Witchcraft, Gender, and Society in Early Modern Germany

Witchcraft, Gender, and Society in Early Modern Germany PDF Author: Jonathan Bryan Durrant
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004160930
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 317

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Book Description
Using the example of Eichstatt, this book challenges current witchcraft historiography by arguing that the gender of the witch-suspect was a product of the interrogation process and that the stable communities affected by persecution did not collude in its escalation.

Witchcraft, Gender, and Society in Early Modern Germany

Witchcraft, Gender, and Society in Early Modern Germany PDF Author: Jonathan Bryan Durrant
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004160930
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 317

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Book Description
Using the example of Eichstatt, this book challenges current witchcraft historiography by arguing that the gender of the witch-suspect was a product of the interrogation process and that the stable communities affected by persecution did not collude in its escalation.

Witchcraft in Early Modern Germany

Witchcraft in Early Modern Germany PDF Author: Anne Sophie Günzel
Publisher: GRIN Verlag
ISBN: 3638726738
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 66

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Book Description
Seminar paper from the year 2004 in the subject History Europe - Other Countries - Middle Ages, Early Modern Age, grade: English Grade:58% von 70%, University of Nottingham (School of History), course: Hauptseminar: Gender and Society in Early Modern Europe, language: English, abstract: 'Witch- hunting is seen as something pathological, a disease infecting like a plague the body of the communities in witch it raged.'1 With these words the historian Bob Scribner described witchcraft and witch-hunts. They are defined as something negative and pathological and it is obviously that witchcraft could easily emerged because of the traditional beliefs rooted in the early modern society of Germany. Witchcraft and witchhunts emerged in this period and made the population susceptible to the carrying out of denunciation and elimination of innocent people. The population had been easily influenced by the authorities like magistrates and their fellow citizens. In the following discussion/passage, witchcraft and witch-hunts concerning the early modern Europe will be less prominent rather than the study about witchcraft and witchhunts in early modern Germany. In particular the main focus will stress on the south of Germany because it was the centre of witchcraft and witch-hunts. In addition to that some examples will be mentioned to show special witchcraft and witch- hunt cases. First it will be examined how the term 'witch' is defined shown in a historical, linguistic and an etymological way. Then the two authors of the Malleus maleficarum2 and their ideas about witches and witchcraft will be mentioned. In the forth chapter the social context shall be examined. In this passage the accused shall be represented and the reasons which led to their accusation. In the last chapter the witch-hunts in early modern Germany shall be represented. It keeps the question in what way the witch-hunts increased during the early modern period and which reasons contributed to their decline. Furthe

Witchcraft Narratives in Germany

Witchcraft Narratives in Germany PDF Author: Alison Rowlands
Publisher: Manchester University Press
ISBN: 9780719052590
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description
Looks at why witch-trials failed to gain momentum and escalate into 'witch-crazes' in certain parts of early modern Europe. Exames the rich legal records of the German city of Rothenburg ob der Tauber, a city which experienced a very restrained pattern of witch-trials and just one execution for witchcraft between 1561 and 1652. Explores the social and psychological conflicts that lay behind the making of accusations and confessions of witchcraft. Offers insights into other areas of early modern life, such as experiences of and beliefs about communal conflict, magic, motherhood, childhood and illness. Offers a critique of existing explanations for the gender bias of witch-trials, and a new explanation as to why most witches were women.

Witchcraft, Madness, Society, and Religion in Early Modern Germany

Witchcraft, Madness, Society, and Religion in Early Modern Germany PDF Author: H. C. Erik Midelfort
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 9781409457336
Category : Germany
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
H. C. Erik Midelfort has carved out a reputation for innovative work on early modern German history, with a particular focus on the social history of ideas and religion. This collection pulls together some of his best work on the related subjects of witchcraft, the history of madness and psychology, demonology, exorcism, and the social history of religious change in early modern Europe. Several of the pieces reprinted here constitute reviews of recent scholarly literature on their topics, while others offer sharp departures from conventional wisdom. A critique of Michel Foucault's view of the history of madness proved both stimulating but irritating to Foucault's most faithful readers, so it is reprinted here along with a short retrospective comment by the author. Another focus of this collection is the social history of the Holy Roman Empire, where towns, peasants, and noble families developed different perceptions of the Protestant and Catholic Reformations and of the options the religious revolutions of the sixteenth century offered. Finally, this collection also brings together articles which show how Freudian psychoanalysis and academic sociology have filtered and interpreted the history of early modern Germany.

Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe

Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe PDF 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.

Witch Craze

Witch Craze PDF Author: Lyndal Roper
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 9780300119831
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 376

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Book Description
A powerful account of witches, crones, and the societies that make them From the gruesome ogress in Hansel and Gretel to the hags at the sabbath in Faust, the witch has been a powerful figure of the Western imagination. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries thousands of women confessed to being witches--of making pacts with the Devil, causing babies to sicken, and killing animals and crops--and were put to death. This book is a gripping account of the pursuit, interrogation, torture, and burning of witches during this period and beyond. Drawing on hundreds of original trial transcripts and other rare sources in four areas of Southern Germany, where most of the witches were executed, Lyndal Roper paints a vivid picture of their lives, families, and tribulations. She also explores the psychology of witch-hunting, explaining why it was mostly older women that were the victims of witch crazes, why they confessed to crimes, and how the depiction of witches in art and literature has influenced the characterization of elderly women in our own culture.

Witchcraft narratives in Germany

Witchcraft narratives in Germany PDF Author: Alison Rowlands
Publisher: Manchester University Press
ISBN: 184779520X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 404

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Book Description
This electronic version has been made available under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-ND) open access license. Looks at why witch-trials failed to gain momentum and escalate into 'witch-crazes' in certain parts of early modern Europe. Exames the rich legal records of the German city of Rothenburg ob der Tauber, a city which experienced a very restrained pattern of witch-trials and just one execution for witchcraft between 1561 and 1652. Explores the social and psychological conflicts that lay behind the making of accusations and confessions of witchcraft. Offers insights into other areas of early modern life, such as experiences of and beliefs about communal conflict, magic, motherhood, childhood and illness. Offers a critique of existing explanations for the gender bias of witch-trials, and a new explanation as to why most witches were women.

Fearless Wives and Frightened Shrews

Fearless Wives and Frightened Shrews PDF Author: Sigrid Brauner
Publisher: Univ of Massachusetts Press
ISBN: 9781558492974
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Brauner shows that the modern notion of the witch as a willful, conniving, promiscuous woman was first established by German Inquisitors in the Malleus maleficarum (1487). In subsequent works by Martin Luther and the sixteenth-century playwrights Paul Rebhun and Hans Sachs, the witch emerged as the counterpart to the new feminine ideal of the urban housewife. By demonstrating how the binary concepts of "good" housewife and "bad wife" (or witch) were propagated among the educated urban elite who presided over witch trials, Brauner suggests that the witch hunts functioned to discipline women who failed to display the docility and subservience expected of the new urban housewife.

The Oxford Handbook of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe and Colonial America

The Oxford Handbook of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe and Colonial America PDF 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.

Witchcraft and Masculinities in Early Modern Europe

Witchcraft and Masculinities in Early Modern Europe PDF Author: A. Rowlands
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0230248373
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 271

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Book Description
Men – as accused witches, witch-hunters, werewolves and the demonically possessed – are the focus of analysis in this collection of essays by leading scholars of early modern European witchcraft. The gendering of witch persecution and witchcraft belief is explored through original case-studies from England, Scotland, Italy, Germany and France.