This is the first complete and accessible English translation of two major source texts—Tinctor’s Invectives and the anonymous Recollectio—that arose from the notorious Arras witch hunts and trials in the mid-fifteenth century in France. These writings, by the “Anonymous of Arras” (believed to be the trial judge Jacques du Bois) and the intellectual Johannes Tinctor, offer valuable eyewitness perspectives on one of the very first mass trials and persecutions of alleged witches in European history. More importantly, they provide a window onto the early development of witchcraft theory and demonology in western Europe during the late medieval period—an entire generation before the infamous Witches’ Hammer appeared. Perfect for the classroom, The Arras Witch Treatises includes a reader-friendly introduction situating the treatises and trials in their historical and intellectual contexts. Scholars, students, and others interested in the occult will find these translations invaluable.

This is the first complete and accessible English translation of two major source texts—Tinctor’s Invectives and the anonymous Recollectio—that arose from the notorious Arras witch hunts and trials in the mid-fifteenth century in France. These writings, by the “Anonymous of Arras” (believed to be the trial judge Jacques du Bois) and the intellectual Johannes Tinctor, offer valuable eyewitness perspectives on one of the very first mass trials and persecutions of alleged witches in European history. More importantly, they provide a window onto the early development of witchcraft theory and demonology in western Europe during the late medieval period—an entire generation before the infamous Witches’ Hammer appeared. Perfect for the classroom, The Arras Witch Treatises includes a reader-friendly introduction situating the treatises and trials in their historical and intellectual contexts. Scholars, students, and others interested in the occult will find these translations invaluable.

While the perception of magic as harmful is age-old, the notion of witches gathering together in large numbers, overtly worshiping demons, and receiving instruction in how to work harmful magic as part of a conspiratorial plot against Christian society was an innovation of the early fifteenth century. The sources collected in this book reveal this concept in its formative stages. The idea that witches were members of organized heretical sects or part of a vast diabolical conspiracy crystalized most clearly in a handful of texts written in the 1430s and clustered geographically around the arc of the western Alps. Michael D. Bailey presents accessible English translations of the five oldest surviving texts describing the witches’ sabbath and of two witch trials from the period. These sources, some of which were previously unavailable in English or available only in incomplete or out-of-date translations, show how perceptions of witchcraft shifted from a general belief in harmful magic practiced by individuals to a conspiratorial and organized threat that led to the witch hunts that shook northern Europe and went on to influence conceptions of diabolical witchcraft for centuries to come. Origins of the Witches’ Sabbath makes freshly available a profoundly important group of texts that are key to understanding the cultural context of this dark chapter in Europe’s history. It will be especially valuable to those studying the history of witchcraft, medieval and early modern legal history, religion and theology, magic, and esotericism.

This book revises what we thought we knew about one of the most famous witch hunts in European history. Between 1608 and 1614, thousands of witchcraft accusations were leveled against men, women, and children in the northern Spanish kingdom of Navarre. The Inquisition intervened quickly but incompetently, and the denunciations continued to accelerate. As the phenomenon spread, children began to play a crucial role. Not only were they reportedly victims of the witches’ harmful magic, but hundreds of them also insisted that witches were taking them to the Devil’s gatherings against their will. Presenting important archival discoveries, Lu Ann Homza restores the perspectives of illiterate, Basque-speaking individuals to the history of this shocking event and demonstrates what could happen when the Spanish Inquisition tried to take charge of a liminal space. Because the Spanish Inquisition was the body putting those accused of witchcraft on trial, modern scholars have depended upon Inquisition sources for their research. Homza’s groundbreaking book combines new readings of the Inquisitional evidence with fresh archival finds from non-Inquisitional sources, including local secular and religious courts, and from notarial and census records. Expanding our understanding of this witch hunt as well as the history of children, community norms, and legal expertise in early modern Europe, Village Infernos and Witches’ Advocates is required reading for students and scholars of the Spanish Inquisition and the history of witchcraft in early modern Europe.

