
l
and heretics in the late tenth and eleventh centuries.
?ne o! the true monstrosities of medieval literature is the Rheto��
chta, Written
by Anselm· 0f Besate around 1050. 1 As its most recent com
v
mentator remarks, "modern readers have thought well neither of the
21
Rhetoric and Magic in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries
author nor of his work. Carl Erdmann called Anselm a 'bizarre Rhetoriker
22
und extreme literat.' For R. L. Poole, tlhe Rhetorimachia was 'a master
piece of laborious futility.' While R. W. Southern finds it 'painful to
agree.''2 Yet the Rhetorimachia, althouglh distasteful, is an important text

read,' and refers to Anselm's 'absurd tirades.' It is impossible not to
in the history of beliefs in magic and witchcraft, not merely because it

describes magical practices at tedious length and thus illuminates a
hitherto obscure period in the history of magical beliefs, but particularly
,,)because it emphasizes the importance of the art of rhetoric as a vehicle .
}
( for preserving and transmitting those beliefs.
Parma and Reggio, served in Henry I II's Italian scriptorium between

Anselm was born at Besate around 1020, studied rhetoric and logic at
1045 and 1047 and worked in Henry's: German chancery in 1048 and
1049. He appears to have died in the service of the bishop of Hildesheim
sometime in the 1060's. Although he studied dialectic, he appears never
expertise in rhetoric. The Rhetorimachia, produced between 1047 and

to have been a successful dialectician, and he based his fame on his
1050, was his chef d'oeuvre, although a modest one. Anselm is, among
other things, an interesting_ example: of an ambitious, aristocratic
eleventh-century cleric with intellectua1l pretensions who attempted to
parlay his limited abilities into a successful ecclesiastical career under
Henry III- and failed.
Among his many interests and alleg,ed proficiencies, Anselm appears
to have loved the classical Latin rhetoricians the most. His veneration
for them, as H. E. J. Cowdrey points out, veers close to that of an earlier
Italian, Vilgard of Ravenna, who was led by the appearance of Vergil,
Horace, and Juvenal in a dream to helieve in his own share in their
immortality and to proclaim that their writings should be venerated as
much as scripture.3 Vilgard was burned for his heresy in 1000, and
Anselm never went quite as far in his own veneration of his classical
sources. One of the aims of the study of rhetoric was the art of persua-
"'. disparate subjects through his command of language:' The Rhetorimachiq,

1sion, and another was the power of the rhetor to control the most
fails in both these respects, but in his cli10ice of a subject for the demon
sb·ation of his powers of persuasion and control, Anselm reveals one of
the important roles of rhetoric-that of exercising the intellectual powers
Ij if they were true. As Cowdrey points out, quoting Cicero's Rhetorica,

. , of the writer by describing particularly strange and unusual scenes as
"non potius ve1itatem probat facultas rheto1ica, sed verisimilitudinem.''5

As we will see, in the work of Anselm and other eleventh- and twelfth
century writers whose primary expertise was rhetorical, v�risimilitude ·
1 was indeed given to unlikely subject:;, among them the practices of
.....__magicians and the behavior of heretic:,. In this sense, eleventh-century
Rhetoric and Magic in the Eleventh and Twel�h Centuries 23
rhetoricians and their twelfth-century successors did precisely what en
gravers and painters of the sixteenth and seventeenth centu�es did; they
_ . _
chose bizarre and often occult subJects for theu art precisely because
these subjects offered them. an opportunity t6 demonstrate their talents
upon subjects that were uncommon, fearsome, and unusual. What others
1
might and did make of the images they thus ordered and gave verisimili
tude to, was not their affair.
In the rhetorical tradition in which Anselm wrote, the object of the
rhetor was to create and win a fictitious dispute, usually of a legal charac
ter. In order to maintain the in!.erest of the reader, these disputes were
intricately constructed, filled with picturesque detail, exaggerated, and,
above all, cogently argued. They centered upon wholly fictitious situa
tions ( controversiae) , and, as E. R. Curtius has pointed out, unusual
elements and characters were often introduced "to make these imaginary
situations more exciting."6 Thus, Anselm the rhetorician created the
Rhetorimachia according to the rules of late antique rhetoric and chose
for the subject of his work the fictitious indictment of his cousin Rotiland
� a magician and servant of the devil. Anselm's choice of a controversia
is hardly an example of domestic loyalty ( although we do not know for
certain that he even had a cousin named Rotiland), and his ingenious
accusations and descriptions of Rotiland's infernal practices have dis
gusted other historians besides Erdmann, Poole, and Southern. Yet in the
Rhetorimachia, Anselm lays out a barrage of accusations that appear
familiar to historians of later accusations of magic, heresy, and witch
Lcraft. What may have been well within the limits of rhetorical exercise,
l
and was understood in that way in the eleventh century, influenced later
chroniclers and moralists in a setting in which the fictitious character ·
of the work was ignored or forgotten and only the rhetorical concentra
tion on the enormities of the magician, witch, and heretic remained.
These, described no longer in controversiae, but in chronicle, moral story,
nd i vective against heretics, contributed much to the image of the
� .�
_agician, the- witch, and the heretic in the twelfth century and after.
� istorians of magic, heresy, and witchcraft have not customarily empha
_ sized
the importance of rhetoric. in shaping, preserving, and transmitting
many of the most conspicuous features of invective against ecclesiastical
-:eviants t� later wiiters who took them perfectly seriously and literally;
ut, as this section will suggest, that is very likely what happened be
tween 1050 and 1250.
lCarl . Mani?us, the most recent editor and commentator upon the
llhe't_0rimachw , has argued cogently that the treatise is a fictitious contro
7
;er�, deriving much of the basis of its charges against the hapless
til d from Anselm's reading in classical and late-antique Latin courses.
�:nt�? tius also notes, however, that some of the accusations against
Rotiland seem to have few, if any, classical precedents and may well be
24
Anselm's versions of contemporary theories of magical practices.8 Cer

tainly the accusation that Rotiland is a servant of the devil, that his ·
magical charms are in "Hebrew, or rather demonic language," and the
indication that some of Rotiland's alleged practices derive from "folk-·
magic," indicate that Anselm was not merely a rhetorical servant of
classical topoi. In all probability, Anselm's Rhetorimachia, for all its
classical dress, admitted elements unknown to classical writers, and ad
mitted them under the license all rhetoricians had to add color and drama
to the controversia. What he added, however, probably did not come
from the stock-in-trade figures of pirat,es, wizards, poisoners, and other
exotic characters out of late-antique rhetoric, but figures already known .
to him and his audience 2,uLoL theJe�m�es! (ryy�ctive. 0£ his own tirne. _and__
.
· place.
- Anselm's inventions, then, lead us to the question often begged ( or
casually referred to and dropped) by many writers on the history of
magic and witchcraft: to what extent did these writers, whether learned
. l rhetoricians or monastic moralists, depict popular or folk customs of their
,, own times? The question of. .£olklore i1n a largely illiterate and highly
localized society is naturally tempting to raise, and folk101ists have con
tributed much to the history of popula1r beliefs of the Middle Ages and
later.9 There is, however, a danger in ascribing occult practices that
appear to have no classical literary or patristic antecedents to folklore,
since once these materials have passe:d through the literary mills of
writers like Anselm, Peter Damian, or Guibert de Nogent, they are tech-
I nically no longer folklore, but literary 1materials. C. S. Lewis and other
'literary historians have warned again and again against assuming a non
literary source for the marvelous when it is found described by literary
figures of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. 10 As we have seen before
and will see again, the surest indications of popular beliefs that seemed
to run counter to those of Christianity are to be found in the penitentials-
1/.and the indiculi superstitionum from e1cclesiastical sources. 11 If the ele
ments that Anselm denounces in Rotiland's magical repertoire did have
some basis in popular or learned practices of the later eleventh century
in northern Italy, it would be hard to identify them, since Anselm has
worked over all of the materials he use:s. One of the major problems of
identifying popular ideas and practices in the writings of trained clerics
(whether these are products of secular and cathedral schools like Anselm
or monastic schools like Guibert de Noigent later in the century) is that
the hand of the writer transmutes his materials as it touches them. At the
core of an episode there may well once have been a popular practice,
but in written form the "popular" elements have been transfo1med into ·
a literary work, with emphasis, exaggeration, moralizing, and additions.
It is this finished literary presentation of magical and heretical beliefs
25
and practices that most strongly influenced the theologians and lawyers
of a later period. Although Anselm of Besate's work does not appear to
have been widely read ( it survives only in two manusc1ipts ), his choice
of subject matter, depiction of a magician, and introduction of a number
of elements that later become common-place in desc1ibing witches and
heretics, suggest that the rhetoricians' training and interests lie behind a
number of depictions of the enormities of magicians, witches, and heretics,
especially those that contain incongruous elements or depict practices
that are wholly implausible. , ..
Marie-Therese d'Alverny has observed of Anselm that, "The picturesque
history..J.hat Anselm tells suggests that certain amateurs of occultism did
not hesitate to organize such formidable ceremonies [as those of Rotiland]
when love moved them."i D'Alverny goes on to suggest a certain con
tinuity in the use of libri nigromantie, possibly from late antiquity, but
2
certainly between the eleventh and the thirteenth centuries. William of

Auvergne, bishop of Paris in the thirteenth century, once remarked that
he had held these books in his own hands while a student at Paris in the
later twelfth century. The final section of this chapter will deal with the
attribution of magical practices to figures from tenth- and eleventh
century history.13 It remains to analyze the Rhetorimachia and its shabby
stock of demonological and magical indictments of the author's cousin
Rotiland.
Anselm begins his work with two dedicatory letters, one an exaggerated
panegyric of Henry III in which he compares Henry to Augustus and
himself to Vergil, and a longer one ( which clearly states the fictitious
character of his work) to his former teacher Drogo of Pa1ma. In the
letter to Drogo, however, Anselm indicates that perhaps his interest in
magic is not purely rhetorical. Some of his c1itics, he says, accuse him of
being a demoniac. His literary interest and perhaps, as R. L. Poole
suggests, his unusual intellectual pursuits, may very well have drawn
down upon him criticisms similar to those made against Vilgard of
4
1
�avenna.15 It is impossible to say whether Anselm, because of his interest

in classical literature and his apparent excessive fondness for topics such
as that of the Rhetorimachia, did in fact have a local reputation for
:afficing with demons. The remark may simply be an attempt to impugn
. 15 enemies' criticisms by exaggerating their content and thereby ridicul-
1ng
f them. As we will see below, however, Anselm was not the only
tenth- or eleventh-century figure accused of commerce with demons.
The first book of the Rhetorimachia consists of Anselm's demonstration
0f his
prowess as a rhetorician and logician by criticizing the competence
td character of his cousin Rotiland. Twice in the first book, in chapters
3 and 15, Anselm accuses Rotiland of following the precepts of "your
26 Rhetoric and Magic in th,e Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries
lord, Mammon, whose rules and precepts you cherish as you would
sacred canons."16 One of these precepts is· an occult ritual for performing
amatory magic by keeping vigil for three nights with a cock and a cat,
which are then burned, producing a powder "that has great power over
girls and married women." So great is JRotiland's evil that he would not
resist the opportunity to use such magiic and worse on his own mother
and father: "Aut enim tuis malificiis in, cantacionibus diu egrotantes iam
defecissent aut ipsis malifciis sani occidissent. Ut pro tanta incommodi
tate iam cibares matrem ipso pulmone rubete . . . .''11
It is in the second book, however, that Anselm's accusations against
Rotiland are fully orchestrated. It begiins with an account of Anselm's
dream in which Robert, Rotiland's dead father, appears to Anselm and,
after speaking briefly about the rest of their family, launches into a
denunciation of his son Rotiland, "sceleratissimus . . . Qui cum omnes
scelere et maleficio precellat, mirror, cur illum terra sustineat, et cum pro
then goes on to describe a particular example of Rotiland's maleficium.

omnibus valeat in nequitia, cur iam illi non aperiatur terra.''18 Robertus
Once Rotiland left the city of Parma by night accompanied by a young

boy. He buried the boy up to the waist in the earth, lit a fire around him,
/f
and forced him to suffer the acrid fumes all night while Rotiland chanted
1 bolic." The boy then stole Rotiland's magic book ( quaternio . . . nigro
a love-charm, then uttered words in a language "either Hebraic or dia-
. mantie ), and Rotiland was forced to invoke the aid of a demon in order
to recover it. 19
In the second part of book 2, Anselm, having demonstrated his prowess.
as an accuser, shows his skill as a defender when Rotiland accuses him
of similar offenses. Among the charges is that Anselm performed a
magical abortion by the use of a mule"s hoof.2° Others include keeping
the company of panderers and seducers, "perambulating Italy," and
book ends with another denunciation o:f Rotiland as a maleficus.21

keeping improper vigils. Anselm refutes these changes easily, and the
I The third book of the Rhetorimachicz consists of a sustained piece of

invective directed against Rotiland as a seducer, a thief, a willing servant
of the devil ( including the detail of a. formal pact), and finally as au.
/
accomplished magician who learned from a Saracen ( "Now, thanks be to
God, a Christian") the secret of cutting the hands off corpses by magic
the third book and the Rhetorimachia itself by denouncing Rotiland as

and then using these members to fulfill his own evil desires. Anselm ends
living according to the same Jaw as his master the devil.22

It is not surprising that historians of a period that saw the passionate
stirrings of ecclesiastical and spiritual reform, the attacks of Peter Damian
and Cardinal Humbert on clerical indis,cipline, and the devotional genius
of the new monastic movement throughout Europe, give short shrift to
Rhetoric and Magic i n the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries 27
,Anselm and his peculiar world. H. E. J. Cowdrey summarizes this point
effectively:
In the eyes of adherents of reform such a work ras the Rhetorimachia] stood
condemned on many grounds: the delight in the devices of dialectic and
rhetoric for their own sake; the air of free, wo�dly humanism; the preference
for the classics over scripture and Chtjstian authors; the savage diatribe, so far
removed from either morality or justice; the pride of the old, unreformed
Ambrosian church and the consequent approval of a married secular clergy.
The winds of change which blew through later eleventh-century Italy swept
Anselm's world away. 23
It is also true that Anselm's work appears to have had little direct impact
.�
in its own time and left little influence behind it. I do not claim that the
Rhetorimachia played any role in the later depictions of heretics and
magicians.
There are, however, several elements of the work and the intellectual
world it depicts that are important. First, Anselm used it ( perhaps in
judiciously) to obtain a lucrative and prestigious career for himself. I t
would be peculiar indeed i f he did not think that his topic, as well a s his
rhetorical genius, would be of interest to his chosen readers. In spite of
the echoes of Horace, Cicero, and other pagan classical writers, Anselm
is not describing a nameless, first-century magician out of a Senecan
controversia, but a Cluistian wh_<?_ J1�- .�lling!Y. J!l_a_d��t wi!h the ·
"'
<!fil,.il. This Christian uses nis occult powers to achieve perfectly compre
hensible eleventh-century aims; he engages in actions that are not only
revolting in the abstract, but were concerns of._ �kyenth-�e.ntuzy. mQJ.aU�t�
as well; he uses b� <?f.!llagtc; and he is associated not only with occult
(.magic and theft, but also with lust and lasciviousness. Curtius, Manitius,
and Cowdrey may argue legitimately that Anselm was working in a
rhetorical vein that was purely literary, not influential, and known by all
to be fictitious ( Anselm admitted the fictitiousness of the charges against
Rotiland himself). But the elements of the charges are not fictitious and ·
they are in many instances strikingly similar to other, later charges made
not in rhetorical Hytings, but in serious descriptions of magicians, witches,
II
�nd heretics. Anselm of Besate's work tells us little about the historical
Rotiland, but it tells us a great deal about plausible accusations of magic ,
and witchcraft in the eleventh century. For the point of the Rhetorima
chia, according to its author, editor, and all subsequent commentators, is
Cicero 's observation: "non potius veritatem probat facultas rhetorica, sed
Verisimilitudinem." Rotiland, historically, was not a magician. But the
· } character Rotiland was ipdeed a magician and an accurate ru?.rtr!!tl.-if
Anselm lived up to Cicero's injunction-of what eleventh-century edu
cated readers might be convinced from their own experience and know]-
edge was a magician. Like the charges of lascivi��n':s1,. !h�f1 and other
28 Rhetoric and Magic in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries
b less occult crimes, the crime of magic h:actto be credible in the eyes of
!- eleventh-century readers. Invective, to be effective, must bear some
semblance to �hat �gpJ�w�c�� possible. It is hard to escape the
impression that, although the RhetorimG;chia itself was ( happily) with
out progeny, it affords a view of something more than rhetorical invention.
...----: An� w_�s not the only �)event�-centmy writer to comment on people
/ who became servants of the devil and possessed magic books. Pope
Sy)veste; JI�, the· Aquitanian · sdiolar · e�!rhett;- b'ecame the s�b1eci: of a
\series of legends about the search for knc,wledge of magic and encounters .
!with supernatural phenomena.�' Although it is difficult to date the be
ginnings of the Sylvester legends, the English chronicler �!11_.Qf
Malmesbury has given the fullest version of the sto1-y.�5 Gerbert, who
went to study magic in Toledo, stole a book of magic from his master,
fled from Toledo, went to Reims where he became grammaticus, tutor
>..,..{ · t1 to the future emperor Otto III, and later-pope. While pope, Sylvester
'- .) '\.��as alleged to have made a pact with demons in return fq_r magi�l
��c_.. · owe!:S and watJn9wledge. The legend of Sylvester was one of several .
that circulated around certain popes in the eleventh century. Gregory VII
was accused by the Synod of Brixen in 1080 of having himself studied
l magic in Toledo and was denounced as a necromancer. The accusation

oes on to mention a school of magic in Ronw:-Iou'na;d by Sylvester II,
L t which no fewer than three other popes-Benedict IX, Gregory VI,

n.2_,Gregory VII-had studied.26
It is possible that these accusations against popes were a kind of
residuum of the sort of invective so freely exploited by Anselm of Besate
in his treatise on rhetoric against Rotilamd. They well may have been a
part of Anselm's world that, as Cowdrey says, was "swept away" by the
winds of change in the late eleventh century. They survived, if this is
indeed the case, precisely as invective. It is not, in several senses, sur
prising that these stories should have survived in Italy. Many of them,
particularly those told by Anselm of Besa1te, have a strong flavor of clas�i
cal literature, particularly of satires and prose romances, and a degree of
familiarity with this kind of literature Slllrvived in Italy longer than any
where else in western Europe. Rumors of papal magic and legends con-
"· cerning popes flourished as early as the seventh century, and the accusa
·J tions against the eleventh-century popes cited above may have bceri\
1 indeed, part of a longer tradition.
In the light of such eleventh-century invective, it is wotthwhile to
consider a passage found in the Chronicle of the Kings of England, writ- ·
ten around 1142 by \i\lilliam of Malmesbrny but showing evidence of use
of some Italian materials from the prece:ding century. William's story of
the witch of Berkeley was popular for a long time and was excerpted in
____..__
,...__ .....,.
f

later collections of exempla. The story shares to some extent several fea
29
tures of the literature discussed so far:
At the same time something similar occurred in England, not by divine mira
cle, but by inf��Lgaft; which when I shall have related, the credit of the
narrative will not be shaken, though the minds of the hearers should be in
credulous; for I have heard it from a man of such character, who swore he had
seen it, that I should blush to disbelieve. There resided at Berkeley a woman
addicted to witchcraft, as it afterwards appeared, and skilled in ancient
augury: she was excessively gluttonous, perfectly lascivious, setting no bounds
Ytofier debaucheries, as she was 11ot old, though fast declining in life. On a
l-certain day, as she was regaling, a jack-claw, which was a very great favourite,
chattered a little more loudly than usual. On hearing which the woman's knife
fell from her hand, her countenance grew pale, and deeply groaning, "This
day," said she, "my plough has completed its last furrow; to-day I shall hear
of, and suffer, some dreadful calamity." V\Thile yet speaking, the messenger of
her misfortunes arrived; and being asked, why he approached with so dis
tressed an air? "I bring news," said he, "from the village," naming the place,
"of the death of your son, and of the whole family, by a sudden accident."
At this intelligence, the woman, sorely affiicted, immediately took to her bed,
and perceiving the disorder rapidly approaching the vitals, she summoned
her surviving children, a monk, and a nun, by hasty letters; and, when they
arrived, with faltering voice, addressed them thus:. "Formerly, my children, I
l constantly administered to my wretched circumstances by demoniacal arts:
I have been the sink of every vice, the teacher of every allurement: yet, while
practising these crimes, I was accustomed to soothe my hapless soul with the
hope of your piety. Despairing of myself, I rested my expectations on you; I
Aadvanced you as my defenders against evil spirits, my safeguards against my
Gtrongest foes. Now, since I have approached the end of my life, and shall have
those eager to punish, who lured me to sin, I entreat you by your mother's
breasts, if you have any regard, any affection, at least to endeavour to alleviate
my torments; and, although you cannot revoke the sentence already passed
upon my soul, yet you may, perhaps, rescue my body, by these means: sew
up my corpse in the skin of a stag; lay it on its back in a stone coffin; fasten
down the lid with lead and iron; on this lay a stone, bound round with three
iron chains of enormous weight; let there be psalms sung for fifty nights, and
masses said for an equal number of clays, to allay the ferocious attacks of my
adversaries. If I lie thus secure for three nights, on the fourth day bury your
other in the ground; although I fear, lest the earth, which has been so often
:
urden d with my crimes, should refuse to receive and cherish me i n her
bosom.; They did their utmost to comply with her injunctions: but alas! vain
ere
; pi?�s t�ars, vows, or entreaties; so great was the woman's guilt, so great
e
. devils violence. For on the 6rst two nights, while the choir of priests was
lngi g psalms around the body, the devils, one by one, with the utmost ease
� �
ursting open the door of the church, though closed with an immense bolt,
broke asunder the two outer chains;
the middle one being more laboriously
30 Rhetoric and Magic in the Eleventh and Twel�h C,enturies
wrought, remained entire. On the third n:ight, about cock-crow, the whole
monastery seemed to be overthrown from its very foundation, by the clamour
of the approaching enemy. One devil, more terrible in appearance than the
rest, and of loftier stature, broke the gates to shivers by the violence of his
attack. The priests grew motionless with f,ear; their hair stood on end, and
they became speechless. He proceeded, as it appeared, with haughty step
towards the coffin, and calling on the woman by name, commanded her to.
rise. She replying that she could not on account of the chains: "You shall be
loosed," said he, "and to your cost:" and dlirectly he broke the chain, which
had mocked the ferocity of the others, with as little exertion as though it had
been made of flax. He also beat down the cover of the coffin with his foot,
and taking her by the hand, before them all, he dragged her out of the church.
At the doors appeared a black horse, proudly neighing, with iron hooks pro
jecting over his whole back; on which the wretched creature was placed, and,
immediately, with the whole party, vanished from the eyes of the beholders;
her pitiable cries, however, for assistance, were heard for nearly the space of
four miles. No person will deem this incredible, who has read St. Gregory's
Dialogues; who tells, in his fourth book, of a1 wicked man that had been buried
in a church, and was cast out of doors again by devils. Among the French also,
what I am about to relate is frequently mentioned. Charles Martel, a man of
renowned valour, who obliged the Saracens, when they had invaded France,
to retire to Spain, was, at his death, buried in the church of St. Denys; but as
he had seized much of the property of almost all the monasteries in France
for the purpose of paying his soldiers, he was visibly taken away from his tomb
I
, by evil spirits, and has nowhere been seen to his day. At length this was re
vealed to the bishop of Orleans, and by him publicly made known.27
William's chronicle contains many asides ( author's digressions within

a narrative) of this kind. The form thalt they take is that of a series of
exemplary tales illustrating a point or a diversion made in the course of
�the history. The story of the witch of Berkeley, for example, occurs in the
course of a long intcrmption of the English section of the chronicle
dealing with events in 1065. William has just finished telling the story of
the family of Godwin when he breaks l his narrative in order "to record
what, as I have learned from ancient men, happened at this time at
Rome." William then goes on to narrate the pontificate of Gregory VI
(1045-46) in considerable ( and largely fictitious) detail. He ends the
account with a description of Gregory's burial. His enemies had threat
ened to prevent the pope from being biuried within the precincts of St:
Peter's and had indeed blocked the e1ntrance to the church. Grcgo1y
proposed to hjs companions that his body be carried to the church in any
case so that God, not Gregory's enemies, might decide whether or not the ·
pope should receive the traditional burial. The doors of the church,
chained and bolted by Gregory's enemioes, Bew open at the approach of
Gregory's funeral procession, and Gregory received proper papal burial.
,
R.hetor�c and Magic in the Eleventh and Twelfrh Centuries
The theme of supernatural intervention in the burial of a holy man sug
31
gests to William a story illustrating the opposite-the story of the witch

of Berkeley and her inability to find a secure tomb. At the end of the
story of the witch, William goes on to cite several shorter references
all references to impossible burials-from Gregory the Great and the
legends surrounding the fate of Charles Martel./
William, having concluded his digressions, returned to Rome, this time
for another story. This one concerned a young bridegroom who casually
placed his wedding ring upon the finger of a statue of Venus, which
refused to relinquish the ring .and prevented the youth's consummation
of his recent marriage. The youth in despair visited a priest named
Palumbus, who was "very skilled in necromancy, could raise up magical
, � figures, terrify devils, and impell them to do anything he chose." Palum
bus instructed the youth to go to a crossroads where he would see a
strange procession. He had to address the last figure in the procession
and show him the letter Palumbus had given him. The youth did as in
structed, and the demon to whom he showed the letter forced the statue
of Venus to relinquish the ring and restore the youth to his bride. The
unfortunate Palumbus, however, vexed the demon considerably, and the
demon predicted his death, before which the priest-necromancer "con-
, fessed to the pope unheard of crimes."28
This story in turn is followed by an account of the discovery in Rome
of the body of Pallas, Aeneas's companion. This is followed by an account
of Siamese twins born in Normandy, which gives way to a reflection on
the royal saints of Anglo-Saxon England, the story of the seven sleepers
of Ephesus, and a consideration of the nature of portents. Only after this
extremely long disgression, much of which is clearly based on non.
English sources, does William reh1rn to the death of Edward and
William's conquest in 1066. Thus, in its placing in the chronicle -a:nd in
the texts that accompany it, William's story of the witch of Berkeley
immediately raises suspicions as to its provenance and its relation to any
sort of magical activity connected with eleventh- or twelfth-century
England. Much the same observations may be made of William's famous
account of the magical activities of Pope Sylvester II. This account fol
lows a letter of Pope John XV, cited in order to establish peace between
Richard of Normandy and Ethelraed of England. The quotation of the
letter is followed by the famous account of the Sylvester/Gerbe1t legend,
Which is followed by the story of a magical Italian cave, filled with
treasure and visited by an Aquitanian tourist, a "professor . . . who was
sai� to know the unutterable name of God," and a "Jew-necromancer."29
This story is followed by one concerning two Italian witches who pretend
to transform a youth into an ass, a tale doubted by Pope Leo IX, but
whose possibility was assured.by no less a consultant than Peter Damian,
32 Rhetoric and Magic i n the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries
who cited Simon Magus as his authority.30 William pauses after the story
of the two women to observe that "it is better to dilate on much matters
than to dwell on Ethelraed's indolence a111d calamities." He then goes on
to tell the tale of a group of young people condemned to dance for a
year in a cemetery in Cologne as punishment for having violated the
sanctity of the place. William then recounts the tale of the hideous bishop
of Cologne and another story of a nun ravished by a kidnapper. He then,
after this long digression, takes up the story of Ethelraed once more.
William's sources for these sto1ies are varied. Several of them are
sw-ely of Italian origin, perhaps connect,ed with the traditions we have
seen at work in the writing of Anselm of Besate, papal polemics of the
eleventh century, and the late antique rhetorical interest in stories of
magic and fabulous adventures. Others seem to be moral tales based on
roughly contemporary events. These may be highly reworked versions of ·'
popular tales. The story of the witch of Berkeley is the most obvious one
of this type, but this story, too, reveals the hand of the writer more than
the voice of popular narrative. The witch looks, at a closer glance, much
more like a classical Mediterranean witch. "Gluttonous, lascivious, and
skilled at ancient augury," she is emphatically not a rustic woman, of the
type later prosecuted for witchcraft. H,er children, the monk and the
nun, and the elaborately dramatic scene of the devil bursting the church
doors and the locks on her coffin, ending in the wild ride, did enter folk
lore much later, appearing- among other places-in Olavus Magnus's
history of Scandinavia in the sixteenth century.3 ' But the story as told by
William of Malmesbury is no longer ( if it ever was) a popular tale out
of folklore. It is an exemplum illustrating the powers of God and the ·
demons to gain access to dead bodies. J1t is also, I suggest, part of that
1 literary tradition of stories of magicians and witches that seems to have
11 survived into the eleventh century in central and northern Italy, pos
place
i sessing strong classical antecedents and influences, and occupying a
\J in satire and invective as well as moral tale and exemplum.
is their literary character. Anselm of Besate announces at the beginning

What is most striking about all the sources discussed in this section,
of his work that his charges against Hotiland are ficitious; yet he por
trays a figure recognizeable to eleventh-century clerical readers as a
/1 magician. The invective against tenth- and eleventh-century popes is also
literary, as are the episodes described by William of Malmesbury. Yet;
taken together, they contain virtually all of the elements for which later
heretics, magicians, and witches were punished. It is not sufficient to·.
say, as some historians have, that these accusations are simply conv�n-"..
tional rhetoric. In spite of the extraordinary literary virtuosity of the·
accusations levelled in these sources, the accusations themselves rarely;
if ever, led to ecclesiastical or temporal JPUnishment. Much more serious
were the descriptions of heretical beliefs and activities that began to
33
appear in the eleventh century and flourished in the twelfth. In these,

which derived not from a literary tradition of the secular clergy, but
we have seen so far were applied directly to contemporary heretics and

from monastic sources and patristic antecedents, many of the accusations
magicians, with very different results.
THE DESCRIPTION OF HERETICAL PRACTICES,

1050-1250
The various magical activities discussed, if not practiced, by Anselm of

Besate, his cousin, and other magicians of the eleventh century suggest
several common aspects of the beginnings of a new learned magic that
li) grew stronger dming the late eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries.
First, those involved in or accused of magical practices were all either f J
laymen or secular clergy. When they were seriously denounced, the \
denunciations came from monastic sources, most conspicuously St. Peter
Damian, but from others as well. Second, the practices described derive
lwholly from literary sources, not from the philosophical and scientific
,•treatises which, along with cabalism and astrology, became influential
- later i� the twelfth century. ff"is important to-note that these two tradi-
tions of learned magic--=that deriving from literary sources and that
/!deriving from scientific or philosophical sources- had different futures.
�he literary depictions influenced later descriptions of heretics, magi- II
cians, and witches; the form�!, learned magi£_that a2peared with the \\
r�vival of i!l!:�1�est in 1tntiquity and.lslamic l�aJiling_aft_er tl�e early_ t�e.!fth
century made � �ctable anp. ,n.LQtes;:t.e�µ:ee_fur...i� J}le
llearnE:d. universitt_�Y��'Y.ill.,tp,._._�IJ.d .,!h.!Jte�»tn. .k ce,nturies. The
protectea ch'aracter and learned qualities of the latter tradftion made it
the true antecedent of the humanists' interests in natural magic in the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, although the humanists themselves, as
we have seen, professed considerable scorn for it. Third, the focus off
these practices was less upon a pact with the devil than with thi
rhetorician's skill in describing and accusing his enemy of grotesque an�·
[ unnatural, but only secondarily blasphemous, actions. In literary terms,t
the text of Anselm represents a fl.yting rather than a denunciation. The
tesquerie and narratio fabulosa, a traditional province of the trained

focus of these works seems to be the author's skill in controlling gro
r?etorician, rather than the inherent substance of the actions and prac
.. -{hces described. On the other hand, monastic critics focus upon the ac
tions and practices themselves. That these criticisms did not lead directly
to harsh punishments, or at least an attempt to seek out and reform
magicians, may be explained by the fac:t that they were perceived in
34
I such a way as to confirm the monastic belief that the world was full of
horrors and temptations. Monastic writers denounced the evils of the
world, but they usually made little effort to change them. Not until the.
Investiture Contest and the principles of Gregorian Reform did the
jl pract�ces of the world become the business of ecclesiastical judges and
coercive powers.
One of the most influential currents ol f eleventh- and twelfth-century
life for secular and monastic clergy alike, however, was the growth of
lYarious kinds of �: doctrinal in the monastic and later the secular
and lay worlds, reformist in the secular clergy and among other lay
people.32 It is the chronicles that first inform historians of the growth of
heresy, and it is in the chronicles that the descriptions of heretical beliefs
land practices are most graphically described. Too often, historians have
taken chroniclers' and other ecclesiastical! descriptions of heretical prac
tices at face value, and even the truism that descriptions of magicians'
and witches' practices grew out of descriptions of heretical practices
usually is cited without the compelling question: out of what did the
tlescriptions of heretics' practices come? Two answers that have gained
the greatest currency are, first, that the practices described were real,
that heretics did these things ( for a varie1ty of reasons) , and that church
men ve1y naturally feared for their Bocks because of them; second, that
the practices described were the product of the fevered imaginations of
church prosecutors and theologians, that 1 they corresponded with nothing
J in reality, that they were simply a momentary form taken in the eternal
duel of theology with "reason." The rhetorical character of Anselm of·
Besate's Rhetorimachia and the principl,es of rhetoric in general, how-;
ever, suggest another interpretation: that the duty of clerical chroniclers-.
was not simply to record, but to advocate reform and revulsion from.
• the dangers of heresy. To do this, the particular details of heretical or
magical practices were far less important than the horror they induced
in the reading about them. Moreover, chroniclers were writers. Trained,
in grammar and rhetoric, they were proud of their command of rhetorical
devices, not the least important of which w�s the rheto1ician's ability to
impose a narrative and stylistic order ,upon chaotic human behavior.
In Inferno, canto 25, when Dante observe:s, "Let Lucan now be silent . . ."
-for Dante's own description of the metamorphosis of the thieves out_.
does both Lucan and Ovid-the poet indicates the delight and pride of ·
the rhetorician in controlling chaos and describing the indescribable.
Twelfth- and thirteenth-century chronic:lers, although there were few
Dantes among them, nevertheless worked along similar lines. An exam
ination of several familiar texts in the light of the rhetorical tradition and
the moral aims of monastic chroniclers may suggest a reading somewhat
different from the traditional ones.
(1.C( LA I) C-\.¥'- ,. o,.....

� 1(/ ({_( �1
7 35
As a n exemplary text, we may consider a passage from the chronicle
of Ralph, Abbot of the Cisterican monastery of Coggeshall in England,
.
composed sometime i n the last quarter of the twelfth century:
In the time of Louis, King of France, who fathered King Philip, while the
error of certain heretics, who are called Publicans in the vernacular, was spread
ing through several of the provinces of France, a marvelous thing happened
in the city of Rheims in connection with an old woman infected with that
plague. For one day when Lord William, archbishop of that city and King
Philip's uncle, was taking a canter with his clergy outside the city, one of his
clerks, Master Gervais of Tilbury- by name, noticed a girl walking alone in a
vineyard. Urged by the curiosity of hot-blooded youth, he turned aside to her,
as we later heard from his own lips when he was a canon. He greeted her and
attentively inquired whose daughter she was and what she was doing there
alone, and then, after admiring her beauty for a while, he at length in courtly
fashion made her a proposal of wanton love. She was much abashed, and with
eyes cast down, she answered him with simple gesture and a certain gravity of
speech: "Good youth, the Lord does not desire me ever to be your friend or
the friend of any man, for if ever I forsook my virginity and my body had
once been defiled, I should most assuredly fall under eternal damnation with
out hope of recall."
As he heard this, Master Gervais at once realized that she was one of that
most impious sect of Publicans, who at that time were everywhere being sought
out and destroyed, especially by Philip, count of Flanders, who was harassing
them pitilessly with righteous cruelty. Some of them, indeed, had come to
England and were seized at Oxford, where by command of King Henry II they
. were shamefully branded on their foreheads with a red-hot key. While the
aforesaid clerk was arguing with the girl to demonstrate the errors of such an
answer, the archbishop approached with his retinue and, learning the cause of
the argument, ordered the girl seized and brought with him to the city. When
he addressed her in the presence of his clergy and advanced many scriptural
passages and reasonable arguments to confute her error, she replied that she
had not yet been well enough taught to demonstrate the falsity of such state
ments but she admitted that she had a mistress in the city who, by her argu
ments, would very easily refute everyone's objections. So, when the girl had
disclosed the woman's name and abode, she was immediately sought out,
found, and haled before the archbishop by his officials. When she was assailed
from all sides by the archbishop himself and the clergy with many questions
and with texts of the Holy Scriptures which might destroy such error, by
perverse interpretation she so altered all the texts advanced that it became
obvious to everyone that the spirit of aU error spoke through her mouth.
Indeed, to the texts and narratives of both the Old and New Testaments which
they put to her, she answered as easily, as much by memory, as though she
had mastered a knowledge of all the Scriptures and had been well trained in
this kind of response, mixing the false with the true and mocking the true
interpretation of our faith with a kind of perverted insight. Therefore, because
it was impossible to recall the obstinate minds of both these persons from the
error of their ways by threat or persuasion, or by any arguments or scriptural
texts, they were placed in prison until the following day.
On the morrow they were recalled to the archepiscopal court, before the
archbishop and all the clergy, and in the presence of the nobility were again
confronted with many reasons for renounciing their error publicly. But since
they yielded not at all to salutary admonitions but persisted stubbornly in
error once adopted, it was unanimously decreed that they be delivered to the
Hames. When the fire had been lighted in the city and the officials were about
to drag them to the punishment decreed, that mistress of vile error exclaimed
/
"O foolish and unjust judges, do you think now to bum me in your flames?
�
I fear not your judgment, nor do I tremble at the waiting fire!" With thes
words, she suddenly pulled a ball of thread from her heaving bosom and
threw it out of a large window, but keeping the end of the thread in her handsl
/I
1
then in a Joud voice, audible to all, she said "Catch!" At the word, she wa 1 \
lifted from the earth before everyone's eyes and followed the ball out the 1
window in rapid flight, sustained, we believe, by the ministry of the evil spirits�
who once caught Simon Magus up into the air. What became of that wicked
woman, or whither she was transported, th, e onlookers could in no wise dis
cover. But the girl had not yet become so dleeply involved in the madness of
that sect; and, since she still was present, yet could be recalled from the stub
born course upon which she had embarke, d neither by the inducement of
reason nor by the promise of riches, she was burned. She caused a great deal 1
of astonishment to many, for she emitted no sigh, not a tear, no groan, but
endured all the agony of the conflagration steadfastly and eagerly, like a martyr
of Christ. But for how different a cause from the Christian religion, for which
they of the past were slaughtered by pagans! People of this wicked sect choose
to die rather than be c:mverted from error; l but they have nothing in common
with the constancy and steadfastness of m21rtyrs for Christ, since it is piety
which brings contempt for death to the latter, to the former it is hardness of
heart.
These heretics allege that children should not be baptized until they reach
the age of understanding; they add that prayers should not be offered for the
dead, nor intercession asked of the saints. The:y condemn marriages; they preach
virginity as a cover for their lasciviousness. They abhor milk and anything
made thereof and all food which is the product of coition. They do not believe
that purgatorial fire awaits one after death lbut that once the soul is released
it goes immediately to rest or to damnation. They accept no scriptures as holy
except the Gospels and the canonical letters. They are countryfolk and so can
not be overcome by rational argument, corrected by scriptural texts, or swayed
by persuasions. They choose rather to die than to be converted from this most
impious sect. Those who have delved into their secrets declare also that these
persons do not believe that God administe1rs human affairs or exercises any
direction or control over earthly creatures. Instead, an apostate angel, whom
they call Luzabel, presides over all the material creation, and all things on
eart11 are done by his will. The body is shaped by the devil, the soul is created
by God and infused into the body; whence it comes about that a persistent
struggle is always being waged between body and soul. Some also say that in
Rhetoric and Magic in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries 37
their subterranean haunts they perform execrable sacrifices to their Lucifer at
stated times and that there they enact certain sacriligious infamies. 33
Ralph's story deserves close attention, because what seems to the

author a perfectly ordinary series of events can be broken down into
very different categories and seen to derive from very different sources.
At the end of our analysis, we will consider just how much of Ralph's
account can be accepted as an accurate reflection of heretical beliefs and
practices in late twelfth-century Reims. The first point to make is that of
Ralph's source. He himself tell�_us that the story came from the·· experi
ence of Gervais of Tilbury, at the time a clerk in the service of Arch
bishop William of Reims, later marshal of the Kingdom of Arles under
Emperor. Otto IV, and finally a canon regular in England, and the author
of a famous book of stories and moralia, the Otia Imperialia. The next
section of this chapter ,vill discuss Gervais's work in greater detail; suffice
it to say here that any story told by Gervais of Tilbury ought to be
looked at with considerable scepticism, for he was a moralist and story
teller par excellence, a learned opportunist and skillftil 'courtier wito
certain�?_.��o� have been a�_£ve constructj�g � 1�1.ous exe1!':_plum to
suit the interests and talents of a credulous Cistercian_ chronicler. For, if
_
� ' indeed Gervais told the story to Ralph, pious construction is precisely
what he engaged in.
The scene which opens the story-that of the clerk accosting a pretty
young girl in the countryside and asJ..ing her to make love-is one
familiar to literary critics, if not to historians proper: it is the opening of
qiVa pastourelle. The form is fixed: first the encounter, then the debate, then
the man l or- the woman) winning the argument and having his ( or her)
way. If there was a girl whose answer to Gervais's proposition triggered
his recognition of the publican heresy, it is highly unlikely that she
did so in the course of a routine response to the opening conversational
gambit of a pastourelle. If one cannot accuse Gervais of sour grapes, one
can clearly accuse him-and find him guilty-of dressing up his account
in literary formula.
The fate of the young girl's teacher is also quite implausible. People
may have escaped from the careful scrutiny of the archbishop of Reims,
but they did not do so by flying out of his palace window attached to
the end of a thrown ball of string. Such a story, beginning with a
Pastourelle and ending with an unacceptable disappearance, may have
s�veral grains of truth in it, but Jts . construction is enough to warn the
J histor ian about the character of twelfth-century chroniclers and the differ".:'
r e�t purposes of historians and chroniclers. That the diocese of _1\eims con
jJ tained heretics of a dualist character is evident. Evident too, is the
emphasis upon celibacy, the understanding of scriptures, and the rela-
38 Rhetoric and Magic in the Eleventh and · Twelfth Centuries
tionship of the older woman as teacher t,o the younger. In his asides, in
fact, Ralph seems to describe accurately the persecution of Publicans in
Flanders and England and, at the end of the passage cited here, to
summarize at least some of their beliefs accurately. The entire passage,
however, must be considered neither a,ccurate nor descriptive of the
events of 1179. Whether the literary embellishment should be attributed
to Gervais of Tilbury or to Ralph himself, it is clear that the chronicler's
description of this episode must be regarded with extreme caution as
evidence of anything but the chronicler's: technique.
At the heart of the story, however, there are certain events that require
-
consideration. In his muddled de�f>!!�� of_ �ublica!,1. beli�fs at tlJ�t!).d
-� -
l
of the episo�reS'
.
ents'"*it. recognizable picture corroborated by
- ot e.:,;ources of som7, asp�tL2.f.. �!!!��tl!n:.. du_alism; however, . so�e
elem�ntsoTnisoescription are clearly contradictory and are ins1?_ired not
by accuracy, but by the traditional explanation of heretical behavior:
Hl:!retics·· emphasis upon virginity is regarded as a cover for lascivious
ness; heretics afET'rusticS and cannot' be· reasoned with ( although the girl
and her mistress reside in Reims) ; they perform sacrifices to Lucifer;
their heroism in the face of persecution comes· from hardness of heart,
rather than piety. These last elements are already familiar from the
they had become almost a topos in describing heretics. Yet even these
literature of the earlier twelfth century, and by the time Ralph wrote
topical commonplaces do not exactly account for, or nt, the material in

the story at Reims. The relationship between the older woman and the
young girl, as between a teacher and a pupil, is not accounted for in
Ralph's conventional summary of heretical beliefs. The older woman's
skillful familia of the archbishop of Reims) is not that of an ignorant or

knowledge of scripture ( sufficient to hold her own with the learned and
stubborn rustic who holds tenaciously to a few memorized precepts, but

that of someone familiar with the Bible, skillful enough in debate to hold
off the archbishop's clerks ( in what language, one wonders), and pos
sessing ( even Ralph/Gervais is forced to admit it) intellectual powers
formidable enough to be labelled by the horrified chronicler as "per- 1,
verted insight." In sum, this episode, widely cited in many sources, is a
tissue of literary and rhetorical embellishment filled out with generalized
4 conventional descriptions of Publican beliefs and one or two veiifiable
facts, surrounding what may be an accurate story, but a story whose
accuracy is very hard to distinguish from the presentation made by
Gervais-showing the inventiveness that marked the Otia Imperialia

Ralph. It is impossible to determine whether the skillful storyteller
recounted this episode to a credulous Cistercian chronicler, or whether

Ralph used Gervais's story because it seemed appropriate and was
memorable enough to strike revulsion into the young Cistercians who
p
Rhetoric and Magic in the Eleventh and Twelfrh Centuries 39
were the chronicle's audience. That the story as it stands is a rhetorical
fabrication, however1 .<;,an1l9t be doubted. Its greatest
e
importance 1s pre
cfselyas an illustration of tile manner, notth accura'cy, "in which the
aepictio� 0£ nere�.i.�L��ccept!fi��1:be-]ale��e!ft��ntur),:. - -
William of Reims. Walter Map, in the De nugiis curialium, remarks that

- the court of Archbishop
- Other stories of heretics also circulated arouna
William of Reims once told him personally the story of the knight who
sprinkled blessed salt on food set before him by his nephew, the follower
of an unnamed heretical sect that seems to have practiced deceptive
magic. Once the salt was sprin�Jed on the food, "suddenly the fish dis
appeared and there on the dish was left some substance like pellets of
hare dung." After failing to convince his nephew of the error of his ways,
the knight enclosed the nephew and his teachers in a house and attempted
unsuccessfully to burn it to the ground. Only when the bishop of Vienne
performed a certain ritual upon the heretics/magicians, were they able
to be consumed by the Hames.M
Walter Map's accounts of heretics are no less inaccurate than Ralph of
Coggeshall's, although they contain more plausible details. Nevertheless,
the curious recurrence of William of Reims in these two stories from
very different sources suggests that the prelate may have figured in a
number of traditions describing heretics. In any case, Map's story is at
least as literary as Ralph's, if not quite as artfully constructed. One indi
cation, then, of the source of the activities and beliefs attributed by
ecclesiastical writers to heretical and magical sects, is rhetorical. Walter
Map, Gervais of Tilbury, and Ralph of Coggeshall all share the same
aims: to arrest the attention of their readers, to heighten the reader's
revulsion by setting their stories in skillful literary constructions, and to
demonstrate the rhetorician's ability to control and display his repulsive
materials in a manner strikingly similar to other aspects of Romanesque
aesthetic ideas. It is to the depiction of magic and heresy in te1ms of
that literary aesthetic that we must now turn.
What is common to the stories told by Ralph of Coggeshall and Walter
Map is the element of embellishing what may be considered an accurate
core account of heretical beliefs and practices ( identifiable because they
are in part corroborated by other, less literary sources ) with literarily
devised and clearly fictitious elements. A number of historians of heresy
and witc}:icraft have commented upon tt'; gen�;�l cha�� ;f;��ieval
, I ecclesiastical invective and its unreliability in most areas an an illustra- .
fJ/ _ . ,
tion of actual behavior and belief. As others, too, hav� poi�t�g <1ut, t1'�
purpose of such accounts as Ralph's and Walter Map's was not to inform
accurately, but to arouse within the pious reader the appropriate revuf
_
�lOn against the object being condemned. Hence, by analogy an1 py
. � ·-
invoki:ng different spheres of meaning, chroniclers consistently erripha-
�.
,sized th� perso.�l depravity of heretics : and witch��, their physical de
formities and illnesses, their sexual oehavior, and their unalterable sub
jection to Satan: In addition, since the ' heresies and deviant practices
condemned were regarded as manifestations of the devil's eternal enmity
to Christians, descriptions of older heresies and condemnations of other
forms of deviant practice from the first centuries of Christian history were
t1 often applied to the enemies of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.
These practices were not, of course, cons: cious deception, nor were they
even manifestations of fraus pia, pious fraud. To excite the horror and
arouse the zealousness of contemporary Christians, writers like Ralph of
Coggeshall and Walter Map described . their heretics in a manner per
fectly consistent with the mentality of itbe twelfth century. They and
other writers like them were, in fact, faced by a se1ious problem. Before
the late eleventh century, reformist and learned heresies had largely
occurred within the precincts of the monastic cloister. Other deviant
beliefs were dealt with by councils, penitentials, sermons, occasional
treatises, and royal decrees, but they did not generate a conspicuous
literature, and the monastic literature of heresy was hardly appropriate to
describe the social, intellectual and spiritual ferment of the late eleventh
and twelfth-century laity and clergy. Consequently, the task of describ
ing heresy, warning orthodox Christians i0f its dangers, and alerting the
Christian public to the depravity of the heretics was a relatively new
one, even at the end of the twelfth century when Ralph and Walter
wrote. Like much other literature of the pe1iod, their works shared some
thing of the Romanesque mentality. In some respects, although analogies
with the visual arts are always dangerous: , the grotesqueries and literary
embellishments of the two stories cited above are analogous to the
visualization of the struggle between goodl and evil that occupies so much
of Romanesque art. Most of the activities: that later would be attributed
to witches and magicians were already present in the invective against
spiritual deviancy developed by twelfth-centmy theologians and chroni
clers, except for certain traits that did not appear until much later and
seem to me to be far less important. The development of this invective
and its use in the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries have not yet
been investigated.
In their fine collection of documents on the history of heresy, Walter
Wakefield and A. P. Evans included the two passages discussed at the
beginning of this chapter under the gerneral subtitle, "From Heresy to
Witchcraft."35 In so designating these texts, Wakefield and Evans recog
nized the common elements in twelfth-century ideas of heretical conduct'
and occult practices. It is worth pointing out that most of the embellished
invective describing heretics of the sort discussed above dates from the
twelfth century. During the thirteenth ani d fourteenth centuries, church-
p

rnen and laymen alike described heretical beliefs and behaviqr in much
rnore accurate terms. Theologians and inquisitors produced accurate and
usable descriptions of heretical beliefs, culminating in the handbooks for
inquisitors, the best known of which is that of' Bernard Gui.36 Although
sorne traditional invective lingered, particularly in the case of the
Brethren of the Free Spirit, heresy became rationalized and its persecu-
U tors became astute in recognizing what heretics actually believed and
! did. The twelfth century, on the other hand, was the one century in
1, which heretical beliefs and activities were described, not in accurate, but .,
·II in symbolic terms. ,-

The course for magicians and witches was somewhat different. As the
next chapter will show, the survival of ancient magical practices was
greatly transformed by the recovery of Greek and Arabic works, the
sociology of the magicians, _the developments in Latin theology,_ and the
'--\ I
work of canon lawyers. As heretics became better, or at least more
V:: accur'ktely understood, magicians and witches alone were left with the
. elements they once had shared with heretics in twelfth-century sources.
These sources were preserved in collections of miracle stories, handbooks
for instructing novices in religious orders, sennons, exempla, memoirs,
and occasional treatises.�· In short, the portrait of the heretic, magician,,
and witch which the twelfth century writers indisc1iminately developed,
remained applicable only to the last two of these after the early tµirteenth
�
century. Having once shared with heretics the picturesque invective of
Ralph of Coggeshall, Walter Map, and Gervais of Tilbury, magicians and
witches were virtually the only figures to whom it was applied between
the late thirteenth and the eighteenth centuries. Therefore, the nature of
twelfth-century invective becomes especially important, since it is the
magicians and witches, and not the heretics, who bore most of its brunt
'during the next five centuries.
The sources of twelfth-century ecclesiastical invective are not at all
certain. R. I. Moore and Norman Cohn have pointed out the similarity
between many descriptions of twelfth-cenhny heretical practices and
those attributed to early Christians by their pagan opponents. 38 In one
l
, case at least, that of Guibert of Nogent, this kind of source may very
well have been used. In his Memoirs, Guibert describes a heretical sect
which supposedly held secret meetings, encouraged indiscriminate sexual
coupling, communally burned the children born from such intercourse,
and from the ashes of the children made a kind of bread which, when
eaten, strengthened the heretical beliefs of the sect.39 Guibert's source
•\
for at least part of this description appears to be Augustine's treatise on
I heresies and perhaps his reading in other early Church Fathers. A num
ber of scholars have pointed out the simila1ities between Guibert's
account of these "Manichean" rites and those condemned at the Synod
of Orleans in 1022-particularly the magical food and the material from
which it is made and the sexual license of the secret, nocturnal gather
ings.40 Whether Guibert modelled his own account on that of the Synod
of Orleans, or whether both sources drew upon earlier ones, two conclu
sions may be reached concerning these and much other twelfth-century
literature on heretics. First, especially irn the case of Guibert, those who
described heretical beliefs were more widely read than most of their
predecessors, and they applied the fruits of their wide reading to the
cases they judged or described. Second, perhaps out of late antique
sources, these writers had by the early twelfth century created a dis
tinctive form of invective against certaiin kinds of heretics. This invec
tive-having part of its roots in Roman invective against magicians,
objects of satire, Jews, and deviant Christians-was applied to both
heretics and magicians in the twelfth century. Although heretics soon
came under the scrutiny and authority of different sorts of thinkers and
writers, the invective used against them in the early twelfth century
occasionally remained, and certainly applied to groups such as magicians
and witches long after it ceased to be applied generally to heretics.
Variant forms of the paradigm of the secret meetings of deviants
existed in Christian literature at least as early as the first apologists, and
many of them were preserved in the works of the Church Fathers, par
ticularly St. Augustine. Augustine's description of Manichean and
Montanist practices appears to have bee1:1 the source, certainly of Guibert
of Nogent's description, probably of the Synod of Orleans, and surely of
other eleventh- and twelft h -century accounts such as those of Adhemar ·
of Chabannes and Paul of St. Peire de Chartres. The new interest in sucli
writings as Augustine s on the part of eleventh- and twelfth-century
writers on heresy was probably a resiult of their generally increased
'.
familiarity with earlier patristic literature: that characterizes so many other

aspects of late eleventh- and early twelfth-century Christian thought.
In the Byzantine Empire, no such renewed acquaintance with patiistic
literature was needed because no break with earlier literature had ever
taken place. In Michael Psellos's treatise On the Operation of the Demons,
for example, descriptions of a heretical sect referred to as "Messalians"
sound very similar to the passages in Augustine, the Synod of 1022 at
Orleans, Guibert of Nogent, and Walter Map. There is little likelihood
that Psellos knew Augustine or that the twelfth-century Latin writers
knew Psellos; both kinds of wiiter, however, were able to draw upon
an old tradition of patristic anti-heretical invective which, in their own
minds, at least, remained valid for the eleventh and twelfth centuries
because the ancient heresies themselves had survived "secretly" and the
heresies represented by eleventh- and 1tweUth-century heretics were in
fact these old heresies surfacing once again. What had been tn1e when
Augustine and others wrote of Montanists and Manicheans was, in the
twelfth-century monastic writer's view, equally true of those heretics he
described.
Such a process does not depend exclusively'upon what Jeffrey Russell
has called "literary cliches." Guibert and other chroniclers believed that
they witnessed the same heresies as Augustine, Justin, and other Church ,
Fathers, and they described them similarly. It should be noted that
virtually all of the twelfth-century descriptions of abominable heretical
r./ practices structurally serve as asides, author's digressions within a narra
l tive. The heretics do not confess to them; indeed, the heretics' obstinacy,
noted above in the ill-fitting �bservations of Ralph of Coggeshall, is
assumed to be the reason for their failure to convert to orthodox Chris
tianity or even to understand the questions asked of them. Thus, it is
clearly the writer himself, or a particular informant, who adds the 9etails
derived f rom patristic and other sources. In Guibert's case, and certainly
in that of others, the writer's own learning made him familiar with this
literature. Since his purpose in writing was to inculcate moral virtues
and warn the faithful against the dangers threatening them ( the same
danger that had threatened their ancestors in the early Church), his
description of the heretics' practices and beliefs had to follow rhetorical
and moral rules. Those rules were not the ones that usually guide the
modern historian, but neither were they simply literary cliches or arbi
trary embellishments. They were essential parts of the writer's business,
and by omitting them he would have failed in his full purpose. These
heretical beliefs, whether or not they applied to the particular twelfth
century heretics in question, nevertheless applied symbolically to all
heretics, and the reader had to be informed of this. The appearance of
the heretics, their apparent sanctity, their exalted moral conduct, their
skill at argument, their persausiveness, and their attractiveness could not
be ignored; but these very rules required that appearances be countered
by the harsh, if symbolic, truth of their condition, and that truth had
been stated by the Fathers. They were in this, as in all other fields,
auctoritates, and their auctoritas extended in time as well as morality.
As stated above, it should also be emphasized that most of these
writings came out of monastic circles, and they reflect the monastic
literary dependence upon patristic sources as well as the dim monastic
view of the life of laypeople. Moreover, many of them were written for
monks, and the monastic audience looked for moral guidance-for, as it
were, a higher kind of truth-rather than for a mere narrative of detail.
Monastic historiography and other literature, particularly before the a d
vent of scholastic thought and the growth of other kinds of intellectual
communities, was distinctive and purposeful. Heavily dependent upon
literary traditions and shaped by principles of literary exegesis, it was in
44
part responsible for many characteristic foatures of Romanesque art and
literature. Especially important in the light of the texts considered here

is the enormous power to convey ideas graphically, both through descrip
tive writing and through the visual arts. The Romanesque monastic aim
was to teach, and to employ dramatic, arresting images to drive its les- ·
rl sons home. The literary genres in which descriptions of heresies occur_:
1..1 histories, chronicles, and collections of moral stories-lep.t themselves
perfectly to these requirements. fo.r,,..afw�;..all,..8!,ipert_Eajph oLCogges
hall, and others were not writing collections of law; they were not, in
the twelfth-century academic sense, the9logians; they were certainly not
formulating doctrine; they were teaching .a community of Christians that,
whether monastic or lay, was in great ,danger. And they invoked the
most graphic sources they knew of to hammer home awareness of revul
sion against that danger. That their works were later used by others who
shared little of their world view and none of their mentality could hardly
have been foreseen by them. These features, plus the wide circulation of
this literature during the twelfth century and its later influence, have
often prevented historians from seeing their literary productions in a
measured light. Attacked by what they thought-in fact, were assured
were ancient heresies revived, they turned to their strongest auctoritates, ·
/ the Fathers, to repel those heresies. In doing so they created a literature
.
tt that had a long history and great influernce. They influenced other, later
writers who, like Walter Map, wrote for dlifferent audiences. It is, in fact,
, 1 in the differences between their outlook and method and those of later
writers that the transmission of invective against heretics and magicians

1 /L took place.
Besides the details of heretical practices discussed above, another con
spicuous feature of the literature which dliscusses twelfth-century heresy,
- is the emphasis on its ��It may be too much to say that twelft h
century ecclesiastics had a pathological fear of secret teachings and meet
ings, but this element is certainly stressed again and again, even in
descriptions of heretical practices that do not emphasize or even mention
the grotesque details we have seen above. One of the motives behind
Peter the Venerable's treatise Against the Petrobrusians, for example, is
his astonishment at the growth of the he1resy, local bishops' ignorance of
that growth, and contemporary intellech.1.als' tendency to scorn it instead
of attack it:1 1 Petrobrusianism, Peter warns, is not preached and defended
openly, but "whispered" from mouth to ear. The heretics at Orleans in
1022 also offered secret teachings to Her:ibert and Arefast, and Ralph of
Coggeshall's old woman was, presumably, a secret teacher as well. This
motif of secret, insidious teaching and outward normality became more·
and more important in attacks on heresy as the twelfth centmy wore on.
It was not merely against heretics and magicians that this twelfth-
p
45
century concern with secret meetings and secret teachings was directed.
Rhetoric and Magic in the Eleventh and Twel�h Centuries
\n Peter Abelard's Confessio fidei, one of the accusations ( based upon

Proverbs 9:17) made against him was that he had taught secretly and
differently from his open teaching in the schools; he had offered acquas
furtivas et panem absconditem.4 It is this accusation that Abelard
passionately denies; he has never taught such things. Other masters of
the schools were also accused of surreptitious teachings, sometimes verg- .
2
ing on the heretical. Secret teaching and hidden books certainly played
their part in the earlier world of Anselm of Besate, but in the twelfth
centu1y the fear of secrecy came into full force. In his sermon against
heresy in 1144, St. Bernard (who-may have levelled the original accusa
tion at Abelard) holds forth on the verse of Canticles 2:15, "Catch us
the little foxes that destroy the vines, for our vineyard hath B.ourished."43
In this sermon Bernard launches a formidable attack, not on openly pro
fessed heretics, but upon those "who would rather injure than conquer
and who do not even wish to disclose themselves, but prefer to slink
about in the shadows." As it had in earlier commentaries on the Old
Testament, the metaphor of the little foxes became commonplace in
discussions of heretics and e�tered the vocabulary of papal letters as well
as sermons and later biblical commentary.
As Jeffrey Russell has pointed out,_these denunciations of heretics
mingle accusations of magic and witchcraft with attacks upon heretical·
errors. Monastic chroniclers and moralists in the first half of the twelfth
century made the first concerted attack upon ecclesiastical deviance by
.
emphasizing· the elements of secrecy, abasement before the demon, ·
lasciviousness, cannibalism, magic food, and hypnotic attraction by feign
ing- Christian virtues. The monastic view of the lay world, its dependence
upon patristic literary authority, its belief in the eternity of ancient
heresies, 'and its growing fear of secrecy, in the schools as well as the
heretics' conventicles and "synagogues," thus gave shape to a paradigm
of deviance that did not soon lose its power. The paradigm was itself also
shaped by such rhetorical adventures as that of Anselm of Besate, dis
cussed at the beginning of this chapter, and continued in a number of
i,- literary genres through the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. It is t() these
genres that we now turn.
COURTIERS' TRIFLES AND MAGIC, 1150-1220
1!!sell!,l� represents a kind of formal rhetorical source for the

