Witch Hunts and State Building in Early Modern Europe PDF Download
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Author: Linnea de Gouges
Publisher: Independently Published
ISBN: 9781723896156
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 64
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Book Description
The formidable witch hunts in Early Modern Europe (ca. 1500-1700) have been subject to a vast number of studies and speculations regarding their causes. In this book, they are connected with the increasingly authoritarian state apparatuses which were being consolidated during the actual time period, and explained as efforts by the state and church authorities to divide and conquer rebellious peasant populations. In the early 16th century, the German peasant war shook the foundations of the emerging German states and their aristocratic and clerical leaders, threatening to abort the development of centralized states in Europe and supplant them with confederal sociopolitical structures. The witch hunts in the subsequent two centuries are explained as a decisive campaign to put an end to the rebellious and often times revolutionary peasants, a campaign which succeeded to an increasing extent through new scientific discoveries and the development of vast military resources in the hands of the Early Modern States. With the new enlightened ideas in the late 17th and 18th century, the mania for hunting down witches faded into history, as the centralized European states consolidated their hegemony. This book will be of great relevance for the student of Early Modern history, as well as for the general reader who takes an interest in the massive persecution of Europe's "outsiders" in an era when superstition was rampant and people were easily scared by religious propaganda in the form of the "Devil threat."
Author: Linnea de Gouges
Publisher: Independently Published
ISBN: 9781723896156
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 64
Get Book
Book Description
The formidable witch hunts in Early Modern Europe (ca. 1500-1700) have been subject to a vast number of studies and speculations regarding their causes. In this book, they are connected with the increasingly authoritarian state apparatuses which were being consolidated during the actual time period, and explained as efforts by the state and church authorities to divide and conquer rebellious peasant populations. In the early 16th century, the German peasant war shook the foundations of the emerging German states and their aristocratic and clerical leaders, threatening to abort the development of centralized states in Europe and supplant them with confederal sociopolitical structures. The witch hunts in the subsequent two centuries are explained as a decisive campaign to put an end to the rebellious and often times revolutionary peasants, a campaign which succeeded to an increasing extent through new scientific discoveries and the development of vast military resources in the hands of the Early Modern States. With the new enlightened ideas in the late 17th and 18th century, the mania for hunting down witches faded into history, as the centralized European states consolidated their hegemony. This book will be of great relevance for the student of Early Modern history, as well as for the general reader who takes an interest in the massive persecution of Europe's "outsiders" in an era when superstition was rampant and people were easily scared by religious propaganda in the form of the "Devil threat."
Author: Jonathan Barry
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521638753
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 392
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Book Description
An up-to-date account of the present state of scholarship on early modern European witchcraft.
Author: Brian P. Levack
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191648833
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 646
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Book Description
The essays in this Handbook, written by leading scholars working in the rapidly developing field of witchcraft studies, explore the historical literature regarding witch beliefs and witch trials in Europe and colonial America between the early fifteenth and early eighteenth centuries. During these years witches were thought to be evil people who used magical power to inflict physical harm or misfortune on their neighbours. Witches were also believed to have made pacts with the devil and sometimes to have worshipped him at nocturnal assemblies known as sabbaths. These beliefs provided the basis for defining witchcraft as a secular and ecclesiastical crime and prosecuting tens of thousands of women and men for this offence. The trials resulted in as many as fifty thousand executions. These essays study the rise and fall of witchcraft prosecutions in the various kingdoms and territories of Europe and in English, Spanish, and Portuguese colonies in the Americas. They also relate these prosecutions to the Catholic and Protestant reformations, the introduction of new forms of criminal procedure, medical and scientific thought, the process of state-building, profound social and economic change, early modern patterns of gender relations, and the wave of demonic possessions that occurred in Europe at the same time. The essays survey the current state of knowledge in the field, explore the academic controversies that have arisen regarding witch beliefs and witch trials, propose new ways of studying the subject, and identify areas for future research.
Author: Brian P. Levack
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317875591
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 490
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Book Description
Between 1450 and 1750 thousands of people – most of them women – were accused, prosecuted and executed for the crime of witchcraft. The witch-hunt was not a single event; it comprised thousands of individual prosecutions, each shaped by the religious and social dimensions of the particular area as well as political and legal factors. Brian Levack sorts through the proliferation of theories to provide a coherent introduction to the subject, as well as contributing to the scholarly debate. The book: Examines why witchcraft prosecutions took place, how many trials and victims there were, and why witch-hunting eventually came to an end. Explores the beliefs of both educated and illiterate people regarding witchcraft. Uses regional and local studies to give a more detailed analysis of the chronological and geographical distribution of witch-trials. Emphasises the legal context of witchcraft prosecutions. Illuminates the social, economic and political history of early modern Europe, and in particular the position of women within it. In this fully updated third edition of his exceptional study, Levack incorporates the vast amount of literature that has emerged since the last edition. He substantially extends his consideration of the decline of the witch-hunt and goes further in his exploration of witch-hunting after the trials, especially in contemporary Africa. New illustrations vividly depict beliefs about witchcraft in early modern Europe.
