Witchcraft and magic in Europe. Volume 3: The Middle Ages

universities outside Germany like Montpellier, Basle, and Cambridge. The activities of Simone Simoni (1532-1602) at Geneva, Heidelberg and Leipzig are instructive in this respect, as was shown long ago by Frank Ludwig (Neues Archiv fiir siichsische Geschichte und Altertumskunde, 1909, 30: 209-90). Equally, while Paracelsus' own view of the body militated against any commitment to anatomical study, it still needs to be demonstrated that those Paracelsians who obtained university positions were similarly disdainful, and that, if they did, they also shared Paracelsus' own theological position. What this volume reveals is that the proper study ofthe interactions ofreligion and science in the Renaissance is only just beginning. Some themes are familiar, but need greater precision of thought as well as deeper delving in the archives, but others have scarcely been touched upon. Future work needs to combine the institutional with the intellectual, the social with the individual, in order to capture the subtleties of belief and the practicalities of daily life as a physician, professor or preacher. These essays are first steps, no more, but they at least point the way to potentially fruitful pastures.