Another Royal Encounter for the Woman of Endor: 1 Samuel 28 as a Proof Text in King James vi's Daemonologie

Abstract

One of the loci classici for the Renaissance witchcraft debate is 1 Samuel 28, the story about King Saul's desperate consultation of a female necromancer in Endor at the eve of his battle against the Philistines. The demonization of the woman of Endor reached its climax in the learned concept of witchcraft as it circulated throughout Europe and on the British Isles in the late medieval and early modern period. The much-maligned necromancer also featured prominently in the only witchcraft treatise ever written by a monarch, namely Daemonologie (1597) by King James VI of Scotland. James wrote this tract in the aftermath of the North Berwick trials (1590–1591), in which he had interrogated some of the suspected witches who had been accused of treason by sorcery. The king's personal involvement in these trials convinced him of the immediate danger that witchcraft posed to his reign as well as to the Protestant faith. Fulfilling his God-given duty, James zealously sought to eradicate the "slaves of the devil" from his country and educate his subjects in the reality of witches and witchcraft, both past and present, including the "Witch of Endor" and her dark craft. Daemonologie is considered a largely derivative work, interspersed with proof texts, and this article discusses in detail how reliant James's exposition of 1 Samuel 28 was on antecedent traditions in Renaissance art and literature.