Becoming a Witch: Women and Magic in Europe During the Middle Ages and Beyond
Edited by Andrea Maraschi and Angelica Aurora Montanari
Trivent Publishing
ISBN: 978-615-6405-65-4
A collection of eleven articles about how witches and witchcraft were depicted in the Middle Ages. Many of the articles focus on the connections between women and magic and how this gradually troubled medieval society.
Excerpt:
So, this book is not about witches. It is about the path to becoming one, the feminization of specific aspects of “magic,” and the later projections of these ideas. The late-medieval notion of “witch” was elaborated in treatises by Jean Gerson, Johannes Nider, Alphonso de Spina, Heinrich Kramer, and others, but it did not arise from nothing. It shared elements with earlier features of feminine “magical” knowledge and practice, and it was fuelled by similar biases. This volume thus aims at rediscussing long-standing myths, and at problematizing superficial connections in the wake of David Harley’s research on the midwife-witch figure. And, necessarily, it is meant to offer new insights into the very notion of “magic” in the past. “Magic” could be analysed from several different angles, but this book indirectly looks at it in search of continuities. First and foremost, continuity of needs and attitudes. “The circulation of knowledge is at the very base of the cumulative concept of witchcraft,” observes Marina Montesano, “and is the omnipresent fuel that subtends the initial moments of the witch-hunts around the middle of the fourteenth century.”
Who is this book for?
Collections of essays are usually directed toward academics, and this book fulfills that role. Those interested in medieval witches will surely want to read these articles, as well as those who research social and women’s history in the Middle Ages.
Becoming a Witch: Women and Magic in Europe During the Middle Ages and Beyond
Edited by Andrea Maraschi and Angelica Aurora Montanari
Trivent Publishing
ISBN: 978-615-6405-65-4
A collection of eleven articles about how witches and witchcraft were depicted in the Middle Ages. Many of the articles focus on the connections between women and magic and how this gradually troubled medieval society.
Excerpt:
So, this book is not about witches. It is about the path to becoming one, the feminization of specific aspects of “magic,” and the later projections of these ideas. The late-medieval notion of “witch” was elaborated in treatises by Jean Gerson, Johannes Nider, Alphonso de Spina, Heinrich Kramer, and others, but it did not arise from nothing. It shared elements with earlier features of feminine “magical” knowledge and practice, and it was fuelled by similar biases. This volume thus aims at rediscussing long-standing myths, and at problematizing superficial connections in the wake of David Harley’s research on the midwife-witch figure. And, necessarily, it is meant to offer new insights into the very notion of “magic” in the past. “Magic” could be analysed from several different angles, but this book indirectly looks at it in search of continuities. First and foremost, continuity of needs and attitudes. “The circulation of knowledge is at the very base of the cumulative concept of witchcraft,” observes Marina Montesano, “and is the omnipresent fuel that subtends the initial moments of the witch-hunts around the middle of the fourteenth century.”
Who is this book for?
Collections of essays are usually directed toward academics, and this book fulfills that role. Those interested in medieval witches will surely want to read these articles, as well as those who research social and women’s history in the Middle Ages.
The editors
Andrea Maraschi is a lecturer at the University of Bologna, while Angelica Aurora Montanari is an adjunct professor at the same institution.
You can learn more from the publisher’s website
You can also buy this book on Amazon.com | Amazon.ca | Amazon.co.uk
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