Description:
Explores the western European idea of the witches' sabbath, based on translations of five texts dating from the 1430s, and examines how these texts went on to influence conceptions of diabolical witchcraft for centuries to come.
Brief description: Michael D. Bailey is Professor of History at Iowa State University and the author of five books on magic, superstition, and witchcraft, including Battling Demons: Witchcraft, Heresy, and Reform in the Late Middle Ages, also published by Penn State University Press.
Review Quotes:
"These are extremely important texts that merit wide attention in English. They are absolutely crucial to understanding the origins of ecclesiastical concern over what common people had long described as witchcraft but had been largely dismissed as impossible and/or illusory since the tenth century."
--Walter Stephens, author of Demon Lovers: Witchcraft, Sex, and the Crisis of Belief