Witchcraft persecutions in Bavaria
Subtitle: popular magic, religious zealotry, and reason of state in early modern Europe
By: Wolfgang Behringer ; translated by J.C. Grayson and David Lederer.
Series: Past and present publications
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 1997
Place of publication: Cambridge, [Cambridgeshire]; New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 476
Subjects: Trials (Witchcraft) -- Germany -- Bavaria -- History; Witchcraft -- Germany -- Bavaria -- History; Bavaria (Germany) -- Social life and customs
Description: This is a major, groundbreaking study by a leading scholar in the field of continental witchcraft studies. Based on an intensive search through central and local legal records for south-eastern Germany, an area extending well beyond but including present-day Bavaria, the author has compiled a thorough overview of all known prosecutions for witchcraft in the period 1300-1800. He shows conclusively that witch-hunting was not a constant or uniform phenomenon, and that three-quarters of all known executions for witchcraft were concentrated in the years 1586-1630, years of particular dearth and famine. The book investigates the social and political implications of witchcraft, and how the mechanisms of persecution served as a rallying cry for partisan factionalism at court. The author also explores the mentalities behind witch-hunting, emphasizing the complex religious debates between believers and sceptics, and Catholics and Protestants.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [416]-456) and index.