How did medieval beliefs about demons evolve into fears of witches gathering to worship the Devil? Lorris Chevalier explores how centuries of theological debate, Church policy and inquisitorial practices transformed ideas about demonic deception into a complex vision of witchcraft.
By Lorris Chevalier
The development of demonology in the medieval West was neither sudden nor uniform. It emerged gradually through theological debate, canon law, pastoral practice and judicial procedure. From the early Middle Ages onwards, Christian thinkers had accepted the existence of demons, their capacity to tempt human beings and their role within the broader history of salvation. However, between the late thirteenth century and the fifteenth century, the relationship between demons and human beings was increasingly redefined. Demons came to be understood not simply as tempters or creators of illusions but as supernatural agents capable of entering into effective, and sometimes voluntary, relationships with individuals.
A particularly important period was roughly the years 1280 to 1330. During these decades, developments in scholastic theology and papal policy brought magic, demonic invocation and heresy into a much closer relationship. By the 1430s, these earlier ideas had begun to contribute to a more elaborate image of organised witchcraft, culminating in the mature demonological theories of the late fifteenth century. The history of medieval demonology can therefore be understood as a long transition: from early concerns with demonic deception to the belief that human beings might consciously enter into pacts with demons and participate in organised forms of diabolical worship. The papal bull Super illius specula of 1326 represents one of the most important landmarks in this transition.
The Early Medieval Background: Demonic Illusion and the Canon Episcopi
Bibliothèque nationale de France MS Français 916, fol. 1r
An essential starting point is the tradition later known as the Canon Episcopi. The text originated in the early medieval period and was incorporated into Regino of Prüm’s De synodalibus causis et disciplinis ecclesiasticis, compiled around 906. It later acquired much greater authority when it was incorporated into Gratian’s Decretum around 1140.
The Canon Episcopi addressed women who claimed to travel at night with a supernatural female figure traditionally associated with Diana. Its central argument was that such nocturnal journeys did not occur physically. Those who believed that they had travelled in this way had been deceived by the devil. The experience was considered an illusion rather than a material event.
This distinction was fundamental. The text did not deny the existence or power of demons; rather, it insisted that demons frequently acted through deception, imagination and false belief. A person might genuinely believe that an extraordinary event had taken place while, in reality, the experience existed only in the mind. This early medieval model therefore differed significantly from later theories of witchcraft, in which demons were believed to facilitate actual flights, physical meetings and collective rituals.
The continued authority of the Canon Episcopi created an important tension within later demonology. By the fifteenth century, demonologists increasingly argued for the physical reality of witchcraft while still having to address an older canonical tradition that had treated comparable experiences as demonic illusions. The Malleus maleficarum of 1486–1487, for example, explicitly engaged with this problem, attempting to distinguish between merely illusory transformations and demonic actions capable of producing real effects.
The Thirteenth Century: Scholastic Theology and the Systematisation of Evil
Bibliothèque nationale de France MS Latin 1352, fol. 89v.
The thirteenth century brought a major transformation in European intellectual life. The growth of universities and the increasing influence of Aristotelian philosophy encouraged theologians to analyse questions concerning the soul, the body, causation and spiritual beings with unprecedented precision.
A particularly important text was Thomas Aquinas’s Quaestiones disputatae de malo, written around 1269–1272. The work examined the nature of evil, sin, free will and, in its final question, demons. Modern cataloguing and textual scholarship place the composition of the work after 1269, while the individual disputed questions appear to have been developed between approximately 1269 and 1272.
Such theological discussions were important because they required scholars to define the precise limits of demonic power. Could demons act upon the human body? Could they influence the senses or imagination? Could they cause illness or produce apparent transformations? What distinguished demonic influence from direct physical causation?
