Demonolatry. Compendium Maleficarum. Two Volume Set

Demonolatry by Nicolas Remy, first published in 1595, and Compendium Maleficarum by Francesco Maria Guazzo, are the two books which played a significant part in the great witchcraft persecutions during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. These two works were the leading witchcraft handbooks of their day, and were the guides used by the authorities of the church and lawyers in the definition of witchcraft, and prosecution and punishment. In modern times there has been much scholarly discussion about the true nature of witchcraft in those dreadful centuries. Were there really witch covens, with worship of the Devil? Did witches possess supernatural powers? Was witchcraft simply a remnant of pagan religion? Or was the whole thing a gigantic invention of the Christian church, an illusion supported by hysterical confessions extracted under unbearable tortures? It is now clear that it must have been a mixture of all these things.

Text: English, Latin (translation)