Early Modern European Witchcraft

Los ensayos que integran el libro que el lector tiene entre sus manos se plantean como objetivo contribuir a desentrañar las ambiguas relaciones existentes entre demonología cristiana y cultura folklórica en un escenario específico –España y el mundo ibérico- y en un período determinado –la modernidad clásica. Para ello, la primera parte de Strix Hispanica se dedica al análisis de la historiografía de la caza de brujas europea, manteniendo como hilo conductor los debates en torno a la compleja mitología del sabbat. La segunda parte incluye una serie de estudios de caso en torno a dos figuras paradigmáticas del folklore ibérico tradicional: la bruja y el saludador. A poco que el especialista se aboca al análisis del complejo de la bruja peninsular detecta una superposición idiosincrásica de mitologemas que pone a prueba las más elaboradas herramientas teóricas y metodológicas al alcance de los historiadores profesionales. En efecto, el problema de la profunda originalidad del estereotipo de la bruja ibérica no puede abordarse sin recurrir al apoyo de otras disciplinas, llamadas a cubrir las lagunas, los silencios, que la historia académica no puede, no osa interpelar. El saludador, por su parte, es una de las figuras más irreductiblemente originales del folklore vernáculo. Aún cuando los saludadores no integraron de manera permanente el sistema de la brujería popular española, durante gran parte de la Edad Moderna hicieron de la detección de brujas y de la neutralización de maleficia una de sus actividades más lucrativas -más allá de su convencional virtud para curar la hidrofobia y de su espectacular dominio sobre el fuego. El complejo del saludador constituye un tema particularmente apropiado para encarar el estudio de las interacciones entre demonología erudita y cultura local, pues sus trazos específicos exigieron hasta sus mismísimos límites a los más sofisticados dispositivos diseñados por la teología tardo-escolástica.

This paper tries to answer why the perception of the Devil changed a tempter doing God's will in the early medieval period, into an autonomous evil power waging war against God and Christendom by the early modern period.  To answer this, the paper looks at changes in theological understandings, major historic events, and artistic interpretations of the Devil.

Analizar la brujería tradicional húngara en clave de chamanismo, no es tan desacertado (Aunque no soy fan de Eliade) considerando que el pueblo Magiar fue uno de los grupos étnicos túrquicos seguidores del Tengri que acompañaron a los hunos de Atila en sus bonitas aventuras europeas... Y el trabajo es muy fino. Por los que se le perdona el termino paraguas universalista de "chamán" pues tiene sus raíces en los pueblos túrquicos altaicos (siberianos y mongoles) de los cuales se supone que los húngaros actuales son descendientes.
Muy interesante la reflexión que hace sobre las concepciones de interioridad tradicionales del pueblo húngaro y balcánico medieval y precristiano... Eso del doble, eso de la sombra... Me suena a la Sierra Mazateca, seguro se lo copiaron los húngaros a los mazatecos, je. (es broma)

About fifty to sixty thousand people died in the witch-hunt of Early Modern Times. Among them were women, men, and children. The illustrated broadsheets helped to spread the contemporary ideas of witchcraft, and consequently drove the persecution, as they presented witchcraft as reality. Since not only names, but also faces of the witches and sorcerers were given, the notions of the pact with the devil, harmful spells, the witches' flight and Sabbath, as well as the transformation into werewolves became reality.
Moreover, the broadsheets on the witch-hunt appeared at a time of crisis, triggered by social, political, economic and – most of all – climate changes. It was claimed that the rising number of 'evil witch-rot' in addition to other unusual phenomena from this crisis, were 'prodigia' (Wunderzeichen). They were regarded as a sign and proof of the ultimate end in the Christian conception of the world: the apocalypse. At the same time their presence strengthened consciousness of the crisis.In this sense the broadsheets also served the purpose of stabilizing the authorities rule.
All of the twenty-four broadsheets underlying this thesis pay in word and image particular attention to the punishments for witchcraft, imposed by authorities. On the one hand these punishments demonstrated the power of authorities in criminal prosecution, and on the other hand 'the subjects' received recompense for their sufferings, which they had – in case of sorcery at least imaginary – gone through. This confirmed the power of authorities from 'top' and 'bottom'.

