Calvin’s Geneva Confronts Magic and Witchcraft: The Evidence from the Consistory
In: Journal of Early Modern HistorySearch for other papers by Jeffrey R. Watt in
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Abstract
This essay examines the actions of the Consistory of Geneva, a morals court created and dominated by John Calvin, against reputed cases of magic and superstition. During the ministry of Calvin, the most common of these involved white magic to cure people of various illnesses. The Consistory was not unduly harsh in dealing with therapeutic magic, usually just rebuking the miscreants and temporarily excluding them from communion. It also showed a remarkable degree of skepticism when confronting accusations of maleficia, at times viewing the allegations as a form of defamation of the person accused of witchcraft. The Consistory, like the Catholic Inquisition, attacked superstition, but it extended superstition to include numerous practices that Catholics accepted. Calvinism’s elimination of many rituals and sacramentals greatly restricted access to the supernatural. Evidence from the Consistory suggests that Calvinism promoted the professionalization of medicine and, in the long run, the disenchantment of the world.
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21
See E. William Monter and John Tedeschi, “Toward a Statistical Profile of the Italian Inquisitions, Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries,” in The Inquisition in Early Modern Europe: Studies on Sources and Methods, ed. Gustav Henningsen and John Tedeschi (Dekalb, 1986), 130-157; Giovanni Romeo, Inquisitori, esorcisti e streghe nell’Italia della Controriforma (Florence, 1990), 176-177, 201-246; Anne Jacobson Schutte, Aspiring Saints: Pretense of Holiness, Inquisition, and Gender in the Republic of Venice, 1618-1750 (Baltimore, 2001), 28-29.
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30
Josiane Ferrari-Clément, “From Household to School, From School to Household,” in Forgotten Women of Geneva, ed. Anne-Marie Käppeli, trans. Rebecca Zorac (Geneva, 1993), 78-97.
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32
In a letter written in March 1545, Calvin expressed his approval of the aggressive actions taken against men and women who reputedly had made a pact with the devil to destroy the city by spreading the plague; Ioannis Calvini Opera Quae Supersunt Omnia, ed. Gulielmus Baum, Eduardus Cunitz, Eduardus Reuss (Brunswick, 1874), 12, col. 55-56, epistle 627; John L. Teall, “Witchcraft and Calvinism in Elizabethan England: Divine Power and Human Agency,” Journal of the History of Ideas 23 (1962): 28, n. 19. Later that year, Calvin and his fellow pastor, Jacques Bernard, appeared before the Small Council to urge authorities to “extirpate” “heriges” from the area around Peney in the Genevan countryside; AEG, RC 40: 295v, November 19, 1545; Monter, Witchcraft in France and Switzerland, 31, n. 36; William G. Naphy, Plagues, Poisons, and Potions: Plague-Spreading Conspiracies in the Western Alps c. 1530-1640 (Manchester, 2002); Oskar Pfister, Calvins Eingreifen in die Hexer- und Hexenprozessen von Peney 1545 nach seiner Bedeutung für Geschichte und Gegenwart (Zurich, 1947), 33.
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Calvin’s Geneva Confronts Magic and Witchcraft: The Evidence from the Consistory
In: Journal of Early Modern HistorySearch for other papers by Jeffrey R. Watt in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
Abstract
This essay examines the actions of the Consistory of Geneva, a morals court created and dominated by John Calvin, against reputed cases of magic and superstition. During the ministry of Calvin, the most common of these involved white magic to cure people of various illnesses. The Consistory was not unduly harsh in dealing with therapeutic magic, usually just rebuking the miscreants and temporarily excluding them from communion. It also showed a remarkable degree of skepticism when confronting accusations of maleficia, at times viewing the allegations as a form of defamation of the person accused of witchcraft. The Consistory, like the Catholic Inquisition, attacked superstition, but it extended superstition to include numerous practices that Catholics accepted. Calvinism’s elimination of many rituals and sacramentals greatly restricted access to the supernatural. Evidence from the Consistory suggests that Calvinism promoted the professionalization of medicine and, in the long run, the disenchantment of the world.
| All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 1286 | 202 | 12 |
| Full Text Views | 288 | 13 | 1 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 341 | 24 | 0 |
