Witchcraft and Masculinities in Early Modern Europe

Description

Men - as accused witches, witch-hunters, werewolves and the demonically possessed - are the focus of analysis in this collection of essays by leading scholars of early modern European witchcraft. The gendering of witch persecution and witchcraft belief is explored through original case-studies from England, Scotland, Italy, Germany and France.

WILLEM DE BLECOURT Honorary Research Fellow, the Huizinga Institute and the Meertens Institute, The Netherlands ROBIN BRIGGS Senior Research Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford, UK OSCAR DI SIMPLICIO former Professor of Modern History, the University of Florence, Italy JONATHAN DURRANT Senior Lecturer in Early Modern History, the University of Glamorgan, UK SARAH FERBER Senior Lecturer in History, the University of Queensland, Australia. MALCOLM GASKILL Reader in Early Modern History, the University of East Anglia, UK JULIAN GOODARE Reader in Scottish History, the University of Edinburgh, UK ALISON ROWLANDS Senior Lecturer in European History, the University of Essex, UK ROLF SCHULTE Teaching Fellow, the University of Kiel, Germany RITA VOLTMER Senior Lecturer in Medieval and Pre-Modern History, the University of Trier, Germany

'There are two popular modern conceptions about the witchcraft trials of the early modern period, the idea that they were a sort of gender war launched by patriarchal males against women, and an older idea that they represented the hangover from medieval superstition. This book explicitly challenges the former, and serves to remind us even more clearly how false the latter is.' - The Magonia Review of Books