ABSTRACT
Within the thriving field of witchcraft studies, the question of the interaction between Church reform and witch-hunting has been raised only recently, at least for the period prior to the Reformation. Those authors who have examined the issue have most often addressed it from a demonological point of view, concentrating on how and to what extent reformist ideas spread into contemporary demonological writings. In this context, the significance of the Council of Basel (1431–49) has been stressed repeatedly. This was a place where numerous demonologists and inquisitors, among them the Dominican reformist friar and demonologist John Nider, had the occasion to meet one another, and to share their mutual experiences and anxieties about witches and demons with their fellow clergy, even if this particular topic did not figure in the official agenda of this reforming council. 2 However, this chapter is neither about learned discussions on the margins of the Council of Basel nor about demonology in a strict sense. It is a case study that considers the connections between the act of reforming a local church on the one hand, and, on the other, the act of hunting down presumed male and female witches in the same diocese. 3 Thus, it aims at a better understanding of history at a ‘micro-structural’ level. For all that, ‘Basel’ is not entirely out of our scope, as George of Saluzzo, the bishop who – at an early moment in the history of the repression of diabolic witches – initiated two major witch-hunts in the diocese of Lausanne, was also incorporated at the Council of Basel, where he played an active part in the election of the Council’s counter-Pope Felix V.
