Abstract
In comparison with the estimated number of about 60,000 executed so-called witches (women and men), the number of executed and punished witch-priests seems to be rather irrelevant. This statement, however, overlooks the fact that it was only during medieval and early modern times that the crime of heresy and witchcraft cost the life of friars, monks, and ordained priests at the stake. Clerics were the largest group of men accused of practicing magic, necromancy, and witchcraft. Demonology and the media (in constant dialogue with trials) reveal the omnipresence of the devil’s cleric with his figure possessing the quality of a ‘super-witch’, labelled as patronus sagarum. In Western Europe, the persecution of Catholic priests played at least two significant roles. First, in confessional debates, it proved to Catholics that Satan was assaulting post-Tridentine Catholicism, the only remaining bulwark of Christianity; for Protestants on the other hand, the news about the devil’s clergy proved that Satan ruled popedom. Second, in the Old Reich and from the start of the 17th century, the prosecution of clerics as the devil’s minions fueled the general debates about the legitimacy of witchcraft trials. In sketching these over-lapping discourses, we meet the devil’s clergy in Catholic political demonology, in the media and in confessional debates, including polemics about Jesuits being witches and sorcerers. Friedrich Spee used the narratives about executed Catholic priests as vital argument to end trials and torture. Inter alia, battling the devil’s clergy played a vital role in campaigns of internal Catholic church reform and clerical infighting. Studying the debates about the devil’s clergy thus provides a better understanding of how the dynamics of the Reformation, counter-Reformation, Catholic Reform, and confessionalization had an impact on European witchcraft trials.
Highlights
Johannes Wier reported—together with the story of the witch-cleric from Mirandola—the first cases of demonic possession and witchcraft accusations in female convents. He argued against staged exorcisms, because they triggered the fear of diabolic witchcraft and resulting trials (Voltmer 2016, p. 212)
Anticlericalism, built on political, social, economic, and religious enmities, had a longstanding medieval tradition. It targeted regular and secular clergy, whilst there was a great deal of infighting amongst the clerical orders themselves: Monks battled friars, observant defamed non-observant branches, Dominicans battled with Franciscans, anti-fraternalism ruled from the advent of the Mendicant orders, and popes were labelled as diabolic necromancers
In Western Europe, only few territories saw clusters of trials against witch-clerics, many friars, monks, and secular priests had a notorious reputation as necromancer, sorcerer, and magician
Summary
Witch-priests were a special category of male witchcraft not in quantity, but certainly in quality. Including an obscure number of cases lost in the archives, we can estimate a total of about 120 to 150 witch-clerics, sorcerer-priests, and wizard-monks who had to stand trial under the accusation of ritual magic, necromancy, and witchcraft.. Johannes Wier reported—together with the story of the witch-cleric from Mirandola—the first cases of demonic possession and witchcraft accusations in female convents. He argued against staged exorcisms, because they triggered the fear of diabolic witchcraft and resulting trials Demonology and the media debated the devil’s clergy during medieval and early modern times in constant dialogue with actual trials.8 This omnipresent figure possessed the quality of a ‘super-witch’, labelled as patronus sagarum. Studying the debates about the devil’s clergy provides a deeper understanding of how the dynamics of counter-reformation, Catholic Reform, and confessionalization had an impact on European witchcraft trials.
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
