Maus de Rolley, T; (2016) Le diable à la foire: Jongleurs, bateleurs et prestigiateurs dans le discours démonologique à la Renaissance. In: Dickhaut, K, (ed.) Die Kunst der Täuschung – Art of Deception: über Status und Bedeutung von ästhetischer und dämonischer Illusion in der Frühen Neuzeit (1400-1700) in Italien und Frankreich. (pp. 173-195). Harrassowitz Verlag: Wiesbaden, Germany.

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Abstract

This chapter examines the contrasting attitudes to jugglers in early modern demonological treatises. These popular entertainers who specialised in legerdemain and feats of agility were denounced by some demonologists as disciples of the devil; but other authors saw their tricks as a form of natural magic that did not necessarily entail a collusion with the devil, even if it could sometimes be put to use by demons to forge their illusions. The devil, in these treatises, is presented as a consummate juggler, whose powers of illusion rely on his ability to manipulate objects, to convey them swiftly from one hiding place to another, to substitute one for the other. I argue that jugglers’ tricks therefore offered to early modern demonoogists an interpretative and cognitive model allowing to understand and coneptualise the action of the devil within the natural world. To some extent, it is the practical experience of this kind of popular, visible and accessible magic that allowed early modern demonologists and their contemporaries to ‘think with demons’.

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