Przed lubelskim sądem toczyła się w latach 1660-1662 sprawa o czary i spędzenie płodu, w której oskarżoną była Regina, żona Stanisława Sokołka. Protokoły z tego postępowania ukazały się drukiem już w 1947 roku, opracowane przez Mirosławę Zakrzewską-Dubasową (Dąbrowską-Zakrzewską). Jak się jednak okazuje, praca ta nie zawierała pełnego zapisu sprawy!

Akta procesu, który zakończył się skazaniem oskarżonej na spalenie na stosie i infamię, znajdują się w dwóch księgach przechowywanych w Archiwum Państwowym w Lublinie (zespół Akta miasta Lublina). Pierwsze przesłuchania (rozpoczynające się w roku 1660) zostały zapisane w księdze wójtowsko-ławniczej (sygn. 109), kolejne, z lat 1661-1662, wraz z odpisami decyzji Sądu Asesorskiego, do którego oskarżona się odwoływała, znajdują się w księdze urzędu radzieckiego (sygn. 169). O ile protokoły procesu z drugiej księgi, opublikowano w 1947 roku prawie w całości, to wiele fragmentów z akt wójtowsko-ławniczych zostało wówczas, z nieznanych powodów, pominiętych.

Odnalezione przeze mnie niedawno niezwykle interesujące wpisy dotyczą przede wszystkim początkowego etapu procesu. Można się z nich dowiedzieć, co tak naprawdę było przyczyną wszczęcia postępowania (czyli o jakie dokładnie „czary” oskarżono Reginę) oraz jakie zeznania składali przesłuchiwani wówczas świadkowie (m.in. Teresa German, Anna Gorycka, Józef Piskorek i Dorota z Dyskiego Gościńca). Znalezione fragmenty wieńczy tekst przysięgi oczyszczającej, którą przed sądem miała złożyć oskarżona.

Czy dysponując prawie kompletnym zapisem procesu, co w przypadku spraw o czary nie jest częstym zjawiskiem, będziemy w stanie lepiej zrozumieć przyczyny i okoliczności wszczęcia postępowania przeciwko Reginie? A może odwrotnie, nowe materiały jeszcze bardziej wszystko zagmatwają?

The articles deals with the research in the field of the everyday history of the Renaissance urban community and the communication of the unequal actors, ( which are unequal thanks to social or gender status and ad hoc) interpreting the different roles of the inquisitors, accused victims and witnesses. The author of the article has studied the materials of the accusations in the witchcraft, taken place in Renaissance Venice in the 16 c (1550-80).

The witches had used the different ways to defend themselves: 1)trying to avoid the contacts with the power and to escape from interrogation 2) recognizing partly the accusations and to deny the most serious part of the accuses. 3) collaborating actively with the inquisitors and giving up, supplying more information that it was actually asked and submitting the material for the future accuses of the other persons.
Looking from this perspective of the study of the communications, the “crime” and the “punishment” could be seen as  the systems of the interaction of unequal actors with the different discourses.
  В данном исследовании фокусируется проблема особенностей коммуникации заведомо неравных сторон: неравных по социальному статусу, или же по гендерному параметру, а также  противопоставленных ситуативно, т.е., исполняющих роли обвинителей (дознавателей) и обвиняемых (или свидетелей, но, возможно, одновременно и подозреваемых).   
        Процессы и разбирательства, которые нас интересуют,  шли с середины 16в по 80-е гг. того же века в Венеции, одном из самых примечательных центров городской культуры эпохи.
Историография ведовских инквизиционных процессов обширна, но, безусловно, наиболее острым и наименее изученным аспектом является именно выяснение того, как функционирует принцип inquisitio, как осуществляется коммуникация, как вообще может строиться диалог и некоторое взаимное понимание следователя и подследственного в такой стрессовой ситуации дознания?
Диалог неравных, происходивший в области правового поля дознания, был многосоставным, сложным, но, все же ни один, самый низший по статусу заявленный участник этого диалога, не терял своего голоса и лица. Пространство диалога неравных, т.о. нередко выстраивалось вокруг особого центра – самого низшего в иерархии участника и ответчика. С другой стороны, в исторических реалиях жизни эпохи маленький человек, возжелавший поделиться своими умениями и знаниями был принят высшими, тот же низший мог свидетельствовать против высших или же поставлять материал, на основе которых принимались решения и выносились вердикты обвинителями.
Тактики защиты при схожести обвинения могли быть разными: от прямого физического уклонения от встречи с дознавателями, или хотя бы отрицания наиболее тяжкой и трудно доказуемой вины, до полного сотрудничества со следствием, саморазоблачения и доноса на ближних и товарок.
Истории, правовые казусы относительно ведьм и знахарок Венеции  интересны помимо прочего тем, что показывают особые возможности построения поля коммуникативных связей, пространство  диалога, многоголосия и общения неравных. Это происходит и в момент обращения к ведунье и знахарке достаточно низкого и смутного происхождения и статуса особ разного положения, в т.ч. знатных и влиятельных. Подобное же отмечается и при расследовании казусов через призму правововых методов. Преступление и наказание здесь как бы два зеркальных мира, имеющих нечто общее – возможность и необходимость осуществления коммуникации, невзирая на различие статусов и дискурсов.

