Night Battles Review

Ginzburg,
Carlo. The Night Battles: Witchcraft & Agrarian Cults in the Sixteenth
& Seventeenth Centuries. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press,
2013. 
Night Battles is a historically
comparative methodological piece by Carlo Ginzburg that focuses on the Benandanti,
a pre-Christian fertility cult, in Fruili, Italy.   Ginzburg uses the records of the
Inquisitorial courts of Fruili, beginning with the cases of Paolo Gasparutto and
Battista Moduco to demonstrate the decimation of a belief system through
meticulous, entrapping and torturous methods of interrogation by Inquisition
judges.   Ultimately Ginzburg wished to
reflect the misunderstanding of culture between the tried and Inquisition
judges.[1]  Carlo Ginzburg’s attention was brought to the
Benandanti due to a reemergence of the associations with the Benandanti in
1960’s popular culture.
The
story of the Benandanti is first presented in the court cases of Gasparutto and
Moduco, where a description of the Benandanti and their “rituals” are
detailed.  Seen as a chosen few, and
usually passed down hereditarily, who bear the talisman known as the caul,
which upon age of maturity allows for the wearer to enter into battles over
crops in the name of God.  The Caul was
an emblem of one’s involvement in the rituals as a Benandanti.  Once passed down by a parent whom was
involved in the battles, the new owner would need to keep it in their
possession or would no longer be called on to fight in the Night Battles.
During
the “Ember” season of the year on a Thursday these battles would take place
pitting the Benandanti against witches and warlocks.   The Benandanti went on as defenders and
warriors of God, while the witches and warlocks were Satanist.[2] In
order to engage in these battles the wearer was initially called upon by an
angel or other heavenly celestial being to join, which would require the wearer
to exit the physical body and enter into a spiritual realm.   While in the spiritual realm the physical
body would enter a comatose like state.   As described by the trial cases, these chosen
few would go off to a select location and battle each other, Benandanti armed
with sorghum stalks or wood pieces and the witches and warlocks armed with
bundles of fennel or viburnum.[3]  Upon a Benandanti victory, crops will
flourish for the year, while opposition’s victory would bring about crop
failure.  
While
other details and explanations were presented, the inquisition judges chose to
consistently question the figure that initiates the of-age ritual and the
participants’ faith.  Eventually through
the misunderstanding of culture and language between the elite class and
farming class (or populous), the Benandanti and others similar were categorized
with witches and warlocks.
Ginzburg’s
use of Inquisitorial court cases ranging for over one hundred years beginning
in 1576 and methodologically comparative approach, highlights the diminishing
and categorization of a culture.[4]  This book was also the first produced to
include major research on the Benandanti. 
It offers itself as a study on witchcraft and popular culture to
following historians and scholars in the field. 
It also offers a look into the lives of the farming class during the
medieval period.
This
book is highly recommended as it exemplifies an efficient approach to historical
comparative analysis, utilizing Inquisitorial trial cases as evidence.  As intended, Night Battles, appeals to those with no interest in the field of
witchcraft or folklore by offering a methodical presentation, without a large
amount of jargon use.  
[1] Ginzburg,
Carlo. The Night Battles: Witchcraft & Agrarian Cults in the Sixteenth
& Seventeenth Centuries. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press,
1983.  P. xi
[2]
Ginzburg, P. 25
[3]
Ginzburg, P. 6
[4] P.
136