"Evil people" : a comparative study of witch hunts in Swabian Austria and the Electorate of Trier / / Johannes Dillinger ; translated by Laura Stokes

• Autore: Dillinger Johannes
• Pubblicazione: Charlottesville, : University of Virginia Press, 2009
• Edizione: 1st ed.
• Descrizione fisica: 1 online resource (310 pages) : illustrations, maps
• Disciplina: 133.4/309434313
• Soggetto topico: Witchcraft - Germany - Swabia - History; Witch hunting - Germany - Swabia - History; Witchcraft - Germany - Trier - History; Witch hunting - Germany - Trier - History
• Altri autori: StokesLaura <1974->
• Note generali: "Originally published in German as "Böse Leute." Hexenverfolgungen in Schwäbisch-Österreich und Kurtrier im Vergleich, c1999"--T.p. verso.
• Nota di bibliografia: Includes bibliographical references (p. [249]-289) and index.
• Nota di contenuto: Introduction: Comparing Witch Hunts -- Authority and Liberties for the Country and the People" Administration, Legal and Social Circumstances -- Golden Goblets and Cows' Hooves Witchcraft and Magic -- "If She Is Not a Witch Yet, She Will Certainly Become One" Origins and Foundations of Witchcraft Suspicions -- "There Goes the Werewolf. We Thought He Had Been Caught Already" Agents of Witch Hunting and the Management of Trials -- "Let No One Accuse Us of Negligence" The Influence of the Witch Hunts in Swabian Austria and the Electorate of Trier on Other Territories -- "A Slippery and Obscure Business" The End of the Witch Hunts.
• Sommario/riassunto: Inspired by recent efforts to understand the dynamics of the early modern witch hunt, Johannes Dillinger has produced a powerful synthesis based on careful comparisons. Narrowing his focus to two specific regions--Swabian Austria and the Electorate of Trier--he provides a nuanced explanation of how the tensions between state power and communalism determined the course of witch hunts that claimed over 1,300 lives in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Germany. Dillinger finds that, far from representing the centralizing aggression of emerging early states against local cultures, witch hunts were almost always driven by members of the middling and lower classes in cities and villages, and they were stopped only when early modern states acquired the power to control their localities. Situating his study in the context of a pervasive magical worldview that embraced both orthodox Christianity and folk belief, Dillinger shows that, in some cases, witch trials themselves were used as magical instruments, designed to avert threats of impending divine wrath. Evil People describes a two-century evolution in which witch hunters who liberally bestowed the label evil people on others turned into modern images of evil themselves. In the original German, Evil People won the Friedrich Spee Award as an outstanding contribution to the history of witchcraft."
• Titolo autorizzato: "Evil people"
• ISBN: 0-8139-2838-9
• Formato: Materiale a stampa
• Livello bibliografico: Monografia
• Lingua di pubblicazione: Inglese
• Record Nr.: 9910955439003321
• Lo trovi qui: Univ. Federico II
• Serie: Studies in early modern German history.