Littérature scientifique sur le sujet « Demonology – Europe – History »

Witchcraft prosecutions in Europe rose dramatically during the late sixteenth century, peaked in the middle third of the seventeenth century, and declined rapidly thereafter, gradually ceasing altogether by the end of the eighteenth century. The rise was driven by the dissemination of the late-medieval demonology and the “scissors effect” of rising population and constricting resources; the peak reflected the governing elite's “crisis of confidence” in the prosecutions and the demonology. The trials ended because the elite's skepticism about the magnitude of the threat posed by witchcraft gave way to disbelief in the power of magic altogether. The “crisis of confidence” manifested not only the victory of a long-standing tradition of skepticism and contemporary experience with the cruelty and injustices of the trials but also changes in popular behaviors and practices that the trials brought about. The growing acceptance of the new mechanical philosophy was less a cause than a consequence of the decline of witchcraft.

Jeffrey Anderson, German Unification and the Union of Europe (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999)Thomas Banchoff, The German Problem Transformed: Institutions, Politics and Foreign Policy, 1945-1995 (Ann Arbor, Michigan: University of Michigan Press, 1999)

Prior to Bram Stoker's Dracula, vampires were never represented in literature as reanimated or ‘undead’ humans capable of transforming into bats. The source of Stoker's innovation may be traced to his personal acquaintance Sir Richard Francis Burton, who in his adaptation of a South Asian anthology of ‘Gothic’ tales of horror and adventure had identified its hero's antagonist, called a vetāla in Sanskrit, as both a male vampire and a giant bat. This article surveys a number of ancient, medieval, and early modern Asian and European precursors of Stoker's vampire lore, noting that unlike Stoker's shape-shifting Transylvanian Count, predatory ‘vampires’ were most often female in gender in these traditions, and their victims male; and reviews the shifting interface between the taxonomical and cultural categories of ‘vampire’ and ‘bat’ in Europe, Asia, and the Americas.

Abstract This article enhances our understanding of the development and dynamism of early modern witch stereotypes by focusing on the stereotype of the witch-cleric, the Christian minister imagined by early modern people as working for the devil instead of God, baptizing people into witchcraft, working harmful magic and even officiating at witches’ gatherings. I show how this stereotype first developed in relation to Catholic clerics in demonology, print culture and witch-trials, then examine its emergence in relation to Protestant clerics in Germany and beyond, using case studies of pastors from the Lutheran territory of Rothenburg ob der Tauber from 1639 and 1692 to explore these ideas in detail. I also offer a broader comparison of beliefs about Protestant witch-clerics and their susceptibility to formal prosecution with their Catholic counterparts in early modern Germany, showing that cases involving Protestant witch-clerics were part of a cross-confessional phenomenon that is best understood in a comparative, Europe-wide perspective. In addition to showing how the witch-cleric stereotype changed over time and spread geographically, I conclude by arguing that three distinct variants of this stereotype had emerged by the seventeenth century: the Catholic ‘witch-priest’ and Protestant ‘witch-pastor’ (who were supposedly witches themselves) and the overzealous clerical ‘witch-master’, who was thought to do the devil’s work by helping persecute innocent people for witchcraft. Despite these stereotypes, however, relatively few clerics of either confession were tried and executed as witches; overall, patriarchy worked to protect men of the cloth from the worst excesses of witch persecution.

Jewish mystical and magical texts are remarkably relevant to some of the most central historiographical themes of early modern Europe; they are also remarkably esoteric and confounding to any nonspecialist. Providing a remedy to this incongruity, J. H. Chajes makes a major contribution to both Jewish and general early modern historiography with his first book, on Jewish spirit possession and exorcism. His work offers a useful narrative of the development of Jewish exorcism traditions, presenting the complex subject in terms that make it more approachable without over-simplification. At the same time, Chajes lends the material depth and relevance through sensitive analysis of the chronologically and geographically local circumstances of the most significant early modern treatments of the phenomenon. The appendix alone would be an offering of some significance, consisting of eleven original translations of early modern accounts of spirit possession, and this quality of presenting important raw material runs throughout the volume. Competent and detailed legwork is evident in the exposition of various exorcists' techniques from the ancient world and Middle Ages, through Luria's unique methods in sixteenth-century Safed, and up to later seventeenth-century attitudes to possession and demonology. Much of this material is in the first chapter, “The Emergence of Dybbuk Possession,” which argues that “there was something new in the sixteenth century” as a long percolation of diverse traditions culminated in the formation of the “classic” view of the dybbuk in a period of unprecedented frequency of possession and exorcism events.

