public sentiment, and even now and then an open though unpublished
deprecation. It has long struck the attention of historians that,
even in witch-ridden Germany, the great imperial city of Nuremberg
seems free from the persecution. Its criminal code was the Carolina;
yet a contemporary manuscript copy of its executioner’s records,
from 1600 to 1692, in the possession of the President White Library,
shows not a single execution for witchcraft proper. I hold in my
hand a document--so far as I know unprinted, and certainly unknown
to the historians of witchcraft--which may partially explain this.
It is a manuscript, in a sixteenth century hand, on whose cover I
read, “Der Nürnbergischen Theologen Ainhellige Antwort, über etliche
Puncten, die Unhulden betreffent”; and at the head of its first page,
more explicitly, “Ainhellige Antwort der Hochgelerten Theologi unnd
Predicanten zu Nürnberg: auff die Suplication des Raths zu Weisenburg
an die Eltern herren dess geheimen Raths alhie zu Nürnberg: umb
unterichtung: Wie sie sich mit iren Hexen undt Unhulden verhalden
sollen, unnd wass in Göttlicher heiliger Schrifft darvon gegründett
sey.” At the end are the signatures of the six pastors of Nuremberg,
and the date--1590. Through thirty weary pages the city clergy wrestle
with the problem set them; and superstitious enough seems their answer.
They believe fully in witchcraft and in its punishment--nay, they
establish both in all their horrible detail out of Holy Writ. And yet
(the influence of the canon _Episcopi_ is clearly not dead, even for
Protestants) they deny that the witches can transform themselves, or
ride through the air, or cause wind or hail-storm; all this is mere
illusion. And so do they fence about the prescribed procedure with
their cautions against trusting the testimony of the witches themselves
or the word of the executioner or charges against persons of else
unblemished reputation; that, seeing the most prolific sources of the
spread of the persecution thus cut off, one no longer wonders, if such
were the spirit of even her theologians, at Nuremberg’s own immunity.
[87] “Instructio pro formandis processibus in causis strigum,
sortilegiorum, et maleficiorum,” Rome, 1657.
[88] In his “Philosophical considerations touching witches and
witchcraft,” 1666, which, enlarged, was reprinted (1668) as “A blow at
modern sadducism,” and (1681) as “Sadducismus triumphatus.”
[89] In his “Select cases of conscience touching witches and
witchcraft,” 1646. I have not seen the book, and copy its title from
Wright (“Narratives of sorcery and witchcraft”).
[90] In his “An advertisement to the jurymen of England, touching
witches,” London, 1653.
[91] In his “A candle in the dark; or, A treatise concerning the nature
of witches and witchcraft,” London, 1656.
[92] In his “The question of witchcraft debated; or, A discourse
against their opinion that affirm witches,” London, 1669.
[93] In his “The displaying of supposed witchcraft,” London, 1677.
[94] And if it surprise any that, in a paper before the American
Historical Association, I say nothing of the literature of American
witchcraft, I can reply only that it seemed to me a work of
supererogation, if not an impertinence, to treat that literature in
this presence with the brevity its place in the history of the delusion
would demand.
[95] In his “Tribunal reformatum,” Hamburg, 1624.
[96] That Thomasius was himself their author was, indeed, clearly
stated in a letter appended to the “Theses,” wherein he says to
the respondent: ...“_In chartam conjeci breves has Theses, quae in
perlectione prolixioris dissertationis Tuae in mentem venerunt._”...
They were published the next year (and often thereafter) in German
translation, under his own name, as “Kurtze Lehr-Sätze von dem Laster
der Zauberey.” But this was only a beginning of Thomasius’ share in
the crusade. He gathered, or led his students to gather, all that
could be found written against the persecution (among the rest Spee’s
book) and issued it afresh in German; he translated, with preface of
his own, every new book upon it that appeared abroad; he encouraged
his pupils to discuss it in their dissertations, or did so in their
names; he assailed it in lecture and review and editorial; and he kept
up the warfare till his death. An utterance of his even earlier than
the “Theses” I find in his “Dissertatio ad Petri Poireti libros de
Eruditione,” 1694 (reprinted in his “Programmata Thomasiana,” 1724),
where he already takes strong ground against the persecution, though
not wholly against the superstition.
[97] “Disputatio juris canonici de origine ac progressu processus
inquisitorii contra sagas, quam ... praeside Dn. Christiano Thomasio
... subjicit ... Johannes Paulus Ipsen.” That Thomasius, and not
Ipsen, is its author, is abundantly clear from internal evidence; and
Thomasius himself claims it as his own in subsequent writings. We have,
by the way, from Thomasius’s own lips (in his “Programma invitatorium”
to “Dodecas quaestionum promiscuarum,” Halle, 1694--cited by A.
Roquette in the _Centralblatt für Bibliothekswesen_, 1887), an ironical
discussion of this prevalent fashion of writing for one’s pupils
disputations which one afterward collected and published under one’s
own name. “Neque falsum committitur,” he thinks, “dum quis se auctorem
scribit disputationis, cujus nec lineam saepius elaboravit, saepius nec
intelligit.”
[98] “An historical essay concerning witchcraft,” London, 1718.
[99] “Bibliotheca, acta et scripta magica: Gründliche Nachrichten und
Urtheile von solchen Büchern und Handlungen, welche die Macht des
Teufels in leiblichen Dingen betreffen,” Lemgo, 1739-45.
[100] “Versuch einer Geschichte der Hexenprozesse,” i., Berlin, 1784.
It unfortunately remained a fragment--in fact, as the author himself
calls it, only an introduction.
[101] In the “literarisch-kritischer Anhang über die Quellen und
Bearbeitungen der Hexenprozesse,” appended to his little study on “Die
gegenwärtige Wiederbelebung des Hexenglaubens” (Berlin, 1875).
Transcriber’s Note:
The footnotes have been relocated to the end of the main text and
renumbered to better fit the ebook format.
Spelling and hyphenation in common use at the time of publication have
been kept as is. Obvious typos have been corrected.
The following change has been made:
- In footnote 75: sortilége to sortilège