Conclusion

On the Witch-Hunt in China and the West:A Comparative Study between the Chinese Sorcery Scare in 1768 and Witch Persecution in Early Modern Europe

JIANG Yan

Wuhan University

Witch belief and its relating topics have unremittingly been discussed in recent years,among which the prevalent historical phenomena of witch-hunt^[1]have aroused great interest in both Chinese and Western academia.^[2]Agreeing with most Western scholars in this field,I define witch-hunt in this article as a series of persecution and accusation toward sorcerers and witches,especially those who were believed to have participated in evil sorceries.Much less attention,however,has been attached to studies offering a comparative perspective to look at witch-hunt in Chinese as well as Western histories.This paper will shed light on this interesting point.By comparing the witch-hunts in the 1768 Sorcery Scare in Qing China and witch persecution in early modern Europe,I will discuss their similarities and differences through investigating the socio-cultural backgrounds in which they developed.I will also question what imperatives had contributed to the making of witch-hunt in two distant cultures and what features they commonly or respectively presented.Through this comparative study,I argue that the witch-hunts in the 1768 Sorcery Scare and early modern Europe are noticeably commensurable since they respectively constituted a crucial part of popular beliefs and daily activities in their indigenous social context.This commensurability will better shape our understanding of the socio-cultural resemblance and divergence between China and the West.^[3]

I

The social backgrounds within which witch-hunt occurred,I emphasise,should be paid ultimate attention.Both the 1768 Sorcery Scare in China and witch-hunt in almost contemporary Europe embodied severe social changes and the incidental impacts,which we can respectively read from the reign of Emperor Qianlong in Qing Dynasty,and the early modern period when diverse elements of‘modernity’sprouted in Western European society.In late seventeenth-and early eighteenth-century China,especially in the most commercialised Jiangnan region,commodity economy enjoyed its rapid growth.What flourished simultaneously was a freer labour market,and interacting with the unbalanced economic development of different local areas,it gave rise to the steep increase of population mobility.Moreover,the booming population and the considerably increasing good price,in particular the price of rice,broke the originally harmonious proportion among population,good price and currency.^[4]All these constituted serious impact on the entire society and to some extent caused the loss of the original order and the occurrence of instability,which constituted the cradle of social crises.Comparable circumstances happened in Europe during the early modern period.The population growth as well as the overall good price rebounded quickly after long decrease and stagnation.Cities and towns experienced enormous growth in terms of number and size.More importantly,a new economic mode,namely the commercial and agricultural capitalism,began to be introduced to many regions.The series of new elements,together with the periodical natural disasters,famines and plagues,collectively made Europe one of the most fiercely changing places in the world then.^[5]European people in the period must have profound insight into these changes,not to mention religious and political conflicts.Being born in great changes was what can help us rationalise the happenings of the two seemingly‘accidental’witch-hunts.

What impacts did the greatly changing society make on the psychology of the public at that time,and how did it relate to the witch-hunt?We may investigate the question from two perspectives,the rulers and the ruled.The great social changes stimulated the upper rulers to concern the security and stability of their own rule.Particularly in respect of social order and state security,the rulers would attach much more emphasis and would increasingly intend to create the image of their‘imaginary enemies’.When these sorts of concern,anxiety and the intention of labelling imaginary enemies were embodied in certain incidents or figures,it became understandable to see that the rulers took what they regarded as necessary means to facilitate‘effective’ guard.The embodiment of the psychology saw an eloquent example that Emperor Qianlong equated braid-cuttings made by sorcerers and witches with treason,which prompted the spread of witch-hunt all over the whole empire.^[6]Similar encounter can be seen in the witch-hunt in early modern Europe.In late sixteenth-century Scotland,King James VI initiated a series of trials for sorcery,whose nature lied profoundly in the fact that the king felt the stability of his rule threatened.^[7]In contemporary England,the establishment of An Act against Conjuration,Enchantment and Witchcraft(Statute 5 Eli.I,cap.16)as well as the incidental witch-hunts also suggested the anxious interaction between sovereignty and sorcery.^[8]For instance,someone was recorded to have used witchcraft to reckon how long the life and reign of Queen Elizabeth I would be.^[9]

