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On the Demon-Mania of Witches, Jean Bodin (1580).Pdf Jean Bodin On the Demon-Mania of W itches Translated by Randy A. Scott Abridged with an Introduction by Jonathan L. Pearl Notes by Randy A. Scott and Jonathan L. Pearl Toronto Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies 2001 CRRS Publications Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies Victoria University in the University of Toronto Toronto, Canada M5S 1K7 ® 2001 by the Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies All rights reserved. Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data Bodin, Jean, 1530-1596 On the demon-mania of witches (Renaissance and Reformation texts in translation ; 7) Translation of: De la dcmonomanie des sorciers. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 0-9697512-5-7 I. Witchcraft. 2. Magic. I. Scott, Randy A., 1944- II. Pearl, Jonathan L. III. Victoria University (Toronto, Ont.). Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies. IV. Title. V. Series. BF1602.B6313 1995 133.4 C95-931520-9 No part of this book may be translated or reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any other means, without written permission from the publisher. Cover illustration: woodcut from Francesco Maria Guazzo, Compendium Male- ficarum (1608). Cover design: Ian MacKenzie, ParaGraphics This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Canadian Federation for the Humanities, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. For Victor E. Graham and to our wives Kathy Pearl and Karen Scott with gratitude for their forebearance - Contents Introduction 9 The French Religious Wars 12 Witchcraft in France 14 The Demon-Mania 22 The Text and This Translation 28 Translator’s Note 29 Select Bibliography 32 On the Demon-Mania o f Witches Author’s Preface 35 BOOK ONE Chapter 1 The Definition of a Witch 45 Chapter 2 On the Association of Spirits with Men 55 Chapter 3 The Difference between Good and Evil Spirits 63 [ Chapter 4 On Prophecy an d Other Divine Means to Learn Hidden Things ] * Chapter 5 On Natural and Human Means to Learn Hidden Things 71 Chapter 6 On Unlawful Means to Accomplish Something That One Wants 89 [Chapter 7 On Teratoscopy, Haruspicy, Omithomancy, Hieroscopy, an d Others ] BOOK TWO Chapter 1 On Magic in General, and Its Types 93 [ Chapter 2 On Tacit Invocations o f Evil Spirits ] Chapter 3 On Formal Invocations of Evil Spirits 102 Chapter 4 On Those Who Renounce God and Their Religion by Express Agreement, and Whether They Are Bodily Transported by Demons 112 [Chapter 5 On the Ecstasy an d Rapture o f Witches, and the Customary Relations They Have with Demons ] Chapter 6 On Lycanthropy and Whether Spirits Can Change Men into Beasts 122 Chapter 7 Whether Witches Have Copulation with Demons 130 Chapter 8 Whether Witches Can Send Illnesses, Sterilities, Hails and Rainstorms, and Kill Men and Beasts 135 BOOK THREE Chapter 1 Lawful Means to Prevent Spells and Witchcraft 143 Chapter 2 Whether Witches Can Assure the Health of Vigorous Men, and Provide a Cure for the Sick 152 Chapter 3 Whether Witches May Obtain through Their Craft the Favour of People, Beauty, Pleasures, Honours, Riches and Learning, and Give Fertility 155 [Chapter 4 Whether Witches Can Harm Some People More Than Others] Chapter 5 On the Unlawful Means Which Are Used to Prevent Evil Spells, and to Dispel Illnesses and Charms 158 Chapter 6 On Those Who Are Beleaguered and Pursued by Evil Spirits, and Whether There Is Any Means to Drive Them Out 162 BOOK FOUR Chapter 1 On the Investigation of Witches 173 Chapter 2 On the Evidence Required to Prove the Crime of Witchcraft 181 Chapter 3 On the Voluntary and Forced Confessions of Witches 190 Chapter 4 On Presumptions against Witches 196 Chapter 5 On the Punishment That Witches Merit 203 Bracketed chapters omitted Introduction Jean Bodin’s On the Demon-Mania o f Witches (De la dem onom anie des sorciers) appeared in 1580 and rapidly became a major pub­ lishing success. It underwent at least twenty-three editions and was translated from its original French into German, Italian and Latin. It was surely the most published work of the era on the subject of demons and witches. Because of its wide distribution, it has been considered by generations of historians to have been an extremely influential book, responsible in itself for large-scale prosecutions of witches in the four or five decades following its appearance.1 For all its notoriety, however, the Demon-Mania has never been translated into English. This is surprising, since Bodin is one of the towering figures in the history of French thought. Jean Bodin (1529/30-1596) was one of the most important French writers of the second half of the sixteenth century. His many works, dealing with history, politics, economics, and religion, impressed his contemporaries and have fascinated historians of thought to the present day. In recent years, several international conferences have been convened at which scholars from all over the world have gathered to discuss Bodin’s work.2 As well known as Bodin’s books are, many aspects of his life ‘Among recent judgments are Robert Mandrou, Magistrats etsorciers (Paris: Plon, 1969), 133-36; Brian Easlea, Witch Hunting, Magic and the New Philosophy (Sussex: Harvester, 1980), 15; and Hugh Trevor-Roper, “The European Witch-Craze of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries,” in The European Witch-Craze and Other Essays (New York: Harper, 1969), 122. 