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The Routledge History of Medieval Magic
The Routledge History of Medieval Magic brings together the work of scholars from across Europe and North America to provide extensive insights into recent developments in the study of medieval magic between c.1100 and c.1500. This book covers a wide range of topics, including the magical texts which circulated in medieval Europe, the attitudes of intellectuals and churchmen to magic, the ways in which magic intersected with other aspects of medieval culture, and the early witch trials of the fifteenth century. In doing so, it offers the reader a detailed look at the impact that magic had within medieval society, such as its relationship to gender roles, natural philosophy, and courtly culture. This is furthered by the book’s interdisciplinary approach, containing chapters dedicated to archaeology, literature, music, and visual culture, as well as texts and manuscripts. The Routledge History of Medieval Magic also outlines how research on this subject could develop in the future, highlighting under-explored subjects, unpublished sources, and new approaches to the topic. It is the ideal book for both established scholars and students of medieval magic.
The Appearance of Witchcraft
Shortlisted for the 2008 Katharine Briggs Award. For centuries the witch has been a powerful figure in the European imagination; but the creation of this figure has been hidden from our view. Charles Zika’s groundbreaking study investigates how the visual image of the witch was created in late fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Europe. He charts the development of the witch as a new visual subject, showing how the traditional imagery of magic and sorcery of medieval Europe was transformed into the sensationalist depictions of witches in the pamphlets and prints of the sixteenth century. This book shows how artists and printers across the period developed key visual codes for witchcraft, such...
Exorcising our Demons: Magic, Witchcraft and Visual Culture in Early Modern Europe
This collection of sixteen essays deals with the role of magic, religion and witchcraft in European culture, 1450-1650, and the critical role of the visual in that culture. It covers the relationship of humanism and magic; the intersection of religious ritual, orthodoxy and power; the discursive links between the visual language of witchcraft and contemporary anxieties about sexuality and savagery. The introductory chapter urges us to exorcise our tendency to reduce historical experiences of the demonic to forms of unreason created in a distant past. Only then can we understand the role of the demonic in our historical definition of the self and the other. Richly illustrated with 112 images, the book will interest historians and art historians.
Contesting Orthodoxy in Medieval and Early Modern Europe
This book breaks with three common scholarly barriers of periodization, discipline and geography in its exploration of the related themes of heresy, magic and witchcraft. It sets aside constructed chronological boundaries, and in doing so aims to achieve a clearer picture of what ‘went before’, as well as what ‘came after’. Thus the volume demonstrates continuity as well as change in the concepts and understandings of magic, heresy and witchcraft. In addition, the geographical pattern of similarities and diversities suggests a comparative approach, transcending confessional as well as national borders. Throughout the medieval and early modern period, the orthodoxy of the Christian Church was continuously contested. The challenge of heterodoxy, especially as expressed in various kinds of heresy, magic and witchcraft, was constantly present during the period 1200-1650. Neither contesters nor followers of orthodoxy were homogeneous groups or fractions. They themselves and their ideas changed from one century to the next, from region to region, even from city to city, but within a common framework of interpretation. This collection of essays focuses on this complex.
Magic and Magicians in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Time
There are no clear demarcation lines between magic, astrology, necromancy, medicine, and even sciences in the pre-modern world. Under the umbrella term 'magic,' the contributors to this volume examine a wide range of texts, both literary and religious, both medical and philosophical, in which the topic is discussed from many different perspectives. The fundamental concerns address issue such as how people perceived magic, whether they accepted it and utilized it for their own purposes, and what impact magic might have had on the mental structures of that time. While some papers examine the specific appearance of magicians in literary texts, others analyze the practical application of magic in medical contexts. In addition, this volume includes studies that deal with the rise of the witch craze in the late fifteenth century and then also investigate whether the Weberian notion of disenchantment pertaining to the modern world can be maintained. Magic is, oddly but significantly, still around us and exerts its influence. Focusing on magic in the medieval world thus helps us to shed light on human culture at large.
Writing Witch-Hunt Histories
This book gives an analytical review of the history of witch-hunt historiography. So far not much attention has been paid to how the European witch-hunts have been studied and explained in some 150 years of academic research on the issue. The history of the approaches and explanations in witch-hunt research fundamentally contributes not only to our understanding of the bizarre phenomenon in European history but also contributes to understanding of cultural as well as academic trends which heavily direct any research even when scholars are not cognisant of their underlying premises. How and why the picture of witch-hunts has been changing in scholarly works and text books is as illuminating an issue as the proper explanations offered by the research works. Contributors include: Rune Blix Hagen, Ronald Hutton, Gunnar W. Knutsen, Marianna G. Muravyeva, Marko Nenonen, Raisa Maria Toivo, Charles Zika
Gender and Emotions in Medieval and Early Modern Europe: Destroying Order, Structuring Disorder
States of emotion were vital as a foundation to society in the premodern period, employed as a force of order to structure diplomatic transactions, shape dynastic and familial relationships, and align religious beliefs, practices and communities. At the same time, societies understood that affective states had the potential to destroy order, creating undesirable disorder and instability that had both individual and communal consequences. This volume argues that the ways in which emotions created states of order and disorder in medieval and early modern Europe were deeply informed by contemporary gender ideologies. Together, the essays reveal the critical roles that gender ideologies and lived, structured, and desired emotional states played in producing both stability and instability.
Imagining the Witch
Imagining the Witch explores emotions, gender, and selfhood through the lens of witch-trials in early modern Germany. Witch-trials were clearly a gendered phenomenon, but witchcraft was not a uniquely female crime. While women constituted approximately three quarters of those tried for witchcraft in the Holy Roman Empire, a significant minority were men. Witchcraft was also a crime of unbridled passion: it centred on the notion that one person's emotions could have tangible and deadly physical consequences. Yet it is also true that not all suspicions of witchcraft led to a formal accusation, and not all witch-trials led to the stake. Indeed, just over half the total number put on trial for w...
Ambiguous Locks
It has long been said that a woman's hair is her crowning glory. Indeed, throughout history, hair has remained an important cultural symbol of femininity. In medieval art, iconic images of long, flowing locks can express sexuality, and the cutting of a woman's hair often signals her feminine misbehavior. Artists of all kinds in the Middle Ages used women's long hair to manipulate their audience's estimation of their female figures. This interdisciplinary work explores the significance of women's hair in literature and art from the medieval period through 1525, putting into historical context the ways in which hair participates in construction of the female identity.
Matters of Engagement
By drawing on a broad range of disciplinary and cross-disciplinary expertise, this study addresses the history of emotions in relation to cross-cultural movement, exchange, contact, and changing connections in the later medieval and early modern periods. All essays in this volume focus on the performance and negotiation of identity in situations of cultural contact, with particular emphasis on emotional practices. They cover a wide range of thematic and disciplinary areas and are organized around the primary sources on which they are based. The edited volume brings together two major areas in contemporary humanities: the study of how emotions were understood, expressed, and performed in shap...
