Early Modern European Witchcraft

Talk by Dana Rehn (University of Adelaide PhD Candidate), 'The Werewolf in German Renaissance Prints During the Witch Trials' at Adelaide Central School of Art on Saturday, 13 April 2019 from 3.30pm. https://www.facebook.com/events/2531329950231053/

A problemática central desta tese é sustentada pela presença majoritária de mulheres entre os indivíduos que foram processados pelo Tribunal do Santo Ofício português durante os anos de 1541 a 1595, cuja motivação consistiu nos supostos pactos diabólicos realizados por essas mulheres e juridicamente interpretados sob o delito da feitiçaria. Esse contexto corresponde à primeira grande onda de perseguição protagonizada pela Inquisição portuguesa acerca das práticas mágico-religiosas, interpretadas pelos inquisidores como pertencentes ao universo da feitiçaria e das relações com o Diabo. Sendo assim, esta tese pretende investigar como, no período demarcado, algumas mulheres processadas por esse Tribunal a partir do delito da
feitiçaria, performatizaram as suas identidades de gênero através da fama de feiticeiras que construíram ao longo de suas vidas, o que tornou possível para que as malhas inquisitoriais tenham alcançado as suas trajetórias. As análises se baseiam em treze processos, em que as Rés são: Beatriz Borges, Brites Frazão, Brites Marques, Catarina de Faria, Inácia Gomes, Ana Álvares (Ana do Frade), Clara de Oliveira, Margarida Lourenço, Simoa de São Nicolau, Maria Gonçalves, Margarida Carneiro Magalhães, Violante Carneiro e Felícia Tourinho. Defende-se como hipótese o argumento de que a construção dessas identidades possibilitou a essas mulheres feiticeiras construírem reconhecimento social e relativos espaços de autonomia, ainda que inseridas em um contexto misógino e patriarcal. Diante da dispersão cronológica e geográfica desses processos, o conceito de História Atlântica – sob a abordagem cis-atlântica – é empregado neste trabalho por possibilitar a compreensão das práticas mágico-religiosas sob uma ótica conectada, pertencente ao Sistema Atlântico, bem como dos elos estabelecidos entre essas feiticeiras. Ademais, esta tese está ancorada no conceito de gênero, considerando-o como importante categoria histórica capaz de proporcionar ao pesquisador compreender que as práticas sociais nesse contexto foram marcadas por padrões de masculinidade e feminilidade e por relações de gênero pautadas por uma heteronormatividade compulsória. Seguindo estas escolhas teóricas e metodológicas, acredita-se que este trabalho contribuirá para as análises interessadas em definir um olhar mais aproximado a respeito das dinâmicas de gênero cujo fenômeno da feitiçaria, incluindo aí os seus personagens, estiveram vinculados.

The contribution sets out to study the relationship between the Roman Inquisition and the sortilegious practices people performed to turn matters in their favour in games of chance. Examination of a substantial sample of unpublished trial documents kept in the Archives of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith shows the efforts made by the Roman Church, through its judges in matters of faith, to control and suppress these beliefs, which it held to be wrong because they were heterodox; the archival evidence also illustrates the characteristics of numerous magical and propitiatory rites designed to ensure wins at games of chance, a widespread and multiform phenomenon that was intertwined with the dominant religious culture, from which it drew a body of theory that underlay the sometimes extremely elaborate rituals which often took place in churches and involved members of the clergy.

Le texte nous propose d’étudier le rapport entre l’Inquisition romaine et les pratiques d’envoûtement pratiquées dans la péninsule italienne pour orienter le sort en sa faveur dans les jeux de hasard. Au moyen d’un échantillon significatif d’actes judiciaires inédits conservés auprès de l’Archive de la Congrégation pour la Doctrine de la Foi, il est en effet possible de décrire d’une part l’attention que l’Église romaine, représentée par ses propres juges de la foi, réservait au contrôle et à la répression de ces croyances jugées illicites parce que hétérodoxes, et d’autre part les caractéristiques de nombreux rites magiques et superstitieux destinés à d’hypothétiques victoires aux jeux, phénomène diffusé et multiforme qui s’entrelaçait avec la culture religieuse dominante de laquelle il tirait un corpus théorique qui servait de fondement à des rituels parfois particulièrement élaborés qui fréquemment se déroulaient à l’intérieur des églises et impliquaient des membres du clergé.