2See Jean Bodin: Proceedings of the International Conference on Bodin in Munich, 1970 (Munich: C.H. Beck, 1973); Jean Bodin: Actes du colloque interdisciplinaire d’Angers 1984 (Angers: Presses de l’Universite d’Angers, 1985). 10 Introduction remain shadowy.3 Jean Bodin hoped for a brilliant public career but it eluded him, and he was far more successful as a writer. He was born to a bourgeois family in Angers in 1529 or 1530. As a boy, Bodin joined the Carmelite order, studying philosophy, Greek and Hebrew. He probably left the order around 1550. He turned to the study of law at Toulouse and Paris and began to practice law in Paris around 1562, the year of the outbreak of the religious civil wars. At that time, he swore to being a Catholic, but his sincerity was always suspect by zealous Catholics. As the violence continued, Bodin became strongly hostile to the Calvinist faction, which he held responsible for the civil strife of his day. Rather than support the Catholic League though, Bodin moved to a centrist position, called Politique at the time. The politiques held that disunity and violence were destroying France, and the only cure for the troubles was a strong and respected monarchy. Around 1571, he entered the service of the Duke of Alengon, the king’s youngest brother. The publication of his most famous work, The Six Books of the Commonwealth, in 1576 enhanced his reputation and he seemed destined for high office. But as a delegate to the Estates General in late 1576, he opposed royal fiscal demands. This seems to have stopped his upward progress. Only three years later, at the height of his literary reputation, Bodin published the Demon-Mania, which seems to have been widely read. Bodin accompanied the Duke of Alengon (now known as Anjou) to England in 1581 on his unsuccessful attempt to woo Queen Elizabeth. Anjou’s death in 1584 led to the final and most violent phase of the civil war as the Protestant Henry of Navarre became the royal successor. Bodin, having lost his patron, was now far from political power. He moved to Laon, where he experienced great difficulties at the hands of the Catholic League. During this period, Bodin wrote, but never published, the Heptaplomeres ('Colloquium o f the Seven about Secrets o f the Sublime),4 a fascinat­ 3See Kenneth McRae, ed., “Bodin’s Career,” in Jean Bodin, The Six Bookes ofaCommonweale(.C&mbt\<\%,c-. Harvard UP, 1962), A3-A13; Julian H. Franklin, ed., "Introduction," in Jean Bodin, On Sovereignly (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1992), ix-xii. 4Jean Bodin, Colloquium of the Seven about Secrets of the Sublime, trans. Marion Leathers Daniels Kuntz (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1975). Introduction 11 ing and highly unorthodox study of comparative religious philoso­ phies. In his many works, Bodin, influenced by Renaissance syncretism and shaken by the extreme violence of his time, was very tolerant of varieties of religious belief. While he generally supported a Catholic settlement of the conflicts, he was far from being an orthodox believer. Generations of scholars have admired the Commonwealth as the first modern study of the state and have often depicted Bodin as a modern man. Also widely admired is the remarkable tolerance of varieties of religious views that Bodin reveals in the Colloquium. But many of these scholars have been shocked and perplexed at the apparent contrast between the “modern,” “rational” political Bodin, the “tolerant” religious Bodin, and the “intolerant” and “superstitious” Bodin of the Demon-Mania. There is a long tradition among Bodin specialists of either ignoring the Demon-Mania or treating it as a bizarre aberration in an otherwise respectable “progressive” intellectual. But a group of recent writers have pointed out that, in fact, the Demon-Mania shares essential points of view and concerns with the Commonwealth and the Colloquium. Bodin’s “inconsistency” is the result of applying nineteenth- and twentieth-century mental categories to a thinker of a very different age.5 Through all his major works, Bodin was concerned with hon­ ouring and defending the glory of God. In the Commonwealth, he described princes as mirror images of God, to whom the obedience of their subjects was owed. In the Colloquium , Bodin showed little concern for distinctions among the world’s religions, as long as they honoured God and followed His law.
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