L history of ideas of magic. The monastic descriptions of the enormities of
heretics' and magicians' conduct come from a second rhetorical tradition.
A third category of rhetorical sources that helps to cast light on twelfth-
and thirteenth-century beliefs and magic:al practices is the literature in
fluenced by and directed at the court. As early as the tweHth century,

moralists began to associate fear of magi,cal practices with the court, the ·
� newest and most potent source of powe1r and wealth in twelfth-century
society.
Although the phenomenon of the court certainly antedates the middle
of the twelfth century, the first literature directed at couriers and their
masters appeared shortly after that date. This section will deal with three
,).,J\ works of this genre: John of_�@s�ts fQlicr�tifu� ( 1159), y'Vfilter
1 Map's De nugiis curialium ( 1181-93), and �i�'!! �� Otja
Y {)lJ
• 1/.Imperialia ( 1214-18). Although the authors of these worlcs are English,
tbe works themselves should not be considered uniquely English, for
their authors derive their materials from many different kinds of sources;
_ including classical antiquity. Their citation here is for one reason; as
John of Salisbury put it, "I deal in part with the frivolities of court life,,
I
bearing more heavily on those I find harder to tolerate."• Among the.
frivolities noted by John of Salisbury, Walter Map, and Gervais of Tilbury
ft is the courtier's interest in and fear of magic. As will be argued from
4
legal matenais i�- Chapter 4, the prevalence of magic at twelfth- and

thirteenth-century courts played an important role in the later persecu-
l tion of magicians and witches. Indeed, it is commonly accepted that the. ·
prosecution of witches grew out of the prosecution of heretics.•5 It will be
the contention of this book that in fact magicians and heretics had always
been associated, and that while the forms of legal prosecution of heretics
paved the way for similar actions taken against witches after the fifteenth
century, it was the fear of and actual prosecution of magicians in several
key trials of the later thirteenth through the fifteenth centu1ies that is the
/f real stage following the persecution ol f heretics, and the prelimin�
{1. stage in persecuting witches. .
The magician-and, to a certain extent, the heretic-appears usually
in a few specilk places in medieval sociiety. The most frequent of these
is the�t. A number of twelfth-century writers point out the presence
l and fear of magicians among courtiers, although their work has not often
b n cited in this connection.
ohn of Salisbury's Policraticu,s, the second book of which is devoted
/2
the varieties of magic known and fea.red in the twelfth century, con
ft s of two parts.46 The first is a description and indictment of the vices
of courtiers, and the sec� is a descri]Ption of the principles of ethics
and religion required to assure good rule and just governance. Historians
usually concentrate upon book 4 through book 8, since these contain
most of John's political and ethical theory. Books l and 2, however,
based on John's observations during a long career around many courts,
shed considerable light upon those vices to which courtiers are particu-
p

Iarly prone. It is not too much to say that the Policraticus is a book of
47
! vices and virtues for rulers and their courtiers and assistants.4 Book 1
of the Policraticus treats the courtiers' vices of fear of fortune, impropriety,
hunting, gambling, music, actors, mimes, juggle.rs, and illusionists. John's
7
discussion of t;9f,�tigit,t_mJeads him naturally into the next vice, that of

Jconsulting ma!iicians of all sorts. From book 1, chapter 10 through
l
,d. :,,,book 2, 48John describes the danger of magic to the twelfth-century
J Gourtier.
John of Salisbury's treatment of magic among twelfth-century courtiers,
iG
like his treatment of many other topics, including politics, is complex.
V
Many of his references are to W6rks of classical literature and patristic

thought. His description of different types of magic follows the descrip
tions of � of Sevill_!:, S!: . A!!gY§..twe, and l�\�ba_!}};!.t.}ia�rµ§.. There
fore, it may be objected that John is attacking the literary tradition of
wnagic, not magic as twelfth-century courtiers knew it. Indeed, one his
torian has observed that it is never clear whether John is talking about
the court of Hemy II of England or that of Augustus.•v The answe ·
seems to be that John does both. In raising the question of magic among
couriers, John is obliged to describe the conventional types of magic and �
J �agicians as these types existed in the tradition of Christian literature.
l.en the other hand, it is also clear that John has personally observe .
courtiers consulting magicians and has known their interest in magic a�·
t&st hand. So that within the literary encyclopedism that characterized�
John's treatment of magic at twelfth-centmy courts there lie a genuinev
alarm at its prevalence, first-hand experience of its interest, and a pro
found awareness of the dangers it posed to unwitting, ambitious, un
learned courtiers who need to be instructed in its varieties and dangers
J as well as castigated for the attention they pay to its particular twelfth
'- century forms.
In -chapter 28 of book 2, John intern1pts his discussion of crystal-gazing
and other forms of divination and tells a story of his own experience. It
is not a passage that has been widely noted before, but it does cast some
light on little noticed practices in early twelfth-century England:
During my boyhood I was placed under the direction of a priest, to teach me

psalms. As he practiced the art of crystal gazing, it chanced that he after pre- ·
liminary magical rites made use of me and a boy somewhat older, as we sat at
his feet, for his sacrilegious art, in order that what he was seeking by means
of finger nails moistened with some sort of sacred oil of crism, or of the smooth
�lished surface of a basin, might be made manifest to him by information
imparted by us.
And so after pronouncing names which by the horror they inspired seemed
to me, child though I was, to belong to demons, and after administering oaths
of which, at God's instance, I know nothing, my companion asserted that he
@ Rhetoric and Magic in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries
saw certain misty figures, but dimly, whjle I was so blind to all this that nothing
appeared to me except the nails or basin and the other objects I had seen there
before.
As a consequence I was adjudged useless for such purposes, and, as though I
impeded the sacrilegious practices, I was condemned to have nothing to do
with such things, and as often as they decided to practice their art I was
banished as if an obstacle. to the whole procedure. So propitious was God to
me even at that early age.
But as I grew older more and more did JC abominate this wickedness, and
my horror of it was strengthened because, though at the time I made the
acquaintance of many practitioners of the art, all of them before they died
were deprived of their sight, eitl1er as a rei,ult of physical defect or by the
hand of God, not to mention other rruseries with which in my plain view they
were affiicted. There were two exceptions- the priest whom I have mentioned
and a certain deacon; for they, seeing the aJ!Riction of the crystal gazers, fled
(the one to the bosom of the collegiate chure:h-the other to the refuge to the
monastery of Cluny) and adopted holy garb. None of the less I am sorry to
1}
say that even they, in comparison to others in their congregations, suffered
many affiictions afteiward. 50
The figure of the cierical magician-;-whether crystal-gaze_r or nec;ro

.• mancer-appears frequ'ently in twelfth- and thirteenth-century literature.
:, Such people are common in the writing; of Walter Map, Caesarius of
Heisterbach, and William of Malmesbury, as well as in many other col-
' l lections of tales and chronicles . In John of Salisbury's experience, such
1ngures were not fictitious creations, but included an actual teacher of ·
his and several cle1ics he knew later in life. The figure of the priest who
/O: ' knows how to call up the devil is, in fact, almost a commonplace of
if
c
twelfth-century moral stories, and even if most of these are fictitious, the
evidence from John of Salisbury and others indicates that the type itself,
l at least, was based not on a literary tradition, but on the first-hand
l.knowledge of twelfth-century writers.r. •
When considered more closely, the figure of the magician is not sur
prising. The skills required, presumably, for invoking demons were
learned skills, and aside from the type of the Jew and the Saracen, the -
learnedpeople of Europe before the end of the twelfth century were �
,;.cierITT:'._. The figure of the Saracens who taught Rotiland his magic and
- ;'pmsued the fleeing Gerbert, as well as that of the "Jew-necromancer" in
William of Malmesbury's story of the Aqiuitanian and the Italian moun
tain of gold, are types of this kind. As the twelfth century wore on, the
real impact of Arabic learning, including :magical, learning, became clear,
:
and the Moslem magician was transform ed from a figure 'of legend into
a genuine teacher whose doctrines troubled the literature of the eleventh
and twelfth centuries."� Moreover, the p1riests who invoked demons and
practiced other forms of magic were secular EFies�, rarely monks. The
49
circles of Anselm of Besate, papal Rome, wandering scholars, and cleri

cal teachers were precisely the circles in which these clerical magicians
moved. John of Salisbury himself emerged fr6m such a circle, and with
the growth of schools and universities in the twelfth and thirteenth cen
turies, these too became centers where learning of all sorts, even occult
learning, became prevalent. When traditional theologians attacked th
new masters of the twelfth-century schools, charges of teaching secret and
forbidden knowledge, including knowledge of magic, were among their r
weapons. Peter Abelard was among the first, but he was certainly not th
last, to be accused of offering secret, dangerous teachings to his students. 53
Secular clergy, learned magic, invoking of demons, and the perils an
...d>r. temptations of the
l combine in the work of John of Salisbur
others to shed newiight upon what is often called the renaissance or
_@II
and
the twelfth century. Even before the schools were suspected of fosterin .
..-0
�
() ii' \ ' magic teachings, t�1e courts became the �r�_t s�tti9g for m�gic. The role
54
of the court in the cultural life of the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth
centuries has not received a great deal of attention from histo1ians, who
I\ have usually focused upon its administrative, dynastic, artistic, and politi-
'Lcal roles. Of the three great twelfth-centu1y institutions that transformed
the whole of European life, the court has been discussed the least. Cities
and universities, perhaps because they have survived into the modern
world, have undeservedly received far more attention. Indeed, it is not
too much to say that some of the circumstances which Peter Brown
ascribed to the spread of magic in fourth- and fifth-century Rome begin .
�o recur only in the twelfth century, and first in the court. 55 It is in the
court that great power and wealth are to be w9n, _ not necessarily by ·
diligent service or higl1 birth, but by· favor. Favor may be ostensible and
direct, " a reward for skill or talent, but it may also be indirect, the product
of �Tfiv-ated · p atrons, courtiers, servants, and other informal but real
SQQLces. of power. The indictment of court life by Joho of Salisbury- and
others is based, to be sure, in part upon the conventional moral ideals of
the twelfth-century Church. In another aspect, John criticizes specific
vices and faults to which the courtier is especially prone. It is no acci
dent that John begins the Policraticus with an indictment against those
who believe that random fortune bestows favors and disgraces arbi
trarily. The insecurity of the courtier-his need to play upon many stages
at once, hrs pragmatic convJCtion ffiaffavor may be won by public and
Private methods, and his search for any methods that will assure or at
least promise success-make him especially prone to the vices of flatte1y,
consulting magicians, and perhaps even instigating magical powers
against his own enemies, real or imagined.56 In the humanist courts of
the late fifteenth century described by Castiglione in II Corteggiano,
Rhetoric and Magic in the Eleventh and Twel�h Centuries
Lauro Martines has found the same characteristics: immense insecurity,
50
pressure to please the lord in many different areas, and the fear of falling
victim to Fo1tune. The process that shaped Castiglione's courtier was
already at work in the twelfth century, and the Policraticus is one of the
earliest attempts to criticize the moral world of the court as a new
phenomenon.57
The courtier's success might have depended as easily upon love, per
suasion, the removal of an enemy, or attracting the personal affection
of his lord, as upon talent, skill, and proven experience; he might have
been driven to desperation to learn what the future held in store; or he
might have felt himself to be the victim of magic. Under these circum
stances, he could very readily provide employment for at least some of
the types of magicians and soothsayers whom John of Salisbury took such
great pains and so many leaves of the Policraticus to denounce. As will
be shown in Chapter 4, the association of the courtier and the magician .
) was not exclusively a twelfth-century phenomenon. As the world of the
court grew greater, more wealthy, and more crowded, the place of the
individual courtier became even less secme. By the end of the thirteenth
century in Paris and Rome and shortly afterward elsewhere, the daily
' fear of magic was a real-and punishable--offense.
Walter Map's De nugiis curialium, "Courtiers' Trifles," was written in
the 1180's and probably completed by 1193.�" The word nuga, which
appears in the titles of both the Polic-raticus and the De nugiis, is com-
monly translated as "trifles," that is, distractions, trivial faults, amuse
'
ments, or f1ivolities. Nuga, however, has another meaning in medieval
Latin. Merely by virtue of its first meaning, it also carried a moral con
notation, implying vices. Thomas Aquinas, for example, a century later,
distinguished between two kinds of evil human practices. Some are
noxia, some are nugatoria. Basing his distinction on St. Augustine's De
doctrina Christiana, Aquinas distinguishes them thus:
Noxia autem superstitio clicitur quae aliqu1 id manisfeste illicitum continent;

sicut invocationes et sacrificia daemonum, vel quodcumque huiusmodi. Nuga
torium autem dicitur quando aliquis utitur re aliqua ad quod virtus eius extendi
non potest; hoc enim in vanum 6eri videtur.:.9
Nugae, therefore, are also forms of vke, less harmful than noxia but
certainly more than "trifles." Suen a meanting is clearer in the Policraticus
which is, in fact, a sort of moral guideboo'k for courtiers and their masters.
In the work of Walter Map, however, there is no such systematic schema,
and his stories, although they are clearly moral stories, cover a much
wider range than the serious learning of Jt0hn of Salisbury. Thus, the work
.!. is harder to use as a reflection of Map's own observations.
Rhetoric and Magic i n the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries
The first section of the De nugiis lays out a serious of complaints about
51
the life of .the court, disguising the difficulties in contemporary courts by

recounting the labors of classical figures out of mythology. After a long .
description of his own court, Map tells one M his most famous stories,
that of the wandering, enchanted King Herla.6° The story derives equally
' from folktale and literary tradition, but Map uses it as a dramatic coun
terpoint to his own muddled, vice-ridden household. He then goes on to
illustrate how even astute rulers may be deceived by wicked courtiers,
and how even withdrawal from the world of the court into that of the
monastery does not always guarantee spiritual security.61 Map's descrip
tions of true and false orders ofmonks leads him to a discussion of new
orders, and then of new heresies. In this context, he tells the story, al
ready cited above, of the Paterines, "who have lurked among Christians
everywhere from the days of our Lord's Passion, and continue to wander
from the truth."62 At nightly meetings in their "synagogues" they await
the arrival of a mysterious black cat, tum out the lights, bestow upon it
Ahe osculum infame, and engage in indiscriminate sexual promiscuity.
Map then recounts an even less likely story, also cited above, in which
food prepared by heretics appears wholesome and appetizing until it is
sprinkled with salt; then it turns into a noisome substance.63 Map's first
few stories in book 2 deal with genuine sanctity. He then produces a
series of stories concerning the alleged customs of the Welsh, and it is in
these tales that some of Map's most picturesque stories of magic are
� found, including the famous tale of Edric Wild. Map's tales of the
Welsh have long been well known since later storytellers and poets have
used them. But it is clear that they are stories only, and in no way touch
64
the material of this study.

More immediate is the story of the knight Eudo and his pact with the
f- Devil.65 The pact with Satan is made, not by a magician, but by a foolish
)knight who through it gained great powers and wealth, worked wonders
but suffered great remorse, and was only saved by leaping into a fire in
penance . Although the story is decorously amplified in Map's charac
teristic style, it is possible to see in it the twelfth-century resentment
a�ainst the violent knight and lord, and the ease of association of violence
twith _
literal bondage to Satan. This theme introduces a series of stories,
perhaps not unrelated to Map's extraordinary literary diatribe against
marriage in book 4, chapter 3, all of which deal with a mortal male
married to a dead woman, a demon, or a fairy. Having turned to the
subject to demons' deceitfulness, Map, following William of Malmesbury,
retells the story of Sylvester II and his magical arts, adding to them the
story of Gerbert's seduction. by a phantom woman.66
Map then tells a series of stories of prodigies and wonders from various
sources. Book 4 concludes with the story of the shoemaker of Constantino-
pie, a tale of necrophilia and magic that appears to have been one of the
{- sources for later accusations against the Templars, the story of Nicholas
i Pipe, a Sicilian diver, and other tales. Boo,k 5 deals with historical rulers
of recent history, and the work concludes with a recapitulation of the
opening, another warning to kings to watch hard for courtiers' vices. It is
clear that Map's book too deals with both meanings of nugae-triB.ing
amusements and minor vices. Less direct and less serious than John of
Salisbury, Map is far more picturesque, willing to draw on a diversity of
sources to illustrate his often diluted moral points. Thus, although Map's
De nugiis contains a far wider variety of tales of magic and the super
natural, and although these tales are used for ostensibly the same pur
poses as those of John of Salisbury, they are more the products of a
literary humanism, and less accurate reflections of Map's own observance.
As we have seen, even Map's accounts of his personal encounters with
heretics are modest enough desc1iptions. I n a few stories, however, there
is evidence of the same concern for magic· and demons in the life of the
t'court as one finds in John of Salisbury. Map argues that knigh�_ ..!!!19
courtiers are yniquely vuh:ierable_ to the temptations .. of demons and
,\ magicians. Less explicit than John of Salisbury's work, Map's De nugiis
is nevertheless part of the literature of courtly criticism that began in the
twelfth century and lasted until the eighteenth.
Written for and about the courtly rul!ing classes of twelfth-century
Europe, the Policraticus and the De migiis curialium are not conventional
tracts on vices and virtues of the kind best known from monastic and
----
clerical academic circles, and they are ceirtainly far from the penitential
literature of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. They are, nevertheless,
important works that reflect . the twelfth-century writer's awareness of the
unique cl�·ar�-ofcou�tfy lif; ;n,f the t�erriptations tl;at it pat�ic�
offer�d� �W1:tciaUy"11rWalter K;fap's case-::-beneai:h the class1ca1afh.1sions,
the disgressions, the biting satire against Cistercians and charlatans, and
the curiosities that amused his readers-tthere is a level of concern for
knightly behavior in what is clearly to him, as to John of Salisbury, a
new center of lay and clerical activity. As John Baldwin has shown, the
phenomenon of the court and its partic1Ular temptations also troubled
; the moral theologians at Paris during the second half of the twelfth and
the beginning of the thirteenth centmies.67 As Erich Kohler and other his
torians have shown, even the Arthurian !literary romances, long consid�
ered the characteristic literary forms of courtly society, deal in large part
with moral and psychological dilemmas unique to courtly life. The magic
/ the romances, however, seems to me to be quite removed from the
of
�ubjects treated by John of Salisbury, Walter Map, and the Paris theo
logians and moral refonners. In the latter works, the moral dangers of
magic and other vices to which courtier:s are especially prone are not
Rhetoric and Magic in the Eleventh and Tu;el�h Centuries 53
symbolically described, but openly denoun.£_ed. The direct moral voices
of these ecclesiastical courtly criticsreveal that the concern about magic
the courts was widespread, well known, and wonisome. Like actors,
mimes, flatterers, usurers, and traducers, the• sorcerer's apprentices who
t,;i
divined, created love potions, and told the future at twelfth-century
)European courts were well known to moral critics. In the works dis-
�ssed so far in this section, it is clear that the old injunctions of Isidore
of Seville and Augustine, reiterated by Hrabanus Maurus and Hu.,g!_i_ of
St. Victor, underlay the basis of the hostility]lm ol Salisbury anl others
fotheidea and practice of magic in all forms. But the critics' hostility
o
was not merely general and academic. They saw the magicians at court
and denounced specifically the noble's and the courtier's vulnerability to
them. A century later, more learned magicians attended other courts
l?-nd they, too, aroused hostility and eventually repressive legislation.
This literature was written for the comt, too, partly to warn courtiers
and rulers about the temptations unique to their station and life-style,
and partly to amuse them. John of Salisbury conveyed moral instruction
l and criticism along with pious, classical humanism; Walter Map wrote
�with an ornate Latin style, a powerful imagination, and a natural genius
for story telling. These latter qualities have tended to make both the
early books of the Policraticus and the whole of the De nugiis curialium
somewhat remote from most scholarly discussions of the twelfth century.
Seen in the light of their function as both instruction and amusement
books aimed at the noble courtly class, however, both works ( and
others) reveal a considerable concern over the casual and hitherto gen
lerally unnoticed use of various kinds of magic in the courts of twelfth
century Europe.
A third work of a similar kind is the Otia lmperialia of Gervais of
'""Tilbury,68 Gervais was born in the early 1150s, perhaps at Tilbury in the
western part of Essex. He probably received a clerical education, pos
sibly continuing it on the continent, for he was known to be at Rome in
1166 and at Bologna, where he studied and taught canon law, by 1170.
After 1180 he was in the service of Hemy II of England; then, in that of
Henry's son ( Henry the young king). After attending the courts of Arch
bishop William of Reims and King William II of Sicily, he moved on to
Aries, where he married well and was finally made marshal of the king
dom by Otto IV. After Otto's defeat at Bouvines in 1214 and his death
in 1218, Gervais appears to have returned to England and entered a
house of canons regular. He died sometime in the 1220s. His major work,
the Otia Imperialia, was probably begun in the household of Henry the
young king and completed for Otto IV sometime between 1214 and 1218.
The work has been called a commonplace book, a compilation from
earlier authors, Christian and classical, dealing with history, political
geography, and "marvels," aimed at soothing and instructing the ruler
during his few moments of leisure.
The work opens with a description of tlfle regnum and sacerdotium in
which, not surprisingly, the authority of the sacerdotium is exalted
and that of the regnum subordinated to it. But good rulers work
tirelessly, says Gervais, and they need the i restorative powers of their few
moments of leisure:
Enim vero in dilucidis intervallis imperialis maiestas nonunquam sono citharae
David, vexationem, in Saule a Spiritu perturlbante factam, amotam sentit, aut
emollitam. Quia ergo optimum naturae fatigat:ae remedium est amare novitates
et gaudere variis, nee decet tarn sacras spiritu mimorum fallaci ventilari,
<lignum duxi aliquid auribus vestris ingerere, quo humana geretur recuperare.69
The first two of the three divisiones of the work treat the history and
geography of the world down to the thirte:enth century. The third divisio
,) deals with mirabilia. This is an extremely broad heading under which
l Gervais includes both brief and extensive passages describing pagan and
Christian mythology and legend, natural wonders, legendary anthropol
ogy, animal allegory, natural phenomena, and stories of phantoms, lamiae
and larvae noctumae. 10 In all, the third d: ivisio is an interesting example
of the kind of general information thought suitable to inform and divert a
thirteenth-century prince during his leisu: re, and in this sense it can be
regarded as a book of instruction, moral te:aching, and entertainment.
Although historians of magic and witcl!icraft have given considerable
attention to Gervais's stories of lamiae, larvae nocturnae, and supernatural
flight, fewer have considered his portrait of an English magician at the
court of Roger II of Sicily:
In the time of King Roger of Sicily there came a certain master of English
· origin asking the king of his bounty to mak,e him a gift. Now the king, who
was distinguished alike by birth and breeding, thought that some substantial
favour would be demanded of him and he replied: 'Ask whatever gift you wish,
and I will give it to you.' But the petitioner., a man of great learning, skilled
and subtle in both the trivium and the quadriivium, experienced in physics and
eminent in astronomy, told the king that he did not seek temporal rewards
but rather what men might deem worthless, namely Vergil's bones, wherever
they might be found within the confines of his kingdom. The king granted his
request and, armed with a royal warrant, the master came to Naples, where
Vergil had displayed his genius in many ways. After he had produced his
warrant, the people, though ignorant of the place of sepulture, accor.ded their
obedience and readily promised what, to the best of their belief, was an impos
- . ' � sibility. In the end, however, the master, guided in the right direction by his
'· � � /!rt, located the bones within a tomb in the mountainside, although no sign
of an opening could be discerned. The spot vvas excavated and after prolonged
labour a tomb was exposed wherein was found the body of Vergil, not yet dis
solved, and at his head a book. In this book the notary art was inscribed
together with other diagrams relating to his science. After the dust and bones
had been removed, the book was taken by th� master. Then, however, the
people of Naples remembered the particular affection that Vergil had for their
city and feared lest it should be exposed to harm if the bones were taken away.
They decided, therefore, to disregard the king's mandate rather than by obedi
ence to be the cause of the destruction of the town. Vergil, it was thought, had
himself placed the tomb in the bowels of the mountain, opining that the
removal of his bones would bring his artifices to naught. The master of the
knights, therefore, with a crowd �f citizens, gathered the bones together again
and, placing them in a leather 6ag, took them to a castle surrounded by the
sea on the borders of the city, where they are shown through an iron grille to
those wishing to see them.
When the master was asked what he had intended to do with the bones, he
� replied that, by his incantations, he would have so contrived that in answer
7 to his questions the bones would have revealed to him the whole of Vergil's
art and that he would have been satisfied if they had been given to him in
their entirety for the space of forty days. Taking therefore, only the book with
him, the master departed. We have ourselves seen extracts from this very book,
made by the venerable cardinal John of Naples in the time of Pope Alexander,
and by conducting experiments we have proved their truth.71
In his short study of Gervais, H. G. Richardson has contributed much

toward unravelling the mixture of the fabulous and the actual elements
that comprise the story. A2.-1'h-9r.ngi�e- �nd_ o1h�.rs_ji�� ho:wn, the ap
pearance of b..o.oks...0L the...J1QJ�.ry_� rf.:Jg_,J}l�....t:.welfth a. ncl . tbt.g�enth cen-,
fwieL . was,. also histoxic,ll..!,_�i:i;� the transcription of some of the passages
from there by John of Naples is not inconsistent with other clerical inter
est displayed in such works throughout the twelfth and thirteenth cen
turies. In short, Gervais, like John of Salisbury and Walter Map, addressed
a courtly audience and assumed that his material on what may very
generally be termed the occult was an appropriate part of the court's
interest. Less a moralist than his two predecessors, Gervais was also a
better storyteller, and his strong secular outlook reflects upon a life spent
in courts in England, Normandy, Sicily and Arles. His observations
represent a distinctive stage in identifying and appealing to the interests
of temporal and ecclesiastical courts in their common function as courts.
The story he is alleged to have told to Ralph of Coggeshall and the story
of the English magician quoted above contain b·oth literary and sub
stantive embellishments that suggest a notable comtly interest in such
mat ters.
To call these remarks, as Lea does, "popular beliefs accepted by
; urchmen," is to raise, in the case of Gervais at least, serious doubts.7
�
irst, as we have seen, Gervais was not yet a "churchman" in Lea's sense.
2
Rhetoric and Magic in the El ,eventh and Twelfth Centuries
Second, he was writing a courtier's commonplace book, including a sec
56
tion on mirabilia, from which these extracts have been taken. Thus, they
are, for Gervais, "wonders." Third, Gervais cites as his authorities St.
Augustine, Apuleius, Plato, and Humbert, Archbishop of Aries-hardly
representatives of "popular beliefs." If there is a core of "popular tale"
among these stories, that core is quickly overlaid with learning and
classical and patristic references. Moreover, Gervais is not writing law or
history. He is writing to instruct and interest a ruler in his leisure hours.
Otto IV, or indeed any other member of the vast, cosmopolitan family of
twelfth- and thirteenth-century rulers of the Latin west, was expected to
know of and to show some interest in these stories. The wonders of the
world, like its geography and history, were fitting subjects for the leisure
reading of a mighty prince/
The story of the English master contains other elements besides stories
\
\ of .flying women and night visitors. Here, too, we see the magician at
1/ court, this time seeking permission to remove the bones of an even
greater magician, Vergil. The magic book, the power of the poet
magician's bones, and the incantations known to the English master all ·
hark back to the stories told by Anselm of Besate, William of Malmes
bury, and Walter Map. The learned magician ( about whom Gervais is
singularly neutral, even somewhat approving) is not condemned outright
as he was in the Policraticus, but Gervais's approach to moral matters in
the Otia imperialia seems to have been confined to the relations between
regnum and sacerdotium in any case.
To sum up: different kinds of literary sources between the mid-eleventh.
and the early thirteenth century discussed magic in many forms. All of.
them derived their material from a literary tradition, all of them aimed at.
specific audiences, and none of them shared the theological or legal views· ·
of the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries. Uniformly, they all/
denounced magic, proclaimed its reality, and associated it particularly ·
1
with certain inteliectual circles, heretics, courts, or Jews; and all reveal a
strong literary influence from classical and patristic authors. In this sense,
they all agree with the uniform condemnation of all f01ms of magic
launched by the Fathers of the early church, codified by Isidore of Seville,
; and forcibly reiterated by Hugh of St. Vic1 tor in the Didascalicon. Both
the heretic and the magician in these sources are colored in much the
same terms. Both possessed secret books, and both used them. As we
!
have also seen, there was a general fear of secret knowledge and secret
teaching in other twelfth-century circles. Finally, all of the writers con
sidered here, whatever their ultimate purpose, derived their method of
depicting heretics and magicians and their accusations from a literary 1
tradition. Two of them, at least, Anselm and Walter Map, eagerly demon
strated their rhetOJical command of unusiual and bizarre materials in
•
their work. In doing so, they placed the figures of the magician and the
Rhetoric and Magic in the Eleventh and Twel�h Centuries 57 •
.,.,
heretic prominently in the consciousness of twelfth- and thirteenth

century literary audiences. The magicians and heretics themselves ( the
former probably guilty of at least some of -the accusations charged by
John of Salisbury, the latter probably not guilty of those practices that
can be proven to derive from earlier literary traditions) became the
objects of fear and revulsion, particularly to the worlds of the court and
- �the monastery, to which most of the literature considered in this chapter
was directed. Except for the English master described by Gervais of
Tilbury and some of the popes described by William of Malmesbury,
however, the content of the oooks of magic remained vague, and the
charges of lascivious and magical practices among heretics remained un
proven. Some of these characteristics were changed in the century be
tween 1150 and 1250, not in literary works of the kind considered here,
but in more formal works of learning and in the thought of theologians
and lawyers.
NOTES
1. For Anselm, see the standard edition of his work: K. Manitius, ed., Gunzo
Germaniae Historica, Quellen zur Geistesgeschichte des Mittelalters, vol. 2

Epistola ad Augienses und Anselm von Besate Rhetorimachia, M onumenta
(Weimar, 1958). See also K. Manitius, "Magie und Rhetorik bei Anselm von
Besate," Deutsches Archiv 12 (1956): 52-72; H. E. J. Cowdrey, "Anselm of
Besate and Some North-Italian Scholars of the Eleventh Century," Journal of
Ecclesiastical History 23 (1972): 115-24; Marie-Therese d'Alvemy, "La sur
vivance de la magie antique," in Miscellanea Medievalia, I: Antike und Orient
im Mittelalter, ed. P. Wilpert ( Berlin, 1962), pp. 154-78. I am gratef�l to my
former student Michael Panitz for some of his own work on Anselm and
eleventh-century magic.
2. Cowdrey, "Anselm of Besate," p. 116. See also R. L. Poole, Illustrations
of the History of Medieval Thought and Leaming (London, 1920) , pp. 69-79.
3. Radulfus Glaber, Les cinq livres de ses histoires, ed. M. Prou (Paris,
1886), p. 50.
4. See E. R. Curtius, European Literature in the Latin Middle Ages, trans.
W. R. Trask (Princeton, 1953), pp. 62-79, 154-59, with further references.
5. See Manitius, "Magie und Rhetorik," p. 53, nn. 1, 3; p. 71, n. 121 cites
�he essential texts from Cicero: De oratore 2, 59, 241; De officiis 2, 14, 51; De
inventione 1, 21, 29. See also Rhetorimachia, p. 103; Cowdrey, "Anselm of
Besate," p. ll5.
6. Curtius, Latin Middle Ages, pp. 154-59.
7. There is no body of scholarly literature devoted to the relationship be-
tween rhetorical devices and later medieval thought. In the case of magic and
heresy especially, however, it seems clear that the rhetorical character of
eleventh- and twelfth-century sources was late: r forgotten, but the details con
tained in the rhetorical accounts were retained and illustrated in later thought.
8. Rhetorimachia, pp. 61-94; Manitius, "Magie und Rhetorik," passim.
9. The subject is exhaustively treated by Jeffrey Russell, Witchcraft in the
Witches, trans. 0. N. V. Glendinning (Chicago, 1965) and Vidas magias y

Middle Ages (Ithaca, 1972), and by Julio Caro Baroja, The World of the
inquisici6n (Madrid, 1967). See also Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline
of Magic (New York, 197 1 ) . Most of these w,orks contain references to other
studies. In general, the literary character of elevent h - and twelfth-century
sources is so marked that it seems to me very misleading to attribute specific
beliefs and practices to "folklore" when they ar,e found in such sources. In gen
eral, the indiculi superstitionum and the penite:ntials up to the twelfth century
seem to be more reliable sources for folk practices.
10. C. S. Lewis, The Discarcled Image (Cambridge, England, 1964).
11. See, most recently, Cyrille Vogel, "Pratiques superstitieuses au debut du
Xie siecle d'apres le Correct01' sive medicus die Burchard, eveque de Worms
(965- 1025)," in Etudes de Civilization Medieoale (JXe- Xiie siecles) Melanges
offerts a Edmond-Rene Labande (Poitiers, 1H76 ) , pp. 751-61, with further
references.
12. d'Alverny, "La survivance de la magie antique," p. 178.
13. Ibid., pp. 163-64, 169-70. See below, Chapter 3, for William of
Auvergne.
14. Rhetorimachia, p. 103.
15. Poole, History of Medieval Thought and Leaming, pp. 7 1 - 72.
16. Rhetorimachia, pp. 124, 129-30.
17. Ibid., p. 130.
18. Ibid., pp. 142-43.
19. Ibid. p. 145. On the quaterniones nigromantie of the eleventh and
twelfth centuries, see d'Alvemy, "La survivancH de la magie antique," pp. 154-
78; Lynn Thorndike, History of Magic and Ex: perimental Science (New York,
1923-58) 2:214-29; Manitius, "Magie und Rhetorik," p. 60.
20. Rhetorimachia, pp. 154-56. Like love potions, abortifacients were among
the best-known products of the magical arts between the eleventh and the
seventeenth centuries.
21. Rhetorimachia, pp. 169-80.
22. Ibid., pp. 160-62.
23. Cowdrey, "Anselm of Besate," p. 122.
24. On the origins of the Gerbert legend, see J. J. Dollinger, Die Papstfabeln
des Mittelalters (Munich, 1863), pp. 155-59; F.. Picavet, Gerbert (Paris, 1897);
F. Eichengriin, Gerbe1t als Personlichkeit (Leipzig, 1928).
25. Patrologia Latina 179, cols. 1137-44.
26. See references in Joseph Hansen, Zaub11rwahn, Inquisition tmd Hexen
prozess (Munich, 1900), p. 96, and D0llinge1r, Papstfabeln, pp. 151-59. The
charges of magic against eleventh-century popes have not, in general, attracted
the attention of modem scholars, except for the famous and fabulous case of
Gerbert.
27. PL 179, cols. 1188-90.
28. Ibid., cols. 1190-91. ,
29. Ibid., cols. 1 142-44.
30. Ibid., cols. 1144-45. I have not been able to discover any reference to
this episode in the works of Peter Damian.
31. Olavus Magnus, Historia de gentibus septentrionalibus (Basel, 1567),
book 3, chap. 21, pp. 119-20. Olavus cites Vincent of Beauvais as his source.
The story is also cited in the thirteenth-century Speculum Laicorum, ed. J. Th.
Welter (Paris, 1914), p. 104. J:he story also became a popular source of
sixteenth-century illustrations. Besides the woodcut in Olavus Magnus, p. 119,
see also Conrad Lycosthenus, Prodigiomm ac Ostentorum Chronicon ( Basel,
1577). The story, as did many others like it, appears to have appealed to
writers on popular devotion and penance in the fourteenth and fifteenth cen
turies. See G. R. Owst, The Destructorium Viciorum of Alexander Carpenter
(London, S.P.C.K., 1952), pp. 32-37, and Owst, "Sortilegium in English
Homiletic Literature of the Fourteenth Century," in Studies Presented to Sir
Hilary Jenkinson, ed. J. Conway Davies (London, 1957 ) , pp. 272-303.
32. I adopt the general categories of Jeffrey B. Russell, especially as de
scribed in his Witchcraft in the Midclle Ages and his Dissent and Reform in
the Early Middle Ages (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1965) as well as his article
"Interpretations of the Origins of Medieval Heresy," Medieval Studies 25
(1963 ) : 26-53. More recently, the following works have offered some important
modifications to Russell's thesis: R. I. Moore, "The Origins of Medieval
Heresy," llistory, n. s. 55 ( 1970 ) : 21-36; Walter Wakefield and A. P. Evans,
Heresies of the High Middle Ages (New York, 1968); R. I. Moore, The Birth
of Popular Heresy (New York, 1965 ); Janet L. Nelson, "Society, Theodicy and
the Origins of Heresy: Towards a Reassessment of the Medieval Evidence," in
Schism, Heresy and Religious Protest, Studies in Church History, vol. 9, ed.
Derek Baker (Cambridge, England, 1972) , pp. 65-77. On the relation to
popular religion, see R. Manselli, La religion populaire au moyen age (Montreal
and Paris, 1975) and the monumental work of Herbert Grundmann, Religiose
Bewegungen im Mittelalter ( Hildesheim, 1961). Among other ongoing publi
cations of current research, the numbers of the Cahiers de Fanjeaux usually
contain important studies.
33. J. Stevenson, ed., Radulphi de Coggeshall Chronicon Anglicanum, (Lon
don, 1875 ), 121-25; translation in W. Wakefield and A. P. Evans, Heresies,
pp, 251-54.
34. Walter Map, De nugiis curialium, ed. M. R. James (Oxford, 1914). See
also below, p. 51.
35. Wakefield and Evans, Heresies, pp. 249-56.
36. See below, Chapter 6.
�7. Especially the works of Caesarius of Heisterbach, Thomas of Cantimpre,
Etienne de Bourbon, and Vincent of Beauvais.
38. Moore, The Birth of Popula1' Heresy; Norman Cohn. Europe's Inner
Demons: An Enquiry Inspired by the Great Witch-Hunt (New York, 1975),
pp. 1-16.
39. Georges Bourguin, Guibert de Nogent: flistoire de sa vie (Paris, 1907);
John F. Benton, Self and Society in Medieval France (New York, 1970), pp.
212-14.
40. Gesta synodi aurelianensis, in M. Bouquet, Receuils des historiens des
Gaules et de la France, vol. 10 (Paris, 1738-86) pp. 536-39; Russell, Dissent
and Reform, pp. 276-77. As Russell and Cohn have emphasized, early Christian
invective against Gnostics, Manichaeans, and other heretics influenced later
Christian depictions of Cathars and other herntics.
41. See James Feams, "Peter von Bruis und die religiose Bewegung des 12.
Jahrhunderts," Archiv fur Kulturgeschichte 48 ( 1966 ) : 31 1-35; idem, Petri
Venerabilis Contra Petrobrnsianos hereticos (Tumhout, 1968); Jean Chatillon,
"Pierre le Venerable et Jes Petrobrusiens," in Pierre Abelard, Pierre le Venerable,
Colloques Intemationaux du C. N. R. S. (Paris,. 1975), pp. 165-79.
42. Peter Abelard, Ethica c. 5, PL 178, coli. 648. See also Peter Abelard's
Ethics, ed. D. E. Luscombe (Oxford, 1971), and Leif Crane, Peter Abelard
(New York, 1970), pp. 148, 183.
43. Jean Leclerq, et al., Sancti Bernardi Serrrwnes super Cantica Canticorum,
(Rome, 1957-58), vol. 2, sermon 65, pp. 172-77.
44. loannis Saresbe1'iensis episcopi Carnotensis Policratici, ed. C. C. I. Webb,
2 vols. ( Oxford, 1909), 1: 14. All further references to the work will be to
Policraticus, book, chapter, and page number in vol. l of Webb's edition.
45. In works from traditions as diverse as those which influenced Henry
Charles Lea and Jeffrey Russell, the importan, ce of prosecution of heresy for -/
the later prosecution of witches is virtually tak, en for granted.
46. The best guide to the work, aside from Webb's introduction, is Hans
Liebeschtitz, Medieval Humanism in the Life and Writings of John of Salisbury
(London, 1950), pp. 23-34.
47. Aside from some eleventh-century invective against couriers, such as
that of Adalbero of Laon, the work of John of Salisbury is the nrst major moral
treatise to recognize the unique structure of the twelfth-century court and to
treat it as other twelfth-century writers treated the vices and virtues of other
parts of traditional society.
48. Policraticus, book 1, chap. 10- book 2, passim, pp. 49-169.
49. Helen Waddell, The Wandering Scholars (reprint ed., London, 1968), p.
xiii. It should be noted, however, that John is writing of the vices of powerful
ngures and addresses his book to Thomas Becket, then chancellor of Henry II,
who himself was several times accused of resoirting to the very practices that
John condemns. It is not, therefore, surprising that John should cast his con
demnation of twelfth-century courtiers' magic in classical and patristic terms.
50. Policraticus, book 2, chap. 28, pp. 164-1 65. On this episode and others
similar to it, see Liebeschiitz, John of Salisbury,, pp. 26-27, 76-77, and Barbara
Helbling -Gloor, Natur und Aberglaube im Policraticus des Johannes van Salis
bury (Zurich, 1956).
51. See the figure discussed by Gervais of Tii lbury, below, pp. 54-55, and in
Chapter 4.
52. See Thorndyke, 2: 14-304.
53. Above, p. 44; see also M.-D. Chenu, Nature, Man, and Society in the
Twelfth Century trans. J. Taylor and L. K. Little (Chicago, 1968) pp. 270-309.
54. Notably by C. H. Haskins, The Renaisli,Clnce of the Twelfth Century
(Cambridge, Mass., 1927) and by many scholars since, the most recent of whom
is Christopher Brooke, The Twelfth-Century Renaissance (New York, 1969).
Few twelfth-century scholars, however, appear to have taken such criticisms
as those of John of Salisbury senously or to have paid much attention to the
darker side of the twelfth century, the prevalence of magic, the rise of heresy,
and the new emotionally charged anti-Jewish literature of the period. The
dark side of the twelfth century renaissance has yet to find its historian.
55. See Peter Brown, "Sorcerf Demons, and the Rise of Christianity: from
Late Antiquity to the Middle Ages," in Religion and Society in the Age of
Saint Augustine, ed. P. Brown ( New York, 1972).
56. It is in th� life of those in late Roman imperial society whose careers
were insecure and depended upon fortune and favor that Brown has found the
greatest practice of magic in the fourth and fifth centuries. See Chapter 1,
above, and Chapter 4, below, for thirteenth- and fourteenth-century courts.
57. Among other scholars, Erich Kohler has also noted the bearing of real
social pressures upon courtiers. See also 'vV. J. Schroder, Der Ritter zwischen
Welt und Gott (Weimar, 1952).
58. Walter Map, De nugiis curialium, ed. M. R. James (Oxford, 1914). See
also the English translation by F. Tupper and M. B. Ogle, Master Walter Map's
Book De Nugis Curialium (Courtiers' Trifles) (New York, 1924 ) , and James
Hinton, "De Nugis Curialium: Its Plan and Composition," PMLA 32 ( 1917):
81-132.
59. Thomas Aquinas, De So1tibus ad Dominum ]acobum de Tolongo, in
Aquinas, Opuscula (Paris, 1927), pp. 144-62; see also Charles E. Hopkin, The
Share of Thomas Aquinas in the Growth of the Witchcraft Delusion (Philadel
phia, 1940), pp. 87-88, 11. 10.
60. Map, De nugis curialium l, xi. See also Hinton, "De Nugis Curialium,"
p. 75, and Helaine Newstead, "Some Observations on King Herla and the
Herlething," in Medieval Literature and Folklore Studies: Essays in Honor of
Francis Lee Utley, eds. J. Mandel and B. A. Rosenberg (New Brunswick,
1970) , pp. 105-10.
61. Map, De nugis curialium l , xii-xiv.
62. Ibid. 1, xxix-xxxi.
63. The theme of illusory food and its association with heretics and, later,
witches, suggests one aspect of the use of rhetorical commonplaces in the
genre of invective against theological deviants.
64. Ibid. 2, viii-xxxii.
65. Ibid. 3, vi. This story has not often been associated with the peace move
ment of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, but it appears to me to derive from
the invective against violent nobles that became common during this period.
66. Ibid., 4, xi.
67. John W. Baldwin, Masters, Princes and Merchants: The Social Views of
Peter the Chanter and His Circle, 2 vols. (Princeton, 1970) 1 : 198-204. Peter
62 Rhetoric and Magic in the Eieventh and Twelfth Centuries
the Chanter identified magicis and histriones in, the Verbum Abbreviatum, PL
205, cols. 153-56.
68. G. W. Leibnitz, ed., Scriptores rerum bmnsvicensium, vol. 1 (Hanover,
1707), pp. 881-1005, and R. Pauli, ed., MGH, Scriptores xxvii, pp. 358-94.
69. Script. rer. bruns., 1:883.
70. Ibid., 1 : 960-1005. Some of Gervais's sto,ries have been widely cited in
histories of witchcraft. See Henry Charles Lea, Materials Toward a History of
Witchcraft, ed. and Comp. Arthur Howland ( Philadelphia, 1938), 1 : 170-98;
Hansen, Zauberwahn, p. 138; Russell, Witchcraft in the Middle Ages, pp.
1
117-18.
71. H. G. Richardson, "Gervase of Tilbury," History 46 ( 1961 ) , reprinted in
Sylvia Thrupp, ed., Change in Medieval Society (New York, 1964), pp. 89-
102, with full bibliography.
72. Lea, Materials, 1 : 170-98.
3
Learning anq_ Magic in the
Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries
THE PLACE OF MAGIC IN THE ORGANIZATION

OF KNOWLEDGE
During the course of the twelfth century, European learning was greatly
altered both by the increased absorption of .,Greek and Arabic scientific
and philosophical works and by the articula;;;;-;;;r inB.uenc;t of the
s�stic method. In the process of acquainting itself with 1.rabi9 learn-I
ing, however, western European culture also encountered an impressively
9 large body of formal, learned magic, the most conspicuous and appealing·
of which was prooaofy -astrology, but &qhem� and other forms of magic 1
1
were also included. T�ux of new knowledge, appealing to the

scholastic method, greatly transfo1med the character of European learn
ing and added considerable substance to the hitherto inchoate concept
of learned magic. The casual references on the part of Anselm of Besate
and others to books of necromancy and to the picturesque and terrifying,
hut not specific, denunciations of magic practices by moraJi.,ts could be
} applied to a specific and available body of knowledge after the mid
twelfth century. The best place to begin to assess the significance of the
new materials and methods for the history of the magician is to consider
Jthe history of the place of magic in the formal organization of knowl
edge, a topic that greatly interested intellectuals from the early twelfth
century on.1
Shortly after his conversion to Christianity in 1106, the Spanish Jew
63
--
Pedro Alfonso produced a collection of stories called the Disciplina
64 Learning and Magic in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries
-/ clericalis, "The Scholar's Guide," as its laitest translators have christened

it.2 This work, which derives from the oriental traditions of learned
storytelling, contains a brief discussion of the seven liberal arts. The
J narrator notes here that some scholars allow "necromancy" to be consid
ered one of the arts, while others dispute about the competing claims of
natural science and grammar. The whole passage is as follows:
One of his pupils spoke to a teacher and said to him, "I would like for you
to enumerate the seven arts, seven principles and seven gentlemanly pursuits
in order."
The teacher answered, "I will enumerate them for you. These are the arts:
dialectics, arithmetic, geometry, physics, music, and astronomy. Concerning
the seventh, many diverse opinions exist. The philosophers who do not believe
in prognostication say that necromancy is the seventh; others among them,
namely those who believe in prognostication and in philosophy, think that it
should be a science which encompasses all 111atural matters and mundane ele
ments. Those who do not devote themselves to philosophy say that it is gram
mar. These are the gentlemanly pursuits: niding, swimming, archery, boxing,
fowling, chess, and poetry. The principles: are the avoidance of gluttony,
drunkenness, lust, violence, lying, avariciousness, and evil conversation."
The pupil said, "I believe that in these times no one with these qualities
exists."3
Pedro Alfonso's speculative division of the liberal arts undoubtedly

derives from Arabic sources which trcat, ed the trivium and quadrivium
with considerably greater freedom than Latins, possessing as they did a
much wider acquaintance with sources for magic, the natural sciences,
and letters. There is no evidence that an)t western writer unfamiliar with
the sources and traditions that infonned the Discipl-ina clericalis ever
considered the seven liberal arts to consist of any but the traditionally
accepted subjects of the trivium and quadrivium: grammar, rhetoric,
dialectic, arithmetic, music, astronomy, and geometry.
There were, however, other divisions of knowledge in the twelfth cen
tury that did afford a place, not for "necr,omancy," as Latin literary usage
understood the term, but for formal magic generally. A scheme of organ
izing the sciences, once falsely attributed! to William of Couches, placed
the sciences of "Magic" ( astrology, sorcery, divination, augury, and illu
� sion) parallel to the "Mechanical" arts; the two categories together con
stituted the larger classification of Practical Sciences. The three evils that
plagued the human condition were Ignorance, Concupiscence, and In
firmity; and the Practical Sciences were considered the remedy for
Infirmity. The school of Abelard adapted the scheme of the practical
sciences devised by the first group into a new schema in which the Prac-
p
tical Sciences ( including the "magical" and "mechanical" arts) were

Learning and Magic in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries 65
I
' paral leled with Wisdom ( divided into "eloquence" and "philosophy") as
part of the natural means of human salvation.
Around 1140 the archdeacon of Toledo, Gundissalinus, produced a
work called De divisione philosophiae, in which he-probably closer to
4
,
. the Arabic sources · of Pedro Alfonso than the twelfth-century thinkers

mentioned above-gave a legitimate place to magic, not as a true science
or as a virtue, but as worldly vanities that are neither to be praised nor
condemned.5
By the middle of the twelfth ,.century, then, the place of magic had
�btained a foothold in the divisions of knowledge that derived either from
J:.Arabic sources ( Pedro Alfonso and Gundissalinus) or from the philosophi
cal and logical studies of the schools of northern France. Although Pedro
Alfonso included magic as "necromancy," it is very likely that he had in
mind the various forms of divination, including astrology and augury,
rather than divinin� br, means of corpses, the literal meaning of necro
mantia ( later nigromantia .a--Certa1nTy,-Gt�di�lini.;s gi;es his greatest
attention to the divinatory sciences rather than to the full panoply of prac
)
tices that could be labelled as magic in the twelfth century. The sciences
designated as magic in the organization of knowledge by the school of
William of Conches are probably similar. They consist of philosophical
disciplines of the kind attributed to Gerbert and other popes in legend,
the less diabolical practices of Rotiland in the Rhetorimachia, and the
manipulation of natural forces by means of a variety of kinds of superior
knowledge, perhaps not excluding the activities of the priest who tried to
turn the young John of Salisbury into a medium. In the Arabic world, of
course, these studies, particularly astrology, were considerably better de
veloped than in western Europe, and they retained a respectable place in
Islamic culture. In western Europe, however, the new twelfth-century
interest in logic and philosophical learning borrowed slowly from these
Arabic traditions, while coloring magic with some of the rhetorical de
scriptions we have seen in the literary sources of the eleventh and twelfth
centuries. Not parallel at the beginning of the twelfth century, the Arabic
and Latin divisions of the sciences drew closer together from the mid
twelfth century on. In spite of the growing familiarity in the west with
Arabic philosophy and science, however, magic did not survive among the
t legitimate sciences, chiefly through the opposition and influence of Hugh
of St. Victor.
- --- In his Didascalicon, w1itten around 1141, Hugh included a powerful

denunciation of -;Jfforms of magic:
, . _, -·-
Magic is not accepted as a part of philosophy, but stands with a false claim
outside it: the mistress of every form of iniquity and malice, lying about the
truth and truly infecting men's minds, it s,wuces them from divine religion,
prompts them from the cult of demons, fosters corruption of morals, and impels
the minds of its devotees to every wicked and criminal indulgence. . . .
Sorcerers are those who, with demonic incantations or amulets or any other
execrable types of remedies, by the cooperation of the devils and by evil in
stinct, perform wicked things. Performers of illusions are those who with their
'pemonic art make sport of human senses through imaginative illusions about
pne thing's being turned into another.'
Drawing heavily from late patristic and Carolingian strictures against
magic, notably from the works of Isidore of Seville and Hrabanus Maurus,
Hugh's blanket condemnation of all magic as demonic and sinful exerted
considerable influence throughout the twelfth and thirteenth centu1ies. It
drove magic from the tables of the organization of legitimate knowledge,
in spite of the interest of twelfth centw· y philosophers and the growing
J
familiarity with and respect for Arabic astrology. In Robert Kilwardby's

De ortu sive divisione scientiarum, written in the second half of the
thirteenth century, Hugh's stricture against the place of magic among
the legitimate sciences is repeated.8 Somewhat earlier than Kilwardby,
William of Auvergne, bishop of Paris, is: sued similar strictures, although
William goes into much greater detail coincerning the circulation of books
of Arabic astrology and books of magic, libri magorum atque maleficorum,
in Paris during his own student days. 0 The strictures of Hugh of St. Victor
generally held, in spite of the survival of older books of magic, the
preservation of charms and incantations in individual manuscripts during
the twelfth century, the growing familiarity with, and interest in Arabic
science ( especially astrology ), and the sltrong claims made by astrologers
and, later, philosophers and natural scientists, that there was a legitimate
place for at least certain kinds of magic during the late twelfth and
thirteenth centuries. Repeated by William of Auvergne and Robert
Kilwardby, Hugh's strictures were also , echoed by other theologians and
lawyers. 10 Even on those occasions when theologians had to admit that
astrology seemed to be a legitimate science and could in theory advise
human beings of the future, there seems. to have been no cnse of any
individual astrologer being able completely to escape the charges of being
a magician or sorcerer. To a very slight extent, astrology alone seems to
have acquired a certain degree of legitimacy in spite of the strictures of
C
Hugh of St. Victor and his followers. :But astrology is the only occult
science that did, and in most individual cases particular asb-ologers were
always liable to charges of dealing in forbidden magic.
Other testimonies to the enduring infl! uence of Hugh's exclusion of all
forms of magic from legitimate knowledge are those of !19ger Bacon and
11
Arnald of VilJanova late in the thirteenth century.12 In spite of their

own personal reputations as magicians ( derived from the Victorine stric-
Learning and Magic in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries
ture ), both �.!_e!:��p.d��ne� most forms, of magic as diabolica�. Even

67
into tl1e sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, those writers who defended
the legitimacy of astrology, hermetic magic, or other forms of magic felt
compelled to denounce the remaining forms as' diabolic and damnable.' 3
Thus, in spite of a number of forces favorable to the legitimate study of
some forms of magic that proved formidable in the twelfth century, and
even reappeared in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the old patristic
condemnation of magic outright, restated by Hugh of St. Victor early in
the twelfth century and firmly a part of scholastic theology by the mid
J thirteenth century, remained a v!!:tually impassable obstacle. All types of
magic were equally condemned by it and, more important, many prac
;tlces-formerly regarded merely as harmful superstitions could be con-
Wemned as magic. In a sense, the rhetorical tradition, represented by
Anselm of Besate, the monastic depicters of heretical practices, and the
courtier literature of Walter Map and Gervais of Tilbury, won the day
at an important moment of the twelfth century, through the work of
Hugh of St. Victor. In spite of the growing ath·activeness and claims to
legitimacy of several forms of magic, the Arabic divisions of the sciences
represented by Pedro Alfonso and Gundissalinus, as well as the divisions
of the sciences represented by the schools of William of Conches and
Abelard, failed to give a place in the schemes of legitimate human knowl
edge to any form of magic except astrology. Moreover, as magical prac
tices began to take on a new substance through the revival of Arabic and
Greek philosophy, the content of magic changed. The actual practice was
taken !f!Ore seriously, the dangers it posed feared more intensely, and the
strictures against it reiterated more frequently. The remaining sections of
this chapter will trace the influence of Hugh of St. Victor and the grow
ing explicitness and fear of magic through the work of theologians, canon
lawyers, and philosophers during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.
MAGIC AND THEOLOGY IN THE TWELFTH CENTURY
The work of Hugh of St. Victor on the place of magic among the legiti
mate sciences drew upon a patristic and twelfth-century theological tra-
1 dition, and biblical study and the development of the science of theology
lcontinued to condemn magic in all its forms. Still, for the most part,
twelfth-century biblical scholarship did not, any more than Hugh, do
�ore than condemn witchcraft, heresy, and magic. No theologian appears
to have advocated the more rigorous prosecution of these offenses that
became characteristic of many churchmen, scholars and prelates during
the tl1irteenth century, and few theologians elaborated upon the nature
and content of magic.
\J
--
Of the passages in scripture that dealt with magic, perhaps the most
68
frequently cited text in the later medieval and early modern period wa,;
Exodus 22:18, "Maleficos non patier·is vivere: "Thou shalt not suffer a
[ witch] to live." This text, frequently cited by later theologians and
witch-hunters alike in its literal sense, was not in the twelfth century
regarded as condemning the magician to death. The very term malefieus
, in the twelfth century indicated sorcerers generically-not, of course, the
I.I later type of witch or magician design ated by the terms malefica or
maleficus in the better-known witchcraft literature of a later period. The
glossa ordinaria of the Bible, completed i n the course of the early twelfth
century, is explicit on this meaning:
Maleficos non patieris vivere. Qui praestigiis magicae artis et diabolicis figmentis
agunt, haereticos intellige, qui a consortio fidelium qui vere vivunt, excom
municandi sunt, donec maleficium erroris in eis moriatur.1 4
That is, maleficii are those who use the iillusions of the magic art and of 1
the devil. They are heretics. They shou1ld be separated from the com
munity of the faithful, which is true life. They are to be excommunicated
so that their error will die with them.
This citation is important because olf its threefold character: First,,
maleficii are associated with the devil; second, they are clearly identified,
as heretics; third, they are not to �!led, but excommunicated from the,
community of believers. I�he last nstance, vfve;e J.s- clearly "iriferpreted.
figuratively, not literally. The glossa ordinaria, earlier than most texts
i
cited by historians, clearly identifies magic with heresy, long before those
theologians of the thirteenth century who are alleged to have been the
first to do so.
Other biblical texts also deal with magicians, and although few of them
are as explicit as the gloss to Exodus 22: 18, they systematically note that
all forms of magic are forbidden. The episode described in Exodus 7-11,
the defeat of Pharoah's magicians by Moses and Aaron and the ten
plagues upon Egypt, was treated in highly figurative terms by the glossa
ordinaria, partly as an anticipation of the coming of Christ, and partly as
a figurative denunciation of the wisdom of the pagans.U The gloss to
Exodus 8:18, for example, explains the plague of blood as the doctrines of
the philosophers, the frogs as the imag, es ( figmenta ) of the poets, and
the maggots as the sophismata of the dialecticians, "which deceive the
whole world." That section of the gloss to Exodus 8:19 attributed to
Strabo notes, "Note that by the third sign the magi are overcome, since
all worldly wisdom, evils, and philosophy are conquered by the Trinity."1 "
That the gloss represents a traditional theological view is suggested by its
�
book of his Quaestionum in Heptateuchum.11

sirnilarity to St. Augustine's own treatment of the same text in the second
the glossators. The gloss to Leviticus 19:31, neque ab ariolis, states:

The injunctions of Leviticus 19:31- 20:6 also drew some comment from
( curant, vel animam interficiant." The gloss to Leviticus 20:6, anima qui
"Veneficis, qui d�emonum scilicet nomina invocant, et aliquando corpus
declinaver-it ad magos, states:

18
l Grande peccatum est ad magos et ariolos declinare: hoc est etiam a Deo
recedere. Sunt autem magi intelligi�jles, qui in nomine Domini falsa prophe
t,. tant; sunt arioli deceptores et adulatores, qui veneficis verbis multorum cor
rumpunt et a veritate avertunt. 19
magi and other practitioners are generally treated alike by the glossators
These texts, and indeed most other Old Testament texts dealing with
of the early twelfth century. Since several of these texts were not com
mented upon by Augustine, these glosses cited above would appear to
derive from the ninth-century tradition or from the early scholastic
glossators themselves. The glosses unifo1mly condemn magical practices,
and sometimes they list them, as in the gloss to Deuteronomy 18:9-11.
Denouncing all forms of magic, the glossators, however, do not go beyond
that while magic is to be equated to heresy, the maleficus is not to be

� denunciation. Only the gloss to Exodus 22:18 is explicit, and it states
killed, but excommunicated.

