The Decline of Witch Trials in Europe 欧洲猎巫审判的衰落 作者：James Hannam @ 2007
译者：Yuncong Yang
校对：慕白
来源：作者个人网站， http://jameshannam.com/witchtrial.htm Preliminary considerations 绪论 Alice Molland was sent to the gallows at Exeter in 1684 and became the last witch to be executed in England. Scotland closed its account with Janet Horne in 1722 while trials wound down across Europe. However, it would not be until 1782 that the last witch to be legally executed met her fate at Glarus in Switzerland.
1684年，艾丽丝·莫兰在埃克塞特被处以绞刑，她是最后一个在英格兰被处决的女巫。 1722年，珍妮特·霍恩成为苏格兰最后一个被处决的女巫，此时，全欧洲的猎巫审判案件已经在减少，不过要等到1782年，全欧最后一个经法律程序被判死刑的女巫才在瑞士的格拉鲁斯被处决。
But by the late 17th century witch trials were already reasonably rare occurrences even in the same localities where, in the earlier part of that century, the greatest hunts had taken place. The crime itself was extinguished in France by royal edict in 1682, repealed in England in 1736 and abolished in Poland as late as 1776.
但是到17世纪晚期时，在那些之前猎巫运动最盛行的地区，猎巫审判已经是相当罕见的事情了。法国于1682年就通过王室敕令废除了巫术罪。英格兰取消巫术罪是在1736年，而直到1776年波兰才废除这一罪名。
However, the decline in trials and hunts did not necessarily presage a corresponding decline in the belief in witches just as their start did not correspond to any increase. Belief is a notoriously hard thing to measure, but almost all societies appear to have some tradition of witches and fear of magic has been nearly universal. The questions about witches in early modern Europe are not so much why people believed in them at that time and place, but why that belief manifested itself into the hunts and executions.
然而，正如猎巫审判和猎巫运动的兴起并不代表人们比以前更加相信巫术及巫师的存在一样，它的衰落也并不一定代表人们变得更不相信巫术及巫师的存在了。众所周知，信仰是非常难以度量的，而几乎所有社会里都存在着某种巫师传统，人们对魔法的恐惧也是处处有之。要研究近代早期欧洲的巫师这一题目，重要的问题不是为什么彼时彼地的人们相信有巫师存在，而是为什么彼时人们的这种信念导致了猎巫运动及对巫师的大规模处决。
The purpose of this essay, therefore, is to examine the reasons that trials for the crime of witchcraft, from being relatively common before 1650, had, across Europe, become a rarity fifty years later and had died out altogether within another century. This rapid decline and then extinction is at least as puzzling as the widespread appearance of the phenomena in the first place at the end of the fifteenth century.
本文的宗旨是探讨这一问题：为什么在1650年前相当普遍的对施行巫术者的审判50年后就变得颇为罕见，而到了18世纪晚期就彻底绝迹了？猎巫审判在这一时期的急剧衰落与它在十五世纪末的急剧盛行一样令人费解。
Witch trials only became common during the Renaissance and the fiercest hunts took place in the 1620s and 1630s in German speaking areas. Contrary to popular belief, they were not a phenomenon of the Middle Ages. Although magical belief and practice were just as common during this earlier period, they did not often lead to trials, let alone executions.
猎巫审判要到文艺复兴时期才开始普遍出现，而最最激烈的猎巫高潮出现在十七世纪二三十年代的德语地区。与普遍的认知相反，猎巫运动不是中世纪的事情。在中世纪，人们对魔法的信仰和使用与猎巫运动时期一样普遍，但那时很少有巫师被送上法庭，更别说被处决了。
Until recently popular views of this subject were confused both by the agendas of rationalists who wanted to find examples of superstition and by neo-pagans seeking their own foundation myth.
直到最近，对猎巫运动的流行观点都相当混乱。其原因在于，一方面，理性主义者们希望找到迷信带来恶果的实例，另一方面，新异教的信徒们希望在历史中找到他们教义的根基。
The “Burning Times”, when, according to the most extreme polemicists, nine million women lost their lives after dreadful torture, has become an essential part of neo-paganism’s self identity. They also had Margaret Murray to assure them that witches really were the survivors of the old religion that neo-pagans were continuing in the present day [NOTE].
“大火刑时代”已经成为了新异教主义自我身份认同的核心部分。据一些最极端的论者说，这一时期有九百万女性在承受酷刑后被杀。除此之外，玛格丽特·穆雷断言巫师们是古老宗教的孑遗，而今天的新异教正是继承了这些古老宗教。
Murray’s thesis of the existence of a pre-Christian fertility cult remains influential outside the academy but, despite seeming to have gained some support from Carlo Ginzberg’s work on the benandanti who do appear to have had some of the attributes of a religious cult, it is dismissed by noted modern authority Robin Briggs as having “just enough marginal plausibility to be hard to refute completely, yet is almost wholly wrong.” [NOTE].
穆雷认为，猎巫时代存在着一种源于前基督教时期的生殖崇拜。这一观点至今在学术圈外仍然颇有影响。尽管卡洛·金斯堡对于“善之行者”（benandanti）的研究结论（“善之行者”的身上确实存在某种宗教崇拜的特征）似乎部分支持穆雷的观点，现代的权威学者罗宾·布里格斯依然对穆雷的观点嗤之以鼻，在他眼里，穆雷的学说“只有刚好够使它难以被彻底驳斥的那么一点点说服力，但基本上是完全错误的。”
This reassessment of the myth of the Burning Times has even reached neo-paganism’s own scholarship [NOTE] which is challenging the idea that the validity of their religion depends on its antiquity. Meanwhile, estimates of the total number of executions over three centuries has shrunk to about 60,000 or so [NOTE] which is of a similar order of magnitude to what the Jacobins managed in just three years of terror during the French Revolution.
即使新异教主义自己的学者们也开始重新审视“大火刑时代”，他们开始挑战这一令其信仰能够合理的建基于古代传统的观念了。同时，现今对猎巫运动在三个世纪内处决人数的估计已经下降到约六万人，这一处决规模和法国大革命时雅各宾派在三年恐怖时期内做到的不相上下。
There is very little agreement about the reasons for the end of witch trials and the scholars have tended each to be an advocate for their own ideas based on the study of particular localities rather than trying a more synoptic approach to bring some order to the myriad of available suggestions. It is not even clear whether we are looking for some new causes that helped end witch trials or simply the absence of whatever it was that had started them in the first place.
对于猎巫审判结束的原因，学术界没有什么统一意见。很多学者仅仅是在努力研究某一地区的情况，并以此支持他们自己的观点，而不是尝试进行综合研究以给各种可能假说梳理出头绪。我们甚至都不知道在研究中应该寻找什么。是某些新生因素结束了猎巫审判，还是某些在过去推动了猎巫审判的因素已经不复存在？
So, if we could identify the conditions that brought about the trials, the subsequent decline might simply be explained by their later disappearance. An example of this would be the religious confusion and violence of the Reformation that had largely worked itself out after the Treaty of Westphalia in the mid-seventeenth century.