MAGIC, SCIENCE, AND RELIGION IN EARLY MODERN EUROPE by Mark A. Waddell. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2021. x + 220 pages, including an annotated bibliography and index. Paperback; $25.99. ISBN: 9781108441650. *For decades, it has been commonplace among historians of science to recognize the essential interconnections between Christianity and the early origins of the natural sciences, even if some non-historians continue to struggle to relinquish the more titillating revival of a conflict between them. The reality is that the social and intellectual history of theology and natural philosophy have vast overlapping boundaries. The history of the modern natural sciences is no less continuous with the ideas and practices of magic, alchemy, and astrology. While Enlightenment sensibilities chafe at the notion, historical research, much in the same vein as studies in "Science and Religion," is incontestable. Mark A. Waddell's brief introduction to the subject quickly brings the reader into this consensus without sacrificing the nuance needed to avoid oversimplification. *The strongest chapters are in the first half of the book, where Waddell introduces the Renaissance interest in Hermetic philosophy (chap. 1), then newly discovered among ancient texts (though not so ancient as they were first thought to be). The author proves to be a practiced communicator, able to simplify and condense a range of philosophical principles. He also succeeds in connecting philosophies with the perennial social problems and questions of ordinary human experience. In this way, he is consistent with a long line of scholars writing on the subject, from Keith Thomas's, Religion and the Decline of Magic (1971) forward. The subject of witchcraft and demonology (chap. 2) is treated as the manifestation of social anxieties within European culture more generally. *The broadest principle of magic is covered in chapter 3, "Magic, Medicine, and the Microcosm," in which Waddell explains the overarching analogy between the greater universe out there and our mundane existence down here. This forms the basis for both astrology-based medicine (noting concordances between either herbs or organs with their astrological counterparts and using them to heal) or judicial astrology, which sought to understand the past and map the future by virtue of astrological motions. And Waddell presents this as a normal part of early-modern thinking among churchmen and commoners alike. *The second half of the book covers topics which may be more easily recognized as parts of modern natural science: Galileo, Copernicus, Boyle, and Newton. Chapter 4, "A New Cosmos," uses a most creative and pedagogically sensitive introduction to the radical proposal of a world system in which the earth is not motionless and at the center of the universe. Waddell uses the demotion of Pluto from planetary status in 2006 and the subsequent public backlash, and asks the reader to imagine, a fortiori, how the public might react to an even greater disruption of received astronomical dogma, however empirically informed. Waddell returns again in chapter 5, "Looking for God in the Cosmic Machine," to ancient philosophy, showing how Epicurean atomism presented an old philosophical problem anew in the philosophies of René Descartes and Pierre Gassendi, focusing on the question of the nature of the soul. Here the continuity of ancient and new philosophies is maintained, illustrating the ongoing development and connected history between modern natural science, magic, and religion. *That continuity might have been better represented with more emphasis on the philosophy of Aristotle and scholasticism. While Aristotle's philosophy is discussed in several places throughout the book, such as in the discussion above on the soul, a dedicated chapter would have been appropriate given the dominance of Aristotle in Western intellectual culture from the end of the thirteenth century through the end of the seventeenth. This weakness of the book was evident in chapter 6 in the section on Francis Bacon and the inductive method. Waddell says, "Bacon founded his ideas about experience and experiment on what is known as inductive reasoning, or induction … In choosing to focus on singular observations, Bacon was of course doing exactly what Aristotle taught his students not to do" (p. 166). *Aristotle never gave such instruction. In fact, Aristotle describes induction in his Posterior Analytics, Book I, in the first sentence: "All teaching and learning of an intellectual kind proceed from pre-existent knowledge … Similarly with arguments, both deductive and inductive: they effect their teaching through what we already know, the former assuming items which we are presumed to grasp, the latter proving something universal by way of the fact that the particular cases are plain" (Barnes translation, 1975). *Waddell misses that Bacon's emphasis on induction was not novel except in emphasis. The new science was an extension of old principles newly revived. *This introduction closes with a coda, extending briefly into the Enlightenment. This section is handled a little too quickly, but well enough to present some of the subtleties necessary to link it to its past. Not only does he present how Enlightenment intellectuals were embarrassed by Newton's alchemical adventures, but how the mechanical forces of modern science themselves still betray underlying occult qualities that formerly traveled under other names. *The author often used the word "problematic" (over twenty times) throughout the book: for example, in the sentence, "It is important to note that, however problematic the idea of a mechanical universe might have been, it did not disappear." The author uses the word so often, it is unclear if he merely means something less specific, like "challenging," as in "difficult to absorb" in one's concepts of the natural world, or more narrowly as something that violates social and political norms. Since Waddell in other places in the book seeks to contextualize these events of four hundred years ago within a modern idiom, it is at least plausible that he wishes us to connect the intensity of the social dramas of today with those past events. If so, an explicit recognition of that would have been helpful to the reader. *This book is suitable for an undergraduate course in the history of science, especially if flanked by primary source readings under the guidance of the instructor. A person with no background in the subject would also find this an accessible entry point into the subject, from which they could move on to more detailed studies, such as those noted in the bibliography. *Reviewed by Jason M. Rampelt, History of Science and Medicine Archivist, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15260.

