How to deal with sorcerers: a mid-18th century law practitioner's handbook

[Legal manual]. Gründliche und ausführliche Anleitung zur Rechts-Gelehrsamkeit und besonders Notariat-Kunst. Allen Beamten, Stadt-, Amts- und Gerichts-Schultheißen [...].

€ 750,00

The only edition of this detailed manual of legal practice intended for public servants and notaries, covering a broad spectrum of issues, including inheritance, marriage, wills and the role of witnesses, as well as questions of building law, exchange law, interest, debt and usury, but also criminal law (robbery and even sorcery). Includes a detailed subject index. The folding plate gives an overview of the structure of the Nuremberg reformation, a code of civil law, comparing the editions of 1522, 1564 and 1595.

Published anonymously: the author merely states his initials ("J. B. H.") at the end of the foreword; he may be speculatively identified with the Würzburg jurist Johann Balthasar Höfling (1698-1769, cf. Stepf IV, 192), whose office as Court and Imperial Councillor and as legal representative of the cathedral chapter of Würzburg may have precluded his publishing so common a handbook.

Handwritten ownership of Johann Nepomuk Kernmayer with his papered seal. Earlier ownership clipped from upper margin of second flyleaf; owner's initals "I.A.P." giltstamped to spine. Some browning and brownstaining throughout.