MICHAËLIS, Sébastien

by Sébastien Michaëlis

£4,500 · 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: a series of cases in 1581 and 1582 led to eighteen women being convicted and burnt. 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. Executions for witchcraft in France became rarer after 1610 as the Parlements of Paris and several provinces were de facto decriminalising witchcraft. However Michaelis was Grand Inquisitor in the papal territory of Avignon and so fell out of French jurisdiction. “Michaelis was something of an expert on witchcraft, since he had served as vice-inquisitor during a major out-break of witchhunting in the region of Avignon. In this series of trials in 1581 and 1582, at least fourteen witches were convicted and burnt. Jonathan L. Pearl. ‘The Crime of Crimes: Demonology and Politics in France, 1560-1620’

• Binding: Hardcover

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