8 - Reading and refuting Wier

Summary

Abstract

Over the centuries, Wier's proposals were discussed and either received or refuted by theologians, philosophers, and jurists; his arguments were praised or condemned by Catholics and Reformers who took up surprising positions. In any case, all these scholars had to engage with his work. In the sixteenth century, Thomas Erastus and Jean Bodin began the debate, and later other supporters, such as Reginald Scot and later Balthasar Bekker, radicalized Wier's conclusions. The continuity and resistance of Wier's legacy and how it adapted over time is highlighted in this chapter. The debate, which traversed European culture, is studded with consensus and criticism, and endured across the turning point of Cartesianism and Spinozism until the mid-seventeenth-century.

Key words: Bodin Jean, Erastus Thomas, Scot Reginald, Bekker Balthasar

Appreciations and critics

From the mid-fifteenth to the late-nineteenth century the debate on magic and witchcraft in Europe saw several high points as well as turns of both unexpected virulence and broad new questions. As Stuart Clark has observed, ‘witchcraft authors were led to consider the deeper significance of magic and witchcraft as defining aspects of their age and, thus, keys to its meanings’.

The De praestigiis accounts for many of the doubts that educated elites came to harbour after an early phase, and, as Charles Zika pointed out, Wier had a deep influence on the debate. For Midelfort, Wier represents radical opposition to the witch-hunts as he calls into question the idea of the pact and the power of Satan to interfere with natural laws, creating a school of thought that was to reap notable results. With respect to such arguments, all those who entered the debate measured themselves against Wier's thought, using them as a testbed for their own views.

Immediate reactions to the De praestigiis, as we have seen, allowed Wier to sharpen his focus in later editions, adding detail and clarification when imparting his key arguments. But the debate continued after Wier's death. For the first time, questions about the reality of witchcraft were being argued with recourse to biblical philology, to medical and natural science, to law, and to ethics. The existence of demons and their activity in the world was not and had never been, called into question without risking accusations of atheism.