The most famous passage in the Old Testament, Saul's invocation of
the spi1it of Samuel by the witch of Endor, is treated by the glossators in
and only the gloss to the magus in 1 Samuel 18:9 is noteworthy:

a similar way. The gloss's treatment of the whole episode is quite b1ief,
Magi utuntur sanguine humano, et contactu mortuorum in maleficiis et divina

tionibus arioli solis verbis, id est incantationibus divinant. Pythius dicitur Apollo
harum artium cultor, a quo Pythonissae, id est divini: hos Saul quasi zelo legis
delevit, quia, ut aiunt, a daemonibus coacti David regem esse futurum
praeconabantur.20
The injunctions of Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy and the story of

Saul and the spirit of Samuel ( or, as medieval theologians pointed out,
following St. Augustine, the demon having the appearance of Samuel )
;ere thus �xplained by the twelfth- century biblical commentators, who
111 the semantic history of such terms as magia, maleficia, divinatio, vene
_inked magic to heresy and whose works constitute an important chapter
ficia, ariolus, and incantatio. The commentators, explaining to their stu-

--
dents the laws and history of Israel, preserved and transmitted the tenns
70
of the Vulgate and something of the foroe of patristic, especially Augusti

1 nian, disapproval of magic. They also on rare occasions added views of
their own, particularly the commentator on Exodus 22:18. Their suces
sors, however, such as Robert Pullen, Peter Lombard, and Peter Comestor,
tended not to discuss these texts, and it is plausible that twelfth- an�
early thirteenth-century theologians de1ived their knowledge of magic
and its identification with heresy from the glossa ordinaria alone.21 The
infrequency with which later twelfth-century theologians discuss magic
indicates that the observations of the Fathers and the glossators were
probably satisfactory as far as the needs of theologians went. Such texts
as those cited above would suffice to explain the tone of John of Salis
bury, as well as that of Peter the Chanter of Paris and other theologians
of the turn of the century, who said little more about magic than to
condemn it, along with, and in the same places as, prostitution, gambling,
and acting. The very slight concern displayed by Peter the Chanter with
anything remotely to do with magic is indicated by his restriction of any
mention of it to the section of the Ve1rbum abbreviatum dealing with
judicial ordeals and the use of sortes and sortilegia to tempt God.� The
discussions of the glossators and the slight use made of magic by theo
logians until the early thirteenth century J::mphasizes a point made earlier:
2
a great deal of what is commonly callled "medieval" witchcraft belief

must be identified by the nature of the sources that discuss such topics,
/ the purpose of the genres in which such discussions occur, and the kinds
of writers who do ( or, as here, do not) show much interest in the topic
of magic. The much cited text of Exodns 22: 18, for example, appears to
have been interpreted by no one in the twelfth century according to its
literal meaning, and the most prestigioius theological source, the glossa
ordinaria to the Bible, although it play:s the important role of equating
magic with heresy, explicitly states that the magician, like the heretic,
u
· • should be excommunicated, not killed.
Like Hugh of St. Victor, twelfth-century biblical commentators left no
I
l room for any kind of legitimate magic at all. Heavily dependent upon St.
Augustine and other patristic writers, their strictures governed the views
of theologians down to the thirteenth century, when the condemnation
of magic and heresy alike occupied theologians' attention far more than
it had in the twelfth century. It remained for later theologians and bibli
cal commentators to impose a literal interpretation on Exodus 22: 18-23
The figurative interpretation of twelfth-century theologians, however,
coupled with Hugh of St. Victor's denunciation of magic, was more than
sufficient to stigmatize all forms of magi ic and to lay the groundwork for
its universal condemnation in succeeding cenh1ries.
p
Learning and Magic in the Ticel�h and Thirteenth Centuries

nIE MAGICIAN AND CANON LAW IN THE TWELFTH
71
AND EARLY THIRTEENTH CENTURIES
The penitentials ca itularies, a al letters, conciliar canons, and early

: ):'.
collections of canon law in whlgb_m_ost..oL the...e_s1,1l e 1�as
l aoout magis_E� Jound. �a.Ye way...in-1:he..micb.t.weH.th-oentui:.y-t.o_a_sxste
r
matic revis�lli!w.. @d to the._ b.egin_ni.ngu>Lvcieruili,�j!}riSprudence.
J 1140 Gratian, a monk of Bologna and one of the greatest legal scholars
of all time, published his Concordia discordantium canonum, commonly
n
called the Decretum, in which h�_attempted to systematize the legal doc

trines of the Church according to the critical and analytical methods of
some of his predecessors and the new method of scholastic logic.24
Gratian's Decretum constitutes a juridical watershed in Ew-opean history.
The earlier attempts of Burchard of Worms and lvo of Chartres and
others to produce a rational, systematized body of ecclesiastical law were
overshadowed by Gratian's work and its immediate popularity. It became
the standard teaching text in the schools, and it and the comments of
masters upon it became the introduction to ecclesiastical law for the next
eight centuries.
The second, and larger part of the Decretum consists of cau�ae, imagi
nary legal cases, which are bro}sen down into analytical questions, quaes
tiones, and solved by selected texts from Church authorities called
canones. Linking the canones and quaestiones together and leading the
reader through the complex law are comments of Gratian himself, the
dicta, either before (ante) or after (post) a particular text. A series of
texts not originally in the Decretum, called paleae, were added by later
twelfth-century scholars, but the whole work and its organization are
Gratian's. For an authoritative text to be found in the Decretum, and
hence in the law, it must exist either as a canon or as part of the dicta
Gratiani ante ( d.g.a.) or dicta Gratiani post ( d.g.p.) or as a palea. For
legal purposes, the rich and extraordinarily varied earlier literature on
magic was effectively reduced to what Gratian chose to include. It is
impossible to consider Gratian's own opinions on the magic of his own
time, and so one cannot speak of his opinions as one can, for instance, of
that of John of Salisbury. It is, however, possible to examine Gratian's
discussions of magic carefully in order to ascertain exactly what in magic
concerned ecclesiastical lawyers. A great deal has been written about
canon lawyers' development of the ideas of magic and witchcraft, but
these observations are often made by scholars unfamiliar with the law
itself. As we will see, the topic of magic in canon law from Gratian on
was extremely limited, generated few later new texts, and in general did
not exercise the lawyers' interests or imagination.
The twenty-sixth causa of Gratian's Decretum presents the case of a
72
priest, excommunicated by his bishop a: s an unrepentant magician and

diviner, who is reconciled to the Church at the point of death by another
priest, without the bishop's knowledge. It is within 'the framework of this
mainder are found in causa 33, quaestio 1, canones 1-4, which we will
case that most of Gratian's texts concerning magic are found. The re
consider below. Causa �d1vlaea· 11it:o- sevenquestions, aif of which

di\'.Jnation. The first-question asks what sor
tJli_gjµm is. It contains on� canon, a text Jfrom Isidore of Seville's Etymol
touch - �pon }Ac;! g_roc�ss:cJ
ogies, which defines sortilegi as those who "under the name of a false
religion by those things which are called the sortes sanctorum, practice
seek to dis2ov�r the future.'.'".; The'second question · as1<:s wliethei: so'".i-ti1eg

the technique of divination, or, by the careful inspection of scriptures,
ium is· asin. Gratian cites several historical instances of approved sortileg
ium in his dictum ante c. 1, and the firstt few canons appear to approve
heavily from St. Augustine, especially D.e doctrina christiana, 19-21, De

it. Gratian's proof texts, however, are canons 6--11, in which he draws
civitate Dei, and the Confessions. Gratian's conclusion is that sortilegium

�s in�d.,a...sia--because it necessai:ily involves the invocation of demons.
Questions 3 and 4 list the kinds of divination. The fifth question asks
whether magicians and diviners, if they do not cease their activities,
ought to be excommunicated. Gratian answers in the affirmative:
Those who participate in the cult of idols are to be separated from the com
munion of the faithful. Hence, as the Apos.tle Paul says in his epistle to the
Corinthians [ 1 Corinthians 5:9-11] "If a certain brother is named a fornicator
or a miser or a worshipper of idols, do not :SO much as eat with him."26
The first eleven canons in question 5 consist of a series of texts from early
popes, churchmen, and councils forbidding va1"ious forms of magical
tion. C��,g_fan:tQUs_'.:_witcl�-text ". E.:.12�coizLcalled the Canon

practices and uniformly condemning theiir practitioners to excommunica
Episcopi because individual canons in the works of Gratian and_ others

were usually referred to by their first wo,rd or words.27 The Canon Epis
copi is an unusual text, partly because it says a number of different things,
and partly because it is attributed to a church council of whose work it is
certainly not a part. Gratian, however, , who relied heavily upon the
patristic writers and early church councils, understood it to be a part of
Ivo of Chartres' Panormia, it is listed under the work of that council. In

the work of the Council of Ancyra of 314, probably because in his source,
fact, the Canon Episcopi appears for the first time in the canonical collec
tion of Regino of Prum early in the tenth century, and its form is clearly
that of a capitula1y of the ninth century, although some scholars have sug-
p

gested that Regino himself either created it by combining several lost
capitularies or perhaps invented it himself. It was used by Burchard of
The Canon Episcopi states:

Worms and Ivo of Chartres.
Bishops and their officials must labor with all their strength to uproot
thoroughly from their parishes the pernicious art of sorcery and malefice i n
vented by the Devil, and i f they find a man or woman follower o f this wicked- ,
/. ness to eject them foully disgraced from their parishes. For the Apostle says,
"A man that is a heretic after the first and second admonition avoid." Those are
held captive by the Devil who, leaving their creator, seek the aid of the Devil.
And so Holy Church must be cleansed of this pest. It is also not to be omitted�
that some wicked women, perverted by the Devil, seduced by illusions and
phantasms of demons, believe and profess themselves, in the hours of night, to
ride upon certain beasts with Diana, the goddess of pagans, and an innumer
able multitude of women, and in the silence of the dead of night to traverse
great spaces of earth, and to obey her commands as of their mistress, and to
be summoned to her service on certain nights./But I wish it were they alone
who perished in their faithlessness and did not draw many with them into the
destruction of infidelity. For an innumerable multitu�e, deceived by this false
opinion, believe this to be true, and so believ�ng, wander from the right faith
and are involved in the error of the pagans when they think that there is any
thing of divinity or power except the one God. Wherefore the priests through
out their churches should preach with all insistence to the people that they
may know this to be in every way false and that such phantasms are imposed
on the minds of infidels and not by the divine but by the malign:::nt spirit. Thus
Satan himself, who transfigures himself into an angel of light, when he has
captured the mind of a miserable woman and has subjugated her to himself by
infidelity and incredulity, immediately transforms himself into the species and
similitudes of different personages and deluding the mind which he holds cap
tive and exhibiting things, joyful or mournful, and persons, known or un
known, leads it through devious ways, and while the spirit alone endures this;
the faithless mind thinks these things happen not in the spirit but in the body'.
Who is there that is not led out of himself in dreams and nocturnal visions, and
sees much when sleeping which he had never seen waking? Who is so stupid
and foolish as to think that all these things which are only done in spirit hap
pen in the body, when the Prophet Ezekiel saw visions of the Lord in spirit
and not in the body, and the Apostle John saw and heard the mysteries of the
Apocalypse in the spirit and not in the body, as he himself says "I was in the
spirit"? And Paul does not dare to say that he was rapt in the body. It is there
fore to be proclaimed publicly to all that whoever believes such things or
similar to these loses the faith, and he who has not the right faith in God is
not of God but of him in whom he believes, that is, of the Devil. For of our
Lord it is written "All things were made by Him." Whoever therefore believes
that anything can be made, or that any creature can be changed to better or to
Worse or be transformed into another species or similitude, except by the
o/
Creator himself who made everything and through whom all things were made,
.....
is beyond doubt an infidel. 28
The Canon Episcopi says a number of different things: First, it insists

J that bishops and other clergy must drive sortilegium and the magical art _
T from their territories. Second, the canon denounces the beliefs of certain_
wicked women that they are transported about at night by Diana ( other
commentators add the names of other pagan divinities: Herodias and
Holda). The canon then goes on to say tlbat these beliefs are part of the
illusory tricks of Satan. Third, the canon denounces as inndelity the belief_
that any creature can be transformed into another species or likeness. The
extended description of demonic illusions in the second part of the canon
helps to explain the general intense dislike exhibited by moralists and
-1,theologians toward illusors and the art of praestigium.
Canons 13 and 15 of question 5 derive=from the thirteenth Council of
Toledo and from St. Augustine and denounce clergy who practice the
l opera maleficiae and declare the works of magicians to be illusory. Ques
A tions 6 and 7 deal with the more general problem of giving the last rites
to condemned sinners. They say nothing of magic.
Gratian's texts in this causa represent little in the way of innovation
except in their selectivity. All of them are , derived through Ivo of Chartres,
and most of them go back to Burchard's Decretum. Many of them consist
of patristic texts, particularly Augustinian texts, and it should be noted
that the revival of the patristic literature permits Gratian to bring twelfth
century church law more closely into line with the writings of the most
influential early churchmen. In the process, of course, a great deal of the
earlier literature on magic found, for example, in Burchard, earlier peni
tentials, and Carolingian capitularies is omitted. Thus, Gratian's selec
tivity, his strong reliance on pabistic texts, and his omission of many of
the varieties of magical beliefs so exha,ustivcly itemized by Burchard
especially characterizes the treatment of magic in this part of the De
cretum. Gratian intensified and lent the great authority of his work to
these texts, but the texts clearly deal with the magical arts and their con
demnation. Only one text, part of a canon, describes and denounces a7
superstition later important in witchcraft beliefs, that of night-flight
with Diana. Gratian's concerns here are virtually identical with those of
Ivo and John of Salisbury: learned magic, sacrificing to demons, and the
belief in night-Hight and shapeshifting. One distinctive feature of both
Ivo and Gratian is their turning away from the exhaustive lists of super
stitions in the penitentials and restoriing the condemnations of the
Church Fathers, early popes and councils to positions of emphasis.
Causa 33, the only other place in the Decretu.m where Cratian discusses
magic, is part of a series of causae devoted to the topic of impediments to
p
° m.�fil£_(.maleficia ) , and causa 33 deals with this topic. Only

iage. Among these impediments was the question of male i�po�s:e
.\ marr
canon3o£ quaestio 1 directly deals with the problem of impotence caused
1 induced by
Reims' ninth-century treatise De divortio Lotharii, which, as we have

by magic. This text is taken from Ivo, but it originated in Hincmar of
ninth-century imperial divorce. The canon, Si per sortiarias, states that if a

seen in Chapter 1, was an important opinion involved in the case of a
man is rendered impotent by magic and his impotence is not ended by -
be ended. This text, far more th� any other, including the Canon Epis
penitence, exorcisms, prayers, almsgiving, and the like, the marriage may
copi, was of interest to canon lawyers because it touched the vital area of
developing marriage law and thus represented a problem they encount
that maleficium may indeed cause impotence, and a number of other

ered far more often than they did magicians. 20 The canon states clearly
twelfth century sources, the most famous of which is the autobiography of

Guibert of Nogent, indicate that such cases were notable and of great
to concern themselves with impotence inspired by maleficium through the

general concern.30 As will be seen in the next chapter, canonists continued
thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, as did Thomas Aquinas in a text to be

considered below.31
Gratian's texts became the basis for the training of all ecclesiastical
lawyers, and in the ecclesiastical courts of the twelfth century these were
the texts used to solve the problems of working lawyers and judges. When
questions of magic came into the court's purview, it was these texts to
which lawyers would turn, even through other twelfth-century writers,
description of causa 26 suggests, Gratian considerably narrowed the jur

prima1ily theologians and moralists, also wrote on the subject. As the
istic purview of magical practices. Causa 26 was also the central place in
the Decretum for Gratian's discussion of superstitio. As we have seen,
Gratian's proof text is from chapters 19-21 of Augustine's De doctrina
christiana, and from the De civitate Dei. The bleak injunctions of the
bishop of Hippo became the lawyers' guide through the problems of
superstition and magical practices. Augustine's unreleting hostility toward
all forms of magic shaped strongly lawyers' attitudes and opinions in the
. Shortly after it appeared, the Decretum because the primary lawbook

twelfth and thirteenth centuries.
lo� cotY'le
l �n ecclesiastical circles, and its analytical and systematic approach to law
itself helped to separate law as a discipline distinct from theology.
Gratian's own view was probably that theology was a broad enough field
with the study of the Corpus iuris civilis of the revived study of Roman
to encompass the law. But the teaching of Gratian's text, the analogy
.
law, and the intense work of the teachers and students at Bologna, Paris,
and elsewhere, soon showed signs of creating a distinct discipline and
profession on the basis of Gratian's work and the commentaries upon it
that began to appear soon after 1140. These commentaries, the glosses, are
especially important for European intellectual history because they reflect
both the general response over time to the texts that became the founda
tions of ecclesiastical law and because they reveal what lawyers learned
about the application of the texts to the actual practice of law. Although
many of the early commentators restricted themselves to the meaning of
particular terms and a clarification of the cases under discussion, much of
their work dealt with the links between the legal texts and theology.
The Summa of Paucapalea, one of the earliest commentaries on the
Decretum, says little about causa 26, usually explaining the terms and
clarifying the references to scripture andl to the writings of the Fathers,
especially Augustine.3� The Summa of Magister Rolandus gives short
shrift to the varieties of divination: "These questiones, if I am not mis
taken, were shown by St. Augustine to be useless in his book De natura
demonum."
Rolandus goes on to say that all sortilegi and divini who do not desist
,J from their superstitions are to be excommunicated, as is shown by innum
erable canons. Neither of these commentators has anything to say concern
ing impotence induced by maleficia.33 Stephen of Tournai, whose Summa
was composed around 1160, takes his commentary virtually entirely from
Paucapalea and Rolandus, except for one or two personal observations. In
considering the types of divination, Stephen remarks offhandedly: "We
are neglecting the third and fourth questiones, and we will leave their
materials to the reader of poets and philosophers." Of quaestio 5, Stephen
simply echoes Rolandus: "This question r. equires no distinctions, because
all sacrilegi et similes, if they do not desi.st, are to be separated from the
Church." When Stephen turns to causa 33, quaestio 1, however, he offers
a much longer comment than the other two magistri. He argues that the
inability to consummate a marriage derives either from natural frigidity or
from maleficium. If a marriage is afBicted by frigidity, and if the woman ·
does not wish to be married, the marriage: may be dissolved. If maleficium
is involved and penitence does not allay i1t, the marriage may be dissol'.(ed,
but if husband and wife disagree as to who is at fault, the numbers of
compurgators and the processes of divorce are described. Stephen adds
the touching point that if the wife does not want a divorce, she may
remain, "and if not as a wife, then at least as a sister." Stephen then dis
cusses conflicting canonist opinions conc, erning the nature of the matri
monial bond, a topic that consistently engaged canonists' attention through
the next several centuries. 3•
A commentary roughly contemporary with that of Stephen is the
Summa Pa1'isiensis. Its gloss to causa 26 is very brief. In considering ques
tion 1, the author points out some difficulties:
It is first asked what are sortilegia. This question is much more to be defined
77
than definitive. It is resolved, however, by a single chapter, from Isidore,

although not thoroughly. 35
In discussing sortes, the author remarks that although they were per
mitte d in antiquity, they are forbidden today. In dealing with questions
3--4, the author simply observes that the divisions in Gratian's text are
those of the Roman encyclopedist Varro, thus perhaps cla1ifying Stephen
of Tournai's remark that he leaves such enumeration to those who read
the poets and philosophers. In the case of question 5, the author is ada
mant: Divini and sortilegi are to lte excommunicated if they do not cease.
Of this there is no doubt: super hoc nulla dubitatio. "Here it is said that
sortes are nothing other than divinationes et malefi,cia." In regard to
causa 33, quaestio I, the Summa Parisiensis raises the same question as
the Summa Stephen of Tournai. It seems that the question of the role of
malefi,cia in the general issue of the dissolvability of a marriage attracted
far more canonist attention, and generated much livelier disagreements,
than the material on divination, sortilegium, and other forms of magic.
The Summa of Rufinus, also dating from the late twelfth century, notes
that "sortilegium and auguratio and similar superstitions . . .36 are kinds
of heresy, at least in those who have received the faith of Christ." In dis
cussing question 5, Rufinus echoes Gratian and the other commentators:
"It is true without distinction that s01tilegi et similes, who refuse to desist,
are to be excommunicated. Clerics who make such consultations deserve
to be deposed and perpetually placed in a monastery." Laymen are to be
assigned a penitential period of five or seven years. In conside1ing causa
33, question I, Rufinus, like the author of the Summa Parisiensis and
Stephen of Tournai, reflects the conflicting views and difficult legal prob
lems that cases of frigidity and malefi,cia-caused impotence presented to
Church lawyers, with the broad room for fraud and collusion they offered,
and with the acute social pressures they reflected. Like the other canonists
considered here, however, Rufinus has no doubt that impotence may be
infucted by maleficia. The problem facing the canon lawyers is not the
nature of malefi,cium, upon which they tacitly agree, but upon the com
plexities of marital law and the problems posed by such cases.
The reticence of canon lawyers concerning the question of magic was
not restricted to the twelfth century. As we will see below, the thirteenth
centu1y witnessed some further development of these strictures, but not a
great deal. Thus, in spite of the variety of discussions of magic and related
practices in chronicles, moral stories, and discussions of legitimate knowl
edge, canon law remained relatively poor in original discussions of these
questions. Schulte cites a text from a thirteenth-century canonist of
Brandenburg, a Magister Baldwinus, who responds to the question ( in his
discussion de sortilegiis), "But what of c:ertain wicked women who believe I
and say that on nights they have ridden with Diana or Herodias upon cer
tain beasts, crossed on them over many lands, obeyed their commands, 1
and permitted themselves to be called to their service to perform better '
or worse things, or are enabled to be transformed into another species?" 1
Baldwin states that they are to be rejected by the Church, since they are
inspired by the wicked spirit, who creates these phantasmata for them,
which are purely illusory. He would lbe a fool who thinks that things
which have only a spiiitual existence could effect material transforma
tions. Whoever believes these things to be true does not have right faith,
"and beyond doubt is an infidel and worse than a pagan." Baldwinus's
comments are perfectly conventional amd are obviously directed at the ..
illuso1y character of the women's beliefs.3• Thus, well into the thirteenth
century, canon lawyers echoed the thought of John of Salisbury and
Gratian. It appears that not until the revival of learned magic and changes
in theology during the late thirteenth century did such canonist opinion
appear insufficient for dealing with magic and, later, witchcraft. The cate
gory sortilegium, in canon law, at least, . was restricted to those cases dis
cussed by Gratian. However imaginative the language of chroniclers and
moralists became, it found little echo in the law of the Christian commu-
nity. It is reflected somewhat more clearly in the new penitential hand
\1
(_, books of the later twelfth century.
MAGIC AND WITCHCRAFT IN THE TWELFTH- AND

THIRTEENTH-CENTURY PENITENTIALS
' One of the most fruitful sources for the histQry of beliefs in magic and
' 1velatedpractices has beer� the peniterntials of the ea1Jy Middle- Ag�
- From the� middle of the twelfth- century through the thirteenth century
and after, another series of penitentials : appeared, although these hav� not
generally been used by historians, partly because modern editions have
been lacking until recently, and partly because theologians and )egal
sources have dominated research.39 Beginning with the penitential of
,I Alain of Lille, and including the works ,of Bartholomew of Exeter, Robert
of Flamboro�!i, Thomas of Chobham, and _§t. Raymood_Qf....J:.��fqrt,
1 these penitentials.havey much to say of magic and related practj_ces _and
11 - late the enormous amounts
�! beliefs. T�imar purpose was to assimi .
of dogmatic and juridical material pr,od!!_c�d _hy p9pes, Church coun·
f cils, and individual theologians during the twelfth and early thirteenth
j ;.
..} centuries into a form suitable for confessors and penitents alike. These
works were designed as part of the Church's new p�sto_ral m9y�ment,1
aiia they were intended by their authors to provide an educational, I
p

as well as a penitential ex��eE_c� f9_r _those who used them. �e con
fess�f ex§'��<?.�1:.£e_ oi_the penitent, and the penitent intum
learn ed as much about his or her religion as had been learned in church
r,
o untiC tlie_ t�fli��-�erl"Uf�Y,. ,through serm()ns. These books, which
reached as least as wide an audience as the works of theologians and
canon lawyers, re�_e<;t a s_ troQg i11terest in and fear of magic in all its forms. .
"f'A.lthough the penitentials reflect the same condemnation of magic that we
have seen in the work of Hugh of St. Victor, the theologians, and the
canonists, their fear of it is considerably_g�ter.
The penitentials of the late twelfth and early thirteenth century were
with Gratian's Decretum. The greatest of thepenitentiaJs, that of Ray

influenced by both th.eolo.g:y and Smon l�. All of them show familiarity
mond 0� was, of course, written by the compiler of the Liber

Extra of PopeGregory IX. The penitential of Bartholomew of Exeter con
cerns itself with magic under the heading De divinatione: This heading
covers a number of_ conqemned beliefs and practices, some of which
cle·arly include folk-customs and common superstitions. It is, however,
particularly sig�ific�;:;rfor the assimilation of tnis kind - of popular ( and
perhaps by the late twelfth century, somewhat old-fashioned) belief to
the kinds of magic traditionally condemned by the Fathers and by theo
.Robert of Flamborough's Liber Penitentialis contains two separate sec

logians and canonists during the twelfth century.40
tions dealing with magic: 41 Book 3, c. 3, de sortilegio, condemns those who
the eucharist. Book 5, c. 6, de divinatoribus, condemns other kinds of

offer sacrifices to demons, baptize images, and practice image magic with
omew. The Summa Confessorum of Th9m�s of Chobham, written around

divinatory magic, at considerably greater length than Alain or Barthol
order of the seven deadly sins. Thomas's Summa is divided into articles,
1215, deals extensively with magical practices, and it treats them in the
distinctiones, and quaestiones. Article 7 deals with the deadly sins gener
t
1
ally, distinctiones 1 through 4 dealing respectively, with penitents, luxuria,

"
gul,a, et ebrietate, and ira. Article 5, de sortilegiis et veneficiis, then takes
quaestiones, it constitutes a thorough catalogue of most of the kinds of

up the problem of magical beliefs and practices. Divided into eleven
magic known to early thirteenth-century confessors. Thomas links sors

cJ
with prohibited superstitions, invoking the demon, the magical properties
of elements and plants, and dreams. He places great emphasis upon the
vulnerabih·ty of humans to diabolic temptation, and in this aspect of his
work, too,. he displays what has come to be a thirteenth-century . charac
eristi c attitude: the vulnerability of humans to diabolic temptation and
he role of the �n all forms of magic, from popular superstitions to
he most formal and learned kinds. Works such as these and their succes
sors-which never fail to condemn magic uniformly and which combine
all kinds of magic, from popular superstitions to learned magic, under a
single rubric-turned the scattered condemnations of the eleventh cen

tury, coming from diverse sources and possessing little binding force, into
the beginnings of a systematic concept olf diabolic �me_tation and human
v_u lnerabilitx,... The confessor��approaclii.Ilg the subject of magic through
these systematic works, could obtain a more consistent idea of the beliefs
and fears of their penitents than earlier penitentials had solicited. In addi
tion, by taking the confessor through the mind-conscience and imagina
tion-of the penitent, the psychology of temptation and the variety of
\ beliefs concerning magic could be hom1::>genized, and the emergence of
-A sinful magic could be recognized by all who used these penitentials. Aided
by the texts brought together by Gratia1n and Raymond of Peiiafort, the
confessors of the thirteenth century and 1the theologians who taught them
at last had a manageable body of literature on which to build a theory of
the prevalence and danger of magic. Sii multaneously with the fear and
repression of heresy, the growing aware1 ness of and fear of magic on the
1 i part of theologians and lawyers drew the two closer together in the
' enitentials:1:i
Unlike the earlier penitentials incl\!W!!g__ Burchard's, the indiculi
r supersiionum o C urc cou.E£i_ _� and..synolis,.. and- the- Gai,efi't1�p-
; 1tttl:n'fe�ever,_t�ne; penitentiJls 9f !!1e twelfth_and thirteenth cen
turies dealt with popµlar . beliefa,and... superstitions again�
backgroun� of _twelfth-ce11t,1.,ry theoJogx. �md canon law. As will be shown
in later chapters, this systematizing process, perhaps as much or more so
than scholastic ontology, l�ped to pro��Q. ex��.n�i�l�t of condemned
44
I popular supe:stition�that c�nfesso�_and inquisitors could �n�erstand and

\ measure agamst a complex framework of theology and law. Among the
most distinctive features of the new penitential literatui-e was its general
acute awareness of the active demonic role in temptation, the variety of
human weaknesses that made humans temptation- prone, the insistence
that much sin ( and nearly all sins touching upon maleficia) was the 1:�sult
of willing human collaboration with the devil, and the general apprehen
siveness ( not surprising in an age that witnessed an intensive pas.toral
movement in ecclesiastical life) concerning idolatry and superstition.
These penitentials were aimed at a world · that, although predominantly
lay, was also exclusively Christian, and tlherefore subject to carefal_e_<;�
iastical scrutinyin all parts of its life. The monastic writers who had con
demned magic "in' the· Carolingian period and heresy in the twelfth century
did so out of a generally dismal view of the possibility of lay salvation
and a willingness to attribute the worst conceivable motives and acl<; to
erring laypeople. The late twelfth- and thirteenth-century writers of peni
tentials, however, began with greater hope for the salvation of laypeople,
but for that very reason they were more· acutely aware of the dangers of
much of lay life, particularly in the areas of maleficia, idolatria, and super
81
/ stitio. It is this quality of responsibility for the good lay life that gives the
penitentials' treatment of magic its distinctive �nd novel character.
NOTES
1. On the organization of knowledge generally, see James A. Weisheipl,

o. P., "Classification of the Sciences in Medieval Thought," Mediaeval Studies
27 ( 1965 ) : 54-90. Weisheipl discusses several of the classifications mE;ntioned
below, but he does not consider magic. See also R. W. Hunt, "Introductions to
the Artes in the Twelfth Century," in Studia Mediaevalia in Honorem admodum
Reverendi Patris Raymundi Joseph Martin (Brussels, 1949), pp. 85-112, and
R. W. Southern, Medieval Humanism and Other Studies (Oxford, 1970), pp.
42ff and charts I & II; M.-D. Chenu, Nature, Man, and Society in the Twelfth
Century, trans., J. Taylor and L. K. Little (Chicago, 1968) pp. 1 - 48. There is
a good introduction to the field in The Didascalicon of Hugh of St. Victor,
trans. Jerome Taylor (New York, 1961 ) , pp. 3 -39. Further discussion may be
· found in Mary Martin McLaughlin, Intellectual Freedom and its Limitations in
the University of Paris in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries (New York,
1977), pp. 336-37.
2. Alfons Hilka and Werner Soderhjelm, Petri Alfonsi Disciplina Clericalis: 1 .
Lateinische Text, Acta Societatis Scientiarum Fennicae, 28, no. 4 (Helsinki,
1911). Translated, with an introduction by Joseph Ramon Jones and John
Esten Keller in The Scholar's Guide (Toronto, 1969). See also Lynn Thorndike,
History of Magic and Experimental Science (New York, 1923-58) 2:69-73.
3. Bilka and Soderhjelm, Disciplina Clericalis.
4. These charts are printed and discussed in R. W. Southern, Medieval
Humanism, pp. 42ff and Charts I & II. Southern does not discuss the place of
the magical arts in these schemes for the organization of knowledge.
f5. Thorndike 2 : 78-82.
f 6. See Thorndike's remarks, ibid., p. 80.
7. Charles Henry Buttimer, ed., flugonis de Sancto Victore Didascalicon de
studio legendi, Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Latin, vol. 10 (Washing
ton, 1939 ) , VI. xv. The translation is from the valuable work by Jerome Taylor,
The Didascalicon of Hugh of St. Victor, A Medieval Guide to the Arts (New
York, 1961 ) , pp. 154-55; Thorndyke 2:8-16.
8. Weisheipl, "Classification of the Sciences," pp. 72-81.
10. ,S�e, e.g., Marie-Therese d'Alvemy, "Astrologues et theologiens au Xllle
., ,
siecle, m Melanges offerts a M.-D. Chenu, Bibliotheque thomiste, 37 (Paris,
1967, 31-50, for a vigorous defense of the legitimacy of astrology as a branch
of legitimate study, waged by astrologers against the complaints of some
theologians. See also T. 0. Wedel, The Mediaeval Attitude toward Astrology
(New Haven, 1920).
82 Learning and Magic i n the T11;elfth and Thirteenth Centuries
11. Although some forms of astrology we1re accepted theoretically, no indi
vidual astrologer was safe from the charge of dealing with forbidden knowl
edge.
12. See below, Chapter 4, p. 106.
14. Glossa ordinaria, PL 113: 1, col. 261, ad Exodus 22: 18. No historian of
witchcraft, as far as l know, has ever pointed out that this interpretation was
standard in twelfth-century theology. The shift to a literal interpretation came
later. On the early meanings of such terms as exterminari, not meaning killing
or physical punishment, see Henri Maisonneuve, Etudes sur les origines de
l'lnquisition (Paris, 1960), p. 306, and pp. 76, 154.
15. Patrologia Latina 113:1, cols. 202-9, ad Exodus 7-8. The magicians of
Pharaoh occupied the concern of theologians: far more than the canon ists. See,
e.g., Rupert of Deutz, De Trinitate ( PL 167, cols. 594-608) .
16. PL 113: 1 , cols. 207.
17. PL 34, cols. 601-2.
18. PL 113: 1, cols. 352-53.
19. Ibid., col. 354.
20. Ibid., cols. 552-53. The case of Saul and the witch of Enclor was dis
cussed by many theologians. Their consensus was that Saul had spoken with a
demon, not the spirit of Samuel himself. See Bede, Quaestiones in libros Regum,
l, c.8 (PL 93, cols. 454-55); Rupert of Deutz, De Trinitate, In Libros regum
libersecundus, c. 17 (PL 167, cols. 1115-16) ..
21. Peter Comestor, Hfatoria scholastica, Historia Libri Deuteronomii c.8
(PL 198, col. 1253).
22. Verbum abbreviatum, c. 17 (PL 205, cols. 226-233 at p. 232). See also
c. 49 ( cols. 153-56). See also Baldwin, Masters, Princes and Merchants, 2 vols.
(Princeton, 1970) vol. l, pp. 198-204.
24. Modem edition, Ae. Friedberg, Corp, us luris Canonici . . . Pars Prior,
Decretum Magistri Cratiani (Leipzig, 1879) .. I cite here the edition of Venice,
1595, with the ordinary gloss. All references to the Decretum will be internal.
25. W. M. Lindsay, ed., fsidori Hispalensis Episcopi Etymologiarum sive
originum, 2 vols. ( Oxford, 1911), Lib. 8, p. .28. See also above, Chapter 1.
26. Decretum C.26, q.5, (d.g.a.) c.l.
27. The Canon Episcopi has been extensively studied and commented upon.
The best discussion of the text and its lran:smission is to be found in Jeffrey
Russell, Witchcraft in the Middle Ages (Ithaca, 1972), pp. 291-93. See also
Henry Charles Lea, Materials Toward a His.tory of Witchcraft, ed. and comp.
Arthur Howland (Philadelphia, 1938), 1: 178-202.
28. Lea, Materials, l : 178-180.
29. For the canonists on marriage generallly, see E. Esmein, Le mariage en
problem, see vol. 1, pp. 241-2.50; J. Dauvillier, Le mariage dans le droit

droit canonique, 2nd ed., rev. R. Genestal, '. :2 vols. (Paris, 1929- 36 ) ; for this
classique de l eglise (Paris, 1933). For a sampling of cases in a specific king

dom, England, see Richard Helmholz, Marriage Litigation in Medieval England
(Cambridge, 1974), pp. 53-54, 87-90. Helmh, olz' work suggests that in England,
Learning and Magic in the Ticelfth and Thirteenth Centuries 83
natural impotence seems to have been a far greater concern than impotence
caused by maleficimn. A full thirteenth-centmy development may be seen in
Hostiensis, Summa Aurea (Venice, 1581), book 4, De frigid:is et maleficiatis et
de impotentia coeundi, pp. 240-44. •
30. See John Benton, Self and Society i11 Medieval France: The Memoirs of
Abbot Guibert of Nogent (1064?-1 125) (New York, 1970), I, c. 12, pp. 63-68,
and Benton's introduction.
32. Die Summa des Paucapalea, ed. J. F. von Schulte (Giessen, 1890), pp.
107-10.
33. Die Summa Magistr,i Rolaiuli, ed. F. Thaner ( Innsbruck, 1874 ) , pp.
109-12.
34. Die Summa cles Stephanus Tornace11sis, ed. J. F. von Schulte (Giessen,
1891), p. 231.
35. The Summa Parisiensis on the Decretum Gratiani, ed. T. P. McLaughlin
(Toronto, 1952 ) , pp. 232-34.
36. Die Summa Decretorum des Magister Rufinus, ed. H. Singer (Pader
bom, 1902), pp. 423-28. Although they are not in themselves legal sources, the
illustrations to Gratian manuscripts suggest some of the parallel attitudes to
these topics on the part of these who commissioned the decoration of the mss.
See A. Melnikas, The Corpus of the iHiniatures in the Manuscripts of Decretum
Gratiani, Stttdia Gratiana 16-18 (Rome, 1975), vol. 2, pp. 833-62 (c.26) and
vol. 3, pp. 1029- 5 8 (c.33).
37. J. von Schulte, Die Geschichte der Quellen und Literatur cles Canon
ischen Rechts ( reprinted, Graz, 1956), vol. 2, p. 503, n. 35. Baldwinus seems
to have studied at Bologna before 1250 and is familiar with the major canonist
writers before Innocent IV, Bernard of Parma, and Hostiensis. The work of
these and other later thirteenth-century canonists, both edited and unedited,
however, does not appear to differ significantly from that of Baldwinus.
38. See Gabriel Le Bras, DTC 12, cols. 1 1 60-79. See F. W. H. Wasserschle
ben, Die Bussordnungen der abendliindischen Kirche (Halle, 1851), and H.
Schmitz, Die Busshucher und die Bussclisciplin der Kirche (Dusseldorf, 1898) {
(both reprinted at Graz, in 1958); John T. McNeill and Helena M. Gamer,
Medieval Handbooks of Penance (New York, 1938 ) ; John T. McNeil!, "Folk
Paganism in the Penitentials," Journal of Religion 13 (1933 ) : 450-66. A recent
selection of some of these is Cyrille Vogel, "Pratiques superstitieuses au debut
du XIe si,kle d'apres le Corrector sive medicu.s· de Burchard, eveque de ·worms
(965-1025)," in Etudes de civilization medievale (IX e X
0tferts a Edmond-Rene Lahande (Poitiers, 1974), pp. 751-61.
.
- lle siecles) Melanges
39. See P. Michaud-Quantin, Sommes de casuistique et manuels de confes

au moyen age, du Xlle <111 XVle siecle (Louvain, 1962).
I
40. Adrian Morey, Bartholomew of Exeter (Cambridge, England, 1937), PP·
sion
271-74.
1
41. Liber Penitentialis, ed. J. F. Firth, (Toronto, 1971), pp. 158, 258-64.
42. F. Bromfield, Thomae de Chobham Summa Confessorum (Louvain-
Paris, 1968 ), pp. 466-87.
43. The Liber Poenitentialis of Alain de Lille is in PL 210. For developments
/
84 Leaming and Magic in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries
after 1215, see Michaud-Quantin, pp. 34-53. See also S. Kuttner, "Ecclesia de
occultis non judicat," Acta Congressus Iuridici lnternationali.s, vol. 3 (Rome,
1936 ) : 227-46. Russell's Witchcraft in the Middle Ages discusses only the libri
poenitentiales before the twelfth century, pp. 43-100.
44. There is a summary discussion of conciliar decrees on magic in Lea,
Materials, vol. 1, and in Robert-Leon Wagner, "Sorcier" et "Magicien" (Paris,
1939 ) , pp. 52-67, 100-27, as well as in the general treatments of Jeffrey Russell
and Joseph Hansen.
4
The Systematic Condemnation of
Magic in the Thirteenth Century
MAGIC, SCHOOLS, AND SCHOOLMEN IN THE
The magicians referred to in eleventh-century northern Italian _rhetoric .. j

EARLY THIRTEENTH CENTURY
g
�and in the twelfth-century courts of John of Salisbury, are to be found in :
§�
greater and greater numbers in the schools of the late twelfth and thir-1
J
teenth centmies. The influx of Arabic and Greek science, specifically1 and 3 -
t�':Yides2reru: Un.teres_tjn natural science, generally, help to explain th� i-'
strong c]��ms for th�J�imacv of astrology and the attraction of astrol-
�gy ano. similar subjects fousm�e of the best students and teachers of the
perioa�
Robert Grosseteste, as student and master, appears to have taught
)"j ast�gy�O;ford, andJi:J;,;.,_ 'jilo�atU5,nf"'se�� de 'impressionibt:S·""
�f.9. 1.�21{ 9. Y .i1UJ1e.&st_ §$C:�s,� .21J��:t��ee��n·-·
1 � 1 .
�
=->
tury, suggests the powerful attraction of astrology for even tA!:! ab!est 1.::,.
% ��,�-� ii
�
students and'riiastersTrXfe'Wmiamof kuve·rgne, ·
·will be dis�ussed f " 1..,
more fiilly below:·�erosseteste appears to have been especially attracted :n � �
wl-io
J by the subject of astrology, although as he grew older and probably be- } !.. "j
came more familiar with the varied uses wfi1ch magic and astrology C> ·,·
� --
�ere put outsictetne"scnools,ne withdrew ..,, ,.,,to ± '
his admiration and attacked
astrology vigo�o�sly: In KisHeXllemeron, Grosseteste applied to astrology
.,,...
the theological arguments that we have seen cited from Augustine to

Rugh of St. Victor. Grosseteste's criticism is of two different kinds. First,
85
2
86
he argues, astrol9.gY...,js_��ilr._,!!n<;_e:_rtain_ _s?!enc� .•t1l�t p�ofess,�s to
The Systematic Condemnation of Magic in the Thirteenth Century
_
, __ ,g�P,��!',!ainty of tim.in�!...9-b,servatioii of tf1e heavens, and hea�enly
influences occurring seconds or ininutes apart. l;le states that "there is not
_,lk�f;..,
· yet sufficiez1t certitude concerning the motions of the heavens . . ," for
i� astrology to be accurate." Grosseteste's second attack on astrology is not
scientific; it is �.h�?1<2@..;�l. Astrology reduc,es the .2;igniy of_ humanity _to a
,
purely corporeal nature. By subordinating the rational mind to the neces-
""-J'i' sity of corporeality, the astrologers are "enemies of human nature. . . . and
�.., blaspheme against God." "Astrologers of this sort are seduced and seduc-
cers, and their teaching is impious and__E_ol�, written at the dictation of
\:'
the devil, and therefore their Gooks ought to be burned. And not only
they, but those who consult them are lost."• The bishop of Lincoln has
come a long way from his heady student and early teaching days, and the
development of Grosseteste's thought concerning astrology suggests the
high initial attraction that it and other studlies offered in the excitement of
the late twelfth-century schools.
A contemporary of Grosseteste, ��!.j.c.Qt..found the same interest
in the schools of the late twelfth century, but Scot never condemned
astrology and magic as thoroughly as Grnsseteste." Scot spent his life as
a courtier in the service of Frederick IL He was one of the few who man
aged to retain the favor of ho.th Frederick and Pope Gregory IX, a quality
that argues eloquently for the courtier's skills. Besides Michael Scot's
1.0 association with the court of Frederick, his importance for OU� �j�ies
{ 7' fin fiis attempts to Bnd a �omproroise beitween tfie implacable hostility
<.. toward astrology and magic on the part o,f such thinkers as Hugh of_St.
(
!Victor and Robert Grosseteste and the popularity of astrology and o�r �
"-<,\ r-,; ;:f' forms of magic among scholars and_ com�tiers ea!lY in the thirte� 111
i' �\��
�\} �o1/ _century..
�1 By Michael Scot's day not only did astrology and magic attract students
ail°d yo�rriasi:er:� li fhe--s-circro-lr, oti't 1:i'ecroinancers-and- invol<ers,., of
aemons-plied their _trade in favorite places i� Verona and Naples, and
i
probably in many other cities as well.� Aware of the popularity of astrol

ogy and the occult arts, Scot developed the theory that there were t�
kindsyL astrolog,y and other foims of magi ig, OEe-a?ceptabie and one,.E2!, �
Perhaps he drew upon the greater ambivalence toward these subjects in
the Islamic world, with which he was familiar through his studies at
Toledo and Salerno and his long stay in the world of what d'Alverny has
called "Mediterranean magical traditions."r Whatever his reasons, whether
his own proclivities and career or his proximity to the Islamic Mediter
ranean world in which greater latitude to·ward magic and astrology· was
pennitte Michael Scot rgued for a double syst� permissible a�
.:_��issibl -in . ,e- naeiffn'ed-st��!ffti.tiouL aStr9.lQg}L_ in much the
� 1
ug and Robert Grosseteste; ymaginaria astronomia, which
p
The System atic Condemnation of Magic in the Thirteenth Centu,y �

1>Scot considered a legitimate exercise of human reason, was permitted.
t-' Mathesis was legitimate knowledge; matesis, following the earlier argu-
ment of John of Salisbury, was forbidden as a form of sinful divination;
mathematica was a legitimate discipline, but matematica was a science of
the devil and used only for evil purposes. Michael Scot's account of the
descent of divination from the demons to Ham, derived in part from Isi-
t dore of Seville, includes the legend of Gerbert, the optimus nigromanticus

(in the sense of "natural necromancy") . Concerning the magi who wit-
nessed Christ's nativity, a locus classicus of discussions concerning magic,
Scot argues, with considerable et)'.Jllo]sgtcal accuracy, that the term ma us)/
had the combined meanin s of 1c stet illusor sorcerer male cus , ..
and sa e sa wns until the coming of Christianity. Since the beginning
"o 1..,
o£th-; Christian· era, the maleficus and illusor have been forbidden and j -..i_,
0
condemned, and only the magus sapi� is part of the legitimate order of .S ?--..1 �
/..5 Christian knowledge. The maleficus is now "he who interprets characters :J y ...., j
and ph lacteries., incantations, dreams, and makesJigatu.r.es_ Qf herbs." The �
/'J i usor is now the JJraestigiosus., condemned by theologians and clill.Qnists
r alike.8
� ..--
Like Grosseteste and William of Auvergne, Michael Scot, too, was

- - -- �
familiar with magic books and with the dark side of the scient'ia Toletana.
Scot was unique, however, in listing Peter Abelard as the author of at
least one of these works, along with Simon Magus and other condemned
necromancers, conjurors of evil spirits, and performers of incantations.
�Scot himself, both in his own .lifetime and p11Jticul�rly_lat��)n tl2e
thirteenth centurL_':::'a� r�garde£J..!:Y... s��e � a _Jeg�_ timate s�ientist, but by
0
l many others as the worst sort of magician of the type Scot himself COJl-
1' �mns 1ntlie.Ltver IntrosJuctoriu.,C, Perhaps th;;-best known reference to
his later reputation is found in Dante's Divine Comedy, Inferno, canto 20,
in which Scot is condemned to walk forever with his head twisted around
facing his back with otlwr diviners of antiquity and the Middle Ages:
Michele Scotto fu, che veramente

de le magiche frode seppe '] giocco. 1 0
In spite of Michael Scot's disavowal of any illegal magical practices, his
r�p�tation contributed to the picture of the dangerous and blasphemous
J �,. Jlstrologer, and wonder-worker.
�...ill§tinctio»s-l�etw.ecn . . p.crmissible-and impenui�siblc magic aEd
a�t�o.gy, whether he iE,Ye..l)ted them or not, becaml:! cowmo.n.... �urrency
d
2:�� thJ!��!fi cc�!Y_3nd ��..£!.!�9 ��v�ripu, forms_ by_ p.ropon_��t�
of legitimate, l�arned _r12�gic �brn1Jgh, !;!)�s:.vtm,teen,tl:i,. c�u1;x,_In order to
.
prove the legitimacy of at least one form of magic, whether natural or
hermetic, even working astrologers and magicians had to concede that
88 The Systematic Condemnation of Magic in the Thirteenth Century
there was a forbidden side to their profession. By the early thirteenth
century, theology and canon law were too formidable to be denied, and
it
their condemnation of ma ·c and ast�!$);'._-as wel�
o _ mcantatio�!!d- �.,&u!:.es.=couI, �.J!.ar.2].y be denied or�.
"Tneastrologers and 'legitimate" magicians therefore echoed the condem
nations of theologians and lawyers, arguing only that their practices were
ot among the condemned practices discussed in theologians' and canon
/ � ts' texts. This bifurcation of II],� .':"i h th��<_>n�emnation of m ic
L'.' � �
�thened by theolo&�ns and ca!).QJl_la.ncy.eLUlnd �h �oectbymagicians
the��s by Scot and others to clear�of
�"'-£00,tri]:>,y . t_�d�gr.eately,_!f?�.l1gfheni11g__!}1e pe1orative
mate�. Indeed, these terms were disavowed even by the astrologers

�nse of the terms ma{!,lf�..!!}IJ1.efic.u$.. diQ.in, atpr.., ir:iqg,ntatpr� �rtile�us, a�d
�agicians themselves. A much more tempered condemnation of magic

appeared in the work of Richard Fisha,cre, a Dominican follower of
says Fishacre, magi, astrologers, and prophets. J:?roph-,

W Grosseteste later in the thirteenth century.1' Three sorts of people try to
cl
-. _ predict the future,
. course of stars." Magi, however, "predict vvhat has been revealed to them -
�
< ets, of cour� -�]2y.,. God'.s.. grace.. Astrologers do so "from the natural ,
% �.:::: r
· � [:.... .
m9ps." They are to be universally condemned, and they are not t_o
��
\$ S-> �l! e th o ught divine any more than the demons who inform them. The
� � bifurcated idea of magic, which had begµn in the twelfth century and
had been strengthened by the claims of the astrologers and their attrac
tions in the late twelfth-century schools, remained in force throughout
the thirteenth century and beyond. Roger Bacon ( himself, of course, like
Michael Scot, also accused of being ari"uigt'cian"fcteiiounceomagiawith
great�r i�lie��e]!1'a11-S�1iJ'."'2� Ifogaroless · of the fortune of theirpersonal
.I
reputations, however, the thirteenth century astrologers and magicians
hfavily strengthened the case against illicit magfc oy condemning 1t 1ust
��&!2::fi3ernaps �more sfr6hgly, since they we.re very oiten un,der .
·attack for it themselves) as had the theologians and lawyers of the twe1£th
1 and early thirte t enturies.
..,._v;- � By 1225, the ure th� �� agic�� had begun to ta!e on a cle�r (
, r;, ·/ anclmor��ous sl��re. hadl_h�en outlinecl in the rhetorical
�t]x litera�re of the eleventh and twelfth centurie�c! denouncE;d
in the theological and-canon law works of the sall)e pe1io(j. Condemn�d
with the- heretic, who himself emerges as : a distinctive type in the eccles
iastical literature of the twelfth century, l the magician finally -acquires a
substantive, specific art in the world of the schools and the courts of the
{early thirteenth century. That art is comgnsecLb� the works of Arabic
Aristotle hteratur� � t_!!e works con<�ng,__ .§�2!1.. and the Ars

and Greek philosopl�y and �;trol<?.SJ,..!�l... :f:J�i;metu�...b.P:.ai:tlie Pse_f@o
_
notoria'."·�tonfy these workswfth real 01r pretentious claims to the status
,..,,,_,-.......-
The Systematic Condemnation of Magic in the Thirteenth Century 89
of legitimate learning, but also the simplified and popularized versions of
these, the grimoires that circulated throughout the thirteenth century, ·
and after contributed to the substantive dangers of magic. The
l classical echoes of John of Salisbury's magicians are gone. In their place
, is a very real body of knowledge, §.Q!ne..QLlLPM��mu.c.tsJiktUM.,t
of Frederick II, some of it handled and sampled by no less respectable
. thinkers and ecclesiastics than Robert Grosseteste, Michael Scot, and Wil
liam of Auvergne. The theologians and canonists who returned to the
attack against magic and astrology in the thirteenth century had a much
clearer and more specific idea ot-what they were attacking than did their "
twelfth-century predecessors. What they were attacking looked very much
'tike Anselm of Besate's confected magician of the . Rhetorimachia. But
now he w��<;>_k.§. �d.!eal k.UQ.,,tl.��<Lhe..pos,_ed >
a_g��anger1 far greater than the inept Rotiland. And his knowledge
was attractive; Robert Grosseteste and William of Auvergne had them
selves been attracted by it, and they bitterly remembered that attraction
in their later years.
/ Will�.,!!l of Auvergne was born around 1180, a contemporary of Gros-
seteste and Michael Scot. He spent his youth at the studium in Paris,
became a master of theology, and was bishop of Paris from 1228 until his
death in 1249.u As bishop of Paris, William had much to do with .the
university, and his own experience as a student and master, like that of
Grosseteste, made him particularly concerned about the availability and
attractiveness of astrology and magic to students and teachers alike. He
was also concerned with the dangers of astrology and magic in the com-
munity of Christians generally, and he is one of the best-informed writers cc, ...<.••
.J._ ,,
on the subject that the thirteenth century produced. Far more than
'!:!!9.mas... Aquinas }¾ilUam of Auvergp�..QlleGtesJ. a..nd �l'.fdel'.l_._�Jli.er �
1 •
statements of opposition to magic and denounced its evils at great length.
In cc. 24-� of firs 7Je legil3us, vVilllam o:fluivergne tells of books of
magic he himself had �n�ndled as a young student in Paris. C. 24
consists of a discussion on various forms of idolatry, particularly those that
William calls "the insane, vain and impious idolatry of stars and heav-
Llenly lights." He goes on, in c. 25 to discuss planetary intelligences, and
remarks:
Litteras etiam, et numeros similiter eisdem partiti sunt, et ad ultimum ipsum

�rpus humanurn per partes, et membra distribuernnt eisdem; et haec omnia
m libris judiciorum astronomiae, et in libris magorum atque maleflcorum
tempore adolescentiae nostrae nos meminimus inspexisse.15
Another reference to the availability of these books in Paris in the late

twelfth century is in c. 26:
90
Haee enim omnia adeo impia, adeoque saerilega sunt, ut sine horrore pia eorda
ea nee legere valeant, nee audire; unde, et nos istorum memoriam horrifieam
non tam perstringimus, quam etiam fugimus, et fugamus, ne majoris insaniae
oeeasionem demus insipientibus.16
Like Grosseteste, William of Auvei:_�::.� . .�·�L�ir..te� with astrological and

magical bo£_ks1 and,�e, ��e�e��, lie .repudiated everyt!)fil_gh�
{
!1��(,ffi��]r.. . t.h�!:J1· To seek out such knowledge, William argues, is the
vice of curiositas, the libido sciendi non necessaria. Cur-iositas, which
played an important semantic role in medieval intellectual history, had
come to apply to the knowledge of astrology and magic that theologians
and prelates like Grosseteste and William of Auvergne had begun to dis
cover in the schools around them by the end of the twe lfth century.17
The extent of William's knowledge and concern of other considerations
of astrology and magic is surprising, especially in contrast to such recent
theologians as Peter Lombard, Peter the Chanter, and the other moral
theologians at Paris. Whereas twelfth-centiury theologians had done little
more than repeat patristic denunci ations of sorcery and divination, Wil
liam of Auvergne, in the De legibus and the De universo, goes into the
new magic and astrology in considerable detail. Like John of Salisbury,
William begins by speaking of illusions, and .h.E;.jistinguishes ma . . ic based
L
fupon the natur� �!.li�t of Q.Qi_e.£!Lfu:>m oth�r 'l'.V1 LQ£.. .I!0&£· His
t knowledg is extensive and his attack formidable. William insists that
f
· without d�12:1.�nic _!1�!£. !�� . 1J£z!!t�x_,_,!he!��M!!l.� -. t�J.-r.!l�gis.: can_��
e 0
J J2:liJJ1. and to accomplish anything by demonic assistance or through idol-

