Author: Geoffrey Scarre
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Published: 1996-08-15
Total Pages: 150
ISBN-13: 9780333399330
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →In his study of witchcraft and magic in 16th and 17th century Europe, Geoffrey Scarre provides an examination of the theoretical and intellectual rationales which made prosecution for the crime acceptable to the continent's judiciaries.
Author: Geoffrey Scarre
Publisher:
Published: 2001
Total Pages: 101
ISBN-13: 9780230213913
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →In their study of witchcraft and magic in 16th and 17th-century Europe, Geoffrey Scarre and John Callow provide an examination of the theoretical and intellectual rationales which made prosecution for the crime acceptable to the continent's judiciaries. Crucial to their approach is the conflict between supposedly ""rational"" and ""irrational"" systems of belief. Through the use of scholarship in the fields of anthropology, gender and historical studies, they present a vision of witch belief as central rather than, as was once thought, peripheral to intellectual and theological debate in early.
Author: Bengt Ankarloo
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
Published: 1999-10-14
Total Pages: 360
ISBN-13: 9780812217063
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Topics include the decline of the witchcraft trials and the role of witchcraft and magic in enlightenment, romantic, and liberal thought.
Author: Marijke Gijswijt-Hofstra
Publisher: A&C Black
Published: 1999-01-01
Total Pages: 353
ISBN-13: 0485890054
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →The end of the eighteenth century saw the end of the witch trials everywhere. This volume charts the processes and reasons for the decriminalisation of witchcraft but also challenges the widespread assumption that Europe has been 'disenchanted'. For the first time surveys are given of the social role of witchcraft in European communities down to the end of the nineteenth century and of the continued importance of witchcraft and magic as topics of debate among intellectuals and other writers>
Author: Keith Thomas
Publisher: Penguin UK
Published: 2003-01-30
Total Pages: 931
ISBN-13: 0141932406
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Witchcraft, astrology, divination and every kind of popular magic flourished in England during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, from the belief that a blessed amulet could prevent the assaults of the Devil to the use of the same charms to recover stolen goods. At the same time the Protestant Reformation attempted to take the magic out of religion, and scientists were developing new explanations of the universe. Keith Thomas's classic analysis of beliefs held on every level of English society begins with the collapse of the medieval Church and ends with the changing intellectual atmosphere around 1700, when science and rationalism began to challenge the older systems of belief.
Author: Mark A. Waddell
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2021-01-28
Total Pages: 231
ISBN-13: 1108425283
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →An accessible new exploration of the vibrant world of early modern Europe through a focus on magic, science, and religion.
Author: Brian P. Levack
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Published: 2013-03-28
Total Pages: 646
ISBN-13: 0191648833
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →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: Francis Young
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2017-10-30
Total Pages: 275
ISBN-13: 1786722917
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Treason and magic were first linked together during the reign of Edward II. Theories of occult conspiracy then regularly led to major political scandals, such as the trial of Eleanor Cobham Duchess of Gloucester in 1441. While accusations of magical treason against high-ranking figures were indeed a staple of late medieval English power politics, they acquired new significance at the Reformation when the 'superstition' embodied by magic came to be associated with proscribed Catholic belief. Francis Young here offers the first concerted historical analysis of allegations of the use of magic either to harm or kill the monarch, or else manipulate the course of political events in England, between the fourteenth century and the dawn of the Enlightenment. His book addresses a subject usually either passed over or elided with witchcraft: a quite different historical phenomenon. He argues that while charges of treasonable magic certainly were used to destroy reputations or to ensure the convictions of undesirables, magic was also perceived as a genuine threat by English governments into the Civil War era and beyond.