Download or read book A Brief History of Witchcraft written by Lois Martin and published by Robinson. This book was released on 2010-10-14 with total page 141 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The witch in history is very different from the image of Harry Potter or the modern day Pagan. A Brief History of Witchcraft sets out to explore how the witch phenomenon began in medieval Europe and how it has continued to haunt us for the next 500 years. In her fascinating history Lois Martin's looks at how folk tradition and religion clashed with devastating effect - one of the greatest conspiracy theories of all and the most brutal regime of persecution ever seen. From early theories of the Devil, a new cosmology of demons and dark arts evolved; deluded old women were transformed into instruments of evil. This culminated in the Witch craze of the 16th and 17th century, which may have claimed the lives of up to 40,000 people.
Download or read book Witches written by Nigel Cawthorne and published by Arcturus Publishing. This book was released on 2019-11-07 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When bigotry and power-mania take control, disaster always follows for subjugated persons - even when the power is wielded by the Church. Witchcraft was viewed as devil-worship. Between 1450 and 1750, one hundred thousand people were accused, subject to the most bestial tortures and usually executed. Witches examines the wildfire-spread of witch hunting across Europe and America, revealing the disturbing and brutal realities of these witch hunts and their roots in misogyny and religious persecution. It includes: • Letters and trial testimonies from those charged with witchcraft, as well as some from self-proclaimed witches • Biographic detail of key witch hunters, such as Matthew Hopkins (the so-called Witchfinder General) who was responsible for hundreds of executions • Accounts of famous witch trials, from Chelmsford to Salam Nigel Cawthorne doesn't shy away from the violent details of this persecution, exploring the events as they transpired, the contexts that triggered them and tracing it back to its source. Please note: This title contains descriptions of a violent and sexual nature and is not intended for younger readers. Discretion is advised.
Download or read book Witchcraft written by P. G. Maxwell-Stuart and published by . This book was released on 2004 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Witches, like the poor, are always with us. From ancient times to the present the aged, ugly crone has worked her evil magic and been burned at the stake by an outraged authority, or cured her neighbours and their animals with the help of gentle herbs and beneficent spells. Such, at any rate, is the popular picture. But not much of that picture is true. At the very least, it is misleading. Many witches were young; many witches were men; many witches came to court and were acquitted. There is no clear distinction between so-called white magic and black. Witches were not universally persecuted or tortured; it is not true that millions died; and the time they were most at risk covered less than a hundred years. So much more interesting than the cartoon stereotype, the real witch was a complex figure whose genuine story is only now starting to be unraveled, and this book offers the reader a fresh prospect of that intriguing narrative.
Download or read book The Routledge History of Witchcraft written by Johannes Dillinger and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-12-06 with total page 483 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Routledge History of Witchcraft is a comprehensive and interdisciplinary study of the belief in witches from antiquity to the present day, providing both an introduction to the subject of witchcraft and an overview of the on-going debates. This extensive collection covers the entire breadth of the history of witchcraft, from the witches of Ancient Greece and medieval demonology through to the victims of the witch hunts, and onwards to children’s books, horror films, and modern pagans. Drawing on the knowledge and expertise of an international team of authors, the book examines differing concepts of witchcraft that still exist in society and explains their historical, literary, religious, and anthropological origin and development, including the reflections and adaptions of this belief in art and popular culture. The volume is divided into four chronological parts, beginning with Antiquity and the Middle Ages in Part One, Early Modern witch hunts in Part Two, modern concepts of witchcraft in Part Three, and ending with an examination of witchcraft and the arts in Part Four. Each chapter offers a glimpse of a different version of the witch, introducing the reader to the diversity of witches that have existed in different contexts throughout history. Exploring a wealth of texts and case studies and offering a broad geographical scope for examining this fascinating subject, The Routledge History of Witchcraft is essential reading for students and academics interested in the history of witchcraft.
Download or read book The History of Witchcraft and Demonology written by Montague Summers and published by Courier Corporation. This book was released on 2007-07-30 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This classic of esoterica explores witchcraft, sorcery, necromancy, damnation, Satanism, and every variety of magic. Written by the field's foremost scholar, it features colorful, little-known anecdotes about witches, devils, and their arts. It also provides numerous historical accounts of witch trials and surveys the role of witches in literature.
