Discussion : Critics and skeptics
Judicial criticism of trials:
Friedrich Spee, Cautio
Criminalis 1631 [K&P, #65, pp. 425-429]
Jesuit confessor to witches; published anonymously
Where does
the pressure for witchcraft trials come from?
What is the role of the magistrates, princes & judges?
“Gaia”: Spee’s name for the basic type of accused witch:
What
is the role of her prior reputation (#10)
How does he describe the trial process &
the role of torture?
What factors militate against a verdict of innocence?
French
Skepticism: context of French Wars of Religion 1562-1589 as
example of what “religious certainty” can cause
Michel Montaigne, “On Cripples” 1588 [K&P #61, pp. 402-406]
What is
Montaigne’s attitude to knowledge?
Note comments on truth & falsehood, rumors (p. 403)
What is
meant by “a certain strong & generous ignorance”? (p. 404)
Note his comments about “the witches of my neighborhood,” and
dangers of applying Scriptural examples to them (pp. 404-5)
What kind
of evidence should be needed for an execution?
What attitude does he take towards popular beliefs (such as witches flying)?
(pp. 405-6)
Note his
citation of personal experience traveling in Germanyand talking to imprisoned
witches,
for whom he would have prescribed “rather hellebore than hemlock.”
(p. 406)
Pierre
Bayle, Answer to Questions of a Provincial 1703 [K&P #68,
pp. 438-444]
Popular belief in magical source of illness & magical healing (p. 438)
Role
of the imagination in witch beliefs and possession (p. 438-440)
What
point is he making by comparison with positive religious figures,
such as the Catholic mystic, Angela da Foligno? (439-40)
Issue of
fraud (440), dreams (441)
Ligature, or “knotting the braid” (441-443)
hailstorms as cure, or “unknotting”; role of imagination
note story of Doctor Venette, who threatens a peasant worker with
“knotting his braid” before the marriage: nasty example of
relations between educated landowners and peasantry (442-443)