Download or read book Witchcraft and belief in Early Modern Scotland written by J. Goodare and published by Springer. This book was released on 2007-12-04 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This pioneering collection concentrates on witchcraft beliefs rather than witch-hunting. It ranges widely across areas of popular belief, culture and ritual practice, as well as dealing with intellectual life and incorporating regional and comparative elements.
Download or read book Witchcraft in Early Modern Scotland written by Lawrence Normand and published by Liverpool University Press. This book was released on 2022-03-23 with total page 468 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume provides a valuable introduction to the key concepts of witchcraft and demonology through a detailed study of one of the best known and most notorious episodes of Scottish history, the North Berwick witch hunt, in which King James was involved as alleged victim, interrogator, judge and demonologist. It provides hitherto unpublished and inaccessible material from the legal documentation of the trials in a way that makes the material fully comprehensible, as well as full texts of the pamphlet News from Scotland and James' Demonology, all in a readable, modernised, scholarly form. Full introductory sections and supporting notes provide information about the contexts needed to understand the texts: court politics, social history and culture, religious changes, law and the workings of the court, and the history of witchcraft prosecutions in Scotland before 1590. The book also brings to bear on this material current scholarship on the history of European witchcraft.
Download or read book Witchcraft and Masculinities in Early Modern Europe written by A. Rowlands and published by Springer. This book was released on 2009-10-22 with total page 271 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Men – as accused witches, witch-hunters, werewolves and the demonically possessed – are the focus of analysis in this collection of essays by leading scholars of early modern European witchcraft. The gendering of witch persecution and witchcraft belief is explored through original case-studies from England, Scotland, Italy, Germany and France.
Download or read book The Scottish Witch Hunt in Context written by Julian Goodare and published by Manchester University Press. This book was released on 2002-09-21 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is a collection of essays on Scottish witchcraft and witch-hunting, which covers the whole period of the Scottish witch-hunt, from the mid-16th century to the early 18th. It particularly emphasizes the later stages, since scholars are now as keen to explain why witch-hunting declined as why it occurred. There are studies of particular witchcraft panics, including a reassessment of the role of King James VI. The book thus covers a wide range of topics concerned with Scottish witch-hunting - and also places it in the context of other topics: gender relations, folklore, magic and healing, and moral regulation by church and state.
Download or read book Witchcraft and Folk Belief in the Age of Enlightenment written by Lizanne Henderson and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-04-08 with total page 382 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Taking an interdisciplinary perspective, Witchcraft and Folk Belief in the Age of Enlightenment represents the first in-depth investigation of Scottish witchcraft and witch belief post-1662, the period of supposed decline of such beliefs, an age which has been referred to as the 'long eighteenth century', coinciding with the Scottish Enlightenment. The late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries were undoubtedly a period of transition and redefinition of what constituted the supernatural, at the interface between folk belief and the philosophies of the learned. For the latter the eradication of such beliefs equated with progress and civilization but for others, such as the devout, witch belief was a matter of faith, such that fear and dread of witches and their craft lasted well beyond the era of the major witch-hunts. This study seeks to illuminate the distinctiveness of the Scottish experience, to assess the impact of enlightenment thought upon witch belief, and to understand how these beliefs operated across all levels of Scottish society.
Download or read book Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe written by Jonathan Barry and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1998-03-12 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This important collection brings together both established figures and new researchers to offer fresh perspectives on the ever-controversial subject of the history of witchcraft. Using Keith Thomas's Religion and the Decline of Magic as a starting point, the contributors explore the changes of the last twenty-five years in the understanding of early modern witchcraft, and suggest new approaches, especially concerning the cultural dimensions of the subject. Witchcraft cases must be understood as power struggles, over gender and ideology as well as social relationships, with a crucial role played by alternative representations. Witchcraft was always a contested idea, never fully established in early modern culture but much harder to dislodge than has usually been assumed. The essays are European in scope, with examples from Germany, France, and the Spanish expansion into the New World, as well as a strong core of English material.
Download or read book The Witch Hunt in Early Modern Europe written by Brian P. Levack and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-11-05 with total page 508 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Between 1450 and 1750 thousands of people – most of them women – were accused, prosecuted and executed for the crime of witchcraft. The witch-hunt was not a single event; it comprised thousands of individual prosecutions, each shaped by the religious and social dimensions of the particular area as well as political and legal factors. Brian Levack sorts through the proliferation of theories to provide a coherent introduction to the subject, as well as contributing to the scholarly debate. The book: Examines why witchcraft prosecutions took place, how many trials and victims there were, and why witch-hunting eventually came to an end. Explores the beliefs of both educated and illiterate people regarding witchcraft. Uses regional and local studies to give a more detailed analysis of the chronological and geographical distribution of witch-trials. Emphasises the legal context of witchcraft prosecutions. Illuminates the social, economic and political history of early modern Europe, and in particular the position of women within it. In this fully updated third edition of his exceptional study, Levack incorporates the vast amount of literature that has emerged since the last edition. He substantially extends his consideration of the decline of the witch-hunt and goes further in his exploration of witch-hunting after the trials, especially in contemporary Africa. New illustrations vividly depict beliefs about witchcraft in early modern Europe.
Download or read book Scottish Witches and Witch Hunters written by J. Goodare and published by Springer. This book was released on 2013-10-31 with total page 245 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book brings together twelve studies that collectively provide an overview of the main issues of live interest in Scottish witchcraft. As well as fresh studies of the well-established topic of witch-hunting, the book also launches an exploration of some of the more esoteric aspects of magical belief and practice.