如此说来，如果我们能够找到最初猎巫审判产生时的种种条件，那么猎巫审判后来的衰落或许就可以归因于这些初始条件的不复存在。举例来说：宗教改革带来了宗教观点的混乱和大量暴力冲突，而这种混乱状况在十七世纪中叶威斯特伐利亚条约后大为缓解。
It has also been widely noticed that hunts tended to take place in areas and periods where central control had largely broken down or during interregnums between regimes. For example, the activities of Matthew Hopkins took place in the chaos of the English Civil War, the Great Hunt in Scotland in 1661 when English justices were replaced, and even the Salem of 1692 outbreak occurred in a temporary vacuum of authority. When control was restored, goes this theory, the witch hunts largely ceased.
很多人也都注意到，若一个地区中央统治秩序崩坏或正处于改朝换代时期，猎巫审判就比较易于在此地盛行。举例而言：马修·霍普金斯活跃于英国内战的混乱时期；1661年苏格兰的大规模猎巫运动发生时，当地的英格兰法官正遭到大规模替换；甚至1692年的萨勒姆大审判也是发生在当地短暂处于权力真空的时期。如这一理论预言的，在以上地区一旦秩序得到恢复，猎巫审判就大大减少了。
On the other hand, the original causes might long since have been removed without their effects likewise disappearing so that the decline of witch trials will be brought about by entirely different means. Examples frequently cited are the rise of secular rationalism or social trends that led to the discounting of devilry. It has been suggested that witchcraft simply became too old hat for the intelligentsia of the early Enlightenment to countenance and that they were wont to sneer at such outdated nonsense so as to reassure themselves of their own intellectual superiority.
另一方面，也有很多猎巫运动的初始动因早早消失，但其效力并未消失，在这种情况下，导致猎巫审判衰落的就应该是其他因素。经常被引用的例子是世俗理性主义的兴起，或社会潮流导致魔鬼信仰的自然衰落。一些人认为在启蒙运动早期的知识精英眼里，巫术罪太老套了，不值得他们支持；相反这些精英乐于鄙视这些过时的无稽之谈，从而获得智力上的优越感。
A good deal of recent work has concentrated on the social reasons for witchcraft accusations and has looked for the causes of both their rise and fall at a local level. For instance, Alan MacFarlane and Keith Thomas set out a complex web of interactions between vulnerable single women and other villagers motivated by guilt [NOTE]. They suggested that the full implementation of the Poor Laws sufficiently alleviated the situation so that the accusations ceased. While their careful research of depositions suggests they have accurately portrayed the mechanism by which social tensions manifested themselves, I do not think that they have explained why, at that particular place and time, it should be through witchcraft accusations.
许多近期的研究工作着重研究巫术罪指控背后的社会因素，并通过对局部地区的研究来寻找巫术罪指控增加和减少的原因。麦克法兰和基斯·托马斯的研究描述了一些村子中弱势单身女性与其他村民之间基于罪恶感而展开的错综复杂的互动。他们认为济贫法的全面贯彻实施大大缓解了此类困境，因而减少了巫术罪指控。尽管他们对各种证词的细致研究表明，他们确实精确地描述了当时社会矛盾的表现方式，我认为他们并没有解答“为何彼时彼地这些矛盾偏偏以巫术罪指控的形式表现出来”这一关键问题。
The era of the witch trials was one of great change and disruption but we must not forget that it was bracketed by the disastrous fourteenth century and the enormous social upheavals of enclosure and the industrial revolution. Any social explanation for witch hunts has to be specific enough to differentiate between the early modern period and those on each side of it, while also being general enough to apply to much of Europe over two centuries.
猎巫审判时代确实是一个剧烈变迁、社会失序的时代。但是不应忘记，这个时代之前是灾难不断的十四世纪，而后面则跟着圈地运动和工业革命这样的重大社会变迁。若要从社会角度解读猎巫运动的兴衰，这种解读必须足够具体，否则难以把近代早期和它前后的时期区分开来。同时这种解读又要有足够的一般性，能被应用来解释二百余年间的大半个欧洲发生的诸多相关事件。
The commonalties of witch beliefs are greater enough to make having lots of different social explanations for different environments unconvincing. For this reason I will be looking for general reasons for the decline that can be applied across Europe rather than seeking an individual cause for each locale.
当时的诸种巫术信仰存在非常之多的共同点，因此在解释猎巫运动的兴衰时，试图为不同地区不同环境的猎巫现象找出许多不同社会原因的思路是缺乏说服力的。所以，我要找到一般性原因来解释整个欧洲范围内的情况，而不是为每个不同的地方发生的事情找出一个特定的解释。
By a witch, I mean someone who is believed to have received magical power by some form of diabolical means. The diabolical source of this power is important because the mentality of most Christian intellectuals allowed only the devil as a source of supernatural power, except of course from God, and it led witchcraft to be viewed in much the same way as heresy.
在本文中，巫师一词指的是那些被认为通过某种与恶魔有关的方式得到了魔法力量的人。这种超自然力量的根源是魔鬼，这一点非常重要，因为除了上帝之外，魔鬼是唯一一个被当时的基督教知识分子接受的超自然力来源。也正是这一点使得巫术在很大程度上被当作一种异端行为来处理。
The connection between diabolism and magic is found in the documents of the Christian elite including, most famously, the Malleus Malificium (1486) of Kramer and Sprenger, but has an older provenance. The straightforward dichotomy between God and the devil was already present in late antiquity with the labelling of all pagan gods as demons but once they had been seen off, the church took a more sceptical attitude. Belief in magic was considered to be a sin but consequently actually practising it was nothing more than delusion.
魔法和魔鬼之间的联系载于许多当时基督教知识精英的著作中，最有名的是克拉默和斯普伦格著的《巫师之锤》一书。但这一观念的来源比这些著作更为古老。在古典时代晚期，上帝-魔鬼的简单二分法就已经出现了，当时基督教会把所有异端神祗都目为魔鬼。但击败异教信仰后，基督教会却转而采取一种更具怀疑色彩的立场。信仰魔法被认为是一种罪，但施行魔术不过是一种幻术而已。
This attitude is very much an intellectual one and reflects the continuing rejection of most forms of supernatural belief by theologians even when witchcraft was accepted. That is to say that rather than believing in the innate potency of ritual magic or in nature spirits, they insisted that God and the devil were the only possible agencies for magical or miraculous power.
这种态度很大程度上是基于智识的，它反映着自古以来神学家们对绝大多数超自然信仰的否定，即使后来巫术的存在被接受了，神学家们的态度也依然如此。也就是说：神学家们坚持认为上帝和魔鬼是仅有的能够施行魔法或奇迹力量的存在，而不承认各种仪式魔术或自然精灵本身具有某种能力。
This was not just a question of theology but also arose from the Aristotelian paradigm of natural science that had no room for spirits, magic or other such phenomena. We should note, however, that the word ‘magic’ was also used in medieval works like the Speculum Astronomiae of St Albertus Magnus to describe certain legitimate natural practices.
