Jean Bodin and English Demonology of the 16th — 17th Centuries

Abstract

The article deals with the influence exerted by the famous French lawyer Jean Bodin on the English demonologists of the 16—17th centuries. Based on the material of demonological treatises and pamphlets published in the English Kingdom since the end of the 16th century, the author of the article traces the degree of familiarity of the English with the basic ideas of the “Demon-mania of Sorcerers” of Jean Bodin (1580). She notes four different principles of quoting “Demon-mania”: direct quoting with the mention of the author’s name and the title of the treatise; hidden borrowings; indirect quoting; and finally, “empty” references, when the appeal to the authority of Jean Bodin was not based on his own text. The undeniable familiarity of English demonologists with “Demon-mania” makes the author of the article also consider the question of the religion of Jean Bodin in order to understand why the British, who were already Protestants for the most part by the beginning of the 16th century, paid so much more attention to the work written by a Catholic.