Matthew Hopkins, England’s most notorious witch hunter, rested his reputation on his experience in confronting the supernatural. To this end, he greatly exaggerated the intensity of his first encounter with an accused witch, Elizabeth Clarke. In Hopkins’ account, Clarke mentioned a familiar named Grizzel Greedigut. But earlier publications show that this did not happen, and that Hopkins appropriated the name from the dubious confession of another woman, Joan Wallis. Today, we have largely accepted Grizzel Greedigut as a bizarre, nonsensical name, but it would not have been all that absurd at the time. Grizzle often described grey animals, and Grissel was a fairly popular name, an abbreviation of Grisilde. Greedigut meant ‘glutton,’ and was the name English colonials used for the American anglerfish. Without knowing more about the name’s historical context, we fall for Hopkins’ cynical ploy to maximize the strangeness of his encounter.

Forskinga på Petter Dass har dei seinaste femten åra levert eit nytt syn på diktarpresten i kontrast til tidlegare forsking basert på eit nasjons- og regionsbyggjande program. Men den nye forskinga har ironisk nok òg medført eit innsnevrande syn på Petter Dass. Det har på den eine sida skjedd gjennom ein retorisk metode og på den andre sida gjennom ein klasseorientert lesemåte. Forfattaren viser korleis desse metodane ikkje lukkast med å fange det unike ved Dass’ dikting, som litterær originalitet og eit moderne syn på vitskap. Det gjer han ved å hente innsikter frå nyhistorismen og peike på eit innskrenkande syn på makttilhøve i tidleg nytid ved desse to litterære metodane.

This study aims to analyse the representation of witchcraft in the Jacobean context within the framework of a Jacobean play, namely John Marston's The Wonder of Women or The Tragedy of Sophonisba (1606). Written during a patriarchal period when the misogynistic emperor James I reigns over England and when women are regarded to be biologically and intellectually inferior to men, Sophonisba represents the misogynist mind-set in that the witch in the play is a woman, and she possesses the negative features conventionally associated with the witches at the time. In this respect, this paper argues that Marston's work reinforces the stereotypical witch image and thereby perpetuates the misogynist thought.

This study is the first examination of Jesuit prison ministry in the Holy Roman Empire during the period of witch trials. It provides new insights into the prisons where the persons detained for witchcraft were incarcerated, as well as into their trials, including their torture and executions — as seen through Jesuit eyes. In this context, the Cautio Criminalis appeared, written by Friedrich Spee SJ (1591–1635), dealing with the question of the legality of these trials and the related prison ministry, and printed pseudonymously in 1631 and again in 1632. For the first time, the book offers a complete biography of Spee, who was nearly forced to leave the Society of Jesus; it outlines the book’s publication, and provides a detailed analysis of the Jesuit prison visits. The book also details Spee’s criticism of prison ministers, as well as his arguments about the guilt or innocence of the imprisoned, tortured and executed women and men of this tragic period in European history.

This is an open call to invite papers for the Special Issue of "Religions", which deals with witchcraft, demonology and magic in their interactions with popular and institutional religion (preaching, inquisition, demonology, the role of monks and priests in performing occult sciences and ritual magic; religious images and elements, such as the sacramental bread, in witchcraft and magic rituals; ceremonial magic and Sabbat as an inversion of Catholic rituals).