这种态度不仅是一个神学问题，它也来源于亚里士多德的自然哲学范式。在这一范式中没有精灵、魔法或其他类似现象的存在空间。然而我们也应注意到，一些中世纪著作也使用“魔法”一词来描述某些合法的、并非超自然的行为，例如圣阿尔伯特·马格努斯的《天文之镜》一书。
Later, the hermetic systems that became popular during the Renaissance did allow for spirits and angels to be summoned so consequently their practitioners were always vulnerable to accusations of devilry. This ambiguity about what was and was not acceptable remained a feature of intellectual debate throughout the Middle Ages and Early Modern period with both sides using magic to make their own polemical points. In the late seventeenth century we find Joseph Glanvill and Henry More, representing learned science and theology, defending the belief in witchcraft against occultist and radical sectarian John Webster [NOTE]. Webster is keen to deny diabolic involvement in great part because he does not want his own ‘natural magic’ to be confused with witchcraft while Glanville and More are defending the mechanistic new philosophy which, like Aristotelianism, insists all magic must be supernatural - and that can only mean God or the devil.
晚些时候，文艺复兴期间广为流传的赫尔墨斯派哲学系统允许信者召唤天使和精灵，这就使得其信众更容易被指控为魔鬼信者。在中世纪及近代早期，知识界一直在就何种形态的超自然存在可以接受展开辩论。辩论双方都会使用“魔法”一词来阐述论点。在十七世纪后期我们可以看到约瑟夫·格兰维尔和亨利·摩尔代表神学和科学阵营肯定巫术的存在，与神秘主义者兼激进的宗派主义者约翰·韦伯斯特辩论。韦伯斯特努力否定巫术中的魔鬼因素，因为他不希望他的“自然魔法”和巫术扯上关系。而格兰维尔和摩尔捍卫的是新的机械论哲学，这种哲学和亚里士多德派一样，认为魔法一定是超自然的，因而只可能来源于上帝或魔鬼。
At a popular level, beliefs about the supernatural were far more varied and indeed, one of the only commonalties appears to be that they did not involve the devil, at least without prompting from educated interrogators. MacFarlane mentions that the devil hardly figured at all in the depositions to the Essex assizes and in other English cases, he makes few appearances even in confessions [NOTE]. Elsewhere, especially in confessions under torture, diabolic themes are much more prevalent. This seems likely to have been due to the use of torture, together with leading questions, causing the defendants to start echoing the more learned views of their prosecutors.
在大众中，对超自然力的信仰更加五花八门，诸种信仰仅有的一个重要共同点似乎就是，它们都与魔鬼无关，起码在没有遭到博学的审判者追问时是这样。麦克法兰提到：在埃塞克斯郡巡回法院及其它英格兰案件的证言中几乎没有人提起魔鬼，即使在罪人的供词中魔鬼都没怎么露面。在其他地方，特别是那些刑讯之下获得的供词里，魔鬼的主题则明显得多。这种现象看起来应归因于刑讯和诱供。在这二者的共同作用下，被告人们开始重复指控者嘴里的高深说法了。
Restrictions in space make a discussion of how witch trials started impossible here, but it seems likely that a key factor was the overlaying of the elite mentality of diabolism and its associated perversions onto the pre-existing magical beliefs and social tensions among the people. This had happened before with the heretics of the Middle Ages when much of what was believed about them came from ancient authorities rather than their actual activities. It was the combination of learned thought with real factors on the ground (as there really were heretics and people claiming magical powers) that turned deadly.
材料来源的空间限制使得我们难以讨论猎巫审判是如何起源的，但看起来一个重要因素是精英阶层和普通民众的合力。精英们对超自然力来源的“魔鬼说”理论把魔鬼帽子扣在了很多已有的超自然信仰身上，而民众之间的矛盾需要一个发泄的出口。类似的现象在此前也曾发生在中世纪的异端们身上，人们对他们的许多认识并非源于异端们本身的行动，而是来自古老的权威观点。当知识阶层的思想和底层存在的现实因素（因为社会上确有异端，也有号称拥有魔法能力的人）结合起来，其效果是致命的。
Many, but by no means all, so-called witches seem to have been healers, wise women and cunning men who previously would have been of no interest to the higher clergy or secular legal authorities. If they were brought before any authority it would tend to be the local church court that would prescribe some penance like walking around the parish wearing sackcloth.
许多——但绝非全部——所谓的巫师似乎是一些治疗师。在猎巫运动之前，教会高层或者世俗法律体系对这些聪慧的女性或头脑灵活的男性是没有什么兴趣的。如果真可能有什么权威机构想审判他们，那十有八九是当地的教会法庭，判处的刑罚也就是一些类似穿着麻衣绕教区走一周的赎罪行为。
The village healers indulged in a wide variety of ritual magic, healing or mediation with spirits but they had little or no idea of any theory attached to these actions. In other words, to the lower orders, magic was a question of practice while to the elite it was something that required explanation with the devil usually the only explanation available.
当时这些乡村治疗师使用很多仪式魔法，用于治疗，或者让活人与死去的人对话，但是他们头脑里并没有什么关于这些做法的理论。换句话说，对于下层社会，问题的关键是怎么使用魔法。而对上层社会，问题的关键是如何解释魔法，通常魔鬼是唯一的备选答案。
The topography of the decline in trials and executions strongly suggests there were two distinct phases. The first phase, which takes place from the first half of the seventeenth century, is a large falling of in the number of accusations and a corresponding decrease in the proportion of capital convictions obtained. Thomas states that the large majority of executions in England had already taken place by 1620 [NOTE] and in Spain the Basque hunt marks the end of large scale prosecutions. Appeals heard by the Parlement of Paris after about 1610 show a large reduction in the number of capital sentences that were confirmed and after about 1630 an equally precipitous drop in the number of cases heard (even though all witchcraft cases at this time were subject to automatic appeal to Paris) [NOTE].
猎巫审判及处决的减少并不是平均的，其分布表明猎巫审判的衰落经历了两个不同的阶段。第一阶段自十七世纪中叶开始，其标志是巫术罪起诉数大大减少，及与之相应的死刑判决比例下降。托马斯的研究表明，英格兰的绝大多数巫师处决都发生在1620年前，在西班牙，巴斯克大猎巫标志着大规模巫术罪起诉时期的终结。1610年后，巴黎高等法院的上诉记录显示，在巫术罪案件中死刑判决比例大幅下降。到1630年后，巫术罪案件的数量也出现了同样的大幅下降（尽管在此时期，所有下级法院审理的巫术罪案件都会自动上诉到巴黎高等法院）。
The pattern is repeatedly seen in almost all localities although the time scales are often different. The last hunt in Scotland took place 1661 – 2, large-scale scares continued to claim many lives in parts of Germany through the 1630s but became much rarer thereafter. This is not the end of the prosecution of witches - that continued even with sporadic outbursts of panic - but it is rather the normalisation of the crime as it fades into the background of early modern life.
同样的变化模式出现在欧洲几乎所有地区，尽管时间先后常常不同。苏格兰的最后一次大规模猎巫是在1661-1662年间。1630年代，德国部分地区还时有大规模的猎巫运动，很多人因此丧命，但在那之后就很罕见了。当然，这并不代表对巫师的审判已经消失。审判依然在进行——而且还有间歇性的恐慌带来的小高潮，但这更应解释为这种罪行的常态化。巫术罪行已不是社会关注的焦点，它正在渐渐隐入近代早期社会生活的背景之中。
The second phase is the complete cessation or abolition of prosecutions for witchcraft and this tends to take place in the eighteenth century. It can either take the form of a gradual petering out; some form of legislative act such as Louis XIV’s decree extinguishing the crime after a poisoning plot panic; or the English Act of Parliament abolishing it in 1736 [NOTE]. Often, it had become impossible to secure a conviction before the crime itself was removed from the statute book.
