Early Modern Witches

Early Modern Witches PDF Author: Marion Gibson
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134607636
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 353

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Book Description
This collection of pamphlets describes fifteen English witchcraft cases in detail, vividly recreating events to give the reader the illusion of actually being present at witchcraft accusations, trials and hangings. But how much are we victims of literary manipulation by these texts? The pamphlets are presented in annotated format, to allow the reader to decide. Some of the texts appear in print for the first time in three centuries, whilst others are newly edited to give a clearer picture of sources.

Early Modern Witches

Early Modern Witches PDF Author: Marion Gibson
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134607636
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 353

Get Book Here

Book Description
This collection of pamphlets describes fifteen English witchcraft cases in detail, vividly recreating events to give the reader the illusion of actually being present at witchcraft accusations, trials and hangings. But how much are we victims of literary manipulation by these texts? The pamphlets are presented in annotated format, to allow the reader to decide. Some of the texts appear in print for the first time in three centuries, whilst others are newly edited to give a clearer picture of sources.

Male witches in early modern Europe

Male witches in early modern Europe PDF Author: Lara Apps
Publisher: Manchester University Press
ISBN: 152613750X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 201

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Book Description
This electronic version has been made available under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-ND) open access license. This is the first ever full book on the subject of male witches addressing incidents of witch-hunting in both Britain and Europe. Uses feminist categories of gender analysis to critique the feminist agenda that mars many studies. Advances a more bal. Critiques historians’ assumptions about witch-hunting, challenging the marginalisation of male witches by feminist and other historians. Shows that large numbers of men were accused of witchcraft in their own right, in some regions, more men were accused than women. It uses feminist categories of gender analysis to challenge recent arguments and current orthodoxies providing a more balanced and complex view of witch-hunting and ideas about witches in their gendered forms than has hitherto been available.

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 : 645

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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, Witch-hunting, and Politics in Early Modern England

Witchcraft, Witch-hunting, and Politics in Early Modern England PDF Author: Peter Elmer
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198717725
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 380

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Book Description
Witchcraft, Witch-hunting, and Politics in Early Modern England constitutes a wide-ranging and original 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, Peter Elmer 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 the period from the passage of the witchcraft statute of 1563 to the repeal of the various laws on witchcraft. In the process, Elmer sheds new light upon various issues relating to the role of witchcraft in English society, including the problematic relationship between puritanism and witchcraft as well as the process of decline.

Witchcraft in Early Modern Poland, 1500-1800

Witchcraft in Early Modern Poland, 1500-1800 PDF Author: W. Wyporska
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137384212
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 417

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Book Description
This comprehensive study examines Polish demonology in relation to witchcraft trials in Wielkopolska, revealing the witch as a force for both good and evil. It explores the use of witchcraft, the nature of accusations and the role of gender.

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
This important collection brings together both established figures and new researchers to offer fresh perspectives on the ever-controversial subject of the history of witchcraft. Using Keith Thomas's Religion and the Decline of Magic as a starting point, the contributors explore the changes of the last twenty-five years in the understanding of early modern witchcraft, and suggest new approaches, especially concerning the cultural dimensions of the subject. Witchcraft cases must be understood as power struggles, over gender and ideology as well as social relationships, with a crucial role played by alternative representations. Witchcraft was always a contested idea, never fully established in early modern culture but much harder to dislodge than has usually been assumed. The essays are European in scope, with examples from Germany, France, and the Spanish expansion into the New World, as well as a strong core of English material.

The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe

The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe PDF Author: Brian P. Levack
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317875591
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 508

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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.

Witchcraft in Early Modern England

Witchcraft in Early Modern England PDF Author: James Sharpe
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317881303
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 172

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Book Description
With the renewed interest in the history of witches and witchcraft, this timely book provides an introduction to this fascinating topic, informed by the main trends of new thinking on the subject. Beginning with a discussion of witchcraft in the early modern period, and charting the witch panics that took place at this time, the author goes on to look at the historical debate surrounding the causes of the legal persecution of witches. Contemporary views of witchcraft put forward by judges, theological writers and the medical profession are examined, as is the place of witchcraft in the popular imagination. Jim Sharpe also looks at the gender dimensions of the witch persecution, and the treatment of witchcraft in Elizabethan and Jacobean drama. Supported by a range of compelling documents, the book concludes with an exploration of why witch panics declined in the late seventeenth century and early eighteenth century.

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.

Witchcraft in Early Modern Scotland

Witchcraft in Early Modern Scotland PDF Author: Lawrence Normand
Publisher: Liverpool University Press
ISBN: 1802079300
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 468

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Book Description
This volume provides a valuable introduction to the key concepts of witchcraft and demonology through a detailed study of one of the best known and most notorious episodes of Scottish history, the North Berwick witch hunt, in which King James was involved as alleged victim, interrogator, judge and demonologist. It provides hitherto unpublished and inaccessible material from the legal documentation of the trials in a way that makes the material fully comprehensible, as well as full texts of the pamphlet News from Scotland and James' Demonology, all in a readable, modernised, scholarly form. Full introductory sections and supporting notes provide information about the contexts needed to understand the texts: court politics, social history and culture, religious changes, law and the workings of the court, and the history of witchcraft prosecutions in Scotland before 1590. The book also brings to bear on this material current scholarship on the history of European witchcraft.