! a try is sinful. Th� maleficus is guilty Q.f idol atry and th�_�erformance of
obscene rites, as well �; J.t}jury. The advent of Ch1isti anity condemne�ll
magic except natural magic to the status olf maleficia. In short, William of
Auvergne's treatises reflect sharply the appearance of magical practices,
their atttraction, !heir necessary dependence upon the demons, idolatry,
tbeir canacity to dece�_Q£EUS� ilwry, ::\r_d _!heir intrinsically.. fortm:rcfen
..£h�cter. By drawing together the traditional condemnation of magic and \
astrology-;nd applying it to the new magic of the late twelfth and eady
thirteenth centmies, William of Auverg: ne contributed much to the
increasingly sharp picture of the criminail magician, the nature of t�e
' crimen magiae, and the dangers it posed tto all Christians. Nor was il
(J �
liam the last bishop of the great university <City to recognize the attract10ns
of magic to its ambitious, curious, and learned scholars.
On 7 Ma�h 1¥77, E�mpJ.fil'.,, J}}shop-9.f_:f.ariwssuerl ,a .fo�
c�emnation of t�h�md��< ninete�;!!. m2J)OSi�ionul,i;� , wn from \he
... .
writings of Averroes, Avicen�__b..r,J "1'ie...,;:1:nd_sJwe lof_their...Lati�
i !2 ra
-menfators."On� 18-Ma1:ch ofthe same year, Robert Kilwardby, Archbishop
7c�ury, echoed Tempier's condemnation with his own endorse-
p

ment, and on 28 April, Po e oh XXI who had su ested Tern ier's
investi ation, issue a ecretal encl,gr� an ·m ...�D.d�.w
:tiu,g
nations. istorians o philosophy have given great attention to the 1277
cOil�nation, and with good reason; at Etienne Gilson has pointed out, it
constit uted a landmark in the history of medieval thought. In addition to
the condemned philosophical propositions, however, Tempier's condemna
tion also included such items as the literary work De amore of Andreas
Capellanus, and, little marked by historians of philosophy but directly to
the point of our discussion, a book of geomancy and
libros, rotulos seu quatemiones nigromanticos aut continentes experimenta sorti

legiorum, invocationes demonum, sive conjurationes in periculum animarum,
seu in quibus de talibus et similibus £dei orthodoxe et bonis moribus evidenter
adversantibus tractatur, per eandem sententiam nostram condempnamus . . .18
Aside from the great and absorbing clash of radical Aristotelianism and
orthodox resistance, this condemnation of books of magic suggests that
the earlier concerns of William of Auvergne were not unique to the early
thirteenth century. As we will see in a later chapter, these condemnations
oD..277we�hqed in.,th�gr,eat condemnatig,u..ofJnagi�,'_� tj.,Il!,eJ",y..J..4,e_
f�s_i:ltt, of theo,Iogx �Jpe Unjy,e...rsity of hris, . in,1398..-'Ihe condew�a_tiop
o.!_!g7l ,is echoed in the li�erature of demonology, la�, and voetry of .the
-
same period.
MAGIC AND DEMONOLOGY
��h_ man,x e<!rU� w1i�s h� li1.l!s.e.d. Qie ma.Qtice of_ !l.'@gic and..,
�n some elements of astrology with�rvice to OJ�£OOJteratioIJ... '¾Uh the..
_gevil:--W,illiam of Auvergne's concern with idolatry and demonology in 1
the magic books he attacks is particularly pronounced, as was that of
J!mpier later in the century. The principles of medieval demonologyhad
long ago been laid down in the works of the patristic pe1iod. The inclu
sion of excerpts from this mate1ial in Gratian's Decretum and the Book of
Sentences of Peter Lombard in the mid-twelfth century, and its subjection
f,
to systematic examination and developmen! in the schools, .tog�the1�. with <t1/�
�e condemna�on_ �-H�&l� o�-�!· Vi�tor?. soon helped to shape a learned olJz,,,,. 0/cr
1 1"°"
ct�Iogy readily accessible to William of Auvergne and later writers,
·J
�otaow Thomas Aquinas. Besides the survival of formal demonology and
1tsreviva1 1n the secoricl half of the twelfth century, other literar enres
also con 1 ono o ica concerns. Hagio1£!Phy, for ,.ex,am,ple, I
n dealt�th the temptations o t e saintr by demons and the saint's \
ultimate victorx o�eni:-Tfie fi giographicalt adition m;"d'e the de ons -
!
1
l!,?
The Systematic Condemnation of Magic i n the Thirteenth Century
( familiar, first to a monastic, and later to a wider society, but it also tended
92
to reduce the demon to manageable proportions when conquered or

coerced by the holy man. The literature Eroduced iQJ,be twelfth .,i\nd
thirteenth century for the instruction of novices in monast ries also laced
consid'eral31�_w9�sis_iia'fG' �tu.J.,i.if:1�Y-�P!1Jhe manifestations
s o r t£.._tempt an2_ le�2, 1!,1�.,LlSt �
..,tD.J.<;:ti.9p. In chronicles the
��- � ..p �� .��
devil became a common element of historical causation and of human
,.,J motivation. In short, different literary genres depicted the devil differently
Uf and used references to him for different purposes.
The recent studies of Kelly and J. B. Russell, along with the older
works of Lea and others, have effectively traced the development of
Christian demonology. 19 Several aspects of twelfth- and thirteenth-century
demonology, however, deserve particular emphasis here. First, the con- {
vulsions that the eleventh- and twelfth-cenltury reform movements created
in the Christian world introduced a new aind subtler image of Satan and \
his power over humans. The opponents 01n both sides of the Investiture
Conflict resorted to occusing their enemies of collaboration with Satan,+
and the Gregorian ambition to reform the world led proponents of the
reform movement to analyze the world at considerable length. In earlier
hagiographical and monastic literature, the world was indeed a place of
violence, temptation, and chaos, prevented from feeling the full force of
God's wrath only by virtue of the purity of monastic devotions. In that
world, base human nature exercised its powers for evil \.vithout any limits
other than those imposed by harsh Cluistian rulers. The world's capacity
for sin was limitless. Inside the monastery, there was temptation also, and
some of the most vivid literature on demonology derives from monastic
sources. Although monastic writers dealt with demonic temptation, how
ever, they dealt with it as something which could be overcome by proper
discipline, counsel, and adherence to the mies of the order. If in monastic
literature the devil was a formidable and subtle opponent, he could never
theless be contained by strict application of disciplinary measures, and ·
hiumphs over his temptations were recorded in lives of monastic saints
and in the literature of instruction for monastic novices. The devil was
depicted ferociously, but he was depicted within a monastic world view ·
in which he invariably met defeat or, if , on occasion he was allowed to
triumph over an erring or weak monk, bis triumph was exemplary. In
monastic literature throughout the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, this
interest in Satan continued and was orchestrated into training programs I
for novices by writers such as Caesarius of Heisterbach and Richalmus of
Schonthal. In this pedagogical literature which was produced in order to
discipline the novices psychologically for their conventual life, the psy
chology of demonic temptation was graphically portrayed, the horrors of
the world outside the monastery glaringly depicted, and the power of
obedience to the monastic rule and to supe1iors invariably proved su
preme. Such literature had other functions as well. Professor Elizabeth
Kennan is currently exploring this novice liter;1ture for its psychological
impact and its role in acculturating the minds and spirits of novices to
the psychological world of monastic life.20 Lester Little and Barbara
Rosenwein have studied monastic spirituality and its relation to changing
cultural modes of the eleventh through the thirteenth centuries. 21 For
present purposes, it is important to note two features of monastic treat
men of demons: EirAA, , qempnic .,$m12tation-�µhtle..,..i!,,lld_m�c
liturgical life, es eciall G , ��d...to...r�p_r�e.nt,.a,.,aootinual
combat wlt -
--- �econd, ..� � within
.... ..·� th�svorlcL. of the monastery, this
literatu;:;..g!_ay$,9-_a , $.�cjJig,, !!..O.Q. ,&.l�ad;y��le-,When its elements
-;ere transposed to the secular world-in art, sermons, and theological
, -...,,_ �-.,._...... ...
�.......
writings-members of the secular world had no such defenses as had the ·

novice monks· with which to overcome such ominous and implacable
forces. One function of the reform movement was precisely to sanctify the
world outside the monastery, and part of this process was to reveal that
world as plagued by demonic forces as was the secluded, highly struc
tured, and ultimately resourceful world of the monk. Motifs and ideas that
had a controlled existence inside the monastic psyche, had a very different ·
existence in the untrained and unsupported minds of secular clergy and
laypeople. Besides the general monastic condemnation of the world as a
place of violence and temptation, there was added in the eleventh and
twelfth centuries a psychology of temptation that had originated in the
monasteries and against which the secular world had few defenses. The
invective of the refo1m movement, increasing manifestations of dissent,
and the new emotional content of monastic and lay devotion alike all
sharpened the vulnerability of the world to the temptations and violence
of the devil.
In the world of novice-instructional literature, Satan's victims are
usually secular crei;gy and laymen. Caesarius of Heisterbach, in several
well-kno
� exem�l-.!tl!Ju,L laymen -WhO�G..�Ll!P-the ?e>il. or had
learned · secular-cle1jcs do_ it for th�m, ot demons who took on familiar
sliapes to deceive·monks and others,.. aod ot" eroticand olaspnemous activ
ities petfonned by those outside the monastery wall_s� . b y_JaJlen, monks.23
Gaesarius s�verat times uses the figure of the cleric skilled in invoking the
9,r
dev il and other forms of necromancy, and such figures, as we have seen,
were generally thought to exist in the late twelfth and early thi1teenth
centuries. Caesarius does not directly condemn the practice, perhaps
because his concern is getting the demon into the story and less with the
mechanics of how the demon arrives. There are enough known cases of
��ivining an� i��king d�m_£��Jl�wever, to suggest that Caesarius
was usmg a familiar fop1c.
A number of modern scholars have trac, ed the role of dissent and the
growth -of- Itefetical' movements in lnffueincmg twelfth-century demon
ology. The importance of these movements constitutes a second major
aspect of twelfth-century demonology. Tlhe growing concern overthe
nature of evil in the twelfth century is illuminated by the most important
of all the new heresies, Catharism, and its positing the existence of an
evil god to explain tlie evils in the world. 0 thodox Ch1istianity too, faced
the question of evil, and it is often in response to catharist beliefs tha�
see the role of the devil taking on a more important place in orthoaox
theology. The increasing prominence of th, e devil is, in a sense1 an ortl:io
dox response to the Cathar explanation of evil. In addition to developing
the role of the devil internally in orthodox theology., of course, the chal
lenge of Catharism itself became an example of emonic power. Tne .,.
invective against heretics played an important role in sharpening the
definition of fhe role <Jf the devil in human )ife, and, as Russell and otliers
have shown, greatly accelerated the scie1we of demonclogy in the west.24
A third area in which ideas of demonology expanded was that of reli
gious sentiment. A number of studies have demonstrated that devotion in
the twelfth century took on a highly charged emotional content�As R:'°w.
Southern in pa1ticular has shown, the fear and trembling before a remote
and implacably just god that characterized devotion before the twelfth
century was replaced, first in monastic and later in secular circles, with a
new theology of redemption and a new sense of the divine love for
humanity, a love that called for an equally emotional response from God's
creatures.25 The new emotional content of twelfth-century Christianity has
been studied from many points of view, but one in particular is important
for this study, that of the emotional revulsion against God's enemies. The
intensification of�a.tr�g_g,Uhe Jews, herfili�9LJ.!!.d apy_qne_e)se �)o_st9od
in the way of the apostolic life of 9ne vision or another of Christian reform
the
-�ai, �r�.,y.er�� of t�e coin of twelfth-cent tury emotional Cluisti��
tional feelings. In the �leventh c�ntury dissenters and heretics encountered
the full force of hatred from the mobs who lynched them; in-the t�
century the literature of Jewish atrocities, �,o fertile. in later centuriesi..fii·�t
'made its appearance in substantial volume; in the twelfth century. th�
rhetorical depictions of heretics and other deviants introduced once
more the patristic descriptions of orgies,. blasphemies, and antihum�
activities that become the commonplaces o,f theological literature in en�IJ;,
ing centuries. In this process, the devil, too, became more humanized, and
his ubiquity and powers increased in prop,ortion to the sentimentalization
I of religious attitudes toward God. This is a side of the twelfth century that
\ .
has not often been discussed-a dark side of the twelfth-century rena1s
sance of which demonology is only one aspect.
Thus, long before the development of a detailed scholastic demonology
which has often been charged with responsibility for later ideas of witch-
craft, there �merged a multifa��d_demonology.2_n tht;_.�fth century
..
derived from monastic literature, ecclesiasticar invective, the challenge of
dissent, an'.d the new eiiiQfiona1 toni of Ciuistian belief. In the early thir-
teenth century theologians developed a more highly systematized demon-
ology, of which the work of William of Auvergne constitutes a good
example. The two greatest scholastic thinkers, however, were Albertus
Magnus and Thomas Aquinas. It is in their work that much of the material t- ..,
discussed so far is drawn tog�her. Far more than Aquinas, Albertus f' �
VJ
appears to have approached magic from the direc_!ion o�- �tural�ence, �

�
and he draws a clear d1shnch . ori'""b.etweehnafiiral magic and cfemonolog- } ,
icaI magic.�r Th01:naUce·s�ggest�- that·the·'scie�tif:ic ·writings of Alb'ertus
treat magicmore liberally than his theological work; such a distinction is !
not difficult to understand. In his commentaries on scripture and on Peter
Lombard's Sentences, Albertus was already working in a powerful theo-
logical tradition in which magic was uniformly condemned. Even in these
works, however, he seems to be attempting to define areas in which magic
is purely demonological and areas in which it.. is natural and harmless. In
considering scholastic though{on magicand de�ori'ology-;-'tli'erefore� it is
important to realize, in Albe!tus's case, that a systematic
t n
condemnation '.
of magic was not incompatible with an interes T legilmfare fnagic:-Tn
1 spite of that mferest in natural magic, however, Albcrtus's condemnation
of demonological magic is strictly in · · keeping· with the views of William
of Auvergne.
� case against �cholastic thcolgg as creating an ontological founda
� for later witch-beliefs was made by a number of nineteenth-century
scholars and has survived in a number of twentieth-century studies. In
1940, however, Charles E. Hopkin produced a doctoral dissertation at the
University of Pennsylvania entitled The Share of Thomas Aquinas in the
Growth of the Witchcra� Delusion.21 In his thorough study, Hopkin as-
r sesses Aquinas's relation to, traditional demonology, his theories on the
magical arts, and the use of his work by later writers on demonology,
magic, and witchcraft. Hopkin came to the conclusion that Aquinas tended
to limit, rather than expand the power of demons; that Aquinas con-
4 dem�ed maleficia, but !hat for him maleficia �]early meant sorcery and ·
��; and that, in general, he added little that was not to be found in
scripture, in Augustine, and in the twelfth- and early thirteenth-century
theologians. �opkin's general conclusion states:
The chief difference between the scholastic demonology and that of the ancient
i sources is that the treatment has become systematic and theoretically rounded
out, as a part of the scholastic ordering of all theology. While this systematiz
ing did not produce within itself a unified witchcraft concept, it may indirectly
have encouraged such a process in the courts of the Inquisition by setting up
an atmosphere of logical integration.28
Hopkin showed clearly that only Aquinas's i insistence upon the apostasy of
the pact with demons was cited by fourte:enth-century writers and that
although he was widely cited by fifteenth·-century writers, he was cited
as the most "modern" of traditional Church authorities, not as a particular
innovator of witchcraft theory. I n a later chapter we will deal with the
thesis of Hopkin and others that the Inquiisition, and not scholastic the
ology, was responsible for the growth of witchcraft beliefs. It remains
� here, since Aquinas was clearly concerned with sorcery and magic, to
l consider his view of the relation between sorcery and demonology.
Aquinas, as Hopkin clearly proved, knew nothing of the witch as that
figure emerged in the law and theology of the later fifteenth, sixteenth,
and seventeenth centuries. .:VVh!! Aquin�_:��<:.��rrt��- with, was that
kind of magic that had bcome, sinc� Jhe m.id:tyvelft�- c�n!.'!l):'., of greater
I and concerrttci"'tli.eofogians and other 59holars�SQ,t,C�n'�on�
. and other -practices-l'!lal:� Aq1,1inas _llsted under the gen�,i:qt .categocy of
greater
lsupersjjJ..§.: The fourth chapter of Hopki�'s ·study is an exhaustive survey
of Aquinas's view of the magical arts, dealing with the opuscula, as well as
with the two great summae and the commentaries on scripture and Peter
Lomband's Sentences. In the opusculum, Concerning the Occult Opera
tions of Nature, for example, Aquinas deals with the classification of hid
den operations, condemning only those operations "that proceed from an
extrinsic principle, the bodies themselves befog used by the higher agents
only instrumentally and selectedly," and these operations are condemned
only when they are used by necromancers, not when divine virtue or
good angels perform them.2� Aquinas's explanation of the powers of
demons upon the natural world is also illustrated by the following passage
from the Expositio in Job:
One must then believe that with God's perm1ssum demons may disturb the
atmosphere, raise up strong winds, and make fire fall from Heaven. . . . All that
which may be accomplished by the simple mov, ement of a thing from one place
to another may be done by good or evil spirits. Winds, rain, and other
atmospheric disturbances may thus occur solely because of the movements of
condensed vapors. Thus the natural power of the demon suffices to accomplish
these things. 30
The opuscula De sortibus and De occultis operationibus both illustrate

Aq�nas's gisti,nc�L<;m.between nl!t;ural an�u.n11am,t<\!.,..Qpea;ation�
emphasis up.22,...,�11.er..ttitio.3.!. It shoulci be noted that a large part of
97
Aquinas's achievement is to relegate many of even the occult operations
of nature to legitimate causes. Having done this in these works and in the
summae, Aquinas is left with a clear idea of the essential role of demons
in many classes of natural operation, and indeed, his logic compels him
to emphasize the presence of human association with demons and thereby
the presen�<UJf harmful or Qugatory superstitio. As Aquinas concisely says,
"Only that is callE:d �y�tqry_an� S!,)pcrstitious whic� caryt,ot have a _cer
tain cause Tw1iether natural or human or divine], and' tliis pertains �o the
-
society of ctemons.:32 The varieties of 2erstg!9..n tbat-concerrl "tw;'" study
lP
are those that Aquinas designat� as i o atry, divination, and observances,
one species of the latter b$ling the magicaf arts:- Here again, Aquinas pro
vides a link among a number of different sins because of their common
relation as parts of superstition. Thus idolatry, divination, and the magic
arts are epistemologically linked together, as they had been in Aquinas's
chief source, St. Augustine. Of the three divisions of superstitio, obser
vantiae most clearly involve commerce with demons. Thus, in his initial
discussions of magic, Aquinas treats it as a variety of legitimate knowl-
edge, and he treats superstitio chiefly as a function of ignorance, either
ignorance of natural causes or ignorance that its pursuit will inevitably /
lead to sacrilegious contact with derpons.
In the Summa theologiae and the Opuscula, Aquinas sets forth his
demonology on theological and epistemological grounds. In the Summa
contra Gentiles, a work which attempts to prove the tnith of Christian
belief without extensive recourse to Christian sources, he attacks magic
on rational and ethical grounds, focusing primarily on the uniformly evil
ends of such practices. Although his views on magic are scattered through
out the vast body of his work, Aquinas's views are remarkably consistent
and logically rigorous. ProbabJy no writer before him systematized the
condemnation of magic �o m� differenflevels, and in this sense, as
well as Hopkin's sense cited above, Aquinas provided formidable in1lu-
' ence both toward the traditional condemnation of magic and to,vard the
l linking of magic with service to or subjection to the devil. Of the later
meaning of maleficia, the witchcraft beliefs of the fifteenth, sixteenth, and
seventeenth centuries, Aquinas, of course, knew nothing. Consistent with
the theology of the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, he also
drew heavily from other traditions, particularly scriptural and patristic.
He also drew from canon law, particularly in Quodlibet XI, where he
directly addressed the problem of magic:
Concerning sorcerers, it is known that some say that sorcery has no existence
and that it comes simply from lack of belief or superstition, since they wish to
prove that demons do not exist except insofar as they are the creatures of man's
imagination; insofar as men imagine them to exist, these fantasies affiict the
98 1'he Systematic Condemnation of Magic i n the Thirteenth Century
fearful. The catholic faith, on the other hand, insists that demons do indeed
exist and Lhat they may impede sexual in,tercourse by their works.33
------=-
, f'"l-\pOl't I'\('CL ,
Like demons, sorcery existed for Aquinas, as it had for aJI twelfth- and
thirteenth-century writers considered so fa.r. Aquinas's role in its history,
although it had nothing to do with later notions of witchcraft, was to
systematically describe and condemn magical practices, certa · n t to
invent them, nor to say an thing about th�_ t at a not._be:.n said b,y
ear ier writers, partic arySt. Augustine. By the end of Aquinas s work,
however, the demonological content of sorcery was firmly outlined. Such
defenses as had been made for astrology in the late twelfth century, and
were to be made for magic in the late thirteenth and fourteenth centuries,
now had to overcome the persuasive and voluminous arguments of
J cians bettter than it did even that of the heretics, for the mira of the sorc
Aquinas. In some respects, his demonology fitted the works of the magi-
trast to the genuine miracula performed only by God.3• Dependent upon

erers can only derive from collaboration \Vith demons and stand in con
scripture and Augustine among Christian sources, and Porphyry and

Aristotle among non-Christian sources, Aquinas launched the most devas
was not a particularly important point of attack. Except in the opuscula

ating attack yet on the magical arts. It was no less devastating because it
and the quodlibeta, the attack was made wholly within the general con
text of his philosophical and theological system. In this light, his views of
Bacon, andjt is im1>2rt!:lnt to note that both thinkers use tl]�ological and
the inefficac),'. of magic 'ti,t}:lo.!,_1t demonic aic!_ ar� si?1ilar to those of Roger
.d
l rati9n.al arg� ...,E!S to condemn it.
THE MAGICIAN AND THE LAWYE:RS IN THE

THIRTEENTH CENTURY
The attraction of legal study in the later twelfth century_g�eatlyjnHu

encea the canon law courts and the work of those ecclesiastics who made
new law for the Christian world. In the late twelfth and early thi;tee�
centuries, collections of twelfth-centu1y paipal legal decisions and con-
In 1234 Pope Grego1y IX published the J:.,iber Extra, by Raymond of

t. ciliar canons were made, usually by individuals for teaching purposes.
with maleficium in these collections, in the work of glossators who com

Peiiaforte, the first official lawbook of the Church.3s In the texts dealing
in the lawbook of Pope Boniface VIII ( the Liber Sextus, published in

mented upon them and considered their relation to Gratian's text, and
1298), we can trace the canonist attitude to,ward sorcery and moleficium
,, 11U as it developed in the context of other disciplines.
Among the Quinque compilationes antiquae, two collections ( the
compilatio prima and the Compilatio quinta) contained titles relating
to sortilegium. The Compilatio Prima included three texts on the subject:
pait of the penitential of Theodore, a selectron from book 19 of Bur
chard's Decretum ( which assigned ten days' penance for performing
sortes with the psalter or the gospels ) , and a letter from Pope Alexander
III to the bishop of Grado, to be considered below.36 The Compilatio
Quinta added one text, a condemnation by Pope Hono1ius III of the
practice of using sortes to elect a bishop.37 In the Liber Extra, three of
these texts comprised title 2_ 1 of Eook 5, the qnfy-discussion of sortilegium
in,..the work.38 The text from the penitential _of The9dore and the letter
of Honorius III both-deaf with sortes'· sbictly considered. Alexander Ill's
letter to the patriarch of Grado deals with the case · of V., a cleric, who
went with several infamous people to· a plivate place, no8thth ei�ten
tion of calling up the devil, but to perform· divination with an astrolabe
in order to find goods of the Church th�t · had been stole.� , '.Z_eal a�1d
simplicity had driven him to do this. He has, however, committed a most
grievous sin, and Alexander presclibes a penance for him. Neither the
Compilationes Antiquae nor the Liber Extra added any more texts on
the topic and, as can easily be seen, the more recent texts deal clearly
1
I
�':a:...,..,,
_s:µ't-r,)
f�x:.lt.
. �.i:. f
l
with divi1U1tion. In Bernard of Pavia's Summa Decretalium on the Liber

Extra, the author cites both the texts in Gratian and the Roman law in
Justinian's Code.3� Evidently, these texts were to be read in conjunction
with the Jaw stated in the Liber Extra. The glossa ordinaria to the Liber
Extra, by Bartholomew of Brescia, says nothing pertaining to other kinds
of magic and focuses instead npon a literal explication of terms and the
circumstances of each case. The Boniface VIII's Liber Sextus and the
Extravagantes of John XXII and Clement V contain no title De sortilegis.
The only text d;aling with magic in the Liber Sextus is a letter from
Pope Alexander IV in 1258 instructing the Inquisition that it may prose
cute magicians only when their activities manifestly savor of heresy. As
will be shown in the next chapter, Alexander's injunction posed no great
difficulties in the early fourteenth century.
Rubric: The Inquisitors, deputed to investigate heresy, must not intrude into
investigations of divination or sorcery without knowledge of manifest heresy
involved.
It is reasonable that those charged with the affairs of the faith, which is the
greatest of privileges, ought not thereby to intervene in other matters. The
'.nquisitors of pestilential heresy, commissioned by the apostolic see, ought not
mtervene in cases of divination or sorcery unless these clearly savour of mani
fest heresy. Nor should they punish those who are engaged in these things,
but leave them to other judges for punishment.
Ordinary Gloss: "clearly savour . . ." as in praying at the altars of idols, to
offer sacrifices, to consult demons, to elicit responses from them . . . or if they
associate themselves publicly with heretics in order to predict the future by
means of the Body and Blood of Christ, etc. 40
In sum, four new texts were added by the lawmakers of the thi1teenth
y century to Gratian's body of texts, and most of these dealt with divina
L tion. As we have seen, the letter of Alexander III explicitly stated that
the cleric V, did not intend to invoke demons, as if that were to be
expected in the performance of divination, and the letter of Alexander IV
tacitly distinguished between magic that was heretical and magic that
was not. As we have seen, several commentators on Gratian's Decretum
had identified magic with heresy ( as had the ordinary gloss to the Bible),
and no inquisitor would have had trouble in citing before him anyone
accused of the practices condemned in Gr.atian, the Liber. Extra, or the
Liber Sextus. As Alexander !V's letter indicates, and as several commen
tators on Gratian had indicated, magic was, not easy to define, and there
appears to have been some unce1tainty among canonists as to whether
v all magic was heretical or not. It should be remembered, of course, that
\>'U �J.. �e term heresy itself had ambi?uous m�� gs to the .end of the twelfth
,
� :,( a:;.' century, �� ] :ffie te1�. Tlielnll"te,enth -century canonists, at the
,
same universities as the theologians who were commenting upon the
� / various kinds of magic, were probably stricken by the same ambiguous
'-t�/
/ feelings as their colleagues and heard the same kind of defense of some,
at least, of the magical arts against the cha: rge of heresy.
As the comments on the Liber Extra suggest, the ,texts in Gratian's
Decretum probably were assumed to be satisfactory for the disposition
of most of the cases of magic that ecclesiastical lawyers came across. The
Summa decretalium of Johannes Andreae, who also wrote the ordinary
gloss to the Liber Sextus, focuses exclusively on the technical details of
divination and sorcery, as did the commentnries of his great predecessors,
Innocent IV, Hostiensis, and Goffredo da Trani.41 Unlike the canonists'
treatment of other questions, of which political theory has been the most
widely explored, there appears to have been general agreement among
them on the question of magic, and little speculation or innovation in
their comments.
Aside from comments directly linked to 1the arrangement of the legal
texts, the twelfth and thirteenth centuiies also witnessed the appearance
of encyclopedic summae organized analytically by their authors. The
�ma of R�mond of Pefiafort, the ��iler of the Liher Extra, is of
partlcularimportance. 42 Book LTitle 11 of Raymond's Summa cleals
with De sortilegis et divinis and may serve as a kind of proof text for the
opinions of one of the greatest thirteenth-century lawyers.
The first part of title 11 deals with sortes and the varieties of divinatio.
Raymond incorporates a number of Gratian's texts into his commentary,
devoting most of part 1 to Augustine. Augustinian texts also dominate
part 2 of title 11, dealing with what kinds of divinatio are pennitted and
what kinds are forbidden. Part 3 deals with t'he punishments for those
who commit sortilegium and divinatio:
The punishment for such is multiplex; they are declared infamous, nor may
they receive the eucharist, if their sin is notorious. . . . They may not be ad
mitted [in court] as accusers. . . . If, after warnings and after excommunication
they do not correct themselves, if they are slaves they may be scourged, and
if they are freemen they ought to-be imprisoned, and both kinds are to be
ejected from the parish, their status shown to be reduced because of im
morality, that is, they should be tonsured or scalped. The bishop may have this
done by his own authority, but he should beware of dismembering them, kill
ing them, or shedding their blood. And he may invoke the aid of the secular
To justify the invocation of the secular aim, that is lay judicial authority,
arm.43
Raymond cites from the first part of Gratian's Decretum, Distinctio 17,
c. 4 Nee licuit, an important text in the history of the Church's relations
with temporal powers in the judicial sphere. Part 4 of title 11 raises a
number of general questions concerning sortilegos et divinos. First, Ray
mond asks, what if someone should ask a confessor if it is never penn-issi
ble to divine by means of the astrolabe or similar means. "To this you T -�,.. .. •.I?
,,,,...
must answer, according to all authorities, that if it involves the invocation
of d�mons or other similar superstitions, it is in no way permitted."
Raymond's second question touches upon the magical and improper use
)>
of sacramentals and the mass itself in order to achieve ends that these
things were never intended to accomplish, especially those cletics who
say masses for the dead in the name of one still living. Raymond's third
question deals with the women who believe they ride at night ,vith
Diana, from Decretum, C.26, q.5, c.12. Raymond repeats the injunction
..Qf the Canon-- Episcopi that su9h superstitions and others, such as the /
b�n shapeshifting, are phantasms of the devil. Anyone who believes
them is beyond doubt .an inJ;rd�T an'ct wors�. than a pagan. Raymond's
Summa, then, offers a comprehensive view of canonists' theo1ies of magic
in the early thirteenth century. His citations of Gratian's texts suggest the
link between the topics discussed by Gratian, their categorical acceptance
?Y the teachers in the law schools, and the relatively few specific texts
included in the Liber of Gregory IX. Taken in all, as they arc in Ray
mond's Summa, they constitute, with the discussions of maleficia and
marital impotence, the sum total of canonist concern with magic in the
thirteenth century. Taken in conjunction ,vith the works of William of
Auvergne, Thomas Aquinas, and other writers, they form a consistent,
:r' ; 102 The Systematic Condemnatkm of Magic in the Thirleemh Centu'll
U�
(\) _q) coherent view of magic and its sinful and criminal aspects. The sin of
magic was associ��Y-!iL�l!uY.� t!1e gJ£§Sa ordwai�e
'�·
.)., . J
Q')
.
en
.
.
Bible.1., and by the late twelfth century beyond question, it was reg�de.<l
9-S being as evil as that of heres�- The magicians had become infamous
by the sacrilegious and superstitious character of their practices alone.
� 1/ And lawyers, no less than theologians, reiterated that view from the late
;J; twelfth century on.
�
THE MAGICIAN IN HELL
The twentieth canto of Dante's Inferno suggests the theological sum

mation of the topics treated so far in this chapter.•• After having seen
the panderers and seducers, flatterers, and simoniacs, Vergil leads Dante
to the next bolgia, where the poet is immediately stricken with pity at the
prospect before him. He sees a silent procession approaching, "at about
the speed of those in our own day who sa)t litanies," whose members all 1
have their heads twisted around so that they see and weep backwards.
Vergil remarks about the first of them, Amphiaros, what was true of all:
"because he wished to see too far ahead in time, he looks behind and(
makes his way backwards." According to Dante's principle of contrapasso,
those who provoke the wrath of God by trying to see into the future, are
forced to look only at the past. To some 1extent, the punishment of the
diviners in Inferno, canto 20, is related to that of the heretics in canto 10,
who, because they denied the immortality o,f the soul, are deprived of the
knowledge of what is happening at prescrnt and in the near future and
recent past. They, unlike the diviners, are affiicted with a clear vision
only of the distant future.
The first five diviners whom Vergil mentions are figures out of classical
literature: Amphiaros, Tiresias, Aruns, Manito, and Eurypylus. Like John
l
\ of Salisbury, Dante was willing to use classical references to condemn
sins that were being committed by his contemporaries, probably because
the references were to well-known figures whose magical practices were
assie illustrations of the sin they committed. The remaining figures in
nto 20 are contemporaries, or near-contemporaries of Dante: �
c�h,_Qt,lid..Q,.B.Qna!!1_ Asdente, and a nameless group of womeu, "wretched,
wbo gave up the needle, the shuttle, and the distaff e fecersi 'ndivine;/
fecer malie con erbe e con imago"; that is, they made themselves diviners
and, by parallel constructiori, malie; they cast spells with herbs and
images. This short canto describes a variety of types of magician as they
were known by the end of the thirteenth century, and Dante's treatment
\ them effectively su
of ms up the theme of this chapter, the systematic
. in the thirteenth century.
�condemnation of magic
Simony, the subject of Inferno, canto 19, was named after Simon Magus,
_
p

who was also a commonplace figure in patristic literature, typifying the
J,.m agician. Like simoniacs, magicians perverted true devotion and became,
as Dante says, idolaters, worshi in d and silver instead of God.
Follo wing Aquinas an o er t eologians, Dante then takes up the theme
of divination which, with idolatry and observantiae, were linked by
Aquinas as three forms of superstitio. The first three classical figures,
.Amphiaros, Tiresias, and Aruns, are figures well known from the poems
of Statius, Ovid, and Lucan, respectively; they illustrate precisely the
kind of pagan divination-and in the case of Tiresias, shape shifting
that the Church Fathers so vehe.IJlently condemned. The fourth classical
figure is Manto, la vergine cruda, who chose an uninhabited plot of land
in the midst of a marsh to practice her arti; Benvenuto da Imola suggests
that she resembles "one of those female enchanters who sometimes
wander nude at night with their hair loose."
The long speech by which Vergil describes Manto serves several pur
poses. First, Dante the poet permits Vergil to correct something he him
self had written in the Aeneid-his denial that Manto had founded the
city. The role of Vergil in this canto is particularly approp1ir te, since in
the Middle Ages the Roman poet himself had the reputatio6 of being a
magician; he figures in the story cited above, told by Gervais of Tilbury,
Lalso concerning a magician. But although Dante establisq�s Manto's role
in discovering the site of the city of Mantua, he clears the city of 1 t�e
charge of having been founded by a sorceress. Those who actually built
the city were attracted by its defensible position, not by the habits of its
first inhabitant. For this reason, they decided to build the city and name
it after Manto, sanz altra sorte, "without any other sign." Most transla
tions of Inferno translate sorte as augury, and this too is legitimate, as
long as the Latin meaning of sors, divination by lot, is kept in mind. By
his terminology through the speech of Vergil, Dante is establishing a
historical fact, but he exonerates the city of Mantua of any association
with the practices of its first inhabitant. The final classical figure,
Eurypylus, was associated in Dante's mind with Calchas, the Greek seer
of the Trojan War. All of the classical figures in Inferno, canto 20, com-
V prise the magic arts as these were condemned by Church Fathers and by
L later writers. Amphiaros saw illegitimately into the future; Tiresias shifted
shape and sex; Aruns lived alone (like Manto) and also predicted the
future; Manto practiced magical arts besides divination; Eurypylus con
sulted oracles and associated with diviners. Although Dante had begun
�o weep when he first saw the diviners, "because I saw our [human]
image thus contorted," one of the diviners, Tiresias, transformed the
hum an image, and another, Manto, Bed human company, as did Anms.
�y contrapasso, the diviners are punished by a distortion of the human
image which symbolizes their own distortion of human nature through
If
IL.their magical arts.
The next figure, however, is not a figure from classical antiquity at all;
it is Michael Scot, the court astrologer of Frederick II, whose reputation

l . ·· in . spite of his dis
as a ��a1� %��v_gJ!.l:"J��- t�e thir!��otlh �eJitur�,
avowal of'11Tegitimate magic m the Libe: r Introductonus. Dante places
s;�tt h�re- becaus;- . "he knew the game of magic frauds," de le maghiche
frode seppe 'l giocco. Dante probably condemns Scot as an illusor, or a
praestigiosus. Guido Bonatti, although Dante's contemporaries called him
a repairer of roofs, seems-to' have taught a.t Bologna, and his Liber astro
nomicus was one of the most popular medieval works of astroiogy, being
many times 7epr'ii1ted-to the end of the sev,enteenth century. In his boo�
onatti bitterly attacks those who deny the efficacy of astrology-and
vidently there had been many-and goes on to assert the value and
4;;
�
roven character of the discipline. Guido, a Ghibelline, is probably placed
n Hell because astrology and magic, with heresy, were crimes particu
larly imputed to the Ghibcllines in Italy, just as h·eason was imputed to
the Guelfs. Among the strongest theological weapons that the papal party
wielded against their Ghibelline enemies were the charges of heresy ( see
Inferno, 10), astrology, divination, and magic. The tradition of Michael
Scot appears to have influenced Dante's image of Guido Bonatti as well. .
The nameless women who are the last figures in the canto are perhaps
a less well-known kind of diviner. The progression so far has been: classi
cal figures, famous thirteenth-century illusores and astrologi, and un
known and perhaps humble women who discard their approved role of
sewing, spinning, and weaving and pretend to be fortunetellers. This last
group is important because it gives us an insight into the kind of magic
racticed at lower social levels than the court, the town, and the univer
J, w
'v/ sity. They foretold the future and cast spells, engaging in herbal- and
image-magic, probably finding lost objects, making love-charms, or work
ing harmful spells upon their clients' enemies. These women are also
important, because they are the social, as the other figures in the canto 1
are the learned, precursors of the later vicl tims of witchcraft persecution.
Before the Inquisition was formally empowered to act against sorcerers,
} �� the poet knew perfectly well the orthodox penalties to which
• , diviners, astrologers, magicians, and fortunetellers of all kinds and ranks
\ were condemned.
In Inferno, cantos 29 and 30, Dante on, ce again deals with topics re
lated to magic, this time in the context of shape-changers and illusors.
Griffolino of Arezzo, who had been burned at the stake for being a
agician, reveals himself as condemned for being a fraudulent alchemist.
In general, alchemy presented problems somewhat different from those
posed by astrology, divination, and magic; Dante treats. the topic here
and in canto 30 under the general heading of perverse deception,
whether of alchemy, counterfeit coins, or individual identity. But
riffolino's reputation as a magician suggests the links betwet:n fradu-
The Systematic Condemnation of Magic i n the Thirteenth Century 105
Jent alchemy and other magical practices, for if he had not been an
alchemist, he would have been punished in Inferno 20 with the diviners
and illusors. Dante's commentators make it clear that Griffolino had the
reputation, at least, of being a magician. Benvenuto da Imola says that
the victim of Griffolino's deception, Albero of Siena, "fecit formari in
quisitionem contra eum, qualiter exercebat magicam, quam tamen ille
ignorabat.''•G The author of the Ottimo Commento states that Qri�oJ1no
was burned as an invoker of demons and a heretic in faith, ingiuratore de
demottic;d e�ti"co iii fede�Although the commentators are not absolute
authorities on Dante's intention\.--they provide an excellent view of the
understanding of the sinfullness of magic and the invocation of demons
that fourteenth- and fifteenth-century scholars might have. Their off-hand
terminology, familiar from the invective of the thi1teenth century, suggests
that by the fou1teenth century, condemnation of magicians to the stake
was not thought of as unusual, although it may have been infrequent.
Others in Dante's world also incurred at least the reputations-and in
one case the accusation-of being magicians, notably Peter of Abano and
Cecco d'Ascoli. Althoµ_gb_ Peter of Abano condemn�d the varieties of the
magical arts as soundly as any critic considered thus far, his discussion of
them, his own extensive interest in legitimizing astrology, and his knowl
edge of poisons contributed to his formidabl'e reputation in the sixteenth
century as one of the most powerful of Italy's magicians.47 Cecco d'Ascoli,
G cco
who was burned by the Inquisition at Florence in 1327 for the crime of ,
astrology, is in many ways a more important figure than Peter of Abano.48
Cecco was, as John Mundy has pointed out, the first magister to be put
to-aeath for his opinions. Although Cecco's astrological works seem rela-
tively innocuous, Villani's Chronicle suggests a more familiar reason: the
j�lousy of a fellow courtier of Cecco's at the court of Charles of Calabria,
then Duke of Florence. Although Cecco appears to have been somewhat
more determinist an astrologer than was altogether safe in the fourteenth
century, it was probabl }' a combination of an earlier condemnation and
his resuming his forbidden ait, along with the rivalry of a fellow courtier,
that brought about his downfall.
In the career of Cccco d'Ascoli, it is important to note that one hitherto
powerfu l protection of even the most criticized academic thinkers of the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries, their immunity from the stake, was
insufficient to save him, although it might have if he had been at Paris or
elsewhere. His 6rst condemnation came while he was teaching at Bologna,
!nd that was only a Sentence forbidding him to teach Or practice astrology l' l
�a.in. Cecco's case also emphasizes, as do the figures in Dante's Inferno t ,�....J
ana the later reputation of Peter of Abano, the uniform condemnation of
m�gic and �trology in thirteenth-century sources. Thi� condemnation
was supported by formidable theological and legal structures and re
iterated, as we will see in the next chapter, by a series of trials that once
· �r -
' �; -
r u."
J.
and for all announced the crimen magia:e and completed the juridical
framework of the condemnation of the magical arts.
Perhaps the classic figure of the scholar who was tainted with the
reputation of being a . .!!.'!.�gjcian l�imsdf because he wrote ·extensively
about magic, was Amald of Villanova.4'' A learned and complex man,
V Arnald was a physician respected by king;s and popes, a "lay theologian"
whose prophecies and proposals for reform brought him afoul of the
Inquisition in France, Aragon, and Rome. A prolific writer, Arnald wrote
t\b(f�;·" , several works directed against the claims of sorcerers. In these works
,... f J,� c1iticiz�s_t]�ag�c-� sh�rp]y_a:5 Ag�_in�� o_r WilliaJn of Auvergne befo�
hlrp. His at�ack on sorcery, like those of Aquin_as, are two-pronged. First,
Arn;Ja° agrees· with the theoiogians that the demons cannot· be compelled
r/, ,. N/::.
L:�··· : ·
• . -� . by magicians, but receive them in order'to�their andottiers' ffiimna'-
.... tiofi: Second, he attacks the physicar'basis ' 'for the magicians' claims,
denying that lower substances can .be compelled by the mind or by
... ...�� .......__ _,,.,..._· -
dem_onj<: P.<?.".Yer __given qy th� deJnOPS t9 lwn:ians. The treatisf Dep ' im1fr'(1bn-
�·---- -
tione maleficorum, written by Arnald at the request of Bisho las15ei.tot
Valence to refute the claims of two Proveni9al monks that they could � n
trol the demons and use them for beneficial purposes, denounces the
curiositatem eorum, qui . . . garriunt asserendo se habere potentiam
demones compellendi.r. Arnald begins by attacking the physical basis of
beliefs that demons can be compelled by human intelligence; then he
0
denies that any force except God can compel demons, and that God may
give this force to holy men, but ce1tainly not to magicians, pecca"Iores:-:-:
exercentes nequissimi . Arnald denies the powers of words, signs, images,
J blood, corpses, suffumigations, performed , costumed or naked, in deserted
( buildings or other artificial places, quoniam omnium talium fabricator est
1
! ipse demon, and only deceived or simple people believe in them.
The frauds and invocations of magicians, the tricks of Griffolino, the
increasing danger to court astrologers, and the denunciation of the
Provern;al monks by Arnald of Villanova, mark a new development in the
history of the crimen magiae: the willingness and ability of autho1ities
to prosecute such offenders, and the general agreement among theolo
gians, lawyers, scientists, and legitimate astrologers that they should be
prosecuted. The fourteenth century opened! with the increasingly frequent
,t,
/ Y!J prosecution of magicians.
NOTES
1. Lynn Thorndike, Histo1·y of Magic and E:rperimental Science (New York,

1923-58) 2:436-57. See also Servus Gieben, "Bibliographia universa Roberti
F

Grosseteste ab anno 1473 ad annum 1969," Collectanea Franciscana 39 ( 1969 ) :
362-418, and A . C. Crombie, Robert Gro:,seteste and the Origins of Experimen
tal Science, 1100 - 1 700 (Oxford, 1952). The De prognosticatione is in L. Baur,
ed., Die philosophischen Werke des Hobert Grosset.este, Bischotfs von Lincoln
(Munster, 1912). Relevant parts of it are translated and discussed i n Richard
c. Dales, The Scientific Achievement of the Middle Ages (Philadelphia, 1973)
pp. 151-56.
2. Dales, Scientific Achievement, pp. 152-55.
3. Ibid., p. 153.
4. Ibid., p. 155. J
5. Thorndike, History, 2:307-37;.J.,ynn Thorndike, Michael Scot (London,
1965) , esp. pp. 80-121; Ernst Kantorowicz, Frederick the Second, 1 1 9 4 -1250,
trans. E. 0. Lorimer (reprint ed., New York, 1957 ) , pp. 339-68.
6. Thorndike, Michael Scot, pp. 80-88.
7. Marie-Therese d'Alverny, "La survivance de la magie antique," in Mis
cellanea Medievalia, 1: Antike und Orient im Mittelalter, ed. P. Wilpert (Ber
lin, 1962).
8. One reason for the uniform medieval condemnation of praestigiosi, makers
of illusions, was the analogy between their actions and those of demons, who
parodied true creation and were described throughout the twelfth and thir
teenth centuries and later as creating their praestigium in order to deceive
mortals, capturing or at least endangering their souls. Hence, the punishment
of counterfeiters and shapeshifters in Dante's lnfemo, canti 29-30, and the
focus upon illusion in such later works as Johann Weyer, De Praestigiis
Daemonum (Basel, 1563), discussed below, in Chapter 6. The theme was
taken up in a di1Ferent sense in Thomas Mann's novella Mario and the
Magician.
9. Thorndike, Michael Scot, pp. 1 19-20.
10. Dante Inferno 20, 11. 116-17.
11. Dales, Scientific Achievement, pp. 155-56.
12. Thorndike, History, 2:616-9 1.
13. Ibid., pp. 214-304.
14. Ibid., pp. 338-71. The text of William used here is Gulielmi Alverni
episcopi Parisiensis . . . Opera Omnia, 2 vols. (Paris, 1674 ) : De legibus, vol. 1,
fol. 18-102; De unii;erso, vol. 1, ff. 593-806, vol. 2, fol. 807-1072. See also
d'Alvemy, "La Survivance de la magie antique." The best recent study of
William, however, is the article by Beryl Smalley, "William of Auvergne, John
of La Rochelle, and St. Thomas Aquinas on the Old Law," in St. Thomas
Aquinas, 1274-1974, Commemorative Studies, 2 vols. (Toronto, 1974 ), 2:11-
72, esp. pp. 27-46 with recent biblbgraphy.
15. De legibus, fol. 78.
16. Ibid.
17. I intend to produce an extensive study of the medfoval history of
CUriositas. There is a good preliminary bibliography in Jean-Claude Fredouille,
Te1tullien et la conversion de la culture antique, (Paris, 1972), p. 413, n.l, to
Which should be added Hans Blumenberg, Die Legitimitat cler Neuzeit (Frank
furt, 1966 ) . See, e.g., T. F. Crane, The Exempla . . . of Jacques de Vitry (re-
108 The Systematic Condemnation of Magic i n the Thirteenth Century
print ed., Liechtenstein, 1967), pp. 12-13. On the tradition of curiositas as a
vice, see Gregory the Great, Homiliarum in Evangelia, book 2, Hom. xx.xvi (PL
76,coll268c), commentingon Luke 14:16-24,. For a twelfth-century Cistercian
use of the term, see Meyer Schapiro, "On the Aesthetic Attitude in Romanesque
Art," in Art and Thought: Issued in Honor of Dr. Amanda K. Coomaraswamy
(London, 1947), pp. 130-50; reprinted in Meyer Schapiro, Romanesque Art:
Selected Papers, vol. 1 (New York, 1977), pp. 1-27. The section of Blumen
berg's Die Legitimitiit der Neuzeit dealing with curiositas has been recently
reprinted and expanded separately under the ititle Der Prozess der theoretischen
Neugierde ( Frankfurt, 1973). See also Horst Rudiger, "Curiositas und Magie.
Apuleius und Lucius als literarische Archet}'pen der Faust-Gestalt," in Wort
und Text. Festschrift fur Fritz Schalk (Frankfurt, 1963 ) , pp. 57-82.
18. The text is in H. Denifle and A. Chatelain, ed., Chattularium Univer
sitatis Parisiensis, Vol. 1 (Paris, 1889 ) , No. 4'73, p. 543. See E. Gilson, History
of Christian Philosophy in the Middle Ages (New York, 1955), pp. 402-9 and
notes; F. Van Steenberghen, La philosophie au Xllle siecle (Louvain-Paris,
1966) , pp. 377-78, 483-93. See below, Cha1pter 6 for the condemnation of
1398. On Robert Kilwardby's own condemnation of magic, based on his read
ing of Hugh of St. Victor, see above, Chapter :i, part 1.
19. Henry Ansgar Kelly, The Devil, Demonology and Witchcraft (New
York, 1974); Jeffrey Russell, Witchcraft in the Middle Ages, pp. 101-32;
Norman Cohn, Europe's Inner Demons: An Enquiry Inspired by the Great
Witch-Hunt (New York, 1975), pp. 60-75; Henry Charles Lea, Materials
Toward a History of Witchcraft, ed. and comp. Arthur Howland (Phila., 1938),
1:34-105. Jeffrey B. Russell, The Del)il: Perc, eptions of Evil from Antiquity t o ·
Primitive Christianity (Ithaca, 1975).
20. I am grateful to Professor Kennan for discussing some of the implica
tions stated here with me.
21. Lester Little and Barbara Rosenwein, ""Social Meaning in Monastic and
Mendicant Spiritualities," Past and Present 63 ( 1974 ) : 4-32.
22. Barbara Rosenwein, "Feudal War and Monastic Peace : Cluniac Liturgy
as Ritual Aggression," Viator 2 ( 1971) : 129-5'.7.
23. H. von E. Scott and C. C. Swinton Blaind, trans., Dialogus Miraculorum,
2 vols. (London, 1929), 1:313-17.
24. Russell, Witchcraft, pp. 101-32. The problems of late twelfth-century
demonology were many. Orthodox theologians had to veer away from any
indication that the devil was the "prince of this world," lest they hew too
closely to Manicheism. Scholastic Aristotelians inclined to explain the powers
of the devil in the natural world by emphasizing demonic physiology; there was
certainly increased discussion of human commerce with the devil, linked to a
sense of personal temptation.
25. R. W. Southern, The Making of the Middle Ages (New Haven, 1953).
26. Thorndike, History, 2:Sl"l,9,2.
27. Charles E. Hopkin, Tt#sffare of Thomas Aquinas in the Growth of the
Witchcraft Delusion (Philadelphia, 1940).
28. Ibid., p. 177.
The Systematic Condemnal'ion of Magic in the Thirteenth Century 109
29. Ibid., passim; see also Thorndike, History, 2:593-615.
30. Aquinas Expositio in Job, c.l, lect, 3, ad fin.
31. Hopkin, Witchcra� Delusion, pp. 81-127.
32. Ibid., pp. 87-88. •
33, Quodlibet XI, Quaestio 9, art. 10, Utrum maleficia impediant matri
monium, Thomas Aquinas, Opera Omnia, vol. 9 (Parma, 1859), p. 618. See
the connection of the whole quodlibet with the discussions of Hostiensis above.
34. Aquinas Summa theologiae, pt. 2, q. 100, membr. 2, art. 1.
35. Cited in the edition of Venice, 1595.
36. Quinque compilationes Antiquae, ed. Ae. Friedberg ( Leipzig, 1882), lib.
5, title 17, p. 60.
.-
37. Ibid., lib. 5, title 9, p. 184.
38. Ibid., lib. 4, title 15, De frigidis et maleficiatis, deals with marital im
potence. See above, Chapter 3, n.29 for references.
39. Bernardi Papiensis . . . Summa Decretalium, ed. E. Th. Laspeyres
(Regensburg, 1860), ad 5.17, pp. 241-43. See also ad 4.16, pp. 175-80.
40. Liber Sextus 5.2.8.
41. Johannes Andreae in qumtum Decretalium Librum Novella Commen
taria (Venice, 1581) ad 5.21 De sortilegiis.
42. Sancti Raymundi de Pennafort . . . Summa (Verona, 1744) , lib. 1, title
11 De sortilegis, pp. 102-9.
43. Ibid., p. 107.
44. All references are to the edition of Charles Singleton, 6 vols. (Princeton,
1970).
45. See Thorndike, History, 2:825-40.
46. Singleton, Inferno, 2: Commentary, pp. 535-37.
47. Thorndike, History, 2: 874-947.
- --
48. Ibid., 948-68.
49. Thornclik�, History, 2, 841-61; P. Diepgen, "Arnaldus de Villanova de
improbatione maleficorum," Archiv fiir Kulturgeschichte 9 ( 1911): 385-403.
50. Diepgen, Amaldus de Villanova," p. 388.
5
The Sorcerer ' s Apprentice
THE GROWING APPEAL OF MAGIC

t,r:,l ..., ' I
(
) •.e.,
I
In 1256 a book of magic, since known as JPicatrix/ was said to have been
translated into Spa1;isJ1.f.g>m Arabic at thl�·de't·bf Alfonso X oLC ..Mtile. 1
Although the exact date of the translation into Lati11·1s unce1tain, the text
is important because it presents a formidalble defense of magic, impugning
' 1 on!y the evil intentioIJS of those who employ it. Picatrix has-been termed
I by Thorndike a "work of astrological necromancy," since its principal aim
is to explain the use of astrological images and the procedures for invok
ing demons. In its defense of magic, Picatrix also defends the magi.cian.
The pu1ity of character, years of study, c:fiastity, and devotion to the art
, J 1 required of thc magician suggests that magicians, like professors, knights,
I and guild members, were considered members of a particular calling

and made particular demands upon theiir initiates. Learning and purity
� arc perhaps the _ �1ost emphasiz�d q�iali�ies, for the ignorant, unstudied,
l(or amateur mag1c1an runs the nsk of bemg destroye<l by the very forces
'
he pretends to command. This is one of the first appearances of the type
of the sorcerer's apprentice, which becomes more familiar in _the follow
( ing centuries, in law and literature alike. The aims of the magic descJibed
in Picatrix are by now conventional: gain, affection and favor, erotic
compulsion, thaumaturgy, weathermaking, and the creation of wondrous
illusions.
Another thirteenth-century work that strongly defends magic was itself
110
The Sorcerer's Apprentice 111
among those condemned qy William of Auvergne, the Liber Juratus, or

The Sworn �ok �L H_QnQriY§""' , s.o-called because its compiler, allegedly
J fionoriusof Theoes, insisted that it be passed down only to those who
swear that they will observe i��recy.2 The preface states that the pope
and cardinals have wrongfully condemned the magicians on the grounds
that magicians and necromancers "were injuring everyone, transgressing
the statutes of holy mother church, making invocations and sacrifices to 1
demons, and dragging innocent people down to damnation by their
marvelous illusions." The magicians deny these charges, counteling them
with an idea already seen in Picatrix, that only the l<:_�Eed_,
. q_i�.9Jp}Jned,
and pure of heart can be magicTans. Tlie magicians have therefore d e -
.A cicied to condense· tliefr volumes of magic bocks into a single volume, and
Honorius of Thebes has performed the vast labor. The product of his
work is the J.,ibe�. The work itself makes strong claims, and it is
perhaps the "'uftfrnate in what thirteenth-century moralists delighted to
'i' call curiositas. It pretends to reveal all secret knowledge, the prediction
of future events, the control over demons, and all other occult sciences.
Its claims are so comprehensive and so recondite that Thorndike cites it
as an example of that magic condemned by St. Augustine:
[True miracles] . . . were achieved by simple faith and devout confidence, not
by spells and charms composed according to the rules of criminal curiosity, the
craft which is called magic or goeteia, a detestable name, or by the more
honorable title of theurgy.°r'or � to distinguish between practitioners of
illicit arts who are to be condemned, classing some as sorcerers [malefici],
vulgarly so-called and concerned with goeteia, and other designated as praise
worthy, performing the practice of theurgy. In fact both types are engaged in
the deceptive rites of demons, wrongly called angels. 3
The fourth-century defenders of magical practices evoked the same con

demnation from Augustine as their thirteenth-century counterparts
evoked from William of Auvergne, Albertus, Aquinas, and Arnald of
Villanova.
The accusations of moralists, theologians, canon lawyers, and such
figures as Arnald of Villanova appear to have been based on fact as well
as upon general fear. The observations of Grosseteste and William of
Auvergne that they had handled magical and astrological books at Paris
and Oxford late in the twelfth century is echoed by many more writers
in the late thirteenth century. Picatrix and the Liber Juratus are merely
two of the most eloquent defen�s of- magic that the thirteenth century
produced. There were others,''and there were those who read them and
ptacticed what they taught-not only miscalculating court astrologers
and physicians like Arnald of Villanova, Peter of Abano, and Cecco
d'Ascoli, but lesser-known figures with less learned books whose presence
112 The Sorcerer's Apprentice
is attested to in a large number of court records dating from the end of
the thirteenth century. Often, they worked in the service of powerful
ecclesiastical or temporal figures, but the power of their masters failed
to . 'Save most of them once they were caught, and they often took the
As Picatrix and the Liber Juratus indicat,e, the appeal of magic grew in ,
brunt of punishment from which their employers were sometimes spared.
the thirteenth century, and the crime of magic entered both spiritual and
1 1 temporal courts. -
MAGIC AND POLITICAL POWER: : THE DEMIMONDE OF

THE THIRTEENTH-CENTURY
In the mid-twelfth century, as noted in Chapter 2, John of Salisbury,

