Male witches in early modern Europe / Lara Apps and Andrew Gow.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Apps, Lara, author.

Gow, Andrew Colin, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Witchcraft--Europe--History.

Witchcraft.

Warlocks--Europe--History.

Warlocks.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (ix, 190 pages) : illustrations; digital, PDF file(s).

Place of Publication:

Manchester University Press 2003

Manchester, England : Manchester University Press, 2003

Language Note:

English

System Details:

text file

Summary:

This book critiques historians' assumptions about witch-hunting as well as their explanations for this complex and perplexing phenomenon. The authors insist on the centrality of gender, tradition and ideas about witches in the construction of the witch as a dangerous figure. They challenge the marginalisation of male witches by feminist and other historians. The book shows that large numbers of men were accused of witchcraft in their own right, in some regions, more men were accused than women. The authors analyse ideas about witches and witch prosecution as gendered artefacts of patriarchal societies under which both women and men suffered. They challenge recent arguments and current orthodoxies by applying crucial insights from feminist scholarship on gender to a selection of statistical arguments, social-historical explanations, traditional feminist history and primary sources, including trial records and demonological literature. The authors assessment of current orthodoxies concerning the causes and origins of witch-hunting will be of particular interest to scholars and students in undergraduate and graduate courses in early modern history, religion, culture, gender studies and methodology.

Contents:

Invisible men: the historian and the male witch

Secondary targets? Male witches on trial

Tortured confessions: agency and selfhood at stake

Literally unthinkable? Demonological descriptions of male witches

Conceptual webs: the gendering of witchcraft

Conclusion and afterword

Appendix. Johannes Junius: Bamberg's famous male witch.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

CC BY-NC-ND

Description based on e-publication, viewed on March 12, 2018.

OCLC:

1163838289