The Oxford handbook of witchcraft in Early Modern Europe and colonial America /

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Bibliographic Details
Edition:	1st ed.
Imprint:	Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2013.
Description:	xiv, 630 p. ; 26 cm.
Language:	English
Series:	[Oxford handbooks] Oxford handbooks.
Subject:	Witchcraft -- Europe -- History. Witchcraft -- United States -- History. Trials (Witchcraft) Witch hunting. Witchcraft. History.
Format:	Print Book
URL for this record:	http://pi.lib.uchicago.edu/1001/cat/bib/9127630

Hidden Bibliographic Details
Other authors / contributors:	Levack, Brian P.
ISBN:	9780199578160 0199578168
Notes:	Includes bibliographical references and index.
Summary:	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.

Table of Contents:

List of Tables
Notes on Contributors
Introduction
Part I. Witch Beliefs
1. Magic and its Hazards in the Late Medieval West
2. Fifteenth-Century Witch Beliefs
3. Popular Witch Beliefs and Magical Practices
4. Demonologies
5. Sabbath Stories: Towards a New History of Witches' Assemblies
6. The Sceptical Tradition
7. Witchcraft in Early Modern Literature
8. Images of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe
Part II. Witchcraft Prosecutions
9. The First Wave of Trials for Diabolical Witchcraft
10. The German Witch Trials
11. Witchcraft and the Local Communities: The Rhine-Moselle Region
12. Witchcraft Trials in France
13. Witchcraft and Wealth: The Case of the Netherlands
14. Witchcraft Prosecutions in Italy
15. Witchcraft in Iberia
16. Witchcraft Trials in England
17. Witchcraft in Scotland
18. Witchcraft in Poland: Milk and Malefice
19. Witch-Hunting in Early Modern Hungary
20. Witchcraft Trials in Russia: History and Historiography
21. Witchcraft Criminality and Witchcraft Research in the Nordic Countries
22. Witchcraft in British America
23. Merging Magical Traditions: Sorcery and Witchcraft in Spanish and Portuguese America
24. The Decline and End of Witchcraft Prosecutions
Part III. Themes of Witchcraft Research
25. Witchcraft and Gender in Early Modern Europe
26. Witchcraft and the Law
27. Sixteenth-Century Religious Reform and the Witch-Hunts
28. On the Neuropsychological Origins of Witchcraft Cognition: The Geographic and Economic Variable
29. Politics, State-Building, and Witch-Hunting
30. Science and Witchcraft
31. Medicine and Witchcraft
32. Demonic Possession, Exorcism, and Witchcraft
Index

The Oxford handbook of witchcraft in Early Modern Europe and colonial America /

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