'To speak scholasticklie': espedienti retorici e pedagogici nel Daemonologie di Giacomo I

After participating in the North Berwick witch trials, James VI of Scotland published a dissertation on witchcraft titled Daemonology in 1597. He made sure that Daemonology, along with other writings such as the Basilikon Doron and the True Law of Free Monarchies, were published again after he accessed the throne of England in 1603. A prime example of James VI and I’s eclectic written output, Daemonology is widely recognized to have been inspired by James’ direct participation in the North Berwick trials, in which he questioned the people put to trial himself. Written in form of a Socratic dialogue, James’ text is divided into three books in which he explains at length the various classes of creatures and types of practices connected to witchcraft, such as demonic possession or necromancy. James’ text differs from Newes from Scotland, a report or, rather, a retelling of the North Berwick trials. Likewise, it is different to Reginald Scot’s skeptical text A Discoverie of Witchcraft, where James uses Daemonology as contrary proof of Scot’s thesis that the so-called witches were only charlatans. James conceived his text as a tool to educate the reader, and “not in any wise (as I protest) to serue for a shew of my learning & ingine” he declares in the preface. James’ decision to put his book in form of a dialogue is a conscious choice that he acknowledges within the text, to “make this treatise the more pleasaunt and facill” for the reader to read and understand. My proposal is a linguistic analysis of the pedagogical and rhetorical strategies James employs throughout the whole treatise, using his two characters Philomates and Epistemon as a way not only to explore a taxonomy of witchcraft, but also to assess and rebuke common assumptions surrounding the theme. My aim is to illustrate how James uses this genre and language not only for the pedagogical end of instructing his reader/subject, but also to fortify his arguments against Scot’s text, resorting to the structure of early modern scientific and philosophical treatises by presenting the existence and efficacy of witchcraft practitioners as factual truth.