第二阶段是各国彻底停止起诉（或取消）巫术罪的时期，发生在十八世纪。这一阶段，各国停止猎巫的方式各有不同。有的国家逐渐停止了对巫术罪的起诉审理，有些国家采取某些立法措施取消了巫术罪，如路易十四在一次投毒阴谋引起的恐慌后颁布敕令取消了巫术罪，英国国会在1736年通过法案取消了巫术罪。即使在巫术罪被正式从刑法里取消之前，想要说服法庭判决被告巫术罪罪名成立已经很难了。
It seems extremely likely that in looking for causes we must treat these two phases as separate events to be handled individually and that consequently we will not find any single reason for the end of witch trials.
由此看来，在寻找猎巫审判衰落原因时，我们应把这两个阶段分开来看。这也就意味着，猎巫审判的消失不是任一因素单独作用的结果。 Explaining the decline of witch trials and executions 对猎巫审判及处决减少的解释 Under Roman law, to achieve a capital conviction required a full proof consisting of material evidence, witnesses of good standing or a free confession. Torture could be used to extract a confession if sufficient partial proofs had been accumulated but the defendant had to repeat themselves after they recovered and then again in court. Even if they later retracted their confession they were not supposed to be put to the question again [NOTE].
在罗马法下，要判处死刑需要一条完整的证据链，支持证据链的可以是物证、合格的人证或被告自由自愿提供的证词。如果已经有足够的间接证据指向嫌疑人，则可以使用刑讯取得供诉，但犯人在养好伤后必须再次重复他们在刑讯下作出的供诉，此后还要当庭再重复一次。即使犯人后来撤回了自己在刑讯下作出的供词，他们也不应就同一问题再受到讯问了。
English common law forbade the use of torture in criminal cases altogether unless with the permission of the privy council (effectively meaning only for treason) but had similar systems of evidences and proofs of witchcraft as codified by William Perkins [NOTE].
英格兰普通法在刑事案件中严格禁止刑讯，仅有的例外是由枢密院审判的案件（通常都是叛国案）。然而，根据威廉·珀金斯的案例汇编，在巫术罪案件中，英格兰有着一套和罗马法相似的取证和证明方式。【 编注：威廉·珀金斯是16世纪英格兰著名教士和神学家，清教运动先驱，著述颇丰，曾编有一部三卷本的信仰审判案例集 】
In the case of witches, material evidence was usually lacking, as the village healers did not go in for the kind of occult paraphernalia that characterised higher magic. It is also hard to see how the social interactions thought to lead to the initial accusation by Thomas and Briggs could give rise to witnesses able to say they had caught the witch casting a spell red handed, let alone flying through the air.
在审判巫师时，一般都没有物证，一般的乡村治疗师是不会去搞那些高等魔法式的繁琐神秘学仪式的。托马斯和布里格斯认为社会互动可能导致巫术罪指控的出现，但这些通常没法让一个证人到法庭上作证宣称他抓到了一个正在施法术的巫师，更别说亲眼看到巫师在空中飞翔了。
That said, when a witness was produced before the dubious English judge Sir John Powell, declaring that the defendant had been seen travelling on her broomstick, his lordship is said to have dryly remarked that there was no law against flying (sadly the provenance of the story is doubtful [NOTE]). In short, to get a capital conviction if the proper procedures were followed was extremely difficult.
话虽如此，当一个证人被带到对巫术问题持怀疑态度的英格兰法官约翰·鲍威尔爵士面前时，他宣称看到了被告骑着扫帚飞行，据说，鲍威尔爵士不动声色地答道，没有哪条法律禁止人飞行。（可惜这个故事的来源可疑，未可尽信。）总而言之，如果遵循正当的法律程序，受指控者被判处死刑罪名成立是非常困难的。
That is not to say that one could not be punished in other ways where the proof was deficient and the grounds of suspicion that could lead to the application of torture were considerably wider. Simply having a bad local reputation could land someone in a lot of official trouble. This was due to an important reform in the legal system in the late Middle Ages when the accusatio was gradually replaced with the inquisitio. To modern ears this immediately summons up images of the Inquisition although it was secular rather than clerical courts and certainly not papal inquisitors that were responsible for the vast majority of fatal witch trials.
当然， 这并不是说在证据不全且使用刑讯的条件颇为宽松时，被疑为巫师的人无法以别的方式受到惩罚。仅仅是在当地名声不好就可以给人带来很多麻烦了。这种情况的原因是中世纪晚期的一项重要司法改革，在案件审理中控诉制逐渐被纠问制所取代。听在现代人的耳朵里，“纠问制”会让人立即想起宗教裁判所。但这里的裁判官是世俗职务而非宗教职务，在绝大多数巫师被处决的庭审中，作出裁决的也不是宗教裁判官。
When before the Inquisition, a confession and willingness to do penance was always supposed to be sufficient to avoid the death penalty for a first offence while no such leeway existed in most secular courts [NOTE]. Instead, iniquisitio was a method of legal proceedings used in all courts outside England which dropped the dependence on an accuser to bring a complaint. The accuser (who could be punished himself if the defendant was acquitted) was replaced by an inquirer whose role was slowly taken over by professional magistrates.
在宗教裁判所里，初犯的嫌疑人通过忏悔和表达赎罪意愿通常就可以逃过死刑。但在大多数世俗法庭里，是没有这等出路的。在英格兰之外的所有国家，纠问制是被法庭普遍采用的司法程序，这种程序中，不需要一个起诉人来提起诉讼。起诉人（若被告被判无罪则可能受到反坐）被换成了讯问人，讯问人又逐渐被职业地方法官代替了。
This inquirer was expected to investigate matters brought to their attention or the subject of rumour, and was equipped with various powers to enable them to do so. Once they had a case it was presented before a court for consideration and sentence. Provided the procedures were followed and the magistrate was fair and competent, this was a huge improvement over the system of personal accusation and trial by ordeal that preceded it.
讯问人的工作是调查那些引起他们注意的事或流言的源头，并被赋予种种权力以便履行他们的职责。如果他们有足够的理由，相关案件就会提交给法院供审理判刑。如果能够遵守程序，并且地方法官公正且能胜任，这一改革相对于过去的个人起诉及神判法而言将是一个巨大进步。
But it is clear that during the great hunts the rules were not followed. Torture was liberally applied and the atmosphere was one of siege where it was felt the circumstances demanded extreme action. It is interesting to note that the Matthew Hopkins episode, where pseudo-torture such as sleep deprivation and ‘pricking’ was used, was the closest example to a full-scale continental witch hunt that occurred in England.
但是很明显，在大规模猎巫运动期间，司法程序并未得到遵守。刑讯逼供是家常便饭，而且当人们认为事态严重到需要采取极端行动时，全社会的气氛就好像被围在孤城里一样，什么极端行为都不在话下。很有意思的是，在英格兰发生的最像欧陆大规模猎巫的事件就是马修·霍普金斯主导的猎巫运动。在这场运动中使用的大多是一些“类刑讯”手段，比如睡眠剥夺和使用穿刺法鉴别巫师（ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pricking ）.