Isaac Bashev is Singer cherished the short story because, in his opinion, it provided a considerably greater opportunity for perfection than the novel did. His stories, however, rarely exhibit the meticu-lous craftsmanship of a conscious craftsman; instead, they flow effortlessly, often mindlessly, without any sense of manipulation. Indeed, Singer’s work derives from a rich oral storytelling tradition that has been thriving for generations throughout Eastern Europe. As the de facto historian of the Jewish experience in the twentieth century, Singer opts to ignore the Holocaust and the six million European Jews who were killed by Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich. Since he doesn’t think a simple storyteller could ever convey a tale this awful and unintelligible, he instead evokes it by describing the civilization it wiped out in detail and the scattered melancholy it left behind. Singer’s protagonists, like the Jewish people as a whole, face unfathomable atrocities and fight with their identity in a changing world. They must decide whether to give up or endure. The person in their family, neighborhood, and world is eventually the person in their universe, frequently by themselves with the supernatural forces that rule it. Singer uses a variety of Jewish mysticism and demonology to embellish and draw from to personify these forces and their impact on the human condition. In this research paper, I tried to anlyze the element of this Jewish mysticism in some of his popular works. Isaac Bashevis Singer was a Polish-born American Jewish author who first authored and published in Yiddish before translating himself into English with the assistance of editors and collaborators.

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(Thomas Fuchs, Leipzig) Mariotte, Jean-Yves, Philipp der Großmütige von Hessen (1504 – 1567). Fürstlicher Reformator und Landgraf, übers. v. Sabine Albrecht (Veröffentlichungen der Historischen Kommission für Hessen, 24; Quellen und Darstellungen zur Geschichte des Landgrafen Philipp des Großmütigen, 10), Marburg 2018, Historische Kommission für Hessen, 301 S. / Abb., € 28,00. (Thomas Fuchs, Leipzig) Doll, Eberhard, Der Theologe und Schriftsteller Friedrich Dedekind (1524/25 – 1598). Eine Biographie. Mit einem Beitrag von Britta-Juliane Kruse zu Dedekinds geistlichen Spielen und der Erstedition der „Hochtzeit zu Cana in Galilea“ (Wolfenbütteler Forschungen, 145), Wiesbaden 2018, Harrassowitz in Kommission, 623 S. / Abb., € 92,00. (Julia Zech, Sarstedt) Bullinger, Heinrich, Tigurinerchronik, 3 Teilbde., hrsg. v. Hans U. Bächtold (Werke. Vierte Abteilung: Historische Schriften, 1), Zürich 2018, Theologischer Verlag Zürich, XXVII u. 1388 S. (Teilbde. 1 u. 2); V u. 425 S. / Abb. (Teilbd. 3), € 450,00. (Volker Leppin, Tübingen) Francisco de Vitoria, De iustitia / Über die Gerechtigkeit, Teil 1 u. 2, hrsg., eingel. u. ins Deutsche übers. v. Joachim Stüben, mit Einleitungen v. Thomas Duve (Teil 1) bzw. Tilman Repgen (Teil 2) (Politische Philosophie und Rechtstheorie des Mittelalters und der Neuzeit, Reihe I: Texte, 3 bzw. 4), Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt 2013 bzw. 2017, Frommann-Holzboog, CXII u. 191 S. bzw. CIX u. 355 S., € 168,00 bzw. € 188,00. (Nils Jansen, Münster) Der Portulan-Atlas des Battista Agnese. Das Kasseler Prachtexemplar von 1542, hrsg., eingel. u. komm. v. Ingrid Baumgärtner, Darmstadt 2017, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 144 S. / Abb., € 99,95. (Christoph Mauntel, Tübingen) Brevaglieri, Sabina / Matthias Schnettger (Hrsg.), Transferprozesse zwischen dem Alten Reich und Italien im 17. Jahrhundert. Wissenskonfigurationen – Akteure – Netzwerke (Mainzer Historische Kulturwissenschaften, 29), Bielefeld 2018, transcript, 341 S. / Abb., € 39,99. (Christiane Liermann, Como) Asmussen, Tina, Scientia Kircheriana. Die Fabrikation von Wissen bei Athanasius Kircher (Kulturgeschichten, 2), Affalterbach 2016, Didymos-Verlag, 220 S. / Abb., € 39,00. (Mona Garloff, Stuttgart / Wien) Schlegelmilch, Sabine, Ärztliche Praxis und sozialer Raum im 17. Jahrhundert. Johannes Magirus (1615 – 1697), Wien / Köln / Weimar 2018, Böhlau, 352 S. / Abb., € 50,00. (Pierre Pfütsch, Stuttgart) Félicité, Indravati, Das Königreich Frankreich und die norddeutschen Hansestädte und Herzogtümer (1650 – 1730). Diplomatie zwischen ungleichen Partnern, übers. aus dem Französischen v. Markus Hiltl (Quellen und Darstellungen zur hansischen Geschichte. Neue Folge, 75), Köln / Weimar / Wien 2017, Böhlau, 439 S., € 60,00. (Guido Braun, Mulhouse) Renault, Rachel, La permanence de l’extraordinaire. Fiscalité, pouvoirs et monde social en Allemagne aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles (Histoire moderne, 57), Paris 2017, Éditions de la Sorbonne, 389 S. / Abb., € 25,00. (Claire Gantet, Fribourg) Godsey, William D., The Sinews of Habsburg Power. Lower Austria in a Fiscal-Military State 1650 – 1820, Oxford 2018, Oxford University Press, XX u. 460 S. / Abb., £ 90,00. (Simon Karstens, Trier) Riotte, Andrea, Diese