Hans Baldung Grien, the most famous apprentice and close friend of German artist Albrecht Dürer, was known for his unique and highly eroticised images of witches. In paintings and woodcut prints, he gave powerful visual expression to late medieval tropes and stereotypes, such as the poison maiden, venomous virgin, the Fall of Man, 'death and the maiden' and other motifs and eschatological themes, which mingled abject and erotic qualities in the female body.

The sixteenth century was marked by a period of significant change from the Renaissance, Age of Discovery, and the Reformation that created instability and anxiety. Together with the popularity of prints and superstitious beliefs fuelled by repeated war and death from disease and famine, sixteenth-century Germany was ripe for iconography of hybrid and shape-shifting creatures that embodied curiosity and fear.

Heksejagt er et makabert kapitel i dansk historie. Ord og billeder har påvirket vores opfattelse af hekse – både lokalt og landsdækkende.
Heksejagtens ord og billeder handlede om at definere det farlige – det, der forstyrrede samfundets orden og gudfrygtige menneskers fred. Definitionerne på dette væsen, heksen, kom ud til folket igennem lovord og fjendebilleder, der advarede om den djævelske fare.
I 2017 markerede Kulturmuseet Spinderihallerne og Vejle Kunstmuseum 400-året for Christian den Fjerdes forordning om troldfolk, udsendt 12. oktober 1617. I forordningens kølvand blussede heksebålene op landet over, og heller ikke Vejleegnen gik fri. Dette udstillingskatalog udfolder de lokale fortællinger i den store historie.

Resum: Com en altres comarques de Catalunya, la cacera de bruixes al Va-llès es va produir de manera especialment intensa en els anys 1619-1622. La repressió va afectar prop d'una vintena de viles i llocs. S'han pogut do-cumentar cinquanta persones processades, la majoria de les quals van ser penjades a la forca en processos incoats per les corts dels batlles locals. L'article identifica algunes coincidències entre aquests processos pel que fa als procediments processals i a la presència d'uns mateixos professionals, com ara jutges ordinaris, cirurgians, escrivans o torturadors, vinculats a les batllies reials o a la mateixa cort del veguer de Barcelona. També s'analitza el paper del Tribunal de la Inquisició de Barcelona, que va intentar reiterada-ment l'avocació dels casos. D'aquesta manera es pretén relacionar les dinà-miques locals i les dinàmiques generals, a càrrec de la justícia reial inferior (veguers i batlles) i del Sant Ofici. Paraules clau: cacera de bruixes, història moderna de Catalunya, Inquisi-ció, justícia reial. Abstract: As in other regions of Catalonia, witch hunts in the Vallès were particularly intense in the years 1619-1622. The repression affected about twenty villages and locations. Fifty people were prosecuted, most of whom were hanged in trials initiated by the local mayors' courts. This article identifies some correlation between trial procedures and the presence of the same professionals, such as regular judges, surgeons, scribes or torturers, linked to the royal courts or to the royal delegate's court in Barcelona. It also analyzes the role of the Inquisition Court in Barcelona, which repeatedly sought to take on cases. In this way the intention is to relate local and general dynamics, by the low royal justice (vicars and mayors) and the Inquisition.

Brandl, Gergely és Tóth, G. Péter, eds. (2016) Szegedi boszorkányperek 1726-1744. A magyarországi boszorkányság forrásai. Várostörténeti források (5). Balassi Kiadó - Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Csongrád Megyei Levéltára, Budapest - Szeged. ISBN 978-963-506-979-8
(Cím és fedlap)

This chapter explores the possibility of recovering the emotions of people caught up in witch trials, and considers whether those emotions need always be negative. It focuses on a case study of a Polish accused witch in love. See the full book at http://www.palgrave.com/us/book/9781137529022