The most prolific hunters tended to be lay magistrates and middle ranking clerics of some education while in the higher and appeal courts such as at Paris the conviction rate was much lower, mainly because the sense of panic was absent, torture kept to the statutory limits and evidence examined with a cooler eye [NOTE]. The actual abolition of torture took place too late in most jurisdictions to have had a significant effect on reducing convictions of witches [NOTE].
成果最为卓著的猎巫者通常都是未受训练的地方法官和受过一点教育的中层牧师，而在较高等的法院和上诉法院里（如巴黎高等法院）判决率明显低得多。主要原因是在这些法院里没有恐慌气氛，对刑讯的法律限制遵守的较好，法官检视证据的态度也较为冷静。在多数地区，取消刑讯对于减少巫师判决率没有什么影响，因为这一改变来得太晚了。
Neither was it the case that most senior judges denied the very possibility of witchcraft for if they had it is hard to see how they could have countenanced any executions at all. Rather, they were removed from the panic on the ground so they could take a more objective and professional stance.
高等法院的判决率较低并不是因为高等法官们本身就不相信巫术，如果他们真的不信巫术，那他们大可以一个巫师都不判。真正的原因是他们没有受到底层的恐慌气氛感染，因而可以在一个较为客观和职业的立场上审理案件。
It was not just lawyers who could become more lenient as they became more expert in their subjects. In Geneva, when the devil’s mark became an accepted form of evidence, the city’s surgeons were delegated to carry out the examination. However, no doubt as a result of having seen a huge range of moles, growths and boils on patients of unimpeachable character, they simply refused to be drawn as to whether a particular lump was of diabolic or purely natural origin. This made a capital prosecution almost impossible and only one witch was executed after 1625 [NOTE].
都说律师随着对自身所从事领域了解得越多就会变得越宽容，其实不止律师，很多职业都是这样。在日内瓦，当“恶魔的印记”被认定为可接受的证据时，法院授权本地的外科医生检验被告身上有无恶魔的印记。然而，无疑是由于他们平日见多了那些人品端正无瑕的病人们身上的痣、增生和烫伤，医生们拒绝对某一肿块是恶魔的印记还是自然原因所致做出判断。其结果就是想根据恶魔的印记判处死刑基本上成了不可能的任务。1625年之后，日内瓦只有一个巫师被处决。
So the reduction of witch trials from epidemic to endemic proportions requires little else than the assertion of central control over convictions to ensure the legal forms were being adhered to and that local courts could not execute people without sufficient evidence. This central control could be achieved either through allowing appeals to higher courts (or even making them mandatory) or else by ensuring the proper training and oversight of local magistrates. In particular, the strict controls over the use of torture had to be reinstated, notwithstanding the status of witchcraft as a crimen exceptum (an exceptional crime) in most states, and confessions achieved through torture treated with the necessary scepticism.
由此看来，要把猎巫审判由传染性变为地方性不需要什么高深手段，只要有一个中央权威来控制地方法院，确保他们遵守法律程序，不在证据不足的情况下处决犯人就可以了。这种中央控制可以通过设置上诉程序（或像法国一样规定巫术罪案件自动上诉）来达到，也可以通过确保地方法官受过合适的训练且有合理的监督来达到。尤为重要的是要严格控制刑讯，而不是像很多地方一样把巫术罪看作一种“例外犯罪”而放松刑讯控制。法官对由刑讯得来的供词应有足够的怀疑态度。
In either case, this was extremely difficult during times of political upheaval, which explains the prevalence of hunts in the areas of the Holy Roman Empire most affected by the fragmentation of control up to the Thirty Years War and the same situation in France during the Wars of Religion. Although war itself distracted from witch trials as they were no longer the most pressing concern, the feelings of uncertainty and insecurity engendered by possible conflict could increase them.
不管采用哪种方法，建立此类中央控制在政治混乱时期都非常困难。这解释了猎巫为何在三十年战争期间中央权威破坏最为严重的神圣罗马帝国领地最为盛行，同样的情况也发生在宗教战争期间的法国。尽管作为新的麻烦来源，战争从猎巫那边吸引走了世人的一些注意力，但它带来的不确定感和不安全感也会使得人们对猎巫更加狂热。
At first sight, the abuse of judicial process was not so prevalent in England and a crack down on the use of torture can hardly explain anything in a jurisdiction in which torture was not used. The reasons for the hotspots of witch prosecutions in Essex and Lancashire also remain a mystery now that the theory of proxy persecutions of religious minorities has been called into question.
乍一看，在英格兰司法程序的滥用并不是那么厉害，对刑讯逼供的打击也很难解释在一个不允许刑讯逼供的地区出现的猎巫减少。在英格兰的猎巫高发区埃塞克斯和兰开夏，猎巫运动的起因依然是一个谜。目前有人已开始怀疑，这些地区的猎巫审判只是个幌子，实际上针对的是少数教派。
It is ironic that English witch trials faded at much the time that a king who was personally interested in them came to the throne. The North Berwick trials and his publication of Demonologie (1597) suggest that when he became James I of England, he would have been as concerned in his new realm as he was in his old. Perhaps the events surrounding the state opening of Parliament in 1605 focused his mind on more concrete threats to the royal person. The constant danger from Spain that was present during the rule of Elizabeth, as well as fears about the succession, might well have contributed to an atmosphere that encouraged trials. The ascension of James solved the later problem as well as closing off Scotland as a bridgehead for foreign invaders.
颇为讽刺的是，英格兰猎巫运动的衰落居然主要是在一位个人热衷于猎巫的国王在位期间发生的。由北贝斯维克发生的一系列审判以及詹姆斯一世本人于1597年出版的著作《恶魔学》来看，在他当了英王之后可能仍然和在苏格兰时一样热衷于猎巫。也许1605年国会开会前后的一系列事件所表现出的对国王本人的威胁吸引走了他的注意力。自伊丽莎白一世在位期间就长期存在的来自西班牙的威胁，以及对女王继位者问题的恐慌，都可能在伊丽莎白时期导致了一种鼓励猎巫的不安气氛。詹姆斯一世的继位解决了继承者问题，而且也使得苏格兰再不能成为入侵者的桥头堡了。
While the lack of judicial torture in England made witch prosecutions more difficult, the use of juries of laymen probably had the opposite effect. Whereas in the higher continental courts, the entire trial process, including reaching a verdict, was in the hands of professionals, in England a conviction had to be obtained through a jury of commoners (although they were landowners and burghers) who were often more credulous than the judge. The judge did have a considerable ability to influence the juror and, as he was a professional travelling around the circuit, could considerably reduce the number of convictions.
虽说在英格兰因为没有刑讯，要以巫术罪定罪较为困难，但由非专业人士组成的陪审团参与审理可能产生了相反的效果。在大陆上的高等法院里，整个审理程序包括定罪在内都是由专业人士来掌握的。而在英格兰，定罪工作是由一个一般民众（虽然通常都是地主或体面市民）组成的陪审团来做的。这些人比法官要轻信得多。不过法官对陪审团有相当大的影响力，而且当时的法官又是在辖区内巡回审理案件的专业法官，因此可以有效减少定罪的数量。
In the mid-seventeenth century guides like Robert Filmer’s An Advertisement to the Jurymen of England Touching Witches (1653) and reprints of Reginald Scot’s Discoverie of Witches (1584) were used as guides to the evidence that took a much more sceptical line than Perkins’ effort. But the jury could also reach a verdict of guilty no matter what directions came from the bench as happened during the last successful prosecution in England in 1712 [NOTE].
