The discovery of witches : a study of Master Matthew Hopkins, commonly call'd Witch finder generall / by the Rev. Montague Summers, together with a reprint of The discovery of witches from the rare original of 1647.

  • Summers, Montague, 1880-1948.
Date:
1928
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The discovery of witches : a study of Master Matthew Hopkins, commonly call'd Witch finder generall / by the Rev. Montague Summers, together with a reprint of The discovery of witches from the rare original of 1647. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    volumes, are aware that they lay themselves open to asper¬ sion and ignorant obloquy, to detraction and even personal abuse, which they must expect and patiently endure. It is, then, certainly not an easy, and by no means an enviable task to treat of these difficult businesses. The precipitancy, one might almost say the impetuosity, with which Matthew Hopkins rushed in, do not in truth augur that gravity and sincerity, that probity and impartial spirit, which are so necessary for any practical inquiry into occult matters. It would appear that from the first he enjoyed notoriety, and even more surely that along these lines he saw a chance of reaping those rich emoluments which seemed to be denied him by the obscure and humdrum routine of the legal avocation in the smallest of country towns. With the works of the great demonologists it is tolerably plain that he had no acquaintance, and since such a course of study is the very first requisite for one who proposes to deal with these esoterica, either, as was then possible, in the court of law, or even merely from a historical and—if you will—a literary point of view, it is obvious that he was heavily handicapped when he began his course. We are certainly correct in saying that even the supreme authority of the Malleus Maleficarum was unknown to him ; that he had# not read Bodin, Grilland, Godelman, Boguet, Remy, Guazzo, and the rest. There is no indication that he was a scholar, and the works of these writers being technical to a degree demand not merely an erudite Latinity but also an especial intensive technical training. Hopkins was familiar with the Daemonologie of King James, who reproduces some¬ thing of the older authors although at second hand. He