Nicholas Remy

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Nicholas Remy (aka Rémy and Remigius) (1534 - 1600) was a French magistrate. In 1570 he was named to serve the Inquisition's tribunals in Alsace, France. His book Daemonolatreiae libri tres ("Demonolatry"), published in Lyon in 1595, contributed to give him fame as a cruel and fanatic witch hunter, comparable to Jean Bodin and De Lancre.

According to Remy, the Devil could appear before people in the shape of a black man or animal, and liked Black Masses. Demons could also have sexual relationships with women and, in case they did not agree, rape them.

Remy was responsible for the death of more than nine hundred persons in witch trials between 1581 and 1591, and this was his highest pride, as he told it.

He served as judge and secretary to Duc Henri. He was of the Catholic faith, and did his morbid work with the blessings of the Church, but he himself was married at least once (possibly twice) and had quite a few children. One of them, a favored son, was supposedly killed in a steet accident at the beginning of Remy's judicial career after being cursed by an old beggar woman, and that death was what undoubtedly launched his crusade against Witchcraft. (He prosecuted and burned her. She was one of his first cases.) Finding witches was very personal business for Remy. An extremely educated man for his day, he utterly believed in what he was doing. He saw every "witch" he burned as real, and considered it justice done.

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In the 1988 television series Werewolf, Nicholas Remy is shown as a werewolf who has been alive since the times of the Inquisition. The character was portrayed by Brian Thompson.