在十七世纪中期，陪审员们使用断案指南来帮助他们衡量证据。常用的断案指南包括罗伯特·菲尔莫的《英格兰巫师案件陪审员须知》（1653）和雷吉纳德·斯科特的《发现女巫》（1584）的重印版。这些书对证据的怀疑态度比起珀金斯的著作来要强得多了。但是陪审员们也有权无视法官的指引而作出有罪裁定，在1712年英格兰最后一次成功定罪的猎巫审判中就出现了这种情况。 Rationalism and the final end of the witch trials 理性主义和猎巫审判的终结 By 1700, witch trials had become rare things across much of Europe although they remained reasonably common in Poland until 1725 [NOTE]. When they did occur, they excited a good deal of interest and usually ended with the liberty of the witch. The position of even the lower judiciary was now that maleficia was extremely hard to prove and it was not acceptable to accept lower standards of evidence simply because the crime was so serious.
到了1700年，在欧洲的大部分地区猎巫审判已经很少见了——尽管在波兰猎巫审判要到1725年才变得稀少。这一时期的猎巫审判一旦举行总能吸引众人的兴趣，而结果通常都是巫师嫌疑人被无罪开释。即使较低层的法院都开始认为要证明巫术诅咒是非常困难的事了，不能因为此类犯罪性质严重就采用较低的证据审查标准。
But from time to time, for one reason or another, a conviction was achieved and the statutory punishment was usually death. There were ways around this, such as the judge in England’s last case personally and successfully petitioning for a royal pardon for the accused in 1712 but even ten years after that the Scots executed Janet Horne [NOTE].
然而间或还是会因为种种原因判决一个两个的巫师，而法律规定的刑罚一般都是死刑。当然即使判了死刑也不是没有办法，比如在1712年英格兰那最后一次成功定罪的巫师案判决后，法官通过个人的努力从王室拿到了特赦令。但在十年之后，苏格兰人还是处决了珍妮特·霍恩。
Positivist historians have long looked upon the end of witch trials as victory for rationalism over superstition. Michael de Montaigne’s scepticism about reports of witchcraft and the veracity of confessions in his essay On the Lame （1588） is a popular example of Renaissance humanism.
一直以来，实证主义历史学家把猎巫审判的终结看作是理性主义对迷信取得的胜利。米歇尔·德·蒙田在他的散文《论跛子》中表现出的对巫术及巫师供词的怀疑态度，是文艺复兴时期人文主义思想的一个著名例子。
However, closer examination of the rationalists has frequently found them to be something of a disappointment for their champions who do not share their mentality. Learned sceptics are often advocates of a mystical or hermetic point of view and are seeking to defend magic from the taint of diabolism rather than claiming that it is impossible.
然而，对理性主义者进行的仔细观察，时常会让他们的支持者们失望，因为这些理性主义者们想的和他们的现代支持者不是一回事。当时学者们之所以对巫术表现怀疑态度，时常是因为他们要推销自己的神秘主义或赫尔墨斯派观点。他们希望从魔法身上揭去魔鬼的污名，而不是认为魔法根本不存在。
The best known sixteenth century critic of witch trials, Johann Weyer, was a pupil of the great neo-Platonist magician Cornelius Agrippa as well as being a radical Protestant. In his De praestigiis daemonum (1583), Weyer was completely orthodox in his belief in devils and his condemnation of almost any kind of magical practice, but just did not think it was the kind of thing that old ladies got up to.
十六世纪最有名的猎巫审判批评者约翰·韦尔是伟大的新柏拉图主义魔法师科尔奈利乌斯·阿格里帕的学生，他也是一位激进的新教徒。在他的《论恶魔幻觉》（1583）一书中，韦尔表现出的相信魔鬼存在和谴责各种魔法实践的观点完全是正统派的。他只是认为，他说的魔法和老太太们做的那些不是一回事。
His English contemporary, Reginald Scot appears at first sight to be more conducive to the views of modern sceptics, but on closer examination his thought also turns out to be almost entirely a function of his Puritan theology [NOTE]. A century later John Webster had a remarkably similar outlook as he too is a sectarian and defender of alchemy.
与他同时代的英国人雷吉纳德·斯科特乍看起来好像更倾向于近代怀疑主义观点，但仔细审视就会发现，斯科特的观点完全是他清教信仰的衍生品。比他晚一个世纪的约翰·韦伯斯特看起来和他异常相似，而韦伯斯特也是一个宗派主义者和炼金术的捍卫者。
The argument was between, on one side Aristotelians and their heirs, the mechanical philosophers, and on the other neo-Platonists and hermetists. As we have seen, it was usually the former, with what we might call the more scientific attitude, who defended belief in witchcraft. This causes a serious problem for traditional explanations for the end of witch trials as there is almost nobody whose particular bundle of motivations and beliefs are entirely comfortable to positivist sensibilities.
论争的一方是亚里士多德派及他们的继承者，机械主义哲学家们，另一方则是新柏拉图主义者和赫尔墨斯派。正如我们前面看到的，通常总是前一派人——也就是我们可能会觉得态度更科学的那一派——相信巫术的存在并努力为之辩护。对女巫审判终结的传统解释在这一点上遇上了难题，因为在这场论争中没有任何一位参与者的信念和动机完全合乎现代实证主义者的口味。
There certainly is a rise in scepticism as Glanville and More (who was a mechanistic Platonist and thus demonstrates the impossibility of fitting anyone’s beliefs into a neat box) are both keen to combat it but, as far as the positivist is concerned, it is not always the right people being sceptics.
当时对巫术持怀疑态度者确实有所增加，以至于格兰维尔和摩尔要努力与之斗争（摩尔是个机械主义派的柏拉图主义者，这又一次证明了想把人的信仰套进方便的模式里是不可能的）。但是困扰实证主义者的是：持怀疑主义的不总是合适的人。
Likewise, Cotton Mather manages to receive both excretion and exoneration for his conduct in the Salem witch trials and later his work on smallpox immunisation. Even a bona fide freethinker like Thomas Hobbes thought that it was justified to convict someone of witchcraft if they had knowingly tried to carry out maleficia even if they were incapable of it [NOTE].
与之类似，科顿·马瑟既因他在萨勒姆审判中的作为被人痛诋，又因他推广天花疫苗的功劳为人称颂。即使一个托马斯·霍布斯这样十足真金的自由思考者也认为：如果有人有意试图施加诅咒，那尽管他实际上没有巫术能力，判他个巫术罪也是正当的。
The pamphlet wars give us some idea of the motivations of both sides of the argument. Defenders of the belief in witches, such as Sir Thomas Browne in Religio Medici (1634), seemed more worried about atheists than the devil.
当年的小册子论战可以让我们对论战双方的动机略作管窥。为相信巫师存在者辩护的人似乎更担心否定巫师会让无神论者——而非魔鬼——得势。此类思维的例子可参见托马斯·布朗尼爵士的《一个医生的宗教观》（1634）一书。
Similarly, in Saducismus Triumphantus (1681), Glanvill did not appear to be so much concerned about witchcraft being a serious threat to life and limb, especially after his careful investigations revealed rather feeble examples, but instead that a denial of the witch was a big step towards the denial of all religion.
