Bücher der Reihe Palgrave Historical Studies in Witchcraft and Magic

This book provides a historical and socio-legal investigation into the prevalence of litigation arising from cursing and interpersonal hostility in the under-explored region of Northwest England during a period of acute socio-economic crisis in the seventeenth century. Contributing to the scholarship of magic and witchcraft, it shows the complex circumstances of the world of healing and harming using customary knowledge such as magic and folk medicine as it is variously presented in the documents of the legal system. While primary sources such as pamphlets have usefully informed numerous witchcraft studies, this book establishes popular belief derived from the depositions, interrogatories and various other manuscripts of the manorial, ecclesiastical and secular courts positioned within a micro historical early modern context.

This book provides an annotated source edition of the only two extant documents related to the sorcery trial brought against Pes de Guoythie and Condesse de Beheythie in Lower Navarre, in 1370. It provides full transcriptions of both documents, and English translations of the most salient passages. These sources illustrate at an early date many of the features prevalent in later sources on which trials, such as the metamorphosis of those accused into animals; infanticide; poisoned apples; collective meetings; and ointments made from various creatures. As such, it offers a fascinating insight into allegations of witchcraft in the High and Late Middle Ages.

This book discusses the role of children in the Salem witch trials through a close reading of the many and varied narratives of the trials, including court records, contemporary and historical documents, fiction, drama, and poetry.

This book examines the "satanic panic" of the 1980s as an essential part of the growing relationship between tabloid media and American conservative politics in the 1980s.

This book explores the ways in which changing views on gender and the place of women in society during the latter half of the twentieth century affected women's participation and standing within British Paganism.

This book redresses popular interpretations of concealed objects, enigmatically discovered within the fabric of post-medieval buildings.

This book examines the worldview and perceptions of reality that formed the setting for the witch trials held in the Swedish province of Bohuslan in 1669-1672. The beliefs that surfaced during the trials were part of a general mentality that characterised people's perception of the world, both before and after the trials.

Chapters examine not only the history of Wicca, the largest and best-known form of modern Paganism, but also modern Pagan environmentalist and anti-nuclear activism, the Pagan interpretation of fairy folklore, and the contemporary 'Traditional Witchcraft' phenomenon.

This book traces the development of exorcism in Catholic Christianity from the fourth century to the present day, and seeks to explain why exorcism is still so much in demand.

Early modern Finland is rarely the focus of attention in the study of European history, but it has a place in the context of northern European religious and political culture. Faith and Magic in Early Modern Finland shows us how peripheral Finland can shed light on the wider context of European magic and religion.

Medicine, Magic and Art in Early Modern Norway is essential for those looking to advance their studies in magical beliefs and practices in early modern Europe as well as those interested in witchcraft studies, book history, and the history of knowledge.

In addition, the intertwinement of social witchcraft with narratives of supernatural experiences, closely associated with supernatural beings of European folklore, forming part of the overall witchcraft discourse in the area, is explored.

This book examines magic's generally maleficent effect on humans from ancient Egypt through the Middle Ages, including tales from classical mythology, Jewish, Christian, and Muslim cultures. It shows that certain magical motifs lived on from age to age, but that it took until the Italian Renaissance for magic tales to become fairy tales.

Drawing on the graphic and revealing evidence recorded by the different courts in early modern Saragossa, this book captures the spirit of an age when religious faith vied for people's hearts and minds with centuries-old beliefs in witchcraft and superstition.

Exploring the elements of reality in early modern witchcraft and popular magic, through a combination of detailed archival research and broad-ranging interdisciplinary analyses, this book complements and challenges existing scholarship, and offers unique insights into this murky aspect of early modern history.

An interdisciplinary study of the supernatural and the occult in fin-de-siecle France (1870-1914), the present volume examines the explosion of interest in devil-worship, magic and mysticism both from an historical perspective and through analysis of key literary works of the period.

The late Victorian period witnessed the remarkable revival of magical practice and belief. Butler examines the individuals, institutions and literature associated with this revival and demonstrates how Victorian occultism provided an alternative to the tightening camps of science and religion in a social environment that nurtured magical beliefs.

This book traces the history of ritual landscapes in the British Isles, and the transition from religious practice to recreation, by focusing on a highly understudied exemplar: the coin-tree.

Marina Montesano examines Greek and Latin literature, revealing how particular features of ancient striges were carried into the Late Middle Ages, through the Renaissance and into the fifteenth century, when early Italian trials recall the myth of the strix common in ancient Latin sources and in popular memory.

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. The challenge of heterodoxy, especially as expressed in various kinds of heresy, magic and witchcraft, was constantly present during the period 1200-1650.

This book explores the manifold ways of knowing-and knowing about- preternatural beings such as demons, angels, fairies, and other spirits that inhabited and were believed to act in early modern European worlds.

This volume is a collection based on the contributions to witchcraft studies of Willem de Blecourt, to whom it is dedicated, and who provides the opening chapter, setting out a methodological and conceptual agenda for the study of cultures of witchcraft (broadly defined) in Europe since the Middle Ages.

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Chapters examine not only the history of Wicca, the largest and best-known form of modern Paganism, but also modern Pagan environmentalist and anti-nuclear activism, the Pagan interpretation of fairy folklore, and the contemporary 'Traditional Witchcraft' phenomenon.

Marina Montesano examines Greek and Latin literature, revealing how particular features of ancient striges were carried into the Late Middle Ages, through the Renaissance and into the fifteenth century, when early Italian trials recall the myth of the strix common in ancient Latin sources and in popular memory.