The answers to these questions were constrained by a fundamental theological principle: demons were created beings and could not possess the unlimited power of God. Nevertheless, the very attempt to define what demons could do contributed to the development of a more systematic demonology. Demons were increasingly discussed in terms of intellect, will, causation and agency. Rather than appearing merely as symbolic representatives of evil, they became subjects of detailed philosophical and theological analysis.
This development was crucial for later centuries. Once theologians had established conceptual frameworks for discussing the powers and limitations of demons, it became easier to consider increasingly complex forms of interaction between demons and human beings.
1277 and the Expansion of Intellectual Possibilities
Bibliothèque nationale de France MS Français 13096, fol. 28r.
Another significant moment occurred in 1277, when Étienne Tempier, Bishop of Paris, condemned 219 propositions associated with certain interpretations of Aristotelian philosophy. The condemnations are not themselves a demonological treatise, but they illustrate the intellectual tensions of the period.
Late medieval theology was increasingly concerned with the limits of necessity, natural causation and divine omnipotence. If God possessed absolute power beyond the constraints of ordinary natural processes, theologians had to reconsider the relationship between nature and supernatural intervention. This broader intellectual climate encouraged increasingly detailed discussions of extraordinary phenomena, including miracles, angelic action and demonic influence.
The late thirteenth century was therefore characterised by a paradox. Scholastic thought attempted to rationalise the universe through precise distinctions and logical analysis, yet this process also produced increasingly sophisticated ways of conceptualising supernatural agency. Demons could be investigated not outside reason but through it.
1300–1320: Magic and the Problem of Demonic Agency
British Library MS Yates Thompson 13 fol. 171v
During the early fourteenth century, concerns about ritual magic became increasingly significant. Medieval magical practices could involve the use of words, images, rings, mirrors, written formulae and other objects believed to produce supernatural effects. The crucial theological question was increasingly whether such practices relied upon natural properties or upon the assistance of demons.
This distinction had serious consequences. If a practice depended upon the deliberate invocation of a demon, the practitioner might be understood as establishing a relationship with an enemy of the Christian God.
In 1320, papal authorities initiated important consultations concerning demonic magic and its possible classification as heresy. On 22 August 1320, a papal instruction extended inquisitorial attention to activities including sacrifice to demons, their adoration, the making of agreements with them, demonic invocation and magical operations involving images. This demonstrates that, by the early 1320s, ecclesiastical authorities were already considering whether certain forms of magical activity should be addressed through the legal mechanisms developed against heresy.
The significance of this development lay in its redefinition of religious crime. Heresy had traditionally been associated primarily with erroneous belief. Increasingly, however, specific acts involving demons could be understood as evidence of heretical disobedience. The relationship with the demon was therefore transformed from a matter of spiritual temptation into a possible juridical fact.
1326: Super illius specula and the Criminalisation of Demonic Magic
Portrait fresco of Pope John XXII from the 14th century – Wikimedia Commons
The most important papal landmark in this development was the bull Super illius specula, issued under Pope John XXII in 1326, although some dating traditions place it in 1326–1327. The text condemned Christians who, according to its description, made agreements with death and pacts with hell, sacrificed to demons, worshipped them and used magical objects such as images, rings, mirrors and vessels in attempts to obtain demonic assistance.
The language of the bull is particularly revealing because it treats demonic magic as an active relationship rather than a mere superstition. Individuals were described as seeking answers and assistance from demons and rendering them a form of service in return. The demonic pact was therefore becoming an increasingly powerful model for explaining magical activity.
This represented a major development in the history of demonology. The theological problem was no longer simply whether demons could deceive human beings. It also became possible to ask whether human beings could deliberately cooperate with them.
The connection between magic and heresy would later become essential to witchcraft prosecutions. Once demonic practices could be treated as heretical acts, they could potentially fall within the broader mechanisms of ecclesiastical investigation and punishment.
