U of A Researcher Spotlight Series: Rob Desjardins & François Pageau

One of the most unusual, most beautiful—and most sinister—items held in the University of Alberta’s Bruce Peel Special Collections is a velvet-clad, wood-bound volume dating from the middle of the fifteenth century. The Johannes Tinctor manuscript significantly influenced the witch hunts of its era. This manuscript reveals how ideas of witchcraft were used to marginalize groups and how they resonate today amid rampant misinformation.

Join Rob Desjardins, '91 BA, '00 BEd, '03 MA, '10 PhD and Francois Pageau ‘09 BA, ‘13 MA, to uncover the manuscript’s 550-year history, production, and journey to Edmonton. Discover why a crucial image of witches in flight was removed from the book and what this omission reveals about historical perceptions of witchcraft.

Reflect on how Tinctor's theories, which led to the deaths of 13 innocent people, still echo in today’s conspiracy theories and misinformation.

Image courtesy of Bruce Peel Special Collections, University of Alberta.

Rob Desjardins is an instructional designer in the Faculty of Graduate & Postdoctoral Studies. A U of A alumnus (PhD History 2010), Rob is also an independent researcher focusing on late medieval European history. He is co-editor of The Arras Witch Treatises (Penn State, 2016) and the Leab Award-winning exhibition “Tinctor’s Foul Treatise” (Bruce Peel Special Collections).

François Pageau is a doctoral candidate in history and sessional instructor at Campus Saint-Jean, University of Alberta. His research focuses on the religious and cultural history of fifteenth-century Europe.