Fearless wives and frightened shrews : the construction of the witch in early modern Germany / Sigrid Brauner ; edited with an introduction by Robert H. Brown ; foreword by Sara Lennox.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Brauner, Sigrid, 1950-1992

Contributor:

Brown, Robert H., 1952-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Germany.

Witchcraft--Germany--History.

Witchcraft.

Feminism--Germany--History.

Feminism.

Trials (Witchcraft)--Germany--History.

Trials (Witchcraft).

Genre:

dissertations.

History

Academic theses.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xvi, 164 pages) : illustrations

Place of Publication:

Amherst : University of Massachusetts Press, ©1995.

Language Note:

English.

System Details:

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

Summary:

In fifteenth-century Germany, women were singled out as witches for the first time in history; this book explores why. Sigrid Brauner examines the connections among three central developments in early modern Germany: a shift in gender roles for women; the rise of a new urban ideal of femininity; and the witch hunts that swept across Europe from 1435 to 1750.

Brauner shows that the modern notion of the witch as a willful, conniving, promiscuous woman was first established by German Inquisitors in the Malleus maleficarum (1487). In subsequent works by Martin Luther and the sixteenth-century playwrights Paul Rebhun and Hans Sachs, the witch emerged as the counterpart to the new feminine ideal of the urban housewife. By demonstrating how the binary concepts of "good" housewife and "bad wife" (or witch) were propagated among the educated urban elite who presided over witch trials, Brauner suggests that the witch hunts functioned to discipline women who failed to display the docility and subservience expected of the new urban housewife.

Contents:

The modern witch: concept, history, context

The Malleus maleficarum: witches as wanton women

Martin Luther: witches and fearless wives

Paul Rebhun: witches and bad wives

Hans Sachs: the witch lurking within

Burning the witch to tame the shrew

Appendix: sixteenth-century terms for witches.

Notes:

Revision of the author's thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, Berkeley.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 143-161) and index.

Electronic reproduction. [S.l.] : HathiTrust Digital Library, 2010.

Print version record.

Other Format:

Print version: Brauner, Sigrid, 1950-1992. Fearless wives and frightened shrews.

ISBN:

058521736X

9780585217369

9781122055987

1122055986

9781685750572

1685750575

OCLC:

44954842

Publisher Number:

heb40172 hdl

Access Restriction:

Use copy Restrictions unspecified