Die sogenannte Werke des Teufels auf den Erdboden

The copy of the 1752 translation of Calmet's book on revenants, Gelehrte Verhandlung der Materi von Erscheinungen der Geisten, und denen Wampiren in Ungarn, Mähren etc. in the collections of the Danish Royal Library is bound with another book: Die sogenannte Werke des Teufels auf den Erdboden published anonymously in Freyburg in 1751. Part 12 of this book deals with 'vampires or so-called blood suckers, and whether they are to be considered the work of the Devil'. I actually put a scan of the opening page of this part in a previous post.

It contains some of the well-known reports on vampires: Those from Kisiljevo and Medvedja, as well as the letter from Kottwitz, in which he poses a question concerning the nature of the phenomena observed in the Serbian vampire cases ('Weiln man hier nun ein ungemeines Wunder daraus macht, als unterstehe mich Dero Particular-Meynung mir gehorsamst auszubitten, ob solches etwas sympathetisches, teuflisches oder astralischer Geister Wirkung sey.') that the anonymous author himself answers by concluding that there is nothing supernatural in the stories about vampires. They are rather to be understood as a combination of natural causes as well as the imagination of the villagers involved.

'Zu vielen Schriften'

In my last post I mentioned my search for the 'ultimate' book on the subject of vampires, 'the vampire book to end all vampire books'. Curiously, as early as the 1730'ies people were complaining about the literature on the subject. E.g. in 1739 in his Bibliotheca, sive, Acta et scripta magica, Eberhard David Hauber (1695-1765), complains that too much had been written on 'the so-called vampires or bloodsuckers', and that most of it had turned out very badly:

Die nunmehro sattsam bekannte Historie von den so genannten Vampyren oder Blut-Saugern, welche sich vor einige Zeit in Ungarn wieder hervor gethan, hat bisher zu vielen Schriften Gelegenheit gegeben, die aber meistens sehr schlecht geraten sind.

He discusses three of the books published in Leipzig in 1732, two of which he thoroughly ridicules (Putoneus: Besonderes Nachricht von denen Vampyren and the anonymous Actenmäßige und umständliche Relation von denen Vampiren), and one that he praises (Eines Weimarischen Medicus muthmaßliche Gedankcen von denen Vampyren).

A few years after completing his Bibliotheca, Hauber was summoned by the Danish king to become priest at the St. Petri church, the church of the German congregation in Copenhagen. He stayed there for the rest of his life. Part of his book collection is now in the possession of the Danish Royal Library, where I recently read the few pages of the book devoted to vampires.