1330–1340: The First Descriptions of Collective Diabolical Assemblies
Cambridge University Library MS B.11.32 Horae, fol. 207r
The decades immediately following Super illius specula are particularly important because they witnessed some of the earliest developments towards the later idea of the witches’ sabbath. Historical accounts identify the period 1330–1340 as one in which descriptions of collective gatherings associated with demonic activity began to emerge in inquisitorial contexts, including proceedings connected with southern France.
At this stage, however, the later image of the sabbath was still incomplete. The fully developed conception of a vast, organised and explicitly anti-Christian society of witches had not yet been established. Rather, separate ideas were gradually beginning to converge: harmful magic, demonic invocation, apostasy, heresy and collective gatherings.
This distinction is important. The history of witchcraft was not a simple progression from superstition to persecution. Instead, the image of the witch was constructed through the gradual combination of previously separate traditions.
Possession, Madness and the Problem of Human Identity
Animal or demon blowing horn, perhaps allegory of disease.
During the same period, medieval theology was also reconsidering the nature of the human person. Possession, madness, dreams, trance and sleepwalking raised difficult questions about consciousness and responsibility.
In 1312, the canon Si furiosus, associated with the legislation of the Council of Vienne under Pope Clement V, addressed questions concerning responsibility and mental incapacity. Individuals who lacked ordinary rational control, such as children or the insane, could not necessarily be held responsible for their actions in the same way as fully conscious adults.
These legal and theological discussions had wider implications. If a person could act without complete control of his or her faculties, where did personal responsibility begin and end? Could an external spirit influence a body without entirely replacing the individual’s own will?
Such questions became central to demonological thought. Possession required theologians to imagine a human being whose speech, movements or behaviour might be affected by an external supernatural presence. The human personality was consequently examined as something potentially vulnerable to fragmentation or intrusion.
This did not necessarily mean that medieval thinkers believed that the human soul could simply be replaced by a demon. Rather, the problem concerned the complex relationship between the body, the will, the imagination and spiritual influence. The investigation of these boundaries became one of the intellectual foundations upon which later theories of possession and witchcraft would be constructed.
Mysticism and the Difficulty of Discerning Spirits
Depiction of a medieval demon with flesh hook etched into the south arcade, Beachamwell Church, Norfolk
The problem of possession was closely connected with medieval mysticism. Throughout the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, religious figures reported visions, ecstasies, voices and other extraordinary experiences. The central question was how such experiences could be interpreted.
Could a voice heard by a mystic come from God? Could it originate in the imagination? Might it be the work of a demon?
This problem had a long theological history, particularly in traditions concerning the discernment of spirits. Yet it became increasingly complex as medieval spirituality developed more elaborate accounts of divine intimacy with the individual.
The experiences associated with Angela of Foligno (c. 1248–1309) and Clare of Montefalco (c. 1268–1308) illustrate the importance of these questions. Their religious experiences involved extraordinary forms of divine presence and bodily or psychological transformation. Such accounts required theologians to consider how a spiritual being could act within or through a human person.
The possibility of divine inhabitation consequently provided an important conceptual counterpart to demonic possession. If the divine could act intimately within the human individual, theologians also had to explain how a demon might imitate or counterfeit such manifestations. The body therefore became a central site for distinguishing between divine inspiration, natural processes and demonic deception.
1376: The Directorium inquisitorum
A major step towards the systematisation of inquisitorial knowledge came with Nicholas Eymerich’s Directorium inquisitorum, completed in 1376.
This work was a practical and theoretical guide to inquisitorial procedure. It gathered information concerning heresy, investigation and religious deviance into a more systematic framework. Its importance for demonology lies in the increasing integration of magical and demonic practices into discussions of heretical behaviour.
By the late fourteenth century, therefore, the intellectual and judicial traditions concerning demons were becoming increasingly connected. Theological speculation provided theories about demonic agency; canon law defined the categories of religious error; inquisitorial manuals supplied procedures through which suspicion could be investigated.
This combination would become increasingly powerful during the fifteenth century.