so oft beseufzte Parität. Biberach 1649 – 1825: Politik – Konfession – Alltag (Veröffentlichungen der Kommission für geschichtliche Landeskunde in Baden-Württemberg. Reihe B: Forschungen, 213), Stuttgart 2017, Kohlhammer, LII u. 779 S., € 64,00. (Stephanie Armer, Nürnberg) Müller, Andreas, Die Ritterschaft im Herzogtum Westfalen 1651 – 1803. Aufschwörung, innere Struktur und Prosopographie (Veröffentlichungen der Historischen Kommission für Westfalen. Neue Folge, 34), Münster 2017, Aschendorff, 744 S. / Abb., € 69,00. (Nicolas Rügge, Hannover) Lange, Johan, Die Gefahren der akademischen Freiheit. Ratgeberliteratur für Studenten im Zeitalter der Aufklärung (1670 – 1820) (Beihefte der Francia, 84), Ostfildern 2017, Thorbecke, 339 S., € 45,00. (Andreas Erb, Dessau) Schwerhoff, Gerd, Köln im Ancien Régime. 1686 – 1794 (Geschichte der Stadt Köln, 7), Köln 2017, Greven, XIV u. 552 S. / Abb., € 60,00. (Patrick Schmidt, Rostock) James, Leonie, „This Great Firebrand“. William Laud and Scotland, 1617 – 1645 (Studies in Modern British Religious History, 36), Woodbridge / Rochester 2017, The Boydell Press, XIV u. 195 S., £ 60,00. (Martin Foerster, Hamburg) Campbell, Alexander D., The Life and Works of Robert Baillie (1602 – 1662). Politics, Religion and Record-Keeping in the British Civil Wars (St. Andrews Studies in Scottish History, 6), Woodbridge / Rochester 2017, The Boydell Press, IX u. 259 S., £ 75,00. (Ronald G. Asch, Freiburg i. Br.) Parrish, David, Jacobitism and Anti-Jacobitism in the British Atlantic World, 1688 – 1727 (Studies in History. New Series), Woodbridge / Rochester 2017, The Boydell Press, X u. 189 S., £ 50,00. (Ronald G. Asch, Freiburg i. Br.) Graham, Aaron / Patrick Walsh (Hrsg.), The British Fiscal-Military State, 1660 – c. 1783, London / New York 2016, Routledge, XI u. 290 S. / Abb., £ 80,00. (Torsten Riotte, Frankfurt a. M.) Hoppit, Julian, Britain’s Political Economies. Parliament and Economic Life, 1660 – 1800, Cambridge 2017, Cambridge University Press, XXII u. 391 S. / graph. Darst., £ 22,99. (Justus Nipperdey, Saarbrücken) Talbot, Michael, British-Ottoman Relations, 1661 – 1807. Commerce and Diplomatic Practice in Eighteenth-Century Istanbul, Woodbridge / Rochester 2017, The Boydell Press, XIII u. 256 S. / graph. Darst., £ 70,00. (Christine Vogel, Vechta) Niggemann, Ulrich, Revolutionserinnerung in der Frühen Neuzeit. Refigurationen der „Glorious Revolution“ in Großbritannien (1688 – 1760) (Veröffentlichungen des Deutsche Historischen Instituts London, 79), Berlin / Boston 2017, de Gruyter, XII u. 653 S. / Abb., € 64,95. (Georg Eckert, Wuppertal) Ducheyne, Steffen (Hrsg.), Reassessing the Radical Enlightenment, London / New York 2017, Routledge, XII u. 318 S., £ 32,99. (Bettina Dietz, Hongkong) Lehner, Ulrich (Hrsg.), Women, Enlightenment and Catholicism. A Transnational Biographical History, London / New York 2018, Routledge, XI u. 236 S. / Abb., £ 100,00. (Elisabeth Fischer, Hamburg) Möller, Horst / Claus Scharf / Wassili Dudarew / Maja Lawrinowitsch (Hrsg.), Deutschland – Russland. Stationen gemeinsamer Geschichte, Orte der Erinnerung, Bd. 1: Das 18. Jahrhundert, Berlin / Boston 2018, de Gruyter Oldenbourg, 410 S. / Abb., € 29,95. (Martina Winkler, Kiel) Bittner, Anja, Eine königliche Mission. Der französisch-jakobitische Invasionsversuch von 1708 im europäischen Kontext (Schriften des Frühneuzeitzentrums Potsdam, 6), Göttingen 2017, V&R unipress, 277 S., € 45,00. (Torsten Riotte, Frankfurt a.M.) Schmidt-Voges, Inken / Ana Crespo Solana (Hrsg.), New Worlds? Transformations in the Culture of International Relations around the Peace of Utrecht, London / New York 2017, Routledge, IX u. 232 S., £ 105,00. (Anuschka Tischer, Würzburg) Mager, Ria, Zwischen Legitimation und Inspektion. Die Rheinlandreise Napoleon Bonapartes im Jahre 1804 (Konsulat und Kaiserreich, 4), Frankfurt a. M. [u. a.] 2016, Lang, 330 S., € 61,95. (Josef Johannes Schmid, Mainz)

Art Imitating ArtThis article discusses the global, historical and literary references that are present in the video game franchise Bayonetta. In particular, references to Dante’s Divine Comedy, the works of Dr John Dee, and European traditions of witchcraft are examined. Bayonetta is modern in the sense that she is a woman of the world. Her character shows how history and literature may be used, re-used, and evolve into new formats, and how modern games travel abroad through time and space.Drawing creative inspiration from other works is nothing new. Ideas and themes, art and literature are frequently borrowed and recast. Carmel Cedro cites Northrop Frye in the example of William Shakespeare and Charles Dickens. These writers created stories and characters that have developed a level of acclaim and resonated with many individuals, resulting in countless homages over the years. The forms that these appropriations take vary widely. Media formats, such as film adaptations and even books, take the core characters or narrative from the original and re-work them into a different