''Histoire de l'Inquisition en France'' is a book about

witch trials in the early modern period Witch trials in the early modern period saw that between 1400 to 1782, around 40,000 to 60,000 were killed due to suspicion that they were practicing witchcraft. Some sources estimate that a total of 100,000 trials occurred at its maximum for a s ...

published in 1829 by

Étienne-Léon de Lamothe-Langon Étienne-Léon de Lamothe-Langon (1786-1864) was a prolific French author of many novels, apocryphal memoirs, and a controversial historical work. Biography Étienne-Léon de Lamothe-Langon, a descendant of an old family of Languedoc, was b ...

(1786–1864), supposedly on the basis of his unprecedented access to

Church Church may refer to: Religion * Church (building), a building for Christian religious activities * Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination * Church service, a formalized period of Christian communal worship * Chris ...

archives in

Toulouse Toulouse ( , ; oc, Tolosa ) is the prefecture of the French department of Haute-Garonne and of the larger region of Occitania. The city is on the banks of the River Garonne, from the Mediterranean Sea, from the Atlantic Ocean and from Par ...

, granted by one Bishop . It is now regarded as a

forgery Forgery is a white-collar crime that generally refers to the false making or material alteration of a legal instrument with the specific intent to defraud anyone (other than themself). Tampering with a certain legal instrument may be forbidd ...

. The dramatic and blood curdling accounts of ''Histoire'' were incorporated as a primary source into many other volumes, notably Joseph Hansen's (1862–1943) German ''Quellen und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte des Hexenwahns und der Hexenverfolgung im Mittelalter'' ("Sources and investigations regarding the history of the witch craze and the witch hunts in the Middle Ages"), which in turn became the source for many other works. Ultimately, Lamothe-Langon's work became the sole or principal

primary source In the study of history as an academic discipline, a primary source (also called an original source) is an artifact, document, diary, manuscript, autobiography, recording, or any other source of information that was created at the time under ...

for a substantial part of twentieth century popular and historical beliefs about the

Inquisition The Inquisition was a group of institutions within the Catholic Church whose aim was to combat heresy, conducting trials of suspected heretics. Studies of the records have found that the overwhelming majority of sentences consisted of penances, ...

witchcraft Witchcraft traditionally means the use of magic or supernatural powers to harm others. A practitioner is a witch. In medieval and early modern Europe, where the term originated, accused witches were usually women who were believed to have us ...

, torture and

jurisprudence Jurisprudence, or legal theory, is the theoretical study of the propriety of law. Scholars of jurisprudence seek to explain the nature of law in its most general form and they also seek to achieve a deeper understanding of legal reasoning a ...

in the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...

. In the early 1970s, the historians

Norman Cohn Norman Rufus Colin Cohn FBA (12 January 1915 – 31 July 2007) was a British academic, historian and writer who spent 14 years as a professorial fellow and as Astor-Wolfson Professor at the University of Sussex. Life Cohn was born in London, to ...

and

Richard Kieckhefer Richard Kieckhefer (born 1946) is an American medievalist, religious historian, scholar of church architecture, and author. He is Professor of History and John Evans Professor of Religious Studies at Northwestern University. Education After an un ...

independently discovered that the ''Histoire'' was a fabrication; Lamothe-Langon's archive did not exist, he did not have the paleographic skills to read books of that age anyway, several major events he described could not have occurred, and his book was full of anachronisms. Prior to fabricating the ''Histoire'', Lamothe-Langon had been an author of

gothic horror Gothic fiction, sometimes called Gothic horror in the 20th century, is a loose literary aesthetic of fear and haunting. The name is a reference to Gothic architecture of the European Middle Ages, which was characteristic of the settings of ea ...

novels. Subsequently, he went on to forge several autobiographies of French historical figures.

References

Recent Developments in the Study of The Great European Witch Hunt
{{Authority control 1829 non-fiction books 19th-century history books Literary forgeries Inquisition History books about witchcraft