The article analyses the conceivable flying of witches that were mentioned by judges and defendants in the legal cases on witchcraft of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania of the 17th–18th centuries.  Attempts were made to discover witches’ flying destinations, distances, who flied and when, and what means were used.
The analysis of the empirical data related to witches and described in legal cases on witchcraft (there were 16 implemented prosecution cases in total, largely in the Žemaitija Region in 1641–1746) is based on Gustav Henningsen’s insights into the witchcraft in Easter Europe in the 17th century. It has been determined that similarly to several other European countries, such as Poland and others, Žemaitija had a well-known Mount Šatrija, to which witches travelled as far as 64 km. Such a centre did not exist in Aukštaitija, witches confined themselves to objects located a few or a dozen kilometres away, like hills, swamps, oaks, and others. The data reveal that among the flying persons were mostly women. They flew not only on the Day of St. John’s, but also on various other occasions and at different frequencies. Such objects as “magic” ointment, porridge or wings were used for flying; occasionally, people turned into magpies to fly.
Following G. Henningsen, it is maintained that these statements occurred in legal acts concerning witchcraft due to indoctrination and forced confessions; the flights were treated as real and considered as empowered by the devil; only the souls flew, whereas the bodies stayed. The legal acts also contained descriptions of dreams, as well as mixed and conflicting interpretations.
The appendices of the article present two documents of witchcraft cases that are unknown to historiography and date back to 1740 and 1758.

Linguistic factors played a significant role in the origin and spread of accusations of witchcraft in Early Modern Spain. The preoccupation with witches' words is at its root a preoccupation about the power of speech and, to a great extent, of female speech. Studies in some Early European countries have connected aggressive female speech styles with accusations of witchcraft, and this article offers evidence to this effect for Early Modern Spain. The speech of women with 'ungoverned tongues' is stigmatized as masculine, and the power it conveys is regarded with suspicion. Rumor, gossip, and reputation also played a key role in accusations of witchcraft in these oral societies. Once the accusation is launched, public reputation was often adduced as 'proof' of culpability. Rooted in the specific reality of the northern provinces of Early Modern Spain, this study shows how assumptions about women's 'linguistic place', along with certain forms of linguistic performance played a significant role in transforming a woman into a witch.

German Jesuit Priest Friedrich Spee and his work Cautio Criminalis, one of the most important contemporary works opposing the witch hunts, will be examined in this study. 51 questions, which form the core of the work, are translated into Turkish. Although the study was based primarily on the German translation of the work, the original Latin text and its English translation were also consulted. The period between 1350 and 1780 in Europe is called “the Age of Witch Hunts”. The witch hunts peaked between the years 1580 and 1630 and Cautio Criminalis (1631) was written during this period. Spee, along with Adam Tanner, is one of the most respected names in the literarture opposing the witch hunts. During his short life, Spee endeavored to ensure that a fair legal procedure followed by the courts during the witch trials, informers not
used in trials and torture not used as an interrogation method to elicit confessions from anyone accused of witchcraft.

The first major scholarly investigation into the rich history of the marked body in the early modern period, this interdisciplinary study examines multiple forms, uses, and meanings of corporeal inscription and impression in France and the French Atlantic from the late sixteenth through early eighteenth centuries.

Placing into dialogue a broad range of textual and visual sources drawn from areas as diverse as demonology, jurisprudence, mysticism, medicine, pilgrimage, commerce, travel, and colonial conquest that have formerly been examined largely in isolation, Katherine Dauge-Roth demonstrates that emerging theories and practices of signing the body must be understood in relationship to each other and to the development of other material marking practices that rose to prominence in the early modern period.

While each chapter brings to light the particular histories and meanings of a distinct set of cutaneous marks—devil’s marks on witches, demon’s marks upon the possessed, devotional wounds, Amerindian and Holy Land pilgrim tattoos, and criminal brands—each also reveals connections between these various types of stigmata, links that were obvious to the early modern thinkers who theorized and deployed them. Moreover, the five chapters bring to the fore ways in which corporeal marking of all kinds interacted dynamically with practices of writing on, imprinting, and engraving paper, parchment, fabric, and metal that flourished in the period, together signaling important changes taking place in early modern society.

Examining the marked body as a material object replete with varied meanings and uses, Signing the Body: Marks on Skin in Early Modern France shows how the skin itself became the register of the profound cultural and social transformations that characterized this era.