L’elaborato si propone di studiare il rapporto tra l’Inquisizione romana e le pratiche sortileghe messe in atto nella penisola italiana per volgere a proprio favore la sorte al gioco d’azzardo. Attraverso un campione significativo di atti processuali inediti conservati presso l’Archivio della Congregazione per la Dottrina della Fede, infatti, è possibile delineare da un lato l’attenzione che la Chiesa romana, rappresentata dai propri giudici della fede, rivolse al controllo e alla repressione di queste credenze, giudicate illecite perché eterodosse, dall’altro le caratteristiche di numerosi riti magici e scaramantici finalizzati a ipotetiche vincite ludiche, un fenomeno diffuso e multiforme che si intrecciava con la cultura religiosa dominante, dalla quale traeva un corpus teorico che fungeva da sostrato a rituali talvolta particolarmente elaborati che non di rado avvenivano all’interno di chiese e vedevano coinvolti membri del clero.

Hexen sind teuflisch, wollüstig – und nackt. Nacktheit, vor allem sexuell motivierte Nacktheit, prägt das stereotype Hexenbild der frühen Neuzeit in Literatur und Kunst: So heißt es im Hexenhammer, „daß oft auf den Feldern oder in den Wäldern Hexen auf dem Rücken liegend gesehen wurden, [bis] oberhalb des Nabels entblößt“  und auch die Werke von Hans Baldung zeigen die Teufelsbuhlerinnen in sittenwidrig-erotischen Posen. Die Verbindung von „Hexe“ und „Nacktheit“ ist so präsent und offenkundig, dass man sie beinahe übersehen könnte.

Die Nacktheit der Hexe kann als symbolische Darstellung teuflischer Sittenwidrigkeit gelesen und als Mahnung vor Glaubensverfall interpretiert werden. Dieser moraltheologische Ansatz fokussiert jedoch nur eine Seite der Medaille. Ein Blick auf den historischen Kontext von Körperlichkeit, die theologische Intention der Thematisierung der attributiven Nacktheit und auch die Frage nach der ästhetischen Wirkung der sexuellen Inszenierung soll klären, was die andere Seite dieser omnipräsenten „diabolischen Nacktheit“ impliziert.

Die meisten Arten der Körperlichkeit galten in der frühen Neuzeit als sündhaft. Nacktheit stand in enger Verbindung zu Ungläubigkeit, Unzüchtigkeit und Schamlosigkeit. Der unverhüllte, vor allem weibliche Körper wurde als Teufelswerk stigmatisiert und tabuisiert, Nacktheit war ein diabolisches Signum. Eine Hexe war also immer auch eine nackte Hexe. Das Bild der nackten Hexe ist in der frühneuzeitlichen Literatur und Kunst vielfach eingebunden in vermeintlich „satanische Riten“ wie die orgiastischen Hexensabbate. Dort waren alle nackt: Hexen, Teufel und der Satan selbst, wenn ihm als Hommage sein Hinterteil geküsst wird. Detaillierte Beschreibungen bacchantischer Sexualpraktiken zwischen Hexen und Teufeln und diverse Darstellungen von Nacktheit finden sich in hexentheoretischen Schriften sowie auch in künstlerischen Werken.

Diese das Hexenbild betreffende Schnittstelle von Nacktheit und Sexualität erweist sich als asymmetrischer Reflex: In dem Bild der nackten Hexe steckt auf der einen Seite der Reflex einer „religiösen Prüderie“, die moraltheologisch legitimiert und im Sammelbecken des Teuflischen verortet wird. Auf der anderen Seite werden Nacktheit und Sexualität jedoch erstaunlicherweise nicht zensiert, sondern explizit dargestellt, trotz satanischem Zeremoniells, weshalb die theologischen Schriften und die künstlerischen Werke paradoxerweise „rituelle Pornographie“ darstellen. Daher lohnt es sich, die symbolische Wirkung der nackten Hexe im Spannungsfeld von Prüderie und Pornographie genauer zu durchleuchten.