Download or read book Daemonologie written by King James and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2018-05-26 with total page 42 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Daemonologie-in full Daemonologie, In Forme of a Dialogue, Divided into three Books: By the High and Mighty Prince, James &c.-was written and published in 1597 by King James VI of Scotland (later also James I of England) as a philosophical dissertation on contemporary necromancy and the historical relationships between the various methods of divination used from ancient black magic. This included a study on demonology and the methods demons used to bother troubled men while touching on topics such as werewolves and vampires. It was a political yet theological statement to educate a misinformed populace on the history, practices and implications of sorcery and the reasons for persecuting a witch in a Christian society under the rule of canonical law. This book is believed to be one of the main sources used by William Shakespeare in the production of Macbeth. Shakespeare attributed many quotes and rituals found within the book directly to the Weird Sisters, yet also attributed the Scottish themes and settings referenced from the trials in which King James was involved.
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 Magic and Witchcraft in Scotland written by Joyce Miller and published by . This book was released on 2004 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fascinating examination into the belief and practice of magic by ordinary people in Scotland in the medieval and early modern period. The book explains not only what was done but, crucially, also why, with sections on healing rituals, use of wells
Download or read book The Decline of Magic written by Michael Hunter and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2020-01-07 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A new history that overturns the received wisdom that science displaced magic in Enlightenment Britain--named a Best Book of 2020 by the Financial Times In early modern Britain, belief in prophecies, omens, ghosts, apparitions and fairies was commonplace. Among both educated and ordinary people the absolute existence of a spiritual world was taken for granted. Yet in the eighteenth century such certainties were swept away. Credit for this great change is usually given to science - and in particular to the scientists of the Royal Society. But is this justified? Michael Hunter argues that those pioneering the change in attitude were not scientists but freethinkers. While some scientists defended the reality of supernatural phenomena, these sceptical humanists drew on ancient authors to mount a critique both of orthodox religion and, by extension, of magic and other forms of superstition. Even if the religious heterodoxy of such men tarnished their reputation and postponed the general acceptance of anti-magical views, slowly change did come about. When it did, this owed less to the testing of magic than to the growth of confidence in a stable world in which magic no longer had a place.
Download or read book The supernatural in early modern Scotland written by Julian Goodare and published by Manchester University Press. This book was released on 2020-12-08 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is about other worlds and the supernatural beings, from angels to fairies, that inhabited them. It is about divination, prophecy, visions and trances. And it is about the cultural, religious, political and social uses to which people in Scotland put these supernatural themes between 1500 and 1800. The supernatural consistently provided Scots with a way of understanding topics such as the natural environment, physical and emotional wellbeing, political events and visions of past and future. In exploring the early modern supernatural, the book has much to reveal about how men and women in this period thought about, debated and experienced the world around them. Comprising twelve chapters by an international range of scholars, The supernatural in early modern Scotland discusses both popular and elite understandings of the supernatural.
Download or read book The Witches of Fife written by Stuart MacDonald and published by Birlinn. This book was released on 2014-08-01 with total page 251 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Along the coast of Fife, in villages like Culross and Pittenweem, history records that some women were executed as witches. Nevertheless, the reality of what happened the night that Janet Cornfoot was lynched at Pittenweem is hard to grasp as one sits by the harbour watching the fishing boats unload their catch and the pleasure boats rising with the tide. How could people do this to an old woman? Why was no-one ever brought to justice? And why would anyone defend such a lynching? The task of the historian is to try to make events in the past come alive and seem less strange. The details of the witch-hunt are fascinating. Some of the anecdotes are strange. The modern reader finds it hard to imagine illness being blamed on the malevolence of a beggar woman denied charity, or the economic failure of a sea voyage being attributed to the village hag, not bad weather. Witch-hunting was related to ideas, values, attitudes and political events. It was a complicated process, involving religious and civil authorities, village tensions and the fears of the elite. The witch-hunt in Scotland also took place at a time when one of the main agendas was the creation of a righteous or godly society. As a result, religious authorities had control over aspects of people's lives which seem as strange to us today as beliefs about magic or witchcraft. It was not accidental that the witch-hunt in Scotland, and specifically in Fife, should have happened at this time. This book tells the story of what occurred over a period of a century and a half, and offers some explanation as to why it occurred.
Download or read book The Visions of Isobel Gowdie written by Emma Wilby and published by Liverpool University Press. This book was released on 2010-06-04 with total page 618 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The confessions of Isobel Gowdie are widely recognised as the most extraordinary on record in Britain. Using historical, psychological, comparative religious and anthropological perspectives, this book sets out to separate the voice of Isobel Gowdie from that of her interrogators.
Download or read book Scottish Witchcraft written by Barbara Meiklejohn-Free and published by Llewellyn Worldwide. This book was released on 2019-11-08 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hear the Call of the Highlands for Powerful Magick, Healing, and Divination Take a journey through the magickal folk traditions of Scotland. Barbara Meiklejohn-Free, a Scottish hereditary witch, shares her own spiritual awakening into the craft and shows you how to integrate these practices into your own life. Discover the secrets of divination, scrying, faery magick, and communication with ancestors. Explore herb and plant lore and specific rituals to address what you most desire. Filled with inspiring anecdotes, craft history, and step-by-step instructions, this book will help you begin a new chapter of spiritual discovery.
Download or read book Malevolent Nurture written by Deborah Willis and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2018-05-31 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Malevolent Nurture, Deborah Willis explores the dynamics of witchcraft accusation through legal documents, pamphlet literature, religious tracts, and the plays of Shakespeare.