The Fifteenth Century and the Formation of the Witches’ Sabbath
Hans Baldung – The Witches Sabbath (1510 AD)
The most dramatic transformation occurred during the fifteenth century. Earlier ideas concerning demons and magic were increasingly combined into the image of an organised community of witches.
The concept of the sect was especially important. Medieval Christianity had long identified heresy with organised communities that rejected legitimate religious authority. During the late medieval period, this model was increasingly applied to alleged forms of diabolical association.
A witch could now be imagined not simply as an individual magician, but as a member of a collective body. This imagined community possessed its own rites, its own form of allegiance and its own relationship with the devil.
The Formicarius, written by Johannes Nider between approximately 1435 and 1437, is an important witness to this transformation. Drawing upon accounts of witchcraft associated particularly with the regions of Switzerland and the western Alps, the work described a more developed conception of collective witchcraft. It included ideas of meetings, renunciation and direct relationships with the devil. By the 1430s, therefore, several of the central components of the later sabbath were beginning to appear together in a recognisable form.
Other important fifteenth-century developments included:
1440 – the trial and execution of Gilles de Rais, a case that later became associated with accusations of magic and diabolical crime;
1450 – Jean Vinet’s Tractatus contra daemonum invocatores, directed against those accused of invoking demons;
1459 – Alfonso de Spina’s Fortalitium fidei, which discussed enemies of Christianity and contributed to the developing classification of demonic threats;
1462 – Pierre Mamoris’s Flagellum maleficorum, an important work devoted to the question of harmful magic and witchcraft.
Together, these texts demonstrate the rapid growth of demonological literature during the fifteenth century.
1484–1487: The Mature Demonology of the Malleus maleficarum
Malleus Maleficarum in a 1669 edition.
The late fifteenth century witnessed the emergence of what may be described as a mature demonological system.
In 1484, Pope Innocent VIII issued the bull Summis desiderantes affectibus, which recognised concerns about harmful witchcraft and supported inquisitorial action in German territories. Two years later, in 1486–1487, Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Sprenger’s Malleus maleficarum was published.
The Malleus maleficarum brought together several centuries of theological and legal debate. Its central concerns included the reality of witchcraft, the power of demons, harmful magic, sexual relations between demons and human beings, and judicial procedures against alleged witches.
The work also reveals the continuing tension between older and newer conceptions of demonic activity. The authors had to confront traditions, such as the Canon Episcopi, that had emphasised demonic illusion. Their solution was not simply to reject the possibility of illusion. Instead, they attempted to distinguish between false appearances and genuine effects produced through demonic intervention. The question had therefore changed considerably since the early Middle Ages. The problem was no longer merely whether demons could deceive human beings, but also how and under what circumstances demons could produce effects believed to be real.
The history of medieval demonology is best understood as a gradual process of intellectual accumulation and transformation. Around 906, the tradition represented by the Canon Episcopi emphasised demonic deception and illusion. By the thirteenth century, scholastic theology was systematically examining the nature and powers of demons. Around 1269–1272, De malo contributed to increasingly detailed discussions of evil, free will and demonic agency.
The early fourteenth century represented a further turning point. The consultations of 1320 and the bull Super illius specula of 1326 brought demonic invocation, magical practice and heresy into increasingly direct relationship. During the following decades, ideas of individual demonic practice began gradually to intersect with accusations of collective and organised religious deviance.
By 1376, the Directorium inquisitorum reflected the growing institutional importance of inquisitorial approaches to religious deviance. During the 1430s, works such as the Formicarius began to describe more developed forms of collective witchcraft. Finally, the late fifteenth century, particularly the years 1484–1487, witnessed the consolidation of these ideas in papal policy and demonological literature.
