Witchcraft and Demonology in the Middle Ages

Abstract

Abstract Martin Le Franc gives voice to the ideas of his time through the characters of his poem and integrates into it the representations of traditional knowledge, discussions on heresy, magic and demonology as well as the popular beliefs concerning witchcraft and its practice. Savoy Amadeus VIII feels so strongly about the dangers of witchcraft that he enjoins both the secular and the ecclesiastical justice of his duchy to initiate the pursuit and judgment of heresy and witchcraft. From the 1440s, texts about witchcraft not only attempt to describe the Sabbath and the atrocities committed by sorcerers and witches but aim also at understanding the reality of the interactions between demons and witches, as well as their consequences. The texts’ objectives are to give the courts an acceptable framework in which to apply the witchcraft doctrine, both legally and theologically.