格兰维尔在他的著作《巫师及鬼怪的完整直接证据》（1681）中也表达了类似的意思。他仔细调查了他书中举出的那些巫术例子之后，发现它们都不太经得起推敲，在书中他并不认为巫术对人的生命或肢体能够造成什么实质威胁，更使他担心的是对巫师及巫术的否定可能导致对所有宗教的全面否定。
Even a hundred years later John Wesley had much the same concerns saying “giving up witchcraft is in effect giving up the bible” [NOTE]. Clearly the intention of these writers is not the same as earlier demonologists like Jean Bodin.
甚至在一百年之后，约翰·韦斯利也表达出了相同的担忧。他写道：“否认巫术实质上就是否认《圣经》。”很明显，这些作者支持巫术存在的目的与早期的恶魔学者如让·博丹等人大相径庭。
So, while Cotton Mather’s The Wonders of the Invisible World (1693) fits the bill as a the work of old fashioned cleric, seeing devils under the bed, convinced there is a vast diabolical conspiracy that justifies desperate retaliatory measures, many of the learned defenders had a much narrower interest.
所以，虽然科顿·马瑟的《不可见世界中的奇观》一书的确够得上老派教士著作的标准——书中他认为魔鬼就在我们身边、坚信存在一个魔鬼策划的大规模阴谋且人们应以极端手段对抗这一阴谋，但很多颇有学识的巫术捍卫者所感兴趣的领域则要窄得多。
Ultimately it was these learned men, who simply did not care about old women and their muttered curses, who had to be won around for the prosecutions to stop altogether. What eventually defeated the likes of More and Glanville was the same thing that has invalidated so many of the last ditch defences conducted in the name of religion.
归根结底，要结束猎巫指控和审判，反猎巫派必须把这些饱学者争取过来。而这些人并不关心村中的某个老妇是不是女巫，或她们口中咕哝的诅咒是否灵验。最终击败摩尔和格兰维尔及其同道的，此前也曾扫清过无数以宗教之名誓死捍卫某种信念的人。
There are always a few people who become fixated on a piece of doctrine and insist that the world will be imperilled by giving it up. This happened over the movement of the earth and is happening today over women priests.
历史上不论何时总有一些人执着于某些教条，并宣称如果放弃这些教条世界就会大难临头。围绕着地球是否在转动发生过类似的论争，而今天我们还可以在关于女性牧师问题的讨论中找到这些人的影子。
But once the dogma has in fact been dropped de facto despite the protestations of its defenders, it usually becomes clear that the terrible consequences of which they warned have not come to pass and a new generation has no concerns about amending the writ to conform with practice.
但是，尽管这些人誓死捍卫旧教条，一旦这些旧教条的死亡成为事实，人们就会发现捍卫者们拿来吓唬人的那些严重后果一样都没发生。这种情况下，新一代人就不惮于修改教条来使之适应新的现实了。
Essentially, most people were able to see that the church could sail serenely on despite the loss of an occasional doctrine and that its problems were rather more fundamental than just a matter of believing in witches.
最重要的是，大多数人都能够看到：虽然教会失去了某个教条，但它依旧安然无恙，而教会面临的问题也比巫术问题要深层的多。
While the contention of some scholars that there was a wholesale withdrawal of the elite from popular culture seems to me to be thrown into doubt by the enormous unifying effect of the English bible, it is true that certain beliefs can drop out of ‘high’ culture – especially when they become associated with vulgarity or lack of sophistication. In late seventeenth century England this happened to nearly all magical ideas as the New Philosophy became the in-thing.
虽然英文版《圣经》表现出的巨大文化统合力已使得某些学者声称的“精英阶层大规模退出大众文化圈”这一结论遭到质疑，但不可否认，有些时候一些信念确实会逐渐从“高等”文化的范畴里被排斥出去——尤其是当人们开始认为这些信念太过鄙俗或太过粗浅的时候。在十七世纪晚期的英格兰，这种现象导致了几乎所有与魔法相关的思想被思想界扫地出门，因为这一时期新哲学才是最时髦的。
While actually understanding the scientific results of Boyle or Newton was beyond most people, anyone could attack the superstitions of peasants and thus reassure themselves of their membership of the intelligentsia. Just as the learned ideas about the devil were absorbed by the middling classes who then put them into practice by hunting witches, so the New Philosophy, percolating into the middle class consciousness, helped instil them with scepticism.
虽然大多数人都很难准确理解牛顿或者玻义耳的科学发现，随便什么人都可以通过攻击农民的迷信而获得“自己是个知识分子”的自信。正如之前大众接受了学者们关于魔鬼的理论而置身于猎巫运动，新哲学也渐渐被大众接受，在他们的头脑里种下了怀疑主义的种子。
Even those who were willing to accept the existence of witches in principle did not feel they could countenance any specific examples. As Joseph Addison wrote in the Spectator in 1711 “I believe in general that there is and has been such a thing as witchcraft; but at the same time can give credit to no particular instance of it” [NOTE].
即使那些愿意在理论上接受巫术存在的人也开始变得难以支持某个特定的巫术案例了。比如约瑟夫·艾迪逊在1711年的《观察家》中写到：“在一般意义上，我相信过去和现在都存在巫术，但与此同时我难以相信任何巫术案例。”
To actually abolish the crime required more than the belief that proof was difficult to obtain. The twin pillars of witchcraft were maleficia and the pact with the devil - both aspects needed to be dealt with. Witchcraft had to be thought impossible (in the case of maleficia) and irrelevant (in the case of the pact with the devil).
要废除巫术罪名，只让人们相信其证据难以获得是不够的。巫术罪的两大要件是诅咒行为和与魔鬼所定的契约，必须把这两点都打倒才能废除巫术罪。人们必须认识到，巫术罪是不可能的（打倒诅咒行为）并且和魔鬼并无相干（打倒魔鬼契约）。
Belief in magic was largely absent from the elite long before the existence of the devil himself was being denied although he was becoming a spiritual being whose abilities were far more limited than they had been in the past. He could not really do anything miraculous but only foster illusions in the gullible. Eventually, his power became merely the ability to tempt Christians into sin by mental suggestion and so his threat was but a moral challenge.
在人们开始否定魔鬼的存在以前，知识阶层早已不信魔法存在了。而且现在魔鬼虽然还没被彻底打倒，但它已经成了一种精神性的存在，它的威能已经大不如前，目前它已经无法展示任何奇迹，它能做到的只是用幻觉蛊惑那些容易上当的人了。最终，魔鬼的能力只剩了以精神暗示诱惑基督徒犯下罪孽这一项，这样他对人们的威胁也就只停留在道德层面，而与法律无涉了。
It is also possible that the near complete lack of any solid evidence for devil worship finally began to make itself felt and that consequently fears of a fifth column in the midst of society faded but they would reappear from time to time, most recently in Orkney and Rochdale in the 1991.
