Medieval Christianity: Witchcraft

This brilliant and comprehensive history of witchcraft in Western Europe from the fifth to the fifteenth centuries describes how the phenomenon developed in its social and religious environment. Drawing upon a vast amount of primary and secondary source material, Professor Russell explores the theories of witchcraft and offers a detailed account of all the known incidents involving its practice. He treats European witchcraft as a product of Christianity with its roots in heresy more than in the magic and sorcery that have existed in other societies. Finally, he shows how social and religious changes nourished the spread of witchcraft until large portions of medieval Europe were in its grip and the way was prepared for the witch frenzy of the following centuries. The book illuminates a significant episode in the history of ideas and their repression. Our growing fascination with the occult gives the author's affirmation that witchcraft arises at times and in areas afflicted with social tensions a special quality of immediacy. -Flap cover.

Jean Bodin's "On the Demon-Mania of Witches (De la demonomanie des sorciers) was published in 1580 and quickly became one of the most widely read and translated works on witchcraft in Europe. Bodin (1529/30-1596), a lawyer and scholar, was greatly admired by his contemporaries. His works on politics, history and religion, especially his encyclopaedic "Les six livres de la republique (1576), contributed ideas and theories that have continued to attract the attention of researchers in a wide range of disciplines. The "Demon-Mania" is a passionately argued treatise on the reality and dangers of magic and witchcraft, which Bodin saw as a growing threat to the state. His treatise also makes detailed recommendations to judges for the effective prosecution of witchcraft cases. Professor Pearl's introduction to the text situates it in the full context of Bodin's thought and the historical experience of his age. The notes by the editors give the reader access to Bodin's vast network of theological, classical, historical and legal sources. The "Demon-Mania". appearing here in its English translation, provides sharp insights into the mentality of a complex and bitterly divided age.

Product Description Long out of print, Jules Michelet's classic study of medieval superstition has been reprinted in this edition to bring the general public's attention to one of the truly great sociological works of modern times. Michelet brilliantly recreates the Europe of the Middle Ages, the centuries of fierce religious intolerance, the Inquisition and the auto-da-fe. He depicts the feudal barons, the great manors, the fiefs and serfs... and the witches, hobgoblins and wizards of whom the masses lived in mortal fear. Michelet draws flaming word pictures of the witch hunts, the Black Masses, the reign of Satan, and the weird rites of the damned. Here is the age of unbridled pleasure and sensuality, of luxury beyond imagination and squalor beyond endurance. Here is the time when a girl might be accused of witchcraft merely if she were young and pretty and did not survive the test of immersion in water or boiling oil. Here is the day of beatings, floggings, tortures and summary decapitations. Encyclopedia Britannica called the book, "The most important work on medieval superstition yet written." It is indeed one of the great works on the Age of Darkness.-Amazon.

"My present work is the result of more than thirty years' close attention to the subject of Witchcraft, and during this period I have made a systematic and intensive study of the older demonologists, as I am convinced that their first-hand evidence is of prime importance and value, whilst since their writing are very voluminous and of the last rarity they have universally been neglected, and are allowed to accumulate thick dust undisturbed. They are, moreover, often difficult to read owing to technicalities of phrase and vocabulary. Among the most authoritative I may cite a few names: Sprenger (Malleus Maleficarum); Guazzo; Bartolomeo Spina, O.P.; Grilland; Jerome Mengo; Binsfeld; Gerson; Ulrich Molitor; Basin; Murner; Crespet; Anania; Henri Boguet; Bodin; Martin Delrio, S.J.; Pierre le Loyer; Ludwig Elich; Godelmann; Nicolas Remy; Salerini; Leonard Vair; De Lancre; Alfonso de Castro; Sebastian Michaelis, O.P.; Sinistrari; Perreaud; Dom Calmet; Sylvester Mazzolini, O.P.(Prierias). When we supplement these by the judicial records and the legal codes we have an immense body of material. In all that I have written I have gone to original sources, and it has been my endeavor fairly to weigh and balance the evidence, to judge without heat or prejudice, to give the facts and the comment upon them with candour, sincerity, and truth. At the same time I am very well aware that several great scholars for whom I have the sincerest personal regard and whose attainments I view with a very profound respect will differ from me in many particulars. I am conscious that the rough list of books which I have drawn up does not deserve to be dignified with the title, Bibliography. It is sadly incomplete, yet should it, however inadequate, prove helpful in the smallest way it will have justified its inclusion. I may add that my Biblical quotations, save where expressly otherwise noted, are from the Vulgate or its translation into English commonly called the Douai Version." -Introduction

