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Carlo Ginzburg the Night Battles Pdf Carlo ginzburg the night battles pdf Continue Night battles: witchcraft and agricultural cults in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries The first English-language edition of the book. Written by Carlo GinsburgStranaItaliaLangilan, EnglishSubjectItalian historyHiulio Einaudi, Routledge and Kegan PaulPublication date1966Published in English1983Media typePrint (Hardback and paperback)Pages209 Night Battles: Witchcraft and Agricultural Cults in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries is a historical study of the Bemanandanti custom of the 16th and 17th century. It was written by the Italian historian Carlo Ginsburg, then of the University of Bologna, and first published by Giulio Einaudi in 1966 under the Italian name I Benandanti: Stregoneria e culti agrari tra Cinquecento e Seicento. It was later translated into English by John and Ann Tedeschi and published by Rutledge and Kegan Paul in 1983 with a new foreword written by historian Eric Hobsbawm. In Night Battles, Ginsburg examines the judicial accounts of those benandante who were interrogated and tried by the Roman Inquisition, using such accounts to obtain evidence of Benandanti's beliefs and practices. They revolved around their nightly visionary journeys, during which they believed that their spirits traveled from their bodies and into the countryside, where they would fight the evil witches who threatened local cultures. Ginsburg continues to study how the Inquisition came to the view of benandanti being witches themselves, and eventually pursue them out of existence. Considering Benandanti a cult of fertility, Ginsburg draws parallels with similar far-sighted traditions in the Alps, as well as in the Baltics, for example, with the Libyan werewolf, as well as with the widespread folklore surrounding wild hunting. In addition, he argues that these late medieval and early modern stories are the surviving remnants of the pan-European, pre-Christian shamanic faith in relation to crop fertility. Academic reviews of the Night's Battles were mixed. Many reviewers argued that there was insufficient evidence that beanandanti represented pre-Christian survival. Despite such criticism, Ginsburg later returned to theories about the shamanic substrate for his 1989 book Ecstasy: The Deciphering of the Sabbath of the Witches, and was accepted by historians such as Shw Pux, Gabor Klanitz, Claude Lecute and Emma Wilby. The background of the nightly visionary tradition of benandanti led the Roman Inquisition to accuse them of being witches, evil Satanists depicted in this 1508 woodcut. In the Archives, Udina Ginsburg came across trial records from the 16th and 17th centuries, which documented the interrogations of several Benandanti and other folk magicians. Historian Martin of Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas, later described the happy find as a kind of discovery that most historians only dream of. Prior to Ginsburg's work, no scientist had researched Benandanti, and those studies that were made from Freeulin folklore - such as G. Marcotti, E. Fabrice Bellavitis, W. Ostermann, A. Lazzarini and G. Vidosi - all used the term Benandante as if it were synonymous with a witch. Ginsburg himself would point out that this was not because of neglect, nor... erroneous analysis but because in the region's recent oral history these two terms have become essentially synonymous. The English translation of Night Battles into English was performed by John and Anne Tedeschi, a couple who had previously produced an English translation for Ginsburg's 1976 book Cheese and Hearts: The Cosmos of Miller's Sixteenth Century. In an interpreter's note to the English edition, they proclaimed that they were very glad to have been able to translate the book, saying that Ginsburg's two works represent only a small part of the best of the new social, cultural and religious history written today by many outstanding Italian scholars. Tedesi further noted that by translating The Night Battles, they decided to adopt the Italian terms benandante and benandanti (single and plural respectively), rather than trying to translate such terms into English. As they noted, the literal translation of these words would be those who go well or virtues, the terms they felt did not reflect the initial resonance of benandanti. They also noted that in their translation they used the term witch more broadly to refer to both men and women, but when the Italian text specifically referred to strega and dragon, they referred to them as a witch and a sorcerer. The English translation included a foreword by the eminent English historian Eric Hobsbawm (1917-2012), in which he argued that the real interest in Ginsburg's extremely interesting book was not to discuss shamanic visionary