Output details
30 - History
University of Essex
"Ein verschlagener Geist": Vorstellungen des Teufels in den Hexenprozessen der Reichsstadt Rothenburg ob der Tauber ["A Cunning Spirit": Ways of Imagining the Devil in the Witch-Trials of the Imperial City of Rothenburg ob der Tauber]
This article uses records of trials for witchcraft, treasure-seeking and fraud from Rothenburg (1549-1709) to explore how the devil was imagined by lawyers and theologians who wrote opinions on the cases and by those who were accused of, or confessed to, being witches. The elites imagined the devil as a ‘cunning spirit’ who could even delude them; for ordinary people, the devil was imagined as anything from a snail to a handsome man. This complex web of ideas drew on religion, theatrical traditions, and new emphases on demonic pacts from witch-persecutions elsewhere and the Faust stories of the late-sixteenth century.