SOURCE: "Introduction," in his Marlowe: "Tragical History of Dr. Faustus"; Greene: "Honourable History of Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay", fourth ed., rev. and enlarged, edited by Adolphus William Ward, Clarendon Press, 1901, pp. xv-clxvi.

In the following excerpt, Ward examines in detail the origins of the Faust legend, including its basis in fact and its manipulation by proponents of the Reformation. He concludes with a discussion of possible source material for Christopher Marlowe's play, Dr. Faustus.

… The century of the Reformation and that which succeeded to it were the period in which the belief in necromancy and witchcraft reached its height. An era of theological controversy on an unprecedented scale had set in; and it was only where the schism never came to a head, as in Italy and Spain, or where, as in parts of the Empire, it was averted by a practical compromise, that the epidemic found...