Claude Pithoys

Abstract

A belief in the Devil was as fundamental to seventeenth century religion as a belief in God. When Sir Thomas Browne wrote that he knew that witches existed,¹ he was not being arch but merely expressed the common belief of the age which could be both rational and thaumaturgical at one and the same time. Reason and mysticism were not thought of by the majority as opposites, but rather as complementary parts of knowledge or as different facets of the same truth. To deny the Devil was atheistic, and reasonable arguments could be adduced to prove the point. Exorcisms were therefore common and important events and, although the actual ritual which accompanied them was a specifically Roman catholic function, the underlying theological implications were common to both catholic and protestant interpretations of the faith. We may quote in substantiation of this point the Devils of Loudun and the Witches of Salem, which have both furnished modern authors with material to illustrate the folly of persecution and “witch-hunting” - manifestations alike of fear and mass hysteria.² It is against this background that the case of Claude Pithoys must be judged, although it was a little earlier than either of the famous episodes quoted above.