1.

Record Nr.

UNISA996207552003316

Autore

Apps Lara

Titolo

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

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Manchester University Press, 2003

Manchester, England : , : Manchester University Press, , 2003

Descrizione fisica

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

Disciplina

133.4081094

Soggetti

Witchcraft - Europe - History

Warlocks - Europe - History

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

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.

Sommario/riassunto

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.