Witchcraft Persecutions in Bavaria: Popular Magic, Religious Zealotry and Reason of State in Early Modern Europe

Description

This is a major, groundbreaking study by a leading scholar of continental witchcraft studies, now made available to an English-speaking audience for the first time. The author has compiled a thorough overview of all known prosecutions for witchcraft in the period 1300-1800, and shows conclusively that witch hunting was not a constant or uniform phenomenon: three-quarters of all known executions for witchcraft were concentrated in the years 1586-1630. The book also investigates the social and political implications of witchcraft, and the complex religious debates between believers and skeptics.

'... ranks alongside earlier ground-breaking works such as those of Thomas, Macfarlane or Midelfort as essential reading for all serious students of the subject'. Bob Scribner, English Historical Review 'Well-nigh definitive as a study of witchcraft prosecutions in south-east Germany between the late Middle Ages and the end of the eighteenth century, Behringer's work also throws dazzling light on the religious, cultural and socio-political background of continental witch-hunting as a whole.' Journal of Ecclesiastical History '... a tour de force of historical research and writing ...'. Journal for the Academic Study of Magic