Download or read book A Popular History of Witchcraft RLE Witchcraft written by Montague Summers and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2012-05-23 with total page 311 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a comprehensive guide to the practices of witchcraft from their inception to the present day. Summers argues that all witchcraft is essentially the same, regardless of geographical location. He examines the practices of the cult in great detail, and its historical progression, within the context of the 1736 Repeal Act of George II.
Download or read book Malleus Maleficarum written by Heinrich Kramer and published by . This book was released on 2018-07-11 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Malleus Maleficarum is a seminal treatise regarding witchcraft and demons, presented here complete with an authoritative translation to modern English by Montague Summers. At the time this book was published in 1487, the Christian church had considered witchcraft a dangerous affront to the faith for many centuries. Executions of suspected witches were intermittent, and various explanations of behaviors deemed suspect were thought to be caused by possession, either by the devil or demon such as an incubus or succubus. Kramer wrote this book after he had tried and failed to have a woman executed for witchcraft. Unhappy at the verdict of the court, he authored the Malleus Maleficarum as a manual for other witch seekers to refer to. For centuries the text was used by Christians as a reference source on matters of demonology, although it was not used directly by the Inquisition who became notorious for their tortures and murders.
Download or read book The Witches written by Stacy Schiff and published by Little, Brown. This book was released on 2015-10-27 with total page 512 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Cleopatra, the #1 national bestseller, unpacks the mystery of the Salem Witch Trials. It began in 1692, over an exceptionally raw Massachusetts winter, when a minister's daughter began to scream and convulse. It ended less than a year later, but not before 19 men and women had been hanged and an elderly man crushed to death. The panic spread quickly, involving the most educated men and prominent politicians in the colony. Neighbors accused neighbors, parents and children each other. Aside from suffrage, the Salem Witch Trials represent the only moment when women played the central role in American history. In curious ways, the trials would shape the future republic. As psychologically thrilling as it is historically seminal, THE WITCHES is Stacy Schiff's account of this fantastical story-the first great American mystery unveiled fully for the first time by one of our most acclaimed historians.
Download or read book Witchcraft written by Michael Streeter and published by White Lion Publishing. This book was released on 2020-03-03 with total page 259 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Witchcraft unravels the myth from the mystery, the facts from the legends, in this bewitching introduction to witchcraft’s lesser-known history. Spanning several centuries and comprising unbelievable facts and little-known legends, meet all the witches of your imagination and learn why, where and how it all began. Uncover the meanings of their rituals and rites, their lore, and their craft Discover the significance of their sabbats and covens, their chalices and wands, their robes and their religion. Unlock the secrets of the legendary witches of mythology and folk talesand find out how these early stories influenced the persecutions and witch hunts of the Middle Ages. Learn about the people who inspired the pagan revival and how their work in literature and magic rekindled the fires of the sabbats across Europe and the New World today. Features spell-binding historic and contemporary pictures that perfectly capture the key characters, events and wonders of this captivating, colourful and controversial history.
Download or read book Witchcraft in Europe 1100 1700 written by Alan Charles Kors and published by . This book was released on 1972 with total page 382 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Accused written by Willow Winsham and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2016-09-19 with total page 187 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The true stories of eleven notorious women, across five centuries, who were feared, victimized, and condemned for witchcraft in the British Isles. Beginning with the late Middle Ages—from Ireland to Hampshire—hundreds of women were accused of spellcasting, wicked seduction, murder, and consorting with the devil. Most were fated for the gallows or the stake. What did it mean for these prisoners to stand accused? What were they really guilty of? And by whom were they persecuted? Drawing on a wealth of primary sources including trial documents, church and census records, and the original sensationalist pamphlets describing the crimes, historian Willow Winsham finds the startling answers to these questions. In the process, she resurrects the lives, deaths, and mysteries of eleven women subjected to history’s most notable witch trials. From Irish “sorceress” Alice Kyteler who, in 1324 was the first accused witch on record, to Scottish psychic Helen Duncan who, in 1944, was the last woman imprisoned under Britain’s Witchcraft Act of 1735. Dames, servant girls, aggrieved neighbors, suspect widows, cat ladies, prostitutes, mothers, wives, daughters, and sisters. Accused brings all these victims, and the eras in which they lived and died, back to life in “an incredibly well researched . . . stunning and admirable piece of work, highly recommended” (Terry Tyler, author of the Project Renova series).