For the ruled,enormous social changes and impacts proceeded with the accumulation of greater worries about their status and survival,and generally,these changes had not brought most of the public instant and practical benefits.As Phillip Kuhn suggests in his study on the 1768 Sorcery Scare in China,if standing at the position of an eighteenth-century ordinary Chinese,the commercial development might not necessarily imply that he could earn a fortune or better secure his life.On the contrary,in a crowded society full of competition,his living space became even narrower.For most commoners at that time,the actual outcome that this flourishing age brought to them was the struggle and suffering which they experienced in order to survive in the unpredictable environment.^[10]Early modern European commoners shared the compatible mentality with eighteenth-century Chinese counterparts.For them,as B.P.Levack describes,changes in every respect of life were anxious experience,which produced a pessimistic,depressing emotion,and strong fear toward the new world that they felt unstable,uncertain and difficult to address.^[11]Witch-hunt,on this occasion,provided an effective approach for the public to release great mental pressure.In hunting sorcerers and witches,the public often ascribed various misfortune or all potential danger and threat around to them.^[12]Moreover,changes and impacts themselves also aggravated the tension of the entire social relations,which was particularly evident among the lower social circle.When life became more difficult,for their own benefits,most commoners would involve in more frequent conflicts with others.In many conditions,witch-hunt was,with or without consciousness,applied as a‘weapon’to protect personal interests and reframe social network.Therefore,the poor could quarrel with the rich on the availability and size of charity;^[13]the creditors could be insulted as‘witches’;personal conflicts could be transformed into persecution and accusation cases toward witchcraft.^[14]The common fear toward sorcery could even be used to attack pears or competitors.^[15]Kuhn's metaphor well depicts the circumstance:Here was a loaded weapon thrown into the street,one that could as well be used by the weak as by the strong,by the scoundrel as by the honest man.To anyone oppressed by tyrannical kinsmen or grasping creditors,it offered relief.To anyone who needed‘quick cash’,it offered rewards.To scoundrel,it means power.^[16]

It was the mental mechanisms of these two groups of people and their interaction that contributed to the emergence and breakout of the witch-hunt.In the process of proceeding large-scale witch-hunts,different social groups reflected and expressed different mentalities,yet they unconsciously arrived at a‘conspiracy’when targeting at sorcery as the subject of their anxiety.

II

Beside the social backgrounds,I also argue that there are crucial comparable features within the witch-hunts in China and the West.First,we should pay attention to the popular mind,which had profound influence on expanding the scale of the witch-hunt.In the late nineteenth century,the French scholar Gustave Le Bon had made systematic research on the popular mind.He points out that the making of the‘crowd’assumes such a circumstance that the sentiments and ideas of all the persons in the gatherings take one and the same direction,and individual conscious personality vanishes.A collective mind is formed,which is further subjected to the law of the mental unity of crowds.^[17]The mental unity,consisting of characteristics such as impulsiveness,mobility,irritability,the absence of judgment and critical spirit,the exaggeration of sentiments,stubbornness,imperiousness and the intention of violence,tortures the popular mind to be irrational.^[18]Some witch-hunt activities presented such characteristics fairly obviously.To some extent,it was these emotional and psychological features that stimulated the prevalence of the witch-hunt.In his research on the 1768 Sorcery Scare,Kuhn also underlines the significance of the popular mind in understanding the nature of the widespread event.In the initial‘Hsiao-shan affair’,agitated villagers quickly crowded around.The mob,angrier than ever,tied two strangers(taken as witches)up and searched them roughly.Finding nothing,they began to beat them.As the hubbub drew a larger crowd,some shouted‘burn them!’and others,‘drown them!’^[19]In the same day at another site in Xiao-shan,people had beaten an itinerant tinker to death because they believed that two charms found on him were soulstealing spells,although officials later discovered that they were only conventional formulae for propitiating the Earth Deity.^[20]

