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Title Beyond the witch trials : witchcraft and magic in Enlightenment Europe / edited by Owen Davies and Willem de Blécourt
Published Manchester ; Manchester University Press ; 2004
New York : Distributed in the USA by Palgrave, 2004

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Description 1 online resource (1 electronic resource (viii, 211 pages)
Contents Introduction : beyond the witch trials / Owen Davies and Willem de Blécourt -- Marking (dis)order : witchcraft and the symbolics of hierarchy in late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century Finland / Raisa Maria Toivo -- Pro exoneratione sua propria coscientia : magic, witchcraft and Church in early eighteenth-century Capua / Augusto Ferraiuolo -- From illusion to disenchantment : Feijoo versus the 'falsely possessed' in eighteenth-century Spain / María Tausiet -- Responses to witchcraft in late seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Sweden. The aftermath of the witch-hunt in Dalarna / Marie Lennersand ; The superstitious other / Linda Oja -- Witchcraft and magic in eighteenth-century Scotland / Peter Maxwell-Stuart -- The Devil's pact : a male strategy / Soili-Maria Olli -- Public infidelity and private belief? The discourse of spirits in Enlightenment Bristol / Jonathan Barry -- 'Evil people' : a late eighteenth-century Dutch witch doctor and his clients / Willem de Blécourt -- The archaeology of counter-witchcraft and popular magic / Brian Hoggard -- The dissemination of magical knowledge in Enlightenment Germany. The supernatural and the development of print culture / Sabine Doering-Manteuffel ; Grimoires and the transmission of magical knowledge / Stephan Bachter
Summary Beyond the witch trials provides an important collection of essays on the nature of witchcraft and magic in European society during the Enlightenment. The book is innovative not only because it pushes forward the study of witchcraft into the eighteenth century, but because it provides the reader with a challenging variety of different approaches and sources of information. The essays, which cover England, Netherlands, Spain, Italy, Germany, Scotland, Finland and Sweden, examine the experience of and attitudes towards witchcraft from both above and below. While they demonstrate the continued widespread fear of witches amongst the masses, they also provide a corrective to the notion that intellectual society lost interest in the question of witchcraft. While witchcraft prosecutions were comparatively rare by the mid-eighteenth century, the intellectual debate did no disappear; it either became more private or refocused on such issues as possession. The contributors come from different academic disciplines, and by borrowing from literary theory, archaeology and folklore they move beyond the usual historical perspectives and sources. They emphasise the importance of studying such themes as the aftermath of witch trials, the continued role of cunning-folk in society, and the nature of the witchcraft discourse in different social contexts. This book will be essential reading for those interested in the decline of the European witch trials and the continued importance of witchcraft and magic during the Enlightenment. More generally it will appeal to those with a lively interest in the cultural history of the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. This is the first of a two-volume set of books looking at the phenomenon of witchcraft, magic and the occult in Europe since the seventeenth century
Analysis Multi-User
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index
Notes Master and use copy. Digital master created according to Benchmark for Faithful Digital Reproductions of Monographs and Serials, Version 1. Digital Library Federation, December 2002. http://purl.oclc.org/DLF/benchrepro0212 MiAaHDL
English
Description based on print version record; resource not viewed
digitized 2010 HathiTrust Digital Library committed to preserve pda MiAaHDL
Subject Witchcraft -- Europe -- History -- 18th century
Enlightenment -- Europe
Humanities.
Religion and beliefs.
Alternative belief systems.
Occult studies.
Religion -- Wicca.
Enlightenment
Witchcraft
Hexenglaube
Magie.
Hekserij.
Geschichte 1700-1800.
Europe
Europa
Genre/Form History
Form Electronic book
Author Davies, Owen, 1969-
Blécourt, Willem de
LC no. 2020715426
ISBN 184779100X
9781847791009
9780719066603
0719066603
1526137267
9781280734588
1280734582
9786610734580
6610734585
9781526137265