Historical Dictionary of Witchcraft
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Jews on Trial: the Papal Inquisition in Modena
1 Jews, Papal Inquisitors and the Estense dukes In 1598, the year that Duke Cesare d’Este (1562–1628) lost Ferrara to Papal forces and moved the capital of his duchy to Modena, the Papal Inquisition in Modena was elevated from vicariate to full Inquisitorial status. Despite initial clashes with the Duke, the Inquisition began to prosecute not only heretics and blasphemers, but also professing Jews. Such a policy towards infidels by an organization appointed to enquire into heresy (inquisitio haereticae pravitatis) was unusual. In order to understand this process this chapter studies the political situation in Modena, the socio-religious predicament of Modenese Jews, how the Roman Inquisition in Modena was established despite ducal restrictions and finally the steps taken by the Holy Office to gain jurisdiction over professing Jews. It argues that in Modena, at the beginning of the seventeenth century, the Holy Office, directly empowered by popes to try Jews who violated canons, was taking unprecedented judicial actions against them. Modena, a small city on the south side of the Po Valley, seventy miles west of Ferrara in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy, originated as the Roman town of Mutina, but after centuries of destruction and renewal it evolved as a market town and as a busy commercial centre of a fertile countryside. It was built around a Romanesque cathedral and the Ghirlandina tower, intersected by canals and cut through by the Via Aemilia, the ancient Roman highway from Piacenza to Rimini. It was part of the duchy ruled by the Este family, who origi- nated in Este, to the south of the Euganean hills, and the territories it ruled at their greatest extent stretched from the Adriatic coast across the Po Valley and up into the Apennines beyond Modena and Reggio, as well as north of the Po into the Polesine region. -
HIP HOP & Philosophy
Devil and Philosophy 2nd pages_HIP HOP & philosophy 4/8/14 10:43 AM Page 195 21 Souls for Sale JEFF EWING F Y O Selling your soul to the Devil in exchaPnge for a longer life, wealth, beauty, power, or skill has long been a theme in Obooks, movies, and even music. Souls have Obeen sold for Rknowledge and pleasure (Faust), eternal youth (Dorian Gray), the ability to play the guitar (Tommy JohnCson in O Brother, Where Art P Thou?) or the harmonica (Willie “Blind Do g Fulton Smoke House” Brown in the 1986 Emovie, Crossroads), or for rock’n’roll itself (the way Black SCabbath did on thDeir 1975 greatest hits album, We Sold Our Soul for Rock’n’ERoll). The selling of aN soul as an object of exchange for nearly any- thing, as a sort of fictitious comTmodity with nearly universal exchange valuAe, makes it perChaps the most unique of all possi- ble commVodities (and as such, contracts for the sales of souls are the most unique of aEll possible contracts). One theorist in partiDcular, Karl MaRrx (1818–1883), elaborately analyzed con- tracts, exchange, and “the commodity” itself, along with all the hAidden implicatRions of commodities and the exchange process. Let’s see what Marx has to tell us about the “political economy” of the FaustOian bargain with the Devil, and try to uncover what it trulyC is to sell your soul. N Malice and Malleus Maleficarum UWhile the term devil is sometimes used to refer to minor, lesser demons, in Western religions the term refers to Satan, the fallen angel who led a rebellion against God and was banished from Heaven. -
Murder by Poison in Scotland During the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries
Merry, Karen Jane (2010) Murder by poison in Scotland during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. PhD thesis. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/2225/ Copyright and moral rights for this thesis are retained by the author A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the Author The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the Author When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given Glasgow Theses Service http://theses.gla.ac.uk/ [email protected] Murder by Poison in Scotland During the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries Karen Jane Merry Submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy School of Law Department of Forensic Medicine Faculty of Law, Business and Social Science Faculty of Medicine © Karen Jane Merry July 2010 ABSTRACT This thesis examines the history of murder by poison in Scotland during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, in the context of the development of the law in relation to the sale and regulation of poisons, and the growth of medical jurisprudence and chemical testing for poisons. The enquiry focuses on six commonly used poisons. Each chapter is followed by a table of cases and appendices on the relative scientific tests and post-mortem appearances. The various difficulties in testing for these poisons in murder and attempted murder cases during the period are discussed and the verdicts reached by juries in poisoning trials considered. -
Witches in Ghana Review by D