The witches’ sabbath was therefore not the product of a single invention. It emerged through the convergence of several long-standing medieval traditions: beliefs in demonic temptation, theories of possession, legal concepts of heresy, ideas of contractual obligation, debates about supernatural causation and fears of collective religious conspiracy. The gradual movement from demonic illusion, to demonic intervention, to voluntary demonic pact, and finally to the image of an organised diabolical sect, reveals one of the most significant transformations in the religious and intellectual history of the later Middle Ages.
Dr Lorris Chevalier, who has a Ph.D. in medieval literature, is a historical advisor for movies, including The Last Duel and Napoleon. Click here to view his website.
How did medieval beliefs about demons evolve into fears of witches gathering to worship the Devil? Lorris Chevalier explores how centuries of theological debate, Church policy and inquisitorial practices transformed ideas about demonic deception into a complex vision of witchcraft.
By Lorris Chevalier
The development of demonology in the medieval West was neither sudden nor uniform. It emerged gradually through theological debate, canon law, pastoral practice and judicial procedure. From the early Middle Ages onwards, Christian thinkers had accepted the existence of demons, their capacity to tempt human beings and their role within the broader history of salvation. However, between the late thirteenth century and the fifteenth century, the relationship between demons and human beings was increasingly redefined. Demons came to be understood not simply as tempters or creators of illusions but as supernatural agents capable of entering into effective, and sometimes voluntary, relationships with individuals.
A particularly important period was roughly the years 1280 to 1330. During these decades, developments in scholastic theology and papal policy brought magic, demonic invocation and heresy into a much closer relationship. By the 1430s, these earlier ideas had begun to contribute to a more elaborate image of organised witchcraft, culminating in the mature demonological theories of the late fifteenth century. The history of medieval demonology can therefore be understood as a long transition: from early concerns with demonic deception to the belief that human beings might consciously enter into pacts with demons and participate in organised forms of diabolical worship. The papal bull Super illius specula of 1326 represents one of the most important landmarks in this transition.
The Early Medieval Background: Demonic Illusion and the Canon Episcopi
An essential starting point is the tradition later known as the Canon Episcopi. The text originated in the early medieval period and was incorporated into Regino of Prüm’s De synodalibus causis et disciplinis ecclesiasticis, compiled around 906. It later acquired much greater authority when it was incorporated into Gratian’s Decretum around 1140.
The Canon Episcopi addressed women who claimed to travel at night with a supernatural female figure traditionally associated with Diana. Its central argument was that such nocturnal journeys did not occur physically. Those who believed that they had travelled in this way had been deceived by the devil. The experience was considered an illusion rather than a material event.
This distinction was fundamental. The text did not deny the existence or power of demons; rather, it insisted that demons frequently acted through deception, imagination and false belief. A person might genuinely believe that an extraordinary event had taken place while, in reality, the experience existed only in the mind. This early medieval model therefore differed significantly from later theories of witchcraft, in which demons were believed to facilitate actual flights, physical meetings and collective rituals.
The continued authority of the Canon Episcopi created an important tension within later demonology. By the fifteenth century, demonologists increasingly argued for the physical reality of witchcraft while still having to address an older canonical tradition that had treated comparable experiences as demonic illusions. The Malleus maleficarum of 1486–1487, for example, explicitly engaged with this problem, attempting to distinguish between merely illusory transformations and demonic actions capable of producing real effects.
The Thirteenth Century: Scholastic Theology and the Systematisation of Evil
The thirteenth century brought a major transformation in European intellectual life. The growth of universities and the increasing influence of Aristotelian philosophy encouraged theologians to analyse questions concerning the soul, the body, causation and spiritual beings with unprecedented precision.
A particularly important text was Thomas Aquinas’s Quaestiones disputatae de malo, written around 1269–1272. The work examined the nature of evil, sin, free will and, in its final question, demons. Modern cataloguing and textual scholarship place the composition of the work after 1269, while the individual disputed questions appear to have been developed between approximately 1269 and 1272.
Such theological discussions were important because they required scholars to define the precise limits of demonic power. Could demons act upon the human body? Could they influence the senses or imagination? Could they cause illness or produce apparent transformations? What distinguished demonic influence from direct physical causation?