context. For example, the novel Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson published in 1883 was adapted into the 2002 Walt Disney animated film Treasure Planet. The film maintained the concepts of the original narrative and retained key characters but re-imaged them to fit the science fiction genre (Clements and Musker).The video-game franchise Bayonetta draws inspiration from distinct sources creating the foundation for the universe and some plot points to enhance the narrative. The main sources are Dante’s Divine Comedy, the projections of John Dee and his mystical practices as well as the medieval history of witches.The Vestibule: The Concept of BayonettaFigure 1: Bayonetta Concept ArtBayonetta ConceptsThe concept of Bayonetta was originally developed by video game designer Hideki Kamiya, known previously for his work including The Devil May Cry and the Resident Evil game series. The development of Bayonetta began with Kamiya requesting a character design that included three traits: a female lead, a modern witch, and four guns. This description laid the foundations for what was to become the hack and slash fantasy heroine that would come to be known as Bayonetta. "Abandon all hope ye who enter here"The Divine Comedy, written by Dante Alighieri during the 1300s, was a revolutionary piece of literature for its time, in that it was one of the first texts that formalised the vernacular Italian language by omitting the use of Latin, the academic language of the time. Dante’s work was also revolutionary in its innovative contemplations on religion, art and sciences, creating a literary collage of such depth that it would continue to inspire hundreds of years after its first publication.Figure 2: Domenico di Michelino’s fresco of Dante and his Divine Comedy, surrounded by depictions of scenes in the textBayonetta explores the themes of The Divine Comedy in a variety of ways, using them as an obvious backdrop, along with subtle homages and references scattered throughout the game. The world of Bayonetta is set in the Trinity of Realities, three realms that co-exist forming the universe: Inferno, Paradiso and the Chaos realm—realm of humans—and connected by Purgitorio—the intersection of the trinity. In the game, Bayonetta travels throughout these realms, primarily in the realm of Purgitorio, the area in which magical and divine entities may conduct their business. However, there are stages within the game where Bayonetta finds herself in Paradiso and the human realm. This is a significant factor relating to The Divine Comedy as these realms also form the areas explored by Dante in his epic poem. The depth of these parallels is not exclusive to factors in Dante’s masterpiece, as there are also references to other art and literature inspired by Dante’s legacy. For example, the character Rodin in Bayonetta runs a bar named “The Gates of Hell.” In 1917 French artist Auguste Rodin completed a sculpture, The Gates of Hell depicting scenes and characters from The Divine Comedy. Rodin’s bar in Bayonetta is manifested as a dark impressionist style of architecture, with an ominous atmosphere. In early concept art, the proprietor of the bar was to be named Mephisto (Kamiya) derived from “Mephistopheles”, another name for the devil in some mythologies. Figure 3: Auguste Rodin's Gate of Hell, 1917Aspects of Dante’s surroundings and the theological beliefs of his time can be found in Bayonetta, as well as in the 2013 anime film adaptation Bayonetta, Bloody Fate. The Christian virtues, revered during the European Middle Ages, manifest themselves as enemies and adversaries that Bayonetta must combat throughout the game. Notably, the names of the cardinal virtues serve as “boss ranked” foes. Enemies within a game, usually present at the end of a level and more difficult to defeat than regular enemies within “Audito Sphere” of the “Laguna Hierarchy” (high levels of the hierarchy within the game), are named in Italian; Fortitudo, Temperantia, Lustitia, and Sapientia. These are the virtues of Classical Greek Philosophy, and reflect Dante’s native language as well as the impact the philosophies of Ancient Greece had on his writings. The film adaption of Bayonetta incorporated many elements from the game. To adjust the game effectively, it was necessary to augment the plot in order to fit the format of this alternate media. As it was no longer carried by gameplay, the narrative became paramount. The diverse plot points of the new narrative allowed for novel possibilities for further developing the role of The Divine Comedy in Bayonetta. At the beginning of the movie, for example, Bayonetta enters as a nun, just as she does in the game, only here she is in church praying rather than in a graveyard conducting a funeral. During her prayer she recites “I am the way into the city of woe, abandon all hope, oh, ye who enter here,” which is a Canto of The Divine Comedy. John Dee and the AngelsDr John Dee (1527—1608), a learned man of Elizabethan England, was a celebrated