另一个可能是，人们终于发现了他们对恶魔信仰的恐惧其实没有任何现实证据，因此，对社会中可能存在一个魔鬼势力第五纵队的恐惧也就消退了。当然，类似的恐惧日后还是会不时爆发出来，最近的例子就是1991年在奥克尼和罗什戴尔发生的“从魔鬼崇拜的家庭中解救儿童”的丑闻。【 编注：参见维基词条Orkney child abuse scandal 】
Neutering Satan and turning him into a more transcendent figure is often ascribed to Protestantism although Luther himself claims he suffered many physical encounters with the devil who threw excrement at him. Whatever the causes, the devil faded from view and this turned the question of what to do about his alleged disciples into a purely religious matter.
把撒旦无力化并使他成为一个更加虚幻的存在一事时常被记到新教的账上——虽然马丁路德本人宣称撒旦曾多次与他相遇并扔大便攻击他。不管原因为何，魔鬼从人们眼中消失了。这样，如何处理那些被指控是魔鬼信徒的人就变成了一个宗教性的问题，而与社会安全无关了。
The process was a drawn out one that should perhaps be studied in parallel with the decline of heresy and blasphemy as a crime against the state. This slowly faded as the eighteenth century wore on although there were isolated prosecutions, such as the La Barre case of 1766 in France made famous by Voltaire [NOTE].
（巫术罪的消失）这一过程相当漫长，或许较好的办法是把它与“异端诽谤危害国家罪”的消失一同研究。虽然仍有零星的异端指控（如因伏尔泰而大大出名的拉·巴尔案），异端罪在十八世纪已经慢慢淡出了人们的视野。
In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries there might simply have been a change in the jurisdiction for witch trials from secular to ecclesiastical courts but during the seventeenth century heresy had gradually ceased to be seen as a crime deserving temporal punishment and the church courts could no longer expect the secular arm to carry out their orders.
在十五至十六世纪，巫术罪的管辖权可能确由世俗法院转到了宗教法庭。但到了十七世纪，异端信仰已经渐渐不再被人视作一种需要神罚的罪行了。与此同时，宗教法庭也渐渐不能指望世俗法院执行它的判决了。
Even in countries which retained strong church courts, most especially Spain and Portugal, sentences became lighter as the eighteenth century progressed with a return to the medieval idea of penance and reconciliation rather than punishment. The stalemate that had ended the wars between Catholics and Protestants, coupled with the fostering of national over religious identity, meant the ideals of tolerance expressed as early as Thomas More’s Utopia (1516) were finally implemented.
即使在那些仍保留了相对强势宗教法庭的国家如西班牙和葡萄牙，进入十八世纪后对异端罪行的定罪也逐渐变轻了。以忏悔和赎罪代替刑罚的中世纪思想逐渐回归。天主教徒和新教徒长年战争结束后，两派进入了对峙局面，再加上人们的头脑中国家意识也开始取代宗教意识而成为主要的身份认同，这似乎意味着早在1516年托马斯·莫尔在《乌托邦》中写到的宗教宽容理想终于得以实现。
This is not to say that atheism or devil worship were socially acceptable, but rather that if a man or woman minded their own business and kept their views quiet, nobody would hunt them down. Essentially ones private religion became a private matter and, as long as one did not cause a public disturbance, the public sphere had little interest.
当然，这并不意味着无神论或恶魔信仰得到了社会的承认。只是如果一个人自扫门前雪，不把自己的宗教主张到处宣扬，那么不管他相信什么，都不会有人来猎捕他了。基本上，个人的宗教信仰终于被社会认可为个人事务了。而只要一个人不制造公共事端，那么公众方面对他的个人事务是没有什么兴趣的。 Conclusion 结论 Witchcraft is an imaginary crime. It has, as Robin Briggs says, a hole in the middle which demonologists were able to fill with their speculations [NOTE]. They were then able to persuade others, including the actual accused, of the veracity of these ideas.
巫术罪是一种想象出来的犯罪。正如罗宾·布里格斯所说：它的中心有个空洞，正方便那些魔鬼学者把他们的臆测填进去。这样，魔鬼学者就可以说服旁人——甚至包含被控为巫师的人——认同他们的观点。
As Briggs says, after Alasdair MacIntyre, a rational thought is one that coheres with the thoughts around it and, to the mentality of the demonologists and enough of those around them, their writings made perfect sense. We do not need to call them superstitious charlatans to say that they were wrong.
布里格斯说的好：阿拉斯代尔·麦金太尔把“合理的想法”定义为“与周围人的想法一致的想法”。按这一定义，对那些魔鬼学者及他们身边足够多的人们来说，他们的著述是非常合理的。我们可以說他们是錯的，但没有必要称他们为迷信的骗子。
A defendant, accused of a non-existent crime, should expect that any effective legal process will find them not guilty and in witch trials this is eventually what happened. It remained possible that someone could (and perhaps should) be convicted if, believing they have the power, they bewitched a person who then conveniently started to ail, but this will be a very rare case.
一个被控犯了不存在的罪行的被告人应该期待一个合理的司法系统还他清白，就猎巫审判而言，最终情形也确实如此。如果一个真心相信自己能施巫术的人对别人施了巫术，而受术者正巧就病倒了，因此给施术者定一个巫术罪是完全可能的。但这种案子即使有，也应该非常稀少。
Renaissance magicians never won their argument with the demonologists as they were both swept aside by the intellectual changes of the seventeenth century. The devil found himself relegated to the role assigned for him by Milton in Paradise Lost (1667) as a tempter who must rely on God to effect any real change. Milton also gives us an idea of the penetration of the New Philosophy, although he hardly approves of it, with his running joke about the configuration of the solar system and Raphael’s admonition of Adam for being too curious about the heavens.
文艺复兴时代的魔术师们从未在与魔鬼学者的辩论中获胜，因为他们一起被十七世纪的知识界剧变甩下了辩论台。魔鬼被贬到弥尔顿在《失乐园》中给他安排的位置上去了，他现在是一个教唆者，他只有依靠上帝的力量才能导致实质性的改变。弥尔顿也通过他时常提到的笑话（例如“太阳系的构成”和“拉斐尔警告亚当不要对天堂太过好奇”）让我们了解了当时正破土而出的新哲学，虽然弥尔顿本人并不认同这新哲学。
To the New Philosophers, the rhetorical purpose of a defence of witchcraft was completely different to that of the earlier demonologists, which shows how attitudes had already changed. Perhaps the decline of the trials taking place without the world being overwhelmed by devilry had made the issue seem less urgent.
一篇为巫术罪的辩护词对新一代的哲学家们而言的修辞意义与它在早期恶魔学者眼中的修辞意义截然不同，这一点就证明了知识界的态度已然改变了。也许在猎巫审判越来越少的时代里，世界依然如常运转而并未充斥着魔鬼的术法这一事实，就使得魔鬼问题变得不那么迫切了。
On the same note, once it became clear that most people were already sceptical about witches and this had not led to a collapse of the Christian religion, intellectuals had no further use for witchcraft except for English Tories who wanted to do a bit of Whig baiting. As moral and religious matters were assigned more to the private than the public sphere, a pact with the devil ceased to be a crime against the state and maleficia ceased to be anything at all.
同样，一旦大多数人都已对巫师的存在产生怀疑而基督宗教也并未崩塌，对知识分子们而言巫术问题就没用了。只有英格兰的托利党人还会拿巫术问题来钓一钓辉格党人。当道德和宗教逐渐由社会事务变成私人事务，与魔鬼定约也就不再是危害国家的犯罪，而诅咒也就不再被人当作一回事了。
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