Page:The history of Witchcraft and demonology.djvu/13

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
x
INTRODUCTION

the greatest value, amongst which we may name such standard works as Antoine-Louis Daugis, Traité sur la magie, le sortilège, les possessions, obsessions et maléfices, 1782; Jules Garinet, Histoire de la Magie en France depuis le commencement de la monarchie jusqu’à nos jours, 1818; Michelet’s famous La Sorcière; Alfred Maury, La Magie et l’Astrologie, 3rd edition, 1868; L’Abbé Lecanu, Histoire de Satan; Jules Baissac, Les grands Jours de la Sorcellerie, 1890; Theodore de Cauzons, La Magie et la Sorcellerie en France, 4 vols., 1910, etc.

In German we have Eberhard Hauber’s Bibliotheca Magica; Roskoff’s Geschichte des Teufels, 1869; Soldan’s Geschichte der Hexenprozesse (neu bearbeitet von Dr. Heinrich Heppe), 1880; Friedrich Leitschuch’s Beitræge zur Geschichte des Hexenwesens in Franken, 1888; Johan Dieffenbach’s Der Hexenwahn vor und nach der Glaubensspaltung in Deutschland, 1886; Schreiber’s Die Hexenprozesse im Breisgau; Ludwig Rapp’s Die Hexenprozesse und ihre Gegner aus Tirol; Joseph Hansen’s Quellen wnd Untersuchungen zur Geschichte des Hexenwahns, 1901; and very many more admirably documented studies.

In England the best of the older books must be recommended with necessary reservations. Thomas Wright’s Narratives of Sorcery and Magic, 2 vols., 1851, is to be commended as the work of a learned antiquarian who often referred to original sources, but it is withal sketchy and can hardly satisfy the careful scholar. Some exceptionally good writing and sound, clear, thinking are to be met with in Dr. F. G. Lee’s The Other World, 2 vols., 1875; More Glimpses of the World Unseen, 1878; Glimpses in the Twilight, 1885; and Sight and Shadows, 1894, all of which deserve to be far more widely known, since they well repay an unhurried and repeated perusal.

Quite recent work is represented by Professor Wallace Notestein’s History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718, published in 1911. This intimate study of a century and a half concentrates, as its title tells, upon England alone. It is supplied with ample and useful appendixes. In respect of the orderly marshalling of his facts, garnered from the trials and other sources—no small labour—Professor Notestein deserves a generous meed of praise; his interpretation