traditions, but to study how the Roman Catholic Church interfered with traditional peasant practices and deformed them to conform to their own notions of witchcraft. He went on to say that night battles should fascinate and encourage all historians of the people's mind. The synopsis Night battles is divided into four chapters, preceded by Ginsburg's foreword, in which he discusses the various scientific approaches that have been adopted to the study of early modern witchcraft, including the rationalist interpretation of the 18th century and the witch cult hypothesis presented by Margaret Murray. He continues to offer an introduction to benandanti, and then thanks those who him in the production of his research. Part I: Night Battles I'm a Bendante, because I go with others to fight four times a year, that is during Amber Days, at night; I walk unnoticed in spirit, and the body is left behind; we go forward in the service of Christ, and the witches of the devil; We fight each other, we're off with bunches of fennel, and they're with sorghum stalks. Montefalco's record of what Moduko told him, 1580. Ginsburg quote, 1983. The first part of Night Battles is primarily devoted to the accounts of two Benandante, who were interrogated and convicted for it by the Roman Inquisition between 1575 and 1582. These two figures, Paulo Gaspurotto from the village of Iassako and Battista Moduko from Cividale, first came under investigation by the priest Don Bartolomeo Sgabaritz in 1575. Although Sgabarica subsequently abandoned his investigations, in 1580 the case was reopened by the Inquisitor Fra Felice da Montefalco, who interrogated Gaspurotto and Moduko until they admitted that they had been deceived by the devil so that they would not begin their nightly spiritual journeys. In 1581, they were sentenced to six months in prison for her sentence, which was subsequently handed down. Ginsburg then looks into the claims of Gaspurotto and Moduko in more detail, and noted that The Benandanti is a true and correct sect that was united, born with a rut. He continues to study the trances that included beanandanti to embark on their nightly spiritual journeys, discussing whether these visions could have been caused by the use of special psychoactive ointments or epilepsy, ultimately claiming that none of them offered a plausible explanation in light of historical evidence. Ginsburg looks at the agricultural elements of the Bemandanti battles with his satanic adversaries, claiming that their clashes are an agricultural rite that symbolizes the forces of hunger fighting the forces of abundance. He suspected that it was survival from the old rite of fertility that originated in pre-Christian Europe, but which was later Christianized. He then goes on to explore early modern history of aspects of popular belief across Europe that were similar to those of benandanti. In particular, it illuminates the supposed cult of the goddess Diana, which was recorded at the end of the 15th century Byman and the case of the Livonian werewolf, which occurred in 1692. Ginsburg ultimately argued that these disparate visionary traditions were preserved elements of the pan-European agrarian cult that preceded Christianization. Part II: Processions of the Dead In the second part of the Night Battles, Ginsburg draws its attention to those early modern Alpine traditions associated with the night processions of the dead. First he discusses Anne la Rossa's interrogation, the self-confident spirit of the environment, which was brought before the Roman Inquisition to Friuli in 1582, before detailing two similar cases that took place in the same year that Donna Aquilina and Katerina la Gercia. The last of these women claimed that her late husband was a bemandante and that he went to the procession with the dead, but none of them called themselves a bemandante. Ginsburg then looks at Canon Episcopi, a 9th-century document that condemned those women who believed they went to nightly processions with the goddess Diana; The author of Canon claimed that they were deceived by the devil, but Ginsburg claims that this reflects the true popular faith of the time. He links this story to many other European myths surrounding the Wild Hunt or the Furious Horde, and noted that in Central Europe Diana's name was supplanted by the name of Holda or Perkhta. Ginsburg then emphasizes an 11th- century account produced by French Bishop William Auvergne, in which he described the folk beliefs surrounding the female divinity of the name Abundia or Satia, which William believed was a disguised devil. According to William's story, the creature traveled to homes and cellars at night accompanied by his followers, where they ate or drank everything they found; Ginsburg noted parallels with Benandanti's belief that witches would drink
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