Kick Dust at their Heels and See if they Cough: Witches in Ghana Review by D. S. Farrer Witchcraft, Witches, and Violence in Ghana by Mensah Adinkrah Berghahn, 2015 Mensah Adinkrah starts with a complaint that scholarly attention to witchcraft in Ghana has focused almost exclusively on witchcraft-related violence and witch’s camps in northern Ghana. He claims: “This ignores the major problem, and the very different forms of witchcraft violence that occur in the southern part of Ghana,” adding that, “[m]ost of this book focuses on the witchcraft ideology of the Akan, but considers witchcraft beliefs and related violence throughout Ghana” (x). The author follows his assertion with ten chapters, few of which return specifically to the problem of how northern and southern witchcraft violence differ. Instead, witchcraft here is treated as a monolithic bloc, with the emphasis on Akan “traditional beliefs,” and the occasional nod towards the Islamic north and other tribal divisions. Aside from the initial authorial promise not followed through, the rationale for research oft-provided in this text—that major problems have been ignored, omitted, or never previously studied—begs the question of when, why, how, and for whom research is conducted. The author asserts the noble cause of “helping to eradicate witchcraft violence in Ghana and elsewhere” (xi), but to my mind this may be read as a conflation of ideas, where calls to eradicate witchcraft violence are actually calls to eradicate witchcraft per se. For the most part the book is written in an omniscient journalistic style, appearing lucid, and matter of fact, albeit in a nudge, nudge, wink, wink narrative collusion with the reader. -
"With His Blood He Wrote"
:LWK+LV%ORRG+H:URWH )XQFWLRQVRIWKH3DFW0RWLILQ)DXVWLDQ/LWHUDWXUH 2OH-RKDQ+ROJHUQHV Thesis for the degree of philosophiae doctor (PhD) at the University of Bergen 'DWHRIGHIHQFH0D\ © Copyright Ole Johan Holgernes The material in this publication is protected by copyright law. Year: 2017 Title: “With his Blood he Wrote”. Functions of the Pact Motif in Faustian Literature. Author: Ole Johan Holgernes Print: AiT Bjerch AS / University of Bergen 3 Acknowledgements I would like to thank the following for their respective roles in the creation of this doctoral dissertation: Professor Anders Kristian Strand, my supervisor, who has guided this study from its initial stages to final product with a combination of encouraging friendliness, uncompromising severity and dedicated thoroughness. Professor Emeritus Frank Baron from the University of Kansas, who encouraged me and engaged in inspiring discussion regarding his own extensive Faustbook research. Eve Rosenhaft and Helga Muellneritsch from the University of Liverpool, who have provided erudite insights on recent theories of materiality of writing, sign and indexicality. Doctor Julian Reidy from the Mann archives in Zürich, with apologies for my criticism of some of his work, for sharing his insights into the overall structure of Thomas Mann’s Doktor Faustus, and for providing me with some sources that have been valuable to my work. Professor Erik Bjerck Hagen for help with updated Ibsen research, and for organizing the research group “History, Reception, Rhetoric”, which has provided a platform for presentations of works in progress. Professor Lars Sætre for his role in organizing the research school TBLR, for arranging a master class during the final phase of my work, and for friendly words of encouragement. -
Human Rights Violations and Accusations of Witchcraft in Ghana Sara Pierre ABOUT CHRLP
INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS INTERNSHIP PROGRAM | WORKING PAPER SERIES VOL 6 | NO. 1 | FALL 2018 Human Rights Violations and Accusations of Witchcraft in Ghana Sara Pierre ABOUT CHRLP Established in September 2005, the Centre for Human Rights and Legal Pluralism (CHRLP) was formed to provide students, professors and the larger community with a locus of intellectual and physical resources for engaging critically with the ways in which law affects some of the most compelling social problems of our modern era, most notably human rights issues. Since then, the Centre has distinguished itself by its innovative legal and interdisciplinary approach, and its diverse and vibrant community of scholars, students and practitioners working at the intersection of human rights and legal pluralism. CHRLP is a focal point for innovative legal and interdisciplinary research, dialogue and outreach on issues of human rights and legal pluralism. The Centre’s mission is to provide students, professors and the wider community with a locus of intellectual and physical resources for engaging critically with how law impacts upon some of the compelling social problems of our modern era. A key objective of the Centre is to deepen transdisciplinary — 2 collaboration on the complex social, ethical, political and philosophical dimensions of human rights. The current Centre initiative builds upon the human rights legacy and enormous scholarly engagement found in the Universal Declartion of Human Rights. ABOUT THE SERIES The Centre for Human Rights and Legal Pluralism (CHRLP) Working Paper Series enables the dissemination of papers by students who have participated in the Centre’s International Human Rights Internship Program (IHRIP). -
Naming the Witch, Housing the Witch and Living with Witchcraft: an Ethnography of Ordinary Lives in Northern Ghana’S Witch Camps
