Scourging the Temple of God: Towards an Understanding of Nicolas Jacquier's Flagellum haereticorum fascinariorum (1458)

Despite its importance as an early example of fifteenth-century attacks on a sect of demon-worshipping heretics, Nicholas Jacquier's Flagellum haereticorum fascinariorum remains neglected in English-language histories of witchcraft and the late medieval world. Integrating Jacquier's text into such histories, I situate the Flagellum and its author within both modern scholarly discourse on demonology and reconstructed fifteenth-century contexts. By examining in detail the Flagellum's opening chapters on demonic illusion and corporeality, I elucidate many of the characteristic forms of Jacquier's argument, and conclude by signalling the possibilities for using texts like Jacquier's to construct wider cultural histories of late medieval Burgundy.