Demoniality; or, Incubi and Succubi — Story, Setting & Ideas

The Bookshop as Frame

Liseux's preface occupies a significant portion of the opening. He describes Mr. Allen's shop as small, never filled, with books arranged by subject—theology on the right, classics on the left—and priced by size: folios at two or three shillings, octavos at one. The translator portrays himself as a hunter of old books, escaping the present for the company of Aldus and Estienne. This personal narrative, complete with a French aside (Car que faire là bas, à moins qu’on ne bouquine?), establishes the manuscript's provenance as a found object, not an authoritative edition. The contrast between the orderly bookshop and the disorderly subject matter—demonic copulation—creates an ironic tension.

Scholastic Structure and the Question of Bodies

Sinistrari's argument proceeds by numbered paragraphs (e.g., §67) that mimic the quaestio format of medieval theology. He poses objections from the Doctors—that the Evil Spirit simulates passions to entice souls—then counters with evidence from incubi's behavior: they grow sad or angry when denied coition, they mate with beasts, and they do not flee at the name of Jesus or the sign of the cross. The structure is cumulative: each objection is met with a new observation, building toward the conclusion that incubi must have real bodies and rational souls. The Latin text runs parallel, allowing readers to check the original phrasing.

Recurring Images of Sensation and Animality

Throughout the excerpts, Sinistrari grounds his argument in physical sensation. He describes the appetitive passion of coition as a sensual passion, visible in animals; incubi incite women and men, and if denied, they sadden and storm, amantes, amentes. The treatise repeatedly invokes daily experience (quotidiana constat experientia) to assert that incubi treat humans and beasts well when gratified, badly when refused. This appeal to observable behavior—rather than scripture alone—marks a distinctive rhetorical move. The image of incubi mating with horses and mares recurs as a test case: if demons seek only to damn souls, why would they bother with animals incapable of eternal damnation?

Movement Between Latin and Vernacular

The facing-page layout forces a constant movement between languages. Sinistrari's Latin is dense with scholastic terminology (appetitiva passio coitus, sensus, anima rationalis), while Liseux's English translation renders it into plainer prose. The preface, originally in French, adds a third linguistic layer. This polyglot structure mirrors the treatise's own border-crossing: between Catholic orthodoxy and heterodox speculation, between learned citation and folk report. Readers may find themselves comparing phrases, noting where the English softens or sharpens the Latin. The effect is that of a palimpsest, with each language commenting on the other.

This edition rewards attention to its margins: the preface, the Latin variants, the footnotes. Sinistrari's method—collecting anecdotes, weighing authorities, testing boundaries—invites readers to consider how theological arguments are built from everyday evidence. The book's structure, moving from bookshop to scholastic debate, mirrors its central question: what kind of being can cross between worlds?

I found myself thinking about that old volume on demoniality recently, the way its careful arguments for unseen beings lingered. It reminded me, oddly, of a legal treatise I once held—The Proofs of Christ's Resurrection; from a Lawyer's Standpoint — Story, Setting & Ideas. Both share that patient, almost stubborn insistence on evidence for what faith simply accepts. Strange company, but both felt earnest in their conviction.