Witch-hunts in early modern Europe were also severely entwined with illegal violence and punishment driven by the crowd's absence of judgement,which on many occasions gave rise to further hunting of and prosecution toward witches.^[21]The fear of sorcery spread wildly.As a contemporary bishop commented:now several hundreds of witches can be found in one county;if the news is true,then in a northern village consisting of 14 households,there are 14 bad eggs(witches)who should be cursed.^[22]Feardriven violence met its climax in the witch-hunts by Matthew Hopkins in England between 1645 and 1647.People were desperate to imitate,follow and invite the‘renowned’professional witch-hunter to their own towns and communities,enquiring him to help find and prosecute those hateful sorcerers and witches.^[23]The invited witch-hunts had circulated among most regions of England within only two years,resulting in prosecutions towards at least 250 people and death penalties upon about 100 so-called witches.This was the greatest witch-hunt in British history.^[24]As Robin Briggs suggests,like all witch-hunts,this witch-hunt was supported by the local public,yet what Hopkins's witch-hunt Crusades did was only taking advantage of existing suspect rather than producing new one.^[25]Therefore,to a large extent,it was the popular mind that essentially led to the breakout and expansion of a“real”witch-hunt.^[26]

Another major similar feature of the witch-hunts bath in China and the west lies in the persecuted subjects,namely the selection of so-called sorcerers and witches.The principal target of the persecutions were marginal social groups.In the 1768 Sorcery Scare,people who were tortured were mostly lower-status Buddhist monks,Taoist priests,beggars and other marginal social groups;^[27]in the west,the persecuted were the elderly and the poor,a considerable amount of whom were female.To figure out the potential reason,we should first look at the wildly-accepted stereotype of the marginal groups,which was overwhelmingly negative.In Qing society,Buddhists and Taoists were of relevantly low status,and most of the clergies won little respect.A general Confucian disdain diffused for them since they were regarded as a group of people who were‘willingly shaved their heads to become monks and even failed to care for their parents,wives,and children,and whose activities are accordingly suspicious’.^[28]Besides,since most of the lower-status Buddhist monks and Taoist priests made their livings by begging,it was not rare that they left the others the impression of‘lazy bones’.More crucially,for Buddhist clergies,there were some men in limbo,neither in the orthodox family system nor ranked as the certified monk,having no explicit identity.The vagueness of the identity increased suspect and fear from around.Taoist priests aroused probably more unreserved suspect because they were usually related to various witchcraft and rituals.^[29]Another suspicious group were the lay beggars.Growing poverty out of great social changes were accompanied by the increase of the population of beggars,which further deepened the public's prejudice and discrimination toward them.Beggars were believed to be‘dirty’,a sort of‘contamination’ to the entire society,and an intrusion on of the original community life.Like monks,they were thought rootless and shiftless,yet their begging,comparing with monastic begging,was more despised and hated.^[30]In early modern Europe,the elderly was attached with negative fame as well.They were said to be trouble-makers,having contact with the Devil and being filled with special appeals.^[31]The poor,in order to survive and improve their own economic capacity,might take advantage of witchcraft and even make alliance with the Devil at times.Nevertheless,they were more likely to generate resentment when it was difficult for them to access to certain‘living aids’,which led them to practise witchcraft.^[32]Women were often discriminated by the mainstream because of their‘gender weakness’:they were easier to be tempted by the Devil,more jealous,therefore more likely to use witchcraft.^[33]What the stereotypes brought was many‘prophetic’and‘verified’imagination and correlation.Such phenomena became more popular in the period of great social changes,and those whose behaviours were uncanny became less bearable for local communities.^[34]Another probable reason might be that the marginal social groups were often equipped with far less ability to fight back and protect themselves.Thus accordingly,they were more likely persecuted as the subjects who were suspected to have practised witchcraft.As Kuhn argues,monks and beggars were the poorest and most defenseless groups in Chinese society.They were supported by no influential kinsmen,they had little or no economic reserves.^[35]Similar in early modern European society,the poor,especially those poor women,were the most weak and vulnerable groups among all types of members.They were old and incapable,and were most frequently chosen as the scapegoat of any misfortune.^[36]

III

Do the similarities analysed above mean that the 1768 Sorcery Scare in China was of the same nature as the witch-hunts in early modern Europe?Definitely not.One of differences is that to some extent,religion played merely a limited role in the Chinese sorcery scare of‘soulstealers’.In the following I will address the different roles of religious factors in the witchhunts in China and the West.