Walter Map, and other moralists began to denounce a new set of vices,
the vices peculiar to the court society that was just taking shape around
them. In the Policraticus, John of Salisbury had warned that magicians,
diviners, and soothsayers were particula1rly tempting to courtiers, and, -
much to John's dismay, courtiers were actively consulting them. By the
. end of the thirteenth century, the magician's skills, or at least his litera-
1 ture, had increased immensely. Besides Caesarius of Heisterbach's clerical
invokers of demons, William of Auverg:ne's academic magicians, and
-,.\ Amald of Villanova's Provengal ...!E.<?.:1..!<.s, there�red- Intliirteenth-
l
c century courts another group of magiciarns. Those figures, whose history
has often been obscured by the political interest in the events they helped
pitable welcome. In order to understand the appeal of courts for magi- ..,.
to cause, found in the courts of the thirteenth century a particularly hos
cians, apart from those observations made by John of Salisbury and others
a century earlier, we must first consider tl he nature of courts themselves.1
John of Salisbury was not, of course, tlile only writer who denounced
the atmosphere of the court. Aside from many thirteenth-century
moralists, one need only indicate the references to courts that run through
Dante's Divine Comedy, particularly the moving and bitter soliloquy of
Pierre de la Vigne in Inferno, canto 13. The climate of envy, deceit, the
struggle for precarious favor, the fate that hung on a ruler's whim or
a major, although generally unstudied theme of the Comedy. In one or

impulse, and the difficulties that lay in wait for honest counsellors form
4
another similar form they constitute a literary genre that extends down at
least to More's Utopia and into the seventeenth century.� Moralists and
critics of the court tended to tum much of their literature of complaint
and satire into conventional invective. On the other hand, the fostitution
of the court and its life corresponded genminely to many of the ills and
The Sorcerer's Apprentice
vices of which it was accused. And it was in the world of the court that
113
the earliest prosecutions on charges of magic took place. J
By the late twelfth century, most of the royal and princely courts of
Europe were growing out of the rudimentary innerant households of the
tenth and eleventh centuries. The legitimacy and history of the ruling
dynasty was a matter of pride and interest to the court, and the wealth
and splendor of the court testified to the power of its ruler. At the center
of the court stood the lord-whether noble, bishop, pope or king, his
servants and family; these were surrounded by others who attended
court either by right or by influtWce. Seen as a household, the court was
staffed with domestic servants and their supervisors, each with · clearly
defined functions. Seen as a center of political authority, however, even
domestic servants might wield power far beyond their status because of
their friendship, connections, or simple proximity to the lord. Although
the thirteenth century witnessed the rise to power of great officers of
state, the lords of courts just as frequently listened to individual favorites
who often had no explicit authority. The court and its ruler were the
center of power, favor, wealth, and security, but the people who attended
court or worked there found that these gifts did not always circulate
through clearly marked channels, but were instead subject to obscure
influences, inexplicable favorites, momentary passions, the "hissings and
murmurings" not only of magicians, but of blood relatives, favorites,
mistresses, friends, clerics, and attendants. Throughout the world of the
court there existed both a system of clear and unambiguous authority
t tnd command and a system of subtle and pervasive influences that
L orresponded to no known rank, status, title, or legitimate claim to power.
These systems were delineated more and more clearly in the course of
the thirteenth century. In their midst a shrewd and intelligent ruler might
exploit these two systems to strengthen his own position and widen his
access to circles outside the court, as the ablest Byzantine emperors .had
done since the sixth century. Trapped within two conflicting systems of
power, however, a weak or insecure ruler might be victimized by both.
This parallel existence of formal and informal systems of power is the
first distinctive feature of the medieval court.
In addition to the ambiguities of power and influence at the court,
thirteenth-century rulers were also in the process of transfo1ming the
nature of the principality and kingdom itself, usually in favor of a cen
tralized royal administration with a public, rather than a private, domestic
character. Thus, within the principality, the claims of the prince were
becoming increasingly novel and challenging the traditional reservoirs of
P?wer and authority that traditionally lay outside the control of the king
himself, whether vested in independent ecclesiastical properties, the
landed wealth of great families, the privileges of corporations and towns,
114
and even the libertas ecclesiae. Churchmen and great lay lords alike
found themselves either servants of the new central authority or outside
, /it completely. In spiritual and temporal! affairs, the court and central
authority created its own servants, far more pliable and loyal than mighty
subjects with power bases of their own. The household clergy of the
king-such as the Dominicans that surrounded the royal household in
Paris-and the growing number of bureaucrats, often of humble birth
and dependent upon the rnler alone for their advantage, could serve
royal interests more efficiently than quasi-independent prelates and lords
who could withdraw in times of danger o,r disfavor to their own virtually
independent domains.
The affairs of thirteenth-century courts were not, however, entirely
governmental. Royal pastimes included hunting, entertaining, and con
spicuously maintaining the visible style cif a great prince. These occupa
tions drew more people into the world o,f the court: huntsmen, grooms,
actors, jugglers, mimes, the histriones against whom moralists had com
plained since the eleventh century, singers, poets, musicians, and artists.
Landless and penniless knights came as well, to compete in tournaments.
Courts included scholars, clerics of all soirts, often astrologers, physicians,
and usually young people in service as pages and esquires. At its fullest,
the thirteenth-century royal court was packed with people from all social
ranks and occupations, and since government was the court's primary
' business, it was difficult to keep the different realms of the court
separated.
The social reality of the court is important because it served as a setting
in which particular political tensions and problems came to the fore.
Although thirteenth -century kings were slowly turning their power into
public power, they did so only at the expense of other traditional forms
Ji of power. Since criticism of the king w�ts ill-advised, if not impossible,
criticism instead was aimed at those around the ruler, particularly those
who appeared to have done nothing to warrant the royal favor and the
11 consequent power it brought them. "The king's wicked advisors" became 1
' 'a common motif of royal criticism, one that exonerated the king from !
direct blame and shifted many peoples' hostility over political change
onto the shoulders of the king's servants. In addition to the problem of
criticism and political tension, the court also served as a mirror of suc
cession crises within the dynasty. In spite of the centralizing of both
6
political theory and institutions, the succession to the crown sti!l pa1took
of domestic law. Legitimate and illegitimate claimants to the throne, as
well as those in junior and cadet branches of the royal house who might
have a claim to succeed, should anything unexpected happen to the
normal course of heirs, all frequented the court as well. General political
I ,
115
tensions and succession problems were but two of the larger political
issues that plagued royal courts, but they are sufficient to indicate how
tthe daily atmosphere of the court-part domestic household, part public
center of government- provided a particular' kind of arena in which
I
L larger public issues worked themselves out in particular ways.
One of these ways was public criticism. The literature of complaint
and satire has been well researched, as has the homiletic literature of the
kinds of complaints, the gravamina submitted by convocations of bishops

thirteenth and fourteenth centuries and the more formal and permissible
and the requests submitted by $.Ouncils and assemblies. These forms of

dissent and criticism remained well within the fonnal channels of public
life. They say little to the question at hand. Other forms of criticism,
however, were more effective. Gossip, slander, defamation, and other
varieties of influencing those in power flourished in the courts as nowhere
else. Favor at court could wax and wane unpredictably even in the best
and most open of circumstances. Such circumstances of court life might
be explained by obvious reasons, but the court's potential for deviousness
and obscurity also suggested other explanations. The types of the wicked
advisor, the over-influential favorite, the treacherous queen, the envious
prince, and the ambitious parvenu all fill the literature of the courts, and
these types, far from being exclusively literary commonplaces, actually
reflect some of the political and personal circumstances that the in
habitants of royal courts faced. It is among these surroundings that the
sorcerers and their apprentices found a place late in the thirteenth
century, although, if we are to believe John of Salisbury, they had been
drawn to the court at least a century earlier.
The courts of the tl}irteenth century, like the universities and the cities,
generated not only a population that was designated according to the
function of its particular members, but also a demimonde-in the broad
est sense of that term, the sense used by Peter Brown ·when he discusses
the rhetors, charioteers, holy men, and sorcerers of the fourth and fifth
centuries. Poets and artists, physicians and astrologers, ladies and gentle
7
men in waiting, meteorically rising favorites, and itinerant holy men,

clerics, and va1ious forms of entertainers may be said to constitute this
demimonde. At home in the court, they often served figures inside and
outside the world of the court as advisers, gossips, go- betweens, panders,
and confidants. Their ambiguous social status served as a bridge between
courtiers and the world outside the court. Their positions gave them
great mobility and access to both information and influence. For those
whose mterest was the advancement of self and often corresponding harm
t? others, the demimonde was indispensable. In an atmosphere of fac
fonalism, struggles for favor, ambition, intense personal likes and dis
tkes, the demimonde constituted the personnel at the disposal of those
I
116
who wished to take advantage of the informal and devious means of
acquiring power and favor. And the demimonde, wholly outside of any
role its members may have played in the prevalence of sorcery at the
court, was also an object of moral criticism and satire. The train of a
strange queen brought even more distastefol figures into court; the friends
of a prince, the current spiritual or astrological advisers of the lord, and
the changing population of artists and entertainers replenished not only
the demimonde of the court in reality, biut provided ever new occasions
for denunciations of court life.
The role of this demimonde has never been of great interest to his
to1ians, in one sense at least because it probably had little to do with the
traditional and fo1mal affairs of state. We do not notice it in war, nor in
fiscal affairs, nor at the great court ceremonies and the operation of the
law courts. Rather, it served the individuals of the court in their private
ambitions and needs, usually behind the scenes, often secretly. Its very
1(
value was its mobility, usefullness, position, ambiguous status, and
ubiquity. And in return, it was protected, patronized, and enriched by
those it aided, at least as long as it did nothing especially dangerous and
� did _n�t get found out. It linked the aiistocracy and others to the
mag1c1ans.
In a study published in 1972, Professor William R. Jones undertook an
investigation into "The Political Uses of Sorcery in Medieval Europe."8 ,<.
Jones's richly documented survey is very suggestive of the role played
by sorcery at the royal courts of England : and France and the papal court
between 1300 and 1450. Although Jones focuses upon the manipulation
of charges of sorcery by political agents dealing with political crimes,
his study is also important as an iJlustrati.on of something more than the
realpolitik of ambitious royal servants aind conniving kings and popes.
Jones' attitude toward the reality of the •charges of magic that filled the
courts intermittently for a century and a ! half is sceptical, and he regards
the charges of sorcery more as a supplementary accusation than a real
threat. As the foregoing chapters indicate, however, it is possible to take
a different view. The development of the magical arts between the late
twelfth and thirteenth centu1ies was considerable; already in the mid
twelfth century, John of Salisbury and others were complaining that
courtiers were especially prone to employ them; the condemnations of
these arts came not only from theologians and canon lawyers, but from
many other sources in the course of the century, including no less formid
able thinkers than Roger Bacon and Amald of Villanova; the courts as
institutioHs were particularly vulnerable at the end of the thirteenth
century to the kinds of services magicians had to offer. As we consider
some of these cases in the following pag1es, it is important to remember
that belief in magic was not mere "superstition" around 1300, that magi-
V
s existed, that their books existed, and that there was a widespread
l cian
117
/I fear of them. In many respects, l:.eter Brow.n's study of sorcery in the

fourth and fifth centuries constitutes a model for the investigation of
i sorcery at the courts of thirteenth-, fourteeMh-, and fifteenth-century
Europe .
From the twelfth century, the figure of the historical magician appears
Un sources that have no reason to deny his existence. In causa 26 of the
Decretum, as we have seen, Gratian posits the not unlikely case of a
priest who has been excommunicated as an unrepentant magician and
diviner by his bishop; Alexander Ill's letters tell of clerics accused of
divining. Caesarius of Heisterbach takes it for an incidental common
place that a knight who wanted to call up the devil would find a cleric
who knew how to do such things, and Amald of Villanova's De improba
tione maleficarum discusses the case of two monks who actually claimed
to do what Caesarius's priest did. Indeed, not only had magicians been
denounced by the powers that one would expect-theologians and
lawyers-but they were denounced by other kinds of scholars as well.
Picatrix and the Liber Juratus made formidable claims. on behalf of magic,
igtronngth;t�th��iogicaf criticis�s of the. thirteenth century, and even
purpoi.Teoro efe,/ate the magician to a kind of priestly status and to claim
formagictne� status of scienfi�, .faced with such a thirteenth-century
liistory,'i'tisscafceiy possible to 'doubt that the accusers of sorcerers in
the fourteenth- and fifteenth-century political trials believed that the
· charges they levelled were real charges and that the accused had in fact
committed the actions with whic;:h they were charged. It is entirely likely
� that many of the accused had done exactly what they were accused of
doing.
There is, therefore, no reason to assume that the charges of magic in
the trials discussed below were either cynical or fabricated, at least ·
insofar as their plausibility is concerned. Thirteenth-century people were
well aware of the existence of magic books and magicians who used
them. The circumstances of the trials involving political sorcery will be
shown to indicate that the particular circumstances in which the charges
were made strongly suggested the presence of sorcery, and in fact the
trials of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries appear to have dealt with
real magicians.
1 . Peter Brown, following E. E. Evans-Pritchard, suggests that sorce1y
/)S best understood as a function of explaining misfortune on the part of
,
those who consider themselves victims. Thus, it is important, for the
historian as for the anthropologist, to understand the relationship b e
tween the accusers and the accused fo witchcraft trials and to under
stand as well the reason why sorcery accusations are made in lieu of other
kinds of charges. Granted, Evans-Pritchard considers only the Azande
people, and Brown only fourth- and fifth·-century Rome. In a number of
ways, however, Brown's model seems particularly applicable to the so

ciety of the courts of late thirteenth- and early fourteenth-century
Europe. In the first place, Brown emphasizes that the magic practiced
in late imperial Rome was a learned magic, with its own discipline, litera- -
ture, and professional practitioners. As we: have seen in Chapter 1, Brown
argues that the great watershed betwee1n antique magic and medieval'
witchcraft occurred with the advent of a totally Christianized societyx
around the end of the sixth century. Then,
In Christian popular opinion, the sorcerer could no longer be tolerated in the

community on the condition that he recanted his art: for he was now considered
to have abandoned his identity; he had denied his Christian baptism. . . . The t
power of sorcery is gained, not by skill, but by a compact, a sealed document
delivered over to the Devil, renouncing Christ, His Mother, and one's baptism.:J
As we have seen, Brown's model may help indeed to explain the relative
fearlessness of Christians between the seventh and the eleventh centuries
when faced with sorcery. In an age which geared its own legal institu
tions to the notion of immanent justice, it was understandable that a
powerful and outraged God would strike down a sorcerer, either directly
or through the actions of formidable living saints, bishops, and abbots.
As we have also seen, however, that certainty and security of a com
pletely Christianized world began to sl lip during the late tenth and
eleventh centuries. The revival of learning brought with it a revival of
learned magic. Although theologians and canonists alike denounced most
of its forms, astrologers and magicians rnade strong defenses, especially
attempting to bifurcate the magical arts: , condemning part of them as
evil, but eagerly defending another parit as praiseworthy. By the late
thirteenth century, the learned magician had returned with his discipline,
books, and professional-almost clerical-status. Even careful writers
who distinguished between different kinds of magic, such as Roger Bacon
or Arnald of Villanova, acquired reputations for practicing evil magic;
careless magicians, like Cecco d'Ascoli, w1ere burned. The paradox of late
thilteenth-century magic was that it necessarily ran afoul of the notion
of a completely Christianized society, but it also made strong claims to
legitimacy and learning. The pagan image of the learned magician once
more confronted a Christian society, and tlhat society could not. but regard
him ambiguously. As D. P. Walker has shown, the ambiguity between
spiritual and demonic magic persisted do,wn to the seventeenth century.
The learned magician having returned, some of the circumstances that
drove people to use magicians and to ma1ke accus�tions of magic against
others returned as well. The world of the late thirteenth-century courts,
of course, was not that of late imperial Rome. But some of the features
of late Roman imperial life singled out in Brown's discussion suggest
parallels with the thirteenth- and fourteenth-century courts of western
Europe. First, the late thirteenth century witflessed considerable institu-1
tional and administrative centralization of royal government. In France
this was achieved by a graded system of lesser public officials throughout
the kingdom and a group of able and dedicated royal servants in Paris.
In England, although the king had no group around him remotely com
parable to the lawyers of Philip IV of France, he had a justiciar and
treasurer, and the careers of Hubert de Burgh, Peter des Roches, and
Peter des Rivaux in the reign of Henry III illuminate the balance among
magnates, royal officers, the bishops, and the king that accompanied and
characterized centralization of English government. The great officers
of state in England were the objects of the envy of their rivals and the
fear of the magnates. Without being exclusively archtypical low-born
favorites, they excited resentment against themselves and they attracted
\
,... resentment that might otherwise have been directed against the king.
As Jones and others have pointed out, all of the following were charged
with one act of sorcery or another between 1232 �nd 1307: Hubert de
B...!lrgh, Henry Ill's justiciar; Walter Langton, the treasurer of Edward I;
and Adam Stratton, chamb�rlain of the exchequer under Edward I.1°
These early charges suggest one target 9f charges oJ the use of magic:
the officer of state whose actions, success, and power threaten to over
ride the balance among competing centers of power. In the case of
Hubert de Burgh, his enemies seemed to favor the great magnates; in
other cases, the resentment appears to have been directed against indi
viduals whose favor with the king permitted them great power and
wealth. Adam Stratton is the low-born royal favorite par excellence, and
Edward I is said once to have called out to him, in a remark that reveals
-much about medieval humor, "Adam, Adam, where is the man I have
created?"
}'hese English cases are isolated episodes and suggest the lack of
English interest in sorcery much before the fifteenth century. This gen
eral lack of concern ( except in the fifteenth-century cases to be consid
ered below) parallels England's general lack of concern for the later
type of the witch as that type was supposed to flomish on the continent.
The extensive descriptions of English cases of sorcery in the thirteenth
and fourteenth centuries found in the work of Ewen and Kitteridge all
point to a form of learned magic, which, if it is not as elevated as those
defended by Picatrix and the Liber Juratus, is nevertheless a skilled art,
one practiced by clerics or learned individuals. The well- known case of
Dame Alice Kyteler in Ireland in 1324 suggests principally the opposition
between a powerful and wealthy well-connected woman and an English
V
120
Franciscan bishop, Richard Ledrede. The long conllict between the
11
bishop of Ossory and Dame Alice clearly grew out of Alice's wealth and,
power in the district and the wealth of her son. TI1e bishop, allying him
self with Alice's enemies, launched the charges of homicide and sorcery
which kept Kilkenny in a turmoil for several years. The importance of
the Kyteler case is that in it one may observe the sharpening of accusa- 1
tions of sorcery and association with demons characteristic of other epi
sodes of the fourteenth century. What is also noteworthy about the i
Kyteler case is that it is the only significant case of accusations of magic
� in fourteenth-century England-and it failed. The bishop of Ossory's
charges were comprehensive and sophisticated, but they were insufficient
to overcome the local support Alice Kylteler evidently maintained. In
short, the Kyteler case, too, has a political air about it, although it falls
outside the great cases of political sorcery that erupted in France at the
end of the thirteenth century.
_y, The French political sorcery trials fall iinto two groups. In one group,
�' ' the king and his servants levelled charges of sorcery against several high
,
t:;0 . ecclesiastics, notably Guichard, bishop o,f Troyes, and PoP.e Boniface 1
' VIII. 12 In 1308 Guicha� accused of having �PfPrl �
the nueen by
1"'-{\
·· w<> . means of image-magic and of having use.cl magic on other occasions as
s· nf:.t well. Like Aaam-Sffirtton, Guichard was a royal favorite, and his charac
ter and activities appear to have made him bitterly hated by many at
court. Accused of using a sorcerer to hellp him, Guichard, whether he
actually used sorcery or not, was the victim of the court, of the milieu in
which the use of magic was widely recognized. Philip IV's accusations
against Boniface VIII are also part of a l long and complex emnity. that -
had its roots in Boniface's Italian affairs as well as in his conflict with
Philip IV. Although the charges against Boniface are probably baseless,
they mark an interesting step in the conflict between spiritual and
' 1 temporal authority. During their political quarrel, Philip was able to
defend some of his actions against Boniface by appealing to doctrines
both agreed on. But Boniface ultimately parted from Philip, and the
king of France was obliged to maintain his own security and his control
over the French church against a formidable and articulate pope. After
Boniface's death, the charge of sorcery wai; employed because charges of
doctrinal heresy would have been canol!lically difficult to prove and
because the other crimes with which Bo,niface was charged stemmed
from traditional antipapal invective of the twelfth and thirteenth cen
turies. The charge of sorcery against Boniface was, in its way, an in
genious device for attacking a pope who was protected from otlier
charges, such as that of heresy, and whos, e authority, in theory at least,
was superior to that of the king. The accusations against Boniface and
Guichard both may have been engineered by Guillaume de Nogar�t,
Philip JV's minister, and it is possible that in Boniface's case, they were
brought cynically. But in both cases, the charges were plausible. In the
• / case of Guichard, more graphically than in that of Boniface, they helped
explain his behavior, his success, his power in" the court, and the deaths
of members of the royal family. The charges against Boniface also ex
plained his bitter and prolonged opposition to the roi tres chretien,
Philip IV.
Boniface VIII was not the last pope to be charged with sorcery, but
the most effective accusations of sorcery took place within the French
court itself.13 Enguerrand de Marigny, a rival of Guichard and one of the
bishop's accusers, was himself charged with sorcery in 1314. Although
originally accused of treason and misappropriating royal revenues, he
was soon accused of using sorcery to escape from prison and destroy the
king. His wife, his sister and a sorceress were implicated with him. At
the same time, Pierre de Latilly, bishop of Chalons, and Raoul de
Presles, two former servants of Philip IV, also fell from grace and were
charged with employing sorcery. All of these cases, as Jones points out,
consisted of attacks on parvenu royal servants by members of the royal
f I family or the high aristocracy. These powerful figures, whose actual
authority seems not to have coincided with their natural rank, launched
accusations against their opposites: men whose authority was great, but
whose social rank was low. In terms of Brown's model, the low-born
servants of the crown, whose own status was uncertain and could change
at any moment, both made charges of sorcery and were the victims of
these charges. Unlike the fourt h -century Roman emperors, the kings of
England and France could not protect their servants and favorites by
placing them in a strictly graded bureaucracy beneath themselves. The
power of the royal servants was less specific and therefore more vu1ner
4.
able to those who hated and resented them. The great aristocrats who
engineered the falls of Enguerrand de Marigny and Pierre de Latilly
accused them of other crimes besides sorcery, but the accusation of sor
- cery covered the very real threat that these men posed of somehow
I managing to return to power, by the same elusive means they had sue-
I ceeded in before. It should also be noted that the accused were not'
charged with performing acts of sorcery themselves but of having the �
assistance of professional sorcerers and sorceresses, people whose pres-
\} ence was well known and who were from the very demimonde of the
world around the court. -·-
-.J
The next round of sorcery accusations in �ance came in 1316, when
Mahaut of A tois, the mothe -in-l aw of Philip V:'was acci:ised°"o'rliaving ('-��.:_;"�)
� � _ . affection for her
sorcery practiced upon the king m order to restore his
daughter. 14 Erotic magic too was part of the repertoire of the fourteenth-
y
century sorcerer. Jones draws some general conclusions from the nature
of the victims of sorcery accusations that are very suggestive. First, he
notes that royal advisers, especially those with no personal rank and
status of their own, were accused of using sorcery to attain their fortune
and power. Second, "members of collateral branches of ruling dynasties,
especially the ladies of cadet families, who were the symbols of dynastic
controversy, likewise provided the focus for accusations of this kind." In
� \ both of these instances, opposition came from those whose own interests
were blocked by the accused. The charg;e of sorcery itself, rather than
(or along with) other crimes, was necessary to explain the power the
accused exercised over the king without criticizing the king's judgement,
and this device seems to have been a disc• overy of the reign of Philip IV.
During his father's reign Pierre de la Broce played a role similar to those
played by Guichard de Troyes and Enguerrand de Marigny; but, as far
as is known, the accusation of enchanting the king was not made. A gen
eration later, it was. It remains to inq1uire into the atmosphere that
encouraged accusations of sorcery against such specific groups at the
royal court of France.
We have already seen that these accusations usually fell into two
areas: first, high-born members of the royal family or upper aristocracy
made sorcery charges against low-born, but very highly placed and
powerful royal servants, usually after the king's death. Sorcery was an
explanation for the rise of the favorite, his domination of the king, and
the grounds for an accusation of treason. Charges of sorcery also ex
plained the failure of the aristocracy itself to achieve the position held by
the parvenu counsellor. Second, ladies of cadet branches of the royal
family, as Jones points out, stood to profit from interruptions of the
natural pattern of succession, and amatory and erotic magic was a con
sistent part of the magical arts, one which especially troubled canonists.
There is, however, an important third aspect of these trials and accusa-
tions: the magicians themselves. The great figures were rarely accused
.,
of performing magic themselves, but of using professionals to do it for
them. These professionals were members of their own entourage or part
of the demimonde of the court, and they were very familiar with the
unseen workings of favor and danger in the world of the court. It is im
portant to note that they were never the full-fledged sorcerers found in
theologians' and scientists' denunciations, although the charges brought
against them derived from denunciations of precisely the high and power
ful magician. Instead, they were lesser figures-in a sense, . sorcerers'
apprentices-who were employed professionally because of their skills
and reputations. The whole apparatus of denouncing magicians was
levelled at these minor servants, hangers-on, domestic magicians, sor
cerer's apprentices, thereby putting upon them the brunt of the charge,
and often convicting them when their patrons were let off or punished
lightly. The sorcerer's apprentices were desh·oyed in the conflicts of the
'.
The Sorcerer s Apprentice 123
powerful, having become involved in the affairs of the great and the
powerful through their place in the demimo�e of the court. Their de
struction contributed an important element to the thirteenth- and four
teenth-century hostility to magic and to its concept of the magician. It
brought the magician into the comt-not the court of the Inquisition nor
that of the village, but ,the royal court, where the traditional protected
1 status of those accused of magic no longer helped. Powerful royal or
princely patrons could not withstand the command of the royal comt. In
the case of Mahaut of Artois, ii). particular, the king himself was willing
to make the charges public and stand by the final outcome, so seriously
did he take them. When figures like Enguerrand de Marigny, Guichard
of Troyes, and Mahaut of Artois could be brought to court, the magicians
they had employed had no defense against prosecution themselves. l!!_
the first guart�_of t!:ie fq_urt�enth.. centur.x.•. <l.. numl>J�r. of , grou,p� tr�di
nonally protecte cc sa · witclwi:a..f� Q�f�m.e...x:uJn�J.!ql�:.,r/
l �� -� � .�?}\ ��
Cecco aAscoTi 5ecame tlie first magister. to .be b�� for his ideas . . an<l 'l
f6r sorcery; thegreat figures of earlyl'olirteenTI;::century France were also
calledt� trial on charges of sorcery. When such power and position failed
to protect its members from accusation and even conviction, the sorcerer's
apprentices had little chance of escaping, and few of them did. The case
of Alice Kyteler is important in this context precisely because Alice did
escape, if only barely, by exploiting her personal connections and be
cause the charges of Richard Ledrede were not taken seriously. But the
charges were ominous, and even Alice's wealth and power only barely
saved her from one form of condemnation or another.
By the secon�quar!_.��-ou:�� . -f<?u.r��th .9��tu}Y...l}�e legal machinerf I
of papal ana royal courts, and episcopal. court� as well, . was beginning- to J
accept cliarges of soi·ce'i·y ans 'to achieve convictioiis . The sorcerer brought
to court was not, of course, the magus of the philosophers. Sorcery had
become democratized, and the small magicians who fitted the competence
of the courts became the predecessors of the later humble witches. A
theory of magic and its dangers and errors that was designed for a
learned, dangerous, and powerful sage was applied to lesser magicians in
the fearful and insecure atmosphere of the court. John of Salisbury's
warning to courtiers a century before was repeated, not by humanist
moral critics, but by the most powerful figures of the early fourteenth
century, and it was being repeated in the context of accusation, trial, and
conviction. The crimen magiae was, in a very real sense, "on the books"
after the early fourteenth century. Its practitioners were already those
from the indistinct demimonde of courtiers and servants who sustained ,
the machinery and intrigue of court life. They were charged in the hard
est terms extant with political interference. By the early fourteenth cen-
J
124
tury, political structures had become extraordinarily sensitive to inter
ference of all kinds, and the sorcerers appeared among the most dan
gerous enemies of the state. The question of whether sorcery was heretical
or not did not need to be asked: it was clear.!ur��:!..n�!.it�ll�
society aU!��<;!�tl!r1.J?.2£!..�.i,nJ.��.��- ?'f]fi'e1lngdom. It was there ore
a legittmate concern.of temporalcoliits,'atnd� victims brought its
practitioners out of the world of the com't: into the courtroom. And al
though in the trials the magicians looked diminished and hardly like the
figures depicted in Picatrix and the Liber ]uratus, or even like those
described by Aquinas and William of A uvergne, they were convicted
�j because they were believed to practice the same condemned arts. It was
difficulflo briiiif a fu11-Iiedged magician 11nto'-c6urt· except in the case of
Cecco d'Ascoli, but the great magician in t:he abstract had been the focus
of a unanimous condemnation that was applied to considerably lesser
figures with great success. If the shadowy assistants of Guichard de
Troyes, Enguerrand de Marigny, and Mahaut of Artois could be con
I victed of the crime of magic, any magician could. Anyone accused of

maleficium could be brought to trial before the secular courts, and, as the
fourteenth century wore on, ecclesiastical courts entertained the charge
as well. There was no need for an abstract magician; lesser professional
magicians did as well, and they were easier to apprehend and convict,
for they used their arts on the most vuln1erable, and therefore the most
apprehensive victims of all, the popes and the kings of France and
England. 15
The first quarter of the fourteenth century did not see the last of the
cases of political sorcery in France, but similar cases appeared in greater
numbers in Englana°l'5e"glnruhj: at· the end of the Reign of Edwa�
The_lsi_Qg,. again dominated by a favorite--in this case his mistress�
(
(<!'.:_err�.....:was said to be enchanted by her at a time when the judgement

'"\
oftne king _ was� in question because of his great age and physical de
l terioration(In' 14];_9 .J.9'.1!1 �Y..a�, stepmother of Henry V, was accused
of practicing magic to encompass the dea1 th of her late husband, Henry
i IV. The charges made against Humphrey of Gloucester's wife, Eleanor
Cobham-of using magic against the young Henry VI-were sim"'ilar Eo
tnose made against Mahaut of Artois a century earlier. 16 !3y the�-
J
f�eenth ....c.e.ntur,, Engl'!c�expe,[en�. a succession c,isis sim�
f France l!rOµ!}d . 1316, and th� key figures involved were so _J?.Owerful
- orily,. oiies- thafcQ.liict
that c�arges of sorce�-y were virtu�a1ly the" .--- safel�e
. made. Again the victims of the trials we:re the magicians, . in this case
- --
tlie -�lerics Bolingbrolce ana SoiiHlwella�d the. professional sorceress
.
h
' l\ Margery Jourdemayne. Once again the ac,cusation of sorcery was hurled
back and forth among the most powerful figures in the kingdom, but the
convictions were of lesser folk, the dem11monde of the court and the
p
courtiers. In England as in France and Avignon, the charges aired in the
highest of courts struck down a few of the mighty and many of their ·
lesser servants. The convicted magicians were clearly from a far lesser
came from an unprotected status- they were not magistri, royal relatives,
social rank than of the powerful figures the}" were employed by; they
or members of the great religious orders. And they did not necessarily
function only at royal or papal courts, although it was in those settings
that they first became vulnerable to prosecution. Long before the first
village sorceresses became witches, the victims of the trials at Paris, West
minister, and Avignon already had created a public image of the magi
cian-one who need not be remote and mysterious but who came from a
social order that was supervised and scrutinized by many different law
' I courts and magistrates. The courts concentrated upon the efficacy of the
magician's acts, their intention, and the status of their victim, not par
longer be a magister, not even a magister necromantiae; his skills could

ticularly upon the magician's learning and skill. The magician need no
be more easily acquired, and behind him, or her, lurked the shadow of·
the demon. The warning of thirteenth-century magic books had come
true: the sorcerer's apprentice could indeed run into difficulty by care
lessly or ignorantly employing the ait. But the difficulties were far more
consequential than being carried off by a demon. They consisted of being
brought to trial in a real court by fearful judges.
THE CASE OF THE TEMPLARS
The case initiated in France in 1307 to destroy the order of Knights

Templars may be considered as another step in the process whereby
accusations of sorcery and related activities were brought into fourteenth
� century law courts. 17 This case developed in the light of the general
,\
awareness of magic in the late thirteenth century, the particular atmos
phere of court life that encouraged both its use and the accusation of its
use against certain vulnerable figures, and the trials and accusations f
sorcery themselves that began around 1301. The story of the fall of the
Templars has been told many times, often badly, infrequently with sense
and insight. The best modern versions are those of Mollat, Finke, and
subject has accumulated. Norman Cohn, in his recent study Europe's

Lizerand, and recent years a good secondary literature on aspects of the
Inner Demons, ·discusses the Templar case in the context of accusations of

sorcery, heresy, and idolatry as a necessary prelude to later witchcraft
persecutions. 18 In this section Cohn's argument will be reviewed and sup
plemented with other material gathered from the context of this study.
The Templars, like other religious orders, notably the mendicants, were
126
a privileged ecclesiastical corporation subordinate only to the pope. Un
The Sorcerers Apprentice
like the mendicants and the universities, which ingratiated themselves

with both spiritual and temporal power, by the early fourteenth century
1 the Templars had become an immensely wealthy, cosmopolitan, and
independent entity with its headquarters iin Paris and its functions par
taking far more of the worldly affairs of its banking houses and property
than its spiritual or crusading purpose. In a sense, the Templars had lost
their one rationale for existence and, as Cohn points out, they neither
continued their work in the eastern Mediterranean, as did the Hospi
tallers, nor did they find a new area of military activity against non
Christians, as did the Teutonic Knights. It may be worthwhile to add that
they also failed to cultivate the protection of the king, as did a number
of the Spanish military orders. The economic and ecclesiastical advan
tages of the Templars, like the privileges and wealth of court favorites,
generated widespread and sustained hostility among clerical and lay
circles alike. Philip IV of France, their :great antagonist and ultimate
destroyer, is a figure about whom historians still fail to agree. The stand
ard view of Philip's motivation in his destrnction of the Templars is that
of the king's desire to confiscate the Templar wealth, especially after the
ruinous defeat suffered by France at Courtrai in 1302 and the tensions
with Boniface VIII. Cohn suggests an allternative view, one that sees
Philip as a mystic, possessed of a grand design ( inspired by Ramon Lull
and others) of combining a vast crusade and conversion mission supported
by an army composed of the combined orders of the Templars and
Hospitallers and led by a ruler known as "Bellator Rex," who would
eventually become king of Jerusalem. Plhilip, according to this view,
would himself become "Bellator Rex/King of Jerusalem," turning the
government of France over to his son.
To be sure, Cohn's own work on millenatrian movements and the work
of J. N. Hillgarth on Lullism in fourteenth-century France strongly indi
cate that such ideas were in the fourteenth century air, and not only in
Paris. 10 The problem in this case is the pernonality and view of Philip IV,
for other schools of thought portray Philip as a shrewd, realistic, hard
headed pragmatist, who would have nothing, for example, to do with
such proposals as that of Pierre du Bois, whose De recuperatione terrae
saMtae displays just the sort of prophetic, 1reforn1ist millenarian tone that
Cohn sees in the grand design.
As the preceding section may suggest, it is necessary to disagree
with both of these views of Philip in order to reach some understand
ing of the reason for his attack on the Templars and the accusations
made by him and his officials against them. First, Philip was in extra-
.- ordinary financial straits after 1305, and his financial demands on his
own subjects were followed by the expulsion of the Jews of France in
p
127
1306 and the confiscation of their goods. It is difficult to see, as some
historians have, Philip's destruction of the Templars as exclusively the

cynical manouver of a financially pressed monarch. The studies of E. A. R.
Brown and others show that Philip's attitude ' toward financial problems
and the steps he took to alleviate them were shaped by an acute royal
conscience and a genuine concern for the morality of his actions and,
hence, his own salvation. On the other hand, there were other forces at
work besides the debatable grand design that shaped Philip's attitude
toward those he thought were a spiritual danger to the kingdom. Th<;
credibility, at least, of Philip's beliefs about the Templars is suggested by
the trial of Bernard Saisset, bishop of Pamiers, Philip's accusations
against Boniface VIII, and the elements of sorcery that we have seen on
many minds in the thirteenth century. They were consistent with what is
known of Philip's devout and acute conscience, made more acute by the
seriousness of the charges launched against Philip himself in his duel
with Boniface VIII. The Templars were the servants of the very papacy
that had accused Philip of extraordinary crimes and offenses against God
and the Church. Philip countered the charges of tyranny and oppression
with charges of idolatry, heresy, fornication, and sorcery. The Church
that had condemned Philip had to be proven to be not the true Church,
but a blasphemous parody of the Christian Church, and the parody
bChurch was that which Philip and his advisers accused the Templars of
,
iserving. Unable, and probably unwilling to accuse Rome, Philip contented
himself with denouncing Boniface individually, and the Templars as a
surrogate Church. The charges against the Templars read like an inver
sion of Christian belief: Christ was denied, idols were worshipped, sacra
ments were not respected. The leaders of the order were a kind of surro
gate clergy. The initiation ceremonies involved lascivious acts that in-
eluded homosexuality; the purpose of the order was to enrich itself.
I I Finally, the order met in secret, at night. These charges, spread out over
127 articles, can be compared to traditional anticlerical invective and
reformist criticism: antisacramentalism and idolatry directly contradicted
the Church's great thirteenth-century emphasis upon sacraments, particu
larly that of the consecrated host. Idolatry, as we have seen, was a charge
launched against the Church by heretics in the twelfth century and
against heretics themselves in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Idola-,
� try was also one of the most important allegations cited in the growing
condemnation of magic and sorcery. This was evidenced especially by
the use of book 10 of St. Augustine's De Civitate Dei by Aquinas and
other theologians. Sexual laxity was a common item in anticlerical invec
tive. Secret meetings were condemned in the thirteenth century as they •
had been in schools and heretical gatherings in the twelfth. These
charges, and the extraordinarily grotesque illustrations of them contained
in the full accusations, were circulated throughout the kingdom by royal
128
servants who had had much experience iin conveying the king's opinions
to a larger public. The fall of Acre in 1291 sharpened Christian con
sciousness of the divine wrath, which was the common explanation for
crusade failures: the sins of the Christians prevented God from favoring
them with victory. The sins of the Templaxs could also be blamed for the
loss of Acre. 'fhus far, the argument sugge��s tha_! Philip could have
· conscienti<?usly believed the .S��g�s_ _a_ga_!�St
Jj _ _ the Templ�rs without hav
ing been either a millenarian visio�arx. or a financial opportunist.
Were the charges true? It is impossible to avoid agreement with Finke
and Cohn and to say that they were not. 'Were they credible, not only to
the general public, but to Philip himself? The answer should be affinna
tive. Philip's conscience, the attack on Boniface and Bernard Saisset, the
expropriation of the Jews, the atmosphere of suspicion and frustration at
court which lashed out against Guichard de Troyes in 1308, again at the
memory of Boniface in 1311 and left a legacy of hostility that turned
against Enguerrand de Marigny and Pierre de Latilly in 1314, all sug
gest that Philip was prepared to believe in the truth of the accusations.
Similar, if not as ambitious and elaborate, accusations were made against
Beguines and Beghards, and there was an old vocabulary of invective
against closed corporations whose activities were carried on in secret.
To fill out the charges, there was the testimony of witnesses and con
fessions made by some members of the order itself. In these, rather than
in the charges themselves, there occur the elements that connect the
charges against the Templars with the common beliefs of heresy and
magic among clerical and lay writers of 1the thirteenth century: infanti
�ide, magical potions to bind those who drink them to the secrets of the
I�rder forever, lasciviousness, and the renunciation of Christ and the wor
ship of idols. These lesser accusations and confessions link the major
charges against the Templars firmly to contemporary beliefs concerning
heretics and magicians.
at
I The case against the Templars, like the political sorcery trials t�
, shortly followed it in France, Avignon, and England, brought two maior
criminal elements into accusations of sorcery: a specific and central accu
/
sation of idolatry, which, as we will see in the next chapter, became a
major concern in the criminal character of sorcery, and the consciousness
,1' of a fearsome attack on a vulnerable Ch1ristianity. The vulnerability of
Christendom was first declared in the tv,elfth century at the onset of
heterodox movements. It appeared just as the outward expansion of
Christian conversion of pagans came to a !halt, and it was encouraged by
the dream of world reform that inspired G1 regorians and heterodox Chris
tians alike. Such a declaration of vulnerability was, in fact, a way toward
increased power: as the Gregorians claimed, the Church was vulnerable
129
I C
to the abuses of laymen and wicked clergy. In order to correct that
vulnerability the Church had to possess the independence and autho1ity

to protect itself. It built those characteristics in its internal strengthening
in the twelfth century and in its external dealings with temporal authori
ties, emperors and kings. By the late thirteenth century, temporal au
thorities, too, could exploit this sense of vulnerability. England and
France complained of their powerlessness to prevent papal exploitation
of their eccles iastical resources; royal authority to tax was regarded as
contingent upon a state of emergency, usually an invasion or threat of
invasion from without the kingdom, or a revolt within it. Sorcery too
threatened the king through the court, and it threatened the king's
"natural" advisers by enabling upstart favorites to override their own
rights. It threatened ambitious regents or heirs apparent by interfering
with the natural order of succession. It threatened whole kingdoms when
it was practiced by wealthy, powerful, and independent institutfons
within the kingdom. Just as heresy was the Church's focus of vulnerability, \
sorcery was the state's. The presence of magicians and idolaters threat
ened not only the king personally, literally putting his salvation in doubt,
but it also threatened to bring the wrath of God down upon the kingdom.
To be evil in early fourteenth-century France in this sense was to do
what the Templars were accused of doing, to employ sorcery for per
sonal ends as advisers and relatives of the king were accused of doing.
For these were the dangers by which the kingdom measured its own
vulnerability. And institutions growing stronger do so by declaring them
jJ selves vulnerable, in danger. They learn how to take the appropriate
I
ste:q_s to offset that vulnerability, and in doing so they acquire new
strengths.
MAGICIANS AND POPES IN THE EARLY

FOURTEENTH CENTURY
The accusations against Boniface VIII and the Templars made by the
king of France and the scurrilous invective that circulated against Boni
face in Italy throughout his pontificate, helped to introduce the idea that
charges of blasphemy, sorcery, and idolatry could be launched against
the pope himself.20 Indeed, Clement V was huns.ell th_e... �_u_bieQ!� num
�. and Augustinus Triumphus of Ancona dedicated to him a
book warning of the grave dangers of consulting diviners and other kinds
of magicians. Augustinus' treatise appears to repeat conventional theo
logical and canonist denunciations of these practices. As if these circum
stances were not enough to trouble the papacy, the early years of
� "!.en�uccessor, John XXII, brought yet new difficulties. The move
-
130
of the papacy to Avignon, not yet clearly a long sojurn, had increased the
factionalism among the cardinals and their courtiers and servants; papal
finances were exhausted, and the administrative machinery that later
marked one of the few successes of the Avignon papacy was not yet in
place. In addition, in 1314 and the following years, further trials for
sorcery were troubling the royal court of France. In 1317, Joho XXII
face� t1:_: c_� e .?� J:Iugues G!rau5'1, pis451,,,_?f' Cah_o1� who w,as _ic;�a
_ ;
ana conv�cted of attempt!_ng to take the pope,s life by means of S0!9ery
and poison. Other cases of sorcery at the papal court were discovered,
aird" irr1319 Bernard Delicieux was tried and convicted of the possession
21
of magic book-;, although he escaped a co11tdemnation for the actual pra"c

,
��- 9L�Q��Q' Virtually from the'very begmi1i11g of his ponti[cate,
>·
I\John XXII was involved in the problem of criminal sorcery, this time
\}.vithin the papal court itself.
The case of Hugues Geraud suggests ]parallels with several of those
-- --
who were tried around the same time in France. I n all cases, professional
magicians were accused and confessed and appear in fact to nave co}1l-
mitted the crimes they were accused of. The magic they practiced was
either harmful or amatory, but in both ins:tances it was of a kind clearly
forbidden, and explicitly forbidden during the course of the thirteenth
century, when its practices and substance became better known. Its con
demnation did not impede its development, and although it is difficult to
gauge the statements of Roger Bacon and Arnald of Villanova and the
"pope and cardinals" of the preface to the Liber Juratus, these diverse
sources reflect a genuine concern that the p.r.act�ce of _mggi,c_was-p.i;o,-
liferating at an alarming rate. This certainly seemed to be the case in the
\""',
Ar.. · t"?ears immeciiately following 1316 at Avignon. In 1318 Robert Mauvoisin,
archbishop of Aix, was charged wit.h.!_nagical practices, 1!tho�g!_1 he was
not convicted. Robert appears to have become attracted to astrological
-
\..;\.i \'·
magic during his student days at Bolognia and to bave continued �
interest, along with deplorable incompetence as a prelate, at Aix.23 In the
... ,�-
same year, John XXII condemned several clerics at Avignon for possessing
and using the books and instruments of magic. The case of Berna@
Delicieux in 1319 was followed in the same year by a letter to the cliocese
of Poitiers, in which the pope told of a case of sorcery that he had en
counrered earlier when he was a judge, A woman, accused of sorcery
(maleficium) refused to confess until she was tortured, when she con
fessed all.Z4 Hugues Gcraud was not the nrst sorcerer that John XXII
encountered.
It is not necessary to posit from these cases between 1317 and 1319
that John XXII was particularly afraid of witches. As was the case with
.,\ Philip IV, he was especially in a position to be victimized QY a1tacks_ of.
mairicians, and the temper of tne late thirteenth and early fourteent,,,,
I �---- - -- ---- --------- h
p
centuries did not require especial fear of sorcerers or excessive super

..-
stftiori inorcleF"'fa ri·crleYS-W rriakecliarges of1nagic. In t1iis msfance,
Thorndike's scepticism or Jofin'sallegea credulity1s probably correct,
and further prosecutions of 1319 and 1320 unc6vered more magicians and
instituted further trials. The year 1320 witnessed the uncovering y
of a
plot engineered by Galea�z� Vi��?_n� of �,Iip�i��-1<�r�tr�·o.15�p means
e
-'"of acont�w-trmi:g maglc. As Thorndike points out, this episode also
f
indicatestha' 'D�'iite ·ATighieTi was acquiring the reputation of a magi
cian, because Galeazzo is alleged to have said that he had tried and
failed to bring Dante to Milan to perform the necessary magic.
In 1320 a letter from William:-cardinal of Santa Sabina, to the inquisi
tors of Carcassone and Toulouse urged them with papal permission to
undertake the investigation of sorcerers within their jurisdictions:
Our most holy father and lord, by divine providence Pope John XXII, fervently
desires that sorcerers, the infectors of God's flock, flee from the midst of the
house of God. He ordains and commits to you that, by his authority against
them who make sacrifice to demons or adore them, or do homage unto them by
giving them as a sign a written pact or other token; or who make certain bind
ing pacts with them, or who make or have made for them certain images or
other things which bind them to demons, or by invoking the demons plan to
perpetrate whatever sorceries they wish; or who, abusing the sacrament of
baptism, themselves baptize or cause to be baptized an image of wax or of
some other material; and who themselves make these things or have them
made in order to invoke the demons; or if unknowingly they have baptism,
orders, or confirmation repeated; then, concerning sorcerers, who abuse the
sacrament of the eucharist or the consecrated host and other sacraments of the
Church by using them or things like them in their sorcery, you can investigate
and otherwise proceed against them by whatever means available, which are
canonically assigned to you concerning the proceeding against heretics. Indeed,
our same lord amplifies and extends the power given to Inquisitors by the law
as much as the office of the Inquisition against heretics, and, by his certain
knowledge, likewise the privileges in all and singular cases mentioned above. 25
In 1258, as noted above, Pope Alexander IV was asked b y inquisitors

whether or not sorcery came under their purview. Alexander's answer,
inquisitors' inquiries, was included in the Liber Sextus, Boniface VIIl's

which was part of a series of statements dealing with the scope of the
great lawbook, in 1298.2G The ordinary gloss to the Liber Sextus was com
piled b y Johannes Andreac around 1300, and Johannes's comment on
Alexander's text noted that:
[Sorcery and divination that clearly savor of heresy include] praying at the
altars of idols, to offer sacrifices, to consult demons, to elicit responses from
them, . . . or to associate publicly with heretics in order to predict the future
by means of the body and blood of Christ, etc.
William of Santa Sabina's letter specifically charges the inquisitors of
Carcassone and Toulouse with carrying out, in effect, precisely the in
structions that Alexander !V's letter and Johannes Andreae's gloss issue:
the sorcery they are to prosecute is preciisely that kind of sorcery that
manifestly savors of heresy.
In 1323 or 1324 Bernard Gui wrote one of the most widely circulated
manuals of inquisitorial procedure.27 As a number of historiins have
noted, Bernard's manual says nothing whatever about ·�w�� but
it does mention sorcerers of the kind emcountered by John XXII and
anticipated by Alexander IV and Johannes Andreae, and it contains a
formula for abjuration by a sorcerer.�8 Bernard describes precisely the
kind of sorcery condemned in William of Santa Sabina's letter of 1320.
As we will see in the next chapter, this view of the inquisitor's duty to
prosecute charges of sorcery was continued in the even more influential
inquisitor's manual of Nicholas Eymerich, written in 1376 and widely
circulated through the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It is in
Eymerich's manual that the first text is found of a decretal issued by
John XXII in 1326, Super illius specula:
-------·-
Grievingly we observe . . . that many who are Christians in name only . .
sacrifice to demons, adore them, make or h.ave made images, rings, mirrors/
'I
phials, or other things for magic purposes, and bind themselves to demons.
They ask and receive responses from them and to fulfill their most depraved
lusts ask them for aid. Binding themselves to the most shameful slavery for the
most shameful of things, they allay themselves with death and make a pact with
hell. By their means a most pestilential disease, besides growing stronger and
increasingly serious, grievously infests the flock of Christ throughout the world.
By this edict we warn in perpetuity, guided by the sound counsel of our
brothers, all and singular whc> have been reborn at the baptismal font. In virtue
of holy obedience and under threat of anathema we warn them in advance that
none of them ought dare to teach or learn anything at all concerning these
perverse dogmas, or, what is even more execrable, to use any of them by what
ever means for whatever purpose. . . . Vve hereby promulgate the sentence of
excommunication upon all and singular who against our most charitable warn
ings and orders presume to engage in these things, and we desire that they
incur this sentence ipso facto. 29
Super lllius specula illustrates the vehemence with whic_h�rce�rs

. emned, ri°Q..t onl iri:)he works of theol a
ha� cometo b� �o!1d _ � �non
I lawyers, and publicists, but in the working law of a jurist-EOP!· Tiie
letters of William of Santa Sabina and John XXII draw to a close the
y,
noose left open by Alexander IV, although they do not exceed the injunc
tions of the earlier pope. Although some historians have questioned the
reason as to why either or both of these letters were not included in later
, The Sorcerer's Apprentice
/ 133
collections of canon law, the Extravagantes, it would seem simply that
they were not necessary. Alexander IV's decretal and Johannes Andreae's
ordinary gloss were in no way exceeded by, these letters. The letters
simply mobilized a permission that was implicit in the earlier papal let-
ter, and by the mid-fourteenth century, inquisitors, bishops, popes, and
secular magistrates alike knew very well in what ways sorcery and magic
could automatically become heretical. The importance of these texts aoes
not lie in their ;elation to canon law-except insofar as they were in
perfect conformity with it-but rather in the convicti_2iy. tha.!2r.1�&..C.......\f�S- �.
flourishing�,�-<1.�th�t .e9!!.<l� �2,��ken to stop it. who were
-
c�P in the search for magicians, 1tsli'ot'ilcf'" 6e"''if6ted:"'Were, with a
Those
few exceptions, the same sort of people convicted in France. They were
not the high, learned magicians, but their assistants, the S,!!1�}£Elcti- f'
tioners of the art-cleiics, I!l�D�. J�w:i,en and Jay_women, , all,-p.ro..es�ipp; �
rnagiclans:-tlie'y-�re-:if��-· from the demimonde of the court and' the
I
tO'Wn,' royal and papal. As the fourteenth century wore on and the charges
of political sorcery became diverted into other channels, the charges of
maleficent or heretical sorcery continued to be launched without inter- /
ruption at the same kind of people, usually from the middling and poorer
1
classes of court, town, and clergy. The learned sorcerer had generated the j
hostility which was vented on the sorcerer's apprentice.
I
The actions taken by John XXII have been shown to be perfectly con
sistent with the views of Alexander IV on the Inquisition's competence
to try cases of magic. In 1270, a Summa de officio inquisitionis gave a
fo1mulary for the interrogation of idolaters and maleficii.30 The interroga-
.....,e.' (
�ory begins with the association of maleficii and demonic invocation and v-Y�f,( 1.'
1t goes on to enquire about love- or hate-ma ic, necromancy, the obser-
. :
r ,-..1'
v� (_)f auspi�jous...m:..inauspicious....da.y.s_arui.fesfrlla . -3I1tiZ1!!g _1mages, v > C'><c�
1w
�d ot.!_l�_ magical 9ffenses ajr��9.Y. clearly cong�Ipned m_ c�_non law and ',,- - )
.
1
recognized in Johannes Andreae's gloss as manifestly savoring of heresy. -(

When Bernard Gui wrote the Practica inquisitionis in 1323/ 4, at the (2
height of John XXII's prosecutions of magicians, he too focused on
sortilegium and divinatores. In his manual, Gui included formularies of
the abjuration of magical practices and for the degradation of clerics ( re
ligious or secular clergy) convicted of practicing magic. In Avignon, at
about the same time, the jurist Oldradus da P,9,]t��,.a..�Qi.a�...,QJ;I.
behalf of... � �n accused of magical ,gr�cs1£.�{,,�!. 0ldradus began by stating
,
that "in all crimes 1ri." wliicn 'conde�nation may result, there must be
lucid and clear. proofs." "And if this is true of any crime, it is much more
so in the case of heresy, in which at the same time criminal condemnation
and civil punishments result and the posterity of the convicted bears
perpetual infamy." In arguing for the mitigation of accusations against
Johannes de Partimachio, Oldradus argues that "simple sortilegium, love
potions, and the consumption of an unconsecrated host do not manifestly
savor of heresy." He argues that making image�n orde_r_to achieY..e ,fue,

ve of a woman pertam�, �Q!� t<>_S.\!l?:�i;stj_t.iQn�_ tban to. heres)', citing
-
8\igustine--;" De·C,vitate Dei, book_lO, and ,Aquinas to s�upP.,ort his claim.
� argues"'t1tarwi'lhncf'intention distinguish maleficium, and that al-·
though worshipping the· aerrionsis'indeecf gh;ing fo ' anotBet ·creature that
which should be given to God alone, invoking a demon so that the demon
may tempt a woman ( temptation being, as the Saviour himself said, the
demon's function) may be deplorable, wretched, and a mortal sin; it
nevertheless is not heresy. Finally, Oldrndus, argues, Johannes deTarti
machio was infatuafeowifh the woman and driven out of his senses. ·
Furthermore, he points out that Johannes was interrogated by two mem
bers of the Order of Preachers, that the 1tcstimony against him was often
conflicting, that there is supposition of hostility towards him on the part
of his judges, and that Johannes should/ be piously and mercifully ab
solved of the charge of heresy by his judges. Oldradus's consilium is an
excellent and courageous lawyer's brief. It makes, as briefs often do, a
great many arguments on behalf of his client, not all of which are as
strong as others. Oldradus is perhaps on strongest ground in claiming a
defense resembling insanity for his client. When he treats theological
arguments in attempting to distinguish between true and false invocation
of demons, or between simple and, presumably, complex sortilegium, he
is on far weaker ground. His charge that the trial has used irregular pro
cedures, however, is an important one. As we will see in a later chapter,
it became one of the most conspicuous aspects of later trials for sorcery
and witchcraft in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
Around 1330, when Zanchinus Ugolini wrote his treatise Super materia
hereticorum, he too raised the question as to whether inquisitors ought
to investigate divinatores, incantatores, sortilegi, idolatriae, magici seu
mathematici, as well as heretics. Zanchinus cites Gratian's cap. Episcopi,
but it must be noted that he cites it only to argue against the belief in
shapeshifting, and he does not mention l the night-ride:
If is indeed heretical to believe that anything outside of God could be divine,
or that anything might be made to become, or to change from another thing
except by God, who is the creator of everything, as is shown by the said sym
bol, and in the first chapter of St. John's gospel, and is shown in C.26 q.5
capitulum Episcopi, and in the capitulum Nee mirum.32
Zanchinus goes on to distinguish between licit and illicit sortes and de
fines other types of magic. He then goes on almost literally to reiterate
Alexander IVs statement on the competence of the Inquisition to try
magicians. Like Johannes Andreae, John XXII, Bernard Gui, and William
of Santa Sabina, he agrees that there are many magical arts that clearly
savo r of manifest heresy and that these are well within the province of
V 135
the inquisitors. The ecclesiastical punishments for these acts include being o
denied the eucharist, being declared infamo1;s, being separated from
family, and excommunication. Zanchinus, however, also points out that
there are secular punishments for magic, citing the Code of Justinian,
and indicating that the ultimate secular punishment is the death penalty.
It is to these texts in the Code and to other secular laws that Alexander
IV made reference when he said that magicians whose actions do not
manifestly savor of heresy should be left to their own judges.33
Thus, the first quarter of the fourteenth century witnessed a number of
cases of magic in temporal and spiritual courts and a considerable litera
ture ranging from papal letters and conciliar canons, to canonists and
moral theologians like John of Freiburg, to lay jurists and lay theologians
like Arnald of Villanova. There is nothing in canto 20 of Dante's Inferno
that would be out of place in this literature, and by the middle of the
fourteenth century, the question of inquisitorial competence to deal with i
magic was well understood and universally approved. The moral criticism /
of John of Salisbury and William of Auvergne had acqui17e -juridical
dimension and a strong tliegJ.ggLc�l . _aff.!rrnation. The magicia'h'""'r'most
aa
formidable enemy turned out to be the pope, backed by theologians and
canonists, clerics and laymen, lay theologians and poets. What is un-
1 avoidable in this period is the unanimity with which all sectors of society
condemned magic and the truly formidable strictures against magic that
existed in many different kinds of literature. The developing demonology
of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and the definition and prosecution
of heresy had certainly contributed their part to this process, as Russell,
Lea, and others have shown. But the crimen magiae, itself denounced and
defined for several centuries, was sufficient in itself to form the basis o
Al later images and charges of witchcraft. The witch of the late fifteenth, �
Z!.. sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries derived from the magician more than
from the heretic.
NOTES
1. Lynn Thorndike, History of Magic and Experimental Science (New York,

1923-58), 2:813-24. H. Ritter and M. Plessner, eds., "Picatrix": Das Ziel des
Weisen von Pseudo-Magriti, Studies of the Warburg Institute, vol. 27 (London,
1962) .
2. Thorndike, History, 2:283-89; Norman Cohn, Europe's Inner Demons:
An Enquiry Inspired by the Great Witch-Htfnt (New York, 1975), pp. 176-79;
D. P. Walker, Spiritual and Demonic Magic from Ficino to Campanella (Lon
don, 1958), Index, s.v. "Picatrix."
--
3. Augustine De civitate Dei 10.9; Thorndike, History, 2:283. Book 10 of
The City of God is particularly important here, not only for the reference to
theurgia, but because it deals with the question raised by the Platonists as to
whether men should sacrifice to God or to the daimones. Chapters 2 through 8
deal with perfect sacrifice to God as ordained by God and discuss the doctrine
of the angels. Chapters 9 through 1 1 condemn the Plationists' doctrine of
demons and place particular emphasis upon tlhe errors of demon-worship. Chap
ters 12 through 25 return to the theme of the worship of the true God. Chapters
26 through 32 consist of a final refutation o,f demon-worshipping. The whole
book is a major statement on Augustine's p:art, one that became the basis of
later dogma, including that of Aquinas (see above, Chapter 4 ) . On the general
importance of book io, see J. O'Meara, Porphyry's Philosophy from Oracles in
Augustine (Paris, 1959 ) and Peter Brown, Augustine of Hippo (Berkeley and
Los Angeles, 1969), p. 307. I
4. The various elements of Dante's treatment of court life, which includes,
of course, the life of exiles as guests at court, are scattered throughout the
Commedia. See, e.g., Inferno, 4, 5, 13, 18, 26-28, 34; Purgatorio 1, 11, 20;
Paradiso 6, 13, 16, 17, 19.
5. J. H. Hexter, More's Utopia: The Biograiphy of an Idea (Princeton, 1952) ,
pp. 99-157.
6. See Joel T. Rosenthal, "The King's Wicked Advisors and Medieval
Baronial Rebellions," Political Science Quarterly 82 ( 1967), pp. 595-618.
'1t7. Peter Brown, "Sorcery, Demons and the Rise of Christianity: from Late
Antiquity to the Middle Ages," in Brown, Religion and Society in the Age of
St. Augustine (New York and Evanston, 1972), pp. 119-46. See above, Chap
ter 1.
8. William R. Jones, "Political Uses of S, orcery in Medieval Europe," The
Historian 34 ( 1972) : 670-87. I am much indebted to Professor Jones for hav
ing discussed his paper with me, and for having commented on several of the
points in this section when an earlier version was given at the Western Michi
gan Medieval Conference, at Kalamazoo, Michigan, in 1976. I have profited
immensely from his work.
9. Brown, "Sorcery, Demons, and the Rise , of Christianity," p. 141.
10. Jones, "Political Uses of Sorcery," and Alice Beardwood, "The Trial of
Walter Langton, Bishop of Lichfield, 1307-lm2," Transactions of the American
Philosophical Society, n.s., vol. 54, pt. 3 ( Philadelphia, 1964) .
11. Most historians of magic and witchcraft have retold the story and in
cluded extensive bibliographies; e.g., Cohn, Europe's Inner Demons, pp. 198-
232; Jeffrey Russell, Witchcraft in the Middle Ages (Ithaca, 1972) , pp. 188-93.
12. A. Rigault, Le proces de Guichard, , eveque de Troyes (Paris, 1896);
T. S. R. Boase, Boniface VIII (London, 193:3) ; A. Corvi, Il processo de Boni
facio Vl1I (Rome, 1948) .
13. G . Lizerand, Clement V e t Philippe le Bel (Paris, 1910); P. Dupuy,
France (Paris, 1655) ; Jones "Political Uses of Sorcery," pp. 674-78.

Histoire du differend d'entre le Pape Bonifa:ce VII et Philippe le Bel Roy de
14. Charles T. Wood, The French Appanages and the Capetian Monarchy,
1224-1328 (Cambridge, Mass., 1966) , with references cited.
15. These figures, who are very elusive and not always obviously associated
with the great courtiers, may be important for other reasons as well; below the
level of the high learned magician, and well above the level of the village and l
/
urban people atcused of magic, they may form an'important link between high
and low beliefs concerning sorcery. They are not mentioned in Richard 1
I(ieckhefer's otherwise very illuminating study of the relations between popular
and learned culture in the matter of witchcraft, European Witch Trials (Lon
don, 1976).
16. Jones, "Political Uses of Sorcery," pp. 682-86, with sources cited.
17. G. Lizerand, Le dossier de l'affaire des Templiers (Paris, 1923); H.
Finke, Papsttum und Untergang des Tempelordens, 2 vols. (Munster, 1907);
Malcolm Barber, "Propaganda in the Middle Ages: The Charges against the
Templars," Nottingham Medieval Studies 17 ( 1973 ) : 42-57, but Barber's con
clusions about general magic and witchcraft are not to be trusted. See also
C. R. Cheney, "The Downfall of the Templars and a Letter in their Defence,"
in Cheney's Medieval Texts and Studies ( Oxford, 1973 ) , pp. 314-27; Cohn,
Europe's Inner Demons, pp. 75-98.
18. Cohn, Europe's Inner Demons, pp. 75-98.
19. J. N. Hillgarth, Ramon Lull and Lullism in Fourteenth-Century France
(Oxford, 1971).
20. Such charges, as we have seen above, had been launched as early as the
tenth century, were reiterated in the eleverith and twelfth as part of the Investi
ture Conflict and its literary legacy, and reappeared in the fourteenth and
extended into the fifteenth. There is no study of this papal tradition of accusa
tions of magic.
21. E. Albe, Autour de Jean XXII, Hugues Geraud (Cahors-Toulouse,
1904); K. Eubel, "Vom Zaubereiwesen anfangs des 14. Jahrhunderts," Histo
risches Jahrbuch 18 ( 1897): 608-31.
22. B. Haureau, Bernard Delicieux et l'inquisition albigeoise (Paris, 1877 ).
23. For background, see general, Thorndike, History, 3: 18-28; Cohn,
Europe's Inner Demons, 192-97;
24. J. M. Vidal, Bullaire de l'inquisition fran9aise au XIVe siecle et iusqu'a
la fin du grand schisme (Paris, 1913), pp. 51-52.
25. Joseph Hansen, Quellen 11nd Untersuchungen zur Geschichte des Hexen-
wahns tmd der Hexenverfolgung im Mittelalter (Bonn, 190 1 ) , pp. 4-5.
26. Liber Sextus 5. 2. 8.
27. See the bibliographical citations below, Appendix II.
28. Selections in Hansen, Quellen, pp. 47-65.
29. Hansen, Quellen, pp. 5-6. See also Anneliese Maier, "Eine Verfugung
! 0hanns XXII tiber die Zust1{ndigkeit der Inquisition fur Zaubereiprozesse,"
In Anneliese Maier, Ausgehendes Mittelalter (Rome, 1964), pp. 59-80.
30. Ibid., pp. 42-44.
. 31. Ibid., Quellen, pp. 55-59; S. Leutenbauer, Hexerei und Zaubereidelikt
in der Literatur von 1450 bis 1550 ( Berlin, 1972), pp. 53- 58.
32. Hansen, Quellen, pp. 59-63.
6
The Ma gician, the Witch,
and the Law
THE THEOLOGICAL BACKGROUND OF LATE MEDIEVAL

BELIEF IN MAGIC
When the "typical" figure of the witch was drawn up during the fifteenth ,
and sixteenth centuri es and began to be the object of numerous and
extensive persecutions between the early sixteenth and the late seven
teenth centuries, the means of denning witchcraft and maleficent magic
rested upon both theological and juridical bases. Thi s section will treat
theological concepts of magic and magiicians as they are expressed in
several distinct, but related theological genres: biblical exegesis, the
summa genre of encyclopedic handbooks for the instruction of preachers
and confessors, the records of decisions o,f theological faculties, and indi
vidual works of theology from the fifteenth century. Law in its tum
j
recognized and followed theological opinion, but it was aqm�i stered in
differenrco"\lrts -oy different kinds of personnel, from secular liiy ancl
ecclesiastical officials to inquisitors. The second section of this chapter
wi ll focus upon-tile changing legal attitude toward maleficent magic and 1
witchcraft, from thirteenth-century Roman and canon law to the courts
of the sixteenth century. The third section will deal with an important
area in which law and theology meet, the problem of heresy and the rela
tion of methods developed to deal with it to the persecutions of magi
cians and witches later. The fourth section wi ll consider the parallel
emergence of a new learned magic in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries
138
f
139
and its relation to the witchcraft persecutions. The fifth and final section
The Magician, the Witch, and the Law
will sum up the arguments of this book as they bear upon the concepts
of magic and witchcraft found in the Malleus Maleficarum and similar
treatises in the sixteenth century and expressed in the climate of the
actual prosecutions of magicians and witches in the sixteenth and seven
teenth centuries.
One of the most frequently cited biblical texts of the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries that dealt with magicians ( and later was applied to
witches) was Exodus 22:18, "Maleficos non patieris vivere," "Thou shalt ·
not suffer a witch to live." Like !!1any old Testament judicial injunctions,
however, this text, as we have seen above, was not interpreted as literally
binding upon Christians in the twelfth century. Although I have not
found a specific commentary upon Exodus or other Old Testament texts
that can be called the beginning of a new literal interpretation of
judicialia, there is considerable evidence that the early to mid-thirteenth
century witnessed the beginnings of such a process. This made possible
the later medieval and early modern literalness that served as a theo-
bogical foundation for the emergence of later witchcraft persecutions.
William of Auvergne, bishop of Paris from 1229 to 1249, concerned
himself in the De legibus precisely with the question of how Old Testa
ment injunctions were to be interpreted in the Christian era, a topic that
had interested earlier biblical commentators, both Jewish and Christian,
during the twelfth century.' The traditional Christian interpretation of
the Old Testament divided such injunctions into three categories: caeri
monalia, judicialia, and moralia, and the literal sense of these was treated
differently by different traditions of medieval exegesis. Beryl Smalley, in
her work on Ralph of Flaix and Andrew of St. Victor in the twelfth
century, has suggested that already "the literal sense of the Law was
evoking a new curiosity." She goes on to suggest that perhaps the Cathar
denunciation of the Old Testament as being inspired by the devil may
have urged a new insistence on the part of the orthodox that the 1£galia
of the Old Testament were of divine origin and therefore, particularly
when these coincided with contemporary Cluistian law or seemed to
resemble its precepts, they were to be interpreted literally. The work of
Moses Maimonides on the precepts of the Old Testament became gen
erally known in western Europe in the second and third decades of the
thirteenth century. Maimonides, too, presented an attempt to rationalize
and justify the literal meaning of the legal precepts of the Old Testament.
Bis work was known to William of Auvergne, whose De legibus makes
a powerful case for the validity of the Old Testament legalia, claiming,
among other reasons, that such precepts were instituted to combat idola
try, including magic, which still threatens God's people.
Although later thirteenth-century commentators re-emphasized the
value of the spiritual levels of scriptural interpretation, other mid
140 The Magician, the Witch, and the Law
thirteenth-century circumstances perhaps contributed to a tendency to

interpret certain Old Testament precepts literally. The Cathar threat, as
we have seen, was surely one of these. Another was the growing coercive
authority of the Inquisition, supported first by the Emperor Frederick
II's constitutions and by other temporal rulers, but soon permitted to exer
cise the ultimate "release to the secular arm" of convicted and relapsed
heretics. The papal decretals of the period have been extensively studied,
and by the middle of the thirteenth century Pope Innocent IV recognized
that the ultimate punishment of convicted unrepentant or relapsed
heretics was death. As these coercive powers came to characterize the
inquisitorial office and function, those Old Testament images and pre
cepts that appeared to support such action were cited in decretals, and
2
they may have constituted a point at which theology and contemporary

canon law touched and influenced each other. By the fifteenth century,
Exodus 22:18 was one of many Old Testament passages quoted in
treatises on sermons and other works of theology as applying to the figure
of the maleficus or malefica. Although its command may not have been
considered universally binding, conditions in early and mid-thirteenth
century Europe permitted the extreme coercive powers of the Inquisition
and encouraged such defenses as that of William of Auvergne of the
literal authority of the Old Testament legalia. William of Auvergne is
not widely remembered from a century that produced Thomas Aquinas,
Bonaventure, Duns Scotus, and Albert the Great among many other
thinkers, but he was very widely read Jin the fourteenth and fifteenth·
centuries, cited by Gerson in his own treatise against the magical arts
discussed below, and generally familiar 1to other theologians and legists
as well. Although William did not cite Exodus 22:18 specifically, his
citations of other biblical texts, his insistence upon the contemporary
bearing of old Testament legalia upon such continuing problems as
idolatry, and his principle of literal interpretation generally contributed
to a new life for some of the Old Testament materials discussed above
and opened the door for the harshest strictures of Old Testament opinion
on magicians to be employed by theologians, preachers, and confessors
between the thirteenth and the sixteenth centuries.
Much of the work of the thirteenth-century theologians and canon
lawyers began to be adapted for the use of confessors and preachers by
the end of the thirteenth century. These summae confessorum or prae
dicantium were often the chief means by which later scholars, preachers,
and confessors were familiar with the writings of the great thirteeni:h
century figures such as Aquinas or Raymond of Peiiafort. Perhaps the
most influential of the summae for confossors was the Summa Confes
sorum of John of Freiburg, written in 12:97 /98.3 It was, in the words of
The Magician, the Witch, and the Law 141
Leonard Boyle, its most recent and articulate student, "the most influen
tial work of pastoral theology in the two hundred years before the
Reformation." The Summa Confessorum was primarily a work of theology,
and it was an expansion and modernization 6f the earlier Summa de
Casibus of Raymond of Pefiafort, taking into account the theological and
canonist work of the intervening sixty years, particularly the apparatus
of William of Rennes of 1241, the theologians Thomas Aquinas and Peter
of Tarentaise and others, and the legal theory of the decretalists. Title 11
of book 1 of the Summa deals with the question De sorteligiis et divina
tionibus. John lists the various kinds of divination, including the interpre
tation of dreams and necromancy: and states that all of these forms and
others like them can only be accomplished by the aid of the demons. As
for their punishment,
Omnis divinalio quocunque predictorum modorum vel alio simili flat prohibita
est et maledicta a Deo et a ecclesia tanquam ydolatria et infldelitas.
Anyone who attempts to know the future, which is only possible for God,
misapplies the law of divinity to a creature. John then cites Isaiah 41 and
Leviticus 1 9 -20, Galatians 4, and several works of St. Augustine to justify
his conclusion. John goes on to ask whether divination accomplished by
invoking the demons is always illicit. His answer is from Aquinas, and in
the affirmative: pact with the demon is always illicit, and such activity ·
places the human soul in great peril. By divinatio, of course, John of
Freiburg refers to the generic theologians' term for all forms of con
demned magic. It is worth noting that by the end of the thirteenth cen
tury the condemned forms of divinatio include the ordeals of water and
hot iron, as well as the judicial combat.
John notes that the ars notoria is also condemned, citing Aquinas as his
authority, and he condemns too the use of astronomical images and
phylacteiies. He denounces the beliefs condemned in the Canon Episcopi
as superstitions that make the believer worse than an infidel or a pagan
and as instituted by the demons. Although John of Freiburg, like Bernard
of Pavia, notes that the penalty for these crimes in Roman law is death,
he follows Raymond in listing various spiritual punishments, from forty
days' penance to denial of the eucharist, deposition and degradation of
clerics, excommunication, and imprisonment. In book 4, title 16, John
.
discusses maleficia in the context of impediments to marriage. Maleficia
may indeed make a man impotent, and John draws upon the work of
Aquinas and Hostiensis.
. The Summa Confessorum offers little toward the classical figure of the
s1xt eentn-century witch, but it presents an extraordinarily impressive and
concise account of theologians' views on the varieties of magical prac-
tices and their universal condemnation. Drawing nearly equally from
theologians such as Augustine and Aqui1nas, Scripture, and canonists such
century theological views of divinatio and its various forms, cited the
as Hostiensis, John of Freiburg producedl a compendium of late-thirteenth
punishments in Roman law and contemporary ecclesiastical law, and

passed these opinions down through s:even generations of theologians,
confessors, and inquisitors. Conciliar anid synodal legislation of the four
cerning divinatio and sortilegium, the two generic te1ms commonly used
teenth and fifteenth centuries repeated the theological consensus con
Besides handbooks for confessors, such as the Summa Confessorum,

to designate the various magical arts.
preachers, of which one of the most extensive was the Summa Praedicah
the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries also produced handbooks for
tium of John Bromyard, probably completed by 1348.< In his long article

on sortilegium, Bromyard points out that those who profess to practice
the magical arts err in three ways: they lie, since they are unable to per-'
form that for which they are paid; they violate divine, canon, and civil
'f
law, which forbid their practices; and they err in doctrine, thereby be-1
titioners of these arts of having made at least a tacita pacta with the
coming guilty of idolatry and superstition. Bromyard accuses most prac
Unlike the Summa confessorum, the Summa Praedicantium provides

demons, and he cites Aquinas as his autho1ity.
its readers with exempla, and it is in his: article on sortilegium that Brom
yard repeats William of Malmesbury's :story of the witch of Berkeley, as
well as many other similar stories. As G. R. Owst has shown, other hand
books on vices and virtues and preaching materials also repeat this and·
transmission of such exempla into the demonological literature of the

similar stories, and it may be suggested here that one vehicle for the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries was precisely the genre of handbooks forr
tells thirteen other exempla, from Gregory the Great's Dialogues, con
preachers. In addition to the story of the witch of Berkeley, Bromyard
temporary story collections, Augustine, ]Peter Comestor, and other sources.
Canon Episcopi, noting that women in 1this respect are found more guilty
Like John of Freiburg, Bromyard criticiizes the beliefs condemned in the
When Bromyard lists the penalties for divinatio and sortilegium, like
of holding them than men.5
John of Freiburg, he begins by pointing out that according to civil

(Roman) law, the penalty is decapitation or burning alive. Echoing Pope
Innocent !V's views on the burning of heretics, Bromyard justifies t�e
death penalty in civil law, saying "if those are worthy of death who ill
various lands and towns suffer death foir the killing of the body, therefore
those who kill the soul" are all the more worthy of death. Canon Jaw,
Bromyard points out, again echoing John of Freiburg and others, pre
scribes spiritual punishments.

