To defend the popular belief of witchcraft there arose a number of advocates, of whom Bodin and some others…
- Date of account
- Published 1830
- Source
- Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft
- Reference
- Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft · selected passage 128
- Rights
- public_domain
- Language
- English
- Record updated
- 2026-08-24
Record summary
To defend the popular belief of witchcraft there arose a number of advocates, of whom Bodin and some others neither wanted knowledge nor powers of reasoning
Published source text
Read the available text below. Archive transcriptions may contain OCR errors; later context is labelled separately. A recorded claim is not a finding that it happened.
Source passage
Source text · mention onlyTo defend the popular belief of witchcraft there arose a number of advocates, of whom Bodin and some others neither wanted knowledge nor powers of reasoning. They pressed the incredulous party with the charge that they denied the existence of a crime against which the law had denounced a capital punishment. As that law was understood to emanate from James himself, who was reigning monarch during the hottest part of the controversy, the English authors who defended the opposite side were obliged to entrench themselves under an evasion, to avoid maintaining an argument unpalatable to a degree to those in power, and which might perchance have proved unsafe to those who used it.
Historical context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyThis is a historical account assembled under the reporting and publishing conventions of its period. It may preserve testimony, hearsay, retelling and editorial interpretation together.
Modern context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyA modern comparison can identify recurring descriptions and possible explanations, but the account is not treated as independently verified evidence merely because it appeared in print.
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