Author: Darren Oldridge
Publisher: Psychology Press
ISBN: 9780415214933
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 470
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Book Description
The excellent reader offers a selection of the best historical writing on witchcraft, exploring how belief in witchcraft began, and the social and context in which this belief flourished.
Author: Peter Elmer
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198717725
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 380
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Book Description
A wide-ranging overview of the place of witchcraft and witch-hunting in the broader culture of early modern England. Based on a mass of new evidence extracted from a range of archives, both local and national, it seeks to relate the rise and decline of belief in witchcraft, alongside the legal prosecution of witches, to the wider political culture of the period. Building on the seminal work of scholars such as Stuart Clark, Ian Bostridge, and Jonathan Barry, it demonstrates how learned discussion of witchcraft, as well as the trials of those suspected of the crime, were shaped by religious and political imperatives in that period.
Author: Brian P. Levack
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191648841
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 646
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Book Description
The essays in this Handbook, written by leading scholars working in the rapidly developing field of witchcraft studies, explore the historical literature regarding witch beliefs and witch trials in Europe and colonial America between the early fifteenth and early eighteenth centuries. During these years witches were thought to be evil people who used magical power to inflict physical harm or misfortune on their neighbours. Witches were also believed to have made pacts with the devil and sometimes to have worshipped him at nocturnal assemblies known as sabbaths. These beliefs provided the basis for defining witchcraft as a secular and ecclesiastical crime and prosecuting tens of thousands of women and men for this offence. The trials resulted in as many as fifty thousand executions. These essays study the rise and fall of witchcraft prosecutions in the various kingdoms and territories of Europe and in English, Spanish, and Portuguese colonies in the Americas. They also relate these prosecutions to the Catholic and Protestant reformations, the introduction of new forms of criminal procedure, medical and scientific thought, the process of state-building, profound social and economic change, early modern patterns of gender relations, and the wave of demonic possessions that occurred in Europe at the same time. The essays survey the current state of knowledge in the field, explore the academic controversies that have arisen regarding witch beliefs and witch trials, propose new ways of studying the subject, and identify areas for future research.
Author: Louise Nyholm Kallestrup
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319323857
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 349
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Book Description
This book breaks with three common scholarly barriers of periodization, discipline and geography in its exploration of the related themes of heresy, magic and witchcraft. It sets aside constructed chronological boundaries, and in doing so aims to achieve a clearer picture of what ‘went before’, as well as what ‘came after’. Thus the volume demonstrates continuity as well as change in the concepts and understandings of magic, heresy and witchcraft. In addition, the geographical pattern of similarities and diversities suggests a comparative approach, transcending confessional as well as national borders. Throughout the medieval and early modern period, the orthodoxy of the Christian Church was continuously contested. The challenge of heterodoxy, especially as expressed in various kinds of heresy, magic and witchcraft, was constantly present during the period 1200-1650. Neither contesters nor followers of orthodoxy were homogeneous groups or fractions. They themselves and their ideas changed from one century to the next, from region to region, even from city to city, but within a common framework of interpretation. This collection of essays focuses on this complex.
Author: Brian P. Levack
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429603908
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 407
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Book Description
Shortlisted for the 2008 Katharine Briggs Award Witch-Hunting in Scotland presents a fresh perspective on the trial and execution of the hundreds of women and men prosecuted for the crime of witchcraft, an offence that involved the alleged practice of maleficent magic and the worship of the devil, for inflicting harm on their neighbours and making pacts with the devil. Brian P. Levack draws on law, politics and religion to explain the intensity of Scottish witch-hunting. Topics discussed include: the distinctive features of the Scottish criminal justice system the use of torture to extract confessions the intersection of witch-hunting with local and national politics the relationship between state-building and witch-hunting and the role of James VI Scottish Calvinism and the determination of zealous Scottish clergy and magistrates to achieve a godly society. This original survey combines broad interpretations of the rise and fall of Scottish witchcraft prosecutions with detailed case studies of specific witch-hunts. Witch-Hunting in Scotland makes fascinating reading for anyone with an interest in witchcraft or in the political, legal and religious history of the early modern period.
Author: Kathryn A. Edwards
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 0271091096
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 249
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Book Description
Bringing together scholars from Europe, America, and Australia, this volume explores the more fantastic elements of popular religious belief: ghosts, werewolves, spiritualism, animism, and of course, witchcraft. These traditional religious beliefs and practices are frequently treated as marginal in more synthetic studies of witchcraft and popular religion, yet Protestants and Catholics alike saw ghosts, imps, werewolves, and other supernatural entities as populating their world. Embedded within notarial and trial records are accounts that reveal the integration of folkloric and theological elements in early modern spirituality. Drawing from extensive archival research, the contributors argue for the integration of such beliefs into our understanding of late medieval and early modern Europe.
