🎉   Please check out our new website over at books-etc.com.

Seller
Your price
£18.99
Out of Stock

Maleficium

Witchcraft and Witch Hunting in the West

By (author) Gordon Napier
Format: Hardback
Publisher: Amberley Publishing, Chalford, United Kingdom
Published: 15th Jul 2017
Dimensions: w 158mm h 240mm d 32mm
Weight: 525g
ISBN-10: 1445665107
ISBN-13: 9781445665108
Barcode No: 9781445665108
Trade or Institutional customer? Contact us about large order quotes.
Synopsis
Europe in the 1500s and 1600s was an ascending, expanding civilisation, poised to become globally dominant, and destined to produce the Enlightenment and the Scientific Revolution. Confident mercantile republics and opulent monarchies alike seemed to be flourishing. But it was also a Devil-haunted society. Witches and imps were not merely the stuff of stories, used by mothers to frighten their children into obedience. Many people believed in a real conspiracy of witches, in league with the cloven-hoofed Devil, flying on broomsticks, having familiar spirits and casting harmful spells. People from all classes, from peasants to kings, attributed calamities to malevolent witchcraft, and anyone (though it was of course mostly women) could be suspected of being a witch. Witch hunts flared up, particularly in German lands. Mass persecutions culminating in burnings - seemingly insane and monstrous acts of societal self-mutilation on a grand scale - were accepted as acts of faith, justice and collective self-defence. Who were the witch hunters? Where did they get their ideas? Did witch hunts mask politically motivated persecutions? Were there witches? Were witches a secret society, or a surviving shamanic religion? Did initiates induce hallucinations of night-flights and contact with supernatural beings? Or does torture and the preconceived notions of the witch hunters account for the consistent confessions secured from suspected witches?

New & Used

Seller Information Condition Price
-New
Out of Stock

What Reviewers Are Saying

Be the first to review this item. Submit your review now