Formicarius

The Formicarius, written 1436-1438 by Johannes Nider during the Council of Basel and first printed in 1475, is the second book ever printed to discuss witchcraft (the first book being Fortalitium Fidei). Nider dealt specifically with witchcraft in the fifth section of the book. Unlike his successors, he did not emphasize the idea of the Witches' Sabbath and was skeptical of the claim that witches could fly by night. The Formicarius is an important work for the study of the origins of the witch trials in Early Modern Europe, as it sheds light on their earliest phase during the first half of the 15th century.