Naming the Witch, Housing the Witch and Living with Witchcraft: An Ethnography of Ordinary Lives in Northern Ghana’s Witch Camps By Saibu Mutaru Dissertation presented for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Social Anthropology) in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at Stellenbosch University Supervisor: Dr Ilana van Wyk Co-supervisor: Dr Thomas Cousins December 2019 Stellenbosch University https://scholar.sun.ac.za Declaration By submitting this thesis electronically, I declare that the entirety of the work contained therein is my own original work, that I am the authorship owner thereof (unless to the extent explicitly otherwise stated), that reproduction and publication thereof by Stellenbosch University will not infringe any third party rights and that I have not previously in its entirety or in part submitted it for obtaining any qualification. December 2019 Signature: Copyright © 2019 Stellenbosch University All rights reserved ii Stellenbosch University https://scholar.sun.ac.za Abstract In Dagbambaland, northern Ghana, people who were accused and proven to be witches and who risked being harmed were banished by village chiefs and local elders (or fled on their own) to special settlements popularly known to locals as accused women’s (or old women’s) settlements, and to the media and NGO world as “witch camps”. Here, an earth priest and anti- witchcraft specialist, the tindana, ritually removed the dark powers of the morally compromised witch and committed him or her to the protection and necessary sanctions of the ancestral shrine. Post-1990 so-called “witch camps” have attracted much attention from churches, state agencies and NGOs interested in the human rights abuses that supposedly took place in these “camps”. -
A Picture of Doctor Faustus309
530 S PATIAL R ELATIONS a play’s star turns was by Harriet Roberts as the saucy and coquettish Julia, the Cardinal’s mistress. Her timing was excellent. Maybe the essence of this production’s tackling of the absurd contradic- tions in John Webster’s tragic revenge play was embodied in Mark Tilly’s Bosolo (‘a malcontent’) and his perversities. Tilly played Bosolo as both panto-villain and traumatized wrestler of split personality – a Jekyll and Hyde act that could have fallen flat on its face, but didn’t. In fact, insofar as he is the machine driving the plot and the ephemeral nature of ‘conscience’, I think he nailed Bosolo. A Picture of Doctor Faustus309 HE LEGENDARY STORY OF FAUST, the scholar and physician who sold his soul to the devil in exchange for knowledge and insight into T the workings of the universe, and later from a lust for earthly passions and goods, is a central Western cultural metaphor and symbol for moral equi- vocation, false gain and inevitable punishment. It also has equivalents in other cultural spaces around the world, and has been adapted to illuminate a uni- versal human quandary in numerous reformulations through many geogra- phies and languages. What is so appealing about this tale that in many way derives from a crisis of church and state and indeed Christianity, in the late-fifteenth and the six- teenth century, that reaches a peak with Luther and his followers, and the violent break away from the Catholic church in the sixteenth century, is that it applies to the grand and the obscure, to the famous and the anonymous person, in equal measure. -
Diplomarbeit
DIPLOMARBEIT Titel der Diplomarbeit “Fairies, Witches, and the Devil: The Interface between Elite Demonology and Folk Belief in Early Modern Scottish Witchcraft Trials” Verfasserin Ruth Egger, BA angestrebter akademischer Grad Magistra (Mag.) Wien, 2014 Studienkennzahl lt. Studienblatt: A 057 327 Studienrichtung lt. Studienblatt: Individuelles Diplomstudium Keltologie Betreuerin: Dr Lizanne Henderson BA (Guelph) MA (Memorial) PhD (Strathclyde) 1 Acknowledgements First of all, I want to thank all my lecturers in history who introduced me to the basic theories and methods of historiography, but also to those providing lessons for Celtic Studies who made me aware of the importance of looking beyond the boundaries of one’s own discipline. Their interdisciplinary approach of including archaeology, linguistics, literature studies, cultural studies, and anthropology among other disciplines into historical research has inspired me ever since. Regarding this current study, I specially want to thank Dr. Lizanne Henderson who not only introduced me into the basic theories of methods of studying witchcraft and the supernatural during my time as Erasmus-student at the University of Glasgow, but also guided me during the writing process of this dissertation. Furthermore, I would like to thank the University of Vienna for giving me the chance to study abroad as Erasmus-student and also for providing me with a scholarship so that I could do the literature research for this dissertation at the University of Glasgow library and the National Archives of Scotland. Also, I thank Univ.-Prof. Mag. Dr. Melanie Malzahn for supporting me in acquiring this scholarship and helping me finding a viable topic for the dissertation, as well as Univ.-Doz. -
Poisoned Relations: Medicine, Sorcery, and Poison Trials in the Contested Atlantic, 1680-1850