The answers to these questions were constrained by a fundamental theological principle: demons were created beings and could not possess the unlimited power of God. Nevertheless, the very attempt to define what demons could do contributed to the development of a more systematic demonology. Demons were increasingly discussed in terms of intellect, will, causation and agency. Rather than appearing merely as symbolic representatives of evil, they became subjects of detailed philosophical and theological analysis.
This development was crucial for later centuries. Once theologians had established conceptual frameworks for discussing the powers and limitations of demons, it became easier to consider increasingly complex forms of interaction between demons and human beings.
1277 and the Expansion of Intellectual Possibilities
Another significant moment occurred in 1277, when Étienne Tempier, Bishop of Paris, condemned 219 propositions associated with certain interpretations of Aristotelian philosophy. The condemnations are not themselves a demonological treatise, but they illustrate the intellectual tensions of the period.
Late medieval theology was increasingly concerned with the limits of necessity, natural causation and divine omnipotence. If God possessed absolute power beyond the constraints of ordinary natural processes, theologians had to reconsider the relationship between nature and supernatural intervention. This broader intellectual climate encouraged increasingly detailed discussions of extraordinary phenomena, including miracles, angelic action and demonic influence.
The late thirteenth century was therefore characterised by a paradox. Scholastic thought attempted to rationalise the universe through precise distinctions and logical analysis, yet this process also produced increasingly sophisticated ways of conceptualising supernatural agency. Demons could be investigated not outside reason but through it.
1300–1320: Magic and the Problem of Demonic Agency
During the early fourteenth century, concerns about ritual magic became increasingly significant. Medieval magical practices could involve the use of words, images, rings, mirrors, written formulae and other objects believed to produce supernatural effects. The crucial theological question was increasingly whether such practices relied upon natural properties or upon the assistance of demons.
This distinction had serious consequences. If a practice depended upon the deliberate invocation of a demon, the practitioner might be understood as establishing a relationship with an enemy of the Christian God.
In 1320, papal authorities initiated important consultations concerning demonic magic and its possible classification as heresy. On 22 August 1320, a papal instruction extended inquisitorial attention to activities including sacrifice to demons, their adoration, the making of agreements with them, demonic invocation and magical operations involving images. This demonstrates that, by the early 1320s, ecclesiastical authorities were already considering whether certain forms of magical activity should be addressed through the legal mechanisms developed against heresy.
The significance of this development lay in its redefinition of religious crime. Heresy had traditionally been associated primarily with erroneous belief. Increasingly, however, specific acts involving demons could be understood as evidence of heretical disobedience. The relationship with the demon was therefore transformed from a matter of spiritual temptation into a possible juridical fact.
1326: Super illius specula and the Criminalisation of Demonic Magic
The most important papal landmark in this development was the bull Super illius specula, issued under Pope John XXII in 1326, although some dating traditions place it in 1326–1327. The text condemned Christians who, according to its description, made agreements with death and pacts with hell, sacrificed to demons, worshipped them and used magical objects such as images, rings, mirrors and vessels in attempts to obtain demonic assistance.
The language of the bull is particularly revealing because it treats demonic magic as an active relationship rather than a mere superstition. Individuals were described as seeking answers and assistance from demons and rendering them a form of service in return. The demonic pact was therefore becoming an increasingly powerful model for explaining magical activity.
This represented a major development in the history of demonology. The theological problem was no longer simply whether demons could deceive human beings. It also became possible to ask whether human beings could deliberately cooperate with them.
The connection between magic and heresy would later become essential to witchcraft prosecutions. Once demonic practices could be treated as heretical acts, they could potentially fall within the broader mechanisms of ecclesiastical investigation and punishment.