This article deals with the Jewish tradition of magic and its relationship with Kabbalah. It begins by clarifying internal and external views of magic in Judaism, the place of “Kabbalah” and “kabbalists” in the traditional Jewish discourse of ritual power, and the role of “practical Kabbalah” in Israel’s market of New Age spiritual therapies. The focus
is on the mutual relationships between the conceptual and performative foundations of Jewish magic practice and Kabbalah, as well as on Kabbalah’s actual influence on the Jewish tradition of magic.
1.  Jewish Magic—the Emic/Etic Perspectives
2.  Contemporary Discourse of Practical Kabbalah
3.  Magic, Holy Names, and the Rise of Kabbalah
4.  “Practical Kabbalah” and the Tradition of Jewish Magic
5.  Conclusion

Esta investigação analisa um número determinado de obras em gravura e desenho de Albrecht Dürer (1471 - 1528) e Hans Baldung Grien (1484 - 1545) residentes nos territórios germânicos da Europa no período do Renascimento, produzidos entre 1497 e 1545. Constata-se que o corpo da bruxa concebido na Europa pré-moderna foi um corpo carregado de preceitos excessivamente masculinos e opressivos. É reconhecido também que, independente das pretensões dos artistas, fosse para desenvolver suas faculdades imaginativas, fosse para melhorar seu status social e econômico, a capacidade de criação do artista resultou numa imagem feminina adulterada. Para compreensão dos recursos culturais, políticos e sociais dos artistas em questão, analisou-se no primeiro capítulo, as perspectivas historiográficas de uma teorização da bruxaria, divididas em duas principais concepções: a crise na fé cristã e a questão de gênero. Após a publicação dos primeiros incunábulos no final do século XV, em especial o primeiro tratado inquisitorial ilustrado, De Laniis et phitonicis mulieribus (1489) de Ulrich Molitor, no segundo capítulo, observou-se o início de uma tradição iconográfica específica na Europa e a instauração da representação da bruxaria no âmbito das Artes Visuais por Albrecht Dürer, que estabeleceu dois modelos de representação, a bruxa de corpo grotesco e a bruxa de corpo afrodisíaco. No terceiro e último capítulo, analisou-se as obras do discípulo de Dürer, Hans Baldung Grien, que no decorrer da sua trajetória artística, tornou o corpo da bruxa protagonista de seus trabalhos. Elementos como a forquilha, os cabelos soltos, o corpo nu e os voos em animais são sancionados por ele e, de modo consequente, de seus contemporâneos. Assim, a última tarefa nesta parte foi apresentar uma herança iconográfica oriunda da tradição estabelecida por Dürer e Hans Baldung, como nas obras de Lucas Cranach, Peter Bruegel, Frans Francken, entre outros.  / This research analyzes a number of engraving and drawing works by Albrecht Dürer (1471 - 1528) and Hans Baldung Grien (1484 - 1545) residing in the Germanic territories of Europe during the Renaissance period, produced between 1497 and 1545. The body of the witch conceived in Early modern Europe will be a body laden with excessively masculine and oppressive precepts. It is also recognized that, regardless of the artists' pretensions, whether to develop their imaginative faculties or to improve their social and economic status, the artist's creative capacity has resulted in an adulterated female image. In order to understand the cultural, political and social resources of the artists in question, the historiographical perspectives of a theorizing of witchcraft were analyzed in the first chapter, divided into two main concepts: the crisis in the Christian faith and the question of gender. After the publication of the first incunabula, at the end of the 15th century, in particular the first illustrated inquisitorial treatise De Laniis et phitonicis mulieribus (1489) by Ulrich Molitor, the second chapter notes the beginning of a specific iconographic tradition in Europe and the establishment of representation of witchcraft in the field of Visual Arts by Albrecht Dürer, who established two models of representation, the grotesque body and the aphrodisiac body of the witch. In the third and last chapter, the work of Dürer's disciple, Hans Baldung Grien, who in the course of his artistic career, made the witch's body the protagonist of his works analyzed. Elements such as the fork, loose hair, naked body and flights on animals are sanctioned by him and, consequently, by his contemporaries. Thus, the last task in this part is to present an iconographic heritage derived from the tradition established by Dürer and Hans Baldung, as in the works of Lucas Cranach, Peter Bruegel, Frans Francken, among others.

