Chapter I: Preface

'THE SUPERSTITIONS OF WITCHCRAFT' is designed to exhibit a consecutive review of the characteristic forms and facts of a creed which (if at present apparently dead, or at least harmless, in Christendom) in the seventeenth century was a living and lively faith, and caused thousands of victims to be sent to the torture-chamber, to the stake, and to the scaffold. At this day, the remembrance of its superhuman art, in its different manifestations, is immortalised in the every-day language of the peoples of Europe.

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The belief in Witchcraft is, indeed, in its full development and most fearful results, modern still more than mediaeval, Christian still more than Pagan, and Protestant not less than Catholic.

CONTENTS.

PART I.

CHAPTER I.

The Origin, Prevalence, and Variety of Superstition--The
Belief in Witchcraft the most horrid Form of
Superstition--Most flourishing in the Sixteenth and
Seventeenth Centuries--The Sentiments of Addison,
Blackstone, and the Lawyers of the Eighteenth Century
upon the Subject--Chaldean and Persian Magic--Jewish
Witchcraft--Its important Influence on Christian and
Modern Belief--Greek Pharmacy and Sorcery--Early Roman
Laws against Conjuration and Magic Charms--Crimes
perpetrated, under the Empire, in connection with
Sorceric Practices--The general Persecution for Magic
under Valentinian and Valens--German and Scandinavian
Sagae--Essential Difference between Eastern and Western
Sorcery--The probable Origin of the general Belief in an
Evil Principle PAGE 3

PART II.

CHAPTER I.

Compromise between the New and the Old Faiths--Witchcraft
under the Early Church--The Sentiments of the Fathers and
the Decrees of Councils--Platonic Influences--Historical,
Physiological, and Accidental Causes of the Attribution
of Witchcraft to the Female Sex--Opinions of the Fathers
and other Writers--The Witch-Compact 47

CHAPTER II.

Charlemagne's Severity--Anglo-Saxon Superstition--Norman
and Arabic Magic--Influence of Arabic Science--Mohammedan
Belief in Magic--Rabbinical Learning--Roger Bacon--The
Persecution of the Templars--Alice Kyteler 63

CHAPTER III.

Witchcraft and Heresy purposely confounded by the
Church--Mediaeval Science closely connected with Magic and
Sorcery--Ignorance of Physiology the Cause of many of the
Popular Prejudices--Jeanne d'Arc--Duchess of
Gloucester--Jane Shore--Persecution at Arras 84

PART III.

CHAPTER I.

The Bull of Innocent VIII.--A new Incentive to the vigorous
Prosecution of Witchcraft--The 'Malleus Maleficarum'--Its
Criminal Code--Numerous Executions at the Commencement of
the Sixteenth Century--Examination of Christian
Demonology--Various Opinions of the Nature of
Demons--General Belief in the Intercourse of Demons and
other non-human Beings with Mankind 101

CHAPTER II.

Three Sorts of Witches--Various Modes of Witchcraft--Manner
of Witch-Travelling--The Sabbaths--Anathemas of the Popes
against the Crime--Bull of Adrian VI.--Cotemporary
Testimony to the Severity of the Persecutions--Necessary
Triumph of the Orthodox Party--Germany most subject to
the Superstition--Acts of Parliament of Henry VIII.
against Witchcraft--Elizabeth Barton--The Act of
1562--Executions under Queen Elizabeth's Government--Case
of Witchcraft narrated by Reginald Scot 126

CHAPTER III.

The 'Discoverie of Witchcraft,' published 1584--Wier's 'De
Praestigiis Daemonum,' &c.--Naude--Jean Bodin--His 'De la
Demonomanie des Sorciers,' published at Paris, 1580--His
Authority--Nider--Witch-case at Warboys--Evidence adduced
at the Trial--Remarkable as being the Origin of the
Institution of an Annual Sermon at Huntingdon 144

CHAPTER IV.

Astrology in Antiquity--Modern Astrology and
Alchymy--Torralvo--Adventures of Dr. Dee and Edward
Kelly--Prospero and Comus, Types respectively of the
Theurgic and Goetic Arts--Magicians on the Stage in the
Sixteenth Century--Occult Science in Southern
Europe--Causes of the inevitable Mistakes of the
pre-Scientific Ages 157

CHAPTER V.

Sorcery in Southern Europe--Cause of the Retention of the
Demonological Creed among the Protestant Sects--Calvinists
the most Fanatical of the Reformed Churches--Witch-Creed
sanctioned in the Authorised Version of the Sacred
Scriptures--The Witch-Act of 1604--James VI.'s
'Demonologie'--Lycanthropy and Executions in France--The
French Provincial Parliaments active in passing Laws
against the various Witch-practices--Witchcraft in the
Pyrenees--Commission of Inquiry appointed--Its
Results--Demonology in Spain 168

CHAPTER VI.

'Possession' in France in the Seventeenth Century--Urbain
Grandier and the Convent of Loudun--Exorcism at
Aix--Ecstatic Phenomena--Madeleine Bavent--Her cruel
Persecution--Catholic and Protestant Witchcraft in
Germany--Luther's Demonological Fears and
Experiences--Originated in his exceptional Position and
in the extraordinary Circumstances of his Life and
Times--Witch-burning at Bamburg and at Wuerzburg 186

CHAPTER VII.

Scotland one of the most Superstitious Countries in
Europe--Scott's Relation of the Barbarities perpetrated in
the Witch-trials under the Auspices of James VI.--The Fate
of Agnes Sampson, Euphane MacCalzean, &c.--Irrational
Conduct of the Courts of Justice--Causes of Voluntary
Witch-Confessions--Testimony of Sir G. Mackenzie,
&c.--Trial and Execution of Margaret Barclay--Computation
of the Number of Witches who suffered Death in England and
Scotland in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth
Centuries--Witches burned alive at Edinburgh in 1608--The
Lancashire Witches--Sir Thomas Overbury and Dr.
Forman--Margaret Flower and Lord Rosse 203

CHAPTER VIII.

The Literature of Europe in the Seventeenth Century proves
the Universality and Horror of Witchcraft--The most
acute and most liberal Men of Learning convinced of
its Reality--Erasmus and Francis Bacon--Lawyers prejudiced
by Legislation--Matthew Hale's judicial Assertion--Sir
Thomas Browne's Testimony--John Selden--The English
Church least Ferocious of the Protestant Sects--Jewell
and Hooker--Independent Tolerance--Witchcraft under
the Presbyterian Government--Matthew Hopkins--Gaule's
'Select Cases of Conscience'--Judicial and Popular Methods
of Witch-discovery--Preventive Charms--Witchfinders a Legal
and Numerous Class in England and Scotland--Remission in the
Severity of the Persecution under the Protectorship 219

CHAPTER IX.

Glanvil's Sadducismus Triumphatus--His Sentiments on
Witchcraft and Demonology--Baxter's 'Certainty of the
World of Spirits,' &c.--Witch Trial at Bury St. Edmund's
by Sir Matthew Hale, 1664--The Evidence adduced in
Court--Two Witches hanged--Three hanged at Exeter in
1682--The last Witches judicially executed in
England--Uniformity of the Evidence adduced at the
Trials--Webster's Attack upon the Witch-creed in
1677--Witch Trials in England at the end of the
Seventeenth Century--French Parliaments vindicate the
Diabolic Reality of the Crime--Witchcraft in Sweden 237