MICHA√ãLIS, S ébastien

£3,750 · Offered by Sokol Books

Extremely rare first edition of the major work on sorcery by the redoubtable Dominican witch-hunter and inquisitor Sebastien Michaelis. Michaelis was vice-inquisitor in Avignon during the 1580s and was involved in a number of witch trials. In 1587 he published this work on demons. By 1610 he was prior of the Dominican community at Saint-Maxim near Aix-en-Provence where he was later involved in one of the most notorious witch trials, and case of demonic possession, in the History of France, that of the priest Louis Gaufridi, who was convicted of sorcery, tortured and burnt, on the evidence of a nun possessed by the devil. The many publications and the notoriety surrounding the Gaufridi case lead to the translation of this work, the Pneumalogie, into English in 1613, where it was of great influence. The first part of the book is divided into eight chapters discussing various aspects of witchcraft, sorcery, spirits, and possession, such as a chapter discussing if spirits have bodies, another on how evil spirits can possess people. The work then presents the case of a witch trail (in Latin) in which Michaelis was involved. He then provides eleven Scholies or sentences given against witches, which also includes much discussion on the nature of the devil. The account of the Avignon witches featured the whole panoply of Continental diabolism, including devil-worship, the Sabbath, cannibalism of infants, copulation with incubi and succubi and the osculum obscenium in which witches pl

• Binding: Hardcover

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