In the early modern European witch-hunt,religious factors had profoundly facilitated its development,which the 1768 Sorcery Scare did not represent very much.This difference,I suggest,should be considered within the two hunts'respective socio-cultural context.In early modern Europe,the Christian belief,which had existed for over a thousand years since the late antiquity and reached its climax in the High Middle Ages,had immersed into every aspect of people's daily life then.But at the same time,Christianity faced evident challenges and experienced incidental changes.The religious unity governed by Catholicism all over Europe had been threatened by divergent understandings of Christianity during the Reformation.Since then,the power of Protestants increased,and diverse Protestant branches such as Lutherans,Calvinists and Anglicanism flourished and rooted in northwestern Europe.The Reformation also influenced intensely the religious doctrines and thoughts then,such as the growing awareness of the Devil,the emphasis on the individual's religious piousness and saintliness,and the attacks to superstition,paganism and magic.Apart from that,it also consolidated the conception of holy secular states.We can see how these series of elements shaped witchcraft and witch-hunts then.For instance,the increasing consciousness of the Devil contributed to the growth of the consensus that sorcerers and witches,as the representatives of the Devil,should be eliminated.The fulfilment of religious piousness,for its difficulty in practical individual lives,usually produced considerable psychological burden and‘the sense of guilt’.And the best way for the believers to release their anxiety of not being pious enough was to prosecute witchcraft.The harsh punishment upon superstition,paganism and magic,by every means,led to more severe attacks to sorcerers and witches.The increasingly explicit conception of holy secular states witnessed the publication of a set of antiwitchcraft laws and regulations.^[37]Nevertheless,the religious conflicts during the Reformation diffused not only between Catholicism and Protestantism,but also among different branches of certain a religious sect.^[38]Often on such occasions,witch-hunts,with or without consciousness,became one of the‘weapons’among different sects and branches,which increased the possibility of persecutions toward witchcraft.To a large degree,religion had an essential influence on prompting early modern European witch-hunts.

The second difference lied in the characteristics and contents of the witch beliefs.As analysed above,the Reformation aroused people's increasing awareness of the Devil,which further contributed to the prevalence of many new witchcraft ideas such as the‘covenant or pact with the Devil’^[39],the Devil worship,witches’sabbath of the Devil,feeding familiars and so forth.^[40]In the period,cheap prints including books and pamphlets emerged rapidly about how witches were willing or forced to make contracts with the Devil driven by temptation or mental pressure.The circulation of witchrelated literature proceeded with the making and circulation of the new elements in contemporary witchcraft,which influenced later witch-hunts as well.They sometimes became an important drive for organising witch-hunt activities.And when defining the guilt of witches,people could apply certain ideas in the covenant or pact with the Devil to facilitate the judgment,thus increasing the ratio of guilt condemnation in addressing witchcraft cases in certain regions.^[41]The sensitive attention to proofs pertaining to the covenant or pact with the Devil,while prevalent in early modern European witch-hunt context,occurred much rarer in the 1768 scare toward‘soulstealer’.The nuclear concept in the Chinese Sorcery Scare was the soul,which meant that if someone's soul was stolen,then he or she would be hurt and even die.^[42]The‘soulstealing’was seriously scared since it was fatal.In this respect,the two witch-hunts presented very divergent feature of how people in the two cultural contexts understood the nature and effect of witchcraft.

In addition,one important difference related to religion was the prosecuted witches'‘confession’.It is not difficult to figure out many similarities concerning confessions in the two witch-hunts.For example,witches usually deny their identities at first,which made cruel torture be the most frequent means for the witch-hunters to complete condemnation proceedings.^[43]During the 1768 Sorcery Scare,we see that most witch suspects had been put to torture,and many of them had to confess that they practised sorcery.^[44]However,in early modern European witch-hunts,there were some cases in which witches themselves admitted they were witches during the investigation.This phenomenon,I suggest,was correlated with the belief of the Devil,the adherents’piousness and psychological insights within the indigenous religious context then.These witches often defined themselves as someone who was tempted or controlled by and had made contracts with the Devil,thus they felt seriously guilty and willing to admit their guilts and make confessions.The willingness to admit and confess for the guilt concerning the Devil could be a worth-noting motive of the witch-hunt,which we find exact cases in early modern France,Switzerland and Spain.^[45]

