For the standard medieval person, monsters and magical beings were very real and ever-present. Accounts of witches, revenants, ghosts, fairies, and demons were as popular as the charms and spells used day-to-day. Such popular beliefs were often inseparable from formal Church belief, with many spells linking magic to religion with Latin chants and invocations of saints. Aside from some learned sceptics, magic was, like religion, practiced at all levels of society, from village healing women to scholarly magicians adept at necromancy (the art of raising spirits from death).

Near the end of the Middle Ages, the idea of magic shifted from a commonplace neutral force to a diabolic power that was lent to peasant witches by the Devil. This new characterization of superstition and magic justified its persecution, launching a witch-hunting frenzy across Europe. While the witch trials of following years may suggest widespread intolerance of the supernatural, books like Felix Hemmerlin’s Opuscula et tractatus remind us of the centuries of coexistence between the Catholic Church and the magic of its followers.