Customer Reviews

Europe's inner demons: An enquiry inspired by the great witch-hunt (Columbus Centre series)

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A masterpiece. This book, first published in 1975, still remains one of the best one can turn to for an analysis of the background for the witch hunts in the early modern age. Norman Cohn did a fine demolition job on the nonsense written by Margaret Murray (and, for that matter, Jules Michelet and Montague Summers) on the same subject. A very coherent picture, covering the period of late Antiquity to the 15th century, is presented. The line of reasoning remains crystal clear, while at the same time detailed insight into key incidents (the persecution and trials of the Waldensians, Cathars, Fraticelli, Knights Templar, Pope Boniface VIII, Lady Alice Kyteler) is given. They constitute some of the building blocks for the view that while the ingredients for the "complete" witches' sabbath as it was imagined during the early modern period were already present long before, a number of triggers was necessary to link them effectively together. An important factor was the shift from the accusatory to the inquisitorial legal procedure. I also like the image of the militant optimism of early Christianism (assured of the Devil's limited power vis-a-vis the adherents of the true faith) as opposed to a worn out Christian Europe on the brink of the Reformation, imagining itself to be surrounded by almost omnipotent demons and witches.