For two millennia ,European folklore and ritual have been imbued with the belief in the supernatural,yielding a rich trove of histories and images."Witchcraft and Magic in Europe" provides a modern,scholarly survey of the supernatural beliefs of Europeans from ancient times to the present day.Each volume of this ambitious series contains the work of distinguished scholars chosen for their expertise in a particular era or region,and combines the traditional approaches of political,legal,and social historians with a critical synthesis of cultural anthropology,historical psychology,and gender studies.
The chronological scope of this volume ranges from the heroic age of Homer's Greek East to the time of the rise of Christianity,a period of well over a thousand years.In this long millennium the political and cultural landscapes of the Mediterranean basin underwent significant changes,as competing creeds and denominations rose to the fore,and often accused each other of sorcery.-Back cover.

"Martin Del Rio's Investigations into Magic deals not only with magic in all its forms, from the manipulation of angelic and demonic powers to straightforward conjuring and illusion, but also with witchcraft, alchemy, astrology, divination, prophecy, and possession by evil spirits. In addition, Martin Del Rio offers judges and confessors practical advice on the most effective ways of dealing with people who are accused of practising magic, and enlivens his whole discussion with anecdotes drawn from a range of sources, including his own experience." "Modern historians and students of the sixteenth century, as well as readers across many interdisciplinary fields, will find this translation a valuable guide to certain modes of early modern thought."--Jacket.

"Demons - whether in embodied form or as inward temptation - make vivid appearances in early Christian monastic literature. In this study of demonology and Christian spirituality in fourth- and fifth-century Egypt, David Brakke examines how the concept of the monk as a holy and virtuous being was shaped by the combative encounter with demons." "Brakke studies the "making of the monk" from two perspectives. First, he describes the social and religious identities that monastic authors imagined for the demon-fighting monk: the new martyr who fights against the pagan gods, the gnostic who believes he knows both the tricks of the demons and the secrets of God, and the prophet who discerns the hidden presence of Satan even among good Christians. Then he employs recent theoretical ideas about gender and racial stereotyping to interpret accounts of encounters with demons, especially narratives in which demons appear as the Other - as Ethiopians, as women, or as pagan gods." "Drawing on biographies of exceptional monks, collections of monastic sayings and stories, letters from ascetic teachers to their disciples, sermons, and community rules, Brakke crafts a compelling picture of the embattled religious celibate. Demons and the Making of the Monk is an insightful and innovative exploration of the development of Christian monasticism."--Jacket.

From ghoulies and ghosties,long leggity beasties...to things that go bump in the night,Walter Gibson,observer,researcher,writer and participant of the occult,takes the reader on a bewitching trip through the ages and pulls back the dusty curtain surrounding the Black Art of Witchcraft.Its history,power,practice and universal attraction is discussed with wit and authority,and objectivity.
From the archaic pages of supernatural lore,characters leap again to life as the documented accounts of their exploits in The Craft are unfolded.Vampires,werewolves,voodoo,and hexes,are revealed in light of their relation to Witchcraft.
Witchcraft is indeed one of the most colorful and lively accounts of the climate and the times that allowed- and allows- the "worlds most ancient profession" to flourish.-Back cover.

The Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has commissioned an expert to prepare the following study,which the Congregation strongly recommends as a sure foundation for the reaffirmation of the teaching of the Magisterium on the theme:Christian Faith and Demonology.-Introduction.

