Evil by Any Other Name: Defining Witchcraft

Abstract

Over a hundred years ago, Cologne archivist Joseph Hansen essayed an answer to the question of the origins of witch hunting in Europe.¹ Hansen argued that the late medieval Inquisition essentially invented the witch doctrine: the idea of the diabolic witch who had forged a pact with the Devil and sealed it with her flesh, who flew through the night to the witches’ sabbath, was the sworn enemy of ordinary society, and together with an invisible legion of other witches exercised her undying malice through individual acts of evil magic. This witch doctrine was expressed clearly in Heinrich Kramer’s infamous Malleus Maleficarum of 1486, but had already coalesced in trials and demonology by 1440. Although Hansen’s thesis has been much revised and the roles of popular ideas and secular courts have since been emphasized, an examination of the events between 1420 and 1440 lends much strength to his contention. Three interrelated events in particular, in the western Alpine region, bear examination in this regard. The first is a series of heresy trials in Fribourg, a persecution of Waldensians which metamorphosed into witch trials. The second is the anonymous Errores Gazariorum, a manuscript that is one of the earliest known articulations of the composite doctrine of the diabolic witch. The third is a series of witch trials in the area of Lausanne.