Preface
Contents
1 The Framework, An Introduction
Abstract
1.1 Hexen?
1.2 An Early Modern Cultural Transitional Phase
1.3 From the Heretic—to the Witch-Process
1.4 Witch-Persecution: Model of a Solvable Social Problem
1.5 The ‘Frame’
1.5.1 Three Long-Term Developments
1.5.2 Phases
Part I The Clerical Witch Model: How the Witch Crime was Invented
2 The Magical Space as a Mental Frame: The Clerical Playing Field
Abstract
2.1 A Magical World View
2.2 In a Linguistically Understood World
2.3 As a Three-Dimensional Space: Divine, Magical, Ambivalent
2.4 The Dilemma of an Early “Natural Science”
2.5 In a Clerically Outlined Witch World
2.6 As a Chance of a Clerical Defining Attribution
2.7 A ‘Magical’ Conclusion
3 Prehistory
Abstract
3.1 Folk Belief and Germanic Laws
3.2 The Church
3.3 Canon Episcopi (906)
3.4 Summary
4 From Heretics to the witches?
Abstract
4.1 A Time Between Heresy and Witchcraft
4.1.1 A Transitional Time of Crises
4.1.2 Seamless Transition? Two Cases of Historical Falsification
4.2 The Time of the Learned Magicians
4.3 The Political Sorcerer Trials in the 14th Century
4.3.1 At the French Court
4.3.2 At the Papal Court in Avignon
4.4 Comparison of Heretics and Wizards
4.5 The Full Development: Conspiracy and Witch-Flight
4.5.1 The Diabolical Conspiracy: Two Early Processes
4.5.2 Two Conspiracy Models
4.5.3 The Vaudois—‘Waldensian Witches’
4.5.4 When Witches Learned to Fly
4.5.5 Two Model Processes in France (1453, 1459)
4.6 Recap: A Long-Wavelength Transformation
5 The Witch: Construction or Reality?
Abstract
5.1 Construction and Consequences
5.2 ‘Magic’ and Magical ‘Successes’
5.3 The Sabbat Conspiracy
5.4 Satan
6 The Witch Propaganda
Abstract
6.1 Discursive Devil’s Circles
6.2 The Witch-Propaganda
6.3 The Council of Basel (1431–1449)
6.4 The Hexenhammer as an Example (1486/1487)
6.5 A Missed Opportunity or the Time of Incubation
6.6 A Short Interim Conclusion of the Long History
Part II The Legal Persecution of Witches: How the Crime of Witchcraft was Realised
7 The ‘Normal’ Witchcraft
Abstract
7.1 Alan Macfarlane: Essex (1970)
7.2 Keith Thomas: England in general (1971)
7.3 Robin Briggs: Lothringen (1996)
7.4 Eva Labouvie, Walter Rummel: Saar-Mosel-Gebiet (1991)
7.5 Rainer Walz: The Persecutions in the County of Lippe (1993)
7.6 An Interim Conclusion: A Rural Witch Pattern
8 The Ruling Criminal Justice System: The Legal Playing Field
Abstract
8.1 The Influence of the Ruling Criminal Justice
8.2 The General Development of the Criminal Justice System
8.3 Bambergensis (1507) and Carolina (1532)
8.4 A ‘Legal’ Development
8.5 The Playing Field of the Lawyers
8.5.1 Example: Schwäbisch-Gmünd (1617)
8.5.2 ‘Terrible’ Lawyers
8.6 The Problem of Proof, Torture
8.7 The Spanish-Roman Inquisition: Myth and Reality
8.7.1 A Myth: The Inquisition
8.7.2 Salazar and the Basque Witch-Mania (1609–1614)
8.7.3 The Roman Inquisition (1542)
8.7.4 An Ambivalent Contrast Program
8.8 Three Legal-Political Levels
8.8.1 The Imperial Level
8.8.2 The Great Territories
8.8.3 Municipal Defense Struggle Against Claims of Sovereignty
