‘Detestable Slaves of the Devil’: Religion as the ‘Third Pillar’ of the Civilizing Process

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Utilising the early modern witchcraft prosecutions as historical evidence, this article proposes a reconfiguration of Norbert Elias’ theory of The Civilizing Process to include ‘religious de-centralisation’ as a necessary ‘third pillar’ within long-term European development. It is argued that, given the significance of the medieval church and the threat to monarchical power posed by that same institution, decentralising organised religion from the functioning of the state was required in order to allow state formation to proceed. This is evidenced by the early modern recategorization of ‘magic’ as witchcraft and the resulting extension of state jurisdiction into the prosecution of witches to the disadvantage of the church courts.