By the late fourteenth century, papal decretals, church councils a
synods, scriptural commentary, and handbooks ft:>r confessors and preach
ers, all have generally agreed upon both the seriousness of sortilegium or
ann
143
divinatio, and its punishments. All of the definitions, descriptions of vari- I

ous sub-branches of the magical art, and punishments can be shown to
have grown out of the thirteenth-century concerns for magic--and the \
prevalence of practitioners of magic--that began with William of
Auvergne. There is perhaps no better summation of theologians' views on 1
magic at the end of the fourteenth century than the conclusio on that
subject reached by the faculty of theology at the University of Paris in
September 1398 and its circulation in Jean Gerson's short treatise on the 1i
magic arts.6
After a brief introduction, the conclusio listed twenty-eight proposi
-_.,
tions, presumably those which had come before it in various ways, which
it declared to be errores. In 1402 Jean Gerson, chancellor of the univer
sity, issued his treatise De erroribus circa artem magicam, apparently an
expanded version of a speech he had delivered to medical students at the
university. In the speech he repeated the university's conclusions in
slightly altered form and listed verbatim the twenty-eight charges cited
as errores four years before. Although the specific occasion of the 1398
conclusio is not known, the theology faculty may have been instrumental
in condemning the magician Johannes Barrensis in 1390 ( it issued other
condemnations of magic in 1425 and 1426) , and the conclusio was prob
ably the result of the faculty's cognizance, if not specifically of this, then
of other similar cases. The university had been strongly involved in the
subtraction of obedience from Pope Benedict XIII just four months before
it issued its conclusio, and in 1409 charges of employing necromancers
and divinatores were launched against that pope by the Council of Pisa.·
In any case, it seems clear that the theological faculty was sufficiently
concerned with the frequency and danger of magical practices to issue
its conclusio in 1398 and that Gerson agreed with it, since his own
treatises against magic, although not many or long, are unremittingly
hostile.a Therefore, the opinion of the faculty of theology of the Univer
sity of Paris, and that of Chancellor Gerson, may be taken as representing
the most advanced and widely respected theological thought at the turn
of the fifteenth century. Given the nature of thirteenth- and fourteenth
century concerns with magic in scriptural exegesis, summae for preachers
�nd confess ors, and the decretals of Pope John XXII, it is worth examin
ing the opinion of the Paris doctors on the subject.
The conclusio of 1398 begins with references to manuscripts covered
with diverse geometrical figures and the names of demons and containing
144
instructions for consulting demons by various means. These, the conclusio

states, are employed not only to find hidden treasure, but to know secret
and hidden things and to learn how to e:mploy images and maleficiis. To
Christians, to use these texts and to kno,w the practices they describe is
to be guilty of superstitio and idolatria and to become vehementer sus- ,
pecti. The conclusio goes on to note that legitimate knowledge is a right
ful possession, but that the pursuit of magic places the Christian on a .
level with Solomon, Dido, the son of Pompey, Saul, and other Old Testa
ment figures who consulted oracles and diviners. "It is not at all our in
tention to derogate from licit and true traditions, sciences, and arts," but
to extirpate the insane errors and sacrileg;ious practices of fools and beast
e1rumans. The conclusio then goes on to list twenty-eight propositions I
Iflc
thich it condemns as errores or as error et blasphemia. The first of these
hates "that by magical arts and maleficia and nefarious incantations to r
�eek familiarity and friendship and aid from demons is not idolatry.
/Error." The second and third articles deal with the idolatrous nature of
/agreements with demons. The fourth states that it is idolatry to shut up ,
1demons in crystals, images, stones, rings, and mirrors. The fifth states that
lit is idolatry to use the magical arts, even if for a good purpose. Th6
/sixth states that it is illicit to repel mai!eficia with other maleficia. Th'e
eighth states that the Church does not prohibit these things irrationally.
The ninth states that God did not compel the demons by magical arts.
The twelfth states that the use of prayers or fonns of the Cluistian liturgy
for these purposes is idolatry. The thirteenth denies that the prophets
were magicians. The twenty-third article denies that there are some good
and some bad demons and that there ar,e demons who are neither saved
nor damned. The last article denies that the magical arts may lead to a
vision of God or the holy spirits.
�t is clear that the learned divines of the Paris theology faculty were .
dealing with the learned and half-learned world of magical writings and/
magical practices that we have seen take shape since the late twelfth\
century. It is also noteworthy that some of the practices they list seem to -/
belong both to the world of learned nnagic and the world commonlY, /
called that of "popular superstition." By the early fifteenth century, how- _
ever, the systematic theological treatme· nt of the occult had tended to l
{ homogenize the two traditions. Thus, learned incantations, enticing
demons into a crystal or a ring, knowing the names of the demons who
dominate the quarters of the earth, and arguing that nonidolatrous pacts
\r could be made with spirits, all derive from the world of learned magic , I,
f and theologians' opposition to it. On the other hand, the misuse of prayers;
and masses, the belief in the power of phylacteries, and the use of images
I
1 1 and incantations to change someone's affections or well-being are the
p
charges that we have seen listed against both learned and non-learned
magicians. The main elements of later witchcraft are conspicuously ab

sent from the 1398 conclusio. Except for pact and the details of the prac
tices cited above, the theological faculty of the University of Paris in
1398 knew nothing of what later became witchcraft.
Jean Gerson, who as chancellor helped to draft the conclusio, later re
peated it in a speech to medical students, probably at Paris, and included
it in his 1402 treatise De erroribus circa artem magicam. In the De errori
bus Gerson sets the conclusio in a somewhat broader context. He writes
that it is time to point out supe�]titious observances and that physicians ,
are especially responsible to see that superstitions do not creep into their
practice or into their patients' imaginations. It is necessary to conquer
the pestiferous superstitions of the magicians "et stultitiis vetularum
sortilegarum' who profess to effect cures by certain cursed rites. Gerson ·
states that demons exist, that association with them in any form consti
tutes pact. Pact is forbidden by the Old Testament, and here Gerson
cites Leviticus 19 and 22, and Exodus 22: 18 maleficos non patieris vivere.
This is the earliest citation of the Exodus text in the context of a discus- '
sion of magical practices that I have found.
It is clear that the Paris theology faculty
. and Gerson personally con
ceived magic as a form of superstition and idolatry, and they condemned
it on these grounds. Gerson elsewhere notes that Romans, Arabs, Indians,
and others erred on these questions, but the error of superstitious Chris
tians who are sortilegi et magici are worse because they have been
illumined by .true faith and forbidden explicitly to use such practices. He
notes that ecclesiastical judges condemn those guilty of magical practices
to perpetual imprisonment, but that secular judges sentence them to the
fire. God, Gerson says, sentences them to Gehenna. Both the Old and the
New Testaments agree on the matter of pact with demons, and here it
may be seen that the legalia of the Old Testament, particularly when
they coincide with contemporary Christian theology, can be brought di
rectly to bear in their literal sense upon practicing Christians. In the case
of the statements of Gerson and the Paris faculty, it is possible to see a
theologian's reaction to scepticism about the reality of demons ( a con
cern that Aquinas noted) , a growing apprehension of the superstitious
nature of many contemporary Christian practices, and a willingness to
invoke the authority of both the Old and the New Testaments to con
demn· magical practices. "Distinguishing the foolishnesses of certain old
Women who practice sortilegium" from the magici in Gerson's treatise
�as an important step in the shaping of the witch-figure, because it
identified those women who practiced amatory magic, divination, fortune
telling, superstitious cures, and other semiprofessional occult services ( as
did Dante's nameless women in Inferno, canto 20) with the formidable
1';['� \ damed magicians who had been the object of meticulous theological
�'1 ' / l�d legal invective since the late twelfth century. Not superstitious prac
>
Q� · ces alone, then, but the identification of these practices with the articu
f: �
\: ·,.,
lately defined and dec1ibed and condemn, ed magical arts, brought Dante's
(J �
, i5!·
V ! hapless women and their successors to the attention of theologians and
judges, spiritual and temporal, in the course of the fourteenth century.
t
{? A few years after Gerson, in 1437, a decretal of Pope Eugenius IV
suggests the degree to which a number of different superstitious practices
7' had become identified with the condemnations of !:_�med ma��c:
The news has reached us, not without great bitterness of spirit, that the
prince of darkness makes many who have been bought by the blood of Christ
partakers in his own fall and damnation, bewitching them by his cunning arts
in such a way that these detestable persuasit:ms and illusions make them mem- -
hers of his sect. They sacrifice to demons, adore them, seek out and accept
responses from them, do homage to them, and make with them a written agree
ment or another kind of pact through which, by a single word, touch, or sign,
they may perform whatever evil deeds or so1 rcery they wish and be transported
to or away from wherever they wish. They cure diseases, provoke bad weather,1
and make pacts concerning other evil deeds. Or, so that they may achieve
these purposes, the reckless creatures make images or have images made in 1
order to constrain the demons, or by invoking them perpetrate more sorcery. ·
In their sorcery they are not afraid to use the materials of Baptism, the •
Eucharist, and other sacraments. They mak,� images of wax or other materials
which by their invocations they baptize or cause to be baptized. Sometimes
they make a reversal of the Holy Cross, upo,n which our Savior hanged for us.
Not honoring the mysteries, they sometim1� inflict upon the representations
and other signs of the cross various shameful things by execrable means.0
The impact of this movement in theology may be seen in many places,
none described more strikingly than Johann Huizinga's treatment of
fifteenth-century religious sensibility and imagination. Huizinga contrasts
the devotional flowering of piety represented by Gerson and the Brethren -
of the Common Life, on the one hand, with the violence of these same -
theologians' perception of superstition, illusions and temptations by
demons, and ignorant devotion. Indeed, if there is a single hallmark com
mon to most fifteenth-century theological writings it is the marked sense
of human vulnerability to demonic temptation and the description of this
sense in lively, colorful, and horrendous detail. Huizinga's treatment of
Alain de la Roche ( 1428- 1475) constitutes an eloquent portrait of a
movement. Alain, a teacher of Jacob Sprenger, the author of the MaUeus

theologian who touched both sides of the fifteenth-century devotional
Malefi,carum, accurately reflects the fear of fifteenth-century theologians:

Now, whereas the celestial symbolism of Alain de la Roche seems artificial, his
infernal visions are characterized by a hideous actuality. He sees the animaJs
,
which represent the various sins equipped with horrible genitals, and emitting
torrents of fire which obscure the earth with their smoke. He sees the prostitute
of apostasy giving birth to apostates, now devouring them and vomiting them
forth, now kissing them and petting them like a mother. This is the reverse side
We may note that the prostitute of apostasy strongly resembles the "witch ,.
of the suave fancies of spiritual love. 10
goddess of the night" that John of Salisbury mentioned in the Policraticus.

For John, she had been a delusion of simpleminded folk; for Alain, she is 1
literally real, and she stands at the beginning of that process of articulat
ing the witcMs' world that produced the Malleus Maleficarum in 1486
and the demonological literature and witchcraft trials of the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries.
The spiritual imagery of Alain de la Roche is far from the rational
analysis and condemnation of magic in the work of Gerson, but both
writers share a sense of the immediacy of the danger which magic poses -
to Christian society. This sense of immediacy was fueled by such demon o
logical speculations as Johann of Frankfurt's 1412 quaestio, Whether the
the utterance of word.s. 11 This long and very detailed treatise is exhaustive
power of coercing demom may be acquired by characters, figures, and by
on its subject, full of citations of thirteenth- and fourteenth-century

theologians and canonists, and its focus is, as that of Gerson, upon the
sin of idolatry and magic as a manifestation of idolaby. Demonological
literature also reviewed older topics of theological discussion, particularly
that concerning the power of demons to move things and human beings
from one place to another. It is among fifteenth-century theologians'
works, such as the scriptural commentary of Alphonso Tostado of about
1440, that the reality of the night-ride of females is first proposed and 1
proved in detailed discourse.n Tostado wrote that the pagan goddesses
Herodias and Diana are really demons, as are the animals which some of
these women claim to ride upon. Demons cannot perform such actions
with humans normally, but they can if the humans wish it and make a
pact with the demons. Jordanes de Bergamo wrote a Quaestio de strigis
around 1470, in which he, as a theologian, undertook to describe the
theology of witchcraft. '3 Although J ordanes adheres to the Canon Epis
copi, he attributes to the demons a threefold power of deluding magicians
and witches: through illusion, dreams, and the demonic power of moving ·
people from place to place. Thus, by the late fifteenth century, a new
concern with demonology had begun to increase theologians' apprehen
sion of several areas in which the demons' power and presence was
thought to be most marked. Among these were magic in general, and ,
certain kinds of magic specifically. The theologians' concern was far more
directed at the general categories of idolatry and superstition and with
magic as a sub-category of these than at magic alone. In this new con-
148
cern, literal biblical interpretation, particularly of those Old Testament
texts that appeared to address the problem of magic, gave a strong

scriptural foundation to modern apprehension. As texts were cited-not
only in 01iginal works of theology, but in handbooks for confessors and
preachers, in quaestiones and conclusiones, and in various specialized
tractati-such texts as Exodus 7 - 9 and 2'.2:18, Leviticus 18-20, and others
became literary commonplaces that wer,e always cited in the context of
theologians' discussions of various forms of magic.
Not all theologians were equally inB.iuenced by these currents. Such
writers as Johann of Frankfurt and Jordanes de Bergamo, as well as
Jean Vincent in his 1475 treatise Liber aclversus magicas artes, accept
fully the reality of magic, but the magic of which they speak is a form of
learned magic, involving the use of bapttized images, philters, rings, and
other devices condemned from the twellfth century on. Others, such as
Petrus Mamoris, whose Flagellum Male-fi'corum was written around 1462, ,.
1
appear to contribute more to such notions as the assemblies of magi-I

•
cians. 15 In general, the theologians' concern was primarily with the nature
of magic as a theological offense, and less with the particularities of
magical practices. Thus, the reality of magical practices is affirmed, the
pact with the demon proved, and the resulting idolab-y and superstition
condemned. To say, as a number of historians have, that "scholastic theol
ogy" created the foundations of later beliefs in witchcraft is, as Hopkin
and others have shown, highly misleading. It is in the theology of the late
I
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries that the preliminary steps are taken
toward the later definition of the witch; i111 both its interpreting and teach
ing methods, in its literary morphology, and in its theodicy, this theology
is quite distinct from, although related to, the theology of the thirteenth
century. To witness the further transformation of idolatrous magic into ,.
witchcraft we must turn first to the !av;, and then to the problem of
heresy and the Inquisition.
THE CRIMEN MAGlAE IN LATE MEDIEVAL LAW
The treatment of magic and related practices during the classical period
of canon law, 1140-1350, was extremely limited. Not only did Gratian's
Decretum contain few texts dealing with the topic, but the compilationes
antiquae and the Liber Extra of Gregory IX contributed few additional
texts. The teachers and commentators ,on these texts tended to repeat
each other and their authorities. Their chief concern with magic was its'
role among the impediments to marriage, and ma1ital cases appear to
have been among the most common in which lawyers and judges con
-./,
fronted the problem of magic at all. The Summa de casibus of Raymond

f
of Pefiafort played an important role in familiarizing theologians with
149
the sense of canon law on the subject, and in this respect, John of Frei
burg's Summa confessorum continued that role, for theologians during the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. As we have also seen, Church councils
and synods and papal decretals also mentioned magic, but, except for the
text of Pope Alexander IV in 1258 distinguishing between heretical and
non-heretical magic, none of the papal materials entered canonical collec
tions. Even the many decretals of John XXII and such later letters as that
of Eugenius IV, cited in the preceding section, remained outside the
tradition of canonist comment¥><,and teaching. From the early fourteenth
century on, however, a number of canonists produced commentaiies on
Gratian's Decretum in the light of subsequent canonist and theological
work. Among these were Guido de Baysio, Panormitanus, and Johannes a
Turrecremata. Turrecremata's Commentarius in Decretum Gratiani, com
pleted around 1445, suggests something of the fifteenth-century canon
lawyer's approach to the texts from the classical period discussed in Chap
ters 3 and 4.10
The most striking feature of Turrecremata's commentary on C.26, q.5,
Canon Episcopi is its extraordinary length, much greater than earlier
canonists' commentaries. Second, he deals with such topics as the
demons' power to create illusions, the transformation of shapes, and the
question of whether "the folly of magicians abounds to a greater extent
in the female or the male sex." That is, Turrecremata deals seriously
with several topics that Stephen of Tournai, for example, had offhandedly
remarked should be left to the poets and philosophers. His discussions
are not by any means brief, and he proceeds to each topic by means of
the methods of scholastic logic; that is, he states the arguments for one
side of the question, then those for his own side and refutes the first set.
His discussion of illusions is a professional theologian's discussion, quite
foreign to traditional canonists' terseness on such subjects. Turrecremata's
conclusions, however, are quite traditional. The devil can create illu
sions; the illusory character of the superstitions described in the Canon
Episcopi is reiterated. The superstitious character of belief in night
flights is redefined. Demonic power cannot change the shapes of humans.
Finally he argues that such superstitions are to be found more frequently '
in women than in men, claiming to base his conclusion upon the order of
relationship to Christ and the order of temptation invented by the devil,
according to the schema of Alexander of Hales. Turrecremata goes on to
say, however, that he has never heard a wise man or woman testify to
such beliefs, but rather "old, foolish women, sick men such as are
I
melancholics, phrenetics, maniacs, those who are excessively fearful, boys 1
and that kind, who are easily deluded by demons and by men." It is very
difficult to see, in the canonical legal scholarship of the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries, any pa1ticularly mairked notice, in the professional
150
literature ( that is, commentaries on text:s or materials to aid iudges ), of

the growing concern in theology over the general question of idolatry and
superstition. The canonists, possessing only a few particularized texts,
restricted themselves to commentary on those texts, and their commen
tary appears to have been quite converntional between the late twelfth
and the late fifteenth centuries. Those writers who attempted to impugn
the authoritativeness of the Canon Epiiscopi in the late fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries were usually inquisitors and theologians, and they did
not do so in the genre of canonist literature. Far from contributing to
the growing belief in witches and the increased fear of magic in all its
forms, canonists as a profession appear t:o have kept to the letter of the
law. The editio romana of the Corpus Juris Canonici, although it did not
authenticate any text, did not repudiate Episcopi, either. And seven
teenth-century canonists, for example Balthasar van Espen, adopted the
conventional interpretations available since the late twelfth century. It
appears not to have been from any chang,e in the opinion of canon lawyers
that the fifteenth-century attacks upon magic and witchcraft were
launched. Therefore, to understand the legal forces that did contribute
to the definition of these crimes, we must turn first to Roman law and
then to the legal world of late fifteenth-century temporal and inquisitorial
courts.
As we have seen in Chapter 1, the codification of Roman law in the
fifth and sixth centuries preserved formidable penalties for the practice
J
of magic. From the second century ,on, imperial edicts proclaimed
stronger and stronger penalties, not only for injuries caused by magic,
but for the practice of it and for the employment of magicians. l\fagic, at
first forbidden when directed against the emperor ( and punishable by
death), was by the end of the third cent1U1y punishable in all of its mani
festations. By the fourth century the charge of magic made the defendant
subject to judicial torture. By the time of the codifications of the fifth and
sixth centuries, Roman law preserved a substantial body of legal literature
concerning magic. The revival of Roman law in the twelfth century
brought medieval law slowly into line with earlier Roman imperial law,
although the Romanists' interest in magic does not seem to have made
any significant impact upon European 1€'gal thought until the end of th0
twelfth and the beginning of the thirteenth centuries. From that period
on, the Roman law on magic influenced the teaching of civil law and the
administration of Roman law where it was still considered binding. It also
influenced the temporal laws of the Italian city-states, and it strengthened
the approaches to such offenses as magic: and heresy taken by inquisitors
and temporal authorities from the end of the twelfth century on. The
revived study of Roman law contributed the formidable strictures of
fourth- and fifth-century imperial edicts to the character of persecutions
of heresy. These strictures inflicted the severest civil penalties on heretical

belief. The papal consideration of heresy as a crime of lese-mafeste de
rived from the revived study of Roman law and had its fullest develop
ment in Innocent III' s decretal of 1199 Vergentis in senium.11 Innocent
III and Huguccio of Pisa both drew heavily upon Roman law in defining
the crime of heresy and establishing its punishments. This new juridical
approach to heresy in turn influenced the laws of tepiporal societies, be
ginning with the ordinance of Louis VIII of France in 1226, which trans
lated into royal law the strictures of canonist and papal decisions, and
continuing with the ordinance Cupientes, issued by Louis IX in 1229.
Between 1220 and 1231, imperial constitutions issued by Frederick II
and promulgated by Pope Honorius III and Pope Gregory IX increased
the severity of the punishments of heretics and altered the traditional
accusatorial procedure in favor of the introduction of the inquisitorial
procedure, another important juridical element taken over from Roman
law. By the middle of the thirteenth century, Roman law had substa n
tially altered the Church's approach to heresy and had shaped the policy
of temporal authorities as well. As will be seen 111 the next section, the
formation of the Inquisition created a new avenue for the development
of new punitive forms and procedural changes that shaped not only the
thirteenth-century Christian ecclesiastical policy toward heretics, but, as
Jeffrey Russell has shown, contributed considerably toward the Church's
attitudes toward magic and later witchcraft.
The circumstances surrounding the revival of Roman law are as im
portant as the character of the law itself. Although many features of
earlier legal systems survived into the thirteenth and fourteenth cen
turies-the localism of much law, the power of privilege and exemption,
and the strength of custom-the character of thirteenth-century urban
life . in itself produced new approaches to crime and punishment. When
Roman lawyers wrote tracts De criminis, many cities and principalities
applied their principles to social phenomena of crime and to the organ
ization of criminal law and procedure. The thirteenth century witnessed
what Calisse has called "the recovery of the power of punishment" as
well as a systematic approach to criminal law that was greatly strength
ened by the structure of Roman law.•• Thus, certain innovations of the
period, such as the Spi"ead of torture, the introduction of the inquisitorial
Process, and new rules of evidence, were common to a number of socie
ties. They were not, as is sometimes asserted, solely the invention of
ecclesiastical inquisitors. Although heretics were more severely handled
by the law after 1225, the same is true of all classes of criminal offenders,
and one could be tortured for other offenses besides heresy and executed
by public authorities acting as other than the "secular arm" of an
ecclesiastical tribunal. When the legal aspects of heresy, magic, and
witchcraft are considered, it should be nemembered that the law in gen
eral had grown more severe, more remorseless, and more systematic, for
the hardened criminal as well as for the heretic. With the abolition of the
system of ordeals-and with it of the ide:a of immanent justice, as well as
the fundamental role of community consensus in determining guilt and
� punishment-a new burden was placed iupon the human agencies of the
law. If God was not to indicate guilt, man must. As we have seen above,
the system of ordeals itself was linked with traditional ideas of divinatio
by the fifteenth century. In its place tliiere emerged a compromise sys
tem: human agents indeed investigated, instituted prosecutions on the
basis of the inquisitorial process, and instituted torture. In part, at least,
the dramatic appearance of the new cri:minal procedure after 1225 was
the result of a residual attitude toward dletermining guilt absolutely that
required a confession when other evid, ence was not immediately and
conclusively convincing. Thus, the residual requirement for confession
increased the need to resort to torture, and the decretals of Innocent IV
in 1252, Ad extirpanda, and of Alexander IV in 1258 and 1260 extended
the domain of torture into the Inquisition itself. Torture, however, had
been part of the judicial system in some Italian city-republics since as
early as 1228, and its roots were neither exclusively the revival of Roman
law nor the fear of heretics, but lay ralther in the social structure and
juridical competence of the new towns and the circumstances of crime
in them. R. C. van Caenegem and others have suggested and emphasized
the social circumstances that made torture attractive to the magistrates
of the thirteenth-century cities. The increased power of judges and prose
cutors, the idea that crime was an offense against the community rather
than exclusively against a private person, and the momentary forces that
swayed judges toward extraordinary mercy or extraordinary severity in
assigning punishments drastically transfoirmed criminal procedure in gen
eral and constitute the essential background against which the particular
conception and treatment of heretics, magicians, and witches must be
understood. JV
It is important to note that the ambiguities and abuses of the new sys
tem remained a characteristic of European law for centuries. First, the
vulnerability of the civil community to injury by criminals of all kinds,·
suggested above in the "political" magic trials of the early fourteenth cen
tury, increased the ferocity of criminal procedure and punishment, con
doned the extraordinary power of the civiil authority to institute summary
procedures and extraordinary punishmemts, permitted secrecy, instituted
new and less restricted categories of evidence, and created the idea of the
crimen exceptum, the crime so dangerous: to the civil community that the
very accusation acted to suspend traditional procedural protection to the
defendant and opened the way for the most ruthless and thorough kind
153
of prosecution, undertaken to protect the state from its most da�gerous

enemies.20 Not only treason, but magic, witchcraft, and other offenses ·
became "exceptional crimes" by the sixteenth century. These offenses con
stituted the procedural equivalent to other ways by which the state, or
the civil community, was asserting its supremacy over traditionally diversi
fied ways of life and legal procedures and areas of power and authority
outside that of the prince or the communal authorities. Seen in this light,
the prosecution for magic, treason, and witchcraft by the temporal courts
was of a piece with other late medieval and early modern political and
constitutional developments. .-
Second, what had been the province of God had become the province
of man, and judicial activity acquired a moral dignity and theological
justification that it had not possessed much before the thirteenth century.
Not only were teachers of the law called "priests" of the law, but the
magistrate, on whatever level, increasingly came to be considered respon
sible for the spiritual, as well as the judicial proprieties of his office. Thus,
especially in dealing with "crimes of mixed jurisdiction," the temporal
magistrate assumed spiritual responsibilities as well as increased dignity.
When, at the end of the fifteenth century, the authors of the Malleus
Maleficarum urged the temporal courts to aid ecclesiastical officials in
rooting out the crimes of magic and witchcraft, they were instituting no
novelty, but invoking the moral responsibility of temporal courts that had
been heightened steadily since the thirteenth century. In this light, the
blessings of the instruments of torture in civil courts, the judges' solicitude
for the moral condition of defendants, their exhortations to repent, the
whole apparatus of civil liturgy that had been adopted from an earlier
period and a more exclusively clerical milieu, all supp�rted the discretion
and responsibility of the judge and the magistrate. It also helps to explain
the often noted sixteenth-century theory that God's ministers, temporal
and spiritual, were invulnerable to the powers of witches and magicians
once the defendants had been introduced into the judicial system.
The temporal judicial authorities of the period between the fourteenth
and the seventeenth centuries, charged with protecting a vulnerable civil
community and elevated to a quasi-priestly rank in order better to do so, •
Worked with at least the rudiments of a sophisticated legal system directly
or indirectly shaped on the model of Roman law. These authorities dealt
With a considerably expanded sphere of public crimes and a system of the
c�assification of crimes that, while it moved toward a degree of profes
sional rationality, for a long period also included offenses that were pri
marily spiritual and which were punished, often more strongly and arbi
trarily, as if they were identical to such temporal offenses as treason. The
lon g history of the temporal authority as the secular arm of ecclesiastical
courts did not end when temporal courts assumed greater independence.
It was transformed into a rationale for , extending judicial authority into

fields hitherto exclusively the judicial province of ecclesiastical courts.
In those fields it retained its powers, procedures, and apparatus of punish
ments that, as all commentators noted after the fourteenth century, were
far more severe than those of the ecclesimstical courts. The purpose of the
activities of the temporal courts was admonitory; the often spectacular and
gruesome punishments they meted out w,ere expected to act as a deterrent
and disciplinary education to the public. Not only the defendant, of
course, but those who aided him or her, had to be corrected. Over and
against the good civil society, protected, ministered to, and educated b y
its princes and magistrates, the wicked society emerged in its midst, con
cealed by secrecy and requiring extraordl ina1y measures to be discovered
and tried. These measures, not bound by the normal rules of procedure,
might contain such archaic elements as: the ordeal and the traditional
invective against enemies of God. But their formidable character was
established through their use of the mos:t novel and versatile legal tech
niques at their disposal. Indeed, the id,ea of the crimen exceptum, the
extraordinary crime against the state, was one of the enduring legacies of
the prosecutions of witches in the sixte:enth and seventeenth centuries.
Its place in constitutional law did not end when the prosecutions ended,
but turned instead to other kinds of criminals and was supported by a
constantly increasing apparatus of state power that, in certain parts of the
eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries, often reached terrifying
proportions.
The development of such judicial attitudes as those mentioned above
may be traced in the histories of criminal law of Italy, Germany, and
France. Many historians of witchcraft ]Prosecutions tend to distort the
nature of punishments for witches by focusing upon them exclusively,
instead of approaching them in the context of general legal history, espe
cially that of criminal law. The very term that designated magic and
witchcraft in all later sources, maleficittm, had long had several meanings.
In Roman law it meant almost any crime or delict, and Roman legal
scholarship through the fourteenth centt11ry retained this general sense of
the term. Although Roman law and its medieval commentators did use
maleficium and maleficus to denote magicians, they also used it in the
general sense of injurious wrongdoing of a c1iminal character. Thus, to
the judges who tried magicians and witches, the crimen maleficii was
similar semantically to other kinds of criminal injury. Other Roman legaJ.
thought concerning magic, however, and the powerful theological con
demnations of magic from the thirteenth century on, slowly added more
ominous overtones to the general ideaL of delict, so that the crimen
magiae was a particular kind of maleficitim, one made distinct b ecause
of its association with idolatry, demon-worship, and heresy.21
The broader Roman law concept of maleficium was preserved in several
treatises on criminal law down through the seventeenth century. It is one
example of the new rationale of defining crime and punishment system
atically, in a specialized vocabulary, that greatly influenced temporal
courts, whether they specifically employed Roman law or not. Such pro
fessional influences, the judge's role as a quasi-sacerdotal official, and the
phenomenon of urban crime itself, all increased the harshness of criminal
procedure and punishment and brought some crimes of mixed jurisdiction,
such as magic, before the temporal magistrate. In place of the restricted
system of pre-thirteenth-centui:� law, the fourteenth- and fifteenth
century magistrate would work with wider judicial discretion, broader
rules of admissable evidence, torture, and the support of ecclesiastical
authorities. These elements made all criminal procedure more severe on
the defendant and the convicted felon, and also upon the witnesses and
accomplices. It is in the general context of criminal law after the thir
teenth century that the prosecution of magicians and witches ought to be
understood. Little wonder that theologians and canonists remarked that
the temporal law penalized such crimes more severely than Church law.
With the exception of the Inquisition, this was true.
HERESY, THE INQUISITION, AND THE CRIME OF MAGIC
"Indeed, it is proable," Maitland once remarked, "that but for the

persecution of heretics therewouTc �ehee� ;o p��-s�cution ofsorcere�s."
Many historians of witchcraft, most · ;ecently Jeffrey Russelt,- have con
t
firmed Maitland's dictum in detailed studies, and there is no modern

scholar who would be prepared to deny the powerful influence that not
only the prosecution of heretics, but the concept of heresy in general,
,.,J exerted upon the judicial life of late medieval and early modern Europe.
As has been shown above, the rhetorical description of heretics derived i n ·
part from and influenced later descriptions of magicians. Russell's exhaus
tive catalogue of heretical traits described in the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries and their reappearance, attributed to the witch, in the fourteenth
and fifteenth centuries, suggests one of the most important sources, both
for the changing picture of the magician and the witch and for the legal
grounds upon which magic and witchcraft were pursued.
Magic had been identified with heresy as early as the fourth century,
however, and the great weight of patristic, particularly Augustinian,
authority influenced its identification with heresy in the work of Hugh of
St. Victor and Gratian, among many other twelfth-century writers. A<, has
been shown above, magicians were especially accused of invoking demons
and using demonic aid in their arts, thereby becoming guilty of idolatry.
The theme of the idolatrous magician is perhaps the most distinctive
aspect of inquisito1ial manuals' treatment of niagic as heresy in the thir
teenth and fourteenth centmies.22 Alongs. ide the theme of idolatry, how
ever, there grew up the similar theme ol f detailing the practices of the
devil's children. Thus, the literature depicting the behavioral excesses of
heretics that had appeared by the middle of the thirteenth century con
siderably helped to fill out the detailed! picture of just what demon
invocation and devil-worship included.w Many sources from the late
twelfth and thirteenth centuries contribut,ed ·to these descriptions. Cnron
iclers and moralists, theologians and preachers, monks and mendicants
contributed to the construction of the image of the bestial heretic, de
graded by demon-worship to performing the most obscene and repulsive
rites, and unalterably dedicated to a hatred of the human race. Cathars,
Waldensians, Luciferians, and other heretical sects became merged in
the image of the absolute heretic, which in turn became the image of
· every enemy of Christian society. Although the inquisitors' manuals of the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries generallly reflect an accurate knowledge
of various heretical beliefs, the inquisitorial literature of the thirteenth
century left a popular legacy in its portrait of the heretics and their activi
ties:'"This legacy influenced moralists and preachers in the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries and tainted the magician as well as other kinds of
heretics. The charges against the Templars, such lay groups as the
Beguines and Beghards, the Brethren of the Free Spirit, the Fraticelli, and
1
even against the friars themselves in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries
all find their roots in the invective of the thirteenth century. 21 The fevered,
picturesque, and grotesque descriptions of heretical activities depicted in
late twelfth-century and early thirteenth-century sources must be set
against the relatively sober descriptions of heretical beliefs and activities
in twelfth-century sources, and against the relatively reliable accounts of
heretical beliefs in fourteenth- and fifteenth-century inquisitors' manuals.
decretal Vox in Rama, issued by Pope Gregory IX in 1233 in response to

A particular example of such literary invective is contained in the
a request for aid against heretics in the Rhineland made by the friar
Konrad von Marburg:
When a novice is to be initiated and is brought before the assembly of the

wicked for the first time, a sort of frog appears to him; a toad according to
some. Some bestow a foul kiss on his hind parts, others on his mouth, sucking
the animal's tongue and slaver. Sometimes tlhe toad is of a normal size, but at
others it is as large as a goose or a duck. Usually it is the size of an oven's
mouth. The novice comes forward and stands before � man of fearful palior.
His eyes are black and his body so thin and emaciated that he seems to have
no flesh and be only skin and bone. The novice kisses him and he is as cold as
ice. After kissing him every remnant of faith in the Catholic Church that lingers
in the novice's heart leaves him.
Then all sit down to a banquet and when they rise after it is finished, a
black cat emerges from a kind of statue which normally stands in the place
where these meetings are held. It is as large as a fair-sized dog, and enters
backwards with its tail erect. First the novice kisses its hind parts, then the
Master of Ceremonies proceeds to do the same and finally all the others in
tum; or rather all those who deserve the honour. The rest, that is those who
are not thought �orthy of this favour, kiss the Master of Ceremonies. When
they have returned to their places they stand in silence for a few minutes w ith
heads turned towards the cat. Then the Master says: "Forgive us." The person
standing behind him repeats this and a third adds, "Lord we know it." A
fourth person ends the formula bysaying, "We shall obey."
When this ceremony is over the lights are put out and those present indulge
in the most loathsome sensuality, having no regard to sex. If there are more
men than women, men satisfy one another's depraved appetites. Women do
the same for one another. When these horrors have taken place the lamps are
lit again and everyone regains their places. Then, from a dark comer, the
figure of a man emerges. The upper part of his body from the hips upward
shines as brightly as the sun but below that his skin is coarse and covered with
fur like a cat. The Master of Ceremonies cuts a piece from the novice's vest
ments and says to the shining figure: "Master, I have been given this, and I,
in my tum, give it to you." To which the other replies: "You have served me
well and will serve me yet more in the future. I give into your safekeeping
what you have given me." And he disappears as soon as he has spoken these
words. Each year at Easter when they receive the body of Christ from the
priest, they keep it in their mouths and throw it in the dirt as an outrage
against their Saviour. Furthermore, these most miserable of men blaspheme
against the Lord of Heaven and in their madness say that the Lord has done
evil in casting out Lucifer into the bottomless pit. These most unfortunate peo
ple believe in Lucifer and claim that he was the creator of the celestial bodies
and will ultimately return to glory when the Lord has fallen from power.
Through him and with him they hope to achieve eternal happiness. They con
fess that they do not believe that one should do God's will but rather what
displeases Him. . . .2s
This passage was probably inspired by Konrad von Marburg's own letter
of appeal to the pope, and it suggests the influence of some of the anti
heretical invective noted above in Chapters 2 and 3. The osculum infame,
the pallid master, the magical loss of the faith, the ritual, lasciviousness,
lI the appearance of the demon, desecration of the host, and blasphemy all
constitute the prototype of charges against later heretics and witches. The
only part missing is the description of what the heretics have done to earn
the praise of the demon for having served him well. Fifteenth-century
theologians and moralists compiled a grim catalogue of precisely what
- those actions were. When their work was finished, the portrait of the
-/
heretic in Gregory !X's letter became the portrait of the witch. Heretical
- I'j,i - assemblies became witches' sabbats; the ritual deference to the master and
covenanfa, or oath taken among heretics in southern France, became theJ "
the demon became the pact, the basis olf idolatry. It is possible that the
etymological root of the later coven of wiitches.

It was not merely the literary invective against heretics, itself originally
borrowed in part from earlier invective against magicians, that helped to
shape the later picture of the witch, but the structure and procedure of
the Inquisition itself and the personnel, especially the early personnel, who
staffed it. The inquisitorial process gave great authority to the inquiling
magistrate, offered new rules of evidence, and permitted a number of
other procedures- not all of which were irregular-in its course. It offered
in some respects a rational and efficient process, one which appealed to
certain levels of thirteenth-century society ( for different reasons, to ec�le
siastical courts, city magistrates, royal officials, and mendicant inquisitors)
for other reasons than the hunting of he. reties. What made the ecclesias
tical inquisitorial process distinct was its utilization of untraditional juri
dical forms, often under the direction of :mendicants with no legal experi
ence, in a forum which had hitherto been purely penitential. The forum of
conscience now opened out, in the matte: r of heresy, into a judicial forum
in which the concealed crime of heresy was to be discovered by the new
legal procedures and their practitioners. Years before Gregory IX com
mitted the Inquisition against heretics specifically to the mendicant orders,
ecclesiastical officials and temporal magistrates had co-operated in catch
ing, trying, and punishing heretics. Episcopal courts and monastic inquisi
tors, notably Cistercians, had also worked together, particularly in south
ern France. In Italy Jay individuals and lay spiritual associations vigor
ously inquired into the faith of their fellow citizens. Such enthusiastic
hunters of heretics in the Rhineland as Conrad Dorso and John the One
Eyed, who probably acted as synodal witnesses (accusers ) on behalf of
the episcopal court at Worms, were joine:d by Konrad von Marburg, who
had received three papal commissions bel tween 1227 and 1231 to hunt out
heretics in Germany. These three men, none of them specifically desig
nated an inquisitor, accused heretics before the episcopal court, and it was
scription which Gregory echoed in Vo:x: in Rama. The introduction of

in this function that Konrad von Marburg wrote to Gregory IX the de
three such inexpert figures into the episcopal inquisitorial process matks
one of the most important early stages of the history of the Inquisition.
For Konrad von Marburg was far from being a lawyer, far from under
standing the dangers of ruthlessly and pitilessly manipulating the court
into condemning heretics wholesale. A mendicant ascetic, Konrac
preached crusades from 1214 to 1220, and served as the spiritual director
of St. Elizabeth of Thuringia between 12, 21 and the saint's death in 1231.
As spiritual director of that much put-upon saint, Konrad inflicted his
spiritual visions upon his protege and exercised his fascination for demon
ology. Out of this nonlegal background!, Konrad acquired considerable
'
power over the judicial machinery of the Upper Rhineland. He translated
159
his own interior demonology into the society of heretics in the Rhine
valley, and he invoked the law to purify the society he imagined.:6 Both
:Konrad and Robert le Bougre, who worked at 'the same time in France,
helped to set the tone-one of spiritual zeal coupled with a total disregard
for the most elementary features of legal process-that characterized
much of the Inquisition's history and was not removed even by the sys
tematizing and regularizing of the inquisitorial process in the fourteenth
century. For the procedure that later learned inquisitors used was devel
oped in the more flexible and mo.re dangerous days of the early thi1teenth
century by men like Konrad and Robert and their assistants. The great
authority of the Inquisition stemmed from its direct papal authority and
its exemption from the common canon law of the Church. This authority
was lent to a system of investigation, accusation, trial, and punishment
that shared many of its most formidable parts with the criminal proce
dures of other thirteenth-century societies, from the kingdom of France to
the Italian city-republics. •But the most ominous and destructive features
of the Inquisition derived from the application of those parts in a novel
way by zealous men who were trained in no law and could thereby use
the law to attack spiritual dissent, no matter how deeply concealed.
Ecclesia de occultis non fudicat-"the Church does not judge hidden
offenses," so said a canonist maxim in the late twelfth and early thirteenth
centuries; the concealed sin was left to the forum of penitence, the confes
sional.21 In inquisitorial procedure, however, it was precisely the transfer
ence of concealed offenses to the judicial forum of the Inquisition that
marked the difference between the Inquisition and conventional canon law
courts. The spiritual troubles of Gregory IX, Konrad von Marburg, Robert
le Bougre and others took up the rhetorical descriptions of heretical activ
ities developed late in the twelfth century and pronounced them crimes of
the gravest kind; they instituted a juridical procedure that cut away tra
ditional protections, initially operated with unprofessional personnel, and
possessed virtually unlimited power. As Henri Maisonneuve points out:
[In the case of Konrad of Marburg and his role as a testis synodalis] it is not
necessary to speak of an episcopal inquisition here, nor of a monastic inquisi
tion, in spite of the specific affiliation of many "inquisitors," and even less of a
"secular inquisition, but rather of an itinerant and formidable papal commi s
sion of inquiry sui generis. If it did not suppress ordinary jurisdictions, ecclesias
tical and secular, it stimulated them, it goaded them, and it tended naturally to
supplant them, and by that means, without doubt, to depart from the essence
of legality.:s
Maisonneuve demonstrates the process by which the papal Inquisition

spread throughout Germany, northern and southern France, Aragon, and
Italy. He traces the changing definition of severe corporal punishment and
death, the animadversio debita, incapacitation, exheredation, and the
death penalty, seeing in Innocent !V's decretal Ad extirpanda of 15 May,
1252-the most important instrument after the constitutions of Frederick
II and the decretals of Gregory IX-the institutional creation of a papal
Inquisition. In this decretal, not only is torture permitted and the penalty
of death by fire recognized, but inquisitors are permitted to assemble
staffs, archives, and other institutional structures. In Alexander IV's letter
Quad super nonullis, discussed above. , heretical magic is specified as
within the Inquisition's competence, although nonheretical magic is left
to the ordinary system of spiritual and temporal criminal justice. The
articulation of heresy in the manuals of the inquisitors of the fourteenth
century, however, logically and implacably drew sorcery too into the
power of the Inquisition.
Bernard Gui's handbook for inquisito,rs, the Practica officii inquisitoris
heretice pravitatis, written around 1323,/ 24, contains a formula for inter
rogating those suspected of being sort:ilegi, divi.ni, or invocatores dae
monum, evidently considered well within the limits of heretical magic by
the early fourteenth century. The accused are to be asked what they know
of these subjects and from whom they learned it. The inquisitor is then to
descend into particulars, and these detailed questions range over most of
the topics of learned and unlearned magic familiar to most theologians of
the period. Gui emphasizes the importance of inquiring about any dese
cration of the sacrament or profanatiorn of ecclesiastical rites. Gui also
gives the formula for abjuring magical practices as well as several formulas
for the degradation of clerics convicted of such acts as well as for those
convicted of using the consecrated host for sortilegium and maleficium.
In 1376 Nicholas Eymeric's Directorium inquisitorum discussed the prob
lems of magic and sorcery at considerable length, but his handbook,
which was the best-known inquisitor's handbook through the early seven
teenth century, focuses upon the idolat1ry of magicians, and reveals little
of the detail that later described the type of the witch ( see the translation
below, Appendix II).
In inquisitorial literature the terminology of traditional magic was
broadened to include heresy. The constii tutions of Frederick II had iden
tified heresy and maleficium in 1231, and the terms used to designate
sortilegium and divinatio were attached to maleficium in the German
Richterlichen Klagspiel around 1450: die das volk maleficos (zaubrer)
nennt . . . die schwartzen kunst ocler sunst andere verlJOtene kunst, im
latein artem divinandi . . . At about the same time, Alfonso de Spina
spoke of the artes magicae vel divinationes.20
From the Roman vagueness of maleficium, inquisitors and theologians
appear to have directed the term to the specific meaning of magician, and
to have done this between the late thir1:eenth and the late fifteenth cen-
The Magician, the Witch, and the Law 100.
turies, although in technical studies of Roman law the older meaning of
the term appears to have survived, as we have seen, into the sixteenth
together ( sortilegium, divinatio, maleficium, •ars magica) inquisitorial

century. Besides drawing some of the key te1ms in the history of magic
literature went much further into the nature of. the magician's acts and
the character of his sin, especially idolatry, than canon lawyers appear to
Kramer and Jacob Sprenger, and in the Malleus Maleficarum, the most
have done. In the work of two fifteenth-century inquisitors, Heinrich
divinatores and malefici are regarded as being the same kind of offender,
exhaustive ( and, for a century, the most conclusive) arguments are made:
since they are punished in the forum of conscience by the same punish
ment. Both anticipate injury to God's creatures inflicted by demons, and
both ask from the demons what should only be asked of God. In the
separate semantic development of such terms as maleficus, divinator,

inquisitorial literature of the late fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the
sortilegus gives way to a process of identifying all these terms with each
other and with the magical arts. These arts, in turn, although some of
them may in theory be acceptable, are continuously condemned, and that
condemnation becomes stronger in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. In
the fifteenth century the invective against heresy is applied to magicians
and later to witches, by bringing them before the inquisitorial tribunals,
not only of the Inquisition itself, but before secular judges as well; the
ancient condemnation of magic is strengthened by its identification with
idolatry, superstition, and apostasy. As Norman Cohn has pointed out, and
as Richard Kieckhefer's calendar of "witchcraft" trials indicates, most con
victions before the late fifteenth century were for the practice of magic
seen in these terms.30
THE ORDEAL OF LEARNED MAGIC
At exactly the time when hitherto separate terms designating magic

were drawing closer together in meaning and the inquisitorial process had
begun to include magicians as heretics and apostates, there occurred a
revival of learned magic that went far beyond the thirteenth- and four
teenth- century revivals and dealt with much broader ideas than the
manipulation of the created world. In general, the new magic of the fif
teenth and sixteenth centuries was, or claimed to be, natural or hermetic, ·
specifically opposed to superstitious magic and deriving from Neopla-.
tonic philosophy. Its earliest defenders, Marsilio Ficino and Giovanni Pico
della Mirandola, although they claimed for their magic the highest bene
fits to mankind and insisted upon their freedom from iUicit communication
with demons, often found themselves facing the same kinds of condemna-
tions as thirteenth-century magicians had, made more serious by the inter
est of the Inquisition and the attacks o n magic in the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries. Ficino himself is careful to indicate that his own talis
mans are not those made through illicit airts, and that his songs are not to
be identified with forbidden incantations to demons, of whose dangers
he appears to have been very much awa1re. The dilemma of Ficino and
other learned magicians who play so important and mysterious a role in
early modern intellectual history was sha1rpened by the attitudes toward
all forms of magic in the world in which they lived.31
The appeal of learned magic in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries has
been recognized by many scholars, notably Eugenio Garin:
For people sensed that here was a new way which might allow man to gain a
full mastery over nature. The attempt to seize precisely those methods which 1
medieval theology had rejected shows once again how fundamental the break
with the middle ages had been. 32
The vision enunciated by Ficino, and echoed in the following century by