Esta investigação analisa um número determinado de obras em gravura e desenho de Albrecht Dürer (1471 - 1528) e Hans Baldung Grien (1484 - 1545) residentes nos territórios germânicos da Europa no período do Renascimento, produzidos entre 1497 e 1545. Constata-se que o corpo da bruxa concebido na Europa pré-moderna foi um corpo carregado de preceitos excessivamente masculinos e opressivos. É reconhecido também que, independente das pretensões dos artistas, fosse para desenvolver suas faculdades imaginativas, fosse para melhorar seu status social e econômico, a capacidade de criação do artista resultou numa imagem feminina adulterada. Para compreensão dos recursos culturais, políticos e sociais dos artistas em questão, analisou-se no primeiro capítulo, as perspectivas historiográficas de uma teorização da bruxaria, divididas em duas principais concepções: a crise na fé cristã e a questão de gênero. Após a publicação dos primeiros incunábulos no final do século XV, em especial o primeiro tratado inquisitorial ilustrado, De Laniis et phitonicis mulieribus (1489) de Ulrich Molitor, no segundo capítulo, observou-se o início de uma tradição iconográfica específica na Europa e a instauração da representação da bruxaria no âmbito das Artes Visuais por Albrecht Dürer, que estabeleceu dois modelos de representação, a bruxa de corpo grotesco e a bruxa de corpo afrodisíaco. No terceiro e último capítulo, analisou-se as obras do discípulo de Dürer, Hans Baldung Grien, que no decorrer da sua trajetória artística, tornou o corpo da bruxa protagonista de seus trabalhos. Elementos como a forquilha, os cabelos soltos, o corpo nu e os voos em animais são sancionados por ele e, de modo consequente, de seus contemporâneos. Assim, a última tarefa nesta parte foi apresentar uma herança iconográfica oriunda da tradição estabelecida por Dürer e Hans Baldung, como nas obras de Lucas Cranach, Peter Bruegel, Frans Francken, entre outros/ This research analyzes a number of engraving and drawing works by Albrecht Dürer (1471 - 1528) and Hans Baldung Grien (1484 - 1545) residing in the Germanic territories of Europe during the Renaissance period, produced between 1497 and 1545. The body of the witch conceived in Early modern Europe will be a body laden with excessively masculine and oppressive precepts. It is also recognized that, regardless of the artists' pretensions, whether to develop their imaginative faculties or to improve their social and economic status, the artist's creative capacity has resulted in an adulterated female image. In order to understand the cultural, political and social resources of the artists in question, the historiographical perspectives of a theorizing of witchcraft were analyzed in the first chapter, divided into two main concepts: the crisis in the Christian faith and the question of gender. After the publication of the first incunabula, at the end of the 15th century, in particular the first illustrated inquisitorial treatise De Laniis et phitonicis mulieribus (1489) by Ulrich Molitor, the second chapter notes the beginning of a specific iconographic tradition in Europe and the establishment of representation of witchcraft in the field of Visual Arts by Albrecht Dürer, who established two models of representation, the grotesque body and the aphrodisiac body of the witch. In the third and last chapter, the work of Dürer's disciple, Hans Baldung Grien, who in the course of his artistic career, made the witch's body the protagonist of his works analyzed. Elements such as the fork, loose hair, naked body and flights on animals are sanctioned by him and, consequently, by his contemporaries. Thus, the last task in this part is to present an iconographic heritage derived from the tradition established by Dürer and Hans Baldung, as in the works of Lucas Cranach, Peter Bruegel, Frans Francken, among others.