1330–1340: The First Descriptions of Collective Diabolical Assemblies
The decades immediately following Super illius specula are particularly important because they witnessed some of the earliest developments towards the later idea of the witches’ sabbath. Historical accounts identify the period 1330–1340 as one in which descriptions of collective gatherings associated with demonic activity began to emerge in inquisitorial contexts, including proceedings connected with southern France.
At this stage, however, the later image of the sabbath was still incomplete. The fully developed conception of a vast, organised and explicitly anti-Christian society of witches had not yet been established. Rather, separate ideas were gradually beginning to converge: harmful magic, demonic invocation, apostasy, heresy and collective gatherings.
This distinction is important. The history of witchcraft was not a simple progression from superstition to persecution. Instead, the image of the witch was constructed through the gradual combination of previously separate traditions.
Possession, Madness and the Problem of Human Identity
During the same period, medieval theology was also reconsidering the nature of the human person. Possession, madness, dreams, trance and sleepwalking raised difficult questions about consciousness and responsibility.
In 1312, the canon Si furiosus, associated with the legislation of the Council of Vienne under Pope Clement V, addressed questions concerning responsibility and mental incapacity. Individuals who lacked ordinary rational control, such as children or the insane, could not necessarily be held responsible for their actions in the same way as fully conscious adults.
These legal and theological discussions had wider implications. If a person could act without complete control of his or her faculties, where did personal responsibility begin and end? Could an external spirit influence a body without entirely replacing the individual’s own will?
Such questions became central to demonological thought. Possession required theologians to imagine a human being whose speech, movements or behaviour might be affected by an external supernatural presence. The human personality was consequently examined as something potentially vulnerable to fragmentation or intrusion.
This did not necessarily mean that medieval thinkers believed that the human soul could simply be replaced by a demon. Rather, the problem concerned the complex relationship between the body, the will, the imagination and spiritual influence. The investigation of these boundaries became one of the intellectual foundations upon which later theories of possession and witchcraft would be constructed.
Mysticism and the Difficulty of Discerning Spirits
The problem of possession was closely connected with medieval mysticism. Throughout the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, religious figures reported visions, ecstasies, voices and other extraordinary experiences. The central question was how such experiences could be interpreted.
Could a voice heard by a mystic come from God? Could it originate in the imagination? Might it be the work of a demon?
This problem had a long theological history, particularly in traditions concerning the discernment of spirits. Yet it became increasingly complex as medieval spirituality developed more elaborate accounts of divine intimacy with the individual.
The experiences associated with Angela of Foligno (c. 1248–1309) and Clare of Montefalco (c. 1268–1308) illustrate the importance of these questions. Their religious experiences involved extraordinary forms of divine presence and bodily or psychological transformation. Such accounts required theologians to consider how a spiritual being could act within or through a human person.
The possibility of divine inhabitation consequently provided an important conceptual counterpart to demonic possession. If the divine could act intimately within the human individual, theologians also had to explain how a demon might imitate or counterfeit such manifestations. The body therefore became a central site for distinguishing between divine inspiration, natural processes and demonic deception.
1376: The Directorium inquisitorum
A major step towards the systematisation of inquisitorial knowledge came with Nicholas Eymerich’s Directorium inquisitorum, completed in 1376.
This work was a practical and theoretical guide to inquisitorial procedure. It gathered information concerning heresy, investigation and religious deviance into a more systematic framework. Its importance for demonology lies in the increasing integration of magical and demonic practices into discussions of heretical behaviour.
By the late fourteenth century, therefore, the intellectual and judicial traditions concerning demons were becoming increasingly connected. Theological speculation provided theories about demonic agency; canon law defined the categories of religious error; inquisitorial manuals supplied procedures through which suspicion could be investigated.
This combination would become increasingly powerful during the fifteenth century.
The Fifteenth Century and the Formation of the Witches’ Sabbath
The most dramatic transformation occurred during the fifteenth century. Earlier ideas concerning demons and magic were increasingly combined into the image of an organised community of witches.
