Abstract
Jonathan Pearl's study of French demonological thought during the Wars of Religion advances three related arguments. The first is that only a relatively small minority of the learned elite in France subscribed to what might be referred to as extreme demonological beliefs. The second argument is that relatively few executions occurred in the kingdom of France during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Professor Pearl attributes this low number to the way in which the French judicial system functioned, especially the strict evidentiary standards it upheld and the mandatory review of capital sentences by the regional parlements. If the demonologists wished to inspire large-scale witch-hunting (and it is not clear that they did), the judges of the courts, who generally did not harbor extreme witchcraft beliefs, prevented them from doing so.
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