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Europe's Inner Demons: An Enquiry Inspired by the Great Witch-Hunt is a historical study of the beliefs regarding European witchcraft in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe, with particular reference to the development of the witches' sabbat and its influence on the witch trials in the Early Modern period.
By the 15th century belief in witches was widely accepted in European society. Previously, those convicted of witchcraft typically suffered penalties no more harsh than public penances such as a day in the stocks , [ 18 ] but their prosecution became more brutal following the publication of the Malleus Maleficarum , as witchcraft became widely ...
McCown argued that the book was known to Byzantine scholars prior to the 13th century based on Niketas Choniates' reference of a Solomonic book, which allowed sorcerers to summon demons in legions. Marathakis notes that, except for the Magical Treatise , this description also fits the earlier Testament of Solomon , which could be the book that ...
The Formicarius, written 1436–1438 by Johannes Nider during the Council of Florence and first printed in 1475, is the second book ever printed to discuss witchcraft (the first book being Alphonso de Spina's Fortalitium Fidei [1]). Nider dealt specifically with witchcraft in the fifth section of the book.
With his widely distributed book Malleus Maleficarum (1487), which describes witchcraft and endorses detailed processes for the extermination of witches, he was instrumental in establishing the period of witch trials in the early modern period. Professor Malcolm Gaskill has described Kramer as a "superstitious psychopath." [2] [3]
The best-known medieval books on angelic magic include the Notory Art (Latin: Ars Notoria), the Sworn Book of Honorius (Latin: Liber Iuratus Honorius), and The Circle (Arabic: Almadel or Almandal, listed as Ars Almadel in the seventeenth century Lemegeton), and the Book of Raziel (Latin: Liber Razielis, not to be confused with another work ...
Witch hunts began to increase first in southern France and Switzerland, during the 14th and 15th centuries. Witch hunts and witchcraft trials rose markedly during the social upheavals of the 16th century, peaking between 1560 and 1660. [72] The peak years of witch-hunts in southwest Germany were from 1561 to 1670. [73]
Renaissance magic was a resurgence in Hermeticism and Neoplatonic varieties of the magical arts which arose along with Renaissance humanism in the 15th and 16th centuries CE. . During the Renaissance period, magic and occult practices underwent significant changes that reflected shifts in cultural, intellectual, and religious perspectiv