Wier, JOHANN

Wier, JOHANN, one of the first opponents of the witchcraft superstition, was born in 1516 at Grave in North Brabant, studied medicine at Paris and Orleans, and settled about 1545 as a physician at Arnheim, whence he was called to Dusseldorf to be body-physician to Wilhelm IV., Duke of Jülich, Cleves, and Berg. To him he dedicated his famous treatise, De præstigiis daemonum et incanta- tionibus ac beneficiis (Basel, 1563), a plea addressed to the duke and all princes against the folly and cruelty of the witchcraft trials. The book pleased Duke Wilhelm, but roused the fury of the clergy. It still stands in the Index, but it has given its author a name to be remembered among the benefactors of humanity. The duke protected him till his death on a journey in Secklenburg, 24th February 1588. Wier was a Protestant, and had been a pupil of Cornelius Agrippa, and so his respect for authority was naturally weakened; but it cannot be said that his scepticism is audacious. Still, as Mr Lowell says, he insinuates much more than he positively affirms or denies, and most probably he went as far as he dared, feeling that to go further would damage his case. His famous treatise was followed by De Lamiis, and by the Pseudomonarchia Daemonum, a description of the hierarchy of Hell, 'with the names and surnames,' says his indignant antagonist Bodin, 'of seventy-two princes, and of seven million four hundred and five thousand nine hundred and twenty-six devils, errors excepted.' Bodin no doubt felt that the real object was to make the whole thing ridiculous, hence his anger at a writer who 'had armed himself against God' and concocted a tissue of 'horrible blasphemies.' See study by R. Binz (Bonn, 1885).