Trithemius, Agrippa von Nettesheim, Bruno, and Campanella, was that of
increased human power over nature achieved by control of the spirits and '
forces that fill the universe. Ficino base,d his magical ideas on the her-
1
metical treatises, but his reading was wide, and he published in transla
tion Michael Psellos' eleventh-century treatise on magic and demonology
besides much else. The anthropocentrism of literary and philosophical
humanism dictated that man alone coul ld free himself from the static,
ordered world of forms and become either a divine being or a beast. As
Garin states,
[T]he ambiguous reality of man consisted of the fact that he was a possibility,
an opening through which one could rejoice in the inexhaustible richness of
Being. He was not a being defined once and for all, immobile and secure, but '
was always precariously balanced upon the margin of an absolute risk . . . [in]
an infinite universe which is open to all possibilities. �3
As Garin, TI10rndike, and others have pointed out, such a view was dia- 1
metrically opposed to the earlier views of human nature and magic. What
1 several historians have called "the muse of terror" lay behind medieval
attitudes toward magic, and throughout the last and most learned revival
of magic there raged against it and its vision of human nature the stric-
tures first enunciated by Plato and later b y the theologians and inquisitors
of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. At the beginning of the seven
teenth century, attacks came from a new quarter, from the new vision of
science possessed by Francis Bacon and 1the logical method of Descartes.
Of the two enemies of natural and hermetic magic, the theologians and
inquisitors were the more dangerous; not only did they apply to the new
] rnagic the old strictures and the new punishments, but they associat�d the
1
/'\ learned magicians with the unlearned witches, who had come much more
sharply into focus by the late fifteenth century.!•
The chief theological problem faced by the hermetic magicians was the
Church's firm statement that there were only two kinds of spirits, angels
and demons. Independent commerce with what appeared to be benevolent
spirits could only be commerce with demons, and no Christian in the
fifteenth century, Neoplatonic philosopher or not, could easily disagree.
It is not surprising, therefore, that Ficino and Pico and their successors
emphasized far more emphatically than even Roger Bacon and Arnald of
Villanova that there existed two kinds of magic, which D. P. Walker terms
spiritual and demonic, and that their magic was purely spiritual. Walker
shows that, for all their protests, the hermetic magicians of the sixteenth
century were themselves well aware of the dangers of demonic magic,
even if some of them, such as Agrippa and Paracelsus, veered even closer
to demonic magic than Ficino.35
It was no acddent that the new learned magic began in Italy and that
several of the most impassioned attacks on magic and witchcraft, and the -
earliest, also originated in Italy. As Peter Burke has recently shown, there
were a number of trials for forbidden magic in fifteenth- and early six
teenth-century Italy, and the judges did not always distinguish between
what historians too easily call "magic" and "witchcraft." Gianfrancesco
Pico's dialogue on magic and witchcraft Strix ( published in 1523) sums
up, in its arguments for and against the belief in witchcraft, a wide range
of learning and a denunciation of both learned and humble magic. In
Strix and in his other writings against magic, Gianfrancesco Pico attacks
the revival of the cult of antiquity, striking out at the targets that had
exercised the Church Fathers centuries before: Orpheus, Apollonius of
Tyana, and Circe. Indeed, one striking feature, especially of the Strix, is
the author's citation of classical models, such as Medea and Circe, in his
condemnation of all forms of magic.ar.
With the stirrings of the Reformation, certain implicit contradictions in
late medieval theological approaches to the subject of magic became
explicit, and reformers could and did attack Catholic ceremonial practices
and beliefs as manifestations of demonic magic. Indeed, one of the themes
that sustained much of the literature concerning magic and witchcraft
throughout the sixteenth century was the diabolical magic of which the
Catholic church was accused. On the other hand, H. C. Erik Midelfort has
suggested that the very hardening of confessional camps in the sixteenth
century led to denominational postures that necessarily excluded all of ·
one's enemies' ideas, including those, such as scepticism toward magic and
Witchcraft, that might otherwise have circulated across confessional divi-
-
sions.3 ' The work of Johann Weyer, for example, has been regarded in
different ways by different historians, p 1recisely because it is usually read
in parts, selectively. Weyer, physician to Duke William of Cleves, wrote
in 1563 a long work entitled De Praestigiis Daemonum, which is generally
remembered for its scepticism concerning the reality of the crimes of
which witches were accused. What is not as often noted, however, is
Weyer's unremitting hostility toward the Roman church and his accusa.
tions that many Catholic practices are manifestations of the worst kind
of demonic magic.36
In addition, Weyer fully believes in the reality and diabolical character .
of learned magic, and he attacks Ficino and other learned proponents of
natural magic vigorously. It was just this: sort of attack that the traditional
denunciations of magic had prepared, but Weyer does not cite the con·
ventional patristic sources, relying heavily upon the Bible and his own ,
vision of a nonmagical Christian religion. Although they appear different,
the learned philosopher· magicians and the Roman churchmen are both
victims of demonic illusion, both sunken in diabolic magic. In spite of r.
Pico's humanist learning and Weyer's scepticism as to the reality of
witches' actions, D. P. Walker legitimately groups these two thinkers with
Thomas Erastus under the heading of evangelical hardheads:
Those who believe all magic to be demonic or diabolical and illusory; who tend
to be sceptical about the reality of supernatural phenomena; who distrust all
pagan philosophy, particularly Neo. platon,ism; who take the Bible as their
supreme authority whenever possible; who in general have a sensible, no·
nonsense outlook on things, usually base:d upon a moderate Christianized
Aristotelianism. 30
It is worth suggesting that such a view applied to the case of magicians

as well as to that of witches, and many tracts against witchcraft are also
directed against magicians. Indeed, W,eyer directs his hostility toward
magicians and Roman Catholic clergy exclusively. Jean Bodin, whose
De la demonomanie des sorcieres, publi: shed in 1580, was in large part a
refutation of Weyer's "tolerance" toward the witches, is even more hostile
to magicians than Weyer, and as Christopher Baxter has recently stated,
"The word sorcerer here covers the lofty Neoplatonic magus of the Renais-
'/.. sance hermetic tradition; the lowly medieval necromancer; and the old
crone of the European witchcraze."•0 In Martin Del Rio's Disquisitiones
magicae, of 1559, sorcerers ( magicians) are condemned with witches as
the most pestiferous blight upon the . human race.
Without going further into the topic oif sixteenth·century learned magic
than this study requires, it seems to me appropriate to point out some con
41
clusions suggested by the history of the £lgme of the magician in 111edieval

and early modern Europe. First, although both anthropologists and his-
/
@=)
torians persist in separating the crimes of magic and witchcraft, medieval •
,/theologians and lawyers did not, and many of the elements of sixteenth
'Y_ century witchcraft were first brought to light in charges against magicians.
A somewhat oversimplified schema of this pro�ess would state the rela-
tionship thus: from the patristic period through the twelfth century, Chris
tian concepts of magic and denunciations of its practitioners were con
tinuous and unremittingly hostile. In the twelfth century some of the
invective traditionally directea against magicians and heretics was revived
\\ and extended, applying to both the new heretics and the increasingly
{_evident class of magicians. Thir�enth-century theologians and philoso-
phers attacked magic more severely, as did certain temporal and spiritual
\
courts. As the inquisitorial process took shape, magic began to come
within the purview of t�.�_.luqui�n, and many of the distinct terms
():/_ ,.,- once used to designate )��e_..d_ magic-S!)rtilegjy_m, �f!:!.�o, m..51le�ciu17!,
/7 a�-were apph-&tnot only to learned magicians, but to other
, practitioners of "superstitious" and "idolatrous" acts, including fortune
' telling, judicial astrology, medical practice, love-magic, and weather
magic. The original condemnation of the learned magicians became the
L general charge under which others were prosecuted as well. What Baxter
has noted in Bodin's Demonomanie, that the term sorcerer included all
kinds of magicians indiscriminately, is the logical conclusion of this proc
ess. Thus, the figure of the learned magician and the type of the sixteenth-
l century witch are not as far apart as some excessively schematized
/)iistories of witchcraft usually suggest. Although learned magic at its most
intellectually respectable-whether in the Poimander, Asclepius, Picatrix,
or the work of Ficino or Campanella-may seem at first glance far re
moved from the humble and lethal activities of the witches, it seems that
way only to sixteenth-centu1y apologists and twentieth-century historians.
A It did not seem that way to fourteenth-century theologians and inquisitors,
i nor to alleged sceptics like Weyer nor resolute monotheists like Bodin.
The other side of the development of the figure of the witch-and it is a
side just as important as the side of the magician-has been traced by
Russell and others and requires a shorter presentation.
The rhetorical invective against heretics that twelfth-century monastic ,
writers inherited from the patristic period and which, with their thir
t tee�t h - and fourteenth-century successors they turned into a minor form
'f-of hterary art, was broadened to include several practices attributed to
e1a.gicians and defined in ways that could be dealt with by special inquisi
enal courts. Heresy,�try, and supersfilion indiscriminately merged I
m the person"of the heretic, and the heretic merged into the witch-a '
figure made more formidable because of its ancestry in the invective
.
�gamst magic, on the one hand, and in the mentality of the Inquisition
nd the society it served, on the other. The final section of this book will
deal with this question at greater length; here it is only necessary to -em
166
phasize again the role of learned magic in shaping, not only the witch
figure, but the circumstances that led lto the resolute opposition to all
forms of magic in the sixteenth century. This opposition, although directed
from different presuppositions, hampered the development of learned
magic throughout the sixteenth century until the new assault from scep
tics and rationalists killed it off in the e:arly part of the seventeenth cen
tury. It is not common to link such figu1res as Bacon and Descartes with
Gianfrancesco Pico, Bodin, and the sixteenth-century magistrates and
_ I inquisitors, but a link there is, one of many obscure connections between
what often seem to be wholly separate worlds, the theology of the fif
teenth century and the rational philosop1hy of the seventeenth.
THE WITCH AND THE LAW
Historians of witchcraft have faced other dilemmas besides that of

whether to adopt the rationalist or romantic approach to their subject.
On the one hand, the influence of anthiropology on the study of history
since the 1930s has suggested that techrniques of anthropological investi
gation help to explain certain aspects of the phenomenon of the witch
I persecutions. A number of critics, most eloquent among them �
p Hope Robbj,!ls, have argued against too great a dependence upon anthro
pology, chiefly because anthropology ternds to homogenize the societies it
studies. In the case of early modem European witchcraft, Robbins argues,
anthropology tends to leave out specifically European features of witch-1
craft, most obviously the concept of the devil and the relation of the witch1
to the devil. Having rescued the witch from the anthropologists, Robbins
and those who agree with him have been willing to leave the magician as
a kind of hostage to comparative religion and anthropology in the witch's
place.42 One of the central themes in this book is that the magician, be-
ween the second and the eighteenth centuries, is just as much a particu-..
I�
¢.Jarized historical figure as the witch; in fact, the magician is older. The
magician too, from St. Augustine on, made pacts with the devil, and in-
deed was the first to do so. The magician, whether learned or unlearned,
was the type against whom those laws were first promulgated that were
�j
later applied to the witch. Many of the tracts De strigibus deal as much, if
not more, with the evil magician than they do with the witch. Critics and
promoters of the witchcraft persecutions alike-Weyer, Bodin, Del Rio,
de l'Ancre-join in attacking evil magic. So strong was the opposition
created in the period between the twelfth and the sixteenth centuries that
it haunted Ficino and Pico, blackened the memory of Roger Bacon, Arnald
of Villanova, Pietro d'Abano, Trithemius, and Agrippa, and set the stage
for the appearance and legend of Faust. Pomponazzi and Campanella
became suspect magicians too, and all of this occurred long before
the rationalist assault led by Bacon, Bayle, and Descartes. Even that final
assault was tempered by the residual theories of spiritual causation exhib
ited by the Cambridge Platonists and others down to the end of the
seventeenth century. What Keith Thomas calls "the magic of the medieval
Church" may have been the cause of dissension between sixteenth
century thinkers who defended a nonmagical Christianity and those who
fought against it, but from the second to the sixteenth centuries the magic
of the medieval Church remained exclusively an ecclesiastical form of
magic. As Aquinas once said, it was a magic hallowed by miracula and
.,
l' divine providence; all else were mira, simply wonders and illusions, ere,/
ated by sporting and deceptive demons. No matter how learned the
magician, the same process of demonic illusion that deceived the simple
witch, deceived him as well. And the magician was the greater fool and l[ ,
Lthe greater sinner.
Once the full variety of medieval magic has been described, it seems
to me impossible not to appreciate the important place that medieval
attitudes toward magic and magicians-and the nature and practice of
magic on many levels itself-exerted in the thirteenth, fourteenth, and
fifteenth centuries. Once even learned magic began to be actively exam
ined and denounced, especially in the work of William of Auvergne and
others in the early thirteenth century, a framework of magical activity
was shaped that came to include many kinds of behavior; some of it was
regarded as popular superstition and residual paganism, and more of it
as one form or another of learned magic. The process did not occu r at a
steady rate, nor did all kinds of thinkers contribute equally to it. Canon
lawyers and scholastic theologians seem to have contributed less than
was once thought. Even inquisitors, once the nature and extent of the
inquisitor's powers are understood, appear to have been less original and
more closely tied to contemporary theological opinion than they are
customarily thought to have been. Since Kieckhefer and Cohn have
demolished some of the fourteenth-century cases that had long anchored
the image of the sixteenth-century witch in the fourteenth century, such
documents as Kieckhefer's own exhaustive list of witch trials may be
read as trials for sortilegium, divinatio, and the illicit practice of the ars
magica. And behind these trials and opinions, there lies an accessible
b ody of ecclesiastical opinion on magic. The magic described by thir
teenth-, fourteenth-, and fifteenth-century writers is not the eternal sort
of magic, studied by historians of comparative civilizations and dis-
tinguished by anthropologists and some historians from witchcraft, either
, u general . practiced through
, or specific. It is a particular kind of magic,
demonic power by a variety of social types from the learned magus to
the sorcerer's apprentice, from the local maker of crude images and love
168
/
potions to the poisoner, the midwife, and the wisewoman.
As magic came to be considered specifically the result of illicit com
merce with demons, so too did heresy, and although heresy inspired the
spread of inquisitorial procedure, both in special courts and generally
throughout ecclesiastical and secular society, it is not surprising that those
e courts took cognizance of magic as well as heresy. It would be surprising
, if they had not. Magicians and heretics a1re both antecedents of the witch.
Once magic is dissociated somewhat from the idea of eternal magic on
the one hand, and learning on the other, it is easy to regard it as a time
)1 bound phenomenon, the result of historical circumstances acting upon a
l
traditional literary and theological hostility which dates from the patristic
period. And this has been the argument of this book so far.
Once we have admitted that the theory and practice of magic was a
historical event from late antiquity through the sixteenth century and that
magic elicited a specific Christian response not fundamentally different
from orthodox responses to heresy and 1'.ater to witchcraft, we are forced
to reassess the terminology customarily used to label magic and witch
craft. Medieval Latin and all the European vernacular languages pos
sessed terms that were applied to magicians from late antiquity on.
Although I have not been able to provide a full semantic history of such
key terms as maleficium, I have suggested that in Latin, terms that had
remained relatively discrete before the fourteenth century began to be
used interchangeably after that period. 'Nhen one reads "divinatio vel ars
magica," for example, in a fifteenth-century text, it is clear that the
hitherto limited definition of divinatio has been expanded and become
interchangeable with the term ars magica. The history of maleficium also
shows narrow and broad meanings. W'hen maleficium and sortilegittm
became consistently forms of idolatria and superstitio, theologians and
inquisitors acquired greater freedom in dealing with them in relation to
other crimes that had long been considered manifestations of idolatria
and superstitio.
The interchangeability of tenninolog)t in the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries created a new context in which not only Latin te1ms, but
I vernacular terms as well could be considered as manifestations of the
same sin. Thus, such terms as Hexe, strega, wicca, and many others,
, which we first find in early penitentials and sermons, came to mean a
• particular type of sinner and criminal which we commonly designate
as witch. Yet they did not always mean what 1,;itch means, and has meant
1 from the late fifteenth century on. In the early eleventh-century Sermo
Lupi ad Anglos, England is chastized by the preacher because, among
many other vices, "7 her syndan wiccan 7 twelcyrian."' A literal transla
tion would read, "here there are [male] witches and valkyries." But such
3
a translation would be erroneous in two respects: first, the preacher is
speaking of magicians, not male witches, and, second, the valkyries are
not the Scandinavian goddesses, but living women who practice magic. ·
Yet the modem word "witch" comes from wicca, but in an etymological
sense only. Lupus ( or Wulfstan) certainly had no conception of the
future meaning of the feminine form of 11,;icca. About four centuries later,
Chaucer's Friar describes the duties of an archdeacon:
a man of heigh degree,

That boldely dide execucioun
In punysshynge of fomicacioun,
Of wiccecraft, and eke of bawderye,
Of diffamacioun, and avowtrye,
Of chirche reves, and of testamentz,
Of contractes, and of lakke of sacramentz,
Of usure, and of symonye also.44
\. Sorcery was one of many kinds of sin whose absolution was reserved to
J the bishop, and the archdeacon was the bishop's legal official. Thus, the
Friar's archdeacon punishes for sorteligium and divinatio and the poet,
writing in English, naturally uses the term wiccecraft. Chaucer knew
no more of fifteenth- and sixteenth-century meanings of witchcraft than
had Lupus-Wulfstan four centuries earlier. The point of this short seman
tic excursus is that the history of usage and meaning can illuminate
relationships between Latin and vernacular words and can suggest that
certain terms whose meaning dramatically changes, such as witch and
witchcraft, ought to be recognized as such and perhaps differentiated as
1
1,; to early and late meanings. As I observed at the beginning of this study,
the words sorcerer and tcitch exist in English because after 1066 English
was strongly influenced by the Romance languages. If modern English
had to deal only with a term such as wiccacraft, many of the fine dis
tinctions drawn between magic and witchcraft would no longer exist.
This argument runs close to a caveat of Jeffrey Russell-that to define
witchcraft only as that institution desclibed in sixteenth-century and some
fifteenth-century sources, with the full panoply of pact with the demon,
night-flight, the sabbat, the use of demonic power to perform supernatural
acts injurious to the human race, and so forth, is virtually to deny that
such a thing as witchcraft existed before 1400 or so. For the sake of
semantic precision, as the preceding chapters have indicated, I am
strongly inclined to take precisely that position. But any reader of
Russell's rich and massively documented study would recognize that such
a stand would exclude a strong tradition and an accumulation of legend;
polemic, and legal and psychological attitudes would also be excluded.
Without a knowledge of these elements, it would be impossible to under
170
stand the full meaning of what was essentially a sixteenth-century phe

nomenon. I have argued that the figure of the magician in medieval
thought and law must be reconsidered; I recognize that the type of the
sixteenth-century witch was a distinct t type, so distinct that it is running
the risk of blurring her distinctiveness to use the word witchcraft without
qualifying it for different historical periods. Yet the works of Hansen, Lea,
Robbins, and Russell offer extremely illuminating materials and judg
ments about a dark and often neglected side of medieval life, and
scholarship would be considerably poorer without it. Keith Thomas's
phrase, "the magic of the medieval Church" has yet to be fully explored,
and all of the work cited above contribiutes much to that exploration.
As an example of the process by which some traditional notions about
magic and some formidable new notions about the practitioners of magic
joined in the late fifteenth century, let us consider two of the most famous
documents in the history of witchcraft:, or wiccacraft: the bull Summis
I
des-iderantes affectibus of Pope Innocent VIII in 1484, and the Malleus
Ma/,eficarum of 1486, the great treatise--·-----
on witchcraft to which the bull
was always attached.
Innocent issued Summis desiderantes· at the request of two Dominican
1
inquisitors, Heinrich Kramer ( or lnstitoris) and Jacob Sprenger, who had

worked in southern Germany and encountered some resistance in their
search for heretics. The buJI formally removes all impediments to the
completion of Kramer and Sprenger's mission. Its text follows:
Desiring with supreme ardor, as pastorall solicitude requires, that the catholic
faith in our days everywhere grow and flourish as much as possible, and that
all heretical pravity be put far from the territories of the faithful, we freely
declare and anew decree this by which our pious desire may be fulfilled, and,
all errors being rooted out by our toil as with the hoe of a wise laborer, zeal
and devotion to this faith may take deep,er hold in the hearts of the faithful
themselves.
It has recently come to our ears, not without great pain to us, that in some
parts of upper Germany, as well as in the provinces, cities, territo1ies, regions,
and dioceses of Mainz, Koln, Trier, Salzburg, and Bremen, many persons of /
both sexes, heedless of their own salvation and forsaking the catholic faith, I
give themselves over to devils male and female, and by their incantations,
charms, and conjurings, and by other abominable superstitions and sortileges,
offences, crimes, and misdeeds, ruin and cause to perish the offspring of I
women, the foal of animals, the products of the earth, the grapes of vines, and
the fruits of trees, as well as men and women, cattle and flocks and herds and
animals of every kind, vineyards also and 01rchards, meadows, pastnres, harvests,
grains and other fruits of the earth; that they afflict and torture with dire pains
and anguish, both internal and external, these men, women, cattle, flocks, herds,
T"he Magician, the Witch, and the Law 171
-
and animals, and hinder men from begetting and women from conceiving, and
prevent all consummation of marriage; that, moreover, they deny with sacrilegi
ous lips the faith they received in holy baptism; and that, at the instigation of
the enemy of mankind, they do not fear to commit -and perpetrate many other
abominable offences and crimes, at the risk of their own souls, to the insult of
the divine majesty and to the pernicious example and scandal of multitudes.
And, although our beloved sons Henricus Institoris and Jacobus Sprenger, of
the order of Friars Preachers, professors of theology, have been and still are
deputed by our apostolic letters as inquisitors of heretical pravity, the former
in the aforesaid parts of upper Germany, including the provinces, cities, terri
tories, dioceses, and other places a�-above, and the latter throughout certain
parts of the course of the Rhine; nevertheless certain of the clergy and of the
laity of those parts, seeking to be wise above what is fitting, because in the said
letter of deputation the aforesaid provinces, cities, dioceses, territories, and
other places, and the persons and offences in question were not individually
and specifically named, do not blush obstinately to assert that these are not at
all included in the said parts and that therefore it is illicit for the aforesaid
inquisitors to exercise their office of inquisition in the provinces, cities, dio
ceses, territories, and other places aforesaid, and that they ought not to be
permitted to proceed to the punishment, imprisonment, and correction of the
aforesaid persons for the offences and crimes above named. vVherefore in the
provinces, cities, dioceses, territories, and places aforesaid such offences and
crimes, not without evident damage to their souls and risk of eternal salvation,
go unpunished.
We therefore, desiring, as is our duty, to remove all impediments by which
in any way the said inquisitors are hindered in the exercise of their office, and
to prevent the taint of heretical pravity and of other like evils from spreading
their infection to the ruin of otJ1ers who are innocent, the zeal of religion
especially impelling us, in order that the provinces, cities, dioceses, territories,
and places aforesaid in the said parts of upper Germany may not be deprived
of the office of inquisition which is their due, do hereby decree, by virtue of
our apostolic authority, that it shall be permitted to the said inquisitors in these
regions to exercise their office of inquisition and to proceed to the correction,
imprisonment, and punishment of the aforesaid persons for their said offences
and crimes, in all respects and altogether precisely as if the provinces, cities,
territories, places, persons, and offences aforesaid were expressly named in the
said letter. And, for the greater sureness, extending the said letter and deputa
tion to the provinces, cities, dioceses, territories, places, persons, and crimes
aforesaid, we grant to the said inquisitors that they or either of them, joining
with them our beloved son Johannes Gremper, cleric of the diocese of Con
stance, master of arts, their present notary, or any other notary public who by
them or by either of them shall have been temporarily delegated in the
provinces, cities, dioceses, territories, and places aforesaid, may exercise against
all persons, of whatsoever condition and rank, the said office of inquisition,
correcting, imprisoning, punishing, and chastising, according to their deserts,
those persons whom they shaJI find guilty as aforesaid.
---
And they shall also have full and entire liberty to propound and preach to
the faithful the word of God, as often a1 s it shall seem to them fitting and
proper, in each and all the parish churche:s in the said provinces, and to do all
things necessary and suitable under the aforesaid circumstances, and likewise
freely and fully to carry them out.
And moreover we enjoin by apostolic writ on our venerable brother, the
Bishop of Strasburg, that, either in his own person or through some other or
others solemnly publishing the foregoing wherever, whenever, and how often
soever he may deem expedient or by these inquisitors or either of them may be
legitimately required, he permit them not to be molested or hindered in any
manner whatsoever by any authority whatsoever in the matter of the aforesaid
and of this present letter, threatening all opposers, hinderers, contradictors,
and rebels, of whatever rank, state, decree, eminence, nobility, excellence, or
condition they may be, and whatever privilege of exemption they may enjoy,
with excommunication, suspension, interdict, and other still more terrible sen
tences, censures, and penalties, as may be, expedient, and this without appeal
and with power after due process of law of aggravating and reaggravating
these penalties, by our authority, as often as may be necessary, to this end
calling in the aid, if need be, of the secular arm.
And this, all other apostolic decrees al'.ld earlier decisions to the contrary
notwithstanding; or if to any, jointly or severally, there has been granted by
this apostolic see exemption from interdict, suspension, or excommunication, by
apostolic letters not making entire, express, and literal mention of the said grant
of exemption; or if there exist any other indulgence whatsoever, general or
special, of whatsoever tenor, by failure to name which or to insert it bodily in
the present letter the carrying out of this p,rivilege could be hindered or in any
way put off,- or any of whose whole tenor special mention must be made in
our letters. Let no man, therefore, dare to ii nfringe this page of our declaration,
extension, grant, and mandate, or with rash hardihood to contradict it. If any
presume to attempt this, let him know that he incurs the wrath of almighty
God and of the blessed apostles Peter and Paul.
Given in Rome, at St. Peter's, in the year of Our Lord's incarnation 1484,
on the nones of December, in the first year of our pontificate.45
When Summis desiderantes is read ini the light of earlier papal letters,
such as those of Eugenius IV and John XXII cited above, and still others
printed by Hansen, it is clear that Innocent VIII has propounded nothing I
new in his letter. More than half the text is devoted to the vexing prob
lem of local opposition to papal inquisitors; the first part speaks only of
persons forsaking the Catholic faith, making pacts with devils, and
thereby gaining the power to injure human beings. Despite Trevor
Roper's energetic but misguided atter:npt to demonstrate that in this
document "a general mandate was given, or implied [for persecuting and
burning witches]," there is no such mandate given or implied in the text,
and Innocent VIII's idea of the sinners he was describing was virtually
identical with those of his predecessors. By itself, Summis desid.erantes
p
would have constituted an interesting but routine papal letter in the1
173
series printed by Hansen. What has allowed historians ( and demonolo

gists) to read the letter as something more are the circumstances of its
circulation. Not only was the letter routinely circt1lated to its addressees,
but it was printed two years later as a preface to Institoris's and Sprenger's
treatise, the Malleus Maleficarum, "The Hammer of Witches," the first
printed encyclopedia of magic and witchcraft. Institoris and Sprenger
elicited the decretal in the first place. What they received was a conven
tional papal letter concerning evil magic, most of which was directed
against ecclesiastical officials whoJrnd impeded the two inquisitors' at- ·
tempts to perform their papal commission. There is not a shred of evi
dence that Innocent VIII ever saw the Malleus Maleficarum or had the
faintest notion of the ideas it contained. The printing of papal bulls with
ecclesiological works was a particular phenomenon of the age of print
itself; but the association of the bull, which was traditional and wholly
unexceptional ( compare it with Gregory IX's Vox i n Rama) with the
Malleus Maleficarum, which was neither traditional nor unexceptional,
was the work of sixteenth-century writers and, of course, Institoris and
Sprenger themselves. The juxtaposition of the two texts in printed edi
tions could legitimately be understood to have misled sixteenth-century
demonologists, but it is surprising that it should have misled so many
historians since the sixteenth century.
The Malleus Maleficarum, however, is something guite unigue and
original. From Hansen and Lea to Robbins and Russell, scholars have
anal�d and probed it for antecedents and influences. Sydney Anglo is
the most recent writer to have studied the work in English. All scholars
agree that the form of the work, that of a series of scholastic quaestiones,
derives from handbooks for inquisitors, of which Eymeric's is the best
example. Within the framework of quaestiones arranged into three major
parts, however, the work is intellectually inferior to Eymeric's and hardly
to be considered "scholastic" in the original sense of that term at all. What
is striking about the Malleus is its economic use of the quaestio fo1m to
bring together elements from all of the diverse sources that had provided
elements of the new fifteenth-century beliefs in magic in the first place.
T_he ju�p�n_2:f _th§� e,kments.Jn.._�g�soncel'!!��g., ,lightly'
ax:gt'iea treatise of considerably_greatedength than any earlier work really
c�s�tuted.t�e basis_0�211ulali_ty of ti:!� �ZltJ1.�d.u..ring.,.tlJ�_n_Txi tw_o
�epm�. Hansen has worked out the complicated method whereby the
Malleus acquired the approbation of part of the faculty of theology at
Cologne, and Russell has pointed out how many of the elements of the
classical witch type of the sixteenth century are missing from the
Malleus.'6 Moreover, there is no evidence that the appearance of the
Malleus, nor its reprinting down through the middle of the sixteenth cen-
tury several times, generated any greater persecutions for witchcraft and
magic than�!�aOl,_E,C£.U.U�<iE>: el)d of tli�jffeen�h C6_!!�

fact, tlieprosecution of magicians and witches in Italy, which had begun
.fE�
earlier there than elsewhere, appears to have declined shortly after the .
publication of the Malleus. Tb!L. Malletii§, however, did succeed in weld-,
ing �g�ther a.�m.b.er gf.hi!he�,Q, 9,.isJtiJlqt ti;:a.djti.Q.!)_L�Qncerning !llilgic
and,- eve» µi_oxe impoJtant,,surwunded. its.se.cond part,. which qeals with
the activities of the maleficae/malefici, with a first part dealing with the
theology of magic and a third part describing in immense detail the
judicial procedures to be used against it. I2., n2. other w�-are theology t
a��,g tj_ghtlyjj�. Even if, as I have suggesteclabove, the Malleus
made no discernible impact on the prosecution of magicians and witches
for nearly half a century, no comparable work approached its compre
hensiveness until those of Bodin and Remy, Del Rio and Boguet, at the
end of the sixteenth century.
The Malleus drew heavily on, and consolidated, the work of fifteenth- .
century theologians and inquisitors such as Nider, Jaquier, and Spina. If
indeed it became the standard referenc,e text for later demonologists and
magistrates, its popularity raises the , question of the fundamental, as
opposed to the relative, importance , of such topics as Institoris and
Sprenger do not consider. Russell remarks:
It is curious that they made no mention of familiar spirits, the obscene kiss, orl
even of the feasting and orgies of the salbbat. Nor is there any reference to
the witches' or the Devil's mark, both of wlfiich became so common in the trials-1
In the light of these and other marked characte1istics of their theory of

of the next two centuries."
witchcraft, one is forced to reiterate the suggestion made above, that the
pact, the arcane skills, and the injury to humans are the fundamental
elements of learned ideas of witchcralft. Other aspects of the witches'
activities, including night-flight, and the elements cited by Russell, were '
drawn in to the figure of the witch late:r and do not constitute an essen
tial part of her activities, at least as far _as the theology and Jaw of the
fifteenth century is concerned. And the fundamental crimes of the witch,
seen in this light, are virtually identical with those of the earlier magician.
The social mechanisms that led a,ccusers, inquisitors, and secular
magistrates . to institute the great perst�cutions after the middle of the
sixteenth century are phenomena of the sixteenth century and have no
bearing upon those mechanisms that led accusers to charge magicians in
the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries. The later social struc
ture of the persecutions has begun to be studied in the important works
of MacFarlane, Midelfort, and Monter, and it is beyond the scope of this
book. Those new social pressures, ho,wever, were encountered by a
f
fonnidable body of hostility to supernatural powers. However character1s
175
tic of sixteenth-century thought the work of Bodin, Del Rio, Remy,

Boguet, and De l'Ancre is, the roots of sixteenth-century demonological
thought lie in the Middle Ages, and one of the purposes of this book has
been to explore those roots and to examine their influence long before the
sixteenth century. There were many writers in the sixteenth cenhlry who
tried to separate the categories of magia and goeteia, but from St. Augus
tine onward, such attempts were doomed to failure. Even though some
of those who prosecuted witches were willing to make such distinctions
in theory, no individual magician);)r witch could ever be less than appre- .
hensive about his or her safety from a formal charge of maleficium. And
few judges in the fifteenth century were likely to be faced with a clear
cut, genuine, Neoplatonic magus; rather, they encountered more often
magicians of the rank described above in Chapter 5-the sorcerer's ap
prentices, who had access to grimoires and some high learning, but used
their arts to effect forbidden results, thereby veering close to the popular
magic of the local witch.
The range of a broad definition of evil magic made it easy for judges to
include local superstitious practices in different corners of Europe. But
the framework was in place first, and the old notion that later witchcraft
persecutions originated in the encounter between learned inquisitors and
popular practices from the most isolated, usually mountainous regions of
Europe, must be discounted. The learned judges had plenty of time and
opportunity to develop a theory of magic in the cities of the plain-in
Italy, Flanders, Burgundy, and France-and there they found the middle
level practitioners who were their first victims.
Nor were these judges always inquisitors. The association of the In
quisition with trials for magic and witchcraft dates from the end of the
thirteenth century to the end of the sixteenth. Both Lea and Burr have
commented upon Italy and Spain, the strongholds of the institutional
Inquisition, as being the first places to discontinue witchcraft prosecu
tions. Such prosecutions had begun in temporal courts in the thirteenth
century, moved into the Inquisition's sphere between the thirteenth and
the seventeenth cenhlries, and lasted in ordinary ecclesiastical and secu
lar jurisdictions long after the Inquisition ceased to concern itself with
witchcraft, although it continued to prosecute magicians after it had
ceased prosecuting the witches. A public may shape its image of the
magician-or of the deviant or the gangster-in a form very different
from the actual magicians-or deviants or gangsters-who appear before
its courts; but it prosecutes the image, not the particular criminal before
it, and public opinion often fails to be swayed i n the direction of the
latter, regardless of how much evidence is accumulated to indicate that
it is wrong. Many legal institutions, therefore, have been regarded by
criminologists as generally an improvement over traditional methods: the
176
inquisitorial process; efficient, professional personnel; the denial of imma

nent justice; the regularizing of categori,es of crime and the standardizing
of punishments. All of these worked in the fifteenth and sixteenth cen
turies against those accused of magic and witchcraft.
In general, the changing historical meaning of the crimen magiae must
,rpe studied in the whole context of late medieval and early modern
fcriminal law, spirituality, and moral criticism. Magic and witchcraft, like
other forms of social deviance, change their content-and their practi
tioners-over time. In the courts, schools, and confessionals of the period
between the twelfth and the sixteenth centuries, the sin and the crime of
magic acquired particular definitions and particular forms of condemna
tion, many of them based upon earlier forms of depicting heretics and
earlier pattistic depictions of the crimen magiae. "The crime of magic is !
as the crime of i-ebellion," said the Book of Samuel, and priests, magis
trates, and kings alike treated both in their civil liturgies and spiritual
disciplines. The late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries witnessed
a new exertion of spi1itual and temporal power precisely against these
forms of deviance, armed with effective and virtually irresistible legal
forms and an evangelical conviction of righteousness. In these circum
stances the great witch prosecutions of the period began.
The literature that guided the later prnsecutions, however, condemned
the magician as well as the witch. This s:tudy has attempted to show how
he condemnation of magic in various circumstances between the time of
G1e Church Fathers and the sixteenth century took fo1m and when and
here the appearance of demonstrably real practitioners of magic gave
fa new immediacy to older forms of co,ndemnation. Far more than the
well-known figure of Merlin, medieval magicians generated the con-
� <lemnations of spiritual and temporal authorities. Those condemnations
were later applied to witches, as were others. The law, whether archaic
or early modern, was remorseless in its condemnation and treatment of
both. By the early seventeenth century, the Neoplatonic magus might,
like Prospero, drown his books and finally repent. The sorcerer's appren
tice and the witch had no such recourse';: where they could not hide, they
must be burnt.
NOTES
1. See above, Chapter 4. The best recent study, one that has greatly in
formed the following pages, is Beryl Smallley, "\I\Tilliam of Auvergne, John of
La Rochelle and St. Thomas Aquinas on the: Old Law," in St. Thomas Aquinas,
1274-1974, Commemorative Studies, 2 vols:. (Toronto, 1974), 2:11-72.
p
2. There is a large literature on this subject, from H. C. Lea, A History of
the Inquisition in the Middle Ages, 3 vols. (Philadelphia, 1887) to Henri
Maisor.neuve, Etudes sur les origines de l'inquisition, 2nd ed. (Paris, 1960),
esp. pp. 243-366.
3. See P. Michaud-Quantin, "A propos des premiers Summae confessorum,"
Recherches de theologie ancienne et medievale 26 ( 1959) : 264-306, and most
recently and magisterially, Leonard E. Boyle, 0. P., "The Summa Confessorum
of John of Freiburg and the Popularization of the Moral Teaching of St.
Thomas and of Some of His Contemporaries," in St. Thomas Aquinas, 1274-
1974, Commemorative Studies, 2 vols. (Toronto, 1974), 2:245-68; see also
P. Michaurl-Quantin, Sommes de casµistique et manuels de confession au moyen
age, du Xlle au XV!e siecle (Louvain, 1962). I have used the edition of
Augsburg, 1476, for the text of John of Freiburg's Summa Confessorum dis
cussed here. See also the discussion by Thomas Tentler, Leonard Boyle, and
others in C. Trinkhaus and H. Oberman, eds., The Pursuit of Holiness in Late
Medieval and Renaissance Religion (Leiden, 1974 ) , pp. 103-40.
4. For this discussion I have used the Venice, 1586 edition of Bromyard's
Summa Praedicantium. For the date, see Leonard E. Boyle, 0. P., "The Date
of the Summa Praedicantium of John Bromyard," Speculum 48 ( 1973 ) : 533-
37. Besides Th.-M. Charland, Artes Praedicandi (Paris-Ottowa, 1936), see the
works of G. R. Owst, Preaching in Medieval England (Cambridge, 1926) and
Literature and Pulpit in Medieval England (Cambridge, 1933 ) . The most r e
cent contribution to the discussion of the influence of sermons on literature is
Siegfried Wenzel, "Chaucer and the Language of Contemporary Preaching,"
Studies in Philology 73 ( 1976 ) : 138-61.
5. It is important to point out that Bromyard here is not simply echoing the
earlier humanist antifeminism of John of Salisbury and other twelfth-century
moralists, but rather reflects the new and much more virulent antifeminism of r
the later Middle Ages, an element of immense importance in the later develop
ment of the witch-figme. Bromyard was, of course, not alone. In Nicholas of
Lyra's vast Postillae, the most popular biblical commentary of the later Middle
Ages, written in the first half of the fourteenth century, the author in his com�
ment on Exodus 22: 18 emphatically corrects the vulgate Latin term maleficos,
noting that the Hebrew term is feminine and that the term should be under
stood sortilegam. I have used the Basel, 1501 edition of the Postillae, printed
with the glossa ordinaria and the interlinear gloss, vol I, fol. 170v. See The
Cambridge History of the Bible, ed. G. W. H. Lampe, vol. 2 ( Cambridge,
1969), pp. 155-308, esp. 197-220.
6. The text of the conclusio may be found in the Chartularium universitatis
Parisiensis, ed. H. Denifle and A. Chatelain, Vol. 4 (Paris, 1897), no. 1749, pp.
32-36. For Gerson, see Jean Gerson, Oeuvres completes, vol. 10 (Paris, 1973),
pp. 77-90; Lynn Thorndike, History of Magic and Experimental Science (New
York, 1923-58) , 4:114-31.
7. See Margaret Harvey, "Papal Witchcraft: The Charges airainst Benedict
XIII," in Sanctity and Secularity: The Church and the World, Studies in
Church History, ed. Derek Baker, vol. 10 (Oxford, 1973) , pp. 109-16.
8. See Thorndike, History, 4: 114-31, for a discussion of all of Gerson's works
on magic and astrology. Vol. 10 of the Oeuvres completes prints the relevant
texts on pp. 73-143. In addition, see D. G. Wayman, "The Chancellor and
Jeanne d'Arc. February - July, A. D. 142'9," Franciscan Studies 17 (1957):
273-303.
9. Joseph Hansen, Quellen und Untersuchtmgen zur Geschichte des Hexen
wahns und der Hexenverfolgung im Mittelalter (Bonn, 1901), pp. 17-18. In
general, Hansen's collection of excerpts from papal bulls, pp. 1-37, should be
consulted.
10. Johann Huizinga, The Waning of the Muldk Ages (reprint ed., New
York, n.d. ) , p. 199. See the similar remarks concerning Jacopo Passavanti in
Millard Meiss, Painting in Florence and Siena after the Black Death (New
York, 1964), pp. 74-104.
11. Hansen, Quelkn, pp. 71-82.
12. Ibid., pp. 105-9.
13. Ibid., pp. 195-200.
14. Ibid., pp. 227-31.
15. Ibid., pp. 208-12.
16. Hansen, Quellen, 112-18. Turrecremata was a theologian writing on
canon Jaw, but he appears to have been generally well-informed on recent
canonist thought.
17. See Henri Maisonneuve, Etudes sur les origines de l'inquisition (Paris,
1960) and the Introduction, by Walter Ullmann, to Henry Charles Lea, The
Inquisition of the Middle Ages: lts Organization and Operation (New York,
1969).
18. "II Tractatus Criminum" in Hermann Kantorowicz, Rechtshistorische
Schriften (Karlsruhe, 1970), pp. 273-86; Carlo Calisse, A HiJtory of Italian
Law ( Boston, 1928), pp. 400-32; A. Pertil, e, Storia del Diritto Italiano, vol. 5,
Storia del Diritto Penale, 2nd ed. (Bologna, 1966), esp. pp. 434-62; G. Dahm,
Das Strafrecht Italiens im ausgehenden Mittelalter (Berlin, 1931); R. His, Das
Strafrecht der deutschen Mittelalter (Weimar, 1935) vol. 2, 5, 27 on secular
magistrates' authority to punish blasphemy and sorcery.
19. See the references below, Appendix U, and W. Engelmann, Die Wieder
geburt der Rechtskultur in Italien (Leipzig, 1939); Hans von Hentig, Die
Strafe, vol. 1 ( Berlin, 1954).
20. Ullmann, Introduction to Lea, Inquisition, p. 42, citing the Liber Sextus
5, 2. 8.; H. C. Lea, Materials Toward a History of Witchcraft, ed. and comp.
Arthur Howland (Philadelphia, 1938), l : 244-45; 2:648. The crimen except-um
is an important category of legal thought in itself and important, also, in its
role as part of the early European legal legacy to modem states. The notion of
a crime, or category of crimes, that is at on, ce so horrendous and so threatening
to the state that the mere accusation susjpends normal legal procedure and
institutes special procedures, has never been studied. Its relation to the crimen
magiae is only one part of its long and complex history. See Norman Cohn,
Europe's Inner Demons (New York, 1975), pp. 229, 253.
21. Only two of the many scholars who have studied the problem of witch
craft have attempted to consider the semantic history of the term ma'leficium:
Cohn, Europe's Inner Demons; Robert-Leon Wagner, "Sorcier" et "magicien"
Contribution a fhistoire du vocabulaire de la magie (Paris, 1939). Although
both works are important, neither is conclusive on this point.
22. See below, Appendix II. '
23. Many texts are cited, not always systematically or completely, in Lea,
Materials, and Hansen, Quellen. See also Lea's History of the Inquisition.
24. For two unrelated examples, see Robert E. Lerner, The Heresy of the
Free Spirit in the Later Middle Ages (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1972), and
Penn R. Szittya, "The Antifratemal Tradition in Middle English Literature,"
Speculum 52 ( 1977 ) : 287-313.
25. Monumenta Germaniae HistQrlca, Epistolae saeculi Xlll e regestis Ponti
ficum Romanorum, vol. 1, p. 435.
26. Cohn, Europe's Inner Demons, pp. 266-67, cites the standard bibliogra
phy on Konrad von Marburg. It has not been emphasized enough, however,
that Konrad's own spiritual career generated a view of demonology that greatly
influenced Gregory IX and other thirteenth-century writers.
27. S. Kuttner, "Ecclesia de occultis non judicat," Acta Congressus luridici
Jnternationalis VII Saeculo a Decretalibus Gregorii IX, vol. 3 ( Rome, 1936),
225-46. Kuttner does not go beyond the early thirteenth century, but his study
shows the considerable change that traditional canonist thought would have to
undergo.
28. Maisonneuve, Etudes, p. 259.
29. Hansen, Quellen, pp. 122-23; 145-49.
30. Richard Kieckhefer, European Witch Trials: Their Foundation in Popu
lar and Learned Culture, 1300-1500 (London, 1976), pp. 106-47. This very
valuable compilation of known trials touching on magic and witchcraft be
tween 1300 and 1500 permits the historian to easily locate a vast number of
cases and to check the data supporting each. In my investigation of Kieck
hefer's table, it seems to me that all of the trials deal with what can justly be
called sorcery and was probably understood in traditional contexts by the
judges. On the growth of lawyers, magistrates and judges as an influential
group in early modem culture, see William J. Bouwsma, "Lawyers and Early
Modem Culture," American Hfa1orical Review 18 ( 1973) :303-27.
31. The Beld of learned magic has been considerably illuminated in recent
years with the appearance of a number of works of high quality and great
intelligence: Frances Yates, Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition (Lon
don, 1964); E. Garin, "Considerazioni sulla magia," and "Magia ed astrologia
nella cultura del Rinascimento," both in Garin, Medioevo e Rinascimento (Bari,
1961), the second having been. translated into English as "Magic and Astrology
in the Civilization of the Renaissance," in E. Garin, Science and Civic Life in -
the Italian Renaissance, trans. Peter Munz (New York, 1969 ) , pp. 145-65;
D. P. Walker, Spiritual and Demonic Magic From Ficino to Campanella
(London, 1958; reprint ed., Notre Dame, Ind., 1975). A very learned and
neglected text is C. S. Lewis, English Literature in the Sixteenth Century, Ex
cluding Drama, Oxford History of English Literature ( Oxford, 1954), Intro
duction, "New Leaming and New Ignorance," pp. 1-65. Thorndike, History,
vols. 4 and 5, are still indispensable. Wayni e Schumacher, The Occult Sciences
in the Renaissance ( Berkeley and Los Ang:eles, 1972) is less reliable than the
foregoing works. On Ficino, see Paola Zambelli, "Platone, Ficino e la Magia,"
in Studia Humanitatis. Ernesto Grassi zum 70. Geburtstag, eds. E. Hora and
E. Kessler (Munich, 1973), pp. 121-42.
32. "Magic and Astrology," trans. Munz,. p. 149. As I suggest below, others'
perceptions of Ficino's new magic did no,t represent a break with medieval
views. See also Will-Erich Peuckert, Pansop.hie (Berlin, 1956).
33. Ibid., p. 153.
34. See P. M. Rattansi, "Alchemy and Natural Magic in Raleigh's History
of the World," Ambix 13 ( 1965): 122-38. Rattansi's highly suggestive theory )
that magic was condemned by Aristotelians and promoted by Platonists has ·
been taken rather uncritically by recent historians; Platonic condemnations o�
magic, through Augustine and Hugh of St t. Victor, formed the basis of later
medieval and renaissance attitudes, as has been shown above.
35. Walker, Ficino Campanella, pp. 85-1'. 26.
36. Ibid., pp. 146-52; Peter Burke, "Wiitchcraft and Magic in Renaissance
Italy: Gianfrancesco Pico and His Strix," iin The Damned Art: Essays in the �
Literature of Witchcraft, ed. S. Anglo ( London, 1977), pp. 32-52; Gene
Brucker, "Sorcery in Early Renaissance Florence," Studies in the Renaissance ../
10 ( 1963): 7-24. The history of prosecutions for magic and, later, witchcraft,
in Italy in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries has, on the whole, been
neglected by historians of witchcraft. The works cited here constitute an ex
ception. The urbanized life of Italy, the considerable development of criminal
law in the secular courts, and the general learning of Italian theologians and
inquisitors such as Bernard of Como anid the layman Paulus G1illandus,
strongly suggest that the conceptual framework of magic included later witch
craft. The contribution of humanism has yet to be assessed.
37. "Witchcraft and Religion in Sixteentlh-Century Germany: the Formation
and Consequences of an Orthodoxy," Arc.hiv fur Reformationsgeschichte 62
(1971 ) : 266-78; see also Midelfort's splendid study Witch-hunting in South
western Germany, 1562-1684: The Social and Intellectual Foundations (Stan
ford, 1972).
38. Most recently, see Christopher Baxt.er, "Johann Weyer's De Praestigiis
Daemonum: Unsystematic Psychopathology," in Anglo, ed., The Damned Art,
pp. 53-75.
39. Walker, Ficino to Campanella, p. 144 (cf., 144-88). The search for a
"nonmagical" Christianity has not been extensively considered by historians of
the sixteenth century.
40. Ibid., pp. 171-78; Ursula Lange, Untersuchungen zur Bodins Demonoma
nie (Frankfurt, 1970); Christopher Baxter, "Jean Bodin's De la Demonomanie ,
des Sorciers: The Logic of Persecution," in Anglo, ed., The Damned Art, PP· !
76-105.
41. Walker, Ficino to Campanella, pp. 178-89; Henri Busson, Litterature et
theologie (Paris, 1962), pp. 9-32. Del Rio is an interesting thinker whose life
and work have been insufficiently studied.
42. Most recently, in his Introduction to Witchcraft: Catalogue of the Witch
craft Collection in Cornell University Library (Millwood, N.Y., 1977), pp.
xvii-xviii. See also Jeffrey Russell, Witchcraft in the Middle Ages (Ithaca,
1972). •
43. Dorothy Bethurum, The Homilies of Wulfstan (Oxford, 1957), p. 273;
see also Dorothy Whitelock, Sermo Lupi ad Anglos ( London, 1952). I am
grateful to Malcolm Parkes for this reference.
44. F. N. Robinson, ed., The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer (Boston, 1957),
p. 89.
45. Trans. G. L. Burr, rP-printed in Kors and Peters, Witchcraft in Europe,
pp. 107-12.
46. Russell, Witchcraft, p. 232; Hansen, Quellen, pp. 360-407.
47. Russell, Witchcraft, p. 232.
Appendix I
Resfragilis:
Torture in Early European Law
I.
Rationalist historians of the nineteentl1 century wrote with a sense of

freedom from the institutions of the past and a sense of hope for the
future that have since generally disappeared from modern historiography.
Having identified the enemies of reason and humanity, having described
and denounced them, they-and the society for which they wrote-were
at last free of them. Barbarism, superstition, despotism, theology; these
terms, in the work of Lecky, White, Lea, and others, stand like grave
stones over institutions and beliefs that meticulous scholarship and philo
sophical hostility had condemned, once and for all, to the buried wreck
age of a hopelessly irrational past. When Henry Charles Lea began the
final section of his first major historical work, Superstition and Force, he
looked back at his earlier chapters on compurgation, the judicial duel, and
the ordeal and summarily described all of these as "the resources devised
by human ingenuity and credulity when called upon to decide questions
too intricate for the impatient intellect of a rude and semi-barbarous age."
He then linked these with the subject of his last chapters, judicial torture:
There was another mode, however, of attaining the same object which has
received the sanction of the wisest lawgivers during the greater part of the
world's history, and our survey of man's devious wanderings in the search of
truth would be incomplete without glancing at the subject of the judicial use of
torture.
183
r
184
Compurgation, the judicial duel, andl the ordeal all belonged, as Lea
Appendix 1
well knew, to a universe of legal and social ideas that had come under
heavy attack and was largely destroyed, at least in the judicial sphere,
during the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries.' Judicial torture,
however, belonged to a new order of jurisprudence, one whose disap
pearance from the lawbooks of European and American societies was not
complete itself until the nineteenth century, and many of whose traces
still constitute the bases of substantive and procedural law in modern
societies. Lea wrote with the conn.dent assurance that torture, like the
duel and the ordeal, had nnally vanished from the world, although he
also noted, as have other scholars, the ambiguous place of judicial tor
ture in the rational legal universe of early modern Europe. In the history
of western law, torture plays a role th:at seems to echo at once both a
remote and archaic legal universe and, in the decades since Lea's death
in 1909, an appallingly contemporary one. The earliest protests against
judicial torture in the modern world came from the Italian jurists of the
thirteenth century. Two of the most eloquent, immediate, and recent pro
tests come from the French jurist Alec Mellor and the philosopher Jean
Paul Sartre.
A succinct explanation of the appeairance of torture in the courts of
thirteenth-century Europe was provided in 1892 in an address given by
2
James C. Welling to the Anthropological Society of Washington:
From this formal species of proof [duel, ordeal, and compurgationJ men pass
to a matter-of-fact species of proof, according as their reasoning powers grow
stronger and their appliances for the rational discovery of truth become more
and more available in the domain of justice. In this passage of the human race
from a ceremonial and formal species of negative proof to a rationalistic and
substantive species of positive proof, the method of proof by the intervention
of torture occupies a place which may he described as a sort of "half-way
house" situate between these two typical and distinctive forms of judicial
procedure.3
Welling belonged to Lea's generation and shared Lea's belief that his
world had seen the end of judicial torture-one of the best intentioned
and least securely founded beliefs of that optimistic generation. Accord
ing to Lea and Welling, judicial torture constitutes a kind of bridge b e
tween irrational and rational legal universes, a significant, if repugnant,
step in that process by means of which rules of evidence, the authority of
judicial enquiry, and the extention of legal reasoning came to constitute
a great humanizing force in the conflict between the underlying principles
of social organization and the momentary, but terrible, exigencies of
social fear. Lea and Welling both knew also that judicial torture had
been used long before the Middle Ages in far more sophisticated systems
of jurisprudence, and our own time has witnessed its vigorous resurgence.
Appendix 1 185
If judicial torture is a bridge between different legal universes, it is a

bridge that has been crossed several times in both directions.
Torture is one of those signs of increased social rationalism that praisers
of rationalism often neglect. The capacity to inflict pain willfully and
consciously and, on a civil scale, to institute systems of terror, is a charac
teristic feature of most human societies during most periods of their his
tory, but judicial torture is always a product of an increased reliance
upon reason. Historians of those highly reasonable centuries, the twelfth
and the nineteenth, often fail t,p see many of the consequences of dis
carding several of the old irrational bonds to which society had become
accustomed in favor of a greater reliance upon human energies and the
capacity of human analysis. The rejection of compurgation, the duel, and
the ordeal around 1200 meant, to be sure, a new reluctance to depend
upon the intervention of the supernatural in affairs that men felt able to
deal with by their own agency. In the twentieth century torture has r e
appeared under a similar guise, that of state necessity, when it is used to
deal with c1imes or the threat of crimes whose enormity and deviousness
appear to render due process ineffective. The temptation to exceed the
traditional limits of the law, or to institute judicial novelties hitherto
repugnant to the law, in order better to protect those institutions and
principles that the law itself was designed to protect usually implies both
an acute sense of social danger and a failure of confidence in the efficacy
1 jof traditional legal institutions. Those who approved the use of torture in
the thirteenth century were thus, in their own way, humanists; that is,
they chose a means of judicial enquiry that relied solely upon human
agency to determine complex instances of disputed truth. They were
inspired by a new concept of legal personality and responsibility, they
developed new judicial procedures to accommodate it, and they grew
particularly cautious in designing safeguards for their new procedures.
Henry Charles Lea's study of judicial torture between the sixth and
the eighteenth centuries is more than a chapter in remote and archaic
legal history. Lea realized that the history of legal procedure is far more
than the excessively specialized and recondite subdivision of Rechts
geschichte that scholars often make it appear to be. Like Maitland, he
knew that procedure, like all public ritual in traditional societies, is an
integral part of social experience that cannot be understood outside of
the cultural matrices of the period under consideration. "The history of
jurisprudence is the history of civilization," Lea remarked in the later edi
tions of Superstition and Force, and Lea's own meticulous scholarship and
astute sensitivity to the multiple interactions of life and law between the
eighth and the eighteenth centmies made his works not only landmarks in
American historical scholarshjp, but pathfinding contiibutions to social
and cultural history as well.
186 Appendix 1
II.
In Greek and Roman law, torture wa:, contingent upon two conditions:
unfree personal status and particularly heinous crimes. Slaves could
legally be tortured because they did not possess legal personality and the
responsibility of free men. In cases of paLrticularly significant crimes, espe
cially treason, even free men appear to have been generally immune from
torture until the end of the first century of the Roman Empire. In spite
of the revolting detail in which Suetonius describes the penchant for tor
ture on the part of several first-century emperors, particularly Tiberius,
Caligula, and Domitian, judicial torture did not make inroads into crim
inal procedure, except for cases of treason, until the second and third
centuries A.D.• The increased and more precisely focussed authority of the
state, the wider role of imperial officiials in the conduct of civil and
criminal cases, and the absorption of Roman jurisprudence and legal edu
cation into the administrative bureaucracy of the Empire, all contributed
to the new role of judicial torture. A new usage of procedural terms, in
which, for example, the old term for the interrogation of witnesses,
quaestio, became synonymous with torture ( hence, the Medieval Latin
quaestio and Old French question, both of which mean torture) as torture
became a normal part of the interrogation of both the accused and wit
nesses, reflects these profound changes in procedural law. By the fourth
century, torture had become a standard element in criminal procedure,
and . the circle of heinous crimes for which even the upper level of free.
men, the honestiores, might be tortured widened perceptibly to include
sorcery and other crimes. With the publication of the Theodosian Code
in 438 and the Corpus Juris Civilis , of Justinian in 534, tormentum,
originally an aggravated sentence of death, was used interchangibly with
tortura and quaestio. The torturers, the, tortor and quaesitor, were legal
officials, and the standard definition of quaestio became that of the jurist
Ulpian as embodied in the Digest of Justinian: "Quaestio should be
understood to mean the torment and suffering of the body in order to
elicit the truth."6
The new legal universe of the Romain Latin West after the sixth cen
tury generally reduced the place torture had attained in Roman law.
Although many of the law codes of the Germanic kingdoms of Europe
retained some traces of the Roman law of torture, particularly in the
cases of slaves, but occasionally, as in Visigothic Spain, in the cases of
free men as well, the concept of legal personality in these Germanic laws
generally prevented free warriors from being subjected to torture, or,
indeed, to any judicial process remotely resembling a modern trial. The
ubiquity of the accusatolial procedure, according to which the outcome
of a case depended more upon an outright denial of charges or a resort
to the judicial duel, compurgation, or the ordeal, considerably restricted
Appendix ] 187
the freedom of the judge to asce1tain fact, the compulsory power of the
public order, and the diminution of personal public status. From the
seventh through the twelfth centuries, men might challenge the truth of
each other's accusations in a duly constituted court by offering the oath
of innocence, sometimes suppo1ted by the oaths of others ( compurgation) ,
o r they might reject a n accusation by submitting, or having someone else
submit on their behalf, to one form or another of the ordeal, or they
might offer to fight a judicial duel. But no court could counten�nce the
possibility of torturing a free man. Slaves, serfs, and strangers might still
be tortured, but this was precisely because they lacked what free men
had: a specific legal status, a kindred, and an immunity from all but the
first accusatorial step in the judicial process.
The history of European law from the seventh through the twelfth
centuries is in large part the history of the transformation of this par
ticularized and limited role of judicial procedure. In the lapidary phrase
of Sir Henry Maine, it witnesses the transformation in law from "status
to contract," and it includes not only a legal revolution, but a new theol
ogy and new concepts of the social bond as well. As Lea points out, the
legal universe of the period 600-1200 was largely irrational; that is,
disabled from inquiring except by the most limited and rigid procedures
into the full dimensions of a legal offense, courts at the last resort relied
upon divine intervention to determine issues that the personal status of
the accuser and the accused made impossible to settle by any other form.
Judicial procedure is, of course, a form of social control, and the legal
procedures of this period were consonant with the social conceptions of
early medieval society. The status of individuals and the limitations upon
judicial procedure, as much as the concept of immanent justice, shored
up the courts of early medieval Europe.
In the course of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the forces that had
sustained this legal universe were themselves transformed. The intellectual
and political attacks upon the ordeal and the judicial duel grew stronger
as new ideas of legal bonds drove out older ideas.6 The revival of Roman
law studies in the eleventh and twelfth centuries led to new conceptions
of the role of law in society at the same time as a new interest in Roman
antiquity gave rise to new influences in historiography, literature, and
the visual arts. The social dimension of the "Renaissance of the Twelfth
Century"-in terms of both social theory and social institutions-has
often been slighted in favor of the traditional approach of the history of
ideas. Yet it is hardly too much to say that the period between 1050 and
1250 witnessed not as the least influential of its many transformations a
legal revolution, the detailed history of which constituted an indispensible
commentary upon other profound changes in European society. The ap-
188 Appendix 1
pearance of new judicial procedures, the growth and activity of new
ecclesiastical and secular courts, the changed character and the distribu
tion of legal education and the concurrent growth of a new legal litera
ture, and the broadened spectrum of careers open to those trained in the
law all constituted part of this revolution, and both the social and in
tellectual changes of this period constitute the backdrop of the reap
pearance of torture in the courts of the thirteenth century.
III.
The first documentary evidence of the r, eappearance of torture in West

ern Europe is found in the Liber Juris Civilis of the city of Verona of
1228, and torture appears i n the criminal sections of the laws of a number
of other Italian city-republics during the ensuing few decades, in the
Constitutiones Regni Siciliani of Frederick II in 1231, and, in Castile, with
its tradition of continuing torture, in the Fuero Juzgo of Ferdinand III
in 1241 and the Siete Partidas of Alfonso X in 1265. The victim of torture
in most of these instances was the notorious criminal; as the laws of
Vercelli of 1241 observe, "No man ought to be to1tured or executed unless
[he is known to be] a common rogue, a thief, or a man of ill repute." The
appearance of torture under these circumstances was not, it should be
said at the outset, solely the result of the renewed study of Roman law.
Rather, as R. C. van Caenegem has suggested,
in the last analysis it was the needs of criminal practice and new principles for
the pursuit of criminals that were responsible for the reappearance of torture
in Europe, and not the revival of Roman legal studies. lt seems that the re
newal of Roman law and the reception of toriture in ecclesiastical practice were
Indeed, so much casual historiography has indiscriminately linked torture

the result of the diffusion of the inquisitorial procedure in Europe. 7
both to the revival of Roman legal studies and the ecclesiastical Inquisi
tion, that it is necessary to clarify the origi111s of torture in early thirteenth
century criminal procedure.
Besides the accusatorial process, there were other specialized judicial
proceduxes in pre-twelfth-century Europe., although these were often not
widely used or were suitable only for particular sets of circumstances. In
certain circumstances, as early as the ninth century, a category of ma.la
fama, ill-repute, existed in the Carolingian courts, and anyone in this
category might be condemned by a judge if he refused to exculpate him
self by oath or by ordeal. Also in the nirnth century, a notorious offense
could be prosecuted by the judge without an accuser, and by the twelfth
century the necessity of an accuser could be dispensed with in cases in-
Appendix 1
volving infamia. As a later lawyer remarked, "In the inquisitorial process,
189
the judge himself does not take the part of the accuser, but infamia
stands in the place of the accuser or denouncer." Such phenomena as the
episcopal visitation to the ecclesiastical institutions of a diocese jn canon
Jaw and the visitation of royal judicial representatives to a district in
secular law both established the requirement that the inhabitants of such
places were obliged to inform the proper authorities of crimes committed
since the last visitation. In ecclesiastical and secular terms, this practice
was known as the denunciatio, and some writers linked it to several
scriptural and patristic references#_to social correction in early Christian
communities.8 Because of the enduring idea that only a charge brought by
an accuser was a complete charge, convictions under these forerunners
of the inquisitorial process tended to result in lighter penalties, and in
some cases authorities required a full confession from the accused in
addition to conviction by inquisitio in order that a full penalty might be
imposed. Out of these specialized and tentative beginnings, there emerged
by the twelfth century a consensus that in certain kinds of cases another
procedure than the accusatorial might be used, one which eventually
placed considerably greater latitude and power in the hands of the judge
than the older procedure, one which dispensed with the trnditional accu
ser and substituted either a denouncer ( who might have to furnish
proof), or, eventually, a court official, the promotor, who formally made
charges. Even during these changes, however, some traditional rights of
the accused remained relatively undisturbed: he might be informed of
the names and the evidence of witnesses and examine them and refute
their testimony himslf; he was not yet subject to torture; he might have
the aid of counsel, and although all his testimony had to be given under
oath, another novelty, courts generally conducted such hearings warily.
The most significant aspect of the inquisitorial procedure was the
elimination of the necessity of the liable accuser and the increased lati
tude and power of the courts and of the authorities they represented.
Human agency, rather than supernatural, was responsible for investigat
ing the truth or falsehood of an accusation, and the increased judicial
liability that had been traditional in ecclesiastical communities now be
came a presupposition of secular communities as well. The overriding
need to protect the public order and to punish crime constituted the
background for the adaption of the earlier inquisitorial procedures to new
social uses. From the experiences of the notorious heretic, the offending
member of a religious community, and the ill-famed villager, a new
judicial procedure had been shaped that gave great power to the judicial
authorities and imposed a new kind of liability upon the accused.
That liability and that power did not develop everywhere in the
twelfth century in quite the same way. As Maitland has pointed out,
what is peculiar to England is not the dissatisfaction with waged "laws" and
190 Appendix l
supernatural probations, nor the adoption of an "inquisition" or "inquest" as the

core of the new procedure, but in the form that the inquest takes, or rather
retains. By instituting the Grand Assize and the four Petty Assizes Henry II
had placed at the disposal of litigants in certain actions that "inquest of the
country" which ever since the Norman Conquest had formed part of the gov
ernmental machinery of England. His reforms were effected just in time. But
for them, we should indeed have known the inquest, but it would in all likeli
hood have been the inquest of the canon law, the enquete of the new French
jurisprudence.9
Nor, it must be said, were all of the later repugnant features of the
inquisitorial process immediately clear, either to churchmen or to French
jurists, in the course of the twelfth century. The inquisitorial procedure
offered what to a modem litigant wouild seem very familiar and ac
ceptable: avoidance of rigid and excessively formalized charges; an air
ing of testimony and a weighing of evi,dence, with opportunity for re
buttal, that was unavailable under the accusatorial process in its eleventh
and twelfth-century forms; the possibility of a trained judge who might
act equitably in establishing procedure and weighing intangibles. At its
outset in the twelfth century, at least, irnquisitorial procedure seemed to
reflect precisely that increased reliance upon reason, conscience, and a
broadened concept of the social order that historians have otherwise
praised in other aspects of the life of the period.
What caused the inquisitorial process which, in spite of Maitland's
disclaimer for England, might have remained simply a new procedure
giving the court greater investigatory powers, first, to admit torture, and
second, to produce the well-documented! procedural abuses of the thir
teenth and fourteenth centuries? The sha1 !'pcned concept of treason in the
twelfth century and the thirteenth-century concept of heresy as a kind of
treason to God certainly constituted opportunities for the laws of treason
in Roman jurisprudence to be invoked once again, although in England
those suspected of treason were probabUy not tortured-and even then
rather by orders of the monarch or of Council-until the sixteenth ceii
tury.10 Van Caenegem's suggestion that the reappearance of torture is
attributable to new concepts of criminal! law has much to offer. For it
was not the heretic who was the first to be to1tured in the Italian laws of
the early thirteenth century, but the notorious criminal. Torture was first
used in the treatment of criminals, particularly, it may be supposed, those
1 accused of concealed crimes in which the identity of the guilty party was
'I not immediately discernible, although strong suspicion of the accused,
based upon ill-repute, may well exist. It is but a short step from institut
ing torture for those strongly suspected of committing a crime to trying
those suspected of heresy, an offense much more heinous and more diffi-
Appendix 1 191
cult to prove. As Pope Innocent IV observed in 1252 when for the first
time he sanctioned the use of torture by the Inquisition, if torture is
appropriate for those who break the laws of men, then it is more than
fitting for those who break the laws of God. •
The twelfth century saw new outbreaks of heresy, and the newly reor
ganized Church attacked it in areas of society with which ecclesiastical
courts were generally unfamiliar. 11 The apparent magnitude of heretical
society, the new authority of the Church, and the problems of discover
ing intellectual crime generated considerable ecclesiastical and lay con
cern, and the new legal procedure ,,-of the inquisitorial process ( particu�
larly in cases in which accusers were often hard to find, or unwilling to
testify ) offered a judicial approach to the problem. The Inquisition, or,
technically, the Holy Office, took shape in the third quarter of the twelfth
century and the first half of the thirteenth. Its agents were members of
the new Orders, at first aiding, then growing independent of, the normal
diocesan jurisdiction. In their hands, which were not, at first, necessarily
the hands of trained lawyers, the inquisitorial procedure developed its
earliest oppressive features, the concealment of the identity of witnesses
and the content of evidence, the refusal of counsel, the demands to
identify accomplices, the admission of evidence from hitherto unsuitable
witnesses, and, in 1252 in the decretal Ad extirpanda, the introduction of
torture. Henceforth, the inquisitorial process became burdened with per
versions of rational procedure that exceeded the accusatorial system and
the ordeals at their worst. By the end of the thirteenth century articulate
Inquisitors such as Bernard Gui wrote learned and rational handbooks
describing and justifying Inquisitolial procedure, and Gui was followed
by Nicholas Eymeric and others, whose arguments were echoed in the
ecclesiastical literature of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and in the
literature of those secular courts which adopted both the inquisitorial
procedure and its excesses and produced its own learned analyses in the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
Yet, in spite of perversion and excess and judicial incompetence, not all
manifestations of the inquisitorial procedure, even those which retained
torture, developed along lines identical to the ecclesiastical institution.
As Walter Ullman has shown, there quickly grew up a cautionary litera
ture concerning the excessive and improper use of torture almost as soon
as the institution of torture itself reappeared.12 Indeed, the lawyers them
selves appear to have been among the first and the severest critics of the
institution, and, by the sixteenth century, even the trained lawyers of the
Inquisition in Rome and Spain became suspicious of the efficacy of t o r
ture, long before such suspicions acquired enough weight i n the world of
secular jurisprudence to begin the process of eliminating torture in the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. By then, judicial torture and the
192 Appendix l
inquisitorial process had long been used to perform the same grisly
service for the monarchies of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries that
they had performed for the Church in the thirteenth and fourteenth-the
enforcement of orthodox belief and conduct by a drastic curtailment of
traditional judicial liberties and the development of an infallible instru
ment for detecting concealed and forbidden intellectual forms of dissent,
from treason to witchcraft. 13
The history of judicial torture and of the legal procedures that afforded
opportunities for its appearance in thirteenth-century Europe is thus part
of a larger chapter in social and intellect1L1al history, as well as a topic of
concern to social scientists and jurists who may be more interested in its
twentieth-century manifestations than in .its Roman and medieval origins.
For the thirteenth-century lawyers who first cautioned against its random
use, torture was a res fragilis, a delicate matter, which, although ad
missible in certain instances, could easil)t abort the judicial processes it
was originally intended to serve. Those lawyers' warnings should not be
taken lightly, nor should their limited approval of its use so obscure the
humanitarian vision of twentieth-century investigators that they reject
both approval and criticism together. For torture was not, as the decades
since the publication of Lea's book have clearly shown, an histo1ical
aberration whose death knell was sounded, once and for all, by the
irresistible onset of the Age of Reason and the legislative enlightenment
of the states of Europe in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth cen
turies. The means of precise analysis offered by legal history and social
science ought not to be expended in describing the history of such insti
tutions as torture solely for the purpose of patronizing what Lea called
"the impatient intellect of a rude and semibarbarous age," but for study
ing those configurations of social forces tlhat permit, and then encourage,
such instruments of public power. Lynn White once remarked that "to
know the subliminal mind of a society, oJOe must study the sources of its
liturgies of inflicting death." There are many other social liturgies whose
14
sources require the same study, sources tlhat produced both the medieval
lawyers' reservations of the res fragilis and the enormities of the totali
tarian state. ' 5
NOTES
l. The best recent study of these circum:stances is John W. Baldwin, "The

