Machielsen | The Science of Demons | Buch | 978-1-032-75915-9 | www2.sack.de

Buch, Englisch, 428 Seiten, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 234 mm

Reihe: Routledge Studies in the History of Witchcraft, Demonology and Magic

Machielsen

The Science of Demons

Early Modern Authors Facing Witchcraft and the Devil
2. Auflage 2026
ISBN: 978-1-032-75915-9
Verlag: Taylor & Francis Ltd

Early Modern Authors Facing Witchcraft and the Devil

Buch, Englisch, 428 Seiten, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 234 mm

Reihe: Routledge Studies in the History of Witchcraft, Demonology and Magic

ISBN: 978-1-032-75915-9
Verlag: Taylor & Francis Ltd


Witches, ghosts, fairies. Late medieval and early modern Europe was seemingly filled with these and other threatening and disturbing figures. For many contemporary authors, the devil appeared to lurk behind them all. Were his powers real or mere trickery? What limits did God place on them? Could reports from this hidden demonic netherworld be trusted? Physicians, lawyers, and theologians, writing at different times and places, gave very different answers and often disagreed bitterly.

This updated and enlarged second edition examines individual authors from across Europe and its colonies to reveal the many purposes to which the devil could be put – in the late medieval fight against heresy, the age of Reformations, and beyond. It follows the devil’s trajectory from his emergence in the 1300s and 1400s as a bodily figure who made pacts with humans, through the comprehensive surveys that coincided with the witch-hunts’ most deadly phase, to the end of the seventeenth century, when the science of demons met new challenges in both Old World and New.

This book is essential reading for students, researchers, and anyone interested in the history of the supernatural, in medieval and early modern Europe, as well as those exploring the intersections of theology, science, and society during this transformative period.

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Undergraduate Advanced and Undergraduate Core


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Introduction: The Science of Demons  Part 1. Beginnings 1. The Inquisitor’s Demons: Nicolau Eymeric’s Directorium inquisitorum 2. Promoter of the Sabbat and Diabolical Realism: Nicolas Jacquier’s Flagellum hereticorum fascinariorum Part 2. The First Wave of Printed Witchcraft Texts 3. The Bestselling Demonologist: Heinrich Institoris’s Malleus maleficarum 4. Lawyers versus Inquisitors: Ponzinibio’s De lamiis and Spina’s De strigibus 5. The Witch-Hunting Humanist: Gianfrancesco Pico della Mirandola’s Strix  Part 3: The Sixteenth-Century Debate 6. ‘Against the Devil, the Subtle and Cunning Enemy’: Johann Wier’s De praestigiis daemonum 7. The Will to Know and the Unknowable: Jean Bodin’s De La Démonomanie 8. Doubt and Demonology: Reginald Scot’s The Discoverie of Witchcraft 9. Demonology and Anti-Demonology: Binsfeld’s De confessionibus and Loos’s De vera et falsa magia 10. A Royal Witch Theorist: James VI’s Daemonologie  11. Demonology as Textual Scholarship: Martin Delrio’s Disquisitiones magicae  Part 4: Demonology and Theology  12. ‘Of Ghostes and Spirites Walking by Nyght’: Ludwig Lavater’s Von Gespänsten  13. A Spanish Demonologist during the French Wars of Religion: Juan de Maldonado’s Traicté des anges et demons  14. Scourging Demons with Exorcism: Girolamo Menghi’s Flagellum daemonum  15. The Ambivalent Demonologist: William Perkins’s Discourse of the Damned Art of Witchcraft  16. Piety and Purification: The Anonymous Czarownica powolana  Part 5: Demonology and Law  17. An Untrustworthy Reporter: Nicolas Remy’s Daemonolatreiae libri tres  18. The Mythmaker of the Sabbat: Pierre de Lancre’s Tableau de l’inconstance des mauvais anges et démons  19. An Expert Lawyer and Reluctant Demonologist: Alonso de Salazar Frías, Spanish Inquisitor  Part 6: New Foundations  20. Towards a Science of Witchcraft: Joseph Glanvill’s Saducismus triumphatus  21. All Good Men: Cotton Mather’s Wonders of the Invisible World  Epilogue  Critical Editions and English Translations of Demonological Texts


Jan Machielsen is Reader in Early Modern History at Cardiff University with an interest in early modern witches, werewolves, and saints. His most recent book The Basque Witch-Hunt: A Secret History won the 2025 PROSE Award for European History.



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