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THIS WEBSITE

Although some of these works, both English and continental, have been reprinted in modern
editions, much of the pamphlet literature as well as many of the longer and more formal works
are generally inaccessible. In light of the new ways of reading and using the theoretical literature
of demonology and witchcraft, represented in the work of the authors cited in this essay, as well
as many others, it becomes important to make as many of them as possible available in electronic
as well as other media.
 
Reading the theoretical and polemical literature along with the cases themselves offers an
indispensable perspective on the relation between the theory and judicial practice of dealing with
those accused of sorcery and witchcraft between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries. Since the
broadening of the study of witchcraft and magic from the original exiguous and marginal field
that it was a century ago into a central topic in a number of modern disciplines--from social
history and gender studies to the history of science, literature, and mentalities--it is important that
sources of limited accessibility be made available to serious scholars and the interested public. 
Many of the works on this website are available only at a few research libraries, notably that of
Cornell, or in the microfilm collection by Primary Source Media; thus their new availability in
this format will increase their opportunities to be used and contribute to a subject of scholarship
that has grown at an astonishing rate since the 1960s and shows no signs of diminishing in
interest or importance in the foreseeable future.

The principles of selection for the documents included here have been determined by the two
features of rarity and usefulness in several different disciplines. The former is also conditioned
by the holdings of the remarkable Cornell Library collections. There is nothing later than 1825, a
conventional terminus for the identification of rare books in many research libraries. There are no
entire law codes or treatises on criminal law proper, nothing on criminal procedure, and no
material on the history of inquisitorial tribunals generally.39 There is little concentration on the broader world of
spiritualism, except where that subject has had an impact on particular works on demonology and
witchcraft. There is rather more material in English than is reflected in the proportion of English
works in the entire literature. Foreign materials reproduced here are in the original languages --or
occasionally contemporary or near-contemporary translations into other European languages.
Existing English translations are noted. A number of important works of scholarship contain
extracts from or summaries and discussions of individual works in the  literature.40 There are very few multiple editions of individual
works, although publication history can be an important dimension in the changing character and
impact of a number of works. The collection focuses on contemporary criticism of witchcraft
theory and the prosecutions as well as contemporary enthusiasm for them.
 
-notes-

39For the latter, see the brilliant study by Francisco
Bethencourt, L'Inquisition à l'époque moderne (Paris, 1995), and Edward Peters,
Inquisition (New York, Berkeley-Los Angeles, 1988, 1989).  See also Alfred Soman,
Sorcellerie et Justice Criminelle: Le parlement de Paris (16e-18e siècles) (Hampshire,
1992);  Esther Cohen, The Crossroads of Justice: Law and Culture in Late Medieval
France (Leiden-New York, 1993); John Langbein, Prosecuting Crime in the Renaissance:
England, Germany, France (Cambridge, Mass., 19740; Winfried Trusen, "Vom
Inquisitionsverfahrung zum Ketzer- und Hexenprozzesse. Fragen der Abgrenzung und
Beeinflussung," Staat, Kirche, Wissenschaft in einer pluralistischen Gesellschaft. Festschrift
zum 65. Geburtstag von Paul Mikat, Dieter Schwab, ed. (Berlin, 1989), 435-450.

40The most important of these are Joseph Hansen,
Quellen und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte des Hexenwahns und der Hexenverfolgung im
Mittelalter (Bonn, 1901), Henry Charles Lea, Materials toward a History of
Witchcraft, ed. Arthur C. Howland, intro. George L. Burr, 3 vols. (Philadelphia, 1939; reprt.
New York, 1957), which includes Lea's often extensive notes on material in Hansen and earlier
(and now usually quite rare) bibliogaphies, such as those of Grässe and Hauber, and Stuart Clark,
Thinking with Demons (Oxford, 1997), the most recent study of the entire literature.
Interested readers should also, of course, check the relevant sections of the massive work of Lynn
Thorndike,  A History of Magic and Experimental Science, 8 vols. (New York,
1923-1958), although the opinions of Hansen, Lea, and Thorndike on particular matters need to
be read with caution in the light of more recent scholarship.  Where no English translation exists,
the relevant pages of Hansen and Lea will be cited. These authors and others will also usually be
found in the index to Clark, whose bibliography and index are exhaustive.