Intellectual Preparation of the Canon of 1215 against Ordeals," Speculum 36
(1961 ), pp. 613-36; the fullest study is that of Hermann Nottarp, Gottesurteil
studien, Bamberger Abhandlungen und Fors:chungen, Bd. II (Munich, 1956),
Appendix l 193
See also the works cited in the introduction to Henry C. Lea, The Ordeal
(Philadelphia, 1973).
2. Alec Mellor, La Torture (Paris, 1949), the most learned and humane of
modern scholarly studies; Jean-Paul Sartre, Introdu'ction to Henri Alleg, The
Question, trans. John Calder (New York, 1958). Cf. Sartre, p. 17: "If patriotism
has to precipitate us into dishonour; if there is no precipice of inhumanity over
which nations and men will not throw themselves, then why, in fact, do we go
to so much trouble to become, or to remain, men?"
3. The Law of Torture: A Study in the Evolution of Law (Washington,
1892), p. 2.
4. See Theodor Mommsen, Romiscfle Strafrecht (rep. Graz, 1955), pp. 401-
11. A recent summary is included in Peter Garnsey, Social Status and Legal
Privilege in the Roman Empire (Oxford, 1970), pp. 141-47; 231-16.
5. Digest 47.10.15.41; cited by Garnsey, p. 141.
6. The most recent general study is that of Christopher Brooke, The Twelfth
Century Renaissance (New York, 1969), with a good bibliography. There are
particularly important discussions in R. W. Southern, The Making of the Middle
Ages (New Haven, 1953) and G. Le Bras, ed., L'Histoire du droit et des institu
tions de reglise, Vol. VII, L'Age classique, 1140-1378, by J. Rambaud-Buhaut
and Charles Lefebvre ( Paris, 1965). See also the sources cited in Lea, The
Ordeal.
7. "La Preuve dans le droit du moyen age occidental. Rapport de synthese,"
in La Preuve, Recueils de la Societe Jean Bodin, Vol. XVII (Brussels, 1965),
pp. 691-755 at 740. See also the older but valuable work of A. Esmein, A His
tory of Continental Criminal Procedure, trans. J. Simpson (Boston, 1913) and
Walter Ullmann, "Reflections on Medieval Torture," Juridical Review 56
(1944 ) , pp. 123-37.
8. For the development of notoriety, see Jean Philippe Levy, La Hierarchie
des preuves dans le droit savant du moyen-age, Universite de Lyons, Annales,
Troisieme serie, Droit (Paris, 1939), pp. 32-66; see also the studies in the
volume La Preuve cited in the preceding note.
9. F . Pollock and F. W. Maitland, The History of English Law, 2nd. ed.,
Vol. II (Cambridge, 1968), p. 604.
10. For the history of torture in England, see David Jardine, A Reading on
the Use of Torture in the Criminal Law of England Previously to the Commo n
wealth (London, 1837); L. 0. Pike, A History of Crime in England (London,
1873); Leonard A. Parry, The History of Torture in England (London, 1934);
R. B. Pugh, Imprisonment in Medieval England ( Cambridge, 1968); Pollock
and Maitland, Vol. II, passim.
11. The standard work is Henry C. Lea, A History of the Inquisition in the
Middle Ages (Philadelphia, 1887 ) , 3 vols. There exist a number of abridged
versions, and of these particularly useful for the aspects of legal procedure is
Henry Charles Lea, The Inquisition of the Middle Ages: Its Organization and
Operation, with an Historical Introduction by Walter Ullmann ( New York,
1969). On the Church's search for heretics and its attitude toward legal pro
cedure, see Austin P. Evans, "Hunting Subversion in the Middle Ages,"
194 Appendix 1
Speculum 33 ( 1958), pp. 1-22; Henri M ai!,Onneuve, Etudes sur l'origine de
l'inquisition, ( Paris, 1960).
12. "Reflections on Medieval Torture," abc,ve, n. 7. See also Walter Ullmann,
The Medieval Idea of Law as Represented h1J1 Lucas de Penna (London, 1946),
pp. 159-61.
13. Much of thjs literature is briefly surveyed in Henry Charles Lea, Mate
rials Toward a History of Witchcraft, ed. Arthur Howland (Philadelphia, 1939),
Vol. II.
14. "The Legacy of the Middle Ages in the American Wild West," Speculum
40 (1965), pp. 191-202 at 199. That such social liturgies exert a continuing
and dangerous fascination is obvious to any citizen of a twentieth-century
state. See the informative study by Hans von Hentig, "The Pillory: A Medieval
Punishment," in his Studien zur Kriminalgeschichte (Bern, 1962), pp. 112-28:
"There is a metempsychosis of human concepts. Certain punishments which
have been abolished as utterly ineffectual, and even damaging, emerge again
and get hold of the mind. Being fit discharg,ers of emotional tensions, they are
restored by the return of men of similar emotional instability."
15. The comparative character of legal ]procedure, particularly as it may
apply to the policies of the twentieth-century state in its treatment of criminal
and political offenses has not received the attention of many scholars. A par
ticularly original comparative study on these lines, whose footnotes are often as
stimulating as the main argument itself, ii s Mirjan Damaska, "Evidentiary
Barriers to Conviction and Two Models of C1riminal Procedure: A Comparative
Study," University of Pennsylvania Law Review 121 ( 1973), pp. 506- 89. Pro
Jessor Damaska offers considerably less simplified observations on the relation
of the inquisitorial procedure to torture than my remarks above.
The greatest work on the history of judicial torture is that of Piero Fiorelli,
La tortura giudiziaria nel didtto comune, 2 vols. ( Milan, 1953-54), an exhaus
tive and massively documented study that is not likely to be replaced. Among
shorter works, that of Alec Mellor, La Tortnire (Paris, 1949) is certainly the
most learned and humane and makes an eloquent plea against the revival of
judicial torture in the twentieth century. In German, the work of Franz Helbing
and Max Bauer, Die Torttir. Geschichte der Folter im Kriminalverfahren aller
Zeiten und Volker (Berlin, 1926) has extensive documentation. There is a large
bibliography of works on recent instances of judicial torture, although many
alleged surveys either fail to take historical questions into account or attempt
to indict the institution of torture by the use of misplaced psychological inves
tigation or generally uncritical indignation. The work of George Ryley Scott,
The History of Torture Throughout the Ag,es (London, 1949) is of this last
type and should be used with caution.
The most scholarly general history of criminal procedure is the old work of
A. Esmein, A History of Continental Crimfaal Procedure, trans. J. Simpson
(Boston, 1913). Two early articles by Walter Ullmann offer additions to
Esmein's study: "Reflections on Medieval To1ture," Juridical Review 56 (1944),
pp. 123-37, and "Some Medieval Principles of Criminal Procedure," Juridical
Review 59 (1947), pp. 1-28. The most useful recent studies on the law of
Appendix 1 195
proof in general, with much information upon the ordeal and torture are in
cluded in La Preuve, Recueils de la Societe Jean Bodin, Vol. XVII (Brussels,
1965 ) . Particularly important are the studies of F. L. Ganshof ( pp. 71-98),
Jean Gaudemet (pp. 99-136), J. Ph. Levy (pp. 137-68), and R. C. van Caene
gem (pp. 691-754).
The most recent study of the principles of political violence is that of E. V.
Walter, Terror and Resista11ce: A Study of Political Violence (New York, 1969).
There is extensive treatment of the history of torture in particular regions in
the works of Fertile, Dahm, His, and Cauzons ( cited above in Chapter 6 ) . The
recent studies of Jeffrey Russell and Norman Cohn properly place great em
phasis upon the role of judicial toffure in shaping the persecution of heresy,
magic, and witchcraft. For heresy and the Inquisition, see especially Henri
Maisonneuve, Etudes sur les origi11es de l'inquisition (Paris, 1960) and Siegfried
Leutenbauer, Hexerei- und Zaubereidelikt in der Literatur von 1450 bis 1550
(Berlin, 1972). L. Tanon, Histoire des tribunaux de l'lnquisition en France
(Paris, 1893), offers additional substantial data for France. Three studies by
Hans Fehr have contributed substantially to the history of torture: "Gottesurteil
und Folter: eine Studie zur Damonologie des Mittelalters und der neuren Zeit,"
Festgabe fiir Rudolf Stammler (Berlin and Leipzig, 1926); "Zur Erklarung von
Folter und Hexenprozess," Zeitschrift fiir schweizerische Geschichte 24 (1944):
581-85; "Zur Lehre vom Folterprozess," Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung fur
Rechtsgeschichte. Germanistische Abteilung 53 ( 1933), p. 317 ff. Eberhard
Schmidt, Inquisitionsprozesse und Re;:;;epten. Studien zur Geschichte des Straf
verfahrens in Deutschland vom. 13. his 16. Jahrhundert (Leipzig, 1940), focuses
upon the question of torture in greater detail than His. See now John H.
Langbein, Torture and the Law of Proof (Chicago, 1978).
Appendix 2
Nicholas Eymeric :
On Heresy, Magic , and
the Inquisitor
Throughout the fourteenth century, manuals for inquisitors grew more

detailed and systematic. Between the Practica officii inquisitoris heretice
pravitatis of Bernard Gui, written in 1323/24, and the Directorium inquisi
torum of Nicholas Eymeric, written in 1371 6, the question of the magician
as heretic was extensively explored. Eymeric's work, especially, became
the most widely circulated and widely read manual for inquisitors be-
.J tween the late fourteenth and the seventeenth centuries. It was printed in
1578 in a careful edition with many additions, by Francisco Pena, a
learned jurist at the papal court; other editions and printings soon fol
lowed in 1585, 1587, 1591, 1597, and 1607. Thus, Eymeric's remarks upon
the topic of the magician as heretic are especially important because they
formed the basis of most later inquisitoriaLI approaches to the topic. His
treatment of heretical magic occurs in part 2 of the Directorium, in
Quaestiones 42 ( De Sortilegiis et divinatoribus), and 43 ( De Invocanti
bus Daemones). The translations of the two questions follow: 1
The forty-second question asks whether magicians and diviners are to

be considered heretics or as those suspected of heresy and whether they
are to be subjected to the judgment of the Inquisitor of heretics. To this
we answer that there are two things to be seen here, just as there are
really two things asked in this question. The first is, whether magicians
and diviners are subject to the judgment of the Inquisitor of heretics. The
196
Appendix 2 197
second, posed thusly, is whether they are to be considered as heretics or
as those suspected of heresy.
1. The first thing to be considered, just as in the last Quaestio different

kinds of blasphemers were distinguished, is that diviners and magicians
must be distinguished; that is, there are two kinds of diviners and
magicians.
2. Some are to be considered magicians and diviners just as are those
who act purely according to the technique of chiromancy, who divine
things from the lineaments of the-hand and judge natural effects and the
condition of men from this. . . .
3. Some others, however, are magicians and diviners who are not pure
honor of latria2 or dulia3 to the demons, who rebaptize children and do

chiromantics, but are contracted to heretics, as are those who show the
other similar things. And they do these things in order to foresee the future
or penetrate to the innermost secrets of the heart. These people are guilty
of manifest heresy. And such magicians and diviners do not evade the
judgment of the Inquisitor, but are punished according to the laws per
taining to heretics.
The Forty-third question asks whether those who invoke demons, either
magicians or heretics or those suspected of heresy, are subject to the
judgment of the Inquisitor of heretics. . . .
2. It appears to the Inquisitors from the above-mentioned books and
honor of latria to the demons they invoke, inasmuch as they sacrifice to

from other books that certain invokers of demons manifestly show the
them, adore them, offer up horrible prayers to them, vow themselves to

the service of the demons, promise them their obedience, and otherwise
commit themselves to the demons, sweating by the name of some superior
demon whom they invoke. They willingly celebrate the praises of the
demon or sing songs in his honor and genuflect or prostrate themselves
before him. They observe chastity out of reverence for the demon or
abstain upon his instructions or they lacerate their own flesh. Out of rever
ence for the demon or by his instructions they wear white or black vest
ments. They worship him by signs and characters and unknown names.
They burn candles or incense to him or aromatic spices. They sacrifice
animals and birds, catching their blood as a curative agent, or they b\lrn
them, throwing salt in the fire and making a holocaust in this manner.
All of these things and many more evil things are found in consulting and
of latria, if the above things are considered intelligently, is clearly shown

desiring things from demons, in all of which and in whichever the honor
to the demons. If, note well, the sacrifices to God according to the old and
the new law are considered, it is found there that these acts are true sacri
198 Appendix 2
.6.ces only when exhibited to God, and not t, o the demons. This, then, is the
case with the first category of those who invoke or speak on behalf of
demons. . . . And by this manner the priests used to invoke Baal, offering
their own blood and that of animals, as one reads in 4 Kings, 18.
3. Certain other invokers of demons show to the demons they invoke
not the honor of latria, but that of dulia, in that they insert in their wicked
prayers the names of demons along with those of the Blessed or the Saints,
making them mediators in their prayers heard by God. They bow down
before images of wax, worshipping God by their names or qualities. These
things and many other wretched things are found described in the afore
mentioned books in which the honor of ,dulia is shown to demons. If,
indeed, the means of praying to the Sainits which the Church has dili
gently instituted are considered, it will cle:arly be seen-that these prayers
are to be said, not to demons, but only to the Saints and the Blessed.
This, then, is the case of the second category of those who invoke demons.
And in this manner the Saracens invoke Mohammed as well as God and
the Saints and certain Beghards invoke Petrus Johannis and others con
demned by the Church.
4. Yet certain other invokers of demons make a certain kind of invoca
tion in which it does not appear clearly that the honor either of latria or
dulia is shown to the demons invoked, as, irn tracing a circle on the ground,
placing a child in the circle, setting a min·or, a sword, an amphora, or
something else in the way before the boy, holding their book of necro
mancy, reading it, and invoking the demon and other suchlike, as is taught
by that a1t and proved by the confessions of many. This, then, is the third
way of invoking demons. And by this means Saul invoked the spirit of the
python through the Pythoness. In Saul's iinvocation, it is seen, no honor
was done, neither dulia nor latria, as one reads in 1 Kings, 26.
It seems, therefore, that the means of invoking demons vary in three
ways. These conclusions pose in turn three cases or conclusions according
to which the invokers of demons ought to be distinguished from one
another in three ways.
5. First, the case or conclusion is that i:f the invokers of demons show
to the demons they invoke the honor of latria by whatever means and if
they are clearly and judicially convicted of this, or if they confess, then
they are to be held by the judgment of the: Church not as magicians, but
as heretics, and if they recant and abjure heresy they are to be perpetually
immmed as penitent heretics. If, however, they do not wish to desist or if
they say they wish to desist and repent but , do not wish to abjure, or if they
do abjure and afterwards relapse, they are to be relinquished to the secu
lar arm, punished by the ultimate torture according to all the canonical
sanctions which judge other heretics.
Appendix 2
This conclusion may be deduced in three ways: first from the sayings of
199
the saints and doctors of theology, second from the sayings of the doctors
of canon law, and third from the decisions of the Church.
First, from the sayings of the theologians, m:ssed St. Augustine in Book
10 of The City of God, speaking of sacrifices shown only to God and not
to Demons, says this: "We see that it is observed in each republic that
men honor the highest leader by a singular sign which, if it is offered to
someone else, would be the hateful crime of lese-majeste. And thus it is
written in the divine law under pain of death to those who offer divine
honors to others. Exterior deeds .are signs of interior deeds, just as spoken
words are the signs of things; we direct our voices signifying prayers or
praises to him, to whom we offer the same things in our hearts which we
say, so we know that in sacrificing a visible sacrifice is to be offered to
him to whom in our hearts we ought to offer ourselves as an invisible
sacrifice. . . ."
By these words Augustine shows clearly that such sacrifice ought to be
offered to God alone, and when it is offered to another than God, then by
that deed one shows oneself to believe that that person is higher than
God, which is heresy. Whoever, therefore, offers sacrifice to demons con
siders the demon as God and shows himself to believe the demon to be
the true God by offering external signs. By which deeds they are to be
considered heretics. . . .
Superstition is a vice opposed to the Christian religion or Christian wor
ship. Therefore, it is heresy in a Christian, and as a consequence those
who sacrifice to demons are to be considered heretics.
6. St. Thomas, in a commentary on Isaiah ( 1 Isaiah, 3 ) . . . poses the
question whether it is illicit to seek the future through augury, and at the
end of his commentary says, concerning demonology and what the demons
are able to know, that it is always a sin to inquire of them as well as an
apostasy from faith. As says Augustine, so says blessed Thomas.
The same St. Thomas [in his commentary to Peter Lombard's] Sentences,
in Book 2, distinctio 7, asks whether it is a sin to use the aid of a demon
and answers . . . that that which is beyond the faculties of human nature
is to be asked only of God, and, just as they gravely sin who, through the
cult of latria to an idol, impute that which is only God's to a creature of
God, so indeed do they gravely sin who implore the aid of a demon in
those things which are only to be asked of God. And in this way is seeing
into the future [to be considered] . . . .
7, Indeed, the same is to be said of other magicql works in which the
accomplishment of the task is anticipated by the :;i, d of the devil. In all
these there is apostasy from the faith because of the compact made with
the demon or because of a promise if the compact is already in existence
or by any other deed, even if sacrifice is not perfonned. Man may not
serve two masters, as says St. Matthew in Chapter 8, and St. Thomas.
200 Appendix 2
From these things it is shown clearly that to invoke and consult demons,
even without making sacrifice to them, is apostasy from the faith and, as
a consequence, heresy. It is much worse if a sacrifice is involved. . . .
Peter of Tarentaise, who later was Pop,e Innocent V, holds . . . that
although a man may be asked about a book which is lost, a demon may
not, because the demon, when asked about such things, will not respond
unless a pact is made with him, or illicit veneration, adjuration, or
invocation. . . .
8. Our conclusion is also proved by the sayings of the Canon
lawyers. . . .
Thirdly, our conclusion is also proved by the decisions of the Church.
Indeed, Causa XXVI q.5 c.[12] Episcopi says this: "Bishops and their
officials should labor with all their strength. . . .1
And from this it appears that those who shaie and exercise the magical
art are to be considered heretics and avoided. . . .
And from this it appears that the said evil women, persevering in their
wickedness, have departed from the right way and the faith and the devils
delude them. If, therefore, these same women, concerning whom it is not
contested that they offer sacrifices to the demons they invoke, are per
fidious and faithless and deviate from the right way as the said canon
from the Council of Ancyra makes clear, lthen, as a consequence, if they
have been baptized they are to be considered heretics; since for a Chris
tian to deviate from the right way and faith and to embrace infidelity is
properly to hereticize. How much more, then, are Christians, who show
the honor of latria to demons and sacrifice to the demons they invoke, to
be said and considered to be perfidious, deviants from the right way, and
Jaithless in the love of Christians, which is heresy-and by consequence
to be considered heretics? . . .
Indeed, the further a creature is separalted from divine perfection, the
greater the fault it is to show him the honor of latria. And since the
demons ( not on account of their nature, but on account of their guilt) are
the most separated from God of all creatuires, so much the worse is it to
adore them. And to number them among the Angels is wicked heresy.
Those who count Angels among the hereti ics show manifest heresy by so
counting them, adoring them, or by any way sacrificing to them. And as
a consequence, those who perpetuate this kind of wickedness are to be
judged as heretics by the Church.
9. The Constitution of Pope John XXII against magicians and magical
superstitions . . . .5
10. . . . Whoever invokes the aid of Mohammed, even if he does noth
ing else, falls into manifest heresy. So does anyone who in his honor con
structs an altar to him. In similar cases the same thing may be said of
Appendix2 201
invoking any demon, building him an altar, sacrificing to him, etc. These
are the acts of latria, which ought to be given only to God. . . .
11. In the second case the conclusion is th�t if those who invoke the
demons do not show to the demons they invoke the honor of !atria, but do
show them the honor of hyperdulia or that of dulia in the manner de
scribed before and have clearly confessed to this judicially or have been
convicted of it, such are to be considered by the judgment of the Church
not magicians, but heretics, and as a consequence if they recant and abjure
heresy they are to be perpetually immured as penitent heretics. If, how
ever, they do not recant, they ai'e to be treated as impenitent heretics;
likewise if they abjure and then relapse, they are to suffer punishment like
other heretics.
12. . . . Dulia may be expressed in two ways, or rather in two kinds of
case. The fiJ;st is as a sign of sanctity. This is the case of Abraham, Lot
[and others] . . . . This case is that of Angels and saints who are in the
heavenly fatherland and are adored by us and celebrated by the honor
of dulia.
13. The second case is a sign of governance, jurisdiction, and power.
This is the case with the prophet Nathan, and Bersabee the mother of
Solomon who adored David the King, as it says in 3 Kings, l. This is also
the case with Popes, Kings, and others who lawfully wield power, as vice
gerents of God in authority and rule. If, therefore, anyone should show to
them the honor of dulia then he shows himself to believe that person to
whom he displays the honor of dulia to be a saint and a friend of God, or
a governor or a rector duly constituted by God, and thus that God ought
to be honored in him, his vicar. Now when the honor of dulia is shown to
a saint, God is principally adored by the honor of [atria through the saint.
And when a Pope, King, or any other person who wields power is revered
by the honor of dulia, God is venerated by the honor of latria through his
Vicar. And thus by these kinds of honors which are shown to the saints
and to the rectors of the Church and to the princes of this world, it is not
themselves, but God in them who is principally venerated. Therefore,
showing the honor of clulia to a demon who has been invoked by these
means and by exterior actions, is to reveal oneself in heart and mind as
believing inwardly that the demon is above the saints and the friend of
God and is to be venerated as if saintly, or that he is above the rectors of
this world and the governors duly constituted by God and therefore is to
be revered as having jurisdiction and power. In both senses this is heretical
and perverse, since it is contrary to the holy scriptures and against the
decisions of the Church. The Demon is neither a saint nor the friend of
God, chiefly since he is obstinate in his sin and wickedness. Nor is he one
of God's governors in this world duly constituted, but he is the captured
slave, the falsifier and deceiver, as the sacred canons and all that we have
--
202 Appe11dix2
said above clearly shows. Therefore, those who are convicted of showing
the demon the honor of clulia are to be treated not as magicians, but as.
heretics. . . .
NOTES
1. The edition of the Directorium inquisftorum translated here is: Rome,

1587, pp. 235-36; 338-43. On Eymeric's work and the genre of inquisitors'
manuals generally, see my article "Editing Inquisitors' Manuals in the Sixteenth
Century: Francisco Pefia and the Directorium Inquisitorum of Nicholas
Eymeric," The Library Chronicle 40 ( 1975) : Bibliographical Essays in Honor
of Rudolf Hirsch: 95-107. The standard study is A. Dondaine, "Le Manuel de
l'inquisiteur ( 1230-1330)," Archivum Fratrum Praedicatorum 17 ( 1947 ) :
85-194. O n the question of latria and dulia, see Nicholas M . Haring," "Liber de
dulia et latria of Master Michael, Papal Nota1 ry," Medieval Studies 33 ( 197 1 ) :
188-200. I hope to write a longer study of latria and dulia in medieval thought.
2. Latria is that form of adoration which must be shown only to God; hence,
idolatria is worship shown to idols which ouglht to be shown only to God.
3. Dulia is a form of veneration to be shown only to saints, holy men, and to
God's vicars on earth.
4. Eymeric here gives the Canon Episcopi ( above, p. 73).
5. Eymeric here gives the constitution of ]Pope John XXII (above, p. 132).
Appendix 3
The M agician
the Witch
and the Historians
The first century of the modern study of early European witchcraft

opened in 1843 with the publication of W. G. Soldan's Geschichte der
Hexenprozess and J. G. T. Grasse's Bibliotheca Magia et Pneumatica.
Its principal landmarks are the works of Heinrich Heppe ( Soldan's editor
and son-in-law ) , Jules Michelet, Henry Charles Lea, and Joseph Hansen.
Besides the great histories and source collections assembled by these
scholars, there appeared a host of specialized studies, so that by 1900
Robert Yve-PJessis's Essai d'un bibliographie fran�aise methodique et
raisonee de la sorcellerie et possession demonw.que faced a vast amount of
material. That material has increased throughout the twentieth, at a p a r
ticularly rapid rate during the past ten years. Two recent scholars, H. C.
Erik Midelfort and E. William Monter, have both written studies of the
literature produced in recent years in the hope of coordinating its major
themes and suggesting further research and new directions. 1
Besides the great scholarly histories of the nineteenth century, to which
may be added the mork of Julies Garinet and others, the subject of witch
craft interested other, less scholarly and more excitable writers. The
confessional debates of the Reformation and the rationalist debates of the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries gave the topic wide currency among
both learned and unlearned publics. The Romantic passion for occultism
and folk-wisdom only increased general interest, even as it attacked En
lightenment attitudes. Within this mass of learned and unlearned interest,
William Monter has discerned two distinct attitudes toward witchcraft,
203
--
the rationalist and the romantic. The rationalist attitude argued that
204 Appendix 3
witchcraft never existed, that a misunderstanding of scripture, the flower

ing ( or debasement) of scholastic exegesis and ontology, and the murder
ous cynicism of the Inquisition had concoc1ted witchcraft, and that ecclesi
astical ignorance, rapacity, and fanaticis:m had sustained it until the
devastating and purifying arrival of the Age of Reason. The romantic
attitude, represented by Michelet and several more recent writers, identi
fied witchcraft either with the survival of non-Christian beliefs or, some
what later, with institutionalized dissent amd resistance to authority in late
medieval society. To this group there may be added those ( mostly cler
ical) scholars who believed that the witches did what they were accused
of doing, or worse, that they posed a real danger, and that the medieval
Church acted with prudence and legitimaite authority against them. The
rationalist attitude has tended to remain i;trong in scholarly circles. Per
haps the endming attraction of one variety or another of the romantic
attitude may be explained by twentieth-century interest in social history,
n
· ranthropology, and religious dissent.
In some ways, each of these two attitudes reinforced the other. The
nineteenth-century liberal rationalist approach was strengthened by an
age of political and ecclesiastical reaction,. the romantic fascination with
the occult, and an increasingly articulate and professional scholarly ap
proach by Catholic historians who wrote with an eye toward the criticism
they knew they would receive for their learned defenses of Church policy.
Thus, during the nineteenth century, as much scholarly energy, talent,
and labor on this subject was expended in the service of confessional or
epistemological conflicts as by disinterested[ curiosity, and these differences
usually dominated the reception of individual works and the reputations
in one set of circles of writers belonging to others. Catholic historians
regarded such writers as \i\lhite and Lea warily; rationalist historians often
regarded their critics with as much contempt as they did the subjects of
their studies, the engineers of the witchcraft persecutions and the literary
demonologists who taught them.
Confessional and epistemological polarization was one aspect that gov
erned nineteenth-century scholarship. Another was the state of disciplines
that might have ( and since have) clarified problems that plagued both
sides. The following developments might have lifted studies in the history
and character of the witchcraft persecutions out of the confessional and
epistemological tracks on which they had generally run since the eigh
teenth century: a reliable and field-tested social anthropology; extensive
studies in the history and nature of mental outlooks, mental illness and
medicine in general; the expansion of new models of social theory and
sociology; and a disciplined approach to folklore. However, few of these
were available, particularly to rationalist historians, whose work suffers
Appendix 3
precisely from an excessive reliance on individual texts divorced from
205
their literary or social context and from a lack of contact with social and
anthropological theory. When new discipline� such as those discussed
above did become available from the early twentieth century on, they
usually avoided the controversial area of confessional argumentative schol
arship and turned toward the analysis of non-European societies, on the
one hand, or to problems of social and economic history and demography,
on the other. In spite of the promise and great intellectual power of the
work of Gabriel Le Bras, Marc Bloch, and Lucien Febvre, the investiga
tion of the cultural context of medieval and early modem religion had
acquired an unfashionable, almost unpleasantly exotic character which
still lingers in most general histories of the early European Church and
society. The rationalist model, perhaps best represented by the work of
George Lincoln Burr and by Henry Charles Lea's fragmentary and unfin
ished Materials toward a History of Witchcraft, painstakingly compiled
and edited by Arthur Howland and published in 1938, became virtually
sealed off from the new social history by its fundamental premises. How
ever Lea might have finished it if he had lived, it would have never be
come the authoritative masterpiece that his History of the Inquisition in
the Middle Ages became and remains. It is impossible to write an institu
tional history of witchcraft, and Lea's great failing in the Materials was
his inability to connect the materials from vastly diffuse sources into a
coherent historical explanation.
It was precisely in other disciplines that the most influential work began
to be done. The work of Bloch, Febvre, and many other historians opened
up the life of small early-European communities and their mental outlook
as dramatically as history has ever opened up anything. In 1937, the year
before Howland published Lea's Materials, the anthropologist E. E.
Evans-Pritchard published his own seminal study, Witchcraft, Magic, and
Oracles among the Azande, and from that date the results of anthropo
logical study have been incorporated into many studies of early European
witchcraft, notably those of Alan MacFarlane, Keith Thomas, and Jeffrey
Russell.2 The dialogue between historians and anthropologists has been
only one of several useful cross-disciplinary links that have offered the
historian of witchcraft new avenues to explore. Peter Brown's use of
Evans-Pritchard's approach has even cast new light on the problem of
sorcery in late imperial Rome.3 The study of social deviance and non
conformity, the confessional frontiers of Reformation and Counter-Refor
mation Europe, the psychology and the life mechanisms of small tradi
tional societies, all have been brought forth and offered as explanatory
strategies to account for what has become a complex and often madden
ingly vague subject.
Indeed, from the impoverished rigidity and narrowness of the early
rationalist approach and the devout vaguemess of the romantic approach,
206 Appendix 3
the field may now be said to suffer from a siurfeit of explanatory strategies,
each of which runs the risk of excessive generalization based upon a rela
tively slender or specialized data base arnd a limited methodology.• In
contrast to studies purporting to deal with what their authors designate
as a craze, delusion, mania, obsession, or aberration ( with their implicit
echoes of a monkish, scholastic, popish, or heretical theodicy ) , the recent
studies of witchcraft have, at their best, focused upon the social and p s y
chological reality of the practice of magic and witchcraft. Their authors
have properly assumed that such beliefs reflect, preserve, and reinforce a
society's larger beliefs about the world, andl they must be examined in the
context of a society's view of the world. Pe1rhaps the greatest achievement
of the scholarship of the last forty years is its refusal to isolate the study
of sorcery and related practices and beliefs from other beliefs and social
practices.
Although some of the particular generaliizations offered by anthropolo
gists concerning the universality of socie1tal concerns with sorcery and
witchcraft have come under recent criticism, the anthropologists' injunc
tion that these topics must be studied in the context of a society's whole
existence has been perhaps the single most influential theme in recent
witchcraft research. A second theme, dealt with in an increasing number
of studies, is the small community and the ]Place of witchcraft in its whole
life. The works of H. C. Erik Midelfort, Alam Macfarlane, and Emmanuel
LeRoy LaDurie are models of this kind of study.
In the light of these influences, not only have the older rationalist and
romantic approaches lost much of their intellectual attractiveness, but
other, less scholarly theories of witchcraft have been utterly confounded.
The fabrications and confections of Montague Summers and Margaret
Murray, however often even anthropologists have tried to touch up the
work of the latter, simply do not stand up t:o serious criticism. The denun
ciation of Murray's work, by C. L'Estrange Ewen and others, began when
she first began to publish it and has been echoed by Eliot Rose and vir
tually every other modern scholar in the Held. The work of Murray and
Summers now seems as remote as the ratio,nalist and romantic works of a
century ago. So too is the hasty theory, invented by Joseph Hansen and
pursued recently by no less sensible a historian than H. R. Trevor-Roper,
that witchcraft as it was conceived and prosecuted in the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries originated in the mountainous regions of Europe
and was based upon inquisitors' and theologians' misunderstandings of
peasant lore and custom. There is no evidence to suggest a particularly
mountainous origin for the idea of witchcrrnft; in fact, there is considerable
evidence that witchcraft was as much an urban as a rural phenomenon.
One of the great advantages of H. R. Tirevor-Roper's essay, the "Euro-
Appendix 3 207
pean Witch-Craze of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries," was that
it forced the historians of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries to look
at the whole of the periods they worked with, rather than neglecting the
witchcraft beliefs and prosecutions of men wf10m they admired for their
contributions to rationality. Although Trevor-Roper's essay is not particu
larly reliable when it deals with the period before 1550, it effectively and
eloquently forced witchcraft prosecutions upon the attentions of many
historians who otherwise might have continued to ignore them. In addi
tion to Trevor-Roper's work, the great Spanish scholar Julio Caro Baroja's
studies The World of the Wit<;bes and Vidas magias y inquisici6n, and
the massive, immensely learned, but idiosyncratic Encyclopedia of Magic
and Witchcraft by Rossell Hope Robbins all contributed to raising the /I
consciousness of historians to the point of being willing to treat witchcraft 'I
beliefs and prosecutions as legitimate objects of historical study. The work
of Robert Mandrou in France, a pupil of Febvre, and Raoul Manselli in
Italy also contributed to this new interest.
The first results of this new and serious concern with witchcraft were
the publications of Keith Thomas and Alan Macfarlane. The former deals
with the cultural world of sixteenth-century England; and the latter, with
a series of specific trial records of that time. H. C. Erik Midelfort's Witch
Hunting in Southwestern Germany, published in 1975, is also a masterful
study of a particular region, guided by a sound knowledge of anthropo
logical p1inciples and an extensive historical familiarity with the whole
society studied. Indeed, Mac Farlane's and Midelfort's studies of case
records and individual centers of persecution utilize what is perhaps the
most promising method for future scholarship in the social history of
witchcraft: the consideration of specific regional c1ises on the basis of a
close study of archival resomces and a social analysis of victims and
accusers.
Besides the kind of acute and revealing social history produced by the
disciplined study of local records and societies, a second important influ
ence has been the study of religious sentiment and its relation to dissent
and heterodoxy in the medieval and early-modern worlds. The work of
Herbert Grundmann, Die religiose Bewegungen im Mittelalter, published
in 1935 and revised in 1961, has been perhaps the single most influential
book in this area. It lies behind some of the most exciting historical work
of the past thirty years. Its influence can be seen in Christopher Brooke's
brilliant study "Heresy and Religious Sentiment" ai1dm Jeffrey Rusself's
\ encyclopedic liistory· Wifcliciafr'trrthe-· Middle Ages, which makes the
strongest case yet for tlJe role of heresy in the shaping of the witchcraft
persecutions.
One of the problems recognized by all historians of witchcraft from
1843 on is that of the relationship between the literary, learned clerical
208 Appendix 3
class that described and recorded witchcraft beliefs and practices, and
the content of those beliefs in the minds of those who allegedly held them.
It is the problem of the relation between high and low culture that has
vexed historians working on many other topics besides witchcraft. One of
the most successful attempts to resolve some aspects of this divergency of
sources is Richard Kieckhefer's fine short study European Witch Trial.s:
Their Foundation in Popular and Learned Culture, 1300- 1500, published
in 1976.
The study of local persecutions, including several very recent studies
of the witches of Old Salem ( now Danvers ), Massachusetts in the 1690s,
do not lend themselves to an understanding of the mental world of the
learned judges and demonologists. Studies of the learned tradition, on the
other hand, often fail to illuminate the unsophisticated, rough world of
the town and village. The bar separating 21ccusers and their victims, on
the one hand, from the judges and the learned demonologists, on the
other, is literally as real in scholarship as it was in the sixteenth-century
courtrooms. One of the virtues of Kieckhefer's work is that it attempts
successfully to find a means of connecting the world of the participants
in the persecutions with the learned world of the theoreticians of witch
craft.
In modern studies of witchcraft different disciplines offer different
perspectives. Anthropology, for example, h, elps to explain local societies
and regional persecutions, but it is unable to deal with the passage of
time, with the specific historicity of Eurojpean witch-beliefs, and with
the role of learned culture in these beliefs.. The history of religion can,
as Thomas and others point out, explain the parallelisms and relation
ships between sacramental magic and forbidden magic in traditional
European culture. The selective analysis of texts, especially in their rela
tion to traditional genres and their provenance, can overcome some of
the generalizing tendencies that some histo1rians of witchcraft still reveal
when discussing generally vague categories,, such as "ecclesiastical docu
ments"; medieval documents, like modem ones, came from different
sources, many of them indeed "ecclesiastical," but very different from
one another. A canon lawyer and a theologian addressed problems with
very different aims and resources, albeit within a generally agreed-upon
Christian tradition. An instructor of monastic novices wrote with a differ
ent purpose, using different materials, for a specific audience different
from those of a pope, an author of inquisitors' manuals, or a moral
theologian. In all, the works of Midelfort a1nd MacFarlane, Thomas and
Russell, Kieckhefer and Caro Baroja have helped the field of witchcraft
scholarship ( and social, intellectual, and religious history, generally) to
begin a new synthesis to replace the older rationalist or romantic ones
that for so long have dominated learned and popular histories.
Another problem that has faced histoxians of witchcraft, that of the
Appendix 3 209
enormous chronology demanded by the nature and history of ideas of
witchcraft, in many respects has not been solved. Few historians, includ
ing Trevor-Roper, are able to work comfortably in a period that stretches
from Roman antiquity to the mid-eighteenth century. The diversity of
regions in which trials were held also militates against synthesis. Usually,
the generalist is forced by the sheer bulk of his materials to adopt a
single explanation and focus all his energy upon it alone. Thus, Jeffrey
Russell's able and intelligent study argues a single thesis: that witchcraft
derived from heresy, not only in the forms of trial and accusation, but
from actual heretical sects a11d their devices for rebelling against
A
ecclesiastical authoritarianism. Such explanations, however valuable they
are for an author, as well as for providing a focus for very diverse data
studied over a long period, tend to distort the historical picture by the
very nature of their tendency toward an exclusive focus. Thus, in what
Europe's Inner Demons, published in 1975, such theses as Russell's are

is probably the most important general history so far, Norman Cohn's
attacked and criticized on precisely these grounds. Although Russell's

book is more exhaustive, Cohn's criticism is sharp and usually effective.
Cohn's own thesis is extremely impressive. First, Cohn disproves the
authenticity of several documents that had always been regarded as key
pieces in the history of the development of witchcraft. By c1itically deny
ing the authenticity of some fourteenth century trial records ( which
Kieckhefer had also done, quite independently ), Cohn forces the his
torian to look, not at the "anticipation" of the later sixteenth-century
portrait of the witch, but at what the sources actually discuss- magic.
For Cohn, the motifs of most of the later witchcraft literature are already
found in antiquity, in the Roman traditional invective against enemies of
the state, Jews, and Christians. He next traces the process whereby heresy
was associated with worship of and association with demons. Finally, he
traces the process whereby the magician, rather than the heretic, turned
into the witch of the late fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries.
The greatest virtue of Cohn's study is its point of view. Critically and
effectively working on specific incidents and texts, Cohn nevertheless
manages to keep a sense of continuity over long periods of time and a
diversity of sources. His views on the destruction of the Templars, the
importance of magic, and the legal and social attitudes toward heresy are
exemplary. His book is a required piece of reading with the works of
Russell, Kieckhefer, and Thomas. These general studies, along with the
local studies of MacFarlane, Midelfort, Carlo Guinzburg, and LeRoy
scholarly literature, devoid of cant, confessionalism, ideology, or idees

Ladurie, constitute an important and extremely informative body of
fixes. They exactly and dramatically describe the state of the field, by
constituting the best of it.
Aside from the study of Robert- Leon Wagner, "Sorcier" et "magicien":
21.0 Appendix 3
Contribution a l'histoire du vocabulaire d'.e la magie ( Paris, 1939), an
important work primarily concerned with literature, there has been no
systematic analysis of the actual terminology in Latin and the European
vernacular languages used to describe and label magicians and witches.
In my own work with the sources, malei(icium and the maleficus ( or
malefica) are the most commonly used terms, and such terms as sortile
gium and divinatio and others are specific subcategories of the broader
designation for occult offenses of any kind. Having found "witchcraft"
and "sorcery" linked semantically in the sources, I have workecl with
condemnations of magic not usually associated with the medieval history
of witchcraft. I have drawn heavily upon Lynn Thorndike's monumental
and magisterial History of Magic and Experimental Science, more than
most recent writers on the history of witchcraft, because the figures of the
sorcerer and the witch-although set apart: semantically and, by anthro
pologists, functionally-were once very clo,se. Thorndike wrote his great
history of magic because he would have hmd no adequate framework for
a discussion of medieval scientific ideas and their place in the organiz a
tion of knowledge without considering magic. I have attempted to take
some of Tomdike's materials and juxtapose them, not to experimental
science, but to the ars magica as that subject was viewed by medieval
moralists, theologians, lawyers, and inquisitors. Thorndike's History and
Joseph Hansen's great anthology of original documents, Quellen und
Untersuchungen zur Geschichte cl.es Hexerucahns und der Hexenverf o l
gung im Mittelalter ( Bonn, 1901 ) , are cited throughout the notes to this 1
book. The other standard histories and references to texts-Lea's Mate
rials, Hansen's own Zauberwahn, Inquisition und. Hexenprozess ( Munich,
1900) , Robbins' Encyclopedia, Russell's Witchcraft, and Cohn's study
all bear upon most of this book and offer bibliographical guidance. I ha.ve
only cited their discussions of points on which there is disagreement.
The pioneering work of Lea and Hansen, both rationalist historians,
has strongly influenced all subsequent hventieth-century study of the
history of witchcraft. The modern works di.scussed above, although most
of them transcend the limits of rationalist historical thought, all take a
similar approach. Among the most novel recent approaches, however,
three deserve to be particularly singled out because they suggest impor
tant new directions for research. Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline
of "lvlagic ( New York, 1971 ) , is a monumental study of sixteenth-century
English popular beliefs based upon the arnthropologist's techniques and
the historian's command of different kinds of data. This work has greatly
illuminated large areas of sixteenth-century thought and custom hitherto
either lightly treated (as in C. Grant Loomis, White Magic [Cambridge,
Mass., 1948) or C. MacCulloch, Meclieva:l Faith and Fable [Oxford,
1936) ) or explored only in pa1t. Raoul Marnselli, I Fenomeni di devianze
Appendix 3
nel medio evo ( Turin, 1975), pp. 85-99, constructs a typology of ecclesias
211
tical deviance that includes "magia e stregoneria." In some respects

Manselli shares Russell's interest in social deviance as a means of under
Gerhart Ladner, "Homo viator: Medieval Views on Alienation and

standing such phenomena as the heretic and the magician. Finally,
Order," Speculum 42 ( 1967 ), pp. 233-59, deals with the larger question
of medieval theodicy, regarding magic and witchcraft as one aspect of a
new kind of alienation that appeared in late twelfth- and early thirteenth
century European society. These three approaches suggest some of the
range of the most recent mod,e.rn scholarship and the long road from
rationalist historiographical presuppositions that most of it has travelled.
Historians, fortunately, keep working. It is a pleasure to end this
that have appeared in fields touched by this book. Raoul Manselli's La

bibliographical appendix by citing three recent and very helpful works
religion populaire au moyen age ( Montreal-Paris, 1975) is a useful and
in medieval Europe. The Damned Art: Essays in the Literature of Witch

illuminating methodological approach to the problem of popular religion
craft ( London, 1977 ), edited by Sydney Anglo, contains ten studies of

some of the most important treatises on demonology and witchcraft pro
duced between the late fifteenth and the early eighteenth centuries. This
fresh approach to often ignored literary texts is particularly welcome.
has now been catalogued: Martha J. Crowe, ed., Witchcraft: Catalogue

Finally, the great collection of witchcraft materials at Cornell University
of the Witchcraft Collection in Cornell University Library ( Millwood,

N .Y., 1977). Not only is the catalogue itself a superb guide to one of the
world's greatest collections, but the introduction, by Rossell Hope Rob
bins, is a fine contribution to the history of witchcraft, to the history of
the rationalist school of witchcraft historians, and to the role of penology
and the courts in the witchcraft prosecutions. With the bibliographical
studies of Midelfort, Russell, and Monter, these works suggest important
new directions, not only for historians of spirituality and ecclesiology,
but for scholars of social history and intellectual history. It is to these
diverse fields that the present book is offered.
NOTES
1. H. C. Erik Midelfort, "Recent Witch-Hunting Research, or Where Do

We go from Here?" Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America 62
(1968 ) : 373-420; E. William Monter, "The Historiography of European Witch
craft: Progress and Prospects," The Journal of . Interdisciplinary History 1 1
212 Appendix3
(1972) : 435-52. See also Jeffrey Burton Russell, Witchcraft in the Middle Ages
(Ithaca, 1972), pp. 345-77.
2. Alan MacFarlane, Witchcraft in Tudor a: nd Stuart England (New York,
1970); Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic ( New York, 1971);
Jeffrey Russell, Witchcraft in the Middle Ages (Ithaca, N.Y., 1972).
3. Peter Brown, "Sorcery, Demons and the Rise of Christianity: from Late
Antiquity to the Middle Ages," in Peter Brown, Religion and Society in the Age
of St. Augustine (New York, 1972), pp. 1 19-46..
4. See the remarks of the anonymous reviewer in The Times Literary Sup
plement, No. 3583 (October 1970), "Witches and the Community: An Anthro
pological Approach to the History of Witchcrnft," and Lawrence Stone, "The
Disenchantment of the World," New York Revi<ew of Books, 2 December 1971.
A good anthology of anthropological approaches is Max Marwick, ed., Witch
craft and Sorcery (Baltimore, 1970).
I
Index
Individuals born before 1600 are listed under the first name. Those born
after 1600 are listed by the last name.
Acts of Peter, 8 53, 56, 69, 73, 76, 85, 97; De
Adam Stratton, 119 civitate Dei, 6, 8, 72, 75, 127, 134,
Adso, Libellus de Antichristo, 1 198; De doctrina christiana, 4-5,
Agrippa von Nettesheim. See Henry 50, 72, 75; Quaest. in Hept., 68
Cornelius
Alain de la Roche, 146-47 Baldwinus, 77-78
Alain de Lille, 78-79 Bartholomew of Exeter, 78
Albertus Magnus, 95 Benedict IX, Pope, 28
Alexander III, Pope, 9 9 -100, 117 Benedict XIII, Pope, 143
Alexander IV, Pope, 9 9 -100, 131-33, Bernard Delicieux, 130n
152 Bernard Gui, 41, 131- 32, 133-34,
Alfonso Testado, 147 160, 189, 194
Alice Perrers, 124n Bernard, St., 45
d'Alvemey, Marie-Therese, 25, 86 Bible: Exodus 7-11, 68; Exodus 7:8,
Anselm of Besate, 21-28, 32-34, 45, 3, 148; Exodus 22:18, 17-18, 6 8 -
50, 56, 67,89 69, 70, 139-40, 148; Leviticus 19-
Antichrist, 7n, 18 20, 69, 148; Deut. 18, 69; 1 Samuel
Apuleius, 7n, 56 18, 69; John 8:44, 12; Acts 13: 6-
Aristotle, 91n 12, 3; Revelations 2:9; 3:9, 12
Amald of Villanova, xi, 66, 106, 112, Bodin, Jean. See Jean Bodin
117, 118 Boniface VIII, Pope, 98, 120n, 124-
Augustine, St., 4, 10, 15, 41-43, 47, 27, 128
213
214 Index
Brown, Peter, 9, 114, 117-18 Gregory IX, Pope, 79, 86, 98, 156--57
Burchard of Worms, 14, 71, 73, 80, 99 Griffolino d'Arezzo, 103-5
Guibert de Nogent, 41-42, 44, 75
Caesarius of Heisterbach, 92-93, 112 Guichard of Troyes, 120
Canon episcopi, 15, 72n, 101, 134, Guidlo Bonatti, 102-4
141, 150 Gundissalinus, 65, 67
Cathar, xiv
Cecco d'Ascoli, 105-6, 118 heresy, xvi, 10, 33-45
Charlemagne, 16 Herla, 51
Cicero, Rhetorica, 22, 28 Hinemar of Reims, 15-16, 75
Cohn, Norman, xiv, xvi, xviii, 7, 11-
Honorius III, Pope, 99
12, 41, 124-27 Hopkin, Charles E., 95n
controversiae, 23,-24, 26
Hrabanus Maurus, 15-16, 47, 53, 66
court, 49·, 11 ln
Hub,ert de Burgh, 119
Cowdrey, ·H. E. J., 22, 27, 28
Hugh of St. Victor, 13, 53, 56, 65-67,
crimen exceptum, 152 70, 79, 85, 91
crimen magiae, xiii, xvi, 124, 176
Huizinga, Johann, 145-46
curiositas, xiv, 2, 16, 90 humanism, xi-xii
Curtius, E. R., 23 Hugues Geraud, 130n
Dante, 34, 86, 102 - 6, 112
demimonde, 10, 123, 133 impotence, 76n
dulia, xiv, xv, 196--200 Indiculi superstitionum, 14, 24
Innocent IV, Pope, 140-41, 152, 190
Edric Wild, 51 Innocent VIII, Pope, 1 7 0 -73
Eleanor Cobham, 125 Inquiisition, 150-61
Elymas, 3-5, 8, 12-13 lsido1 re of Seville, 13n, 47, 53, 56, 66,
Enguerrand de Marigny, 121, 128 72, 87
Etienne Tempier, 89 lvo of Chartres, 72-73
Eudo, 51
Eugenius IV, Pope, 146, 149 Jean Bodin, xv, 164
exemplum, 32, 41 Jews and magic, 3, 1 1 -13; as sorcerers,
13, 31, 48, 94
Faust, xii, 13 Joan , of Navarre, 125
folklore, 14, 24 Joharnn von Frankfurt, 146-47
Joharnnes Andreae, 100
Galeazzo Visconti, 131n Joharnnes de Turrecremata, 149- 50
Gerbert of Aurillac. See Sylvester II, John XXII, Pope, 99, 1 2 9 -35, 149
Pope John Bromyard, 142-43
Gervais of Tilbury, 35, 37, 41, 45, 5 3 - John , of Freiburg, 140-42
57, 67, 102 John , of Salisbury, xvii, 45-50, 52, 55,
Gianfrancesco Pico, 163-64, 166 64, 70, 73, 78, 85, 89, 112, 114,
goes, goetia, 2 l lS, 123
Gratian, 16, 71-78, 91, 100-1, 117 Jones, William R., 122-23
Gregory VI, Pope, 28, 30 Jorda1 nes de Bergamo, 147
Gregory VII, Pope, 28 Justin Martyr, 6--8, 43
Index 215
Kelly, H. A., 91 Plato, 1 - 2, 56, 162
Kennan, Elizabeth, 93 porphyry, 8
Kieckhefer, Richard, 167 praestigium, 74n
Konrad von Marburg, 156-57 r1risca m'agia, xii
Kors, Alan C., xiii Prospero, xii
Psellos, 42, 162
Law, Germanic, 14; Roman, 8, 75, 135,
150-55, 185-87; Theodosian Code, Ralph of Coggeshall, 35-44
14; Canon, 71- 78, 9 8 -102, 148-61 Raymond of Peiiafort, 78-79, 80, 98-
Latria, xiv, xv, 196-200 101, 140
Lea, H. C., 14, 55, 92, 182-85 Regino of Prum, 17, 72
Leo I, Pope, 11 Richard Fishacre, 88
Liber iuratus, 1 1 1-12, 117, 119, 124 Richa1·d Ledre<le, 119n
Louis the Pious, 16 Robbins, R. H., 166n
Robert of Flamborough, 78- 80
Robert Grosseteste, 85-86
Macfarlane, Alan, xviii
Robert Kilwardby, 66, 89
Mahaut d'Artois, 121n
Malleus maleficamm, 147, 153, 160, Robert Pullen, 70
Roger Bacon, 66, 88, 98, 118
170-75
Rolandus, 76
Manitius, Karl, 23
Ruflnus, 77-78
Marsilio Ficino, 162
Merlin, xii Russell, J. B., xiv, xviii, 14, 43, 45, 94,
154, 169-70
Michael Scot, 86-89, 102-5
Midelfort, H. C. Erik, xviii, 163-64 Saul 5, 68-69
Moore, R. I., 4 1 Simon Magus, xii, 7n, 86
Southern, R. W., 94
nar-ratio fabulosa, 33 Stephen of Toumai, 76-77
Nicholas Eymeric, 132-33, 160, 189, Summa Parisiensis, 76-78
194-201 Sylvester II, Pope (Gerbert), 28, 31,
Nock, A. D., 2 48, 51, 65, 87
Oldradus da Ponte, 133-34 Templars, 54, 125-29

Tertullian, 4
Palumbus, 31 Thomas Aquinas, 50, 75, 91, 95-98,
103
Paucapafoa, 76 Thomas of Chobham, 78-80
pastourelle, 31
Paul, St., 3-5, 8, 12-13, 72 Thomas, Keith, xv, 166

Pedro Alfonso, 64-65, 67 Trachtenberg, Joshua, 13
Peter the Chanter, 70, 89
Ugolino Zanchini, 134- 35
Peter Comestor, 70
University of Paris, 91, 143-44
Peter Lombard, 70, 89, 91, 95-96
Peter the Venerable, 43 Venus, 31
Philip IV, 119-29 Vergil, 53-54, 55, 102n
Picatrix, 110-12, 117, 119, 124, 165 Vilgard of Ravenna, 22
Pico della Mirandola, xi, 161
Pierre de Latilly, 121n, 128 Walter Langton, 119
216 Index
Walter Map, 39, 40, 45, 50-53, 55, William of Reims, 35-36, 53
56, 67 William of Malmesbury, 28-33, 49,
William of Auvergne, 66, 85, 86, 8 9 - 51,. 56, 57, 142
91, 95, 101, 112, 139n William of Santa Sabina, 131
William of Conches, 64 Witch of Berkeley, 28n

Edward Peters - Magician, Witch, and Law-Harvester Press (1978)

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Rhetoric and Magic in the Eleventh and

This book is a study of medieval conceptions of, and attitudes toward

Witchcraft in Europe, has been an intelligent and critical adviser. Several

Magic in M�dieval Culture

Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim, a sixteenth-century humanist, critic

Aglippa in his eloquent and fruitless defense of prisca magia.

The high Neoplatonk magic of the Reinaissance might indeed be con­

Renaissance. They were tried, convicted[, and burned as malefici, and

their circumstances have concerned historians from the early nineteenth

Yet Agrippa's ignorant necromancers, and not the Renaissance magus

punishable under eiiminal law ell � under ecclesiastical strictures. �

concerned with the history of magic and witchcraft as cultural phenomena

life style-help to explain the fam:teentl-1-eeitt1rry- phenomenon - of- trials

· \ ideas of magic, maleficia, idolatria, and superstitio makes it an addition

repetition of them. It is philosophcally closest to Cohn's Europe's Inner

century of the type of demonological magician enabled theologians and

In Plato's view the magos committed a crime so deadly in the eyes of

later Roman concept of mageia:

The profession by private individuals of the possession of technical ability

evil daimones, whereas mageia employed only good daimone§. �sso­

ci�tion olthe..mag-0s with.daimo,.nes, goo..d...m: .Q�d, was in part a develop-

mageia,�_!y_more often than not ch:i1racterized the Greek and later

the Roman attitude toward magical practices and practitioners. That

condemned magical practices. The Septuagint version of Old Testament

and �upe��, an �ams mg 1t rom Go s world alt�gethe�.. Book 2

Therefore, all arts pertaining to a trifling or noxious superstition constituted

Augustine wrote, magia was already cast away no longer regarded as a

Chapters 17 and 18 of book 18 deny the reality of humans who change

in the Didache apostolorum and in the writings of a number of Fathers, ,

t\ parallelled by his association with magia. However the Antichrist is to

was rooted in apocalyptic w1itings, including the Book of Revelations,

development in the Sybilline writings, particularly the Tihurtina and the

· / Pseudo-Methodius . ' These traditions were conveyed to later medieval

the tenth century:

Antichrist's illusions and deceits specifically will make people believe

, converted to Christianity and asked to purchase the magical powers of

priest Anebo in book 10 of the De cit>itate Dei, and the antimagical

Christian Empire did, sack �gan hous�LlJL5.e..ar.cb_o£.. magic... books,_ and

Calumniam magiae quae facilius infam ,atur quam prohatur. Apuleius's

Apologia offers, in fact, an excellent survey of the magical ideas of the

But it 1e uistians alone who provided the mas.L.efle.cili!.e-

demned magic and its practitioners as vigorously as they were denounced

theurgia and goeteia/magia, ridiculed by Tertullian and Augustine, was

taken no more seriously by the Roman emperors. The distinction, in fact,

l\�heurgia practiced by the "learned" magiicians and ti1e goeteia practiced

' -l (py the "low" magicians.

malaise in the structure of the governing classes of the Roman Empire

(especially in its eastern, Gre,ek-speaking half) forced the ubiquitous

In such a world, as Brown goes on to describe it, the servants of the

cians), giving their children to the demons. The magician encountered

when, as we shall see, t��e

t}fagicians, enchanters, conjurors of storms, or those who, through the invoca­

Although some histo1ians of witchcraft have made much of the injunc­

the compendium of Burchard. As will be discussed in Chapter 3, th

involving pact with the demon, s ould be avoided.- Hrahanus's treatise

TyPologically, we may understand maleficos as meaning heretics, instigated

The high Neoplatonk magic of the Reinaissance might indeed be con

evil daimones, whereas mageia employed only good daimone§. �sso

t}fagicians, enchanters, conjurors of storms, or those who, through the invoca

Although some histo1ians of witchcraft have made much of the injunc

Anselm's versions of contemporary theories of magical practices.8 Cer

Gervais-showing the inventiveness that marked the Otia Imperialia

The figure of the cierical magician-;-whether crystal-gaze_r or nec;ro

circles of Anselm of Besate, papal Rome, wandering scholars, and cleri

heretic prominently in the consciousness of twelfth- and thirteenth