philosopher, mathematician, scientist, historian, and teacher. In addition, he was a researcher of magic and occult arts, as were many of his contemporaries. These philosopher magicians were described as Magi and John Dee was the first English Magus (French). He was part of a school of study within the Renaissance intelligensia that was influenced by the then recently discovered works of the gnostic Hermes Trismegistus, thought to be of great antiquity. This was in an age when religion, philosophy and science were intertwined. Alchemy and chemistry were still one, and astronomers, such as Johannes Kepler and Tyco Brahe cast horoscopes. John Dee engaged in spiritual experiments that were based in his Christian faith but caused him to be viewed in some circles as dangerously heretical (French).Based on the texts of Hermes Trismegistas and other later Christian philosophical and theological writers such as Dionysius the Areopagite, Dee and his contemporaries believed in celestial hierarchies and levels of existence. These celestial hierarchies could be accessed by “real artificial magic,” or applied science, that included mathematics, and the cabala, or the mystical use of permutations of Hebrew texts, to access supercelestial powers (French). In his experiments in religious magic, Dee was influenced by the occult writings of Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa (1486—1535). In Agrippa’s book, De Occulta Philosophia, there are descriptions for seals, symbols and tables for summoning angels, to which Dee referred in his accounts of his own magic experiments (French). Following his studies, Dee constructed a table with a crystal placed on it. By use of suitable rituals prescribed by Agrippa and others, Dee believed he summoned angels within the crystal, who could be seen and conversed with. Dee did not see these visions himself, but conversed with the angels through a skryer, or medium, who saw and heard the celestial beings. Dee recorded his interviews in his “Spiritual Diaries” (French). Throughout Bayonetta there are numerous seals and devices that would appear to be inspired by the work of Dee or other Renaissance Magi.In these sessions, John Dee, through his skryer Edward Kelley, received instruction from several angels. The angels led him to believe he was to be a prophet in the style of the biblical Elijah or, more specifically like Enoch, whose prophesies were detailed in an ancient book that was not part of the Bible, but was considered by many scholars as divinely inspired. As a result, these experiments have been termed “Enochian conversations.” The prophesies received by Dee foretold apocalyptic events that were to occur soon and God’s plan for the world. The angels also instructed Dee in a system of magic to allow him to interpret the prophesies and participate in them as a form of judge. Importantly, Dee was also taught elements of the supposed angelic language, which came to be known as “Enochian” (Ouellette). Dee wrote extensively about his interviews with the angels and includes statements of their hierarchy (French, Ouellette). This is reflected in the “Laguna Hierarchy” of Bayonetta, sharing similarities in name and appearance of the angels Dee had described. Platinum Games creative director Jean-Pierre Kellams acted as writer and liaison, assisting the English adaptation of Bayonetta and was tasked by Hideki Kamiya to develop Bayonetta’s incantations and subsequently the language of the angels within the game (Kellams).The Hammer of WitchesOne of the earliest and most integral components of the Bayonetta franchise is the fact that the title character is a witch. Witches, sorcerers and other practitioners of magic have been part of folklore for centuries. Hideki Kamiya stated that the concept of” classical witches” was primarily a European legend. In order to emulate this European dimension, he had envisioned Bayonetta as having a British accent which resulted in the game being released in English first, even though Platinum Games is a Japanese company (Kamiya). The Umbra Witch Clan hails from Europe within the Bayonetta Universe and relates more closely to the traditional European medieval witch tradition (Various), although some of the charms Bayonetta possesses acknowledge the witches of different parts of the world and their cultural context. The Evil Harvest Rosary is said to have been created by a Japanese witch in the game. Bayonetta herself and other witches of the game use their hair as a conduit to summon demons and is known as “wicked weaves” within the game. She also creates her tight body suit out of her hair, which recedes when she decides to use a wicked weave. Using hair in magic harks back to a legend that witches often utilised hair in their rituals and spell casting (Guiley). It is also said that women with long and beautiful hair were particularly susceptible to being seduced by Incubi, a form of demon that targets sleeping women for sexual intercourse. According to some texts (Kramer), witches formed into the beings