Conclusion

A primary comparative analysis has been made on the similarities and differences of the 1768 Sorcery Scare of China and witch prosecution in early modern Europe.In total,they were commensurable as a crucial part of popular beliefs and daily activities in their indigenous social context.By comparing the two systematically,it is not difficult to find that witch-hunts usually occurred when the society experienced profound changes.Witch-hunts could partly be ascribed to the fact that people of different social circles and groups ultimately protected their own interests.They also reflect people's‘true’minds.The popular mind,as the two's common imperative,expanded the scale of witch-hunt activities both in China and the West.As for witches,to a large extent,they were the scapegoats of the crowd's stereotype and discrimination of the marginal social groups.Their differences,nevertheless,inspire us to consider further about the divergence of religious cultures and beliefs in Chinese and Western societies.Religion played an essential part in the emergence and development of European witch-hunts during the early modern period.At the same time,it attached a series of new features including the conception of the covenant or pact with the Devil and the intention of the initiative admission and confession of witchcraft-concerned guilts to the indigenous with belief.It is worth noting that this comparative study needs further improvement.Yet through this comparison,we find an intriguing approach to investigate the vivid everyday life and people's psychological insights then,from which we may better comprehend the difference and commensurability of Chinese and Western societies,and further the commonalities and features of the entire human civilisation.^[46]

【注释】

[1]The term‘witch-hunt’is majorly from Western scholars'literature.It principally refers to the persecution or accusation toward sorcerers and witches,especially those‘black’witches.The‘soulstealers’in the 1768 Chinese Sorcery Scare belongs to this category as well.

[2]C.L.Ewen(ed.),Witch Hunting and Witch Trials(London,1929);B.P.Levack,The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe(London and New York,1995);B.Ankarloo,S.Clark,and W.Monter(eds.),Witchcraft and Magic in Europe,Vol.Ⅳ:The Period of the Witch Trials(London,2002).基思·托马斯:《巫术的兴衰》,芮传明译,上海:上海人民出版社,1988年(Keith Thomas,Religion and the Decline of Magic,trans.RUI Chuanming,Shanghai:Shanghai People's Publishing House,1988)。孔飞力:《叫魂:1768年中国妖术大恐慌》,陈兼,刘昶译,上海:三联书店,1999年(Philip A.Kuhn,Soulstealers:The Chinese Sorcery Scare of 1768,trans.CHEN Jian and LIU Chang,Shanghai:SDX Joint Publishing Company,1999).

[3]Researches on ancient Chinese witch-hunts could be furthered on a certain specific witch-hunt activity.In this respect,Philip Kuhn's literature(see note 2 above)should be appreciated as a milestone work.In this book,Kuhn depicts carefully the entire landscape of the 1768 soulstealing witch-hunt,which reflects many typical features of the witch-hunt in pre-modern Chinese socio-cultural context.As for the witch-hunt in early modern Europe,since it varied by different regions and cultures and was consisted of very complex imperatives,I will mainly focus on the witch-hunts in early modern England as the specimen of my comparative study in this paper.

[4]孔飞力:《叫魂:1768年中国妖术大恐慌》,第32-60页(Philip A.Kuhn,　Soulstealers:The Chinese Sorcery Scare of 1768,trans.CHEN Jian and LIU Chang,32-60)。

[5]B.P.Levack,The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe,127.

[6]孔飞力:《叫魂:1768年中国妖术大恐慌》,第67-87页(Philip A.Kuhn,　Soulstealers:The Chinese Sorcery Scare of 1768,trans.CHEN Jian and LIU Chang,67-87)。

[7]Christina Larner,Witchcraft and Religion:The Politics of Popular Belief　(Oxford,1984),9.

[8]Statutes of the Realm(Buffalo,N.Y.,1993),Ⅳ.part 1.446-447.

