A historian’s sympathetic reimagining of medieval witchcraft as popular rebellion
What the Work Is
Satanism and Witchcraft is a book on the history of witchcraft by the French historian Jules Michelet. It was originally published in Paris in 1862 under the title La Sorcière, and the first English translation appeared in London a year later. The work is written in French and is classified as an essay, taking witchcraft as its main subject. It is a work of history that blends scholarly research with imaginative storytelling, and it is best known for offering one of the first sympathetic accounts of witchcraft and the witch trials.
What the Book Is About
The book’s central argument is that medieval witchcraft was not a matter of diabolical delusion but a righteous act of rebellion by the lower classes against feudalism and the Roman Catholic Church. On Michelet’s account, this rebellion took the form of a secret religion, inspired by paganism and by belief in fairies, that was organized and led by a woman. Its participants gathered regularly at Witches’ Sabbaths and Black Masses. Michelet frames the whole phenomenon around the suffering of peasants and women in the Middle Ages, presenting the witch as a figure of resistance rather than of evil.
In a note appended to the end of the book, Michelet explained his aim: he described his object as giving not a history of sorcery but a simple and striking account of the sorceress’s way of life—one that, in his view, his learned predecessors had obscured through the very elaboration of their scientific methods and their excess of detail. He presented his distinctive contribution as beginning not from the devil, an empty conception, but from a living reality: the sorceress herself.
Key Ideas and Themes
The most distinctive idea in the book is that witchcraft should be understood sociologically—as a form of popular protest rooted in real social conditions—rather than as a purely religious or demonological matter. Michelet was among the first to attempt a sociological explanation of the witch trials, and he read his source material very literally in constructing that explanation. Where earlier writers treated the devil and demonology as the organizing principle, Michelet placed the sorceress at the center as a warm, breathing human reality.
A second major theme is the suffering of the poor and of women under medieval feudalism and the Church. Michelet’s account dwells on this suffering and treats the secret religion of the witches as a response to it. The rebellion he describes was, in his telling, inspired by paganism and by fairy belief, and it was led by a woman who became the religion’s leader.
A third theme is the trajectory of the movement itself. Michelet presents the religion as beginning as a form of social protest and then declining into decadence. His narrative follows a series of medieval witches who led the religion through this arc.
The book also reflects Michelet’s broader conviction, expressed in his writing, that history should concentrate on the people and not only on their leaders or institutions—an outlook that has been described as putting him ahead of his time as a writer of micro-history.
Structure and Approach
The book is divided into two parts, each made up of twelve chapters. The first and most famous part is an imaginative reconstruction of the experience of a series of medieval witches who led the religion from its original form of social protest into decadence. The second part consists of a series of episodes drawn from the European witch trials, including the Louis Gaufridi affair, the trials of the possessed women of Loudun and Louviers, and the execution of Charlotte Cadière.
Michelet’s method combines scholarly research with imaginative storytelling, a mixture that makes the book more accessible to general readers. The result often reads more like a novel or a tragedy than a conventional historical treatise.
Significance and Influence
Although the book is today regarded as largely inaccurate, it remains notable for being one of the first sympathetic histories of witchcraft. In that respect it may have had an indirect influence on Wicca. Its afterlife extended beyond the page: in the early 1970s, La Sorcière became the basis for Alain Robbe-Grillet’s film Glissements progressifs du plaisir, starring Jean-Louis Trintignant, and for the anime film Kanashimi no Belladonna, produced by Mushi Production.
Jules Michelet was a French historian and writer, best known for his multi-volume work Histoire de France (History of France), which chronicles the history of France from its earliest origins to the French Revolution. He was influenced by Giambattista Vico, particularly by Vico’s emphasis on the role of ordinary people and their customs in shaping historical narratives, which contrasted with the traditional focus on political and military elites. Michelet also drew inspiration from Vico’s concept of the corsi e ricorsi—the cyclical nature of history—in which societies rise and fall in a recurring pattern.
Publication and Cataloging Details
The book carries the subjects of witchcraft, demonomania, superstition, Satanism, medieval civilization, and history. Its opening line reads: “THERE are authors who assure us that a little while before the final victory of Christianity a mysterious voice was heard along the shores of the AEgean Sea, proclaiming: ‘Great Pan is dead!'”