that they are through consensual sex with a devil, as stated in Malleus Maleficarum of the 1400s, when he wrote that “Modern Witches … willingly embrace this most foul and miserable form of servitude” (Kramer). Bayonetta wields her sexuality as proficiently as she does any weapon. This lends itself to the belief that women of such a seductive demeanour were consorts to demons.Purgitorio is not used in the traditional sense of being a location of the afterlife, as seen in The Divine Comedy, rather it is depicted as a dimension that exists concurrently within the human realm. Those who exist within this Purgitorio cannot be seen with human eyes. Bayonetta’s ability to enter and exit this space with the use of magic is likened to the myth that witches were known to disappear for periods of time and were purported to be “spirited away” from the human world (Kamiya).Recipes for gun powder emerge from as early as the 1200s but, to avoid charges of witchcraft due to superstitions of the time, they were hidden by inventors such as Roger Bacon (McNab). The use of “Bullet Arts” in Bayonetta as the main form of combat for Umbra Witches, and the fact that these firearm techniques had been honed by witches for centuries before the witch hunts, implies that firearms were indeed used by dark magic practitioners until their “discovery” by ordinary humans in the Bayonetta universe. In addition to this, that “Lumen Sages” are not seen to practice bullet arts, builds on the idea of guns being a practice of black magic. “Lumen Sages” are the Light counterpart and adversaries of the Umbra Witches in Bayonetta. The art of Alchemy is incorporated into Bayonetta as a form of witchcraft. Players may create their own health, vitality, protective and mana potions through a menu screen. This plays on the taboo of chemistry and alchemy of the 1500s. As mentioned, John Dee's tendency to dabble in such practices was considered by some to be heretical (French, Ouellette).Light and dark forces are juxtaposed in Bayonetta through the classic adversaries, Angels and Demons. The moral flexibility of both the light and dark entities in the game leaves the principles of good an evil in a state of ambiguity, which allows for uninhibited flow in the story and creates a non-linear and compelling narrative. Through this non-compliance with the pop culture counterparts of light and dark, gamers are left to question the foundations of old cultural norms. This historical context lends itself to the Bayonetta story not only by providing additional plot points, but also by justifying the development decisions that occur in order to truly flesh out Bayonetta’s character.ConclusionCompelling story line, characters with layered personality, and the ability to transgress boundaries of time and travel are all factors that provide a level of depth that has become an increasingly important aspect in modern video gameplay. Gamers love “Easter eggs,” the subtle references and embellishments scattered throughout a game that make playing games like Bayonetta so enjoyable. Bayonetta herself is a global traveller whose journeying is not limited to “abroad.” She transgresses cultural, time, and spatial boundaries. The game is a mosaic of references to spatial time dimensions, literary, and historical sources. This mix of borrowings has produced an original gameplay and a unique storyline. Such use of literature, mythology, and history to enhance the narrative creates a quest game that provides “meaningful play” (Howard). This process of creation of new material from older sources is a form of renewal. As long as contemporary culture presents literature and history to new audiences, the older texts will not be forgotten, but these elements will undergo a form of renewal and restoration and the present-day culture will be enhanced as a result. In the words of Bayonetta herself: “As long as there’s music, I’ll keep on dancing.”ReferencesCedro, Carmel. "Dolly Varden: Sweet Inspiration." Australasian Journal of Popular Culture 2.1 (2012): 37-46. French, Peter J. John Dee: The World of an Elizabethan Magus. London: London, Routledge and K. Paul, 1972. Guiley, Rosemary. The Encyclopedia of Demons and Demonology. Infobase Publishing, 2009. Howard, Jeff. Quests: Design, Theory, and History in Games and Narratives. Wellesley, Mass.: A.K. Peters, 2008. Kamiya, Hideki.Bayonetta. Bayonetta. Videogame. Sega, Japan, 2009.Kellams, Jean-Pierre. "Butmoni Coronzon (from the Mouth of the Witch)." Platinum Games 2009.Kramer, Heinrich. The Malleus Maleficarum of Heinrich Kramer and James Sprenger. Eds. Sprenger, Jakob, or joint author, and Montague Summers. New York: Dover, 1971.McNab, C. Firearms: The Illustrated Guide to Small Arms of the World. Parragon, 2008.Ouellette, Francois. "Prophet to the Elohim: John Dee's Enochian Conversations as Christian Apocalyptic Discourse." Master of Arts thesis. ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 2004.Treasure Planet. The Walt Disney Company, 2003.Various. "Bayonetta Wikia." 2016.

