Abstract

According to the revisionist view of Wolfgang Behringer, Erik Midelfort, and others, the satanic overlay obscures the more common small-scale witch trials. These historians advocate a view of witchcraft that is more broadly comparable throughout Europe. Against this, the author argues that there are pitfalls to downplaying the salience of Europe's demonological view of witchcraft, since it is precisely this element that distinguishes European witchcraft most clearly. In Russia, for example, until the eighteenth century there was little connection between witchcraft and the Devil: the pact, the sabbath, and sex between witches and demons were virtually absent, leading questions were not common, and interrogations were self-limiting. Only under Peter the Great was a version of demonic witchcraft introduced, not in his Ecclesiastical Regulation (1721) but in his Military Statute (1716).

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