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قراءة كتاب The Superstitions of Witchcraft
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The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Superstitions of Witchcraft, by Howard Williams
Title: The Superstitions of Witchcraft
Author: Howard Williams
Release Date: October 1, 2007 [eBook #22822]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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SUPERSTITIONS OF WITCHCRAFT.
LONDON
PRINTED BY SPOTTISWOODE AND CO.
NEW-STREET SQUARE
THE
SUPERSTITIONS OF WITCHCRAFT.
BY
HOWARD WILLIAMS, M.A.
ST. JOHN'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE.
'Somnia, terrores magicos, miracula, sagas,
Nocturnos lemures, portentaque Thessala rides?'
LONDON:
LONGMAN, GREEN, LONGMAN, ROBERTS, & GREEN.
1865.
PREFACE.
'The Superstitions of Witchcraft' is designed to exhibit a consecutive review of the characteristic forms and facts of a creed which (if at present apparently dead, or at least harmless, in Christendom) in the seventeenth century was a living and lively faith, and caused thousands of victims to be sent to the torture-chamber, to the stake, and to the scaffold. At this day, the remembrance of its superhuman art, in its different manifestations, is immortalised in the every-day language of the peoples of Europe.
The belief in Witchcraft is, indeed, in its full development and most fearful results, modern still more than mediæval, Christian still more than Pagan, and Protestant not less than Catholic.
CONTENTS.
Part I.
CHAPTER I.
The Origin, Prevalence, and Variety of Superstition—The Belief in Witchcraft the most horrid Form of Superstition—Most flourishing in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries—The Sentiments of Addison, Blackstone, and the Lawyers of the Eighteenth Century upon the Subject—Chaldean and Persian Magic—Jewish Witchcraft—Its important Influence on Christian and Modern Belief—Greek Pharmacy and Sorcery—Early Roman Laws against Conjuration and Magic Charms—Crimes perpetrated, under the Empire, in connection with Sorceric Practices—The general Persecution for Magic under Valentinian and Valens—German and Scandinavian Sagæ—Essential Difference between Eastern and Western Sorcery—The probable Origin of the general Belief in an Evil Principle page 3
PART II.
CHAPTER I.
Compromise between the New and the Old Faiths—Witchcraft under the Early Church—The Sentiments of the Fathers and the Decrees of Councils—Platonic Influences—Historical, Physiological, and Accidental Causes of the Attribution of Witchcraft to the Female Sex—Opinions of the Fathers and other Writers—The Witch-Compact 47
CHAPTER II.
Charlemagne's Severity—Anglo-Saxon Superstition—Norman and Arabic Magic—Influence of Arabic Science—Mohammedan Belief in Magic—Rabbinical Learning—Roger Bacon—The Persecution of the Templars—Alice Kyteler 63
CHAPTER III.
Witchcraft and Heresy purposely confounded by the Church—Mediæval Science closely connected with Magic and Sorcery—Ignorance of Physiology the Cause of many of the Popular Prejudices—Jeanne d'Arc—Duchess of Gloucester—Jane Shore—Persecution at Arras 84
PART III.
CHAPTER I.
The Bull of Innocent VIII.—A new Incentive to the vigorous Prosecution of Witchcraft—The 'Malleus Maleficarum'—Its Criminal Code—Numerous Executions at the Commencement of the Sixteenth Century—Examination of Christian Demonology—Various Opinions of the Nature of Demons—General Belief in the Intercourse of Demons and other non-human Beings with Mankind 101
CHAPTER II.
Three Sorts of Witches—Various Modes of Witchcraft—Manner of Witch-Travelling—The Sabbaths—Anathemas of the Popes against the Crime—Bull of Adrian VI.—Cotemporary Testimony to the Severity of the Persecutions—Necessary Triumph of the Orthodox Party—Germany most subject to the Superstition—Acts of Parliament of Henry VIII. against Witchcraft—Elizabeth Barton—The Act of 1562—Executions under Queen Elizabeth's Government—Case of Witchcraft narrated by Reginald Scot 126
CHAPTER III.
The 'Discoverie of Witchcraft,' published 1584—Wier's 'De Præstigiis Dæmonum,' &c.—Naudé—Jean Bodin—His 'De la Démonomanie des Sorciers,' published at Paris, 1580—His Authority—Nider—Witch-case at Warboys—Evidence adduced at the Trial—Remarkable as being the Origin of the Institution of an Annual Sermon at Huntingdon 144
CHAPTER IV.
Astrology in Antiquity—Modern Astrology and Alchymy—Torralvo—Adventures of Dr. Dee and