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

witch trials in the early modern period In the early modern period, from about 1400 to 1775, about 100,000 people were prosecuted for witchcraft in Europe and British America. Between 40,000 and 60,000 were executed, almost all in Europe. The witch-hunts were particularly severe in pa ...

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 place/building for Christian religious activities and praying * Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination * Church service, a formalized period of Christian comm ...

archives in

Toulouse Toulouse (, ; ; ) is a city in southern France, the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Haute-Garonne department and of the Occitania (administrative region), Occitania region. The city is on the banks of the Garonne, River Garonne, from ...

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

forgery Forgery is a white-collar crime that generally consists of the false making or material alteration of a legal instrument with the specific mens rea, intent to wikt:defraud#English, defraud. Tampering with a certain legal instrument may be fo ...

. 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 ("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 (archaeology), artifact, document, diary, manuscript, autobiography, recording, or any other source of information that was cre ...

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

Inquisition The Inquisition was a Catholic Inquisitorial system#History, judicial procedure where the Ecclesiastical court, ecclesiastical judges could initiate, investigate and try cases in their jurisdiction. Popularly it became the name for various med ...

witchcraft Witchcraft is the use of Magic (supernatural), magic by a person called a witch. Traditionally, "witchcraft" means the use of magic to inflict supernatural harm or misfortune on others, and this remains the most common and widespread meanin ...

, torture, and

jurisprudence Jurisprudence, also known as theory of law or philosophy of law, is the examination in a general perspective of what law is and what it ought to be. It investigates issues such as the definition of law; legal validity; legal norms and values ...

in the

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

. 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, ...

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 Palaeography ( UK) or paleography ( US) (ultimately from , , 'old', and , , 'to write') is the study and academic discipline of historical writing systems. It encompasses the historicity of manuscripts and texts, subsuming deciphering and dati ...

skills to read books of that age, 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 referred to as Gothic horror (primarily in the 20th century), is a literary aesthetic of fear and haunting. The name of the genre is derived from the Renaissance era use of the word "gothic", as a pejorative to mean m ...

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
1829 non-fiction books 19th-century history books Literary forgeries Inquisition History books about witchcraft {{reli-hist-stub