The concept of the sect was especially important. Medieval Christianity had long identified heresy with organised communities that rejected legitimate religious authority. During the late medieval period, this model was increasingly applied to alleged forms of diabolical association.
A witch could now be imagined not simply as an individual magician, but as a member of a collective body. This imagined community possessed its own rites, its own form of allegiance and its own relationship with the devil.
The Formicarius, written by Johannes Nider between approximately 1435 and 1437, is an important witness to this transformation. Drawing upon accounts of witchcraft associated particularly with the regions of Switzerland and the western Alps, the work described a more developed conception of collective witchcraft. It included ideas of meetings, renunciation and direct relationships with the devil. By the 1430s, therefore, several of the central components of the later sabbath were beginning to appear together in a recognisable form.
Other important fifteenth-century developments included:
Together, these texts demonstrate the rapid growth of demonological literature during the fifteenth century.
1484–1487: The Mature Demonology of the Malleus maleficarum
The late fifteenth century witnessed the emergence of what may be described as a mature demonological system.
In 1484, Pope Innocent VIII issued the bull Summis desiderantes affectibus, which recognised concerns about harmful witchcraft and supported inquisitorial action in German territories. Two years later, in 1486–1487, Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Sprenger’s Malleus maleficarum was published.
The Malleus maleficarum brought together several centuries of theological and legal debate. Its central concerns included the reality of witchcraft, the power of demons, harmful magic, sexual relations between demons and human beings, and judicial procedures against alleged witches.
The work also reveals the continuing tension between older and newer conceptions of demonic activity. The authors had to confront traditions, such as the Canon Episcopi, that had emphasised demonic illusion. Their solution was not simply to reject the possibility of illusion. Instead, they attempted to distinguish between false appearances and genuine effects produced through demonic intervention. The question had therefore changed considerably since the early Middle Ages. The problem was no longer merely whether demons could deceive human beings, but also how and under what circumstances demons could produce effects believed to be real.
The history of medieval demonology is best understood as a gradual process of intellectual accumulation and transformation. Around 906, the tradition represented by the Canon Episcopi emphasised demonic deception and illusion. By the thirteenth century, scholastic theology was systematically examining the nature and powers of demons. Around 1269–1272, De malo contributed to increasingly detailed discussions of evil, free will and demonic agency.
The early fourteenth century represented a further turning point. The consultations of 1320 and the bull Super illius specula of 1326 brought demonic invocation, magical practice and heresy into increasingly direct relationship. During the following decades, ideas of individual demonic practice began gradually to intersect with accusations of collective and organised religious deviance.
By 1376, the Directorium inquisitorum reflected the growing institutional importance of inquisitorial approaches to religious deviance. During the 1430s, works such as the Formicarius began to describe more developed forms of collective witchcraft. Finally, the late fifteenth century, particularly the years 1484–1487, witnessed the consolidation of these ideas in papal policy and demonological literature.
The witches’ sabbath was therefore not the product of a single invention. It emerged through the convergence of several long-standing medieval traditions: beliefs in demonic temptation, theories of possession, legal concepts of heresy, ideas of contractual obligation, debates about supernatural causation and fears of collective religious conspiracy. The gradual movement from demonic illusion, to demonic intervention, to voluntary demonic pact, and finally to the image of an organised diabolical sect, reveals one of the most significant transformations in the religious and intellectual history of the later Middle Ages.
Dr Lorris Chevalier, who has a Ph.D. in medieval literature, is a historical advisor for movies, including The Last Duel and Napoleon. Click here to view his website.
Click here to read more from Lorris Chevalier
Further Readings:
Martine Ostorero, “Alain Boureau, Satan hérétique. Naissance de la démonologie dans l’Occident médiéval (1280-1330),” Médiévales, 48 (2005)
Top Image: Demon knights depicted in the Trinity Apocalypse – Cambridge University Library MS R.16.2 fol. 10r
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