[9]M.A.S.Hume(ed.),Calendar of Letters and State Papers relating to English Affairs,Preserved principally in the Archives of Simancas,Vol.I,Elizabeth,1558-1567(Nendeln,Liechtenstein,1971),208.Mary A.E.Green(ed.),Calendar of State Papers,Domestic Series,of the Reign of Elizabeth,1601-1603,with Addenda,1547-1565(London,1870),525.

[10]孔飞力:《叫魂:1768年中国妖术大恐慌》,第43页(Philip A.Kuhn,　Soulstealers:The Chinese Sorcery Scare of 1768,trans.CHEN Jian and LIU Chang,43)。

[11]B.P.Levack,The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe,159.

[12]James Sharpe,Witchcraft in Early Modern England(London＆New York,2001),38.Also see孔飞力:《叫魂:1768年中国妖术大恐慌》,第62页(Philip A.Kuhn,Soulstealers:The Chinese Sorcery Scare of 1768,trans.CHEN Jian and LIU Chang,62).

[13]基思·托马斯:《巫术的兴衰》,第424-431页(Keith Thomas,Religion and the Decline of Magic,trans.RUI Chuanming,424-431);孔飞力:《叫魂:1768年中国妖术大恐慌》,第61、221页(Philip A.Kuhn,Soulstealers:The Chinese Sorcery Scare of 1768,trans.CHEN Jian and LIU Chang,61,221);Alan Macfarlane,Witchcraft in Tudor and Stuart England(London,1999),175.

[14]Alan Macfarlane,Witchcraft in Tudor and Stuart England,174.James Sharpe,　Witchcraft in Early Modern England,49.

[15]孔飞力:《叫魂:1768年中国妖术大恐慌》,第300页(Philip A.Kuhn,Soulstealers:The Chinese Sorcery Scare of 1768,trans.CHEN Jian and LIU Chang,300)。

[16]孔飞力:《叫魂:1768年中国妖术大恐慌》,第300页(Philip A.Kuhn,Soulstealers:The Chinese Sorcery Scare of 1768,trans.CHEN Jian and LIU Chang,300)。However,it should be highlighted that I do not totally agree with applying Kuhn's argument of attributing the 1768 Sorcery Scare to the disappointing reality of the society in Qing Dyrasty to understand the witch-hunt in early modern Europe,particularly England.Kuhn's overwhelming underline on the decreasing morality of the entire society,however,was only one of the reasons of early modern European witch-hunts.What Kuhn discuss little,such as religion,nevertheless,should be paid more attention when we study the witch-hunt in European context.

[17]古斯塔夫·勒庞:《乌合之众:大众心理研究》,冯克利译,北京:中央编译出版社,2000年,第16页(Gustave Le Bon,The Crowd:A Study of the Popular Mind,trans.FENG Keli,Beijing:Central Compilation＆Translation Press,2000,16)。

[18]古斯塔夫·勒庞:《乌合之众:大众心理研究》,第二章(Gustave Le Bon,The Crowd:A Study of the Popular Mind,trans.FENG Keli,chp.II)。

[19]孔飞力:《叫魂:1768年中国妖术大恐慌》,第13页(Philip A.Kuhn,Soulstealers:The Chinese Sorcery Scare of 1768,trans.Chen Jian and Liu Chang,13)。

[20]孔飞力:《叫魂:1768年中国妖术大恐慌》,第20页(Philip A.Kuhn,Soulstealers:The Chinese Sorcery Scare of 1768,trans.CHEN Jian and LIU Chang,20)。

[21]基思·托马斯:《巫术的兴衰》,第308-309页(Keith Thomas,Religion and　the Decline of Magic,trans.RUI Chuanming,308-309);Barbara Rosen(ed.),Witchcraft in England,1558-1618(Amherst,1991),331-343.

[22]基思·托马斯:《巫术的兴衰》,第310页(Keith Thomas,Religion and the　Decline of Magic,trans.RUI Chuanming,310)。

[23]Malcolm Gaskil(ed.),The Matthew Hopkins Trials(London,2003),xii.

[24]James Sharpe,Witchcraft in Early Modern England,71.

[25]Robin Briggs,Witches and Neighbour(Oxford,2002),166.

