Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

La Sorcière: The Witch of the Middle Ages is a book on the history and origins of witchcraft in Europe. According to the author, ancient witches' magical rituals and beliefs were connected with Christian beliefs and practices.

Witchcraft.

Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

Heresy. --- Magic --- Witchcraft

Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

"Treason and magic were first linked together during the reign of Edward II. Theories of occult conspiracy then regularly led to major political scandals, such as the trial of Eleanor Cobham Duchess of Gloucester in 1441. While accusations of magical treason against high-ranking figures were indeed a staple of late medieval English power politics, they acquired new significance at the Reformation when the 'superstition' embodied by magic came to be associated with proscribed Catholic belief. Francis Young here offers the first concerted historical analysis of allegations of the use of magic either to harm or kill the monarch, or else manipulate the course of political events in England, between the fourteenth century and the dawn of the Enlightenment. His book addresses a subject usually either passed over or elided with witchcraft: a quite different historical phenomenon. He argues that while charges of treasonable magic certainly were used to destroy reputations or to ensure the convictions of undesirables, magic was also perceived as a genuine threat by English governments into the Civil War era and beyond."--book jacket.

Witchcraft --- Political aspects --- History

Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

"With their dramatic descriptions of black masses and cannibalistic feasts, the records generated by the Basque witch-craze of 1609-14 provide us with arguably the most demonologically-stereotypical accounts of the witches' sabbath - or akelarre - to have emerged from early modern Europe. While the trials have attracted scholarly attention, the most substantial monograph on the subject was written nearly forty years ago and most works have focused on the ways in which interrogators shaped the pattern of prosecutions and the testimonies of defendants. Invoking the Akelarre diverts from this norm by employing more recent historiographical paradigms to analyze the contributions of the accused. Through interdisciplinary analyses of both French- and Spanish-Basque records, it argues that suspects were not passive recipients of elite demonological stereotypes but animated these received templates with their own belief and experience, from the dark exoticism of magical conjuration, liturgical cursing and theatrical misrule to the sharp pragmatism of domestic medical practice and everyday religious observance. In highlighting the range of raw materials available to the suspects, the book helps us to understand how the fiction of the witches' sabbath emerged to such prominence in contemporary mentalities, whilst also restoring some agency to the defendants and nuancing the historical thesis that stereotypical content points to interrogatorial opinion and folkloric content to the voices of the accused"--

Witchcraft --- Sabbat --- Witch hunting --- Inquisition --- History

Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

Here is a book that brings witchcraft out of the shadows. The Triumph of the Moon is the first full-scale study of the only religion England has ever given the world-modern pagan witchcraft, otherwise known as wicca. Meticulously researched, it provides a thorough account of an ancient religion that has spread from English shores across four continents. For centuries, pagan witchcraft has been linked with chilling images of blood rituals, ghostlike druids, and even human sacrifices. But while Robert Hutton explores this dark side of witchery, he stresses the positive, reminding us that devotion to art, the natural world, femininity, and the classical deities are also central to the practice of wicca. Indeed, the author shows how leading figures in English literature-W.B. Yeats, D.H. Lawrence, and Robert Graves, just to name a few-celebrated these positive aspects of the religion in their work, thereby softening the public perception of witchcraft in Victorian England. From cunning village folk to freemasons and from high magic to the black arts, Hutton chronicles the fascinating process by which actual wiccan practices evolved into what is now a viable modern religion. He also presents compelling biographies of wicca's principal figures, such as Gerald Gardner, who was inducted into a witch coven at the age of 53, and recorded many clandestine rituals and beliefs. Ronald Hutton is known for his colorful, provocative, and always thoroughly researched studies on original subjects. This work is no exception. It will appeal to anyone interested in witchcraft, paganism and alternative religions.

Witchcraft --- Neopaganism --- Neopaganism. --- Religion. --- Witchcraft. --- History --- 1800-1999 --- Great Britain --- Great Britain. --- Religion