Download or read book The Witch written by Ronald Hutton and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2017-01-01 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book sets the notorious European witch trials in the widest and deepest possible perspective and traces the major historiographical developments of witchcraft
Download or read book Witch Craze written by Lyndal Roper and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2006-01-01 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A powerful account of witches, crones, and the societies that make them From the gruesome ogress in Hansel and Gretel to the hags at the sabbath in Faust, the witch has been a powerful figure of the Western imagination. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries thousands of women confessed to being witches--of making pacts with the Devil, causing babies to sicken, and killing animals and crops--and were put to death. This book is a gripping account of the pursuit, interrogation, torture, and burning of witches during this period and beyond. Drawing on hundreds of original trial transcripts and other rare sources in four areas of Southern Germany, where most of the witches were executed, Lyndal Roper paints a vivid picture of their lives, families, and tribulations. She also explores the psychology of witch-hunting, explaining why it was mostly older women that were the victims of witch crazes, why they confessed to crimes, and how the depiction of witches in art and literature has influenced the characterization of elderly women in our own culture.
Download or read book Emotions in the History of Witchcraft written by Laura Kounine and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-02-09 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bringing together leading historians, anthropologists, and religionists, this volume examines the unbridled passions of witchcraft from the Middle Ages to the present. Witchcraft is an intensely emotional crime, rooted in the belief that envy and spite can cause illness or even death. Witch-trials in turn are emotionally driven by the grief of alleged victims and by the fears of magistrates and demonologists. With examples ranging from Russia to New England, Germany to Cameroon, chapters cover the representation of emotional witches in demonology and art; the gendering of witchcraft as female envy or male rage; witchcraft as a form of bullying and witchcraft accusation as a form of therapy; love magic and demon-lovers; and the affective memorialization of the “Burning Times” among contemporary Pagan feminists. Wide-ranging and methodologically diverse, the book is appropriate for scholars of witchcraft, gender, and emotions; for graduate or undergraduate courses, and for the interested general reader.
Download or read book The Salem Witch Hunt written by Richard Godbeer and published by Macmillan Higher Education. This book was released on 2017-12-06 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Salem witch trials stand as one of the infamous moments in colonial American history. More than 150 people -- primarily women -- from 24 communities were charged with witchcraft; 19 were hanged and others died in prison. This second edition continues to explore the beliefs, fears, and historical context that fueled the witch panic of 1692. In his revised introduction, Richard Godbeer offers coverage of the convulsive ergotism thesis advanced in the 1970s and a discussion of new scholarship on men who were accused of witchcraft for explicitly gendered reasons. The documents in this volume illuminate how the Puritans' worldview led them to seek a supernatural explanation for the problems vexing their community. Presented as case studies, the carefully chosen records from several specific trials offer a clear picture of the gender norms and social tensions that underlie the witchcraft accusations. New to this edition are records from the trial of Samuel Wardwell, a fortune-teller or "cunning man" whose apparent expertise made him vulnerable to suspicions of witchcraft. The book's final documents cover recantations of confessions, the aftermath of the witch hunt, and statements of regret. A chronology of the witchcraft crisis, questions for consideration, and a selected bibliography round out the book's pedagogical support.
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe and Colonial America written by Brian P. Levack and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2013-03-28 with total page 646 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Witchcraft written by Susan Greenwood and published by Lorenz Books. This book was released on 2013 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Magic has played a part in most cultures throughout human history. Traditions and practices may differ but the essential elements remain the same. This history examines the roots and foundation of magic, and the way it has helped to shape our view of the universe and our place within it.