Between the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of the 17th century, western Europe is the stage for one of history's demonological crisis. Many critics associated this witch hunt with an episode of collective delirium and perhaps also irrationality on the rise. Nevertheless, witchcraft is first and foremost an object of knowledge---demonology---, which many writers, jurists and theologians attempted to construct, define and constantly re-evaluate. Demonology was progressively elaborated in the midst of a culture where multiples beliefs and ideologies were interpreted to be the language, or the Christian testimony of a universe troubled by the signs of devil.
As we progress towards the 17th century, the demonological discourse tends to distance itself from the traditional knowledge, searching for its truth in facts and experience. Shifting towards empiricism, the witch's body becomes the privileged stage for a confrontation between the devil and the judge. However, in order for this body to reveal its monstrosity, the demonologist must become both exegete and producer of words, which in turn, he finds in the witch as tangible signs of her otherness. Moreover, in his desire to interrogate the witch, the scholar wishes mostly to question the feminine nature, cloaking her with an otherness of problematic and dangerous attributes. Through scholarly language, Renaissance demonology wishes to significantly organize the divided world of witchcraft and in the process, a certain feminine identity, diabolically other.
Through the works of two demonologists having had a direct experience with trials, the Discours execrable des sorciers by Henri Boguet (1602) and the Tableau de l'inconstance des mauvais anges et demons (1612) by Pierre de Lancre, we explore the link between malefic femininity and witchcraft: the images they convey, the fascination they trigger and their mirroring through and in writing.

A profound concern with demonic spirits was central to a large body of literature from the Latin Middle Ages and early modern period. This dissertation shows the ways in which learned writings about demons reveal insights into the cultural and intellectual history of fifteenth- and sixteenth-century western Europe. In particular, an interest in how and in what (visible or invisible) form demonic beings afflicted humanity emerged as larger issues of theological debate from approximately 1400-1600 CE. As I demonstrate, orthodox theologians maintained that demons existed solely as fallen angels, and that they were the primary culprits of myriad haunting phenomena (e.g., visible apparitions, unsettling movements, and wayward sounds and feelings). In rebellion against the Christian divinity, these wicked spirits were consistently associated with sinful behavior, temptation, and illusory tricks. At the same time, vernacular and folk storytelling suggest that fallen angels were but one of many possible spiritual creatures inhabiting the cosmos. Rather than a strict binary between good and evil spirits, many instantiations of spiritual creatures resisted and survived alongside ecclesiastical teachings on the subject. Informed by multiple overlapping traditions, the premodern Christian imaginary perceived a world filled with invisible agents of both benevolent and malevolent intentions, as well as other ethereal forces with moral ambiguities.

Examining Board: Professor Martin van Gelderen (Supervisor), European University Institute / Georg-August-Universität Göttingen; Professor Heinz-Gerhard Haupt, European University Institute; Professor Hans-Erich Bödeker, Max Planck Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte; Professor Brian Cummings, University of Sussex.
Defence date: 14 December 2012
PDF of thesis uploaded from the Library digital archive of EUI PhD theses
Early Modern Professors of Law in the Holy Roman Empire were more than mere teachers. In judicial matters they were called upon to judge and speak justice / especially in witch-trials. This study focuses on bridging discourses of demonology as they were elaborated and taught at Protestant universities in Northern Germany with the social and cultural sphere of the professors. By coupling an intellectual approach to theories of witchcraft, the role of the Devil and demons, with micro-historical investigations into the social and cultural practices of professors engaged in theorising and judging witchcraft, this study renders a more complex and nuanced contribution to the history of the university, its epistemic culture as well as its impact on its surroundings. This study traces the academic discourses of demonology from the high-times of orthodox belief and persecution to that of scepticism and reform. It does so by focusing on the demonological argumentation and the scientific methods employed by Hermann Goehausen (1593-1632), Heinrich Bode (1652-1720), and Christian Thomasius (1655-1728). What comes to the fore is a system of beliefs that accommodated the Devil, demons and witches in compatible and consistent ways with other intellectual dealings until academic practices, including the rendering of legal decisions in witch-trials and new methods of scientific enquiry (the purging of Scholastic Aristotelianism in the context of the Early German Enlightenment) necessitated a reconsideration of the theoretical principles underpinning the theological, philosophical and political aspects of demonology.

Chapter 1 reviews the history of psychiatric treatment of people with mental illness in the United States and Western Europe, highlighting past perspectives in care, such as ancient trephination and exorcism during the demonology era, humorism in early Greek and Roman thought, a return to demonological perspectives in the Middle Ages, as well as mesmerism and psychoanalysis in the 19th and 20th centuries. The 20th-century biological perspective is described, including the use of insulin shock therapy, electroconvulsive therapy, and lobotomy. Next, the development of more humane treatment approaches is discussed, such as the moral treatment movement of the 1800s. The ex-patient’s movement of the 1970s is reviewed, leading up to the contemporary recovery-oriented and psychosocial rehabilitation models of care. The impact of stigma on the acceptance of serious mental illness is explored throughout this history. Discussion questions, activities, and diagrams are also included.