apl. Prof. Dr. Rita Voltmer – Completed Projects

Editionsprojekt „Cornelius Loos – De vera et falsa magia (1592)“

Cornelius Loos, De vera et falsa magia (1592). Editio princeps (Latin–German). With an introduction by Rita Voltmer. Based on preparatory work by Othon Scholer, edited posthumously by Luc Deitz, Gunther Franz, and Rita Voltmer. Trier 2024 (Trierer Hexenprozesse – Quellen und Darstellungen; 10)

At the end of the 16th century, witch hunts took place in the city of Trier, in the surrounding districts under the Electorate of Trier, and particularly in the territory of the Imperial Abbey of St. Maximin. These persecutions claimed hundreds of lives. In 1589 and again in a second, expanded edition in 1591, Auxiliary Bishop of Trier Peter Binsfeld published the Tractatus de confessionibus maleficorum et sagarum, legitimizing these events.

A witness to these trials was the Catholic controversial theologian and Counter-Reformation polemicist Cornelius Loos (†1597), who had fled from Holland. In his treatise De vera et falsa (ficta) magia, completed in mid-1592 and partially in print, he harshly criticized belief in magic and witchcraft, the ongoing trials, and especially their chief ideologue, Peter Binsfeld. Cornelius Loos, whose arguments went far beyond those of Johann Weyer, was thus the first Catholic theologian to publicly oppose belief in witches and witch persecutions.

The papal nuncio Ottavio Frangipani halted the printing in Cologne. Loos was imprisoned in St. Maximin, charged with heresy, forced to recant his theses, and banished. However, he continued his opposition to witch belief in Brussels, where he came under the scrutiny of witch hunter Jan Bacx. A second indictment again landed Loos in prison; after his release, death spared him a third trial. As a warning against the theses of Loos, defamed as patronus sagarum (patron of witches), Jesuit Martin Delrio recorded his retraction in 1600, thereby ensuring the survival of his theses.

The treatise, of which only the first two books survive and which was discovered in 1886 in the Trier City Library by George Lincoln Burr, has been prepared in an extensive edition project. This project relied on a previously transcribed, annotated, and translated version by Othon Scholer (†2015). The volume includes a comprehensive introduction (*Rita Voltmer: Confessional refugee, controversial theologian, patronus causae sagarum: Cornelius Loos (1542–1597) and his treatise De vera et falsa magia (1592)) and presents a Latin–German editio princeps with detailed commentary, edited by Luc Deitz, Gunther Franz, and Rita Voltmer. Two facsimiles of Loos’ retraction as recorded by Martin Delrio and Eberhard David Hauber, as well as a name index, complete the volume.

This is the first time that the surviving portions of the censored treatise are published as Volume 10 of the series Trierer Hexenprozesse – Quellen und Darstellungen.

The following institutions contributed financially to the publication:

• Friedrich-Spee-Gesellschaft Trier, e. V.
• Bischöfliches Priesterseminar Trier
• Bistum Trier
• Caspar-Olevian-Gesellschaft Trier e. V.
• Wissenschaftliche Bibliothek der Stadt Trier / Stadtarchiv Trier
• Landschaftsverband Rheinland

Herren und Hexen. Hexenverfolgungen in „kleinen“ Herrschaftsräumen

Project lead: PD Dr. Rita Voltmer

Funding: University of Trier Research Fund (2017)

The Project »Herren und Hexen. Hexenprozesse in der Nordeifel und in angrenzenden Regionen«

was funded from 2013 to 2016 by the Landschaftsverband Rheinland and the Geschichtsverein des Kreises Euskirchen