Available at Routledge: https://bit.ly/37NqUT9


Contents

Introduction: The Impressionable Body

1 Seals of Satan: Demonologists and the Devil’s Mark

2 Demonic Marks, Divine Stigmata: The Female Body Inscribed

3 The Amerindian Tattoo: Signs of Identity in New France

4 Jerusalem Arms: The European Pilgrim Tattoo

5 Stigma and State Control: Branding the Deviant Body

Conclusion: Lasting Impressions


Reviews

This brilliant and gracefully written study weaves an eclectic and original corpus of primary sources into a compelling argument about the cultural implications of body marking in France and its colonies during the early modern period. In addition to being understood as magical signs, devotional gestures or material by-products of the power of the imagination, body marks also served as a powerful means of self-fashioning, and as signs of identification and authoritative control. The book is a must read for anyone interested in how the ancient practice of body marking became transformed into a product of the modern state.
—Allison Stedman, Professor of French, University of North Carolina—Charlotte

Whole worlds of meaning were legible in the marks written by God and man, nature and the cosmos, on the delicate surface that clothed, however porously, the bodies of renaissance men and women. Wounds of many different provenances; tattoos on pilgrims from the holy land, on prisoners and on the native peoples across the globe; birthmarks of various colors and shapes spoke to matters of deep cultural exigency. In this book Katherine Dauge-Roth constitutes, explores and interprets beautifully a whole lost archive of writing on the body.
—Thomas W. Laqueur, Helen Fawcett Distinguished Professor Emeritus of History, University of California—Berkeley

Signing the Body reveals how cutaneous marks were deeply embedded in early modern European culture. In this abundantly researched work, Dauge-Roth examines demonic marks and sacred stigmata, the branding of criminals, Amerindian tattooing, and the Jerusalem tattoos traditionally received by Christian pilgrims. These diverse dermal practices are united, Dauge-Roth argues, by the desire to make the human body a stable site of signification in an age of cultural upheaval and physical mobility. Signing the Body reveals the ubiquity of body marking in early modern Europe, confirming the relatively familiar status of European tattooing practices once thought extraordinary.
—Craig Koslofsky, Professor of History and Germanic Languages and Literatures, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

This article discusses the official and popular responses to a particular sodomy trial held at Bruges in 1618 during which two women, Mayken and Magdaleene, were accused of several sexual and moral transgressions. The interrogation records of the accused female sodomites illustrate the remarkable self-consciousness of early modern women with same-sex desires. Their attitudes collided, however, with popular mentalities towards female sodomy, which local testimonies explained away as a physical abnormality or an act of diabolical witchcraft. This article offers an in-depth analysis of these discourses in order to gain a fuller understanding of the perception of female sodomy in early modern urban society.

// Please refer to the published version // As Stuart Clark has shown in Vanities of the Eye (2007), early modern demonology significantly advanced the idea that the world might not be what it appears to be, and that the senses – and especially vision – were uncertain and unreliable. This chapter focuses on two of the most influential demonologists in early modern Europe (Heinrich Kramer and Johann Weyer) to explore some of the different ways in which they conceived of the mind, the mechanisms of internal illusions, and the role played by the devil in the making of such delusions. It examines in particular the use of spatial metaphors in demonological discussions of delusions, using recent research on cognitive linguistics and the philosophy of mind to shed new light on the early modern conceptualization of cognitive processes.

Balla il villano, balla il selvaggio, balla la strega (certo, non solo loro): ma come ballano? E il fatto di danzare è un elemento caratteristico, distintivo di queste tre figure dell’immaginario europeo in un’epoca di cambiamenti demografici, scoperte e persecuzioni? E incide anche sull’idea di danza che circola nella prima età moderna? Quali premesse e tradizioni culturali influenzavano la maniera in cui gli europei costruiscono questi stereotipi, le modalità in cui si rapportavano con tali soggetti sociali (dato che contadini, nativi e praticanti d’arti magiche esistevano anche al di fuori della sfera delle rappresentazioni)? Questo saggio prova a indagarlo.

My attempt to create the new scholarly field of "goblinology" (monster studies, move over and make room!). Chapters by historians, religionists, folklorists and anthropologists range from the 3rd century to the 21st and from northern Europe to southern Melanesia. Available at http://www.palgrave.com/us/book/9781137585196