POISONED RELATIONS: MEDICINE, SORCERY, AND POISON TRIALS IN THE CONTESTED ATLANTIC, 1680-1850 A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences of Georgetown University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History By Chelsea L. Berry, B.A. Washington, DC March 25, 2019 Copyright 2019 by Chelsea L. Berry All Rights Reserved ii POISONED RELATIONS: MEDICINE, SORCERY, AND POISON TRIALS IN THE CONTESTED ATLANTIC, 1680-1850 Chelsea L. Berry, B.A. Thesis Advisor: Alison Games, Ph.D. ABSTRACT From 1680 to 1850, courts in the slave societies of the western Atlantic tried hundreds of free and enslaved people of African descent for poisoning others, often through sorcery. As events, poison accusations were active sites for the contestation of ideas about health, healing, and malevolent powers. Many of these cases centered on the activities of black medical practitioners. This thesis explores changes in ideas about poison through the wave of poison cases over this 170-year period and the many different people who made these changes and were bound up these cases. It analyzes over five hundred investigations and trials in Virginia, Bahia, Martinique, and the Dutch Guianas—each vastly different slave societies that varied widely in their conditions of enslaved labor, legal systems, and histories. It is these differences that make the shared patterns in the emergence, growth, and decline of poison cases, and of the relative importance of African medical practitioners within them, so intriguing. Across these four locations, there was a specific, temporally bounded, and widely shared relationship between poison, medicine, and sorcery in this period. -
The Anti-Semitic Tradition of Reading Mephistopheles As the “Jewish Spirit”
Austausch, Vol. 1, No. 1, April 2011 The Dark Shadow of Faust: The Anti-Semitic Tradition of Reading Mephistopheles as the “Jewish Spirit” Jonas Karlsson Kenyon College, Gambier, Ohio ([email protected]) (I) Every student of European literature knows about Thomas Mann’s application of the Faust legend to German history in his novel Doktor Faustus, in which Mephistopheles comes to approximate the dark force of fascism that leads the country into the abyss. Mann’s appropriation of this 16th century story was so powerful, and the collapse of the Third Reich so total, that his interpretation almost completely wiped out even the traces of an earlier, and altogether different reading of the Faustian pact with the devil. This was the reading that formed a tradition among German anti-Semites, who saw in the devil not the spectre of a burgeoning movement of racist totalitarianism, but the spectre of Judaism. Particularly Goethe’s famous dramatization, which played a pivotal role in placing the Faust legend squarely at the centre of the German literary imagination, was interpreted in this light from time to time. Kurt Lüdecke, a high- ranking Nazi during the party’s early years who later fell from grace and emigrated to the US, relates in his memoirs how, when as a young boy he had attempted to read Goethe’s play, his father had admonished him: “Faust you cannot understand if you do not know that Goethe personified in Faust the struggling German soul and in Mephistopheles the tempting Jew.”1 The man Faust is still the embodiment of the German spirit, in restless pursuit of the beyond; but his eternal adversary, his metaphysical nemesis and greatest danger is not to be sought in any totalitarian ideology, but in the devilish force of “the Jew.” In what follows, we will trace the tradition of this sinister reading, from its hesitant emergence towards the end of the 19th century, through to its full-blown development in the fiercely aggressive works of Dietrich Eckart, a Nazi demagogue often identified as Hitler’s mentor. -
The European Witch Hunt Bruxaria Without the Sabbath in Portugal
1 Sam Pearl Schwartz HIST196: The European Witch Hunt Bruxaria Without the Sabbath in Portugal Amongst the scrupulously kept records of the Portuguese Inquisition resides the 1585 confession of a woman by the name of Margarida Lourenco. Margarida, an orphan living in Sarzedas in Eastern Portugal, confessed under torture to anointing herself five different times with an ointment given to her by the Devil. Upon applying this ointment, Margarida would be transformed into a huge black bird and fly above the trees to a gathering of 600 women, all congregated to pay homage to the Devil and feast together. Before eating and dancing, the Devil would take blood from her with a lancet and write her name in a book, and then after eating he would have sexual intercourse with her. These gatherings occurred between midnight and one in the morning on Monday, Wednesday, or Friday, and failing to attend was punished by beatings. After the hour of debauchery, the Devil would provide another ointment to anoint, once again transforming the women into giant birds to fly home.1 Though the fit is not perfect, this confession in many ways matches the composite stereotype of the witch found in mainland Europe: a Sabbath-attending society of incestuous, orgiastic, cannibalistic, night-flying, and Devil-worshiping women. Yet, although confessions of this nature exist in Portugal, they are exceedingly rare; in fact, of 818 trials from the years 1600-1744, the Sabbath appears in only 36.2 This lack of the Sabbath is not a coincidence. To prove the point, this paper will examine the only three 1 Benthecourt, Francisco.