Juliana Barr and Edward Countryman,
eds., Contested Spaces of Early America (Philadelphia:
U of Philadelphia P, 2014), 444 pp.
Stacy Schiff, The Witches: Salem, 1692 (London:
Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2015), 512 pp.
Benjamin C. Ray, Satan & Salem: The Witch-
Hunt Crisis of 1692 (Charlottesville, VA: U of
Virginia P, 2015), 264 pp.
Richard C. De Prospo, The Latest Early
American Literature (Newark, NJ: Delaware
UP, 2016), 400 pp.

Amerikastudien / American Studies 63.1 (2018)

Witch Matters in Croatian Style: Witchcraft and witch-hunts in Croatian lands in the late Middle Ages and Early Modern Period

The earliest testimony about the witch-hunts in Croatian lands comes from the mid-14th century, that is, the 1360 trial which took place in Zagreb’s Gradec. That was just the beginning in northern Croatia because there were further Gradec trials, although mostly at several-year intervals. The Adriatic coast was quite the opposite. Regardless of legal provisions in statutes which clearly indicate that city and municipal authorities bore in mind the possibility of investigating and punishing warlocks and witches, for now we only know about one case of witch-hunt in the eastern Adriatic in the Middle Ages, the one in Šibenik in 1443. It was led by the Venetian Inquisition, whose authority spread
to these parts in the first decades of the 15th century, when the  Venetians took control over the most part of the eastern Adriatic coast from Istria to Kotor, except Dubrovnik and the coast from Rječina to Zrmanja and Senj. Besides, there is barely any information about witch trials even in the early modern period. Admittedly, many official records are lost, detailed records were not kept in all cities, and even the collected material has not been fully examined. The Venetian Inquisition also handled several cases in Istria, the last one being in 1632 in Svetvinčenat. Along with the cases in 1625 and 1626, Kastav was the site of a massive witch-hunt in 1716, with a death toll of 14, seven men and seven women. In Venice itself twelve proceedings were conducted
against Croatians from Kvarner and Dalmatia, most of whom were permanently or temporarily settled in the capital city of the Republic of Venice. Most of the cases date from the 17th century, some are from the 16th and 18th century, and the accused were mainly women. We know about three trials in Dubrovnik, 1556/1558, 1660 and 1689-1690, with one accused woman in each trial. Much more massive witch-hunts were launched in today’s northern Croatia, to be more exact, its northwestern part, because it was not until the late 17th century that the eastern parts were taken back from the Ottomans. However, even after this, today’s Slavonia was barely affected by those events. The spread of witch-hunts
was put to a stop due to the more pressing matters, such as the fact that extensive Croatian lands were under the Ottoman power for a long time, and that the coastal area and the hinterland found themselves tormented by wars among the forces of Ottomans, Habsburgs and Venetians. After all, the same as in Hungary, most witch-hunts in northwestern Croatia happened in peacetime, and particularly massive
persecutions corresponded with crop failure and famine. Therefore, it is no wonder that the first witch-hunts of the early modern period in northern Croatia were not documented until the late 16th century, when the Ottoman threat subsided briefly. A more considerable impetus to witch-hunts was given by the Emperor Ferdinand III’s code, also known as the Ferdinandae, which was published in 1656. It prescribed the criminal procedure for Lower Austria (today’s northern and northwestern Austria). A Hungarian Jesuit Márton Szentiványi (Martin Sentiváni) translated it from German into Latin and printed it in 1687, after which it was also used in Hungary, Croatia and Slavonia, where the code of law was non-existent. An increasing number of witch trials in the course of the 17th century had to do with better understanding of theological basics and legal principles concerning sorcery and witchcraft. The responsibility for it rests with the Jesuits and their promotion of education and learning. These factors resulted in more massive witch-hunts starting in 1699 and lasting until the 1750s, when their end was an outcome of Maria Theresa’s decrees.