8.9 Interim Conclusion: The Legal Playing Field
9 The Mass Persecutions
Abstract
9.1 Witch Commissioners and Witch Committees
9.2 Rebelling Townspeople
9.3 Calw As a Counter-Example (1683/1684)
9.4 The Spiritual Foundations of Ellwangen, Eichstett, Mergentheim
9.5 The Larger Spiritual Territories
9.6 A Short Interim Conclusion: Institutionalization
10 Possession and Child Witches-Hexen
Abstract
10.1 Possession and Exorcism
10.1.1 General Characteristics
10.1.2 Paderborn As an Example (1656-1661)
10.1.3 The Witches of Salem (1692)
10.1.4 ‘The Devils of Loudun’ (1632-1637)
10.1.5 An Interim Conclusion: Possession and Exorcism
10.2 Child-Witches
10.2.1 Augsburg Children-Witch-Processes
10.2.2 The Mora Excesses in Sweden (1668-1676)
10.2.3 The Zauberbuben-Prozesse in Bayern (1675–1740)
10.2.4 Interim Conclusion: Children, Adolescents As a “Social Problem”
Part III The Witch Politics Game: How the Crime of Witchcraft was Decriminalised
11 For the Conditions of An Analysis
Abstract
11.1 Our View “From the Outside”
11.1.1 Our View of the Excesses
11.1.2 The Political Temptation: Secondary Witch Myths
11.2 The Problem of a Causal Explanation
11.3 The Socio-Cultural View: ‘Knowledge and Power’
11.3.1 On the ‘Mentality’ in Flux
11.3.2 On the Relationship Between Heresy and Witchcraft
11.3.3 To the ‘Leading Personalities’
11.3.4 In the “Emerging State“
11.4 On the “Reality” of Witchcraft
11.5 A ‘Methodical’ Conclusion
12 End of the Witch Persecution: Tolerance
Abstract
12.1 Persecution-poor Countries
12.1.1 The Netherlands
12.1.2 England
12.1.3 The Palatinate
12.1.4 Three Eastern European Countries: Poland, Hungary, Bohemia
12.1.5 Interim Conclusion: A Pragmatic-‘Bourgeois’ Mentality
12.2 The Role of Large Cities
12.2.1 An Urban-worldly Mentality
12.2.2 The Munich ‘Witch-Wars’ in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries
12.2.3 Interim Conclusion: A Professionalized Civil Service
13 Witch Belief: Skepticism and Criticism
Abstract
13.1 A Skepticism Present From the Beginning
13.2 The Protestant Solution
13.2.1 Two Counter-Strategies
13.2.2 The Confessional ‘Relativization’
13.3 The “Procedural” Strategy: Spee’s Cautio Criminalis (1631)
13.3.1 On the Basis of the Carolina
13.3.2 Friedrich von Spee: The Cautio Criminalis (1631)
13.4 The Executor of the Will: Christian Thomasius (1701)
13.4.1 De Crimine Magiae (1701)
13.4.2 Processus Inquisitorii Contra Sagas (1712)
13.4.3 Thomasius, Bekker, Spee: An ‘Inner-Legal Criticism’
13.5 Up to the Present Day
14 A conclusion: Witches as an Instrument of a Symbolic “Politics” Game
Abstract
14.1 An Autonomous Witch Construction as a Pawn
14.2 Why Witches are Women
14.3 In General Power Play
14.3.1 In a Moralizing, Early-absolutist State
14.3.2 Consolidation Through Confessionalisation
14.3.3 Legitimizing Functions of Rule
14.3.4 Consolidation Through Justice Rule
14.4 The Professionalized Control
14.4.1 Theologians and Jurists as Constructors
14.4.2 An Ideologically Supporting witch-net
14.5 A Short Resume: A Hybrid Solution Process
Appendix: Reading Recommendations
References