[26]I emphasise that the mind of the gatherings here was already different fr om the mind of the public,but very similar in many perspectives to what Le Bon defines as‘the popular mind’.

[27]孔飞力:《叫魂:1768年中国妖术大恐慌》,第50-60页(Philip A.Kuhn,　Soulstealers:The Chinese Sorcery Scare of 1768,trans.CHEN Jian and LIU Chang,50-60)。

[28]孔飞力:《叫魂:1768年中国妖术大恐慌》,第57页(Philip A.Kuhn,Soulstealers:The Chinese Sorcery Scare of 1768,trans.CHEN Jian and LIU Chang,57)。

[29]孔飞力:《叫魂:1768年中国妖术大恐慌》,第155-156页(Philip A.Kuhn,Soulstealers:The Chinese Sorcery Scare of 1768,trans.CHEN Jian and LIU Chang,155-156)。

[30]孔飞力:《叫魂:1768年中国妖术大恐慌》,第161、61、58页(Philip A.　Kuhn,Soulstealers:The Chinese Sorcery Scare of 1768,trans.CHEN Jian and LIU Chang,161,61,58)。

[31]B.P.Levack,The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe,142-145.

[32]B.P.Levack,The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe,150.

[33]James Sharpe,Witchcraft in Early Modern England,66-67.B.P.Levack,　The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe,133.

[34]基思·托马斯:《巫术的兴衰》,第395-403页(Keith Thomas,Religion and the Decline of Magic,trans.RUI Chuanming,395-403)。

[35]孔飞力:《叫魂:1768年中国妖术大恐慌》,第161页(Philip A.Kuhn,　Soulstealers:The Chinese Sorcery Scare of 1768,trans.CHEN Jian and LIU Chang,161)。

[36]B.P.Levack,The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe,150.

[37]B.P.Levack,The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe,100-120.

[38]Malcolm Gaskil(ed.),The Matthew Hopkins Trials,xxvi-xxix.

[39]It was like a legal contract between the Devil and the controlled person.The Devil endowed the person with some powers in the nature and asked his/her obeyance in return.Yet in typical contract,their relationship was not equal,but like the one between the lord and the servant.Despite varing by regions and cultures,the covenants or pacts with the Devil among the whole Europe shared some similarities.See in B.P.Levack,The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe,35-38.

[40]It meant strange beings or creatures that were believed to be controlled by socerers and witches.See in James Sharpe,‘The Witch's Familiar in Elizabethan England’,in G.W.Bernard and S.J.Gunn(eds.),Authority and Consent in Tudor England,(Aldershot,2002),220.Also see蒋焰:《试论近代早期英国妖巫信仰中的“听差精灵”》,《武汉大学学报》(人文科学版)2007年第1期,第114-120页(Yan JIANG,‘On the Familiars in Early Modern English Witch Beliefs’,Wuhan University Journal(Humanity Sciences),1(2007),114-120)。

[41]G.Scarre and J.Callow,Witchcraft and Magic in Sixteenth and Seventeenth Europe(Basingstoke,2001),11-28.Christina Larner,Witchcraft and Religion:The Politics of Popular Belief,3-4.

[42]孔飞力:《叫魂:1768年中国妖术大恐慌》,第130-139页(Philip A.Kuhn,Soulstealers:The Chinese Sorcery Scare of 1768,trans.CHEN Jian and LIU Chang,130-139)。

[43]Not all prosecutions towards witches in the early modern period were with torture.　But in some witch-hunts,for instance in England between 1645 and 1647,there were some cruel tortures including water-ordeal or swimming test and prohibiting the suspects from sleeping.See in James Sharpe,Witchcraft in Early Modern England,54.Barbara Rosen(ed.),Witchcraft in England,1558-1618,333.

[44]孔飞力:《叫魂:1768年中国妖术大恐慌》,第8、14-17、127、165页(Philip A.Kuhn,Soulstealers:The Chinese Sorcery Scare of 1768,trans.CHEN Jian and LIU Chang,8,14-17,127,165)。

[45]B.P.Levack,The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe,169.

[46]Original Chinese Draft of this paper has been published in Humanities Forum(《人文论丛》),26,2(2016).Revisions have been made to this English version.