A remarkable tale of witchcraft, folk culture, and persuasion in early modern Europe. Based on research in the Inquisitorial archives of Northern Italy, The Night Battles recounts the story of a peasant fertility cult centered on the benandanti, literally, "good walkers." These men and women described fighting extraordinary ritual battles against witches and wizards in order to protect their harvests. While their bodies slept, the souls of the benandanti were able to fly into the night sky to engage in epic spiritual combat for the good of the village. Carlo Ginzburg looks at how the Inquisition's officers interpreted these tales to support their world view that the peasants were in fact practicing sorcery. The result of this cultural clash, which lasted for more than a century, was the slow metamorphosis of the benandanti into the Inquisition's mortal enemies—witches. Relying upon this exceptionally well-documented case study, Ginzburg argues that a similar transformation of attitudes—perceiving folk beliefs as diabolical witchcraft—took place all over Europe and spread to the New World. In his new preface, Ginzburg reflects on the interplay of chance and discovery, as well as on the relationship between anomalous cases and historical generalizations.

In 1510, nine men were tried in the Archbishop’s Court in York for attempting to find and extract a treasure on the moor near Mixindale through necromantic magic. Two decades later, William Neville and his magician were arrested by Thomas Cromwell for having engaged in a treasonous combination of magic practices and prophecy surrounding the death of William’s older brother, Lord Latimer, and the king. In The Magic of Rogues, Frank Klaassen and Sharon Hubbs Wright present the legal documents about and open a window onto these fascinating investigations of magic practitioners in early Tudor England. Set side by side with sixteenth- and seventeenth-century texts that describe the sorts of magic those practitioners performed, these documents are translated, contextualized, and presented in language accessible to nonspecialist readers. Their analysis reveals how magicians and cunning folk operated in extended networks in which they exchanged knowledge, manuscripts, equipment, and even clients; foregrounds magicians’ encounters with authority in ways that separate them from traditional narratives about witchcraft and witch trials; and suggests that the regulation and punishment of magic in the Tudor period were comparatively and perhaps surprisingly gentle. Incorporating the study of both intellectual and legal sources, The Magic of Rogues presents a well-rounded picture of illicit learned magic in early Tudor England. Engaging and accessible, this book will appeal to anyone seeking to understand the intersection of medieval legal history, religion, magic, esotericism, and Tudor history.

A manual for constructing talismans, mixing magical compounds, summoning planetary spirits, and determining astrological conditions, Picatrix is a cornerstone of Western esotericism. It offers important insights not only into occult practices and beliefs but also into the transmission of magical ideas from antiquity to the present. Dan Attrell and David Porreca’s English translation opens the world of this vital medieval treatise to modern-day scholars and lay readers. The original text, Ghāyat al-Ḥakīm, was compiled in Arabic from over two hundred sources in the latter half of the tenth century. It was translated into Castilian Spanish in the mid-thirteenth century, and shortly thereafter into Latin. Based on David Pingree’s edition of the Latin text, this translation captures the spirit of Picatrix’s role in the European tradition. In the world of Picatrix, we see a seamless integration of practical magic, earnest piety, and traditional philosophy. The detailed introduction considers the text’s reception through multiple iterations and includes an enlightening statistical breakdown of the rituals described in the book. Framed by extensive research on the ancient and medieval context that gave rise to the Latin version of the text, this translation of Picatrix will be an indispensable volume for students and scholars of the history of science, magic, and religion and will fascinate anyone interested in the occult.

This volume presents editions of two fascinating anonymous and untitled manuscripts of magic produced in Elizabethan England: the Antiphoner Notebook and the Boxgrove Manual. Frank Klaassen uses these texts, which he argues are representative of the overwhelming majority of magical practitioners, to explain how magic changed during this period and why these developments were crucial to the formation of modern magic. The Boxgrove Manual is a work of learned ritual magic that synthesizes material from Henry Cornelius Agrippa, the Fourth Book of Occult Philosophy, Heptameron, and various medieval conjuring works. The Antiphoner Notebook concerns the common magic of treasure hunting, healing, and protection, blending medieval conjuring and charm literature with materials drawn from Reginald Scot’s famous anti-magic work, Discoverie of Witchcraft. Klaassen painstakingly traces how the scribes who created these two manuscripts adapted and transformed their original sources. In so doing, he demonstrates the varied and subtle ways in which the Renaissance, the Reformation, new currents in science, the birth of printing, and vernacularization changed the practice of magic. Illuminating the processes by which two sixteenth-century English scribes went about making a book of magic, this volume provides insight into the wider intellectual culture surrounding the practice of magic in the early modern period.