Witchcraft and Demonology in Hungary and Transylvania (Palgrave Historical Studies in Witchcraft and Magic)

✍ Scribed by Gábor Klaniczay (editor), Éva Pócs (editor)

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2017
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 419
• Edition: 1st ed. 2017
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

This book provides a selection of studies on witchcraft and demonology by those involved in an interdisciplinary research group begun in Hungary thirty years ago. They examine urban and rural witchcraft conflicts from early modern times to the present, from a region hitherto rarely taken into consideration in witchcraft research. Special attention is given to healers, midwives, and cunning folk, including archaic sorcerer figures such as the táltos; whose ambivalent role is analysed in social, legal, medical and religious contexts. This volume examines how waves of persecution emerged and declined, and how witchcraft was decriminalised. Fascinating case-studies on vindictive witch-hunters, quarrelling neighbours, rivalling midwives, cunning shepherds, weather magician impostors, and exorcist Franciscan friars provide a colourful picture of Hungarian and Transylvanian folk beliefs and mythologies, as well as insights into historical and contemporary issues. 

✦ Table of Contents

Contents
Editors and Contributors
List of Tables
Introduction
The Research Agenda
Witchcraft Prosecutions and Witch-Beliefs in Hungary
An Overview of the Volume
The Social Background of Witchcraft Accusations in Early Modern Debrecen and Bihar County
Witchcraft Charges and Their Local Social World
‘People of Ill Repute’ and ‘Honest Christians’
Healers, Midwives and Their Social Environment
Problems of Neighborhood, Cohabitation and Poverty
Wealthy Witches of ‘High’ Status
Hajdú Gentry (Hajdúnemesek) and Serfs (Jobbágyok)
Witchcraft, Greed and Revenge: The Prosecutor Activity of György Igyártó and the Witch Trials of Kolozsvár in the 1580s
The Prosecutor Activities of György Igyártó
The Procurator “Worthy of Skinning” Caught up in the Web of Vengeance, Fraud and Bribery
Concluding Remarks
Healers in Hungarian Witch Trials
The Healer in Witchcraft Historiography
Healers in Hungarian Witchcraft Research
Midwives and Healers in Kolozsvár
Healers and Midwives Around the Witch-Craze of Szeged
Conclusion—Further Avenues of Research
Divinatio Diabolica and Superstitious Medicine: Healers, Seers and Diviners in the Changing Discourse of Witchcraft in Early Modern Nagybánya
Introduction
Specialists in Popular Magic and Witchcraft Accusations
Cunning Folk, Physicians and Midwives in the Witchcraft Prosecutions of Nagybánya
1660–1670
1697–1706
1753–1754
The Maze of Terminology
Specialists, Clients and Scopes of Activities
Diseases, Infirmities, Miseries
Divination, Treasure Seeing, Bewitchment
Bewitchment and Identification of Witches
Thoughts About Illness
Patients, Clients and the Supply Selection of Specialists
Case Studies
Family Dispute and Competing Healers: Mrs. Gergely Nagy and Mrs. István Nagy (1670)
Mrs. Csóti, the Commuting Cunning Woman
Marci Milkó, Lord of the Cats
Conclusion
Shamanism or Witchcraft? The Táltos Before the Tribunals
Introduction: The Subject of the Investigation and Related Questions
Táltos
Witches and Anti-Witches
Shamanism or Witchcraft?
Táltos and Witch
The Studies on Magical Specialists
Táltos Within the System of Witchcraft—Presentation
The Nature of Sources
Questions
‘Real’ Táltos in Unknown Táltos-Roles
Táltos as the Specialists of Divination and Magic
Táltos as Healers and Wise Women
Táltos as Healers and Wise Men and Women in the Role of External Witch Identifiers
Táltos as Money Seers
Thieves and Swindlers Who Fake Táltos Qualities
Conclusion: Answers to the Questions
What Did Being Táltos Mean for the Táltos and Their Communities?
What Was the Main Occupation of the Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Táltos?
Practical Roles: Healing, Magic and Divination
Bewitchment, Identifying the Witch
Witches and Anti-Witches
Shamanism or Witchcraft?
The Decriminalization of Magic and the Fight Against Superstition in Hungary and Transylvania, 1740–1848
The Decriminalization of Magical Activities
The Legal Environment and the Venues of Criminal Justice
The History of the Events Surrounding Decriminalization
The Diverse Forms and the Changing Nature of Judgments
Why Did the Witchcraft and Sorcerer Trials Continue Even After Coming to an End?
Demonology and Catholic Enlightenment in Eighteenth-Century Hungary
Exposition of the Problem
Did Catholic Demonology Have a Hungarian ‘Version’ in the Early Modern Period?
Possible Approaches to the Catholic Enlightenment
Catholic Enlightenment and Popular Culture
Enlightenment and Counter-Enlightenment as Reflected in the Conflicts of an Eighteenth Century Franciscan Friar from Zombor
A German Parallel: Johann Joseph Gassner, the Exorcist Wonder Healer
Parallels and Conclusions
Personality
Perception of Disease
‘White Magic’
Spectaculum
Catholic Enlightenment
Popular Religion
Talking Through Witchcraft—on the Bewitchment Discourse of a Village Community
Local Concepts on Witchcraft and Bewitchment
Bewitchment as a Subject of Conversation
When and How Do People Talk About Witchcraft?
What People Do Through Talking About Bewitchment
Concluding Remarks
Index