How did the monks of the Egyptian desert fight against the demons that attacked them with tempting thoughts? How could Christians resist the thoughts of gluttony, fornication, or pride that assailed them and obstructed their contemplation of God? According to Evagrius of Pontus (345-399), one of the greatest spiritual directors of ancient monasticism, the monk should "talk back" to demons with relevant passages from the Bible. His book Talking Back (Antirrhetikos) lists over 500 thoughts or circumstances in which the demon-fighting monk might find himself, along with the biblical passages with which the monk should respond. It became one of the most popular books among the ascetics of Late Antiquity and the Byzantine East, but until now the entire text had not been translated into English. From Talking Back we gain a better understanding of Evagrius's eight primary demons: gluttony, fornication, love of money, sadness, anger, listlessness, vainglory, and pride. We can explore a central aspect of early monastic spirituality, and we get a glimpse of the temptations and anxieties that the first desert monks faced. -- Publisher.

The history of witchcraft and sorcery has attracted a great deal of interest, but studies have been largely from the Anglo-Saxon perspective. This book shows how what has hitherto been seen as peculiar to Britain was in fact characteristic of much of northern Europe. It takes into account major developments in the historiography of witchcraft.

Publisher's description: Trance states, prophesying, convulsions, fasting, and other physical manifestations were often regarded as signs that a person was seized by spirits. In a book that sets out the prehistory of the early modern European witch craze, Nancy Caciola shows how medieval people decided whom to venerate as a saint infused with the spirit of God and whom to avoid as a demoniac possessed of an unclean spirit. This process of discrimination, known as the discernment of spirits, was central to the religious culture of Western Europe between 1200 and 1500. Since the outward manifestations of benign and malign possession were indistinguishable, a highly ambiguous set of bodily features and behaviors were carefully scrutinized by observers. Attempts to make decisions about individuals who exhibited supernatural powers were complicated by the fact that the most intense exemplars of lay spirituality were women, and the ₃fragile sex₄ was deemed especially vulnerable to the snares of the devil. Assessments of women₂s spirit possessions often oscillated between divine and demonic interpretations. Ultimately, although a few late medieval women visionaries achieved the prestige of canonization, many more were accused of possession by demons. Caciola analyzes a broad array of sources from saints₂ lives to medical treatises, exorcists₂ manuals to miracle accounts, to find that observers came to rely on the discernment of bodies rather than seeking to distinguish between divine and demonic possession in purely spiritual terms.

"This book by French historian Robert Muchembled is a journey through time and space in search of the changing perception and significance of the devil in Western culture." "The author takes the story back to the thirteenth century, when visual images of Satan first to appear, and forward to the twenty-first century, dealing with, among others, the place of the diabolical in the film of Stanley Kubrick, including the Shining and Eyes Wide Shut. The changing figure of Evil over time is shown as intertwined with the way in which men conceive of the destinies and the future of their civilization. Fascination with the diabolical reached its height in the witch hunts of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, but by the Enlightenment it began to show signs of decline, a process which has continued up to today." "The result of this process, for modern Western society, is a subtle metamorphosis of the notion of the devil, from fear of Satan into an internal evil, 'the demon within', characterized by a distrust of oneself and one's desires. It is this conception of the diabolical that is visible today in our interest in the supernatural, exorcism and, for example, in the role of the 'devilish good' in advertising."--Jacket.

Firmly based on rich and remarkably well preserved documentary sources, this book treats the rise and decline of witch-hunting along the French-Swiss frontier in the era of the Reformation. Professor Monter characterizes the "Jura region", those borderlands where different styles of witchcraft mingled, as an excellent laboratory in which to test and compare ideas about the history of European witchcraft. After describing the intellectual climate that gave rise to witch-hunting, he discusses witchcraft trials in terms of such questions as severity of persecution and the role of women, and makes useful comments on the equation of heretics with witches. He contrasts popular beliefs with official views on a variety of topics, including werewolves and cures, and compares the pattern of persecution in the Jura to other European patterns. Offering a more pragmatic and less theoretical approach to the sociology of witchcraft than that of previous studies, his book constitutes an important addition to the growing literature in the field. -Flap cover