This anonymous novel, one of the first historical novels in the English language, published in 1799 is almost certainly the work of Elizabeth Craven (1750-1828), the Georgian feminist writer.
The paper summarizes arguments for her authorship and gives a brief introduction to this neglected work which is of great interest for many reasons.

This article studies the structures of domination put in place by the courtly society of the 12th and 13th centuries, as they appear throughout its literature, by questioning the motif of female characters condemned to be burnt at the stake. That punishment, at a time pre-dating condemnations for witchcraft, is depicted as a mean of oppression against women who are outside of patriarchal social control, and who show their independent way of acting, often through the use of deception and the display of a free sexual live, or – to put it in terms of literary archetype – by behaving as "female heroes" rather than "heroines".

But these texts do not only denounce burnings at the stake as unjust punishments inflicted upon women, who are often shown to be the collateral victims of a male fight for domination. Literature from around 1200 also sheds light on how the punishment by fire, while having little to do yet with heresy and witchcraft, testifies to the strong anxiety towards uncontrolled female otherness, which, by seeking to escape from masculine domination, ends being assimilated with a monstrosity, a manifestation of evil to be destroyed.

Thus, while medieval courtly literature showed patriarchal domination at work against an oppressed female figure, it also anticipated by nearly two centuries how the early modern imaginary (if not also our contemporary one) represented women and their sexuality as oppressive, and the consequences thereof. Moreover, it appears that the condemnation of witchcraft or female deception as inspired by the devil was not so much the reason for condemning them to death, as an expression of the need for a valid reason to invalidate their behaviour outside of sanctioned norms.

Around the mid 1520s, Marcantonio Raimondi or Agostino Veneziano engraved a large print depicting a fanciful parade of the witch and her entourage. This engraving, known as Lo stregozzo, has been studied in terms of attribution, iconography, textual and visual sources, and in relation to early modern witch beliefs. An associational and metaphoric reading opens new possibilities for contextualizing the print. The chimera and the hovering man strategically located beneath the witch – while not easily explained in iconographical terms –are deployed as a means of thinking about the early modern conception of witchcraft and the artistic process of creating this print. In one sense, they raise theoretical and practical problems concerning artistic imitation and invention. The chimera provides an incentive to reflect on combinatory fantasy and visual eclecticism, and the hovering man demonstrates a sophisticated emulation of Michelangelo’s God in the Sistine Chapel. In another sense, they define witchcraft as a subverted world governed by inversion, heresy, and monstrosity. The hovering man, in his body position, inferiority to the witch, and allusion to the Sistine God, signifies inversion and heresy. The chimera sparks discussion over expressions of heterogeneity, mixture, and monstrosity in the witchcraft domain and produces a chain of analogies to the witch from etymological, somatic, and auditory dimensions.

À la Renaissance, la magie et l'efficacité de ses pouvoirs ont alimenté un long débat élaboré. Ce thème connait un tel succès qu’il en devient un élément central dans le théâtre de l'époque. Les comédies érudites, ainsi que les représentations plus populaires, ont en effet souvent représenté des personnages charlatanesques se vantant de posséder des pouvoirs ou des facultés surnaturels. Cet article se propose d'étudier et d'analyser les réécritures théâtrales du rituel magique et des personnages y participant. Nous envisagerons en particulier les caractéristiques physiques, ethniques et psychologiques des magiciens, et nous ferons référence aux tournures les plus fréquentes, notamment la tendance au plurilinguisme. Nous nous attarderons également sur les rituels magiques "joués" par les charlatans durant la performance théâtrale, en recherchant les caractéristiques communes aux pratiques divinatoires réellement attestées au XVIe siècle. Toutefois, il semble opportun de souligner que le canevas charlatanesque ne constitue pas une particularité du théâtre italien ; en effet, la littérature européenne ne s'est pas limitée à accueillir les modèles italiens  à travers des traductions ou des adaptations ; elle met en effet en scène des personnages originaux ayant des caractéristiques analogues à celles de la tradition italienne.