Demons of Urban Reform: Early European Witch Trials and Criminal Justice, 1430-1530 (Palgrave Historical Studies in Witchcraft and Magic)

A comparative analysis of early witch trials in Lucerne, Nuremberg and Basel, within the context of criminal justice and social control. The case of Lucerne presents a fascinating interplay between witch trials and a transformation in the city's criminal procedure on one hand, and between witchcraft fears and social control on the other. Demons of Urban Reform essays an answer to the question of why the diabolic witchcraft concept was adopted into ordinary criminal justice and what effects it had thereafter. Lucerne and Basel, two Swiss-German city states that received and accommodated the diabolic witch concept in the mid-fifteenth century, are examined alongside Franconian Nuremberg, where the diabolic witch concept was soundly rejected. Basel, like Nuremberg, ultimately rejected the diabolic witch concept and the mass trials that it inspired elsewhere. In Lucerne, however, witch trials had a transformative effect on criminal justice, and early witch hunts in the late fifteenth century presaged even greater conflagrations a century later. Laura Stokes roots the analysis of witch trials in the quotidian proceedings of the secular courts she examines, offering evidence for the importance of social control in pre-Reformation cities and the reciprocal relationship between developments in criminal justice and judicial concerns over witchcraft Cover 1 Title 4 Copyright 5 Contents 6 List of Figures 7 Acknowledgments 8 Introduction 9 1 Evil by Any Other Name: Defining Witchcraft 18 Part I Witch Trials in the Cities 42 2 Basel: Territorialization and Rural Autonomy 44 3 Nuremberg: The Malleus that Never Struck 57 4 Lucerne: Urban Witch Hunters 69 Part II A Revolution in Criminal Justice 85 5 Between Two Worlds: Fifteenth- Century Justice at the Threshold of the Early Modern 86 6 The Advancing Death Penalty and the Re- imagining of Magical Crimes 109 Part III Reforming Zeal and Persecution in Lucerne 131 7 Urban Reform and Social Control 132 8 Witchcraft, Sodomy, and the Demonization of Crime 157 Conclusion 177 Appendix: Selected Trial Documents 182 Notes 189 Bibliography 213 Index 228 Front Matter....Pages i-vii Introduction....Pages 1-9 Evil by Any Other Name: Defining Witchcraft....Pages 10-33 Front Matter....Pages 35-36 Basel: Territorialization and Rural Autonomy....Pages 37-49 Nuremberg: The Malleus that Never Struck....Pages 50-61 Lucerne: Urban Witch Hunters....Pages 62-77 Front Matter....Pages 79-79 Between Two Worlds: Fifteenth-Century Justice at the Threshold of the Early Modern....Pages 81-103 The Advancing Death Penalty and the Re-imagining of Magical Crimes....Pages 104-125 Front Matter....Pages 127-127 Urban Reform and Social Control....Pages 129-153 Witchcraft, Sodomy, and the Demonization of Crime....Pages 154-173 Conclusion....Pages 174-185 Back Matter....Pages 186-235 "This book illuminates the origins of the great European witch hunts by placing early witch trials in the comparative light of other criminal proceedings in Basel, Lucerne and Nuremberg. The study reveals that the increasingly harsh treatment was paralleled by mounting judicial severity in general, as well as by a keen interest in social control"-- Provided by publisher