Servants of Satan: The Age of the Witch Hunts

1987 ◽  
Vol 100 (396) ◽  
pp. 244
Author(s):  
Thomas E. Graves ◽  
Joseph Klaits
Keyword(s):  
The Witch ◽  
Witch Hunts

Introduction

2018 ◽  
pp. 1-36
Author(s):  
Laura Kounine
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
The Body ◽  
History Of Emotions ◽  
Current State ◽  
History Of ◽  
Western Germany ◽  
The Rich ◽  
The Witch ◽  
Witch Hunts

This Introduction sets out the intentions of this book: to use the rich witch-trial records from the early modern duchy of Württemberg in south-western Germany to explore the central themes of emotions, gender, and selfhood. It provides an overview of the key historiographical debates on witchcraft persecutions in the early modern period, and suggests new questions that need to be asked. It also provides a methodological and theoretical framework in which to address these questions, and provides an overview of the current state of the field of the history of emotions, and, by drawing on psychological approaches to listening to self-narratives, it suggests ways in which historical studies of emotions can be pushed further by incorporating the body and subjective states. It also sets out the legal, political, and religious framework of the Lutheran duchy of Württemberg, in order to put the witch-hunts in this region into context.

scholarly journals Animal Transformation in Early Modern English Witchcraft Pamphlets

2019 ◽  
pp. 21-34
Author(s):  
Paweł Rutkowski
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern English ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The Witch ◽  
Witch Hunts ◽  
Traditional Component

Animal metamorphosis was a traditional component of witchcraft beliefs during the European early modern witch-hunts, during which it was taken for granted that witches could and did turn into animals regularly in order to easier do evil. It must be noted, however, that the witch-turned-animal motif was much less common in England, where witches did possess the shape-shifting abilities but relatively rarely used them. A likely reason for the difference, explored in the present paper, was the specifically English belief that most witches were accompanied and served by familiar spirits, petty demons that customarily assumed the shape of animals. It seems that the ubiquity of such demonic shape-shifters effectively satisfied the demand for magical transformations in the English witchcraft lore.

Languages of defence

2018 ◽  
pp. 85-123
Author(s):  
Laura Kounine
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Death Sentence ◽  
Social Standing ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Modern Culture ◽  
The Witch ◽  
The Many ◽  
Witch Hunts

Studies seeking to understand the emotional and psychological dynamic of the witch-hunts have most often focused on why someone accused of witchcraft might confess to this crime. To understand how the witch was imagined in early modern culture and thought, we also need to pay attention to the many trials that did not end in a death sentence. The notion of resistance is thus crucial in understanding the crime of witchcraft. This chapter explores how men and women sought to defend themselves on trial, and how witnesses presented evidence. It argues that there were variegated and sometimes conflicting identifications in establishing someone as ‘good’ as opposed to ‘evil’, identifications which were inextricably bound to cultural understandings of gender, age, and social standing. Approached this way, understandings of what constituted witchcraft and the ‘witch’ appear far more contested and unstable than has previously been suggested.

The Witches of Dürer and Hans Baldung Grien*

2000 ◽  
Vol 53 (2) ◽  
pp. 333-401 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margaret A. Sullivan
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Classical World ◽  
The Witch ◽  
Witch Hunts

This study seeks to demonstrate that the timing, subject, and audience for the art of Dürer and Hans Baldung Grien all argue against the view that the witches in their prints and drawings were a reaction to actual witch-hunts, trials, or malevolent treatises such as theMalleus maleficiarum. The witch craze did not gain momentum until late in the sixteenth century while the witches of Dürer and Hans Baldung Grien belong to an earlier era. They are more plausible as a response to humanist interest in the poetry and satire of the classical world, and are better understood as poetic constructions created to serve artistic goals and satisfy a humanist audience.

The Witch Hunts

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Thurston
Keyword(s):  
The Witch ◽  
Witch Hunts

scholarly journals «Non lasciar vivere la malefica»

2009 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
The Political ◽  
Late Middle Ages ◽  
Modern Age ◽  
History Of ◽  
Preliminary Orientation ◽  
The Witch ◽  
Witch Hunts ◽  
The Devil

Yet another book on witches and witchcraft? Although numerous, studies on this phenomenon that had such a profound influence on the political, social and religious history of the late Middle Ages and the early modern age in Europe can never be enough. At this time the political regimes were actively involved in the witch hunts, not least the Catholic church which was intensely engaged in developing instruments of control aimed at governing and curbing dissent. The book is broken down into thematic sections – rules, treatises and trials, transmission /possession – which reflect the multiplicity of the scientific proposals that have emerged in recent years, and also represent a conscious preliminary orientation of possible readings. At centre stage of the witchcraft show are the witches and their judges, from the theologians and philosophers to the exorcists. As well as addressing actual events, the book also explores the nature of the beliefs and the way in which they were transmitted in the various social strata, and the phenomenon of diabolical possession which conveyed the message of the presence of the devil in the world.

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